Older generations show resistance to trans rights

[Inauthentic]

"Millennials and Gen Z tend to be overwhelmingly supportive of trans people, having grown up in a more inclusive environment, while older generations show far more resistance to trans rights, likely intimidated by the speed of social change."

Is this your experience?
There appears to be an overwhelming support for gender critical beliefs on Mumsnet.
Is it because it's mainly older generations engaging in this debate?

How old are you and what are your views?

I am 45yo and I mostly support trans rights (with the exception of trans athletes competing in woman's events and I agree puberty blockers is a grey area)

You know what? Read a few threads on the AIBU & Relationship boards to understand what being a woman feels like.

Having young kids where your partner and their Dad won't put any fucking effort in to help you take care of them. His time off is just for him but you do all the night feeds, early starts and school drop offs whilst also working. And you're absolutely fucking knackered but he still bitches about the house being untidy but he doesn't lift a finger.

When your partner earns shit loads more money than you but it's 'his money' so you have to spend what little money you earn from your part time job or spend from your savings for things for your children that he doesn't value.

Or when you've just given birth or had a CS and he wants a shag the first night you're back home. When you're still in pain and have stitches. And then he wants to invite his family round to see the new baby and wants you to cook a roast dinner for everyone when you can barely look after yourself or the baby. And you're also looking after a toddler and trying to do the school run.

That's what feeling like a woman is like for so many women. It isn't a spinny skirt, a lovely lippy colour, or swishy hair. It's fucking hard work, day after day.

@TammyOne Gender identity is something older people pretend to care about to try and look relevant it’s so cringe…

As an older person I may have to take exception to this 😎😎 - is this something you young things just automatically spout??

I don't think I've actually been considered 'relevant' in a long time ........ 😂😂

62. Gender atheist. Trans women are men. No debate

Another biologist. 68, which is only relevant given the OP on this thread.

XX = female and XY = male is a simplification. The genes (which are subject to frequent random mutations, as all genes are) control the production of hormones in utero and at puberty, and these hormones control the development of sexual organs.

“In general, androgens are considered "male sex hormones", since they have masculinizing effects, while estrogens and progestogens are considered "female sex hormones"[6] although all types are present in each sex at different levels.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_hormone

I think it’s perfectly possible that some humans that present as men have “a sense of self” as female. I’m happy to accept that they are females, who have suffered a genetic/hormonal accident in their early development. And accept them with sympathy as women.

(I was a “tomboy” girl, actually prayed as a child to please let me wake up and be a boy. A rejection of the limitations imposed on girls in my generation. I’ve never been a conventionally girly women. But I’ve never had any “sense of self” as anything but female.)

If this thread has been read in Scotland, presumably the OP can be done for homophobia and ageism??

Your hormones are based on the sex encoded in your DNA. As for the other stuff? We don’t know yet but it’s probably a mix of social and genetic influences. What it isn’t, however, is a magical ‘feeling’ that makes a person a different biological sex to the one that’s in encoded in every cell of their body.

(insert obligatory disclaimer about intersex people here)

This is well said.

And interesting also as it made me realise I hadn't picked up on any indicators of the OP being female and had subconsciously been reading them as male.

Did we all want to be male at some point? I can remember thinking around puberty how much easier life would be if I were male...but guess what I'm not and got DC that i saw being dragged out of my own body which definitely proved my body didn't think so either.

If anyone is interested, OP’s quote comes from this Forbes article from a couple of years ago.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/danidiplacido/2022/04/11/emma-watson-and-jk-rowling-fans-clash-over-resurfaced-interview/?sh=58db3861647a

@FlemishHorse

’I think it’s perfectly possible that some humans that present as men have “a sense of self” as female. I’m happy to accept that they are females, who have suffered a genetic/hormonal accident in their early development. And accept them with sympathy as women.’

Thank you for your perspective - I’d be interested to know how you think this acceptance should work? (i fully agree that it should exist, btw). Should it extend to respecting pronouns and making someone feel welcome? I’d say yes, absolutely. Should it extend to a person who has the size and strength advantages of going through male puberty being placed in a women’s prison or competing in women’s sports events? I’d say absolutely not, because that point the acceptance starts to erode the rights and safety of others, and i don’t think that’s fair or ok.

Thank you for your factual and educated post.

I wish more people would understand that xx and xy explanation is not as simple as they think.

@Inauthentic I’d love to hear your thoughts on my response to your argument about homosexuality. Genuinely interested.

Another biologist here. Women are women. Men are men. Nothing can change that. If you are a man and pump yourself full of ‘female’ hormones you are still a man. If your brain structure changes or parts of your brain are removed, your sex doesn’t change.
It is that simple.

When you say “ I support trans rights” how does that manifest itself?

If you were arrested would you be happy to be intimately searched by a man who identifies as a woman?

Are you happy that women who have been raped and sexually assaulted have been told to refer to their rapist as “she” and use other female descriptors in court “she put her penis in my mouth, then she ejaculated “.

Are you happy for men to strip off in female changing rooms in front of young girls, or for transwomen acting as swim meet officials to have access into female changing areas.

Are you ok with lesbian women being called transphobic because they don’t want to sleep with “ lesbian” transwomen.

Are you fine with transwomen shouting down women who say that no one can sex, with women being hounded from their jobs for expressing legally held views , with men feeding babies with chemically induced chest “milk”, with people with a sexual fetish for wearing womens clothes using womens spaces for their sexual gratification, with the chemical castration of teenagers whose brains haven’t fully developed, with young girls mutilating their bodies with “ top surgery” , with young people being given drugs without anyone explaining the implications for their future health, with the excision of women centric language from official documents and its replacement by confusing meaningless jargon.

I could go on, I was just curious as to what your support for trans rights looks like.

Also an older person, did not vote for Brexit. Don’t care what people wear, (though am mildly amused at the way that many transwomen present which makes me realise they have no insight into womens lives), and will fight to the end of days to protect womens spaces, womens dignity , womens privacy , and womens hard won rights from those who seek to destroy

This.

I am Generation Z, politically moderate and have a university degree. I'm also GC, sorry to disappoint OP.

I believe that sex is real, immutable and a far more accurate predictor of physical strength, criminal offending and general social behaviour than gender identity. For this reason, any kind of split (statistical or segregational) needs to be done on the basis of sex and not gender identity. Sex has wide application. Gender identity is only meaningful to the individual who has one.

I oppose social compulsions that villainise women's highly attuned evolutionary instincts and expect everyone else to lie to be polite. Furthermore, I oppose putting children on medical pathways when discomfort around one's biological sex is very common at pubertal onset, especially because we don't know the later effects on physical health.

What I want is genuinely single-sex spaces where they matter, no compulsion to ignore biological sex, accurate sex-based statistical reporting, and no medical interventions (and limited social interventions) for children. That's all I want. If you want to put on lippie and a spinny skirt, fill your boots. And if you don't want to use the men's, I will support your campaign for a unisex space you can use.

Fwiw my 17 year old son is very gender critical. He has female friends who are very into sports and he thinks it's wrong if males try to race against them. He says they only do it because they can't compete against other males.

Referring to XX and XY chromosomes is a short hand for many people who are fully aware that there is more to it, scientifically, than just the chromosomes. But just because the process is complex, it doesn't make it untrue that there are only two sexes. It doesn't make it true that an adult male with XY chromosomes can become a female person, or an XX adult woman become a male person.

@Inauthentic Basic biology isn't just what you see though.
It's the structure of your brain, how your brain works, your hormones.

Nobody's talking about biology being something that you just see.

(a) Biology means whether you are male or female - with the corresponding chromosomes and reproductive organs.

As an example: I believe India Willoughby refers to himself as a woman - I personally don't understand how this can be.

He has a son. He didn't give birth to this child but he did play a man's part in conceiving the child.
To my way of thinking he is a father, not a mother

What is the dictionary definition of father?
(1) : a male parent. (2) : a man who has begotten a child.

(b) What does the structure of your brain have to do with anything?

Male babies are born with male hormones.
Female babies are born with female hormones.
No escaping the facts.

What's age got to do with it? In my family, those in their twenties, thirties, forties and 50's are all in agreement, you can not change your sex! The genitals you are born with is what determines you as male or female, sexual preference is who you are attracted to. So whether you are attracted to the opposite sex or same sex, you are still a male or female, and to be honest it's nobody's business who someone is attracted to. But people who think they can change sex by operations or just identifying as the opposite sex are wrong. Even if a male was to have surgery to try to look like a woman he would still be at risk of prostrate cancer etc. I'm not buying into this ridiculousness

Everyone on MN is GC

I am pretty sure that will be news to Mishy and Dadjoke, amongst others.

@Inauthentic I wish more people would understand that xx and xy explanation is not as simple as they think.

Can you explain further for those of us who are of the " older generations " who "show far more resistance to trans rights, likely intimidated by the speed of social change." 😬😬

Yeah. We can't be arsed with this bollocks.

Men are men. Women are women. Nobody can change sex.

And if you've got a penis you aren't a woman and shouldn't be allowed into women's same sex areas. Ask your fellow blokes to treat you kindly. Us women aren't a special shield for you.

I don't think they are from/ in the UK, there are quite a few language issues with their posts which at first made me think they’re from the US and then that they’ve been put through Google translate.