How do you talk to teens about misogyny and trans issues?

[Walkingtheplank]

I've just been talking with my 13 year old daughter this evening and our conversation ended up being about trans issues - her saying we have to be kind, transwomen are women, NAMALT, accusing me of being one of those radical feminists - and me talking about gender stereotyping, how that damages us, and my concerns about the removal of single-sex spaces.

She clearly thinks I'm an awful bigot. How do you discuss this issue with your children?

DD asked me if JK Rowling was transphobic and it opened up quite a nice conversation. I tried my best to present both sides of the conversation and then moved on. I’m not massively worried about her, I think she’ll make up her own mind as she grows older.

Multi-pronged approach to add to others already mentioned..

Get her to read the book Invisible Women - or if it’s too big/long, have it knocking around and get her to read one of the articles or reviews that were out around the time it came out with some of the most interesting bits in an easy to read few pages.

• there’s a similar book coming out around now that’s just looking at how women are treated in medicine currently - effectively as smaller men with boobs and baby growing bits - but that actually thre are lots of differences where due to our differences that approach can actually be really harmful. Again there are articles around if the whole book would be too much. Get her to read them just for interest and nothing to do with the trans thing to get her riled up that if she has certain medical illnesses or events, she is likely to have worse outcomes / more pain / longer time suffering / etc than boys experiencing the same.
• leads nicely in to a conversation about it being important to note that these are differences - there’s currently lots in the news about BAME males are likely to have covid 19 badly and die from it. If the GPS were to send out a useful info letter to all the bame males in the practice, would she expect a transwoman who fitted the criteria originally to be similarly notified? Even if it hurt their feelings to getthe letter? And what about a few months down the line when the vaccine is ready- and as the surgery starts to get them in so can’t do everyone at once, they decide to prioritise those older bame males for the first batch. Should they send an invite out to the transwoman who complained about getting the initial letter? Is it kinder to ensure that their feelings aren’t hurt or that they are put at significant risk by not getting the vaccine?

• tell your dd that it’s great she is so accepting as it has given you the confidence to come out as a trans age individual and that you now identify as her age and won’t it be great as you’ve spoken to her school who have accepted you as a pupil in her class and that you’ll start back when she does. You can hang out and be besties, have so much fun together and it will be great as you’ll find all the classes much easier second time around so you can win all the prizes/get onto all the teams/etc. And that you’re still going to keep the best bits of being a mum so able to tell her what to do, but jettison the boring bits you don’t like so that means that now she needs to pick up the shortfall as you’re obviously just getting into this transage thing so she needs to do [all her least favourite jobs]. F she complains - just point out that she needs to be kind and that it’s transphobic not to be.

• get through all that and then say that [creepy older male you both know] is also transitioning but is double trans - so they are becoming female and younger so also going to be in same class and that they are especially looking forward to the sports and girly locker room antics. See if she is freaked out or thinks that you should be kind.

• get her to discuss trans race too and should people be kind? But look how people reacted to Rachel Dolezeal (Sorry can’t exactly remember her name) - how are the two different?

• dig out your old class photos and see how different everybody looks. Maybe look at class photos over different times to see when the switch happened to girls all having long hair. Discuss Princess Diana vs Kate and Megan - was Di any less of a woman for having short hair?

@Ursula2001

Haven't read the whole thread but it sounds like your question isn't 'how to speak to' but rather 'how to convert' your daughter. I don't mean this nastily as it's natural to want to 'correct' people who we're absolutely convinced are wrong.

You don't need advice on how to talk to her. You've already talked and she disagreed.

It actually is about getting appropriate information to what is still a child that encompasses a very wide ranging issue so they can make their mind up. Letting people who have strong ideological views inform them without presenting a scientifically and where possible statistically proven basis so that they can better understand. It’d be like letting them find out from pornhub what sex is about.

And of course they disagree.

Why the fuck would a 13 year old actually understand the wider ramifications of adopting such a ‘kind’ acceptance? They have not yet sat job interviews and mine thinks it will be all hunky dory easy. She knows no one who has been sexually abused because we haven’t yet discussed individual cases with her and none of her school friends discuss it. She doesn’t care about women’s sport because she doesn’t care that some women actually do care about being able to compete fairly and safety. She doesn’t yet understand that just because she is taller than mum, she is not going to be able to fight off a male.

As has ‘also been pointed out in this thread’, if you have been able to successfully discuss the issue in an age appropriate way to an early teen (and not just agree with the ideology) please share. Oh and I mean, not in the way like the lobbyist education packs that ask 11 year old to define extreme pornography (like that is just an everyday occurrence)

If you have just come to shame the transphobes, may I suggest twitter. There are much better options there and it won’t be moderated.

Forward her all the facts about how many women are in prison for violence/sexual assault compared to men, how many women are murdered by men each week compared to men murdered by women and so on. Text her links to facts

Also talk to school and ask why the stonewall information has been presented to your child in such a shallow fashion with no consideration for women’s safeguarding. Are they aware stonewall is a political lobby group centreing on trans issues and are considered to be sexist and homophobic.

@Ursula2001

I totally agree.

It's more a "I'll keep speaking to my daughter until she sees my point of view" rather than discussing/debating etc and understanding that someone can disagree

It's an emotive subject, there is no right or wrong, it is simply that people have different preferences as to what they want and what they deem acceptable

I dont see that at all 2007

The op only made three posts and in none of them did she infer or imply that she was ‘trying to keep talking until she sees my point of view‘

I have discussions with my children on a range of subjects and sometimes we don’t agree...and sometimes the more we discuss the more we understand about each other

And you don’t just talk about these subjects once...they evolve

And I’m aware that other posters have made similar comments to 2007

2007, what do you mean “There is no right or wrong”?
It is right that humans (like all mammals) are either male or female.

It is wrong to claim sex is a spectrum.
Humans cannot change sex.
It is wrong to claim they can.
It is a fact that males commit violent and sexual crimes against women. Transwomen retain the same statistical level of violence as all other men.
It is wrong to claim it’s safe to allow any man claiming a trans identity into women’s sex separated spaces.
HTH.

@Babdoc

And it is perfectly fine, ok and right for you to have those opinions and feel that way.

But others don't have to agree.

Science, facts and what is right and wrong change constantly.

I started talking about this to my daughters earlier than 13 which is no doubt easier. I started with sex stereotypes which they understood easily and personally. Since so much of the trans ideology is based on stereotypes ( every story about a boy becoming a girl is full of them) this is a way of opening their eyes. As they got older we talked about the suffragettes and the fight for women’s rights. The more they believed in their own rights the more aware they were of others trying to remove them.

Now at 13 they need to have the words to push back on the messages they get from their friends so I emphasise ‘you can’t change sex’ and ‘what about my rights’ . I also make sure that the language I use at home reminds them of reality, ‘men who believe they are women’, ‘girls who believe they are boys’.
I suspect that reading Laura Bates Everyday Sexism might also contribute to the critical thinking process but I haven’t gone there yet.

Perhaps I have been trying to bring them to my way of thinking but the clear reason for this is that I want to protect them from the risk of the harmful messages that they will get from elsewhere. I never want to see them persuaded that they are really boys because they are science loving girls. For every positive message they get at home they face 10 negative ones from outside. I am just redressing the balance.

But all those things are evidenced 2007, and the contrary views are not. It's perfectly fine for a parent to point that out to a 13 year old.

@Ereshkigalangcleg

Absolutely fine for it to be pointed out, I encourage healthy communication and debate.

However, I think some posters do verge on the boundary of forcibly wanting their child to see their view and no others because they believe their view is the only right/superior one etc

2007Millie
Which of Babdoc's statements do you think are 'opinions' rather than facts?

I must also ask what is emotive about encouraging a teen to think critically about an ‘emotive’ topic and understand what is fact and proven to be incorrect and what is just acceptance.

It really is not emotive to correct a perception that people can biologically change sex. And it is important to get sex and gender correct. For example, as someone who is now started their studies for GCSE I had my daughter come home and tell me that aids, the gay community and the 1980s. When I asked what gay meant to her, she told me that it was any person identifying as a man having sex with another person identifying as a man. I then had to explain to her that HIV was especially dangerous for that community at the time as anal sex with a penis was a factor of its spread. And that it was having penis in anus sex of which gay males were the group most known to engage in the 80s ie, not transmen having PIV sex with a male or two transmen having sex or male having a blowjob - that there was risk but anal sex is still the riskiest type of sex.

After this she understood that people cannot in any biological way become the other sex. I also explained to her about Differences in sexual development and how it also cannot be used to say sex is on any spectrum. How you identify your gender can.

This is but one incidence I have had to discuss with her this past year. Because she is applying the current unproven and statistically incorrect feelings she is learning about from peers and unproven guidance to her studies.

So please tell me what is emotive about teaching critical thinking that means that when she sees facts using sex and gender terms, she should look further to make sure she gets the accurate information.

Maybe that's why I don't understand the arguments about young children having to see penises, it doesn't have to be something that is mentally scarring if the parents don't act like it is, it's not going to corrupt them, I think that the shame and hiding of naked bodies does more harm in the long run.

The issue (which you are terming 'argument') is that girl children should not have to see naked male bodies in female single sex spaces. Also that girls (& women) should not have to be seen by men (human males) whilst undressing in female single sex spaces.

These are matters of consent.

It is parents who are objecting because they are seeking to Safeguard their daughters (as is their responsibility).

Denying the importance of consent & Safeguarding always causes great harm.

It doesn't matter what the parent thinks about trans ideology if they encourage a child to think about it critically and come to their own conclusion using the evidence available.

Perhaps all young girls should be reminded that the ‘be kind’ message has been used to surpress the rightful feeling of girls for centuries. Usually used by older women to remind girls that their rightful place is behind their brothers and husbands. The resurgence of ‘be kind’ should make us all angry.

However, I think some posters do verge on the boundary of forcibly wanting their child to see their view and no others because they believe their view is the only right/superior one etc

Who?

I’d check but I’ve already checked the OPs posts and she didn’t seem to be doing what you say she is doing

It does make me angry. "Shut up and put other people's feelings above your own"

Science, facts and what is right and wrong change constantly.

Well yes, what is considered ‘right and wrong’ sometimes does change as society develops. It can shape how you perceive And interpret facts and science but it does not change them. I am very keen to see the documented and peer reviewed evidence that the premise of biological sex is on a spectrum is untrue. And without being DSDs into the study. I read the articles put forward by activists and cannot find one that has been able to be repeated to produce the same results over a much larger population. I also find that they have been done to ‘confirm’ a hypothesis. I haven’t come across one that is robustly peer reviewed. I did come across a proposal for a study that was withdrawn because the uni felt it would be a PR issue as it may have proven theories wrong.

@RufustheLanglovingreindeer

Not specifically the OP, but others who have said they are trying to bring their children around to their way of thinking.

Sorry. That sex is on a spectrum ‘is true’.