Arguments with daughters

[sunshinesupermum]

I have two daughters, aged 37 and 41. They are both fully supportive of trans issues and I am of course, in their eyes, a TERF. I'd like help in refuting their ideas next time the subject is raised before it becomes a Brexit type issue and we stop talking to each other! Sorry if this is too long but I really appreciate some help.
Examples from yesterday's Wattsapp messages:
DD2: You probably know transwomen who are not out who see and are hurt (on Twitter) and alienated by your views.
Me: Highly doubtful I know a single transperson IRL which obv means I cannot walk in their shoes. They have all the rights the rest of us have but women are losing theirs. Women's rights come first for me every time.
DD: I haven't lost any rights and neither have you. And you have no idea who is or who is not trans. Luckily my generation and younger for the most part have progressive (views) that don't align with the old guard of feminists who are obsessed with the idea of men breaking into changing rooms to spy on their saggy old bodies! You don't care about women's safety. Only Cis women's safety. My rights and your rights are not being erased because of transwomen.
Me: I agree this is generally a generational issue. Incidentally, older women are concerned that men are illicitly watching girls/young women in changing rooms. Incidentally, mixed (then known as unisex) changing rooms were introduced in the late 1960s but soon fell out of favour!
DD: Laughably shortsighted to scapegoat (transwomen). Perhaps they should introduce special toilets only for transphobic cis women rather than try to segregate transwomen quietly going about their lives. You don't care about women's safety.
Me: I care about all women's safety. Unless he has his genitalia removed no male person can be a female one.
There was more of the same bilge but this is this gist.

Thank you TastefulRainbowUnicorn

@Waitingfordecember the idea is that penis people could
get off on seeing vagina people change.

transwomen are penis people and there is no evidence there rates of sexual assault are any different to other penis people

but I have no doubt you realise this and are just being disingenuous

it’s penispeoplephobia - otherwise known as basic safeguarding practices to protect women and girls against possible
male violence (and we all know exactly what categories of people I am referring to in that sentence)

37 and 41? Crikey, until I re read the OP I thought this was teenagers.

I don't think I have the energy to engage in future.
Throw it back on them. If this is all via the written word then you can prepare. Get a set of questions ready for next time it kicks off (none of which relates to toilets! there are some excellent ones above). Get them to justify their position.

Meantime, take it down a notch or two. Blocking your own DD seems a bit extreme.

I agree with this. It's not worth ruining your relationship with your daughters.
I have a DD (25) And generally we have a super relationship but both DH and I agree that it's better to avoid these conversations.
It may be different for you, though, if they deliberately steer dialogue into this sphere.
That's a whole different story.
I feel for you OP.

Senua DD blocked me on Twitter ages ago as she only uses it professionally for work. Me blocking her is so that I can continue supporting women as much as I want without a row ensuing that I m a Terf!

Thank you Oneearinglost

Oh, right. Did you mean blocked on Twitter? I thought you meant blocked on WhatsApp!

Twitter lol!

Do they have thoughts about what gender actually is? It’s how I got to the position I’m at. My thinking went along these lines:

Sex shouldn’t matter, apart from a few areas where biology makes a difference (health, contraception, sports etc).
All the rest is gender and isn’t a good thing for anyone. So organising our society along gender lines is not a good thing, for anyone.

I'm actually horrified at that stat. I have two young daughters in primary school and this madness really worries me. What the hell is going on?!

Also OP, I'm around your daughter's age. I'm horrified by their attitude towards other women and they certainly don't speak for their whole generation!

I think it is worth pointing out that abusers/ pedophiles will take any and every opportunity to access children. Some become teachers, priests, youth leaders etc, but if self ID goes ahead, this will make life very easy for them.
We are really more concerned about those who will immediately take advantage of this, be they pedophiles or even just men wanting access to women's changing rooms for sexual kicks. Less concerned about genuine transwomen but we have no way to tell the difference.

@vdbfamily for sure - and that is probably why in prison men identifying as women actually have higher rates of sexual offences than “standard” male rate

but I do think it’s important to be clear thst just becaue someone is a “genuine” transwoman (whatever that means under the ever growing umbrella) there still just as much a potential threat to women as any other man

i have a nephew who is a delightful young man - I know that - other women don’t. And it is entirely right for other women to exclude him from women and girls spaces on safeguarding grounds - same goes for any perfectly pleasant male who identifies as a woman

The "saggy old bodies" comment is not only disgusting, it also demonstrates a level of (and I'm sorry, I don't want to be rude as you obviously love your daughter) ignorance I find hard to stomach.

As others have said, it sounds like something a self-righteous and thoughtless teenager might say, not a woman of more than twice that age.

I don't think there's any point trying to convince your daughters that they are wrong. Avoid the topic if possible and if they bring it up again, I would answer all their questions or assertions with questions. Try to get them to really think about what they're saying. You won't change their minds but you might encourage them to do enough thinking to change their own minds.

This is partly where I came from to my current views, the rest being my practice of feminist analysis where not having names for those who are victims of sex-based oppression, misogyny, and sexism causes tremendous hardship. The mistreatment of women and girls is, at its foundation, sex-based, and erasing our ability to address that is as hard as it would be to address racism if we were not allowed to have names for minority and majority racial groups.

Being female is a material condition, not about feelings, and attempts to appropriate 'woman' for the latter will certainly not help the vast majority of female people to get fairer lives on this earth.

If it makes you feel any better I think the worst of the social contagion era is tapering off! End of year 8/beginning of year 9 were her year groups mass ‘coming out’ phase (summer of 2018) and she’s just started lower 6th. The years below her seem to have fewer and fewer girls taking on these identities, although there are now more boys identifying as trans than in my middle child’s year (there were none in my son’s year, he did his GCSEs in 2016).

Youngest starts next September and I’ve applied for a very multicultural, fairly traditional girls’ high school (too many mixed sex toilets in the co-ed high schools and the girls grammar told teachers to stop calling the students ‘girls’ some years ago!)

When you get to the high schools open evening stage, ask some pointed questions, schools are extremely varied on this issue, don’t ever be afraid to be THAT parent.
My middle child’s school is a Stonewall Bronze Champion which sounded lovely 7-8 years ago, and very much not-lovely now)

I've just had a look 'skirt go spinny' is an actual YouTube channel with a bunch of films that I'm pretty sure your daughters should watch, but probably wouldn't want to. Just a few minutes of each of the ones I clicked on had me fuming.

@sunshinesupermum I wondered how it's going?
This Red Hand File from Nick Cave, made me think of you this morning.

www.theredhandfiles.com/to-speak-ones-mind/

MusselMam thank you for thinking of me. Much appreciated. Things are back to normal with no further discussion about trans issues. Nick Cave's words are very wise. Lovely man who has been through so much.

Good luck, OP. It looks like asking them questions is the only way forward.
I've used the great Mr Menno 'in the ladies' for peaking people in the past:

OP absolutely shocked that your daughters are speaking to you like that "are obsessed with the idea of men breaking into changing rooms to spy on their saggy old bodies". Like others I would have expected that from early 20s but not late 30s/40s. I am in my 30s and I have never been anything other than GC so it is certainly not a case of only old ladies think that way. The casual misogyny in that type of sentiment too!

Yes, that's fucking rude. I'd not engage further.

I'm sure your daughters would understand that for somebody to paint their face black and identify as a black person would be inappropriate and offensive. Can they explain why they do not fell the same way about a man who wears makeup and a dress and identifies as a woman?

I'm a similar age to your daughter and I'm also appalled at her unpleasant tone and ageism.

On the one hand this seems like a pointless conversation if everyone is entrenched in their views. But I completely get it. I really struggled when my female relatives were saying 'be kind' and you're a biggot'.

These days they are all signing the women's declarations/ donating to LGBA/ signing up to sex matters. Oh the relief.

Getting from A to B did involve some fraught conversations. What really helped was that after any altercation we would accept that each knew that the other was coming from a place of compassion and good faith. We'd make up and agree not to discuss it for a while...

Denying that what is happening to 50% of the population in Afghanistan is due to their biology is not progressives by any definition of that. It is shocking to discover that both your daughters are bigots OP and I really, really feel for you. It's also surprising because of their age but I think that as there are so many people who are just not able to think straight about this issue, there is still hope that they will move to a more tolerant and less woman-hating position.