Help me explain why it’s a problem

[Papierdecoupe]

I’m not up to speed with all the terminology and I’ve got Trans by Helen Joyce and Material Girls by Kathleen Stock on order. I’m on a mission to educate myself on what’s going on.

All I know is that teenagers/young children seem to be very preoccupied with gender identity and pronouns these days. It seems rare to find a teenager or young adult who says they’re heterosexual and the same gender identity as their sex.

I know my employer is pushing for pronouns to be stated on our name badges. I provide care to women and my employer is showing signs of adopting gender neutral language regarding this. Think ‘chest feeding’ kind of thing.

I know that some women have been ostracised for their beliefs surrounding sex and gender identity and safe spaces for women.

I feel so uncomfortable about all of this. My DH is sitting on the fence(ish) and says what’s happening is just the same as what happened with the increased visibility of lesbian/gay relationships in the 80s and 90s. Pushing boundaries and making people feel uncomfortable for their prejudices. He says the same happened for ethnic groups in the 50s and 60s - riots, challenging segregation, civil rights movements etc.

I wholeheartedly believe that trans people exist and it’s a real ‘thing’. I believe they need a space, respect and to feel safe. However, I am so uncomfortable that my children are now growing up to think that gender identity and sexual orientation are things to be decided and stated early on. I feel like I’m a bigot for saying that. I don’t know why I find it a problem and I don’t know how to explain it to DH. Can anyone help?

This thread is often suggested as a starting point on this:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3145470-Break-it-down-for-me?

My own view on this is that it isn't like the changes around ethnic groups in the 50s/60s or the LGB progress in the 80s and 90s, in that those groups were fighting for the same rights as everyone else and not to be explicitly discriminated against in law. They were not impinging on anyone else's rights nor asking for more than any other group.

The issue with what trans-activists demand is that it obviously impinges on women's rights. Women, who are another group that are discriminated against, so you have a conflict of rights and there needs to be a balance sought so that what one group demands doesn't negatively impact on the other. The issue with this is that women are not allowed to raise it, discuss it, point out issues, talk about actual negative outcomes for women. If women dare, they are accused of transphobia, literal violence, called names, issued with threats of violence, are actually assaulted, hounded out of their jobs and so on. Women do not do this when transactivists raise their demands.

It's an unscientific ideology which impinges on the sex-based rights of women and men; and it is directly endangering the safeguarding of children and teenagers by being promoted in schools.
Even CBeebies made a video telling young kids about the 100s of different genders....the world has gone mad.

Helen Joyce's book is probably an easier read than Kathleen Stock's. I read Material Girls several months ago and it is very considered. I am currently reading Trans and it seems an easier read.

I would just say "using gender pronouns in emails displays a political standpoint on this issue. Are you also going to request we include our political standpoint on other hot topics such as abortion or Brexit?"

I'm paraphrasing a fantastic piece of writing on here from a few days ago.

There is such a sinister side to the ideological movement that is trans rights that it has blindsided us. It's frightening and unsettling to see that humans are so fragile and prone to being misled en mass by the internet and social media. Totalitarian just landing our living rooms out of the mouths of our children.

Dunno about others, but what actually disturbs me most about concepts such as "gender identity", is that they seem essentially based on reactionary sexist stereotypes. Hardly progressive!

As a non-gender-conforming female, I am proud to call myself a woman, and to subtly redefine, through my everyday actions and life-style choices, what being a woman can mean.
But what could I possibly have in common with a male individual who seems to happily embrace all the stifling social norms I chose to reject, and claims this is what womanhood is truly about? Defining womanhood in such a way stands against everything I believe in and have ever fought for, as someone actually born female.
I'd feel much more supportive of such a male person if they decided instead to challenge the social status quo and redefine the limits of manhood.

@BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz

I would just say "using gender pronouns in emails displays a political standpoint on this issue. Are you also going to request we include our political standpoint on other hot topics such as abortion or Brexit?"

I'm paraphrasing a fantastic piece of writing on here from a few days ago.

Graham Linehan covered this: grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/the-real-reason-they-hate-mumsnet?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjozMDU3MzMyMSwicG9zdF9pZCI6NDM1MTE5NTAsIl8iOiI1WEtpYSIsImlhdCI6MTYzNjE0NjExNiwiZXhwIjoxNjM2MTQ5NzE2LCJpc3MiOiJwdWItNjczMDkiLCJzdWIiOiJwb3N0LXJlYWN0aW9uIn0.3vRE5WRweBorLE1kHUKFz-FTCcwhOhOnlVPD9ek2DgU

This may be useful from Sex Matters:
sex-matters.org/posts/updates/pronouns/?mc_cid=45ac33bfc1&mc_eid=8ae636995a

Wonder if I could get away with

Email address
Name
Job title
Woman: adult human female

@dotoallasyouwouldbedoneby I agree with what you say, but why does it endanger the safeguarding of children? This is what I struggle to explain. It seems so wrong to put these ideas to children, and I’d argue based on anecdotes that it only seems to highlight differences and increase anxiety. But why is it actually wrong?

@RobotValkyrie great point, thank you. Just read your post out to DH and could see his brain cogs turning.

There was an extremely interesting thread about using pronouns only a couple of days ago.

[quote Papierdecoupe]**@dotoallasyouwouldbedoneby* I agree with what you say, but why* does it endanger the safeguarding of children? This is what I struggle to explain. It seems so wrong to put these ideas to children, and I’d argue based on anecdotes that it only seems to highlight differences and increase anxiety. But why is it actually wrong?

@RobotValkyrie great point, thank you. Just read your post out to DH and could see his brain cogs turning.[/quote]
Because by telling young children all about trans ideology, gender non-conforming kids who often have special needs such as autism, start to say they are trans and then if not careful can get set on a life-long path of medicalisation and sterilisation (a drug company who supplies puberty blockers has donated £1.5m to the LibDems - follow the money).
If these children are left alone, evidence shows most will grow out of it or simply turn out to be gay/lesbian/bi, which requires zero medical intervention.
The first de-transitioners have now started to come to light (e.g. Keira Bell) and quite rightly want to sue to stop this happening to others when they are unable to give properly informed consent.
The other aspect is inappropriately encroaching on privacy/ breaking down sexual barriers (grooming) originally put in place for the protection of children.
Chapter 1 of Helen Joyce's book touches on most of the aspects.
The way Stonewall has misrepresented the Equalities Act, it has led groups who should know better, such as say the Girl Guides to adopt an approach where parents wouldn't be told if a boy who declares himself trans (so wants to be a woman), were sharing a tent with their daughters.
Secrets are being kept from parents even in schools, where children are allowed to change pronouns at school without parents being informed. Adults telling children 'things are secret' is a safeguarding red flag day.

The problem is that gender gets conflated with sex.

Why should a feminine gender identity mean that males can use female toilets/take part in female sport/be put in a female prison?

@Robotvalkyrie
Excellent post , excellent points made

Also you could point out to your husband that there are many gay and lesbian people who have come out and stated that this is definitely NOT the same as the gay rights struggles of the past.

Mr Menno
Arty Morty - has a good video on youtube about the differences between this and gay rights. It's a good starting point.
Sheridan Sinclair
Julie Bindel
Kathleen Stock

Even one of the original founders of Stonewall Matthew Parris has spoken out against them recently. Sadly, the reality is your husband is much more likely to listen to men who speak out against this than women.

Your husband may be like many well meaning people looking in from the sidelines, they think it's just another human rights issue. It really isn't, and there is a lot of harm being done on the back of this, mainly to women and girls.
Unfortunately, because your husband is a man, he really doesn't have to care about this in the same way, because it won't affect his spaces, prisons, sports teams etc. in the way it does for women, so he may just not really get it - ever!

You could also point out that many of the men who are late transitioning are AGP, which is a sexual fetish. Tell him to look it up, it is definitely not something for which they should get the 'most oppressed' label.

The argument often given is that we should 'be kind' and let trans people 'be themselves' and 'they just want to pee'.

That sounds all very fair, doesn't it, and I don't think many on here would object to that.

HOWEVER, unfortunately, that is not all that gender extremists - many/most of whom are straight men and not trans at all - are asking for. Many trans people are horrified by the things that are being demanded in their name, and say so publicly.

What these gender extremists are demanding is NOT equal rights for trans people (which they already have in the UK), it is the 'right' to take away women's rights.

Hence, for example, demands to stop using the word 'women' (but not 'men', making it clear it is misogynists demanding this, not those interested in equal rights). Demands to end women's single-sex spaces, from refuges, to toilets, changing rooms etc. Demands to end women-only shortlists, women's sports. All these are things that women fought for decades, to ensure women's safety and equal rights and opportunity to take part in everyday activities that men take for granted. Attempts to end these are NOT progressive - they are extremely reactionary and regressive.

In addition, your dh suggests this is like the fight for gay/lesbian rights - but it is the opposite. Instead, gay men and lesbians are being told they MUST accept sexual partners who claim to be trans but are of the opposite sex, or else be branded transphobic. This is what is referred to as the 'cotton ceiling' and is basically conversion therapy and rape culture. Far from being just like those who supported gay liberation in the 70s and 80s, gender extremists are like the religious extremists who opposed gay liberation. Except now their religion is genderism. Instead of calling gay men/lesbians sinners, they call them transphobes, but the meaning is clearly the same.

Genderism is a violently homophobic movement - lesbians who refuse to sleep with people with male bodies who claim to be women are cancelled, ostracised and set upon. If your dh really cares about the rights of gay men/lesbians, he will listen to the voices of all those LGB people, including the many who were leading the fight for gay and lesbian rights in the 70s and 80s, who have called out this new gender extremism and set up their own organisations to fight once again for the rights they thought they had already secured - all those behind the LGB Alliance. Did you/your dh read the recent BBC article on the cotton ceiling? If not, you/he should.

If your husband is well-meaning and cares about equal rights for all, but is ill-informed, he should care about the fact that he is supporting a reactionary ideology that seeks to roll back both women's rights and LGB rights decades.

If he doesn't care about that, then I'd question the sincerity of his claim to care about equal rights for all.

As to the harm to children point, gender extremism also seeks to undermine child safeguarding, which is clearly very concerning.

They push for young people who believe they are trans to be allowed to keep this a secret (children being told to keep things a secret and 'just between us' is a big red flag as far as safeguarding is concerned). They encourage all children who suspect they might possibly be trans to take dangerous, untested hormones and drugs - even though it's known these cause all sorts of long term health issues, from infertility to reduced bone density. Meanwhile, they are trying to ban these children from being allowed to discuss their gender dysphoria with counsellors, insisting that this dangerous medical 'treatment' of a psychological disorder should be the only treatment allowed. And they do this even though it's known that left to their own devices, 80% of children who suffer from gender dysphoria will grow out of it naturally. Without treatment and certainly without taking dangerous drugs and risking unnecessary and drastic surgery such as double masectomies and castration as teens.

They also try to encourage teenagers with gender dysphoria towards suicide, by quoting fake, debunked stats on trans suicides rates, contrary to all guidelines on how to report about suicide.

All in all, this puts vulnerable teenagers (there are strong links between gender dysphoria and autism, and also many have suffered homophobic bullying, sexual abuse or eating disorders) at extreme risk, so anyone who cares about children's safety should oppose this.

Gender identity theory is pernicious bunk, developed by Dr John Money who believed you could turn boys into girls and girls into boys. He presented himself as THE expert, and because no one else had the "knowledge", everyone deferred to him and swallowed his ideas whole.

Read John Colapinto's As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl

www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0061120561/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_imm_8F0PFMCE25KG0WWYG7SM?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

Pronouns on name badges are a problem because they reinforce binary regressive ideas about gender roles. Every time I remind someone I am a woman I encourage sexism.

This is a great piece I found on Twitter (not sure how to credit people but I can find the info if needed). It details a conversation the writer had with a GC friend who made him examine his TA believes. There’s nothing subversive about what she did, just straight forward critical thinking! Being asked to think through, explain and extrapolate the arguments behind the TA beliefs showed how fragile the arguments are.

uncommongroundmedia.com/how-i-became-a-trans-rights-activist-then-turned-gender-critical/

There's a very clear infographic at the end of this Glinner post which explains the difference between feminism and gender identity ideology:
grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/white-male-privilege-in-2021

This video is really excellent and covers all the issues - Helen Joyce talking to Dan Riley.
It's also got timestamps and a contents list so you can skip to whatever bit you're interested in. But I ended up watching the whole thing because it's so good.

Thank you for all these links and information. We’re going to sit this evening and watch a few of the interviews linked. The information about safeguarding children has been great and clarified a lot.

Another question - say you go to use a toilet at work and there’s a transwoman using it. You complain to management that you felt unsafe etc. The trans woman is hurt that you don’t see them as a woman, as that is how they identify and who they want to be. What do you say to that? Because is the GC position to say ‘if you are born a man you cannot use facilities for women as it makes women feel unsafe’? And why is that different to a racist B&B in the 1960s saying they didn’t want black patrons because they made them feel unsafe? Obviously we know that some black people, the same as white people, might be criminals. But the majority are not and we know that the B&B owners would have been reacting out of fear of change, prejudice, racism etc. And thankfully society has moved on from being able to do things like that. Equally we know that some men or trans women using toilets might be criminals, but the majority are hopefully not. I’m playing devil’s advocate here. I am firmly of the opinion that they are different, but just intrigued to hear how people who are well read on the topic would argue those points.