Does anyone else feel isolated for their views on gender?

[MissBax]

Ended up in a debate last night with a friend who believes pansexual is a legitimate sexuality. I explained how considering there's only two sexes, bisexual covers that.
Anyhoo, I'm just always so surprised by apparently intelligent people thinking that gender is now the default position, and I explained my views on identity politics blah blah blah.
I just feel so isolated and lonely in, what I thought was, a group of educated and intelligent people.
Does anyone else feel like that? Sometimes I feel like you lot on here are the only sane people I know!

Yes. I think the problem is people want to appear right on and trendy.

A bit. I feel pretty sure that my friends who are passionate about LGBT rights are a lot closer to the FWR position than either they or we think. That's what is so sad about this bunfight. There are a couple of fault lines in my view - whether TWAW and TWAM, and whether you see medical transition as a last resort for people who can't live any other way or as basic health care. Beyond that theres mostly agreement. It's just that those are quite big fault lines.

I can talk about it, but my family think that I talk like a cult member (oh, the irony!)

A huge problem for me is that the mainstream media don't report on all the things that are going on, so I suppose I do sound like a bit of a conspiracy theorist when I talk about things that aren't widely known.

I think it reveals that people are very willing to repeat whatever they have been told to believe. This thinking is basically a new state sponsored religion - being pumped into schools and promotes in public spaces. It even has its own heretics who get cast out for being non believers (us basically).

It’s not about the reasonability of the belief - it’s about the fact that it’s just another religion and another set of diktats and what the general public is supposed to do is uphold the new law including by controlling the speech of heretics. What we are not supposed to do is say no.

Amid this madness, what I struggle with the most is how anybody can endorse what's happening to children.

There's also this assumption that so called 'intelligence' should equate to reason.

Some of the most dangerous pushers of this ideology consider themselves educated and enlightened

History is full of educated barbarians.

Yeah I know what you mean.

I dont get how 2 binary sexes have to exist for people to define themselves as not being one of them. Bi sexual does cover sexual attraction to both sexes.

Pan sexual to me is just made up nonsense that allows men to basically infiltrate every possible outcome of relationship combinations and I worry about those who accept it all as to be they unknowingly actively encouraging their own little world of rape culture and they dont realise it. I.worry for them I really do. Its harmful.

Sorry not sure that makes any sense

Not at all. I’m retired and socialise with people mainly in my own age group. The whole damn lot of us are solidly gender critical!
I was doubtful about starting the discussion, but several of them had heard programs on radio 4 or wherever, and I found I was totally singing to the choir!
None of them want men in their M and S changing room or toilets, they were horrified about the cotton ceiling bullying of lesbians, and worried sick about the possible damage to their grandkids’ generation from puberty blockers.
I think you may feel beleaguered if you work and socialise in a woke academic or metropolitan bubble, but I can assure you that, out here in the real world, we’re all fully aware that the emperor has no clothes.

At my DD's 6th form, quite a few boys are 'pan' - she says it is seen as much cooler and more socially acceptable than being gay as a teenage boy.

Nope, I seem to be lucky in my everyday life, work colleagues, friends etc everyone gets it and and agrees, no one believes ‘woman’ is a ‘gender identity’ one can claim because of feelings. We had an abusive transman client yell at office staff who referred to them with female pronouns (the client hadn’t informed anyone of their identity, and had a clearly female appearance) and that brought all the debate out amongst my colleagues.
I have met one (temp) colleague who believes TWAW, because she has a lovely transwoman friend and identifies as kind, when we directly discussed it her points were very weak though, deeply ingrained in sexism that she couldn’t really see - although did lead to a short phase of people at work saying they were doing things ‘as a woman’ which was vaguely amusing (‘I’m just popping to the corner shop as a woman, anyone want anything’?). We leave the topic alone when she is there though, don’t want her to feel got at. I know a few young lesbian/bi women who are trying to negotiate the LGBT scene and dating etc, they do not believe TWAW but also do not feel they can challenge the new orthodoxy, we have interesting discussions on feminist analysis of various situations they’ve been faced with. I’m so glad I’m not in my teens/early 20s now.

I’m 50 and most people I ever raise it with are very GC. Usually the comment ‘it’s all a load of bollocks’ figures somewhere. My kids are GC too. Eldest DS at univ so probably woker than woke but he would just keep his views to himself. DS 2 at school thinks it’s all hilarious and will tease me by suggesting there are 1000 genders. Younger DD at primary school already hears my views, she’s sensible and is not fooled. I am keeping an eye on what lessons she has - I already asked for the lesson plan of her first sex-type lesson. They just talked about different family set up types which was fine , but nothing about transgender .

All my friends and most of my family are solidly gender critical. I think teenage DD is really as well though she tries to appear woke, she says things that don't fit with the woke viewpoint.

So pan sexual doesn't just mean you want lots of it, like after the pagan god?

Many people I know refuse to discuss politics in any form, and others have a wide range of opinion. Mostly I manage some interesting conversations, even on the thorny subject of Brexit, but I've been very wary of broaching the topic of gender. I think it's the horror of being labelled a bigot, it's amazingly effective as a silencer. Now I'm not working it's easier not to care what people think, and I always tried to be as open as possible because I really think we have to if we can.

What really disappointed me was discussing this with one of my socialist friends, someone who has been a bit of a guru to me in the past. She defended the gender magic position, without any scientific basis for doing so. I suspect she feels a bit sheepish about it now but sadly, although we're still friends, my respect for her has diminished considerably. I find myself distanced from my lefty friends because of this - if they can swallow the Koolaid on this issue, they would toe the party line on anything. Scary.

Yes & no. Precarious employment means I'm only inching forward with who I speak to about this. But so far so good with the friends (30s, mostly left wing and in creative jobs) and family I've spoken to.

It's the people in positions of power I despair over. Mhairi Hunter (SNP) on twitter is great if you want to repeatedly bash your own head against a brick wall. She's a good example of people who like to use concepts like "patriarchy" and "feminism" for political gain yet demonstrate that they have zero understanding of what they actually are. Sorry I can't link now but a recent tweet of hers asserts that males and females don't have any inherent differences in strength.

But.... I used to think like that too. That was what I imbibed from lad culture and girl power etc. So I have hope. At some point, some of the brighter people are not going to be able to cope with the cognitive dissonance any more.

i work in the woke sector and have a lot of LGBT friends and colleagues and I dread it coming up. I simply would not have a job if I was openly GC. I have lost one very good friend who has totally drank the kool aid - like pywife I used to have tons of resepct for them but now I dont and I cant see them in the same way. How she can sit there as a lesbian and say with a straight face sat next to a male bodied person in a dress that TWAW i just cant fathom it, I really cant.

No. I work in a lamentably woke organisation where Stonewall’s hand is evident in several of our E&D policies. Even so, I have male and female colleagues who are firmly GC. They don’t shout about it, but they are very cross about the current situation. One of my male colleagues thought that the “she folds them like deckchairs” MTF rugby player was outrageous because there had been no consideration of risk to other players.

History is full of educated barbarians.

Wonderfully put.

I'm early 30s and from the few conversations I've had with people my own age we all seem to be in agreement it's a load of nonsense. I don't understand how it's all got so complicated with multiple different names for what is essentially the same thing?

You'll either be straight, gay, bisexual, or asexual. If you like members of both sexes then bi covers it. If you like members of your own sex then gay covers it. If you're not attracted to anything then asexual it is. I don't understand the need for Pan, Queer etc etc.

And as for transgender, again, similar views held with those I've discussed it with; you can't change sex. You're either male or female and that biological fact can't changed regardless of self-identifying, gender reassignment surgery or otherwise. I have no issue with people identifying as whatever they want, as long as it doesn't affect the rights and privacy of others.

I know that in the current climate there will be many who would class my views as offensive, but frankly I don't care anymore. I've gotten so fed up of this current culture where any sign of voicing an opinion that is against the status quo is being automatically labelled as offensive/bigoted/genderist/take your pick of an insult, it feels like the freedom to an opinion has gone.

Aside from being a trend, pan can be a shorthand way for some people to indicate they would accept a partner with mismatch of genitals, ie they would be open to dating a trans woman with a penis or a trans man with a vagina.

Not all bisexuals would.

I can't talk about this under my own name. I and almost all of my friends are left-wing, I agree with them on I think absolutely everything else but the twice that I have mentioned my position with two different groups I have been 1) started at in polite horror and 2) online shouted at, any possibly of discussion shut down and threatened with being doxxed to my employer. Which, for reasons I can't discuss bevause they would be outing, would be Very Bad Indeed.

I am gobsmacked that lefty feminists will so readily throw women under the bus, but in my experience they're being led by the nose like a bull.

@Kit19 same here re work, I feel so alone.

I spoke to someone in their 30s about it who I expected to understand where I was coming from. They admitted they didn't know much about it but they still trotted out the nonsense that they've been fed and we were in disagreement.

When I questioned a little deeper they did accept there were some issues and I pointed out that if there were some issues then it needed to be considered more robustly.

I think people want to appear progressive and accepting but they haven't thought through what it really means.

Yes, I do. My DCs told me I was transphobic because of my views, though I think they’re better informed now.

I think the problem is partly that things are genuinely so ridiculous that people think it can’t be true: eg self ID in all it’s forms.

I’m also scared to say anything in public in case it affects my job, and then annoyed with myself for being weak.