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.

“What I find so sad & frightening is that young women are being manipulated into giving up their rights before they are old enough to understand what they are losing.”

@XXcstatic that is so true!

In truth they will change and mellow as they get older. Most people do. The young try on all sorts of ideas and lifestyles, it's normal enough.
They will get jobs, mix with a variety of different people, have relationships, maybe kids, homes etc.. Those things that seemed so important will be seen through different perspectives. You can't get that far in life being so certain and self-righteous.
Unfortunately this generation have the Internet and social media grafted on, distorting things somewhat. Time will tell about the long term effects of that.
I expect parents in the 60's were equally as horrified, however this generation seem to have outdone all others in finding new ways to be really annoying.

It's hard to see ourselves as parents how we used to view our own parents when we were young.

I am hoping not to have this with my 12 year old when he gets older. I am thinking it's not such an issue because we a working class family. Not sure how others feel, but I see it as a particularly middle class phenomenon.
That said, the erosion of women's rights effects us all, and I am going to fight it.
Even if your kids don't appreciate it now, you can be a good role model by fighting mysoginy and homophobia.
I feel more optimistic now. JK Rowling, Maya F and LGB Alliance seem to have changed the landscape somewhat.

Shedquarters for me that’s the main issue. I wouldn’t care at all (and I doubt many of us on FWR would) if these kids were simply dressing differently or experimenting with makeup or whatever. It’s the terrifying speed at which medical interventions are pushed upon them, with no real unpicking of any side issues which may be present (abuse, trauma, autism, poor mental health). That’s what terrifies me. You cannot simply undo puberty blockers, double mastectomy and cross sex hormone treatments.

Agreed. There are the victims and potential victims who are essentially groomed TRAs, and then there are the supporters.

It's the supporters, young people supporting woke culture that I was mainly talking about above. I think this will pass, but it's true many children and young people are at risk.
I think that this will be the next big safeguarding scandal. Links can be made with the Rochdale and Rotherham CSE cases, adults/professionals not speaking up due to fear of offending minorities.

Safe Schools Alliance are crowd funding to challenge trans guidelines in schools. Info on their website

My three sons are gloriously gender critical and send me comedy memes whenever their friends share them with them. So complete agreement in this household as husband is on side as is brother and mother.

I have a highly intelligent, articulate daughter in her final year at uni. She is firmly feminist in her outlook on life. And yet she sees me, her dad, as totally unsympathetic towards trans women because I don't think they have an automatic right to women's spaces. We have discussed it at length. She thinks that on this, as in so many other areas, I'm old and out of touch. I find it all quite ironic, but we don't fall out over it.

When I was young I felt confident and invincible. I would not have minded sharing toilet facilities with males or male health professionals doing intimate procedures on me. This gradually changed over time. I began feel more vulnerable as a female, and treasured female spaces (dignity, privacy, safety, respect).
Having children changes things, with small people to Safeguard.

Young people can't imagine changing and aging, feeling differently about things.
They are not the ones to be making such decisions on behalf of all women.

When I was young I felt confident and invincible

I also wanted to think the best of everyone, especially friends (loosely defined). I put myself at risk by sharing rooms at parties with men I hardly knew - in a group, not just two of us, but still I was lucky that nothing bad ever happened. I wised up through the experience of others, including a good friend who was raped by a colleague who offered to walk her home 'so that she would be safe' .

It hurts my heart that we are making girls and young women - already so vulnerable - even more unsafe.

Janes. I am aiming for high boundaries, low conflict.

The best advice ever and my new mantra. Thanks

No teens currently in situ.
DSD and I have talked about this and don't entirely agree or disagree. I think I've suggested a few perspectives she might not have considered. We haven't fallen out. But I don't think she is either woke or GC..
DD is younger and to be fair we've been talking about feminism and gender stereotypes from her being very young. She's hugely empathetic and quite GNC in many ways so I have been concious that she needs to be aware of these issues and think about them.
We've had a lot of conversations about various coming of age stuff. Trans and sexual orientation amongst those.
I think the aspect that has clarified her thinking is that if you follow the thinking that gender=clothing and behaviour, then you are defining people by harmful and reductive stereotypes.
She's comfortable with being female but also wants to wear trousers, have short hair, not wear makeup etc, unless she wants to and neither complying or not with that changes who she is.
She's pretty GC.

iamright

Glad you found it helpful!

I see it as a particularly middle class phenomenon

I've mentioned this before, but it's been noted by teachers where I live (Sydney) that trans ID's are prominent in some areas (high income, white, liberal) and not in others (lower income, more ethnically diverse/conservative).

We're actually in the latter demographic but liberal. However, ds was in an activity that is full of the first, and 'learned' trans identity through this cohort.

young people supporting woke culture

are part of the societal enabling of harm to kids with ROGD. However, on the scale of culpability, I see cheerleading peers as pretty low on the ladder.

My son believes that transwomen do differ from natal women but we fall out over the fact that there is an explosion in the numbers of children presenting as trans.
One of his friends from his school has transitioned female to male and he says that this is because times are progressive now compared to when I was young- everyone is freer now to present how they really are. When I suggest that it could be a social contagion and not a positive thing then he doesn't want to know and just thinks I'm being old fashioned. He's not been around enough to see doctor's get discredited such as the ritual child abuse scandals in the '80's. He just assumes that all the grown-ups know what they're doing.

For all your "woke" teens, this might prove a useful video

My 12yo DS is being educated in being GC - and in biology being real and gender being a load of made up stereotyping bollocks (something a whole bunch of people who SHOULD know better would do well to realise!)

It really comes to something when science books are labelled 'transphobic' for stating basic biological facts!

I know this is a little tongue in cheek, but I'm reminded of the Doctor Who Cybermen episode where everyone has a blue tooth type earpiece that downloads info into people's heads once a day, telling them what to think. Largescale mind control - seems that has happened somehow with this TRA cult!

I have a 14 yr old DD. Since last year when I myself delved into the trans rabbit whole, we’ve had chats and she is very clear the difference between sex and gender.
We have also emphasised the importance of critical thinking, and reality and facts, over naive wishful thinking.
She goes to an independent school, and I’ve had chats with the head and feel quite assured that the head is quite grounded and not one to just jump on the latest bandwagon. The Head Was telling me the story of a certain all girls ‘ school in London where their Head was proud to announce that they now have 14 trans pupils, as if it was some indication and achievement of how diverse and progressive they were, she was horrified as she told the story.

We will see how well inoculated she is as time goes and she goes to uni. I am so hoping that this will have blown over by then.

We talk about snowflakes and boomers. I’ve made it clear that she is not a woke snowflake type, in fact, I’ve said that I’m expecting her (and her cohort) to be the anti snowflakes and the resilient ones, critical thinking and not prone to being brainwashed.

We ve also had talks ( even before this trans cult) about how easily humans can be brainwashed, in the context of the cultural revolution in China. Not sure how much of that actually sank in though.

So. For me. Critical thinking and reality. Then fingers crossed.

Three teens - all gender critical and none of them woke. In fact, DS1 (17) is definitely anti-woke and enjoys poking fun at the insanity of it all.

I’m also an engineer in a male dominated industry. According to trans ideology, I’m either in the wrong body or in the wrong job, and mostly not very feminine in how I dress, so hopefully she could she through that bullshit.

I have one DD(15) and we live in rural East Midlands where woke does not yet exist. However, last night we went for a meal in the nearest city and I realised the pony-tailed waitress who took our order was actually trans - they were stood behind me when taking our order so I hadn't really looked at them but noticed the deep voice and (later) the adam's apple. I mentioned this to DD as part of an ongoing discussion we've been having, and she said "but look at him, mum, he's so slight and feminine looking - he'd get beaten up if he went into the men's loos"

And she had a point. I'd feel threatened by a man self ID-ing as a woman coming into the woman's loos but God help that trans woman if she'd gone into a men's toilet in the city.

And DD isn't a "TERF" btw - she's not got the hang of trans/non binary pronouns (nor has most of the country) so was just speaking as she saw it.

Both DSs (late teens/early to mid 20s) are very firmly GC, though both take the proverbial about Mumsnet to wind me up. DS2’s ex GF was very woke, which was a bit tension inducing. DS1 is in a University department where identity politics/philosophy are a big thing so he has to bite his tongue. DS2’s University department is quite the opposite.

@leostar1994 - she put it on her Instagram and I saw it. We had a conversation where she explained it all very patronisingly to me. Apparently she has no interest in a sexual relationship with anyone but could be romantically involved with another person - so a woman with a penis or a man with a vagina or someone of cisgender. I asked about the non binary bit - I used to work with someone who was non binary and you really couldn’t tell if they were male or female. She ummed and ahhed about this and finally said that she probably wasn’t non binary. (So I think she just added this for added woke-ness, as she really is a very girly girl.)

DD age 20 used to be very woke: when she was 15, she had two female friends who each required different pronouns, xhe and they I recall. Thankfully neither did anything medical about it. At that time I was a happy liberal and went along with it, although I did say I was mystified about how the genderqueer one felt female and male on different days, as I always just felt 'me'.

Then I read Janice Turner and the scales fell from my eyes, and in DD's eyes I became a TERF incarnate. We had to agree not to talk about it.

Just before she went to university we met a very sweet quite fluttery male, wearing makeup and a bit of a girly top, but also wearing trousers so that gave me chance to talk with her calmly about gender issues, and AGP, and sow some seeds.

She is bi, and joined the LGBT society, at which she encountered some misogyny. A friend of hers said she was a lesbian but then started going out with a male computer science student who it turned out liked wearing her clothes during sex, and had brought one of his sister's bras with him...

Lesbian friend has now finished with her boyfriend (and got herself a girlfriend). And, just as I predicted to DD, lesbian's former boyfriend has since said he is trans. DD has also met other lesbians who've encountered the cotton ceiling.

Then came JKR, and we have just had a great Christmas, with DD coming across all the ridiculousness online, and sending me links, and having lots of chats. She is now fully GC, as is her boyfriend, and my only concern now is that it spills out exuberantly.

So based on my experience, hang on in there, and if you get chance to talk about it, do.

2 GC teen boys, and one Woke teen girl.

DSS (19) is gay, has said explicitly he doesn't believe you can change sex, and wouldn't be interested in dating a transman as he is attracted to men, not a female impersonation of what she thinks being male is. He said he's never been near a vagina since he came out of his DM's, and has no intention in going back near one

DS (18) has Asperger's, and follows the literal truth that a human being can't change sex.

DD though, is as Woke as the day is long.
TWAW, and I'm just a narrow minded boomer (I'm 40!).
She threatened to leave home and move in with her DF because I wouldn't allow a boy to sleep over, because this boy "identifies as female and she's a lesbian", so it's an all-girl sleepover, and I'm just othering "her" by excluding him her.

Also according to DD, Sex Work is Real Work.
I asked DD, if the inside of a woman's body is her "place of work", shouldn't a client who refuses to pay only be prosecuted for theft, and not rape?
She also sees no problem with TW in Female sports. She has never been particularly athletic herself, so I don't think she can fully appreciate the hopelessness it feels to know however hard you train, you just cannot compete with the person who's had the benefit of a male puberty on their side.

Also according to DD, Sex Work is Real Work.

The Happy Hooker narrative.
I have met a fair few prostitutes work wise. All of them have been some combination of drug users/homeless/mentally ill/learning difficulties/abuse survivors. The most vulnerable women living in tragic circumstances. These were not trafficked women, for whom it seems more clear cut. I struggle to recognise the empowerment I am hearing so much about these days.

I know these ideas have always been there, I remember nonsense in the 80s about prostitute collectives, but are the trans women fetishists driving this surge more recently?