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.

[quote Panicmode1]@JoodyBlue We have actually had a very civilised exchange of emails and agreed to just 'take a break'. I'm choosing not to go back on her most recent essay and challenge some of the things she's said to me - because I know that she is struggling with how the world will accept her child, and that we won't agree or change each other's minds.

(I didn't really know how to word that bit - they are really a young adult now (over 18 and at uni) but haven't had any surgical or hormonal interventions, but living as the opposite sex.)[/quote]
It must be so hard mustn't it? I listened to a lovely podcast where Kelly Jones of Stereophonics talked with Fearne Cotton about his daughter's transition (social). He was very clear that what is the MOST important thing is the parent/child bond which takes priority over anything else. I agree, and it is how I would approach the situation if it happened in my family. Of course. That said, I think simple affirmation might not be what is always required. I still think kids ask for boundaries in their late teens. I know I did. But it is such a difficult cultural time for us all. Your friend sounds like a good parent. You sound like a good friend.

@Sacreblue I was invited by a FB friend (woman my age - old! :) ) to an online discussion group around these sorts of issues, and in order to participate made a FB connection with someone I don't know well. It was Brighton based. This person posted something about transphobia and I entered an online discussion.

It felt as if I came under immediate attack. But the attack was aimed at women, their place in society, the notion that women abuse men, that ideas have to change. There was one person in particular who kept saying he had huge empathy for people resisting change, because change was hard, but the world HAD TO change and that people stuck in the past had to accept it and move forward.

The person kept referring to the terrorism of the Suffragette movement. It was my first ever encounter with MRAs. I reckon these guys are 30s. They are massively into physical fitness. Absolutely no clue of how frightening all of the above would be to women. The TRA agenda I think may well go hand in hand with MRA agenda. I blocked and left.

It is pretty scary stuff! As a mum to boys too I will keep an eye on this.

Yes i do, weekly at least.

My DH finally got it and announced "so basically the issue is it reenforces male privilege because there will be the mens room which is male only space but also female space will become mens space too. So men can go everywhere and women can only go to one space which is going to be unisex whether they want it or not. That's not great"

Yes. My DH is on board and agrees with the GC stance. He’s not militant about but he’s increasingly aware and will bring up examples of things he feels are wrong. At work their boss made a big song and dance about ‘exciting news’ - one of his colleagues had ‘come out as non binary and transgender’ and ‘had new pronouns’. He was annoyed enough to have a private chat with a colleague about this and (as senior managers) to agree to keep an eye out that there’s no progression beyond the ‘excitement’ that might affect any sex based rights.

My sons are already aware that women have biological differences to men - only women can have periods etc, and that they should feel free to like pink/ do cross stitch etc and girls in their class might well like to play football etc - these are all stereotypes. But that you can’t change sex. (They are primary school age but I’ve had age appropriate discussions at relevant moments).

My brother is highly GC - works in academia and so has started coming up against the pronouns etc for a while. It pisses him off and he bought me Abigail Shrier’s Irreversible Damage for Christmas!

My mum and sister are on board but less militant than I am. My dad ‘knows he agrees with J K Rowling’ but that’s about it.

My DH is left of center politics - actively supported gay marriage rights but believes gender stuff is nonsense. He didn't even climb a mountain to get there. He's fully aware of sex differences and when woke DD tries to explain the new groupthink he just laughs out loud. But that's what frustrates me...DD just sees him as her old dad who doesn't get it but she's mad at me whenever I can't summon the fucks to use ever changing pronouns of her friend group when it's just her and I chatting.

But, I do it for one child who I love dearly and whose pronoun changes went hand in hand with very debilitating mental health...he has asked that we do it and while I won't around his parents (who appreciate our safe space to discuss his health and who are my closest friends), I do it in front of DD and use his new name as he asked me, but I was honest with him and told him I worried for his health. The tragedy of watching a loved one struggle with dysmorphia and other mental health is gut wrenching. There's a social contagion that seems to hurt vulnerable young people who don't fit restrictive molds so beautiful boys and girls who should be celebrated for their unique personalities and gifts instead are being led into a regressive ideology that reinforces their differences, rather than integrates them as normal behavior for boys or girls. Thankfully his parents realized this early on and refused puberty blockers or hormones but just treated all mental health as best they could. I truly fear for his future as I believe college will isolate him further from reality-OR he grows up and looks back in gratitude to his parents. Sorry for the long post but I came to MN originally because of this loved one.

@Delphinium20 don't apololgise. This sort of painful story is why many of us are here isn't it?

But that's what frustrates me...DD just sees him as her old dad who doesn't get it but she's mad at me whenever I can't summon the fucks to use ever changing pronouns of her friend group when it's just her and I chatting

@Delphinium20

I think that speaks to our collective socialization, that we are less likely to challenge males. And that it's more acceptable to and easier to berate women. That's not at all to say you've taught that. Kids pick up social cues from many sources. ❤️

I find myself so ineloquent when I try to talk about it. I’m reading lots and trying to learn but I struggle to get my points across.

We don’t talk often around the subject but when things are in the news - like WWF person who announced this week that they are now a trans woman. My husband is very sensible generally but only really says “it’s tricky isn’t it” - no it’s bloody not

Yes I have in the very recent past but I now wish I hadn't as it's formed the backstory for why they have expressed this in their mid-late teens and not sooner.

@Eowynthewarrior

I find the urban middle classes so much more woke than working class people. Working class people see the reality of sending daughters to schools with mixed loos and female relations having to accept mixed sex NhS wards or carers. The middle class can pay for a private room, select an eldercare worker themselves and if they end up in a domestic violence situation are far less likely to need a refuge as there’s enough money to get a place of their own, get effective injunctions or get support for alternative accommodation from wealthy friends. Working class women don’t have these choices. Working class dads know the realities for their daughters

This ^^

Prison isn’t an abstract concept for some of us. I know a number of men including relatives who are still or who have been in prison. I wouldn’t want to be in the same prison as any of them.I only know of one woman who has been been in prison which given the proportions of women to men in prison is not too surprising (I knew her mother slightly never met the daughter in person)
And I just remembered a female relative who has been in prison.

@CranberriesChoccyAgain - I think perhaps it is mums. My DSs have different relationship with me than their dad. There is more talk and more peership perhaps. I can see easily how this happens.

@Buzzinwithbez

Yes I have in the very recent past but I now wish I hadn't as it's formed the backstory for why they have expressed this in their mid-late teens and not sooner.

So sorry to hear that :(

Yes, endlessly. DP gets sick of me going on about it, but he does agree with me. When we lived apart and had different MPs, he was happy to send his MP the letters I drafted and he even had a phone call with his MP about the GRA. Dd is onyl 7 but so far she knows that behaviour has nothing to do whether your a boy or a girl; she knows she's a girl because she has eggs in her tummy so that's a good start!

Ive spoken about it with my DP and DC, they get it but care less than me. I’ve discussed it with some female relatives, all female relatives I’ve discussed it with agree although one leans slightly towards ‘be kind’ as she once knew a TW she liked whilst acknowledging the problem. Two young male relatives are TWAW, both are misogynistic arses - probably a coincidence

Thanks @JoodyBlue

Yes. Our daughters pick up on all kinds of socialization despite our best efforts, don't they? I think DD has 'higher expectations' for mom to 'be kind' (yes, sexism as we are the caregivers), though she does agree with me on generalized misogyny because she experiences that in so many ways...she hasn't yet connected gender ideology w/ sexism...it's like a waiting game for them to get it, isn't it? At least DD believes in biology...she just sees this as a civil rights issue and imagines all TW to be like her gentle, shy, probably gay, male friend who has dysphoria.

I have spoken to DD (12) about this - she identifies as queer, has a girlfriends, but obviously nothing physical has happened with them as this was all since lockdown.

Several mates identify as gay and a few non-binary, and I can tell there is a possibility she will want to identify as NB too, at the moment she says maybe she is 'gender fluid' due to wanting to express herself differently on different dats, but I have spoken frankly with her that I think a lot of young people are identifying as NB as way of saying that they dislike gender stereotypes, rather than a profound sense they are of neither gender - which is what I think it should mean really, and may apply to a small number of people. I have expressed to her, while she still has some respect for my opinion, that if she wishes to make a statement about gender stereotypes, it is far more powerful statement to say 'I am a woman/man, but I don't have to be like this or that in order to be so'. I find myself in agreement with the view I have heard that the way kids are using 'non-binary' is essentially rather self-indulgent, in the sense that it just excludes them from 'the rules' rather than actually challenging gender norms.

Discuss when it comes up - me and MrsPan ( I am male) are on the same page. I've mentioned here that I am subject to work formal procedures for tweeting TWANW. The reach and consequence of the ideology was brought home.
Dd is a trainee nurse and is GC.

We are regretting the SNP position and treatment of JC. Damn.

We are regretting the SNP position and treatment of JC. Damn

Same here, I’m now politically homeless.

Hi - yes, we talk about it. At first I think it all came from me, but for quite some time my DH has also - independently - been hit with this nonsense, through his own social media and more recently through an attempted pronouns policy at his work (it failed - ha ha!!).

He was on a social zoom call with his old uni friends last night - five of them - men in their forties/fifties. One is living in Trinidad (like you do) and is completely clueless about the whole thing - but hey, I doubt trans rights is much of a thing there. The other four, discuss it every time they meet. They all think it's complete bs and really enjoy sharing the latest gender identity absurdities they've encountered.

Having said that - I feel like you OP. Just so angry and aggravated by the whole thing. It definitely affects me in a different way.

My teen kids think the whole thing is crazy too. They know humans can't change sex and have embraced their changing bodies very happily. They talk about various elements of gender ideology quite often, and never with agreement. They don't feel quite the anger I do - but that's probably a good thing!

Yes. DH completely agrees with me but is fed up of my 'banging on about it'. We watched the South Park 'Strongwoman' episode the other day and were both in fits of laughter - I was explaining some of the references and he got the serious side, especially when the news broke about 'Gabbi Tuft' the next day.
He works as a techy but in a particularly 'woke' industry and he and his team came out of their diversity training feeling that they must all be terrible people on account of their white, male heterosexuality, even though they're all lovely and decent.
DD14 is GC and thankfully has inherited her mother's cynical streak. She absolutely loves playing rugby and is missing it terribly at the moment. Is currently at a big multinational state school in another country for a year, maybe more. Fortunately they don't have any form of SRE there. She hangs out in a big mixed sex group and counts a lesbian girl (who is, admittedly troubled) and a gay lad among her closest friends. It really is no big deal to them.
We discuss things a lot and I don't hold back on the harms being done to kids by this ideology. She tells me that a group of her friends have suddenly started cutting themselves and we've had some good chats about social contagion. We talk about things quite openly, including how porn soaked and grim some of the boys in her class are and issues around consent and relationships.
My younger DD absolutely loves playing football and hasn't had any thoughts about whether the sport is for boys or girls as far as I know. She and her younger brother know how babies are made and that there are only two sexes and that's about as much as is required for now. I'm keeping a close eye on the school's policies though.

I rant about it lots. DH is also GC. His entry point and tipping point was child welfare.

I talk about it a lot too. My eldest DS is at uni doing a science subject and still believes in lady brain and man brain. He says TWAW. But he doesn’t think this is right in sports, or prison cells.
And as he admits, he’s not overly fussed because it doesn’t affect him personally.

Middle DS is firmly GC and openly guffaws at his older brother . He is 6th form , but knows not to express his views as openly at college.

Primary school DD is firmly GC currently , we often discuss the issue and I keep a close eye on what PSHE type classes she has. We have watched the CBBC prog with trans issues together (I prefer to watch with her and discuss than stop her watching them to make sure it’s all out in the open ). There was the Australian series about a transgirl called Hannah. And then another prog about a girl’s mum who became her dad ‘My Two Dads’ I think. We discuss the reality of sex , how girls should be able to have short hair and climb trees and it doesn't make them a boy etc.

My close male friend is on board with my GC objections but similarly feels it doesn’t affect him. He doesn’t agree with males against females in sports etc, but he thinks of TW as being non-men, sort of an in between I suppose. I was really surprised when he said that, to be honest. Again I think it’s a case of it doesn’t really affect me - if TW are out of my space then, shrug, doesn’t affect him as a man.

Dh agrees with me

Dd is very much in the be kind camp

Both boys and ds1 partner agree GENERALLY with me, but they do enjoy winding me up

I asked ds2 for a job when he is PM and he said ‘ you can be in charge of the ‘woman's rights and anti trans rights department’ and im obviously absolutely NOT anti trans rights and he knows that and was just being mean 😩 (might need to double check that)

I was a radfem in the 1970’s, so I’ve raised my DDs as full on kick ass feminists.
DD1, who like me is autistic, actually started an online support group called gender critical autistics. She was videoed giving a presentation at the protest on the Mound in Edinburgh, so thankfully I am singing to the choir with my family!
My late DH would have been so proud of her - he died when she was 2, but was very much a feminist ally.

I was probably more lib fem in my 20's but my feminism has changed. I have been talking to my DD about everything under the sun from before she could reply! My awakening to this issue was accompanied by quite a lot of ranting but it is more zen now.
DH did tire of the ranting but does see the problem and agrees with me that just shifting the definition of woman to include anyone will throw up problems. He is very involved with a sport that both men and women compete to high standards in but are divided by physiology. Not cycling but similar. A man identifying as female and competing would be almost impossible to beat.
DD is firmly GC but we had some spiky conversations along the way. Rather sweetly she thanked me recently for being so patient, tenacious and relatively well informed. She said that the GC perspective is almost absent in mainstream media and social media and without talking with me she wouldn't have seen the bigger picture.
This puts her in a slightly challenging situation as most of her friends are quite non conforming but mired in identity stuff which she rejects.