JK Rowling row hints at generational rift on transgender rights - The Guardian

[Rubidium]

An interesting and thought-provoking article on transgender issues in The Grauniad! I wish there had been a bit more depth, but its a start.

www.theguardian.com/society/2020/jun/12/jk-rowling-row-hints-at-generational-rift-on-transgender-rights

What stood out for me:
From Lucy Hunter Blackburn: “This debate has become an excuse to parade some pretty ugly attitudes about the right of women over a certain age to have a public voice, and the value of older women’s political views.”

Today’s young adults are the middle-aged of tomorrow. It won’t be too long before generationZ/alpha regard millennials as middle aged has-beens who should just shut up, and that will be a fascinating thing to watch unfold. (I type as a member of Generation X.)

From Finn Mackay: “Also, we know that plenty of young people too have questions about sex and gender, and about including trans women in women-only spaces or not”

I always think of the 13-year-old who took Oxfordshire County Council to court for denying her sex-segregated changing facilities, the female detransitioners, the teenage girls dehydrating themselves because the only toilets in their schools are unisex and no doubt other examples of young women and girls getting a raw deal as a result of trans ideology and I hope they either become or continue to be angry about how harmful this ideology is, and fight back against the millennials who promulgate it.

Is that the article that makes the bonkers claim that the GC position doesn't distinguish sex from gender ?

I think it’s just that younger people simply don’t have as much lived experience as older people.

For example, when I was in my teens/early 20s, I didn’t see why feminism was still a thing; women had equal rights. But then I hit my 30s, and my life experiences clocked up rapes, an abusive marriage, the family court system, overt sexism at work, maternity issues, gynaecological issues, and care/worry for my own children. I realised that I had been duped and that we absolutely did not have equality.

In addition, a lot of teens have a need for acceptance by their peers, and a need to fit in, a need to find a group that they belong to. They’ll just accept whatever ideology is current in order to join in, while lacking the life experience and critical thinking skills to understand what they’re actually doing/saying.

But there is an undertone of ageism to it all too. As there always has been for women, for everything.

I am 28 and GC. I actually feel fairly invisible becaus most of my friends don't feel as i do. I was grateful to see so many comments on The Guardian Facebook post of people seeing 'no I am 20 something and I feel this way!'

I have seen comments on Twitter saying the older generation is so ignorant and I'm like these are the women who have fought for all sorts of rights which you now enjoy. How dare they!

Maria...so glad someone noticed that each stage has been fought with so many women doing as much as they can

each stage has been fought with so many women doing as much as they can

Exactly. I get particularly annoyed with the criticism of gay men and lesbians who are now in their 50s and 60s, who back in the 1980s fought against worse societal acceptance of homosexuality than is the case today, e.g. Section 28 and (in the case of gay men) the absolute horror of AIDS. They're a few years older than me but I'm old enough to remember those days.

Just found this old clip on YouTube of that time the BBC 6 O'Clock News was invaded by lesbians in 1988 in protest at Section 28:

I think the life experience matters, but also when women get out into a male dominated workplace. The women I know like me who work in male dominated industries are all, without exception, GC and at younger ages.

The women my age or older that I know are not GC overwhelmingly work in industries which are more evenly balanced or are majority women, like teaching, fashion, academia, publishing, public sector orgs, charities or the arts. (I'm not saying everyone in these jobs, I'm thinking of particular women I know who work in each of these jobs).

My theory is that when you're around a lot of other women these issues are erased or diluted - you don't see on an hourly basis how men around you are getting ahead thanks to their male privilege. You might see it occasionally but it doesn't feel like such a huge thing because women are not rare. Whereas when Pips Bunce gets an award in finance in an area where women are so unrepresented that an award for them even has to be set up, it feels like a triple kick in the teeth.

This article is in line with one in the Telegraph and elsewhere.

I think MSM thought they were going with the tide by promoting celebs mansplaining as a way of dismissing JKR.

When they found that quite a few people actually supported her, and the reality that she was writing from, they all rushed off to find another agreed position from which to attack her (and those who support her).

ie the tired old explanation that only women of a certain age think like this.

which of course is the guardian's editorial stance on feminism. The only thing that matters is the so called feminism of young things who have been groomed at college to swallow the queer politics of choice.

The generational element always changes back and forth.

My daughters are of the next generation - similar age to the wonderful 13yr old bringing the judicial review re the CPS.

They will never forgive the wokerati for trying to remove their rights to name and define themselves, the safety, privacy and dignity of single sex spaces and the equality of opportunity in sports/awards etc.

I'm in my mid-30s and I'm gender critical.
Tbh, I think motherhood can be a determining factor.
There's nothing like pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding to make you keenly aware of what it actually means to be female!
Having been through that, I feel very strongly about the whole issue.
Perhaps for women who haven't had children or keenly felt the disadvantage of their biology in another way (eg rape and sexual abuse), it's all rather theoretical and doesn't feel so threatening to them?

(I don't mean to dismiss the experiences and opinions of women who are not mothers, btw - just saying that personally the experience of motherhood has been profound and has radicalised me.)

I’m in my mid 20s and gender critical/realist.
Older people blame millennials for everything, and now the younger generations will too!

I'm 31 and gender critical. My friends are the same age and have the same views too.
As a poster upthread said, generations of women are the reason we have the rights we have today.

@CustardCreamTeaDunker

I’m in my mid 20s and gender critical/realist. Older people blame millennials for everything, and now the younger generations will too!

No we don't.

Most people don't 'blame' whole generations for anything

Don't blame 'older people' and we won't 'blame' millenials.

Calling out individuals who seem to think everyone of any specific age or generation is a different matter however.

Hey, us millennial are in our 30s now. We're a bit more divided. It's the genz who can't hear anything else.

I am (now) gc and my 16 year old daughter agrees with me when we discuss this issue although she is of the " but just be kind" pov. But she understands the gc arguments clearly.
I think her generation will swing back against woke ness.

Another generalisation, sorry. 😳

But they're more likely to be overly supportive of trans rights.

There are lots of students in universities who are gender critical.

That article is ridiculous.

Elena Soper, national programmes coordinator for YWCA Scotland and in her late 20s, said her generation “are definitely more relaxed about transgender rights”. “Perhaps it’s because we’re the first generation able to get instant information online, and so much work being done debunking anti-trans arguments that we’re less likely to take things at face value. Growing up, we’ve also been more exposed to trans people, so it’s not a strange thing to us. We knew people at school or university who were trans, and there’s just a lot more acceptance.”

Portraying older women as dinosaurs who don't know how to find information online, and suggesting that we're more likely to 'take things at face value'. When in fact it's the younger people who appear to have no critical thinking skills, and some of us have been using the internet since before she started school.

What are the woke youth of today going to do when they get older and have children of their own? What are they going to do when their teenager gets into an argument with them and shouts "I don't care what you think! Biological sex is real! TWANW!" and stomps off.... What happens next? 😆

ThinEnd your daughters sound marvellous.

I'm looking forward to a day when those who are now in their mid to late thirties, who perhaps still think of themselves as rebellious youth (think Grace Petrie/ Owen Jones/ Josie Long), are derided by your daughters and their contemporaries as mad old has-beens who really believed that transwomen were women.

You're looking forward to women deriding other women?! OK

Hahahaha honestly that woman from YWCA - bless ageing is going to be such a shock to her 😆😆

Nonny

Rubidium Those people are already considered 'hideously old' by today tweens and teens.

The likes of the Harry Potter actors denouncing JKR are 30+ and a few short years off middle age.
Their ideas are already aging badly.

I dont agree with the articles saying its about one generation against another. I think they have done a lot of harm on a number of issues making it a generation difference rather than people having thought out views.

My comment was more about how the MSM is just latching on to anything they can to discredit JKR.