Are your children GC?

[Bitebite]

I’m very pleased to say that one of mine is vocally GC and the other two are privately GC. I count myself as quite fortunate because I know there’s no guarantee of family unity on the gender topic.

DS (20) is at an ultra-woke university where they are falling over themselves to be as “inclusive” as possible. He finds the whole thing perplexing but doesn’t actively speak out against it because it is not a hill he wants to die on. Shortly after he started, he was required to attend a training course and people began introducing themselves with their names and pronouns. He was confused (honestly, I have no idea how he avoided this before, may have been because he was at a boys’ school that focused almost exclusively on rugby). So he said, “Er, hi, I’m MiniBiteBite. And I’m a boy, er, soon to be man”. Later he was elected as Men’s Officer, but was told he needed to use the full title “Men and Minority Genders” and was then sent a message reminding him “don’t say identify as because they are if you see what I mean”, which he didn’t…

DD (17) is fully GC, a fan of Posie Parker and quite outraged at her peers’ willingness to give away women’s rights. As far as she knows there is only one other GC girl in her year, the rest are agitating for mixed bathrooms (it’s an all girls’ school!), pronouns etc. Her year group started a petition to require the school to collect and use chosen pronouns and the headmistress shot down this idea saying it would be too stressful for the teachers to remember it all. My daughter cheered. She is infuriated by her peers’ inability to see the full picture: her friends were talking about how nice it would be to have an all-girls nightclub so they could dance without getting unwelcome male attention. She pointed out that with self ID, any man could enter their imaginary nightclub. The friends thought about this for a moment, and then all piled on with transphobia accusations. Luckily, she has enough confidence (and social standing) to stick to her guns.

DD (15) is probably the most infuriated by woke culture. She has been accused of cultural appropriation because she wore a hair braid, racism because she asked her Indian friend to pick up her violin when she was going to the music department … and her response has been to distance herself from those making the accusations. She’d have no friends at all if she avoided the “be kind” brigade, so she just puts up with the trans stuff and regularly pours out her frustrations to me.

I’m really interested in what the family dynamics are like in other families. And how you think it happened that your kids ended up with such different views to you?

12 year old DS identifies as part of the LGBTQ community. He has announced they/them pronouns (but given me and his dad permission to use he/him) and describes himself as bisexual (but hasn’t had a boy/girlfriend yet). He tells me he is non- binary because everyone should be able to wear/do what they want without any restrictions and there is no such thing as gender. He says he is quite happy to be a boy and have a penis thank you very much. He likes to wear nail varnish and experiment with fake nails. He wore a skirt to school the last couple of weeks, but was clear that was because it was so hot and it would be discrimination to say he can’t because he’s a boy. The school, wisely, agreed. He thinks all the children who laughed at him for wearing a skirt, or asked if that means he is trans/a girl, are idiots.

In short, it’s a confusing time to be entering puberty. He wants to be part of the cool kids in the LGBTQ club, but he agrees with my GC views. I don’t think either he or his friends currently have the critical thinking skills to distinguish between TRA/GC viewpoints. I feel like I’m treading a tightrope every time he initiates a conversation about it all.

Yes, though they have trans friends so they are not vocal about it. Uni Dd seems more scared of vocalising her opinion but touched on it the other day in a group and everyone breathed a sigh of relief and said they agreed with her.
What is interesting is that older Dd had none of this gender ideology at school in her year group. By younger Dd, only 3 year groups later, it was rampant but by sixth form, everyone had got a bit sick of it except a very vocal group who bounce about in their own echo chamber.

DD has always been a radfem, and is staunchly GC. She is also autistic, and very aware of the risk to autistic girls of being sucked into the gender ideology woo.
She runs a social media group called Gender Critical Autistics, and gave a great speech on the Mound in Edinburgh at a feminist rally, protesting against the sterilisation of autistics with puberty blockers. She compared it to the eugenics movement in the 1930s. I am beyond proud of her!

I have two adult sons in their 30's, both have a toddler daughter. Younger son is absolutely GC and had a run-in at work with a younger woman workmate who yelled at him that he was a fucking transphobic bigot and flounced off. Management got involved and came down on his side, which was heartening. Older son is fairly neutral, works in an all male environment, and understands my arguments.

13 yo old grandson is "meh" on the topic.

Yes thank god.

What is complicated about the definition of the word woman and whether changing sex is possible and the issue of whether we should be compelled to use language that directly contradict our beliefs?

Both mine are wise to the creep of gender identity proselytizing in their schools. My DS (16) says there’s a transgirl in his year who seems more like a flamboyant gay boy to him. He still uses the boys toilets even when dressed in stereotypically ‘girl’ clothing and makeup and all his mates just accept it - my DS says there’s never been any bother and would step in if he saw any aggressive stuff being aimed in his direction.

My DD (13)has at least 5 or 6 girls in her year who are identifying as non-binary or as transboys . One girl she’s known since toddler group so she’s finding it hard to refer to them as they/them and finds it all a bit sad because it’s driven a bit of a wedge between them. This girl came out as a lesbian at 11 and all was fine and dandy but it appears she has bowed to the peer pressure within their peer group who were self-identifying as boys and enbies.

Thankfully my DD feels able to articulate her own beliefs and they all seem cool with her being the way she is ie. believing that sex is what you are and you shouldn’t have to be like the gender stereotypes associated with your sex. So she’s not ‘shut down’ when she explains herself (although 1 or 2 have tried) One of her friends has been NB, a trans boy, a NB again and is now a straightforward lesbian. My DD has been friends with them in all their identities over the past 2 years and supportive because they have a hell of a history and home-life and very poor mental health - which of course did not factor into their identity struggles AT ALL OK?

@Babdoc your DD sounds awesome!

Primary school thus far ideology free (or this particular ideology anyway, bit much Christianity for my taste). DD's exposure so far is the story in the 'goodnight stories for rebel girls' book where a boy decides he's a girl apparently because he's so fond of pink. DD thinks this is sexist rubbish.

I have talked a bit about what's out there so it doesn't come as a surprise when she starts secondary. Pretty much what we did with religion when they started primary really. They have to decide for themselves what they believe, but to do that they need to be able to identify what belongs in a belief system and what's generally accepted fact.

DS is 13 and would mainly like people not to talk about such embarrassing things. He has been trained in they-ing as one of his teachers identifies as nonbinary. As far as I can discern without badgering him with questions, he and his friends think it's all a bit silly. Nothing like an older generation adopting a trend to make it lose appeal.

Mine are🙌…..their school seems to be some sort of bastion where the woke has not yet landed, thank God - everyone perfectly aware of what biology and scientific fact are😅

I would say they're at the cognitive dissonance stage - all are to some extent saying all the things the cool kids should. But drill in and they still believe all the 'wrong' things too. My copy of material girls went missing and I'm not sure whether it was binned burnt or snuck away to be read. 🤔

What is GC? I don't know what mine are....?>?>?

Sadly my 15 year old is definitely not gender critical. Despite many, many conversations about the difference of sex/gender from pre-puberty it's too big a thing for her age group to not get sucked into. Every single one of her friends are trans or non binary. We can't see eye to eye on it so we just try to avoid it now after many upset discussions.

Yes, DS 12 is baffled by it all. His experience so far has been that some of the girls have come out as trans in his class, but he says aside from the announcement they continue to dress as a girl and stay in their friendship groups and make no effort at all to even interact with or dress like the boys, if anything they isolate from the boys even more. He just rolls his eyes at it all.

Mine are but they are 26 and 23 so I think just about missed the bs.

DS (13) is scathingly GC. I generally think younger teens/ children are more critical of the whole ideology and it’ll all be over like a flash in the pan by the time they reach adulthood.

Both my adult son & my 12 year old are 100% GC.

I really hope you are right!

It stands for gender critical which maybe originally had a more complicated academic meaning which might or might not apply to many of us here. I think now it has come to mean “doesn’t believe in gender identity ideology or subscribe to queer theory” so doesn’t believe that people necessarily are what they say they are, uses own personal judgment instead, often values reality, honesty, freedom of thought and speech, safeguarding, women’s rights, objectivity over subjectivity and so on.

In short being gender critical is viewing observable, immutable sex as being a better way of organising health, prisons and places and activities where bodies are important such as toilets, changing rooms and sports. Not to mention employment rights where sex has an impact such as maternity leave and breastfeeding rights.