Anyone else have a woke teen?

[Catsfriend]

I am so tired of having to listen to my teen who has swallowed the whole Stonewall playbook hook line and sinker.
I would type out a whole rant here but after two hours of arguing back and forth, I am angry, tired and frustrated.
It doesn’t help that she is incapable of acknowledging that grey areas even exist.
I told her that we fundamentally agree on two premises: 1) everyone should be able to live the life that they want to and 2) everyone should be able to do this in a safe space. As you may have guessed, excluding trans women from toilets is where we disagree. I ended the discussion this evening by telling her that until she fully understands what it means to be a woman and navigate life as a woman in society she would never comprehend why I and so many other women (I didn’t even dare tell her that this includes several relatives and friends) are concerned about the ramifications for women’s rights.
And that next time she wants to cite statistics, she would do well to check and cross-check the source first.
I love her dearly but this just keeps on coming up again and again... so fed up of these heated discussions.
When I mentioned the Cyclepath’s “disown” tweet, she did have the good sense to say that that was just plain stupid.

right-on demonstration

I think when they are students or mixing only with other young people, it's quite easy for them to say they don't mind TW using their toilets, but when you show them a photo of Karen White they can understand our POV a bit more clearly.

One DD even cried thinking I’d suddenly turned extreme right wing overnight.

Maybe you should point out that the one overtly GC party in the U.K. seems to be the Communists - unsurprising as they understand class analysis and oppression. (Theres a thread at the moment).

Fortunately my DD (20 now) shows no signs of wokeness - perhaps it helps that she's in a male dominated field where they're still consciously trying to overcome old fashioned sexism.

@Madhairday I could have written the first part of your post almost word for word. DS1 is heavily involved with the Lib Dems at uni and all that entails.
Had quite an intense argument debate with him over Christmas and only by seeing how visibly upset I was about some of the things that happened to me (and my friends) when I was younger, did he seem take on board some of what I was saying.
He kept telling me it was a generational thing, to which I replied it was because we've lived through it, that we don't want it to happen to our daughters.

I have a woke four year old who recently informed me 'not all boys have penises and not all girls have vaginas'.

Also have a woke partner which explains the above.

My eldest is the opposite - he’s an ‘edgelord’ and his hobby is ‘triggering the little libs’. It’s part of his ongoing rebellion against me, it’s why he eats meat too 😂
He’s surrounded by ‘wokescolds’ at uni and takes great pleasure in telling his classmates they are wrong.
Funny thing is TWAmostdefinitelynotW is one of the few positions we actually share.

Middle daughter (13) currently identifies as a boy but she thinks her big brother is cool and he thinks ‘identifying’ as anything is beyond stupid, so hopefully he will be one of the things that pulls her out of it. School actually put the trans idea in her head so it’s good she is getting completely different messaging from someone only 6 years older.

I think there some evidence that arguing with opposing view points actually further entrenches both sides

bigthink.com/think-tank/the-backfire-effect-why-facts-dont-win-arguments - this isn't where I read it originally but covers the idea.

I tend to try and ask question and counter the misinformation they get – but not by tell them but exposing them to different sources of information - science programs progams that look at misuse of stats such as more or less -or asking questions and trying to get them to notice inconsistences.

So far they don’t seem to be swallowing it – but I do worry for the future.

I did have. But I've calmly challenged the misinformation that's come from school and we had a very long discussion after she overheard most of one week on my Institute of Feminist Thought course which opened the door. We didn't get to agreement on that night, but seeds were planted that maybe everything wasn't as black and white as some people were saying.

I also asked her to proof-read my letter to school about their gn toilets. She started coming to me with her complaints where women/girls had been disadvantaged in pursuit of gender neutrality.

And then I asked her if she wanted to come to the wpuk meeting in February and she said yes!

The journey continues ...

Thanks to my education on here trying to get in early with my dds (11 and 13) to inculcate gender critical reality. Who knows if this will hold as they get older but all I can do. Dd2 is very feminist in one of her “extraordinary girls” type books was a trans girl lauded for being “stunning and brave”.

Every generation has to have something to rebel against I guess.

I was sort of hoping theyd keep pushing against sexism, and do better with the environment, but it kind of makes sense that it's broadly around sexuality instead I suppose.

I am 25 now and with time comes the ability to see nuance! This was something I couldn't see when I was at college and previously.

I went to a Catholic school (though not Catholic myself) and think I became quite "woke" as a rebellion to this. They didn't even teach us about contraception or homosexuality as part of our sex education - luckily, my communication with my Mum as a teen was great and she explained all of this to me. She was horrified when she learned how they skimmed over these elements.

I learned all that I could about gender identity within the last five years or so. On the face of it, I couldn't initially see that there was any issue with TWAW. I thought that everyone should live the life that they want to, without question. I still believe that trans people are entitled to this right. However, nuance is important. As society becomes more progressive with these ideologies, people still need to feel safe. I can't see that there are any solutions forthcoming that solve the debate around toilets, changing rooms etc.

My own personal views on TWAW have evolved to be that when it comes to the experience of a cisgender woman, a trans woman cannot understand what it is like. They don't experience periods or menopause or the feeling of constantly being concerned about safety - such as making plans to get home, or walking home late at night clutching your key in between your fingers so you spend as little time on the doorstep as possible.

I feel that other people my age may come to this conclusion in their own time, but only with reasoned conversation. Unfortunately all too often, accusations of bigotry are thrown around because they aren't ready to hear another perspective. Isn't it important to not live in an echo chamber and hear other points of view?

Oh yes 🙄🙄
After reading Sam Smith interview with his shite about living in fear etc I commented he was a twat to which I was lectured, I tried to say it’s nothing to do with him being they/them but just he’s a twat.
It’s quite tiring, I just say nothing now 😐😐

We had a bit of a spat about it which to be fair ended in her saying I'd got a point - she said it's just she knew lots of troubled trans people and wanted them to be happy. And that's where it always comes from I think for young people, so it's easy to buy into the narrative.

Part of the issue I've seen with teens is they don't understand that their version of "being kind" isn't. Telling people things that aren't true, accommodating them in ever way - in some cases some of it might be helpful, but in most of the cases we are seeing now this is making things worse for these individuals.
I think even many younger adults now are less aware of this, but with teens, they just don't have the experience and maturity to get it in many cases.

All 4 of my DC are GC. Respectfully so, I hope.
We've discussed the difference between sex and gender and I think they have a good understanding of that.
My oldest DD's GCSE English oral exam was "Unfairness of Transwomen in Womens Sport". Most girls (and her teacher) agreed with her stance.

My oldest daughter has thoroughly embraced queer culture and has a new definition of her sexuality every week. She and her slightly younger brother both struggle with relationships irl, but love to shock with their kinks and fluidities.
Interesting that they kept the fuck out of troubled teens trans experiment beyond support for pronouns.. But oh the strain of it all. I have found myself privately questioning the requirement on parents to love unconditionally.

My super woke 16-yr old lesbian DD2 has trans friends and GNC friends, and is fully down the rabbit hole. In a conversation with her and 18-yr-old DD1, she sort of partially admitted that maybe it's not completely transphobic for a straight man or lesbian to not want to sleep with a trans woman, and that you can't force people to date other people... I'm not sure she believed it, but she backed down and said 'you're right'. Pretty sure in reality she's now got me and DD1 pegged as T**Fs, don't care

I came across an excellent word to describe this new group of people, wokescolds.

The fact that all our kids have trans friends is surely evidence that ROGD is real?

Like, I’m middle aged and artsy and have spent my whole adult life in cosmopolitan cities and have a wonderfully diverse set of acquaintances and thousands of ‘friends’ and ‘followers’ across various social media and maybe 1-2 percent of those thousands of arty, lefty worldwide weirdos are trans.

Yet now there are trans kids in schools all over the western world? How is that not seen as weird as fuck, to even the most right on pro LGBTQ people?

Like, gay marriage (legal acceptance) didn’t massively increase the numbers of gay people (despite the fears of some religious types!) so how come increasing social acceptance is used as the explanation for all these trans kids, most of whom are born female?

They always say that you can’t make someone gay by educating them on gay issues, and I believe that, but I don’t think that holds with trans...

I think teaching people about ‘trans’ in school, in online spaces and in social groups is actually giving teenagers a kind of gender dysphoria, one that is only superficially like the other more established kinds of gender dysphoria.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions, I wonder if our kind, right on teens will ever realise that their kindness made their peers more vulnerable, not less?

people in the peace movement were not very peaceful.....all the usual inter-personal conflicts and strife

A friend had some very bad experiences in Occupy London to the point where she and other women weren't safe and had to leave the camp.

Yes - by and large other people were adjudicating their boundaries for them or scolding them that they had to be kind about other people's MH problems even when they compromised their safety.

Mine is apparently non binary, pan romantic and asexual.

Translation: special, likes to be liked, choosy

Thousands of kids die from starvation each week. Thousands of kids die from disease each week. Thousands of adults die from war, famine, pestilence. Each week. And 'labels' are important? Really? Present this as a question.

@MrsSchadenfreude Feel free to not share if you don't want to, but, did they mention this casually to you or did they sit you down and have a conversation with you regarding how they identify?

I have a woke four year old who recently informed me 'not all boys have penises and not all girls have vaginas

That's awful! How do you cope with such fundamental disagreement with regards what gets said to your child?