Teenagers

[Ponderingwindow]

DD and I have a long history of political discussions and debates. We started when she was extremely young, partly because neither of us is NT and being highly verbal and prone to debate comes with the territory. That we have hit upon the transgender issue isn’t surprising. The problem is that it’s the first time we can’t seem to agree to disagree. She views me as inherently transphobic despite my belief that transgender people should have rights protected by law. I find myself unable to keep my mouth shut because she is saying things that I find outright discriminatory to women and both homosexuals and heterosexuals.

I seem to have no problem ignoring other relatives when they say things that bother me. I understand that starting yet another battle at a holiday dinner makes no sense. I just can’t seem to take the same approach with my young teen. I absolutely believe she is entitled to her own beliefs even if I disagree with them, yet I am having trouble standing by that principle.

Im wondering how other people handle this situation.

Helen Joyce recommends asking questions, rather than saying what you think. She says, and I think she's right, that you can't reason someone out of a position they haven't reasoned themself into, but they can reason themself out of it.

With patience. Gently, gently.

This is pretty much the only thing myself and my DDs don't agree on.

Gradually I think I'm getting through, I hold my line.

It is hard though, they are kind but naive.

Good luck !

School has trained mine well. Peer pressure has a lot to answer for too, and they have students in their year group who identify as trans or non binary. I don't bring the subject up.

I’d avoid argument and just say things like, ‘I’d be interested to know when you started to think that’ and ‘I know some people think so. I’d like to understand how you came to that view.’

kind but naive

i think that is the crux for me.

she just doesn’t have the life perspective to understand how much biology is linked to life experience. I probably used to be the same, but it wasn’t tested in the same way. It wasn’t until I got to experience really living as a biological woman in a world built for biological men that I came to understand that equality doesn’t mean the same.

Great quote, really good suggestion. I will definitely bear this in mind for my dd 13 who is ( like so many) thinking about her identity in terms that just weren't around when I was her age.

I wonder if some of the differences in view between older and younger women/teens is that as older women we have experience of sexual violence and aggression whereas our younger relatives have been more shielded from it? When I think back to my own teenage years there were lots of advertising campaigns about domestic violence but I don't see anything like that now on the side of buses or billboards. It wasn't until my early twenties that I had friends who were in abusive relationships and I'd not seen that in my own family. I think younger people just don't see the dangers in the same way.

Focus on the relationship, focus on communication.

When someone is in a highly-charged emotional state they are unable to think rationally.

TBH I don't think it has much to do with sexual violence, not most of the time.

It's more that a lot of younger people honestly think there are significant differences between men and women, or male and female experiences of life.

For a lot of women it doesn't hit them until they have a baby and realize that actually, it's not the same experience for men, and what's more, it can't be.

I also think a lot of them are missing real critical inquiry skills, they've never had to develop them as they have been spoon fed right-think since they started school. They think being critical means criticizing wrong-think, not trying to root their own views in any way or allowing them to be really scrutinized.

Oops - should be "no significant differences" above!

Yes - I suppose that is the root of it -that they don't think the experiences of men and women are different. For me, I became aware they were very different when it was clear that women were at risk of violence and aggression in relationships when men were not. Also, that the physical strength of men means that the average man can overpower a woman without too much difficulty. But I can also see that for other women they become aware of other differences after childbirth.

My daughter is a bright, rational, critical thinker in all areas bar 1 (you guessed it!).
She studied philosophy and we debate and argue all things except those that are trans related. This is because it is the only subject I can wipe the floor with her on. Instead of refining and re-working her arguments, she gives me a faux-sympathetic smile and suggests many people of my generation 'just don't get it' and that's OK. I ask her why this would be the case for this 1 topic and no others and why she can hold her own/challenge me in all topics except this. She just tells me to 'leave it'.
I have no doubt that she knows her arguments don't hold up. I think she just thinks that her arguments are the only permissible ones.
It is both fascinating and horrifying how much thought policing is happening in this area.
I am confident that at some point, she'll see reason on this.

The article that was linked on one of the other threads about the Maya Forstater cases had a similar theme - that too many people believed their way of thinking was the only legitimate way and that anything else was simply wrong. I am hopeful that the Maya Forstater and Allison Bailey decisions will help to challenge this.

I don't talk to my daughters about this. They know where I stand but after arguments when they were about 16, I just decided to not discuss as they were full on TWAW. Funnily enough when Roe v Wade was reversed (we are in the US) dd1 complained about all the "pregnant people" tweets -she said ffs it is women who get pregnant not people. So I suppose all is not lost. They are quite feminist and conscious of how women are treated in the world but this seems to be a critical dogma of their generation. I think they see it as being gay or bi or equivalent to a sexual orientation and don't see that the word sex has nothing to do with who you want to do what with in bed but with your fundamental biology. I'd love to ask them if they genuinely believe people can change sex but I'm not going there. And god knows what they'd reply. My sil who is a university professor (humanities) assured me that sex is a spectrum, there are more than 2 sexes, and denying twaw is literally killing them. I said goodnight and went to bed.

How to Have Impossible Conversations by Peter Boghossian has some helpful ideas about how to get people to shift their mindset.

I really appreciate this thread.

I have enjoyed having political and philosophical discussions with my daughter for so long. It’s been such a shift to find this one subject so highly charged.