Given that nearly every university student seems to believe TWAW, will sanity ever prevail?

[Velella]

That's it really. They are tomorrow's politicians, teachers, lawyers. I am at a loss to see how we can turn this round.

I think not only are kids being brainwashed into thinking they are kinder and more enlightened than the previous generation, but also scared to be different, with the whole of social media waiting to pounce on you for any deviation. Oh the irony!

Dd says there is a "just converted" person in her class this year. Before the summer holidays one gender, now the other. The form tutor carefully used the new name, but then slipped up during the lesson. The teacher was mortified and was going, "Oh, God, I'm sorry, I'm really sorry - Oh, I didn't mean it" and dd and her friends said afterwards it was if the teacher was terrified that the authorities would burst into the room and carry her off for this "crime".

Dh and I were saying that we are starting to somewhat understand old people who didn't understand why their comments were deemed racist; maybe if things continue as they are we will all be considered nasty bigoted old duffers for calling someone the wrong pronoun or perhaps any pronoun.

Think back to your university days, how much of the beliefs that you had then do you still hold now? I'd guess not many, university is a time for trying out and questioning different beliefs.

I haven’t touched my tarot deck since I was 21, but it's still in the drawer so I can have fun when I’m an old lady crank and do readings for all the other gin-swilling dames in Shady Pines.

The point is, sex and gender are not just about gametes. Eg what do you do with a genetically female person who has grown a functioning set of male genitals?

No worries, courtesy my PhD in biochemistry I am capable of reading scientific papers and generally do have access to them.
You, howver, have just conflated sex and gender in the sentence cited by me, which makes me question your scientific literacy. And sex clearly is a matter of gamete.

I eagerly await your link to the peer reviewed study about - what did you just claim? Ah right: A female person (by definition having a body designed to produce ova) with a naturally grown penis.
#goodluckwiththat

I'm not aware of any intersex conditions in which a female person would have a fully functional penis, but perhaps spanna will enlighten us.

I can also access academic journals, so eagerly await instructions on where I might be enlightened.

Tbf deepwatersolo I came to same conclusion as you, armed with my GCSE in ‘science’.

'When I reference academic journals people complain they can't get access. When I don't, people complain it's not academic. '

sci-hub.tw/

We'll ignore my (highly negative) opinion on the closed access academic journals. Open Access can't come soon enough!

I am a student, I promise you we don't. Very few students go along with it, but admitting that publicly is social and academic suicide.

Try asking the feminist groups at uni though. From what I have seen they are all on board with it.
The next generation of feminists may be lost to it .

It's true that feminist and womens' group have been taken over by TRAs, but student feminism hasn't. We/they just meet in the pub instead, and let that bunch of po-faced killjoys sit in the SU sipping lukewarm tea and wondering why no one come along to their meetings and socials.

So the impression I'm getting is that from the perspective of the majority of students the ones pushing this stuff are nerdy oddballs who, having had no social status at all when younger, are now reveling in the power that the rise of gender bollocks has given them, and the other students mostly try to avoid them. But at the same time are to scared to confront them and/or don't think it's worth the hassle.

I can totally see why "ignore them and hope they go away" would be an attractive option, but the problem is it's not working, and they're being taken seriously by organizations, the government, etc.

So the impression I'm getting is that from the perspective of the majority of students the ones pushing this stuff are nerdy oddballs who, having had no social status at all when younger, are now reveling in the power that the rise of gender bollocks has given them, and the other students mostly try to avoid them. But at the same time are to scared to confront them and/or don't think it's worth the hassle.

That is 100% what I am hearing from my own teenagers and others.

Tbf deepwatersolo I came to same conclusion as you, armed with my GCSE in ‘science’.

Yeah. What psses me off to no end is how they make it all sound like 'oh it is all so complicated, but you mere mortals just don't understand the cutting edge science presented in cutting edge journals you sadly cannot access and if you could, alas, you'd be too uneducated to understand them', which is nothing but a bald faced lie. Which I know for sure. 'Cause I have read the fing papers.

Although my degree is technically a science one I'm more of a politics and philosophy person, and yet I still find science journals a lot easier to read and comprehend than, say, Butler. Almost as if the people writing in the science journals actually want to communicate their ideas clearly, while others may not.

Again armed with GCSE’s I have still managed to read and understand articles in science journals.

What I am not able to understand (because it does not make sense) is Pomo bullshit word salad. People really need to be able to differentiate between what is not their area of expertise and what is emperors new clothes horseshit.

What I am not able to understand (because it does not make sense) is Pomo bullshit word salad.

Same here. Don't think it is my (or your) fault, though. There is a reason deliberately nonsensical articles have made it in peer reviewed journals in these fields.

Same here. Don't think it is my (or your) fault, though. There is a reason deliberately nonsensical articles have made it in peer reviewed journals in these fields.

It’s full on emperor’s new clothes/imposter syndrome isn’t it? People assuming they don’t understand because they’re not intelligent/educated enough when actually they reason they couldn’t get to grips with it, is because it was utter, utter bollocks.

I great example of word salad was the original ‘debate’ on the 2004 GRA. How many of other laws have been passed on this basis? Ffs.

I've actually had someone (an academic) tell me that most people not understanding Butler just proves how profound and important her ideas are, and that's why she has to use such convoluted language to impart them.

My "or maybe she's just a bad writer" did not go down well.

Personally I think the onus is on the writer to get their point across. If they’re unable to do that, the fault lies with them, not the reader.

Teachers used to all have degrees in their specialist subjects. They still have to be able to communicate their knowledge at a year 7 level. If they were only able to communicate at a degree/PhD level, they would be no good at their jobs.

If your ideas are so important that you need to communicate them to the rest of humanity, you need to work out how to do that.

The highly educated posters on these boards have managed to communicate their ideas to me while I had no idea what was going on. The TWAW brigade have not.

I wondered what my 15 yr old thought about it all, i know there are some trans kids at their school. Luckily he and his friends came to the conclusion it was all attention seeking nonsense all on their own.

I wondered what my 15 yr old thought about it all, i know there are some trans kids at their school. Luckily he and his friends came to the conclusion it was all attention seeking nonsense all on their own.

And that is what is so sad about all this. The kids drawn to it are just desperate for a peer group of their own, this just isolated them even further from their peer group. The adults who should be helping them are then too scared of the accusation of ‘transphobic’ to provide them with the help support and counselling they so desperately need.

My brother who is currently doing his 3rd year at uni assures me that those who believe this nonsense are extremely niche.He says, at least at Liverpool, its very very much that people just can't really be arsed to argue with people who will claim persecution if someone breathes too quickly next to them, and says such types as just relentlessly mocked behind closed doors.

Of course there are likely thousands of students there, so he obviously doesn't know everyone. And it might be very different in other Unis too. I went on a bit of a rant about how many people expect to have their safe spaces from different opinions and such these days and he was just very at me, before asking me why on earth I thought that it was common for Uni students to agree with such bollocks. That was me told.

Has it been mentioned yet on this thread that there was a report in the press recently on the number of students this year declaring themselves as 'other' rather than male or female. This doesn't tell us anything about those who might opt to put down the opposite of their actual sex but the sum total of these 'non binaries' was 830. This is out of approximately half a million new students each year. 0.17%, after rounding up.

Very few students go along with it, but admitting that publicly is social and academic suicide.

But the fact it is social and academic suicide is a real problem. It means that people who research gender can't share their own opinions with their students, or challenge their students to think critically about this (see Kathleen Stock's first couple of medium essays for this in philosophy). Academics have left or been edged out because of this.

its very very much that people just can't really be arsed to argue with people who will claim persecution if someone breathes too quickly next to them, and says such types as just relentlessly mocked behind closed doors.

This is being replicated in the real world where policies are being set. The green party is an example (if the greens count as the real world!) And WEP obvs.

It's true that feminist and womens' group have been taken over by TRAs, but student feminism hasn't. We/they just meet in the pub instead do you mean like minded friends meet in the pub - or are they semi formal feminist meet ups? Just wondering how anyone could be introduced to feminism (ie the movement that centres females) if femsoc will not centre females.

It's good to hear that most are not convinced but it is affecting policy, local authorities, research etc.

Errol was the figure only new students or the entire student population?

I was thinking today that the female students declaring themselves non-binary will change their minds when they realise there is no word to describe their experience of maternity-based discrimination.

ErrolTheDragon

If I’m asked if my ‘gender’ is male female or other I tick ‘other’ so I can get to the comments box where I can type a mini lecture on sex v gender