DD and the trans thing. She's really sucked in and not able to see an alternative view

[FarmerJiles]

So, DD 14 is increasingly being exposed to the trans thing. She knows several kids in her peer group who believe themselves to be trans - both MtT and FtT, and are very vocal about it. Her school has definitely embraced the affirmation approach, and several boys wear skirts to school, and lots of names have been changed on registers.

I fully support these young people to express themselves how they want to, and to make whatever changes they need to feel at ease with themselves. However, I am very worried about this as a trend/fashion.

There is so much talk about gender, sexuality, and to express any views that might suggest a vaguely feminist take on it are immediately jumped on as bigoted. I fear that these kids are reinforcing each other and possibly going down paths they may regret because it is very hard to back off when you have been expressing such strong views so vigorously.

I have talked to DD about this, but in a rather ham-fisted way i think. I'd really, really like someone to point me in the direction of resources that DD and I can look at that take it back to basics, and show the issues the trans thing raise, so it can gently open her mind. I want DD to start to see this in a calm objective way, rather than me trying to criticise her (dear) friends.

I know about Magdelen Berns, but DD refuses to watch her (she is transphobic apparently according to her friends). So where to look/read/watch?

Thank goodness for this board, btw, but I don't think it would be a suitable staring point for DD at the moment!

Do you think your arguments and thoughts on things haven't progressed since you were a teenager, bitofacow? You haven't grown up or learnt anything?

And yet I am the one who is told I am being unrealistic and the idea that predatory men will take advantage of another opportunity to harass women, is fanciful

You may have been told this, but not on this thread and not by me.

Yeah, let's pretend women are as likely to prance around sexually harassing each other, as men are to prance around sexually harassing women.

This. What a disingenuous argument.

Well, if the official statistics for prisoners by sex and offence are anything to go by, men are 100 times more likely than women to commit sexual assault. So, not vaguely worried about other women in the changing rooms. Rather worried by the idea that a man (not necessarily someone trans) could self-identify as female to gain access to women's spaces for a spot of voyeurism and exhibitionism. Because if self-identification is the only definition that counts, then who can possibly deny someone's claim about their own state of mind? Voyeurism and exhibitionism literally become nonsensical as offences. They cease to exist. The defence of "but I felt like a woman at the time I was in that changing room" becomes absolute and irrefutable. But I guess that's me being bigoted.

Yeah, sure the laws could be used that way bitofacow.

But in the real world, they wouldn't be, would they?

The willy waver would simply look outraged, clutch his pearls and start wailing about how he never did any such thing and you're making it up because of your transphobic bigotry.

Who do you think would be believed?

Here's a clue: 7% of rape reports to the police, end in a guilty verdict, even though most of them are true.

Not a good precedent is it?

And er, you would still have been harassed by a man in a shower.

What's going to happen, is that women won't use showers in public anymore. They'll be discouraged from going swimming, using gym changing rooms etc.

It's another way of getting women out of the public sphere.

Yes I have changed lots of ideas. That is not the point I am making.

Teenagers, and indeed, most people dislike being told anything. There is an attitude prevalent on some trans threads that any arguments are foolish and can be dismissed. See previous comments about people being " wrong " etc. I can understand the feeling of being embattled but expressing this view, in this way, to teenagers is in my view doomed to failure.

To have an open discussion both sides have to listen. I'm not sure that is always the case on some threads.

Agree bitofacow, not by you.

But don't you see that your arguments are connected? By saying that it's all OK because we can report, you are totally trivialising the gradual impact this will have on women's lives and freedom.

We will be less safe. And we will feel less safe. And we will modify our behaviour accordingly. We already trammel our lives because of the ever constant threat of male violence, it's appalling that so many women are prepared to allow men's feelz to force us into even less freedom and safety than we already have.

Because their feelz matter, while ours are just shit and we can report...

There was a pp in the past who talked about the fact that women had started getting changed in their clothes without exposing their bodies when a transwoman came into the changing room at a swimming pool, and apparently that was considered transphobic. You cannot legislate to protect people's feelings. Should those women be forced to strip off to make the transwoman more comfortable?

AskBasil I am fully informed about the woeful under reporting of rape and sexual harassment - which is why I did not make that point.

I think the people in these threads do listen to opposing views. They are just able to counter any bullshit argument, and people don't like it and get defensive.

Which is why people seldom argue for long, and they flounce off and hide the thread. Because obviously they don't really have the courage of their convictions.

I don't think it's gender critical feminists who are rejecting open dialogue.

Venus you could make that point. However, I came on here to make a couple of relatively trivial points and have been forced to defend and clarify.

I don't think I will flounce away but rather it seems that as views are entrenched and feelings run high and I am not sufficiently well informed to argue as I would like so I will just leave it to those who feel they know best.

I'm a man. Been sexually harassed by a man at work and been wanked at in the gym showers.

Although most cases of sexual harassment are man on woman, it's clearly wrong to suggest all of it is.

It's also wrong to suggest transexuality/pansexuality is an invention of the past ten years. People are just more open about it now and as such, more supportive. If people get faddish about it, so be it, they'll soon realise this isn't them and questioning of sexuality and gender identity has always been a part of being a teenager.

Coming out was 'trendy' 10 or so years ago and it's fair to say that some kids who came out are now in happy heterosexual relationships. I got beaten up and hospitalised for the same thing 18 years ago. (mine was genuine!) Know which situation I'd soon be in.

So why are you pretending that women will jsut report male harassment in showers bitof, when you are aware that a) they don't and b) if they do, they're not listened to?

What's your aim here?

thejungsoul.com/guidance-for-parents-of-teens-with-rapid-onset-gender-dysphoria/

I wish this had been around when my child came out suddenly with gender dysphoria aged 14. Although he may still have gone on to transition I would have appreciated this sort of advice and information at that time. Unfortunately there was nothing like this then.

Nicely passively aggressively done Bitof.

Sorry x posted.

Ok I can understand you're doing a thought experiment, but in the RW, women so rarely harass other women that we've done that, been there adn the reasonable conclusion still has to be, that men are more of a threat to women, than other women are.

" If people get faddish about it, so be it, they'll soon realise this isn't them and questioning of sexuality and gender identity has always been a part of being a teenager. "

Taking hormones and double mastectomies or inverting your penis, hasn't been however.

Too many young people are going to look back to transition with regret, for us to just abdicate our responsibility to protect them with a "so be it". No. We owe children and young people more than that.

Venus nicely proving my point.

Why come on here when the arguments are not the arguments I am making. You are just insulting.

And yet again AskBasil has put words in my mouth..."So why are you pretending that women will jsut report male harassment in showers"

I didn't 'pretend' fucking anything. I said there were laws that would prevent reporting it being a hate crime.

Perhaps people don't flounce they just get fed up of banging their head on the wall.

I wasn't actually referring to you when talking about flouncing. But you appear to have taken it personally. Why is that?

And I have argued against that POV, citing statistics regarding this issue.

You haven't come back wiht any arguments which demonstrate why the status quo re how badly the laws around this work, will somehow change once men are legally allowed to prance into women's private spaces.

crazycatguy what do the people who harassed you in the shower and the people who harass women in general have in common?

A: they have dicks. Women don't sexually harass other women, or men, in numbers significant enough to represent a likely possibility in public showers. Not even lesbians. I'd feel safer in a shower with 50 lesbians than one man, or one trans identifying male person with a male body.

My point is, it is the harassment that is the issue and there are laws to deal with this regardless of gender

I've never understood this. The way to control sexual crime is generally not to provide potential offenders with unfettered access to their victims. Then take a 'wait and see approach'.

The laws being given their second reading on 24th February are recommending that all criteria for trans is removed, in favour of self identification.

That means every predatory man, rapist, peadophile - in fact any criminal at all, whether trans or not, whether they have a record or not, is given legitimate access purely on their say so alone.

'Wait and see' seems a high price for women and girls to pay to accommodate less than 0.3% of the population.