I had the most awful row with my teenagers yesterday

[JensonsAcolyte]

Both totally TWAW adherents.

DS is 18, his girlfriend is Non Binary and goes by a made up name (male Greek god). I am polite and go along with pronouns and use their chosen name.

For some reason Eddie Izzard came up at dinner time and I ‘misgendered’ them. DS really started laying into me about my bigotry so I played him the clip of Eddie saying Eddie has boy mode and girl mode and uses both sets of pronouns (I've tied myself in knots there as I don’t want to be deleted).

It came out in the conversation that DS believes, absolutely and 100%, that Izzard has changed sex. Actually changed sex. And that if DH came down for breakfast this morning and announced he was now a woman then DS would absolutely 100% believe that he had changed sex overnight.

DD was chiming in at this point and said that actually she would like to go by she/they as sometimes she identifies as ‘less female’. I was a bit irate by this point and I’m afraid I said that is navel gazing bollocks (oops).

Anyway it all got a bit shouty, and then DS dropped in that ‘some lesbians have genital preferences, and ultimately that’s transphobic but nobody’s trying to force anyone to have sex with anyone’ and I lost my shit a bit. I’d hoped this nonsense was confined to Twitter tbh and I hadn’t really seen it in the wild.

I told him he was a privileged, woke little shit. That lesbians my age have spent their entire lives having to justify their sexuality, being told they just haven’t met the right man, not to mention the sexual assaults and corrective rapes. And now are being told they are BIGOTS for not including penis. I was really angry. He then turned round and said the reason his girlfriend (and yes he calls them his girlfriend which is a whole nother eye roll) doesn’t like coming here is because I’m well known for being a Terf and she feels unsafe.

I’ve basically left it as saying I don’t adhere to your religion but that doesn’t make me hateful or phobic, we had a bit more of an argument where he tried to say it’s not a religion but actually I think I made that point quite clear. I don’t believe in God but that doesn’t mean I hate Christians, I don’t believe people can change sex but that doesn’t make me Transphobic.

I’ve woken up this morning and I just still feel sick about it all. He called me some dreadful things, bigot, hateful, dangerous. I said some things I regret, particularly about the arrant nonsense that is non binary, I’m usually a lot more measured than that to avoid offence but I was just so angry.

Is anyone else having this with their teens? I could do with a bit of solidarity, advice maybe or just a hand hold.

I haven't RTFT but I just wanted to add something I've discovered. I've already had numerous discussions with my DH who is TWAW which have led to me planning to leave. I thought it was because he took his degree as a mature student which had queer theory as a large part.

Apparently its more deeply ingrained than just queer theory. My daughter went to a top uni as a mature student even attending the ladies college and emerged with a double first in a science subject. She is fully TWAW. During our discussions it emerged she's been taught about hormone flooding/washing, sex is not a binary its more complicated, you can't always tell if a skeleton is male or female as these things are more complicated/diverse etc etc.

Now if this is what is taught in a top university and not in social sciences I can see how it's become so all encompassing. After all, who would doubt any of this if our brightest and best teach it?

I don't understand what's happened or how it's happened and I don't see how it can all be untangled. I really fear for the future of critical thinking as well as women and girls and any children captured by this ideology.

@Diaryofamadwoman

Our parents probably felt like this about the normalising of homosexuality.

No. This is entirely different. And this is how things have gotten so far - people assuming that trans rights are analogous to gay rights in some way. They're not.

Several decades ago, there was a lot of social change in a short time, most of it positive and no longer controversial. However, there was one group which thought they could benefit from the 'should anything be off limits?' approach in some very progressive circles and they managed to get themselves affiliated to the National Council for Civil Liberties (Liberty), where Harriet Harman was Legal Officer and Patricia Hewitt was General Secretary (both later became Labour MPs). It was years before a few lone voices of dissent finally managed to make themselves heard and the organisation was disbanded. Some senior members ended up in prison.

What was the organisation? The Paedophile Information Exchange. Yes, that was its name. First time most people had ever heard the word. And given the above, and the details in the BBC article linked below, I expect back in the 1970s and early 1980s there were teenagers and young adults arguing with their parents that it was oppressive not to let children express their sexual nature, and why shouldn't the age of consent be reduced?

Wrong then, wrong now, and nothing whatsoever to do with older generations being less open-minded. Not all change is good. Critical thinking matters.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26352378

I completely sympathise. I've been drip feeding my dd's and hoping this helps. Dd1 has a few non binary friends but when I've discussed it with her she is more of the live and let live mindset rather than totally buying into it. However, she says she's lesbian but has yet to have a relationship and I'm hoping I've given her enough skepticism to see through the bullshit.

Dd2 is only 11 and we've had more discussions (she is more a talker) and we had quite a detailed discussion on what is transgender. She was a bit taken aback by my passionate take on it, but this happened recently and when incidents like Sarah everard happen, I try to have a discussion of women's rights.
The best discussion we had was following an episode of Brooklyn 99 when they covers sexism in the workplace with Amy. That was a real eye opener for my dd. Trying to be respectful of other's views but also ensure they understand the biological reality and where rights overlap.

[quote JensonsAcolyte]@crashbandicootwarped

See reading threads like this has made me glad I started discussing things very early with my girls. I'm hoping that my feminism has rubbed off enough to stick as they get older.

Up until she started college, DD was a proud RadFem. Even borrowed my ‘woman:ahf’ t shirt.

A few weeks into her A levels she did a total volte face. She also shaved her head and pierced her nose. It’s all rebellion.[/quote]
Fuck - we are all screwed!

I read an autobiography of a woman who lived through the excesses of communist China. Her daughter was a red guard and swallowed all the propaganda that was trotted out. The author documented the her life - from luxury to living in a single room with shared loo and kitchen, and then I prisoner and tortured for her ‘thoughts’. Her daughter being singled out because of her background, and finally... well it’s not actually known what happens to the daughter (presumed beaten to death by her ‘tribe’. I have read a few autobiographies of women who lived through the worst of these times - the ‘youth’ were the willing foot soldiers for an ideology that swept through, and then died a death.

I don't know whether to be wary or not but there's an awful lot of younger "rad fems" suddenly all over twitter, so it's possible the tide will change.

to you all.

Foofighter's suggestion was awesome!

@midgeswithnofingernails

My husbands fathers felt like this with the hitler youth

Youth is not always correct , clear thinking or progressive

Agreed. I agree with you on the issue itself. I don't support trans surgery for children not do I put my "pronouns" in my email signatures.

But I think the best way to manage it is to see this for what it is - teen behaviour - and contain it. To hold the boundaries while they try to push them over.

Eg:

twitter.com/pinktidalwave/status/1375545550439907332?s=21

It does seem to be another way to label yourself mind you!

You have my sympathies op and if it's any comfort i think you put your argument across very well. In fact i think you were very restrained, if one of my dc spoke to me like that in my home, especially if they said that their partner felt unsafe around me, i would tell them to get the fuck out. You nailed it with 'entitled snivelling little shit', i am actually angry reading this. It's always women who are under attack in these situations, always. I also brought my dc up to be open-minded and to share their opinions, but i wouldn't allow them to use that as a stick to beat me with. As pps have said i would refuse to discuss it any more, ever. My dd is 22 and she gets it, thank goodness, but my 17 year old dd is painfully woke. Some day they will look back and cringe at how ridiculous they were, i for one can wait it out.

And of course there are no answers from the kids side. Just mantras and dogma. And the more he asked questions the more they doubled down.

This form of discussion does actually cement views further, as they're backed into a corner.

As ever, I simply hope your kids (and ALL kids) can listen respectfully to the growing numbers of detransitioner voices.
The thought that children and young adults are out there coping with the mental, emotional and physical scars that transition and detransition has caused them - while being ignored/vilified/denied by the TRA community is truly horrible. Detrans voices are valid.

@toffeebutterpopcorn, not wrong.

Although, surely, the opposite has also been known to happen:

One of the most impressive things (not in a good way) I've ever seen was a documentary about the struggle to get Swiss women the vote (Switzerland, on a national level, didn't introduce female suffrage until the 70s, i.e. what felt like eons after every socioeconomically and politically comparable country out there). I've got to admit: those clips of women - most of them older and established - speaking out passionately against(!!!) a woman's right to vote, dressed in fashion that I recognised from my own parents' childhood pictures ... it's left a lasting impression. It stung!

So, yes, youth may be "willing footsoldiers" at times (I don't disagree). But older, experienced folks have just as much capacity for being "turkeys voting for Christmas".

I'm not saying the woke are right (bloody hell! These people have personally terrified me out of stuff I used to attend and enjoy!) - just that the "adult voice of reason" has as much potential to be utterly misguided.

@talkingdeadscot

I haven't RTFT but I just wanted to add something I've discovered. I've already had numerous discussions with my DH who is TWAW which have led to me planning to leave. I thought it was because he took his degree as a mature student which had queer theory as a large part.

Apparently its more deeply ingrained than just queer theory. My daughter went to a top uni as a mature student even attending the ladies college and emerged with a double first in a science subject. She is fully TWAW. During our discussions it emerged she's been taught about hormone flooding/washing, sex is not a binary its more complicated, you can't always tell if a skeleton is male or female as these things are more complicated/diverse etc etc.

Now if this is what is taught in a top university and not in social sciences I can see how it's become so all encompassing. After all, who would doubt any of this if our brightest and best teach it?

I don't understand what's happened or how it's happened and I don't see how it can all be untangled. I really fear for the future of critical thinking as well as women and girls and any children captured by this ideology.

Oh yes.

I thought this was well known.

But I have a relative who is quite a well respected academic. I have had to limit contact because of the shit I'm expected to listen to. I also don't enjoy listening to most people go on about their work.

But I have this horrible underlying sense that he knows he is part of a thinkgroup that is stupid and dangerous but who cares. His subject doesn't go into this but I think he politely listens to a lot of crap.

I am not explaining this well but suffice to say, I place no value on academia and I think it's been overvalued for decades. It's not just this issue that makes me take a dim view of it.

Why are you permitting a male to shout at you and call you a bigot and other offensive names in your home?

I wouldn't stand for that shit. But then again I wouldn't be calling the girlfriend a bloody made up name. If she was scared of me, fine don't come to my house but don't accuse me of being hateful when I'm stating facts.

One of my DC has expressed that they are bi. Not in a big "coming out" way but more as part of a discussion when telling me about a friend who has said she's gay.

I hope and kind of suspect that my DC has figured out that being "bi" is the best way to let yourself off the hook. You're fashionably "queer" but don't have to prove it or make any big decisions. Of course maybe they are actually bi, but they don't have to decide that at this point.

@WindyPudding

One of my DC has expressed that they are bi. Not in a big "coming out" way but more as part of a discussion when telling me about a friend who has said she's gay.

I hope and kind of suspect that my DC has figured out that being "bi" is the best way to let yourself off the hook. You're fashionably "queer" but don't have to prove it or make any big decisions. Of course maybe they are actually bi, but they don't have to decide that at this point.

And yet I would put money on the fact that your DC will end up in a monogamous relationship with a person of the opposite sex at some point. Like most of us.

I thought this was interesting for reference, especially about developing intolerance for opposing views.

*A child in late adolescence:

Uses complex thinking to focus on less self-centered concepts and personal decision-making

Has increased thoughts about more global concepts, such as justice, history, politics, and patriotism

Often develops idealistic views on specific topics or concerns

May debate and develop intolerance of opposing views

Begins to focus thinking on making career decisions

Begins to focus thinking on their emerging role in adult society*

I feel for you, op.
I keep thinking that we must be coming full circle now with lesbians being told they must be attracted to penis because actually the owner says it's a vagina. Telling people that they can and must control what they're attracted to is surely the exact same thing as my grandparents' generation telling lesbians that they must be attracted to and marry a man because that is what is accepted ( and a gay man marry a woman). I thought we decided decades ago that you don't control what you're attracted to?

I also find it interesting that your ds wasn't as bothered by your DH holding the same views as you. I'm so fed up of the whole misogynistic, anti middle aged woman "Karen" trend. I feel like a lot of hate in the world is directed at us; firstly by a lot of men all our lives, now by the woke youth.

Brighton here

6th form dd1 GC and feels tide may be turning a little amongst her peers

15yr dd2 a bit stuck in the #bekind mentality but not a closed book on this

Am tentatively hopeful

They could fuck off with their pronouns and their feeling safe. You have more tolerance than me.
As for waking up and he's changed sex overnight ... what? His willy dropped off? Sometimes you just have to laugh.

Middle aged women are the problem apparently

As ever, it's amazing how crystal clear everyone is about sex when it comes to working out who to blame.

Your DS sounds a complete numpty, OP. Does he think Izzard's sex changes every time Izzard swaps from 'boy mode' to 'girl mode'?

I think they need to hear common sense and reason. It’s seems as if we are going through a cultural revolution at the moment. How long before our own children are denouncing us and we are dragged off to a gulag for re-education?

@BrightonBubble

Brighton here

6th form dd1 GC and feels tide may be turning a little amongst her peers

15yr dd2 a bit stuck in the #bekind mentality but not a closed book on this

Am tentatively hopeful

This is heartening.

@Ritasueandbobtoo9

I think they need to hear common sense and reason. It’s seems as if we are going through a cultural revolution at the moment. How long before our own children are denouncing us and we are dragged off to a gulag for re-education?

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