The Mental gymnastics of genz thought process

[ThrowawayMay]

NC for this. Can’t sleep so thought I’d ask about this evenings youthful interaction.

My niece (23) who lives with me, attends a design college and yesterday a male student installed artwork threatening surveillance in the female toilets (and all the other toilets too so there were no alternatives). My niece and her classmates wouldn’t use the toilets because they didn’t know if it was just a concept artwork or if he had actually installed cameras. A older female student challenged the man taking photos in the toilets and ordered him out then complained to staff via email but apparently nobody was in so nothing was done about it.

When I was speaking to my niece and her classmate in the evening, I was astounded by the mental gymnastics involved in how it would be ok if the person had identified as a trans woman but because he didn’t this was a problem. The friend went so far as to point out unironically that the women’s toilet should be a safe space for women. I asked how they knew he didn’t identify as trans (they said because they knew him as a man so knew he wasn’t) and I asked how him wearing women’s clothes could have changed the outcome of the threat of surveillance cameras, and they said because a trans woman wouldn’t do that (!). I asked what if they didn’t know this hypothetical trans person personally and they said then it wouldn’t matter because they wouldn’t see them again. My niece even went so far as to say it’s not how a person presents, it’s how they identify but couldn’t answer how they would know how someone identifies in a situation like this without asking them outright which is as we know problematic.

I just don’t understand the mental gymnastics involved in justifying albeit in this instance, hypothetical behaviours. Because this person dresses like a man and identifies as a man he’s a threat but if he happened to say he identified as a woman then he wouldn’t be a threat regardless of how he dressed, and they’d just accept this on his say so?

I tried to explain to my niece and friend that this is the gender critical dilemma. How do we know who is safe? and doesn’t allowing a male bodied person who identifies as not male into places where women are in a state of undress or vulnerability, open up the spaces to men like this guy who doesn’t care for the boundary being crossed and thinks it’s acceptable in the name of art (or any other reason he can think of)

Of course I’m called an old t*rf for my logic but they just cannot see that their response is illogical. The level of trust required for their viewpoint is astounding based on how someone identifies internally which we can never truly know about or if they make it known, be sure that they are genuine

Can anyone explain to me how this works in the mind of genZ because my geriatric millennial brain is not catching up?

I think they probably can see the logic but have been brought up to realise it would be ‘social suicide’ to say anything else.

Yeah my dd tells me unisex toilets are really really safe the only time I've felt threatened by a man in there my (transwomen) friend threatened to punch them in the face and they backed off

If it wasn't unisex the man would never have been there ffs and why is it acceptable to threaten physical violence? (VERY aggressively apparently)

a male student installed artwork threatening surveillance in the female toilets (and all the other toilets too so there were no alternatives). My niece and her classmates wouldn’t use the toilets because they didn’t know if it was just a concept artwork or if he had actually installed cameras. A older female student challenged the man taking photos in the toilets and ordered him out then complained to staff via email but apparently nobody was in so nothing was done about it.

This student should be reported to the police.

-and yes, OP, it's a stunning feat of social control that we have young women convinced that a man transgressing women's boundaries must be excused, because the act of transgression itself proves he is harmless.

When we are young and if we have been lucky to have had no bad experiences with men, and people trying to scam and gaslight and bully us, we think we are so cool and clever and know it all.
Unfortunately they will learn as they age and experience more of the world.

For (a declining number, thankfully) of GenZ, identity is viewed as the cornerstone of quality of life and self actualisation. They hold the idea that being 'free to be me' is essential to living happily and must never be oppressed. if 'being free to be me' is problematic to others, unless others come back with, but I can't be 'free to be me' argument, the identity 'needs' will always trump.

This is why the safety arguments don't land. They think that identifying into a group really is what makes you part of the group. Whether you statistically present more of a risk doesn't matter. They would say there are within group variations regarding risk already, this just extends the range and is unavoidable.

If you say that including transwomen in the 'identity group' of women challenges your 'identity', they say you need to broaden your ideas about the category, so your identity isn't impacted.

I don't think that centring identity does improve quality of life or self actualisation. I think the obsession about ideas and words and trying to control other people's perceptions (which is a preoccupation of all those curating their lives on social media - which is most of GenZ) is damaging to mental health. They will reject any studies suggesting as much, claiming the only valid voices that should be listened to are those with lived experience - who are busy stating that they would be very happy if only they could control others thoughts and perceptions.

They suggest that developing resilience and accepting that others might not perceive us the way we wish (the basics of many psychoanalytic treatments, with a god evidence base) is viewed as victim blaming or conversion therapy. Meanwhile, they perpetuate their own unhappiness with their thinking. And, their unhappiness (and anger) will grow as more people within and outside their generation are being helped to consider how material reality can't be marginalised

The attribution of purity to a male person upon making a transgender declaration is a conundrum that only comes from decades of public relations work by heavily invested groups. This is where we are left.

The magical ‘a transwoman wouldn’t do that’ phrase that cannot ever stand up to scrutiny. Because, how can it when there is fuck up solid to support it. And once people start the dissonance pathway, where they personally cannot explain why, eventually some of those people will understand they have been sold a falsity by people they trusted.

Unfortunately, some will remain stuck at the start of the pathway because they use the empty platitude of ‘asking that is transphobic’ to impede their understanding. We see it on here time to time.

It is why the question of ‘how many female people are acceptable collateral to you, until laws, policy and guidance are changed?’ is never answered. Nor is the ‘what is the list of changes that occurs that makes a male person a ‘transwoman’ question. Posters just disappear when these are repeated if they avoid them and I think it is because they realise they have nothing to offer in answer. They just go and tell themselves how hateful the questioners are because that too has been modelled by those heavily invested groups as being the only reason for the questions.

It has been a remarkable achievement. I think it is one that will be studied and written about in decades to come.

wr have to deprogramme a generation.

it sounds a bit like she had a valid concern and was trying to talk to you about it, and you made it about the transdebate, which is a bit odd really.

It's completely pertinent.

The student has a valid concern about a male in a woman-only space and her own boundaries are compromised by the idea that a 'transwoman' in a woman-only is de facto harmless.

So well put!

It is a valid concern and it is a valid discussion about which male people are and are not acceptable in female single sex spaces. Is the reason you find it ‘odd’ because you think the situation would be different if it was a male person with a trans identity behind the ‘art installation’?

Please explain how having concerns about a male being in the female toilets is not the same as a .male (transwoman) being in the female toilets? I'm all ears.

It's completely relevant ... why would my DH be more of a risk than another biological man who identifies as a woman?

Please can you explain?

I used to think like your daughter. I advise continuing to support her to have boundaries against men-who-admit-they're-men. Eventually, she will have had enough interactions with men who are obviously "at it", to quote Humza Yousaf, that she will realise that men who don't have a history of gender dysphoria may nevertheless have enough braincells to claim they have gender dysphoria.

Then she will realise that it is impossible to tell the difference on sight between "nice male person with gender dysphoria" and "man without gender dysphoria who has invested time and thought into how to dress".

Then she will realise that the presence of a "nice male person with gender dysphoria" excludes many groups of women who need female-only spaces to fully participate in society.

Then she will wonder how nice the "nice male person with gender dysphoria" truly is, if they think their own access to women's toilets, changing rooms, and so on is more important than, for example, women with PTSD from sexual abuse, having access to female-only spaces.

And then she'll be a fully fledged women's rights activist.

This. My twenty year old knows exactly what the issue is but has grown up on a diet of “be kind” lest someone gets sad.

my late teens are more open about their contempt for the lunacy of it all.

another few years and we’ll be full circle.

I've been to art college so I know well the pretentious post modern wankery that can occur!

That said, even in the dark days of the 00s we'd have been called out on anything that overtly and unfairly threatened another group of human in the way this man's "project" does. There ought to be adults somewhere in the building (albeit probably just on a Tuesday afternoon yay cuts) to deal with this. Especially as he's not (yet) a man who's declared the special words.

Your niece is of a cohort failed by the adults in charge of educating them. The more privileged ones amongst them may cling to their incoherent beliefs for some time. At some point, they'll be the ones dismissed as being put of touch by the generation below. Lots of alphas out their being raised by terfs lucky enough to see what was happening before it affected their kids.

They’ve been indoctrinated to disbelieve their own eyes and ears, so cognitive dissonance is second nature to them

I think that, when you're a young woman, it can be very hard to accept that men are stronger and faster than you are, so you kick against it at every opportunity. It took me many years to come to terms with it.

And I know that doesn't quite explain your daughter's argument but I think that feeling (of not wanting to accept that men are stronger) can blind you to all kinds of other logic - at least it did for me.

Thank you this is a really helpful explanation.

i don’t have time to respond to everyone’s posts but I have read them. Am waiting for the update from Niece this morning.

I think that's very true.

As a young woman feminist, I refused to accept that there was anything a man could do better than me. I was fiercely competitive with my boyfriends at every sport or activity, who mainly enjoyed beating the angry little woman!

Then you get pregnant and can't put on your own shoes. Suddenly the realities of what your body does and doesn't do hits home. No, I'm not faster or stronger than a man but I can grow a baby inside me in an astonishing physical feat.

It's intellectually hard to balance the physical, thr mental and the social aspects of each person - that's why we need a fair society that respects and balances the contributions of both sexes.

Can we take it away from the issue of trans and gender altogether.

If John wears a fancy dress costume as a demon, if he more or less likely to rape or rob that if he wears a fancy dress costume as an angel?

If it isn't fancy dress, if he's an actor, throwing himself into his part, totally identifying with his character, will that change how he behaves when offstage?

What if he's wearing a business suit, or sports kit, or jeans and hoodie?

I agree with this. The message young people are growing up with is that questioning, or being uncomfortable with, any aspect of the TWAW mantra means that you must be a right wing, homophobic, transphobic bigot (somewhat ironically, for a group who claim that self identity is all important, the TRAs are very quick to give unrequested labels to anyone who disagrees with them). The only alternative is that you are none of those things, but your discomfort is a result of simply not quite understanding why TWAW is always true. On that basis, the 'right' thing to do is not act on your discomfort but educate yourself until it goes away.

Interestingly (and depressingly) not long ago I was asked to take part in 'diversity' training (which was all about TQIA+ with a passing reference to LGB but nothing about race, sex, age, disability etc). One slide was headed 'Get comfortable with being uncomfortable'.

I think this is an excellent observation.

What is it about a man who becomes a transwoman that has fundamentally changed, apart from the costume?

When we consider other costumes, the ludicrousness of our becomes even more apparent.