Identiy Politics

[AssignedMentalAtBirth]

Woo woo, this is what we are raising

what in the name of fuck will these fuckwits teach their children?

I only watched the first couple of video's not the one with the pro trans activists

I posted that video in another thread yesterday - it's really shocking.

lessworried If that's the case, it doesn't really make it any better. If someone fears they might be expelled from their college or hounded on social media for saying that a white man isn't really female, Chinese, or seven years old, then they're living in a society that pressures them to deny reality. 2+2=5 if we say it does, don't contradict us because feelings matter more than facts and you have to be polite.

I'm starting at a new university this year that has some of these policies, and I won't, under any circumstances, say that I believe men are really women or vice versa. People are very welcome to disagree with me, because the reasoned debate of ideas is what university should be about. And I'll be polite about it. But I won't make statements that I know are factually false because a tiny minority of transactivists want to call facts 'literal violence.'

CancellyMcChequeface

My son is also starting university this year. He knows how I feel about all this. But I worry that he will either get indoctrinated, or he will take a stand and get ostracised.

He is educated, articulate, wins debates at school, and is argumentative (!). He's 19, and although he utterly denies it, he will be as susceptible to peer pressure as anyone else.

Are you attending university as a student, or a tutor?

I'd be very interested in how this issue is navigated when you go.

Please report back!

Datun I shall certainly let you know! I'm going as an MA student, and at 30 I'm a bit less susceptible to peer pressure but I'm still concerned about coming up against extreme disapproval. I've just finished my undergraduate degree at another institution - post-92, very working class, lots of mature students, and there was no institutional evidence of any genderist/TA ideology. I think this was also due in part to there being a relatively high number of religious students, both Christian and Muslim. The university I'm moving to is Russell Group and from what I can tell things are quite different there.

I really hope your son is able to find a compromise that works for him - obviously indoctrination would be terrible, but being seen as a social outcast for his beliefs wouldn't make university a good experience either. I have to think, though, that even at a university where all this goes on, he won't be the only one taking a critical attitude towards it, so it might be a matter of finding likeminded people - either those who agree, or those who are happy to debate issues civilly without calling for censorship.

I'm planning to ask the university's Feminist Society if I'd be welcome as a gender-critical feminist. If the answer is along the lines of 'no, you evil TERF' I might just try to stay clear of the entire issue, because I'm not looking to invite trouble. But I won't deny reality either.

because I'm not looking to invite trouble. But I won't deny reality either.

I think that's a contradiction in terms in this day and age!

Yes I think at 30, you will stand a much better chance of being assertive, holding your ground, but not being rabid.

I'm not so sure with DS...

I've come to the conclusion that he needs to navigate his own way, whatever that entails.

Should be an interesting few years!

I think that some of those students seemed to show more critical thinking than others so I don't think that all hope is lost, yet (and of course they may have interviewed plenty who called out the bullshit that didn't make the final edit).
He could have been Chinese.

To reply to something ages ago... just because something is a social construct doesn't mean that it's unimportant. it does mean that it's mutable and not some monolithic Truth. Identity politics is a complex and problematic issue and just saying "It's all nonsense" is as facile as saying "I can be whatever I want to be". There are rarely easy answers..

Really, if you want to learn something watch some Judith Butler videos not some kid on You Tube.

Here: perhaps is more useful to think of gender as performative rather than a social construct

My son is also starting university this year. He knows how I feel about all this. But I worry that he will either get indoctrinated, or he will take a stand and get ostracised.

DS is on lots of student committees and he's hilarious about this stuff. I should think that there are a lot of students, like him, who toe the public line of what is acceptable in that arena and privately think what they think.

It's not ideal to know that a generation of minds are being forced into totalitarian-style double think but I console myself that he's gaining great diplomatic skills (and most of all that he IS gender critical).
He regales me with tales of the more absurdist debates and innovations and seems to have perspective on the whole thing

serfterf Wow. Reread that post and then put it in a different socio-historical context - maybe the American civil rights movement.

If he has an opinion, he should voice it. Toeing the line in public while disagreeing in private is hypocrisy and fear and does not move the debate forward. It's not a totalitarian regime. There are no gulags or lynchings if you disagree. It's an important debate which we should all engage with honestly and openly.

Agreeing in public and then sneering in private just to please each respective audience is a road to confusion and mistrust. Shame on you for not expecting better of your son.

Get a grip running. There is no need for judgy personal attacks

Oh do run along running

He's in possibly the most "right on" college he could be in and would be subject to a disciplinary process if he "spoke up".

When it's possible to be sanctioned at a good uni for holding gender critical views it's the system that's at fault and no way should a student be expected to damage their own education to challenge the madness. Just think about that state of affairs for a moment.

Besides, there are a handful of them who seem to have tacitly agreed that they do more good ON various committees as a moderating element.

There was a horrendous debacle recently involving a pro choice charity and a pro life organisation both attempting to disseminate literature and freebies at the college. If the extreme theorists had been left to settle matters, something unsavoury would have happened.

serfterf maybe I misread the tone of your earlier post. It just sounded depressingly like people I encountered at uni who toed an ideological line while it was trendy and then binned it the minute they wanted to bet on the stock markets...

Good for your son if he's engaging.

I do find the hysteria around trans issues on mumsnet as wearing as the "we can all be identify as rare Japanese butterflies" I find elsewhere. I also think that university is about young people challenging the ideas they grew up with. That's not brainwashing, that's thinking.

Apologies for my judgy post . I think I'll step away from mumsnet for a while

Are you a TRA running?

I imagine it would suit some groups very well if the critical thinkers all got themselves sent down.

I also agree that all extremism is dangerous. I was trying to say that.

X post.

That's really funny serfterf. Not trans, just tired and irritable.

I'm not sure what I posted that was unclear. "On lots of committees" certainly looks unambiguous to me.

Fair enough

we can all be identify as rare Japanese butterflies"

I find this tedious too, but then I remember that lots of people are only just realising how stupid the whole 'identifying as' thing is.

I also don't like my rational, logical outrage to be termed hysteria, though.

I don't think it's hysterical to feel profoundly worried that since this news came out earlier in the week, I have personally seen about eight accounts of women who have been banned from Facebook, had their account deleted, banned from other activist groups claiming to be feminist, and been dreadfully abused online, merely for suggesting there should be a debate.

No-one is listening. In fact they are actively censoring. The perceived loss of control is frightening.

That is one really thing about mumsnet, that people have won the right to be able to debate the issues around transgenderism and that is what shocks so many innocents who have been lead to believe that criticizing anything to do with this subject is, by its very nature, transphobic and trying to oppress a minority.

Atenco

That's an interesting take.

I wonder if that's why it seems there are so many people changing their mind.

Ok. I'm going to try and explain why I'm finding this thread difficult.

Mumsnet raises some very genuine concerns about gender and identity and how that affects the feminist experience and it is deeply problematic.

I'm not a genderist (whatever the fuck that is) but I am engaged with feminist politics and therefore with gender issues.

Using words like "brainwashing" and "I'm frightened" is inflammatory. Moreover, if you claim to be serious about engaging with this issue but you don't understand that gender is different from biology and that the idea of gender is very socially constructed then, with all due respect, you have not engaged very seriously with these ideas and you're just thoughtlessly shooting from the hip. I don't think that claiming that gender is non binary is even that controversial... my reading in social anthropology while at uni in the early 90's pretty much established that for me.

There are legitimate concerns but the video at the top of this thread and then the sneering it's given way to are neither thoughtful nor critical in their thinking. The kids are well meaning but don't understand the issues and the interviewer is being deliberately disingenuous. It's a cheap trick. I wonder if he shows any footage of students who could actually take him on?

Finally, I am genuinely astonished that you're so worried. Do you really think your kids will come home from uni asking for gender reassignment surgery? But if they cut/ grow their hair and start to identify as non-binary, is that such a problem? Surely as women we want to disrupt the heteronormativity that continues to limit us?

Anyway. That's my thoughts. Flame me

I wonder if he shows any footage of students who could actually take him on?

You see, I don't see too many people people who can do this without screeching insults and demanding people be silenced and shut down. Because the arguments themselves don't stand up in a fair debate against an equally matched opponent.

What arguments? That gender is constructed? That it's possible as an individual to challenge those constructs? That race is a construct, which is why he could be Chinese despite not being obviously Chinese looking? That height and age are empirical measures rather than constructs so his positioning them as the same as race and gender is misleading and not relevant?

I think I just challenged without screaming or insulting. I'm sure someone on campus could have done the same.