Do you talk about this at home?

[JoodyBlue]

Just wondering whether posters discuss the issues around gender id at home? The philosophy is making its way into many (even most) workplaces and educational establishments at present, so DCs and OHs are also dealing with it. The concerns can become consuming. I have to say I struggle with how much time and energy it takes to keep up with the arguments and with being a mum to other people dealing with it. Any advice? How do others find it? I noted a thread from a poster this morning having a disagreement with OH about right to request a female HCP.

Dh was neutral "oh it's all nonsense" until I showed him what is happening in sports. That changed his perspective, and also opened his mind to understanding that women's experiences of the world differ from men's. For example why we feel uneasy walking home after dark, that expectations about our behaviour are imposed on us for no rational reason, that women do more than 'just pee' in toilets. While he is entirely gender critical, I'm not sure he understands just how captured our institutions are.

I can talk with him about it.

My sons completely understand that claiming you can change sex, or are a different sex, or are no sex at all, is nonsense - but I would not class them as gender critical. They aren't convinced that sex is not a spectrum. They are still stuck in the view that you can do or be anything you want as long as you don't harm others - and as it doesn't harm them they don't yet understand that it is harmful to society. They have no desire to upset their trans-identifying friends. One is also at uni, where he does not want to be involved (censured!) in this political stance.

I can touch on the subject with them.

My daughters - woke and hurting. The cognitive dissonance is tearing them apart. They understand that women are oppressed due to their biology. They understand that femininity and masculinity are merely stereotypes. Yet they are also full-on TWAW etc.

I cannot even approach the subject with them.

To make things worse, my family members all have strong autistic traits (some are diagnosed with ASD). I am convinced that our dds' confusion is because of their awareness that they don't fit comfortably in society, and social media and social infection has put this idea in their heads that the reason they don't fit may be that they are trans.

Yes - I speak about it all the time and have introduced DH into what is happening at the Tavistock, what is happening to the language or womanhood and the abuse women receive for stating woman=adult human female.

I also discuss the freedom of speech aspect of it.

Part of the problem is the utter lunacy of the whole issue that at first he didn’t believe me. I.e:

I tell him they put rapists who ‘ID’ as women into women’s jails - and he would say - of course not- no one is that stupid to do that.

Mermaids are/were allowed to go into schools and say that if a girl likes ‘boys’ activities, she is a boy and ‘born in the wrong body’- and he would say - of course not - no teacher would allow that in their school.

But of course people ARE that stupid and do allow these things.

It has taken a long time of mentioning it, but he is coming round to understand the issues.

It needs to be discussed the home. I also discuss it with my DHs - secondary school age.

Pre warned is pre armed!

Yes I do.

My DC no longer call me a bigot. We agree on most points.

I am keeping more quiet on the topic for now as I my DC are suffering due to lockdown and other pressures and the youngest has asked that we try to talk more about happy things not gender identity, climate crisis, pandemic or racism. She brings things up when she wants to such as finding a book promoting trans ideology to children being recommended to her on the library app or something coming up on the iPlayer recommendations. Then she is clear when the conversation is over.

DP finds the topic disturbing and doesn’t tolerate much discussion of it.

Oldest hasn’t asked not to discuss it but I am more aware of mental health and thinking of cheerful or neutral things to talk about instead due to what youngest has said.

It has been a hard Winter of doing school at home and not seeing friends for all children I imagine and takes a toll on state of mind.

Oldest brought up a few days ago how friends in a group video call were all dissing Joanne Rowling and how uncomfortable it felt but just kept quiet. Only one friend in the chat knew that DC is secretly GC and kept it quiet. Phew!

When I first became interested in this new religion I thought my family ought to know about it too. So I told them. At first they were surprised that someone like me who is very vocal about gay rights, racism, sexism etc could be such a huge bigot on this one subject.

One by one they have all slowly realised for themselves (with a little help from me) how dangerous and non-sensical this whole business is.

What Uppity describes above is familiar to me too xx

DS is 13 and has a transgender friend, who he calls by his female name. DS cannot answer whether he thinks his friend is now a girl in the same way that his sister is. He just can't because the cognitive dissonance in his brain would implode. Ironically his hair is longer than his friend's, as his friend hasn't changed his appearance at all.

Yes - DH thinks it’s nonsense and as someone involved in grass roots & National sport is very concerned about how to manage the potential for TW turning up in ladies teams. He now raises it with me especially when it comes up at work e.g. when they were asked to put pronouns in their emails. As it’s a predominantly male workforce they nearly all ignored it but he says most of the women do it 🤦🏻‍♀️

My mum & sisters all fully GC too

Yes, my 20 something is now GC and an active feminist.

My two teenage sons and husband all think trans ideology is a lot of nonsense but they don’t do anything about it, presumably as it doesn’t affect them.

Of course my sons couldn’t speak out about their views on school as they would be punished by teachers. Trans ideology is the unofficial religion in our local authority .

A bit ...

My DH agrees with me that that it's nonsense, but doesn't really understand why I care so much. Slightly more receptive after seeing the "Men, we are with you" slogan about prostate cancer and realising that only women are expected to accommodate the gender woo.

My mum and stepdad don't really want to know, because they want to believe that being kind makes all the problems go away. I think my stepdad would see my my point if we really talked about it a lot, but my mum finds it really stressful to talk about, because she doesn't really like thinking badly about people and is already anxious that her normally liberal daughter seems to have suddenly become a bigot.

My grandma, OTOH, agrees that it is total nonsense and gets why it is a big deal.

Now and then. DH was a fan of EI and Frankie Boil but not so much now with the gender woowoo they spout. He also gets the sports thing and sympathizes with the untenable and abusive situations transwidows are in.

The adult kids we have are 20 (f) and 24 (m), one with Asperger's and the other shows traits but was never diagnosed, and has been told she has borderline personality disorder. They've been hit and miss with stuff I bring up with them. It's important to approach it with the primary angle being the risks and disadvantages to women. Although DD likes to show me the occasional "It's Ma'am!!" meme.

My OH had a good old rant a while ago about the trans fixated official lgbt+ representative at the large blue-chip company he was then contracting for, as he thought she was using it as an excuse to get around having to do any of the work she was actually employed to do, and how the two openly gay guys on his team avoided her like the plague. He had another good rant when they changed to mixed toilets, stating it had been a very detrimental move for everyone in his dept, created a lot of awkwardness, especially for the women, was very unpopular but no one dared say anything, and only done to please said representative and the single transwoman in their workforce of over 1500.

So I’m very aware his opinions on the matter... 😂

Forgot to add, my mum is a fiercely GC oldskool feminist, to the point of saying she considered any erosion of women’s rights to favour male bodied people ‘Absolutely evil’. 🤷‍♀️

Thanks everyone. I am aware some days that my family just want mum back from having turned into Mrs Angry :) It is that balance of activism for things important, and then the focus on the immediate people you love. I tipped fully into the former role last 10 days, I think mainly due to the AIBU threads and a feeling that it was important to post and try to raise awareness of the issues. Perhaps need to take a step back for a bit to restore the balance. I am in total and complete awe of the women and men who focus on this every day. And grateful to them.

DP fully on board with me and he has a lot of knowledge around identity politics so we talk about it a fair bit. My pre-teen DS says he can’t be a feminist as he’s a boy but he fully supports our rights and thinks boys in girls’ toilets and changing rooms and men in women’s prisons etc is totally wrong. We talked about why there are girls/women’s teams and boys/men’s teams in sport the other day. I never bring it up with him, he is the one who raises the questions or gives me his viewpoint.

My mum agrees with me on an instinctive level but my brother thinks it’s nothing to do with him and thinks I’m barmy.

I think I misrepresented myself there - what I mean really is rest and regroup, not step back. But it is tiring being this cross all the time.

Yes, we do and quite extensively at times.

We all agree on biological sex being different from gender.
That those who shout loudest want to be treated the 'same' whilst wanting to also be recognised as being 'different' by their label.
That the root of the massive issues we're debating currently is male violence and therefore women shouldn't be silenced.
That there's a huge difference between being transphobic and standing up for women's (long fought for) rights.

Our discussions can get heated but never descend into a slanging match. We will put forward ideas and concepts even if we don't agree with them to further the discussion.

One aspect of growing up as a woman is the constant undercurrent of threat of male violence and, specifically, rape. And, having spoken to a few females in my social group they all agree that whilst for the majority of the time rape isn't on y radar as soon as there's a (perceived) sense of threat from a male that's where the thinking goes. DH was horrified by this being a constant rather than just an immediate danger response. And helped him understand the need for women to have safe places to go beyond what he already knew and believed.

Yes, I do.

My partner took a while to get it, but it dawned on him at some point just why I was so concerned. He now talks about it, too.

All other family members also on the side of women. (I have a large family). Most people are, it's just that quite a lot aren't completely aware of the issues and ramifications. They're getting there, though.

My partner is anti TRA and despises any identity politics. We talk about this sort of thing often. One of the reasons we fell in love was our similar politics and worldview.

DH only really changed his tune after he read what he thought was a balanced editorial piece in the Guardian on JK Rowling and saw how it was torn to shreds online. He still ties himself up in knots trying to be "kind" though.

Yes I think the "be kind" mantra has been so clever. I struggle too with friends' reaction if I post online. There are the private "thank you for posting, because I can't for xyz reason" responses. There are the rebuking counter postings of articles from p* news. There are the friends who consider you the "GC expert" and that becomes one reputation. Most of all is the deafening radio silence from the majority then 100 odd appreciative likes if I post a cat video. It is a strange strange thing. I feel I have a newer insight into how people let bad things happen without complaint -- they pretend they didn't know. I find that hard to come to terms with.

I feel I have a newer insight into how people let bad things happen without complaint -- they pretend they didn't know.

History is full of how horribly wrong that goes.

We talk about how everyone is different and why its important to respect each other. Why prejudice is wrong and why it should be challenged and the importance of equality.

We also talk about how there are crazy arguments on the internet where people lose the ability to do that and how both sides are pretty extreme and how sad that is.

I bring it up regularly. My adult sons and husband all think it's nonsense but struggle to see why I care so much. For them it's pretty abstract. They also see some sixth form loos being labelled gender neutral, and don't see an issue as there are other loos.

They aren't familiar with the need to safeguard against the occasional bad actor, and are more inclined to ignore it unless it becomes an issue.

They don't get the urgency of the principle behind it which is that if we don't resist it, safeguards against women's sex based oppression will be completely eroded. They don't really see women's sex based oppression, either.

@CranberriesChoccyAgain yes it is. It is quite chilling. I think the establishment capture is one of the reasons. The BBC mainly. The Guardian. Almost ALL political parties.

Yes. DH used to roll his eyes until about a year ago. Since then, he has started to have to deal with students shrieking at him about their pronouns, a colleague trying to insist that TERFs are banned from taking their module, and attempts to no-platform a feminist speaker at his workplace. He says that retirement can’t come quickly enough. He finds these people scary, irrational and aggressive.