When, oh when, will the tide turn?

[IchbineinBerlinner]

I've been waiting and waiting for people to wake up to trans ideology. I've had complaints against my work. I've been blacklisted by organisations I used to work with. This is all coming to a head for me professionally speaking and I am so tired of waiting for people to understand what is going on. I have a tendency to be over-positive, so I'd like to hear Mumsnet's views: am I mad to think that this madness will stop soon?

Hmm, that's an interesting idea, I haven't heard that before.

I do think that Canada specifically has struggled with its own sense of identity. On the one hand it's tended to reject it's connection with the British Empire and there is plenty of talk about "decolonisation". And then we have the giant that is the US which dominates so much of our political discourse, our trade, and media, which we also feel the need to separate ourselves from. And increasingly weird and contradictory attempts to deal with the history of relations with indigenous peoples.

I've noticed something similar in Scottish sources as well, particularly with relation to Brexit, a desire to assert themselves against a bigger, more populated group that's perceived as having different values and character. But it sometimes comes out in a way that isn't always very logical or seems parochial.

It does seem like Scotland, Australia, Canada, have all lost their traditionally conservative political class. Maybe also the traditional left - Canada has for certain. What's left is political progressivism and right-neoliberalism. England clearly has had some issues with these as well but there still seem to be significant remnants of both traditional conservatism and traditional leftism.

Ireland seems to have fallen into the Canada BeKind rabbit hole. I hadn't thought of that about the Olympics! Oh God, I had been holding out for the Games to be a game-changer. I don't think it'll be anything like 10 years. I think that the very fact that there actually is debate in the UK is really significant. There was no debate 12 months ago.

I don’t think it will take 10 years - I meant in 10 years time all these politicians and charity professionals will be trying to deny they ever had anything to do with it.

Ah but some of us will have all the screenshots and receipts.

There is a lot less mindless amplifying of TRAs by celebs on social media. Not many celebs are brave enough openly to oppose trans activists, but they must be wising up.

The tide is turning, and it will accelerate, but it’s going to be a long time before all the damage is undone.

Agree, the more legal challenges and court cases there are the more scrutiny there will be. Politicians will notice, public owned organisations won't want to be dragged into court and accused of wasting taxpayers money, private organisations won't like the PR hit and the damage to their reputation plus the resulting loss in business. I hate to say it but the more stories in the tabloid media about court cases the better, they know their reader demographic how to phrase news stories for that demographic and which buttons to press.

The driver for many institutions will come down to money, as it always does. Public opinion and pressure from the print and online media will be the driving force in politics, there are only so many bad headlines and public outrage at those headlines they will be able to withstand.

Scandals such as the one coming over the medicalisation of children and the total lack of abiding by basic safeguarding in schools, Girl Guides, etc., will be exceptionally damaging and the scrabble to disassociate with how this was allowed to go ahead unchecked will be quick and brutal. However, as another pp said we have the receipts and we will use them.

It's still going to be a hard slog though, the insidious way this group have inserted themselves and their ideology into the very institutions that are the foundations of life in this country is alarming.

I also think that to be completely free of all this, it will have to go beyond genderism. Genderism has a few elements particular to it, but it's been very much enabled by larger social trends, some of which have been quite damaging. There is going to have to be a complete unpicking of identity politics. I think that's going to involve questions like nationalism and community, which is a huge topic. The sex positive movement and all of its off-shoots may have to go up for discussion, maybe including some questions that will have to be revisited and rooted in a different basis. Lots of elements of feminism may also need to be revisited, how we think about the body, culture. Questions around scientific process, medicalisation, mental illness.

All these things overlap in various ways with genderism and to really refute it, its not going to be possible without getting into these areas. And I suspect that even for people who are completely clear-sighted about gender, it could be disconcerting, concerning, and even scary to be examining some of these other areas. That may be where there are limits, if people are content to put gender on the back burner but leave all the rest in place, it will still be simmering away.

I don't think we should underestimate the effect that this pandemic will have on our social and political outlook.

The bad news is that I think people will have bigger things to worry about and gender critical feminists will get told to stop whinging about "fringe issues" and the TRAs will continue to sneak things in under the radar. But on the positive side I think the general public will be weary and battle-scarred and far more likely to call bullshit on the narcissism and obsessive virtue signalling.

It is always going to be a problem until womxn rise up and decide we need more than just safe 'spaces' free from men or male presenting people. We need safe towns and safe nations and once the sisterhood start to wake up and see what is happening to us then we will make it happen.

Who are these womxn who need to rise up? And how do you pronounce that word?

I think politics is changing. I think the institutional capture will work its way out. My worry is the generation of children 12- 25 - who have been indoctrinated. When they come to maturity and enter the workforce they will bring their cherished beliefs with them - and not all will realise they’ve been hoodwinked.

I think the tide is already turning but it will take years to undo the damage that's been done, and it will happen piece by piece rather than all at once. The key will be the disconnect between how the public feels about all this and how institutions have been told that we feel, or should feel. The more the media begins to tentatively cover the issues the stronger the public backlash will get and the harder it will be for institutions and corporations to continue with policies that the public mostly does not want.

Lots of elements of feminism may also need to be revisited, how we think about the body, culture

Definitely agree with this.

To be explored & discussed more fully........old shibboleths need to be re-visited - in the light of contemporary society.

I think there is a need to be less reluctance to state that men and women are, generally, different. Or that there are general differences between the sexes. It can seem that ' transgenderism' is almost the rather weird end-point of 'equality' arguments - and of stating that women are just the same as men.

Obviously the 'equality' arguments had a meaningful and practical purpose - in terms of individuals being able to live their lives and be free to express their full range of talents, skills and so on......

But with that also came the denial, repression and de-valuation of the more traditional female roles - those which have arisen as a result of biology and, thus, by extension, female social roles.

Equality can only get you so far in a liberal, pluralistic society.........but then difference also needs to be acknowledged.

less reluctant

Justhadathought

Yes, those ideas are really interesting to think about in light of the article in the thread about David Reimer. You can see how much of the development of feminism in that period was affected by what was then thought of as cutting edge knowledge about the differences between the sexes being socially created only. And then at the same time, coming out of that misconception, you get the concept of interior gender identity being solidified as something which we all just know which has been used to shore up theory about trangenderism.

I think there may need to be a realy full scale unpicking, but it won't happen until it can be done in some way that isn't ideologically constrained.

As someone at the coal face for about 3 years I cant say that I am hopeful that the tide ever will turn. There have been a deluge of scandals that I was sure would cause the house of cards to cascade down.

When Jess Bradley got suspended for flashing Jess Bradley's penis at work. When Aimee Challenors election agent dad was convicted of abusing a young girl at Green Party conventry HQ. I was sure the tide would turn. But what happened was that the media ignored it and the institutions involved hushed it up. Caroline Lucas even wrote an open letter about all the awful transphobia plaguing the party.

Since then I've seen scandal after scandal. While the media are reluctant to report I think that it's more than that. Its abuse bit the wrong type. It's not priests or the usual suspects. Its often those within the LGBTQI community. Most of society thinks this acronym just means gay and they like gay people and so this just sounds like some religious nut job calling all gays paedos. And that's how we are portrayed - never mind that most of those in this fight are LGB or, increasingly T. For example so much of the criticism of Drag Queen Story Time is framed as simple homophobia. That's how it looks to the uninformed.

What's more I feel like because people have become visible 'allies' they wont want to admit that they made a mistake. Who would want to admit they enabled such abuse of women and children's rights?

If you are hoping for society to wake up you will be waiting all day. What's more, I'm not sure i want that to happen - it will set back gay rights for years and years.

The best we can hope for is that institutions realise they are acting unlawfully and health care practitioners start to worry about being sued. This war started with policy capture and that's where it ends - when we take back control of key organisations.

I think we have to think about what "turning the tide" looks like. There is no chance that organisations and prominent individuals and companies that have wrapped things in pink and blue flags will issue statements regretting what they did. That won't happen.

The best we can hope for, I think (and which is probably starting to happen) is that fewer people buy into this. That councils stop publishing regressive schools guidance, that celebrities stop retweeting mermaids, that organisations quietly remove some of their batshit policies from their websites for "updating" and fail to repost them.

All this will be impossible to measure, but it's important and I think it will be happening now. It might be demoralising that the tide turning won't be more dramatic than this - but I think it's important and those changes will be victories in themselves.

Agree with @WhatWouldBarbaraCastleDo. The institutions that have rushed to throw women under the bus will never admit they were wrong. But we can create an environment that makes it safer for people in those organisations to speak up. It's much, much easier for someone in a council or school to be able to say, "There is a lot of public/parent opposition to this" when faced with a policy drafted by Mermaids than to have to say, "I personally don't agree with it".

We are already starting to turn the tide, because we are already making organisations in the UK pause. If it wasn't for GC feminists, the GRA would be history by now. There is an official review into GIDS. We mustn't forget our successes - and the children we have saved from lifelong harm - but our victories will be incremental ones.

You can see how much of the development of feminism in that period was affected by what was then thought of as cutting edge knowledge about the differences between the sexes being socially created only. And then at the same time, coming out of that misconception, you get the concept of interior gender identity being solidified as something which we all just know which has been used to shore up theory about transgenderism.I think there may need to be a really full scale unpicking, but it won't happen until it can be done in some way that isn't ideologically constrained

The idea that 'gender is a spectrum' is a weird kind of inversion of the fact that whilst having some essential differences, male and female people/human beings do exist along a spectrum of possibility, in terms of personal attributes and qualities. Whilst there are inherent sex based differences there is also a wide spectrum of possible expression within each sex.

I've never felt at all comfortable or convinced that all 'gendered expressions' are completely socially manufactured. It seems obvious to me that persona & individual expression is a mixture of nature and nurture.

In contemporary, liberal, individualistic societies individuals have been free to explore a wide range of expression and behaviour....and civil equality laws have enabled that regardless of one's sex, background, race, culture etc

In more conservative, traditional societies the roles of men and women are heavily prescribed, and shaped by assumptions based on biological sex alone. It is the social unit or the group that is more important than individualistic expression.

If you are hoping for society to wake up you will be waiting all day. What's more, I'm not sure i want that to happen - it will set back gay rights for years and years

I agree that thinking or expecting for people to "wake up" one day causing the whole 'thing' to collapse is wishful, magical thinking. That is not how it will happen. It will take time, and consequence, to play out. I do see this as an inevitability, though - certainly if as a planetary society we decide to move towards a more natural, earth based way of living; rather than towards some high tech, sci-fi, fantasy future in which technology is seen as God.

This present Covid crisis is highlighting both possibilities...which we we go only time will tell. My feeling is that unless we get back closer to nature and its essentials.......the planet and its eco-systems have had it.

My feeling is that unless we get back closer to nature and its essentials.......the planet and its eco-systems have had it

I see transgender ideology as arising from this particular time in contemporary western, liberal society.......but also out of a society in which scientific exploration and 'science fiction becoming fact' is king. The idea of virtual realities; technology driven, tailor made individual worlds; medical and surgical 'advances' ( or nightmares, depending on your view); 'Second Life'; gaming etc - all feed it.

In more conservative, traditional societies the roles of men and women are heavily prescribed, and shaped by assumptions based on biological sex alone.

That's not true. Traditional societies usually constrain women's rights for a host of reasons that have nothing to do with sex, even though sex may used as an excuse. Menstruation huts in Nepal, FGM, women denied the right to own property despite doing most of the work - sex may be the excuse, but the assumptions underlying these constraints (women are dirty/promiscuous/untrustworthy) have no basis in biology.

That's not true. Traditional societies usually constrain women's rights for a host of reasons that have nothing to do with sex, even though sex may used as an excuse

I'm not so much passing judgment on the sex based practices of different societies, more noting that they exist in the first place; and that in more 'traditional' societies all individuals are a lot more constrained in their permitted expressions.

...I also did say based on assumptions around biological sex. Different societies have different myths, different stories and different narratives.....but what they do have in common are sex based divisions.