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!

That's interesting Fleetsum. I think a lot of people who haven't really thought it through much first and foremost "know" that a trans person is a victimised minority whi=o can't help what they "are", exactly along the lines of the homosexual people they have traditionally been lumped in with. It would be bigoted ijn the extreme to have anything negative to say, because that's how it works with gayness (totally reasonably in the case of gayness, because it makes no demands on anyone else, other than equality and respect).

That means they are required to believe that TWAW and TMAM because that is how they say they feel (the vocal activist ones anyway). It doesn't matter that according to science and common sense that's not possible - after all the establishment, science and common sense have been wrong before and it's better (not to mention way cooler and virtue-signalling heaven) to be on the side of the underdog and stick it to the traditional bigots.

Then when they get asked to define women and men, address issues of women's sex-based protections etc, they are a bit stumped. It's really hard for them to go there as it requires a leap back into rational thought. Falling back on "you're a bigot because you dare to question being nice to a poor oppressed minority" is so much easier, not just in terms of cognitive dissonance, but in terms of not losing your friends and woke approval.

I have a sibling who is "non-binary" and deeply involved in the whole scene. For them to question it is even harder - it would be their whole world exposed as the emperor's new clothes, their social life, relationship and sense of self, which they have always sought through one kind of "special identity" after another, down the pan. They are so massively invested in this empirically impossible belief.

To me it very much is like a religion, and I'd be OK with respecting someone's empirically unsupported belief in the same way as I respect religious people - if it wasn't threatening to lead to legal changes that massively endanger so many people and impact negatively on me. But the situation at the moment (though I am confident it's changing) is that so many people are terrified to question it. It's like a religion that has taken over the state and so many people either swallow it, or know they have to say they do.

To me it very much is like a religion

If you accept transgenderism as an actual 'thing' - rather than just a mental health issue/identity struggle - then you have to accept the whole lot of it. You can't opt in and out........and that goes for accepting that trans children exist too...and should therefore receive medical help.

What a mess!

trans children exist too...and should therefore receive medical help.

I don't actually think that follows. You can believe yourself to be the opposite sex and if that is treated as a belief, which we can respect that the person experiences, that doesn't mean everyone has to agree.

I do think the tipping point is approaching and the cult-dominated future won't materialise, but I'm still wary and realise it might.

Just shows the complete mess people get themselves into when they are trying to be politically correct, against all of their instincts

Yes, and in part her instincts were not even allowed to kick in, since no debate meant she had never had an opportunity to investigate what TWAW really means. A good reason to reject no debate. Get out there, speak to your family and friends. Work is different and everyone has to judge their own circumstances...

I have a sibling who is "non-binary" and deeply involved in the whole scene

I have a trans sibling, and know first hand that "transition" is not always the solution. My sibling suffers from as many MH issues as before. I feel my sibling was directed along a path that was on trend, but not their problem. It's like telling a troubled person "Jesus loves you, accept Him into your heart", so yes, like a religion.

I mean after all, atheists don't generally waste their breath arguing with religious people about whether god exists, praying works or there's an afterlife, using scientific reality as their basis. Because it doesn't work, and it's kind of irrelevant to an article of faith. Instead, we respect that religious belief is important to them, and that's how they feel - but the state (at least in the UK and most other states) doesn't take those beliefs and make everyone have to say they are right, or change the laws so that believers can impose on non-believers and take away their rights and protections. That's the key issue to me. Believe what you like, but saying other people have to is crossing a line.

I do think this is the outcome we will end up with when all the damage, harm, risk and orwellian horror is truly exposed. And the TRAs, gender-affirming HCPs and woke numpties are certainly going the right way about leading the majority to that realisation eventually.

*I do think the tipping point is approaching and the cult-dominated future won't materialise, but I'm still wary and realise it might8

It already has - certainly when perfectly civil discussions about the nature of totalitarianism get deleted, but all kinds of abuse exists along side that - remain untouched. The problem with totalitarianism is that people are no longer able to judge for themselves, or show discernment, or consistency of approach. Punishment appears totally ransom and out of proportion.

totally random

I don't actually think that follows

What I meant was that when you are in a for a penny, you are in for a pound; and even though most people baulk at the idea of medicalising children........believing that you can't know yourself or have a settled or core identity until much later on in life, they are propelled, by virtue of internal logic, to have to validate that.

the state (at least in the UK and most other states) doesn't take those beliefs and make everyone have to say they are right, or change the laws so that believers can impose on non-believers and take away their rights and protections. That's the key issue to me. Believe what you like, but saying other people have to is crossing a line.

Not entirely true. Lots of laws in the UK are based on Christian belief.

Gay people cannot legally marry in churches for example.

Less importantly (but still annoying) we can't do our supermarket shopping on Sunday evenings in the UK because of religious beliefs.

Crazy really how a belief system can actually inform the law.

I agree there's an overlap but generally we don't have all the tenets of Christianity forced on us. It may inform the law but it's not thought crime not to believe or to say you don't. And we don't use the religious commandments as laws, for example adultery is legal.

I do get your point though and I suppose it shows how a belief/faith/dogma based totalitarian state, where dissenters are hunted down, is never that far away.

I'm early 30s, urban, left-wing, educated, and I do definitely feel quite isolated a lot of the time on this topic. I am GC and so is my mother, and I have had a few good discussions with friends but ultimately it seems most of my peer group definitely subscribe to the current trans gender ideology. Even my best friend who I am able to speak openly with basically believes TWAW and that they are the most persecuted group in society, and that it is almost justified, the silencing of GC women which has started happening on this topic. It has, sadly, made my respect for her diminish a little. It's funny/sad how that happens.

That for me is one of the worst things. The fact people are scared to say what they think and the debate is being shut down. I just worry what it will mean for the ability to define what a woman is, and women's sex based rights, and of course what it will mean for the next generation. I have no issue with people identifying as another gender; but I wish that is what it could be, rather than trying to claim they are that other sex. Sex and gender are diffferent, afterall.

At work everyone has started adding their pronouns to their email signatures... well not everyone, but quite a lot of people. And the Women's Network has changed to the Gender Network.... I do understand wanting to make trans people feel included, because I do too. But I just don't really... feel good about this emphasise on pronouns and gender neutrality etc... it just feels like it's taking away from women's struggles and rights... it's hard to explain the feeling... yeah, it's a tricky one.

I don't feel isolated, because literally nobody I know in real life ever mentions the subject. I just think it's not even on a lot of people's radar tbh, especially if you live fairly rurally.
In fact, because almost all of what I've read about gender politics has been on the MN feminism board, I probably feel more in a majority than I really am.

Dear god, the world is truly going mad.

I find people just mutter at me, “It doesn’t bother me what people do or call themselves” I then give examples of some of the consequences, such as women’s shelters and not having to “become” female in any shape or form to call yourself one, but I do think people think the examples are so ludicrous it can’t be true! Or they’re too worried about being discriminatory, ironically.

FleetsumNLangCleg
Your poor DC. How did their head not explode with dissonance.
Plus dissing your trans neighbour. How phobic of them.

I'm mid 50's and pretty much everyone I know is GC and we discuss it quite openly. I'm in the midlands where most people haven't yet lost their senses on this subject. One of my daughters however displays woke tendencies so we don't discuss the trans issue. The daft thing is many trans people don't claim to be the sex they present as, so lumping them all together as one herd mindset is a bit, well, bigoted.