De-woking DH

[Withington]

There were a couple of threads on the feminism boards, around getting partners to understand the realities of the trans "debate" for women's rights (pointing in direction of good articles etc) but cant seem to find them on search - probably because I'm doing do ineffectively. Can anyone help? DH is becoming almost unbearably woke on the subject but I find myself not able to adequately articulate what it all will actually mean for our kids! When I told him about some of the ideology being taught as fact in schools he scoffed and said of course that wasn't happening Help me de-woke him!

People with a penis tell people without a penis what to do. They tell them to budge over, to shut up and stop arguing. They tell people without a penis that they can't have any place which excludes people with a penis. If people without a penis start to talk back, people with a penis shout them down or cover their ears.

Not all people with a penis do this.

Can you give him a time limit - say two weeks- and ask him to prove you wrong?

State the terms - all assertions must be evidenced or cannot be accepted. Put the ball in his court.

Set out your case simply, with evidence. Be ready for him to present articles of twaddle.

Watching for tips. DH works in sport and I tell him each and every time we get a little bit closer to the death of women's sports and this week, when I mentioned Australian and English women's cricket he didn't say a word. I suppose that is better than saying something that makes me explode. I think he thinks we should be kind and accepting but he also has said that a man cannot become a women. He just doesn't get it. It's really hard to live with tbh.

OHJ can you gather a lot of examples together to show him the scale of it?

@ThatDoctorEM I have tried one here, one there, as a drip feed, I've told him about the tweets/matches/injuries women received with:

Rachel McKinnon
Laurel Hubbard
Fallen Fox
Hannah Mouncey

He is mostly involved with tennis and football so we have spoken about Billie Jean King and Serena Williams playing Roger Federer, but somehow it doesn't translate to the self ID in sport argument with him. I can't understand why.

I often find I get 3-5 mins before he shuts it down too, it's very frustrating but we are jointly concerned over the climate crisis and he is very focused on Brexit and he 'doesn't have the bandwidth' (wanky phrase) to take this on but it occupies a lot of my time and headspace.

I made some progress with Selina Soules case but when we speak about Caster Semenya I am very clear that this person has nothing to do with the trans ideology and is in fact XY and he has told me to be careful with words. He's in sport so I told him to be careful. Fucking cheek, I was raging.

Would he be happy with a fully intact trans woman sharing a changing room with you?
How about one with previous convictions for sexual assault?

Following on from pp show him paris Green and Karen White and ask if he would like you or any female relatives in a changing room with them when they are released.

OHJ rather than the drip feed is it time for the tidal wave?

It sounds incredibly frustrating. What re-peaked my DH like a rocket was the Endinburgh Action for Trans Health Manifesto alongside showing high level politicians endorsing the group.

Dr Em you're right I think, although a tidal wave might wipe out his 'bandwidth' completely! It might not need to come from me either, the Olympics might do it, or perhaps something he might hear in the run up to it, about Trans athletes.

He doesn't agree with Self ID but he also sees it as a tiny minority (it is) and therefore can't have much influence or impact (oooh but it does). Essentially he thinks I'm paranoid and making a mountain out of a molehill. How I wish I was. He doesn't see it as a mainstream thing and therefore won't impact on me/us/our lives.

Honestly I think it would be different if we had a daughter. It makes me quite sad to write that as he is supportive of women in general (not a feminist but not an arsehole) I've been very explicit in what I will and won't accept in teaching when our son starts school. Our young niece is a budding gymnast so that could also work.

Fan warning * Can I just say I think you're amazing, I have learnt so much from you and am in awe that I am talking to you on MN.

One thing that stopped DH in his tracks was me telling him about the trans activists attitude to lesbian women. He had no idea that was even a thing. He also didn't know that most trans women are still fully intact males and plan to stay that way.

i dont understand how anyone with a brain doesnt get it! sorry i know thats no help but im so bewildered by this.

what is it exactly he doesnt get?

Does he think it is a good idea for children to be taught that they can just choose their sex? When in fact, if they decide that they want to be the opposite sex: first of all it is impossible and secondly, even changing secondary sex characteristics will seriously fuck up their health.

@Helmetbymidnight I think it's just not thinking through the actual consequences of generalised statements through?

Someone up thread talked about her DH wanting people to all just be nice about things and I suppose that's what he thinks too.

Also looking for tips. I have close people to me who think I am being mean when I talk about feeling very uncomfortable with self ID, men in the toilets at my work, the general drive against lesbians being lesbians, and against women’s boundaries generally, loss of women’s sport, abuse in women’s prisons and specifically how children and young people are being sucked into this way way beyond ‘just’ social transition, at an age when they can’t possibly understand the implications.

But you know. Why can’t we all just be nice

With 'just be nice' I always follow up with 'nice to whom', because it certainly isn't nice to women and children.

Can you give him my Trojan Unicorn essays, maybe queer theory and paedophilia will do it.

I have two thoughts:

One is that sometimes you have to just accept that your big issue will not be the big issue of your spouse, even if they "get" it. You might need to find someone else to talk to about it will just be too much for them.

But my other thought is that mainly, you can't know how to change someone's mind unless you really know why they think the way they do. Often there is some main reason that they've come down on one side or the other, and unless you address that thing, no amount of talking about sports will do much good. A complication is sometimes the person doesn't realise that it is that one thing that is so important, so you have to tease it out.
The best way is to try and get him to explain his thinking, while trying not to argue about it or prove your point. As lots of questions, but not "gotcha" ones. Questions designed to help you figure out what his thought process is. Or sometimes it might be down to some sort of experience that puts the issue in a particular light for the person.

I think if you can do that, and be non-confrontational about it, it could have two effects. One is your comments will better address his ideas. But also he might be less likely to push back reflexively if he thinks you that you are interested in what he thinks.

My DH totally gets what I say but he just doesn't get as fired up about it as I do - it doesn't affect him either now or potentially in the same way. The #metoo stuff threw up some interesting conversations and I think he started to see his male 'priviledge' in a way he hadn't before too.
I've spoken with him recently about the YHA and Guide policies and I think he is equally amazed as the wilful ignoring of the dangers they allow towards women. But I'm not sure if he'd talk about these kinds of things with his own friends.

@Goosefoot - thanks, very thoughtful response. I do think it's important not to get into intractable positions and not think about why the other person thinks like that. I have tried asking him, but he hasn't really thought it through really in terms of why he holds that particular view.

Excellent post, @Goosefoot

Right, going to give it a bash. I'll post back when I can, it would be interesting to see if anyone actually has any luck changing their DH/Ps minds or at least make them think!

Someone up thread talked about her DH wanting people to all just be nice about things and I suppose that's what he thinks too.

And yet he doesn’t feel any compunction to be nice to the women and girls he and men like him are happy to see well and truly fucked over.

Just women that have to be nice to men, isn’t it?

I know this probably isn’t helpful but men like your DH give me the rage. He and his ilk are misogynists even if they’re not aware of being so. Completely invested in maintaining existing power structures that benefit males (however they identify) and disadvantage females.

Tell him from me that he’s acting like a disgusting, reactionary prick, not the inclusive, progressive modern man he thinks he is, if you think it’ll do any good! 😂

men like this give me the rage- thank goodness dh gets it- but for me i know more women than men who are caught up in this ideology so i do hold/fire on the 'theyre all misogynists' thing.

but i think its mostly a lack of critical thinking, isnt it?

a feminist campaigner who i like/formerly respected -australian clementine ford- is happily giving away womens rights on fb. i think it comes from a good - but dim- place.

I think it’s more than a lack of critical thinking, I do think it’s a result of misogyny that’s so deeply embedded in our culture (all cultures!) that, as someone has said, it’s like the air that we breathe: we just don’t notice it. Women as well as men.

Internalised misogyny is a real thing: the fact that the majority of women in the UK (western world?) don’t identify as feminist is proof enough of that; women who identify as feminist but continue to (unconsciously) prioritise males and seek out/need male approval are just another manifestation of that.

Underpinning it all is the need to belong, I suppose, which - given that we are social beings and genuinely need to feel/be part of wider social groups - is a very powerful driving force that can override rationality completely.

Spoke with DP about this this morning (can't remember why) around sport - he tried the 'but who's it really harming' line, and I pointed out it was harming the women who didn't get the places the men take.

He got that, especially when it comes to grants and scholarships.

Oh, and he came out with 'but feminists say that men and women are equal, and that the only differences are socially imposed' and I said that number one, that's ridiculous, uteruses aren't socially imposed, and that I had only ever heard people telling me that feminists say that, I've never actually heard a feminist say it. And that's a big trouble - the anti-feminist propoganda machine is massive, and men have a tendency to group all women together into a blob, and not realise that it's different groups saying different things because they've analysed it differently - we're all 'feminists' and as someone who says she's a feminist I'm to answer for everything from making bread with vaginal yeast to the suffragettes.

Then I mentioned kids and puberty blockers, so that'll percolate a bit and I'm sure he'll come back with some more talk around that.