My husband is woke

[WizbetisaNizbet]

Just that really.

He spotted something I wrote on here and stated it was “hate filled.” Nope it was an innocuous comment of the signatories of the letter in the Scottish Herald. He’s quoted Owen Jones at me “you’re on the wrong side of history.”

He ignores what I say when I try to talk about why I don’t agree with what is going, on telling me that I am denying trans people their rights. I ask him how my refuse to use pronouns denies anyone thier rights or what rights are being denied but he can’t seem to answer me. When I give him examples in answer to his questions he doesn’t want to talk about specific examples that are relevant.

He can’t see what the problem is about women’s sports, self-ID etc. He also keeps telling me I side with Trump (no). To be honest i’m fed up and upset that he won’t listen to my trying to explain to him why women are so upset and angry.

This is just a vent by the way.

I have the same problem with my girlfriends. They are disappointed in me too. It’s really quite distressing to be accused of being a bigot.

It’s really not that they don’t understand it - they get that a tw may have a penis, and will shout that woman with no womb etc after cancer is still a woman. We can’t have any rational discussion- it ends with tears. It’s really frustrating- it’s like they’ve been dragged into a cult 😞

Huge hug OP

Your husband sounds nice, I like the sound of him.

Sorry - forgot I Mumsnet doesn’t do hugs 😛

My partner worked in the field of child protection. So he gets that making it easier for male-bodied people to access female spaces is a very bad idea from the point of view of safeguarding.

I also think a lot of men don't actually like the idea of women wandering into male loos and being able to see them using urinals.

So it might be worth looking at the Man Friday angle. Are there any ways in which men - despite their greater physical power - feel vulnerable and prefer some spaces to be male only.

If you have female children, how would your partner feel about a daughter not having access to female-only toilets, changing rooms or sleeping areas, where she can be safe? Or not having the opportunity to excel in sports she loved because - especially after puberty - less-talented but stronger boys will take all the prizes?

What civil rights do trans people not have?

The only thing here being framed as a 'right' is a desire to be treated as something you subjectively want and choose to be when it's in direct opposition to your actual objective reality. And have 'equal' access to the resources put aside for the group for whom that is their objective reality. Despite the negative impact on the group who cannot identify out of that reality or the oppression or disadvantage that comes with it.

Should that ever be a 'right' ? Because if so, you're up for trans age, trans abled and trans BAME for a start. Where are you going to put the line and how are you going to justify one person's 'deeply held internal belief about themselves' while refusing another? It won't be possible.

No civil rights movement in history has ever involved removing the rights of another group.

Give it a week for your husband to forget about it and then go tell him that you had an epiphany and he is right in his views. You have struggled in vain to deny it but you actually realised that you are in fact a man trapped in a woman's body. And he has to go into work and change all of his personal details.

Sexual orientation- He is now gay, as you have declared you are a man. Your rights as trans over rides his rights to be heterosexual.

Next of kin- Husbands phone number.

Then present him with tickets to a gay night club and tell him that you are going to get yourself a mans suit and shave your head. Also refer to your genitals as male. Suck my man clit Dave.

Then tell us how that goes down with him!

I feel like there's a whole club of us now! My DH refuses to discuss it with me now and also feels like we should accept all and be kind. I said I felt like women as a sex are being attacked and he couldn't understand why I felt this way, esp when trans are such a small part of the population. I kept on about how they had a lot of power for a small group and then he wouldn't accept the examples I provided.

I think he will come round. He did for single use plastic. It will take something big to happen and it will take longer but I think I will 'peak trans' him eventually. I'm not giving up!

My daughter, her husband, her Mil and Fil, are on board, thanks to my incessant nagging. But her SiL is very woke. Another in-law questioned her the other day and was glad to hear that she has "conservative" views. What to do, this is Ireland! :)

The thing that worries me about your account and that of others in similar places is that your husbands/OPs are accusing you of being "hate filled", not saying "we have a major political disagreement here, but I've known you for years, would it not be a sensible starting point to assume that however much I may abhor your conclusions, you will have started from a good place, so let's talk about it?"

It seems that much too much political debate these days starts from a black-and-white, the opposition are evil position - not wrong, or misinformed, or giving different weight to different aspects of the argument, but bad people.

And if I were you, this is what I would be pissed off about. That someone who knows me, knows my political and moral beliefs, would immediately assume I was "hate filled," rather than listen to what I had to say.

The thing that worries me about your account and that of others in similar places is that your husbands/OPs are accusing you of being "hate filled"

Yes to this. But it's also what makes me think these OHs know at some level that they are on the side of bullshit. If you really thought your life partner had suddenly become 'hate filled' and evil, wouldn't you be begging them to see a doctor or filing for divorce or at least desperately trying to convince them to see the light?

Get him to read this excellent article by James Kirkup. It sets out the issues very clearly.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6765249/JAMES-KIRKUP-Britain-FINALLY-coming-senses-transgender-madness.html

He ignores what I say..

Hmm, #nodebate, eh?

Looks like you have a transitioner...

But it's also what makes me think these OHs know at some level that they are on the side of bullshit.

Possibly. Or perhaps they have always been raging misogynists deep down, but while your (generic your) political beliefs accorded with theirs, they got to pat you on the head and say "yes dear" without actually paying you any attention. They didn't actually think these were expressions of genuine political belief born out of thinking about issues, just unthinkingly assumed you would reflect their own beliefs, because that's what women are there for, amirite?

It's only now you've said something they disagree with that they have to stop and think. Two options: my wife is a political entity in her own right, entitled to her own positions about things, and with a stake in society which may not overlap 100% with my own, or she's a hate filled bigot. I don't think they can get their heads round option 1.

My DH was rather woke about this and I don't really understand why you are making a fuss about this. About a year on from when I realized I had be hoodwinked by wokeness myself he is now saying that he gets it. It can take time to process it all the info.

Thinking about some of my exes, I'd say it's not what they believe politically that matters (on a range of issues from voting Tory - which I do not, but have dated some Tories, through Brexit, through to trans issues) but how they talk about it.

A relationship can cope with honest differences of political opinion, argued out politely (or even heatedly but respectfully), with an understanding that different life experiences lead to different weights being given to the various relevant parts of an argument.

A relationship cannot cope with one partner being dismissive, belittling, or downright abusive (which is what calling someone "hate filled" amounts to).

For me, thinking back on past relationships, it wouldn't at the time be a LTB offence - but it would be the point in retrospect at which I realised the tide had turned and things had started to go irreparably down hill.

Oh he needs to come here and chat to us!

My adult daughter thinks I'm a bigot. She does teach woke students, though, so it is maybe best for her to toe the line. I am very upset to be always tippytoeing round it with her, though. Luckily other daughter and hubby are Team Terf!

My DH views it all as a distraction from more important political matters ongoing in this country. I have pointed out to him that this view is male privilege in action and exactly why we have this problem. My DS13 and his best friend get it (they heard us debating and asked what it was about - they both play rugby, I described Hannah Mouncey, job done). I think DH (who is also a Guardian/BBC reader) will come round, now I have pointed out that it is an issue which affects 50% of the population, just not the 50% he identifies with, will get there.

Must remember to ask him about how he feels about sex with a pre-surgery TW and how this would make him a transphobe, as I know he is strongly repulsed by the idea of having sex with a man. (For clarity, he is fine with gay men having sex, just doesn't want to join in himself!)

DH totally gets it, and we both kind of struggle to understand people who don't.

He works in the city and its non-stop 'inclusivity' shit there (It's not inclusivity at all) No one dares speak out or question anything.

This makes me so cross - another man dismissing a woman's lived experience shaping her opinions and thoughts! I'm sure your DH is a lovely man, OP but FFS - try listening to the person who is an actual woman!

My husband was similar, although he is mostly 'sensible' rather than 'woke' but he always used to go on about my 'selective liberalism', and got really annoyed with me going on about feminism and particularly trans stuff 'all the time' (it wasn't all the time). He would say 'who are you to say a transwoman isn't a woman' and 'how does this even affect you' stuff like that, and at the same time, I was figuring stuff out myself.

I just gently drip fed things, women's refuges (he would say 'why can't refuges have men in them' and I patiently explained why not), women's prisons, changing rooms, self id.

I think the penny dropped when I asked him if he would be sexually attracted to a trans woman, if they are women and all? He said he just doesn't find them attractive, in the same way that he doesn't find other specific groups of women attractive generally. I pressed him on it and asked him what it was specifically which made him know that he would never find any transwoman attractive ever, and of course he couldn't answer it without conceding that transwomen are not actually women. And then I asked him why he is allowed to not accept a transwoman as a woman, but women aren't.

Then transwomen in sports happened and I think my work is done now

God I sound like we talk and argue over this all the time, we really don't and are happily married! I think as a fairly privileged white man, he doesn't just 'get' a lot of stuff.

Tell him you've decided you're a man after all and are very glad he is going to support you in your new life as a gay man and his husband.

I can't discuss this with my eldest son at all as it ends in us falling out so we tiptoe around it. I get that I am his mum and therefore know nothing so I am hoping the more of this nonsense comes to light he will realise his mum was right all along.
Most people I know in RL understand what's at stake even if some think I bang on a bit too much about it.
I think that to get it you have to start from a place of curiosity as to why feminists are so angry about this. Some people on the left feel superior to those whose views are more right wing and absolutely believe they have right on their side, they won't research it as they feel they don't have to.

For my DH, I think he comes from a starting point that men aren't particularly nice. I think for those who don't have that...history...maybe its harder to understand the points re. safe-guarding/separate spaces based on sex.

Well this makes me very very glad that my husband is right wing despite our differing social values. People of the left do tend to be difficult to talk to. If you two haven’t prpctrated yet then it may be a good idea to find someone else. A good question to ask yourself before marriage is ‘will we be able to tollerate each other for the rest of our lives?’ It would seem you have your answers here.