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’m not the best person to answer that as Science is not my best subject by any stretch of the imagination, and I struggle to understand some quite simple scientific concepts! There are some very knowledgeable people who frequent this board who will be able to answer that question far better than me, but my understanding is:

There are a number of recognised DSDs (intersex conditions). As far as I know, there aren’t infinite different combinations of chromosomes in humans; rather there are several specific variations. Each of these is recognised as being a disorder that can occur in males or females.

Intersex conditions aren’t evidence that ‘sex is a spectrum’ as is sometimes claimed. Sex is binary because reproduction can only occur with the combination of the two gametes: eggs and sperm. There are no other gametes.

Beyond all of this, intersex conditions are nothing to do with gender identities or trans people. They are physical conditions.

@curlymacv

I am very confused by this whole thread. Admittedly I don't frequent MN or it's feminism board often but - what is the point here? That trans people don't exist? Or some particular problem with trans women?

Ooft. Have a read.

But in a word, in other threads, yes.

Yep as toffee says there is no mysterious third sex - if there were, Nobel prizes would be abounding for the discoverer of it

Intersex or more accurately people with disorders of sexual development (DSD) are still either male or female. They have also asked repeatedly not to be dragged into the discussion around trans issues

How do you define biological sex?
I know that people with, for example, XXY chromosomes are recognised as female, but they are still somewhat different physically. And I have heard of mosaicism which results in people having both sets of reproductive organs.
I am not fully wised up on the whole thing, but I still feel it's important to know about.

Sorry, I wrote my post before I saw the other replies. I tried to delete if after noticing but not sure how!

I was not trying to offend, just was interested. I apologise for bringing up intersex people. I did not realise that was a problem.

I don’t think you’ve been offensive @curlymacv. It was me that stated ‘sex is binary’ and you responded to that by asking questions.

Dont worry curly

Its obviously a crosspost and no one minds people asking questions

Gosh, things have changed since
I went to school. When I was a teenager 20 years ago we rebelled by smoking at the bus shelter and sneaking alcohol into parties. These days they can't do any of that underage so I guess they have to find other ways to rebel....

Are nearly all teenagers like this? Or is it just mn is full of lefty middle-class parents producing children like this?

@Talkwhilstyouwalk

Gosh, things have changed since I went to school. When I was a teenager 20 years ago we rebelled by smoking at the bus shelter and sneaking alcohol into parties. These days they can't do any of that underage so I guess they have to find other ways to rebel....

I think our forms of rebellion were a LOT more fun. I don't remember being so insufferably earnest either.

@PferdeMerde

As a secondary school teacher, I would say a significant minority of (usually white) middle class kids buy into the identities, in the same way that 10 years ago they would have been Emo, 10 years before that goth, in the 80s punk/blitz kid. They’ve always existed. Usually it’s just rebellion, or finding out who they are. This is why I guess it’s important not to decide on anything that might be difficult to row back on or reduces choices down the line.

@PferdeMerde

Are nearly all teenagers like this? Or is it just mn is full of lefty middle-class parents producing children like this?

The latter. I find living in a working class area where poverty is a real issue means teenagers typically have other things to think about than their pronouns or giving themselves a new name.

There's unsafe because someone forgets what pronouns you're using this week and actually unsafe.

@PferdeMerde

Are nearly all teenagers like this? Or is it just mn is full of lefty middle-class parents producing children like this?

My experience is the latter. The school I teach in has a very different demographic and the kids are not like this. Unfortunately it's the current middle class teens who will be running the country in a few years' time.

According to my (thankfully GC) DS there's a group of kids in his school who are all "anything but straight" - so trans, NB, bi etc. Interestingly none seem to be gay either.

Funnily enough he said it's been noted by most of the students outside this clique that not one of them has dated anyone outside of heterosexual preferences.

NB is apparently the most popular identity which I guess is unsurprising given you get to be "in the gang" without having to do anything whatsoever other than shout about your pronouns.

I suspect in a few years' time, most of them will have grown their hair, got a job on a graduate scheme and gone back to being called Beatrice or Lily.

@PferdeMerde

Are nearly all teenagers like this? Or is it just mn is full of lefty middle-class parents producing children like this?

I wonder this to. My son is currently at uni and doesn't buy into any of it. Infact one things hes learned most enthusiastically is what a woman is!

He does say that the "Rainbow People" (his words) are more of that type of demographic. I think he thinks they're the type who like to buy into a very simplified form of identity politics but as largely white middle class privileged kids they need to create an "oppression" to feel like they fit in. He's very cynical about it all.

I think the young have always been insufferably earnest.
Great phrase pp.

Plenty of working class former girls are trans. More so than very MC kids in my experience.
I've never met a mtf trans but I've met dozens of ftm trans.
(Sorry to be unPC but idc...MC kids often have parents who've explained all the debate, hence less likely to think it's a good idea. WC kids often have parents who accept blindly and are very encouraging of their new son.)

I really think its linked quite substantially to the beauty industry. Every time it links to this. Little year 7s girls told regularly they're boys, occasionally verbally but more often non verbally, if they dont rock 'the look'. Other little girls getting up at 5am to create the look. Hundreds of pounds spent on the look. From who? The mums? It's quite compulsory to their generation and stepping out of it in most cases leads to trans status. It's so common I could practically say its every time. This is also a class thing (some can afford it / some can't) and supports my above point.

It's also backed up by badly held stereotypes. If I like computers or woodwork or science I'm male. Other boys and girls would reinforce this hypothesis that the child first thought. Fan the flame so to speak. It needed dismissing not fanning imo.

A wall of silence regarding any concerns, and 100% positivity isn't helping either. Children are impressionable and need telling clearly if something is not a good idea and explaining of the pitfalls bluntly. Like we do with everything else that holds risks. Not so with this.

Its a good point about validation though. This generation of kids grew up on a diet of Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Tik Tok most of which are all about getting likes for how you are perceived to be.

Its only natural that some of these kids fall into the trap of needing to be constantly validated and assured by others.

@Clymene

I suspect in a few years' time, most of them will have grown their hair, got a job on a graduate scheme and gone back to being called Beatrice or Lily.

😂😂😂

Chatting over dinner last night DS was talking about his GF a lot, and me and DH silently counted all the times he called her ‘she’ instead of ‘they’. It was about half the time.

Even the most devout adherents can’t get it right all the time, it seems.

Is he misgendering or is she so gender fluid that she slips easily from girl mode to whatever other mode she happens to be in on that day?
A bit like Eddie.

Not from breath to breath! Must be exhausting to monitor your language like that.

Sod that, I’m glad I’m getting old...

I think our forms of rebellion were a LOT more fun. I don't remember being so insufferably earnest either.

Yes absolutely this!