This post is probably going to be a bit rambly so apologies from the outset.
I’ve just been having a chat with my Mum about the debate around transgender ideology. It started off because she asked whether I’d watched Butterfly and I said no as I felt it was heavily influenced by the TRA agenda. We talked about Mermaids, self ID and some of the GG issues. She is broadly GC and in agreement regarding self ID but said she thought it was good that people on Question Time and similar programmes had been saying how important respect and kindness was on both sides. This was in response to me saying I thought Mermaids were awful and the actions of Susie Green reprehensible. She seemed to think that opinion was excessive and there were “extremists on both sides.” The conversation moved on but it’s left me feeling upset and I’m not sure why. Of course it’s right we all treat each other with respect but I feel as though the GC side is not the group lacking in respect in all this. It left me with the feeling I got as a teenager when I argued with her over the Iraq war and as an adult when we discuss Brexit (now a verboten topic by mutual agreement). I think overall I feel a little sad that she’s not as vociferously GC as I thought she would be. She’s the reason I am a feminist. I haven’t read any feminist theory and only realised I would be considered rad fem or second wave by reading here. But she’s the one that got me started. She told me of her experiences as a working class girl leaving school at 15, the attitudes of the men in the offices and factories she worked in and her determination that her daughter should not be cowed into accepting the same sexist behaviour
As I said, this is all a bit half formed in my head, and I’m not sure what the point of the thread except possibly to ask has anyone else felt like this? A bit disappointed that people who you assumed would get it just don’t seem to in the way you thought they would?