People ARE aware and thinking about the trans agenda. And they don't like it.

[Lamaha]

I live a very quiet, rural life and rarely meet new people. My close family know I am GC and so do a few friends, but I would never open the subject with a stranger.

At present though I am at a gathering of about 16 people at a country house; I've never met any of them before. Yesterday I went for a walk with three of them: a man from Dublin, a woman from Santa Fe, USA, and a woman who lives at the Barbicon, London. A very disparate group; I had known them only a few days. All aged in their 50's or 60's.

We were having a nice normal chat when out of the blue, the American began talking about pronouns, and how you now had to say they and them for everyone, and how she hated it. The man immediately leaped in. He was very angry about this, because, in his work, he is required to use certain pronouns and he thinks it totally ridiculous. "If you don't," he said, "they will come after you like a pack of raging mad dogs. It's terrible!" He was utterly furious. The Barbicon woman jumped in to explain about the alphabet salad and how ridiculous it all was. She reeled off all the letters and told us what each one was.
I was so delighted! I think over the next few days there might be a few rather interesting discussions! I already promised the American the Rohypnol link...
See, the word is spreading; people know, and are forming their own opinions, silently, stealthily. We will win - it can't be otherwise.
People are more awake than we might think -- even random strangers might very well be sharing our opinions. It's wonderful to find them.

She would not try to hear my perspective, shouted me down and ended with calling me a bigot.

The irony would be hilarious if it wasn't so sad. Some of these people need to look up the meaning of "bigot".

y I can only speak for his circle) is not that they believe it, or even that they're afraid to speak up, but that they just cannot take it seriously

Yes. My son thinks it's bonkers, but he thinks I am wasting my time getting upset or active about it because out can't possibly gain traction, it's that bonkers. He thinks there are more serious political issues to get upset about.

Had a chat with a 15 yr old boy recently who was very surprised (and a bit disbelieving) to learn that it was impossible for humans to change their biological sex.

I’m not surprised. When teachers are required to tell children they can “change their gender” they are forced to waffle, otherwise they would have to address the lack of meaning behind the phrase. I encounter many similarly-confused teenagers.

The whole trans agenda is coming from postmodernism and queer theory. According to queer theory, it seems that everything that transgresses boundaries is 'progressive' and therefore good. Anyone who argues for the status quo is 'regressive' and therefore bad.

This is why feminists are accused of being regressive and siding with religious groups and right-wingers. It's because we think some boundaries actually have a purpose, and they're not just there to stop people being 'liberated'. Some of them are there to stop people from taking liberties.

That Thanks oldCrone

I’m wondering if the Olympics will change things. Would people really feel that it is appropriate for someone who quite recently called Brian to win Women’s golds.

(And I’m really hoping for a few nice hairy men with noticeable male genitalia for the beach volleyball teams!)

Also anecdotal, but my teenage DC also know it’s rubbish and say their friends do too. They have trans kids at their schools and they’re fine with that of course. But they see them as gender non conforming kids rather than kids who have changed sex.

I think in 10 years time the real backlash will start. When all these young people realised their health and fertility has been ruined.
It’s easy to think when you are 20 you will never want to have children, at 30 you think very differently.

I had some women between 40 and 70 making their views about tw not being women last week and my 16/17 year old students also expressed that view to me. Heartening

My early twenties son thinks teenagers should not be allowed to medically transition as he considers they don’t have the capacity to understand the long term consequences. He also thinks the idea anyone actually changes sex is ludicrous.

I think most children have an innate sense of fairness. They may support a friend who is transitioning, but would recognise the problems as soon as unreasonable demands are made, or boundaries are broached, for example being forced to share a changing room with a person of the opposite sex. That seems to cause consternation wherever it occurs. I don’t think it’ll go away.

I had the opposite experience 're youngsters. My 12 and 16 year old got the full gender ideology treatment at school and declared it bollocks. In fact, my then 14-year-old contributed to me seeing this for what it is by asking me "did you just assume my gender, Mum?". He did that to wind me up, but it made me take notice.

My oldest however thought all of the born in the wrong body business and changing sex was about intersex people who he thought were born truly inter-sex and therefore hermaphrodites. Plus he's got a fully transitioned, truly vulnerable HSTS in his wider circle and thought I was quite cruel to say that I disagreed with TWAW, especially since he thought TW were born intersex.

On the positive side though, after a few months of talking, he now understands the issues and doesn't hide from his pals that his mum is now a loud and proud women's rights campaigners. We've also since had some difficult conversations about porn and women's safety and sexism and the patriarchy, so in a way TWAW has helped me raising feminist issues with my oldest I might not have otherwise done.

As an aside, we are heavily focused on STEM subjects in the family (apart from me none of them even know what postmodernism and queer theory are), so my oldest falling for this nonsense really shocked me. But he is such a kind and caring soul, I think all the most oppressed and vulnerable guff got his protective instincts going.

Yes to all of this. Pregnancy and motherhood are eye opening in this respect.

This. Also when we are young and find some kind of "mission" we tend to jump in with all flags flying and believing this is IT for life.
I had one or two such phases and followed them with a passion and dedication that ruled out any change, ever. Such as dropping out of society, living on a communal farm, rejecting all societal norms such as having a steady job. The idea that I'd one day want or have children, get married, have a home and a mortgage and even gasp! a pension, was as far away as Mars. Anyone who disagreed had a stone age mentality. Now I've had all of these!
There's a megalomaniacal self belief at that age and you can't be talked down from it. We need to be patient.

Yes, I agree with both points, Lamaha and pp that many of us don't see the problem until we have children. Sexual assault/harassment and everyday sexism can so easily be reduced to being unacceptable behaviours by individual men that we often don't understand it's a systemic issue that our oppression, that discrimination against us is written into every fibre of our society.

In my twenties, I thought Hey, no one is stopping us from owning property, from going to school or university, from voting, from being elected. We have rights, we are equal. And then you spend the next 25 or 40 years finding out that we are far from equa. And many of us realise then that whatever the problems are you run up against because you are female, they are a design feature not a bug.

equal not equa

It is distressing that any young people do actually believe, I also know some who do, inteligent top university, and I mean the very top, young people, who actually believe this BS. What the hell happened to science education in this country?

Supposedly intelligent and well educated people are very often pulled in by cults/ cult like belief systems.

During the 70s/80s the cult centered around Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh pulled in followers from all over the world.

There's an astounding documentary series on Netflix about it - Wild Wild Country - and when I watched it I couldn't help but be struck by the amount of what seemed to be middle class, well educated people with access to funds (how else are you able to jack it all in and travel to the other side of the world..) who appeared to make up the bulk of the followers.

I have to say watching that series I could see lots of parallels with our present situation .

People do tend to grasp basic science. What can you do?

BTW, are you in an Agatha Christie novel? I like the sound of a country house full of interesting strangers, preferably with no murder.

I dont know how many young people actually really believe it all, it would be interesting to know the answer to that.

My DC have had a fair bit of propoganda in their schools - none of it discussed with us paranets prior to it happening. My 12 and 13 year seem to see the issues - though they are exposed to fair bit of history and science.

They tend not to say much at school on subject - at least DS says he shrugs and says nothing and DD1 might ask a pointed question or two depending on the situation.

The whole trans agenda is coming from postmodernism and queer theory. According to queer theory, it seems that everything that transgresses boundaries is 'progressive' and therefore good. Anyone who argues for the status quo is 'regressive' and therefore bad.

This is why feminists are accused of being regressive and siding with religious groups and right-wingers. It's because we think some boundaries actually have a purpose, and they're not just there to stop people being 'liberated'. Some of them are there to stop people from taking liberties.

There’s a philosophical question/story about a gate, I can’t remember the name of it but someone here will know, but the moral of it is - before dismantling a boundary (or anything, really) - ask, why is it there in the first place?

Dismantling boundaries is not inherently a good thing in and of itself. Or should we just break open all the cages at London Zoo, have tigers roaming Camden high street, that’d be progressive wouldn’t it.

There’s a philosophical question/story about a gate, I can’t remember the name of it but someone here will know, but the moral of it is - before dismantling a boundary (or anything, really) - ask, why is it there in the first place?

Chesteron's fence.

Chesterton's, even. Sigh @ me.

The interesting thing about the TRAs aggressive public tactics is that it has driven people underground.

Where we talk and debate and understand and share and reinforce and strengthen beyond sight.

Their tactics have made us stronger and even more determined and we share that quiet, steely determination with others and then they share it further.

I mean, all those quiet voices raised over £60k in, what, 72 hours?

I am reminded again of this wonderful poem. Our quiet organising is the pockets.

Dangerous Coats
Someone clever once said
Women were not allowed pockets
In case they carried leaflets
To spread sedition
Which means unrest
To you & me
A grandiose word
For commonsense
Fairness
Kindness
Equality
So ladies, start sewing
Dangerous coats
Made of pockets & sedition

Great poem Buzz. And yes to going underground. It has been great reconnecting with groups of women - all with a common aim of protecting the rights of women and children. I have met and listened to some truly awe inspiring women in the last few years.
And of course the Transgender Trend thing that we can't mention is steadily making progress (fgs, do not google Transgender Trend).

Chesterton’s Fence! That’s it! I had ‘Chester Gate’ in my head, which is a veterinary referral hospital, apparently.

I met every month or so with a group of women in my profession. There were just six of us last time, so our tongues were a little looser than usual. I was pleasantly surprised how all of them, including the two woke AF twenty-somethings, expressed how out of control and misogynistic the current trans movement is.

I'm still baffled at how the media is so under their spell.