Old straight men and genderism

[BlackForestCake]

You might expect straight men with a lifetime of male socialisation behind them to be the quickest to dismiss genderist nonsense, but I have noticed in my circles a few men in their 60s and older totally on board with TWAW.

I don’t understand this, what might the reasons be?

Trans-identified family members?
Male friends who are secret cross-dressers?
Over-compensating because they don’t want to be “gammons”?

I really don’t get it.

They strongly buy into masculine stereotypes - if you deviate a little bit you can't be man, ergo you're a woman.

They like to keep women in line and genderism is one way of being misogynistic whilst looking like you are sticking up for poor oppressed minorities.

Because it doesn't impact on them. Because they just see it as a chap who wants to wear dresses and think, 'whatever floats your boat'. Because they're not really engaging in any deeper understanding. Because they want to show that they're not your typical grumpy old man.

I think this is it.

My lovely dad has a transgender MTF friend. He says he thinks of her as a woman - what’s the issue? And I’m very sympathetic to this because it’s basically how I felt about it, live and let live, doing no harm, we’re all just individuals etc. And I still feel like that on a 1-1 basis.

But societally it’s become a problem. Reporting in places like The Times has definitely helped my dad to think differently around the issues for younger people.

Maybe they believe in live and let live

I think for some the idea of a man getting rid of his penis is something so awful they just can’t contemplate so they feel sorry for them (setting aside that most men don’t get rid of their penis). I think David Aaronovitch alluded to something like this in his review of either Kathleen Stock or Helen Joyce’s book.

But also the reasons above - it doesn’t impact on them, feminine men make them uncomfortable, they may be into cross-dressing or that kind of porn, or trying to compensate for previous political incorrectness (using the t word etc).

They hate women.

Femininity in men has never been accepted... this is another variation on the same. They think of them as 'not men'. There are two categories of people: 1. men (conform to masculinity) 2. not men

Adding to what I said earlier, I think there's a difference between accepting trans people and subscribing to gender ideology. I had an interesting chat with a 70ish year old male friend recently about a transwoman of our acquaintance who transitioned late in life and is so obviously a transwoman. She had a complete personality change from very gruff, miserable and almost a bit scary, to being gregarious, joyous and friendly. Everyone, as far a I know is very much, live and let live. HOWEVER, no one actually thinks she is literally a woman or even worries about consistently using the correct pronouns. I doubt most are aware of 'gender ideology ' and the way Stonewall want to replace biology with gender in law or the implications. It's simply not on their radar.

Maybe they believe in live and let live

Nope. That would require symmetry. Both sides get on with their life and don't mess with the others.

In this set-up, the men get to "live" and the women get to "let live".

Old straight man here. I recall an Evening Standard news vendor when the April Ashley case was on shouting ' Is 'e a man or isn't 'e ? Read all ababht it!'

That was the 70s and I suspect a lot of my age group imagine MfF trans are all like April or Jan Morris. Very feminine lads who have had surgery to remove their sex organs , feeling they are trapped in the wrong body.

Most have no idea about Self ID , even here in Ireland where it is law. We grew up in the 60s when it was all sexual revolution , getting shot of religion and ' freedom of the individual '

I recently peaked a fellow coffin dodger by showing him a photo of that man playing Ladies Gaelic Football. No amount of argument will work because of this internalised image of a lonely and vulnerable victim of fate. But a picture is worth a thousand words.

That was the 70s and I suspect a lot of my age group imagine MfF trans are all like April or Jan Morris. Very feminine lads who have had surgery to remove their sex organs , feeling they are trapped in the wrong body.

April Ashley and Jan Morris are two very different cases. Ashley transitioned young, and married a man. Morris transitioned in middle age whilst married to a woman and having fathered 5 children.

Yes I think it's a mixture of these. For a certain type of older, conservative-thinking bloke (who are quite common and include many men who see themselves as socialists/lefties):

They don't necessarily understand the reality of being trans today, you can be a rapist who decided to announce you're a woman and that's that you are.

They have traditional chauvinist views about what makes a man, so they're happy to "write off" any male being feminine in some way as a woman.

But most of all - they harbour deep resentment against women and especially, feminists and feminism, for taking away or challenging what they see as their right to be served domestically and sexually by a woman (even if they wouldn't admit that) and in quite a few cases, these older men have been upped and left by women who realised they could say "fuck this shit". A movement that legitimises intimidating women, invading their spaces and casting feminists as the bad guys is like catnip to them. They love the chance to pontificate at women for not being "kind" and "inclusive" while not having a clue about what's going on and why it's problematic.

For my dad (early 60s) I think his initial TWAW stance was because he was - quite rightly - regretful about being homophobic for much of his life and thought being trans was the same as being gay so was all for being supportive to make up for the past.

Then there was also a massive element of his own ignorance. He literally thought all TW have had FULL surgery in order to be TW, so felt they were 'safe' to be in changing rooms, etc, with women. One night several years ago my very tumblr influenced sister got into an argument with me about it and I set them all straight. I'd imagine he'd still be saying stuff like 'be kind' if I hadn't pointed him towards MOJ statistics & fair play for women.

I think 3 things:

1. They don't see men who transition as men (that's not to say that they see them as women either, because I don't believe that they do).
2. Porn. I would have to wonder what they were masturbating to.
3. It is quite clear if you look at some of the interactions on twitter just how many men enjoy female distress. It's not about TW at all, it's about the fact that this is something that middle aged women find deeply upsetting, and a lot of men find that very entertaining.

Because they don’t care.

My BIL is a raging misogynist. He thinks rape and sex trafficking are women’s problems that women need to fix.

He also believes that transgender women are women’s problems to fix.

This man has two daughters and two granddaughters 🤷🏼‍♀️

Maybe they are just trying to be tolerant?

perhaps they don’t understand the challenges that come with the underlying ideology.

there are a range of possible explanations, but this is by far both the simplest and most plausible

I asked my uncle and he said "women are better at dealing with those sorts"
So there you go

You're quite right. I myself had no idea Morris was married with children and I've been reading his travel stuff for decades. Only found out from the obituary.

A lot of my age group assume that trans is something that gay ppl do in extremis. And we've just voted - 2015 - massively for Gay Marriage. A lot of posters are ascribing bizarre convoluted motivations to oppress women behind these simple self explanatory facts.

Whereas older women share the same outlook in general. Now most young trans are FtM but this isn't even on the radar hereabouts. Because the high profile males are hogging the media spotlight.

For the casual 'live and let live' ones, it's a matter of not having given any thought to, or just not empathising with, women's experiences and how the redefinition if 'womanhood' impacts us, or why single sex provision is sometimes needed or desired.

For the ones who turn out to protest women talking, or who dedicate their twitter presence to championing 'trans rights' and demonising feminists, the motivation is blatant misogyny with the convenient cover of calling it a progressive rights movement.

The former group are frustrating and disappointing. The latter group are disgusting.

A lot of my age group assume that trans is something that gay ppl do in extremis. And we've just voted - 2015 - massively for Gay Marriage.

Yes and the gender identity lobby has made a huge effort to equate being trans with being gay - force teaming them as "LGBT" and the common claim that people who object to gender identity now are just like the bigots who didn't like gays 50 years ago and it's the exact same phenomenon, that it is simply "hatred of what you don't understand" and "anti-trans". No modern, left-leaning person wants to be like that, especially if as a PP said, they did have homophobic views in the past and now want to make up for it.

My daddy does not hate women, he does have a transwoman, who has apparently had all the surgery, as a friend

he just doesn’t think about the potential impact and to be fair neither do a lot of younger people

he is learning though….actually we went to a small theatre the other day and as is usual with these places all the bogs had been repurposed, so the ladies was ‘cubicles’ and the gents was ‘cubicle and urinals’ i was in the queue for the ladies with a lad behind me when I realised my dad was about to join the queue. I said ‘not this one…the other has urinals’ and he left the queue…as did the lad behind me who obviously didnt want to go in the ladies either!

(another recent time we spent to see dd end of year show and i went in to the bog to find dd, ds1 and dds teacher in there! 😀)

Because they're used to centering men's needs.

To be fair, I'm used to centering women's needs (after a lot of societal deprogramming) which probably meant I became GC more quickly, and that I'm not one of those be kind, everyone gets a seat at the table feminists. So I guess men are allowed to be the same.

But the other thing, as a pp said, is gender stereotypes. In their minds, both trans men and trans women are so far away from what a man is, that they have to be 'other'.

And they just like shouting at women on Twitter.