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 feel that people are not allowed an opinion that does not fit the woke agenda - the allegations of whatever phobia suits is so lazy its untrue. Its almost impossible to have a real life debate as if you voice views you are told they are phobic, hate crime etc. I think critical debate on this issue is difficult as when you try and put your view forward you are just accused of being phonic.

I really feel that there is lots of manipulation by some of these groups and teenagers being teenagers have bought into it. I just hope that teenagers very quickly they realise that it is ridiculous and grow out of it.

How is it ideology to say you can’t change sex and women are oppressed on the basis of sex? That’s just fact. If you don’t think it is, can you explain?

So it's 'ideology' now to say that observable differences between the sexes are real?

Someone go and explain that to my bitch, who is just coming into season...

I often wonder if we have elevated the status of 'being human' to almost god-like levels; humans are so utterly removed from the realm of the animal kingdom that with a mere thought, we can literally transcend our bodies and live renewed as our chosen type. Our human thoughts are SO profound and valuable that having them questioned or fronted out in any way is a crime against humanity.

In the real world, we are just apes with huge brains.

Our human thoughts are SO profound and valuable that having them questioned or fronted out in any way is a crime against humanity.

Unless they are reality-based thoughts - then it's fine to not just question, but threaten and attack.

ekid
Personally I don’t agree with either and think the solution would be to stay away from any topics concerning sex/gender/terf.

So what do you agree with?

Sorry but I don't agree with staying away from the subject, open debate is healthy. What isn't healthy is feeling 'unsafe' because uses the wrong pronoun. You can't change sex that it is fact and I don't have a gender, that it also a fact.

Great post @ANewCreation. I think you're right about our generation's parenting. I think perhaps we've tried to be so different from our own parents, we've tried so hard to not criticise, to be kind and actually have ended up pandering and cosseted our kids.

For sure my kids are privileged and lack for nothing (compared to my own childhood) but they don't see that privilege and have a very extreme self-centred perspective :(

What I don’t get is on one hand we are being told that climate change is a thing (which I believe is true btw), the flat earthers are to be scoffed (rightly), yet, some people’s wish to destabilize the science around the human sexed body is to be embraced.

The dissonance is unreal.

Present yourself however you wish, understand your physiology and things that cannot change, don’t think you can acquire definitions for yourself if your physiology doesn’t match the description, no matter how you ‘present’ yourself to the outside world and frankly we can simply get on with making sure safeguarding is robust in this porn addled era, that women and girls get the protections they need due to their sexed bodies and everyone has the best health care that is tailored to their needs and not someone who has had different needs and different issues but feel they should decide health standards for different group of people because of a label.

This has become so boring and repetitive. The misguided accusations based on some other social media platform’s lead influencer’s biased dissemination come thick and fast. We have seen it all before, there is never any substance to it past ‘be kind’ and ‘believe’.

OP doesn’t have an ‘ideology’. From what I read the son called their mother a slur before she responded with something she may regret. They seem to have made up. The girlfriend feels unsafe, so therefore won’t enter the house, fine. That is for the girlfriend to deal with. They have painted themselves into that corner, not the OP.

Hope that the hug helped OP and that calmer heads have kept the weekend less stressful.

It's a tale as old as time - liberal teens opposing reactionary parents, or vice versa. I've heard so many horror stories about people coming out as gay, and their parents rejecting them, saying it's just a phase, or even kicking them out.

I'm glad you made up with your DS. It gives you the opportunity to have another discussion without the insults. One piece of advice is to refer to the behaviour and views you don't like rather than applying a label to the person.

When someone says they are unsafe think of it this way - if you were a relgious person who believed homosexuals were going to hell, and your DS's partner was gay - it's on a par with that.

She doesn't think you are going to hurt her, but that you deny that a fundamental part of her nature is valid.

I hope you're feeling less jangled @JensonsAcolyte It's horrible when you have such arguments with people you love deeply and dearly.

The thing that strikes me is the way that your children both went for you but not your DH, their father. I'd be having strong words with your DC about the utter sexism of this. And strong words with your DH about how he might support you in pointing out the contradictions.

And then I'd go on a "mother-strike" and stop doing any of the work that your DC are taking for granted, and is invisible when you do it, but becomes very visible when you don't do it.

I'd also be having a deliberately awkward conversation with your 18 yo DS about contraception. His partner is sexed female, and is a woman, however they identify.

I'd also be interested in why your DS' partner (girlfriend?) feels "unsafe" in your home. And want to have a conversation with them about that as long as they stayed respectful.

She doesn't think you are going to hurt her, but that you deny that a fundamental part of her nature is valid.

Why use the word “safe” then, if it’s about validation? Sounds like she only feels happy when people either share her beliefs about gender, or pretend they do because otherwise she’ll get upset.

Fuck me what is being done to children. How can a generation grow believing this absolute nonsense?

And these parts

"‘some lesbians have genital preferences, and ultimately that’s transphobic but nobody’s trying to force anyone to have sex with anyone’"

As in deep down they know the last part is wrong, so they quickly add "no we aren't forcing you (we just call you transphobic)"

"I’m well known for being a Terf and she feels unsafe"

What does that mean even? Unsafe how?

Why use the word “safe” then, if it’s about validation?

This misuse of words extends to usage of ‘safe’. If teenagers are not comfortable with their deeply held convictions being challenged by the majority of people they need to understand why they feel this and learn to accept that they cannot change people’s minds with something that may be taken as manipulation.

This watering down of words associated with violence is problematic. I remember the first ‘war on drugs’ and felt uncomfortable that such a serious and extreme word was being used like it was commonplace. I now find myself questioning the use of ‘violence’ and ‘safe’ in the same way.

God the "transphobic" genital preference / "obsessed with genitals" thing gets on my tits!

FWIW, and through no choice of my own, I'm straight and like men. Not just penises on their own - men, male men. Even if a female person had a real fully functioning penis attached (which is not what happens, but if - ) that wouldn't make her attractive to me. It's the whole body and maleness that I am attracted to – which is totally unsurprising. Lesbians are women who are attracted to women, females, not just vaginas running around on their own on little legs

That means they are not attracted to males. And that is their right and being their true self. It's not transphobic in the least. It's no more transphobic than it is man-phobic. Not being attracted to males doesn't mean all lesbians hate men and want to deny them their existence, does it?

Gah

Exactly.

Thanks, persistantwoman, juicyoranges and oxalisRed. Obviously have had to think about this a lot.

And rather than being continually irritated at my kid's non-sense, (it's an intellectually incoherent position but they are young still and they have a lot of growing up to do) I try to save my anger for the activists and the organisations who are promoting this guff with so very little regard for safeguarding or biologically female people. Meanwhile, I very kindly cook delicious (vegan) food for my oldest.

"Gender" is making my oldest most unhappy because their personal identity is constantly dependent on others' perception of it. And in the real world it is much harder to control than online.

In psychological terms, the teenage years and early 20s are all about identity development. So it's absolutely no surprise to find that youngsters have an unstable sense of self. They, like all their peers, are a work in progress and that is fine and they will get there. Those on the spectrum and those with ADD like my oldest may take that bit longer.

Throughout recent decades, teenage identities have been adopted: Teddy boys and girls, mods, rockers, hippy, glam, punk, New Romantic, goth, grunge, emo etc. So clothes, music, lifestyle. You had an identifiable tribe. And then you probably moved on, grew out of it. Only a few awkward photos and some toe curling memories to remind you of your excesses. Maybe a few adopters loved it so much that they carried it on for decades after their peers.

Now pick one of those teenage identity tribes and then medicate it. Be prepared for surgery. Set it in stone. Insist that everyone believes what you believe. Deny the evidence of your eyes. Discount your experience. Cede your words to describe your own reality. Rewrite history. Attempt to change the law.

It's the combination of that 'unstable sense of self' with the unstable fallacy at the heart of gender ideology (sex ≠/= gender) which leads to the issues we face.

This is what my head hurts so much with.

Why ARE we (society) desperate to affirm and medicalise these kids?

It is absolutely, exactly the same as goths, punks, grunge. And the darker tribes like the anorexics and self harmers. None of this is new but for some reason it’s been made meaningful in a way no other teenage tribe has before.

I think a lot of the push comes from middle aged late-transitioning males. They were never the allies of the tribes you mention.

But they certainly have a vested interest in getting children transed and everyone being bullied into going along with it.

Why that is, is something I don’t think we’re allowed to say, even on here.

A pp mentioned 'liberal' teens but being liberal is to be accepting of other people's ideas and behaviours even though you don't agree with them. Op has been very respectful of her son's girlfriend, she uses the made up name, she uses the preferred pronoun, it's the woke lot that are not accepting of differing views.

The breathtaking arrogance of these largely middle class young people who generally have only ever taken from the world, who as a generation contribute least to their household of probably any set of young people in history, who have the fucking time to read all this crap because theyre not milking cows or helping with younger siblings or in a family business.....I doubt their contemporaries in Bangladesh or Mexico even in working class communities on their own country have time for this shit. It absolutely boils my piss.

This. Why don't these kids go do something useful? Volunteer, fight climate change, clean the beaches, work.. but no, navelgazing about their 'identities'. Anytime my eldest starts, I give her a list of chores and tell her 'identity' to go work as the rest of us have to. She is beginning to get it.

@ThatsShitTryHarder

She doesn't think you are going to hurt her, but that you deny that a fundamental part of her nature is valid.

Why use the word “safe” then, if it’s about validation? Sounds like she only feels happy when people either share her beliefs about gender, or pretend they do because otherwise she’ll get upset.

That's why I presented the analogy. If she were gay and the OP was a homophobe who believed that homosexuality was a mental illness, or not real, then "not feeling safe" sounds a lot more reasonable to GC ears.

"Sounds like she only feels happy when people either share her beliefs about sexuality, or pretend they do because otherwise she’ll get upset."

"I think your behaviour is a moral outrage, and that you are going to Hell, but do feel welcome here."

And if you say that sexuality and gender identity are different, well of course they are, but they are both a fundamental part of someone's identity even if you think they are not valid.

Exactly @sanluca my dd does all that identity navel gazing and I really thing she'd feel better if she went out and did something useful. Most of her friends are the same.

Perhaps OP feels unsafe, as others are not respecting her as a whole person but putting her is a cis box that implies she identifies with her oppression.
Then there's her legally adult son shouting at her. Some teens are 6ft and he almost certainly tops his mum. Let's not pretend that's not intimidating.