Kids accusing their parents of being homophobic or terfs

[LittleWhingingWoman]

DD says that several of her friends are doing this on social media.

I've also heard it in person from two girls in two different classes who have made comments in front of me about how either their parents or their friends parents are horrible homophobic transphobic people. When questioned they double down and say things like "well my friend came out to her parents and they weren't supportive of her going to Pride" (this was from a 13 year old!)

Another girls mum who is an old friend of mine said to me that her dd does it all the time about other kids parents and that she suspects this child is also saying it about them.
The child is - the child has been at our house saying it and when I said "you realise that your mum has loads of gay friends don't you?" The child basically looked a bit blank and went red and mumbled into her Doritos.

Apparently next day in class she was at it again. In front of teachers!

DD says one of the latest things on TikTok is to complain about parents being phobic - massive oppression points for middle class kids!

Kids are always looking for ways to differentiate themselves from their parents. This is normal. What’s not normal is the way other adults react to it as if the parents have done something wrong.

@tabbycatstripy

Kids are always looking for ways to differentiate themselves from their parents. This is normal. What’s not normal is the way other adults react to it as if the parents have done something wrong.

Yes. Kids complaining about parents is one thing and we have all done it - but the targeting of parents as homophobic and transphobic has a more sinister edge to it which can get people in trouble in this day and age. It's a close knit community. Some of these parents being accused are business owners.

Part if being a teen is seperating from your parents and holding them in contempt dor a few years.

My dd and I have had discussions around this. We have agreed not to anymore. I refused her labelling of me as a cis woman. I am hoping that she is seeing what is happening in this country and will come to a different conclusion soon enough.

@tabbycatstripy

Kids are always looking for ways to differentiate themselves from their parents. This is normal. What’s not normal is the way other adults react to it as if the parents have done something wrong.

This!

It's completely normal for young people to think that their parents are totally uncool, totally wrong about everything, that they are not the same as their parents. This has always happened and is part of normal stage of development of young people.

What is not normal is other adults exploiting this, saying 'yes, your parents are awful people, come and join our rainbow family, we will be your new family now'.

Given that many women I know who are fellow parents had gay best men instead of bridesmaids at their weddings, gay godfathers to their kids, lesbian friends... ie not homophobic at all - seeing them being accused of being homophobic by their gender obsessive kids is extreme brainwashing.

But it does has the effect of creating in the child's head, the "hostility" that suddenly enables them to shout that the alphabet people are the most oppressed ever ever.

"When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years."--Mark Twain.

Oh yes, the ‘chosen family’ people. Grim. Obviously some people do have terrible experiences with homophobic or transphobic parents who hurt them or abuse them psychologically.

Not the same as saying, ‘Sheila, we love you and support you but people can’t literally change sex.’

@IvyTwines

"When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years."--Mark Twain.

@tabbycatstripy

Oh yes, the ‘chosen family’ people. Grim. Obviously some people do have terrible experiences with homophobic or transphobic parents who hurt them or abuse them psychologically.

Not the same as saying, ‘Sheila, we love you and support you but people can’t literally change sex.’

This is it exactly. It's appropriating abuse.

It also doesn’t do the children any favours as they enter the “real world” if their parents never challenge their views.

I think this Twitter thread from the other day isn't too hyperbolic about the dynamic.

I'm seeing a lot of people on the right share this meme. ("It's not rocket science guys. They're evil and just want to diddle kids.") While it may be a strong satirical response to those who get lost in nuance, it fundamentally fails to recognize why the left wants to talk to your kids about sexuality. Let's connect some dots.

The left doesn't want to diddle kids. They want to create little revolutionaries. To do that they need to sever the bond between students and the parents they believe are raising their children to be hateful bigots.

Even if it's not what many or most of the adults involved are consciously intending, it is the effective result, and is intentional for some.

And it's the reason for grass-roots support for the legal pushback like that Florida bill. Parents perceiving loss of control over what teachers are up to. Some teachers clearly see themselves as being in opposition to parents.

They want to create little revolutionaries. To do that they need to sever the bond between students and the parents they believe are raising their children to be hateful bigots.

Yes, the underlying problem is the weaponisation of the conflict with parents and moderating authority figures. It has some truly horrible precedents:

quillette.com/2018/12/18/the-children-of-the-revolution/

This ties in to something funny I have noticed. If you look on internet forums that are for and still mainly populated by people who are actually homosexual or bisexual. There are often threads by younger people nervous about coming out to their parents because they have reason to believe it will not go well. Or who have come out and it has not gone well. My instinct as a parent is 'fuck those parents' because I raise my DS to know that my love for him isn't in anyway conditional on his assumed straightness. And I feel angry on behalf of those young people who's parents have given them reason to worry that their parents can accept them or even worse, reacted badly to them coming out.

Yet, nearly every single response from older gay and lesbian posters, is to give it time. Let it settle with their parents and as hard as it is now, a lot of parents need time and may well come around to reality and the relationship may be repairable in the future. Many describe their parents' initial terrible reaction and how over the years they have regrouped and have a wonderful, loving relationship now. And it amazes me. How accepting these people are of their parents as flawed humans. And how their loving acceptance of their parents has led to their parents' growth. Even those who's parents never accepted them still advise the OP of those threads to give it time as things will hopefully work out better for them.

It's a very marked contrast with what we are increasingly seeing with the advice given to 'trans' teens with parents who don't give unequivocal, immediate support to their children's new identity.

This excerpt from the article above might ring a bell:

Although educators and intellectuals were primary targets of the revolution, they bore some responsibility, by acts of commission or omission, for creating the conditions of its possibility. In the years prior to the Cultural Revolution, the Party had cultivated an environment of extreme political conformity. Political rallies and self-criticism sessions had become a regular feature of Maoist thought-reform campaigns.2 Ji Xianlin, a professor of languages at Peking, detailed how eagerly the teachers and intellectuals had supported these campaigns. In his memoir, The Cowshed, Memories of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, Ji writes with regret of his own “aptitude in crowd behavior.” He had been a true believer in Maoism and willingly persecuted other intellectuals during the Socialist Education Movement in 1957. But his Party loyalty was no defense when the revolution eventually came for him.

It's really hard not to follow the herd though. DD has many lesbian, bi, non binary and trans men friends. They are all lovely kind girls. Until DD tries to make a point (any mild note) about "cis" women losing rights.

You absolutely cannot, under any circumstance, and the school has tried, deviate from the prescribed teen view. Teachers allow debates, but never intervene. It means that many, DD included, just keep quiet. If you dare to hold a different view you will be screamed at, shouted down, vilified.

It's also very trendy to be "other" even if your aren't.

Thankfully they grow out of it, but it does take a few years.

If my dc (late teens/early 20s) call me a terf, I laugh, and say “I ❤️JKR.” Very unstressful. They know where I stand. And, yes, they’re all coming with me to Fantastic Beasts on Friday despite my dinosaur status.

My DD called me a terf. I asked her what she thought about men being locked up in womens prisons, with women who might already be abuse victims and who would have no means of escape. Then while she was thinking about that, I asked her about men being allowed to play in her rugby team, or against her rugby team. She's stopped calling me a terf now.

My 11yo has been upset this week as one of their friends has insisted I am homophobic. The friend has based this on advice I’ve given to my child to not worry right now over having to define their sexuality- that they will discover whatever sexuality they are as they grow up and that we will love them whatever it happen to be. This doesn’t appear to be good enough for friend. Thankfully I don’t give a shit what an 11yo I don’t know thinks, but it’s a worrying trend.

@ANutAsBigAsABoulder

My 11yo has been upset this week as one of their friends has insisted I am homophobic. The friend has based this on advice I’ve given to my child to not worry right now over having to define their sexuality- that they will discover whatever sexuality they are as they grow up and that we will love them whatever it happen to be. This doesn’t appear to be good enough for friend. Thankfully I don’t give a shit what an 11yo I don’t know thinks, but it’s a worrying trend.

It’s crazy that 11 year olds are concerned about their sexuality at all Shouldn’t they just be playing with Lego and going on bike rides?

PARENT’s ADVICE
This thread echoes much of what PPs have said
twitter.com/HannahBerrelli/status/1460399160558030852

Thread by Hannah Berrelli @HannahBerrelli**

I have received several messages from parents (almost exclusively mothers) asking for advice about their teenage daughter’s identifying as trans or non binary. I am not a parent, or a psychologist, or really any body, but for future, this is my advice.

Your kid wants an identity away from you, they want to separate from you, this is a developmentally appropriate impulse that most adolescents have. Suffocating them, attempting to strengthen your relationship, or shoving radical feminism down their throat is not going to help.

Trans is the cultural language they have to articulate this impulse. It’s not too different from emo subculture, new atheism, or whatever other kind subculture is in vogue. My advice is to act like it’s boring (because it is).

Nothing your Mum suggests to you is cool at that age. She wants to separate from you. Encourage her in other activities that enrich that need for independence. Introduce her to Magdalen Bern’s YouTube, but don’t ask her opinion or force a conversation about it.

Be benignly indifferent. Do not engage. If forced, ask critical questions but do not be bothered by it. Your getting emotional about it will absolutely make it worse. It will give her fodder to complain to school counsellors and tumblr about

Feminism is not cool. Your daughter is living in a world where boys were watching violent pornography at 8 and 15 year olds are get lip fillers. She sees this as away to opt out of the incessant objectification and sexual harassment, it’s completely logical on some level.

She will likely drop it at some point, especially when she realizes it won’t get a reaction out of you. Encourage sport (especially if she is a lesbian), extra curricular activities, any way to build her self esteem a way from fucking Instagram.

If it comes to a head tell your daughter you didn’t think she was a conformist who would pick up the newest trendy thing without question. Tell her you know of 5 other girls who are doing it in her class, because you probably do.

At some point there may be a time where it begins to be a safeguarding concern. If she ever brings up medical transition, it’s time to go nuclear and take a way the internet. You pay for it, you can in fact take it a way.

And for God sake, do NOT facilitate her going to any trans meet ups where she will be around [ MUMSNET banned word]. Mention to her that if she is ever in a situation where she feels unsafe or uncomfortable you will come pick her up, no questions asked. Follow up on that promise.

I know they are teaching this stuff in schools, but in my opinion schools to do very little to inform the psychology of their students. I went to a Christian school where homosexuality was a punishable offence yet here we are.

School counsellors would absolutely love to tell a story about dealing with a “transphobic” parent at a dinner party. Liberals absolutely love that shit. Again begin indifference. Tell them that they have to consult you before giving any medical advice to your child, and back off

Remind them of safeguarding legislation if and where it exists, but going apeshit at the school will absolutely encourage them to push this on your child further. Tell your kid that listening to school counsellors is what conformists do

Talk about your experiences as a woman. Talk about how your mother couldn’t open a bank account without your father’s permission when you were a kid. Talk about women in the third world. Plant seeds of doubt

I know it sucks that the solution involves more inaction than action. I can empathize with the feelings of powerlessness and worry. But please don’t push your daughter into the arms of these people by reacting the way she and her school want you to

Part if being a teen is seperating from your parents and holding them in contempt dor a few years.

That’s true in some respects, but even as part of that, it isn’t normal to go about decrying your parents as bigots around the place, surely!

By Helena
Parent Question: Communicating with Questions
Communicating with someone who is indoctrinated.

This is a question I received from a parent and responded to on my old Medium account. I think its worth re-sharing here because it begins to unpack how to better communicate with a young person who is indoctrinated into trans ideology, which is something parents are struggling with across the board
lacroicsz.substack.com/p/parent-question-communicating-with?s=r

What I told the students of Princeton
Show some self-respect and reclaim your freedom

Abigail Shrier
The undergraduates I met tonight were clear sighted and brilliant and astonishingly well read. There’s so much on their shoulders. Here was my message to them.
abigailshrier.substack.com/p/what-i-told-the-students-of-princeton?s=r

Parents need to stand firm and not cave in to the idea that their role is to approve of anything a child says or does.

In the before time, that is before internet, I had a brutal prof whose advice to students was "beware of people who pat you on your head". Approval was not on his agenda.It was the best advice ever. He never patted students on the head, in fact his classes were brutal, if one said something he thought was foolish and lacked forethought, he would lay into them. I know because I experienced it. His sarcastic dismissiveness was humiliating and devastating but I learned to focus my thoughts in a way I had never done and since then can hold my ground in a contentious discussion - disapproval and/or rejection is water off a ducks back.

Paradoxically I am much more open. My not looking for approval means that I'm not on the defensive and have the necessary mental clarity to process new information so if someone presents a perspective I hadn't considered or new facts my opinions can on a dime .