Please hold my hand. My daughter has drunk the koolaid, and I’m more upset & angry than I think I have ever been. (SC ruling)

[MarvellousMonsters]

This will be long, so I apologise in advance. I find myself in a grey area between radfems and woke-maidens. I don’t hate trans people, I don’t hate anyone, although as a woman in my 50s I’ve had enough male fuckwittery in my life to have a very low opinion of men in general. I do believe that there are some people with such intense dysphoria that counselling and support are not enough and surgical transition is their best solution, but I don’t believe anyone can change sex, or is born in the wrong body.

That said, I detest gender stereotypes and the confusion of sex & gender, I’m the generation of women that fought really hard on a day to day level to reject these stupid made up rules about what girls can and can’t do/wear/think, and seeing the ‘men in a dress’ become accepted as that meaning they are women is a huge step backwards, and it makes me furious.

I honestly don’t care who wears what, if a man wants to wear dresses and make up, that’s fine. I’ve spent the last 15-20 years in t-shirts and jeans, no make up etc, so I don’t see why men can’t wear skirts if they want to. As Eddie Izzard used to say, they aren’t women’s clothes, they are my clothes. (So disappointed that Eddie has now claimed to be Suzie)

I am not a dress.

I genuinely don’t care about sharing spaces like toilets, it’s possible to create safe unisex toilets, the focus on this is a distraction and needs to stop. But when men claim to identify as women and skew crime statistics, that bothers me. Men who claim to identify as women and try to insist that lesbians should date them, that’s controlling and gross. Hospital wards and bays are segregated for a reason, and demanding we use she/her pronouns doesn’t mean a man should be put in a bed in a women’s bay. Same with any communal changing area, be it the gym or a shop fitting room. Women don’t have a penis, it’s really that simple.

This morning the SC ruling was mentioned briefly and my adult daughter is furious with it. She claims it’s a step backwards, that it will cause hate crimes and violence towards trans people, that anyone who supports it is a hateful bigot and wishes harm on a vulnerable minority. I tried to calmly explain to her that no laws have been changed, only clarified, and that trans people haven’t lost any rights, nor will any MtF prisoners be immediately transferred to male prisons to be raped and murdered by the other prisoners. Women aren’t going to be randomly strip-searched by male police officers who will claim they thought it was a man, etc. She just refuses to believe that women’s safe spaces need to be just for actual biological women, because she believes trans women don’t pose a threat, and even when I explained that most trans identifying MtF don’t have surgery etc and are still fully functioning males, and showed her examples of MtF assaulting women, she won’t accept that the actions of these men mean that we should be able to hold safe spaces based on biology. I tried to explain that I understand that trans people are vulnerable to hate crimes etc, and that we need to take steps to keep them safe, but not at the expense of women. We’ve had a long and very heated argument where she has accused me of being a bigot and a bunch of other incredibly hurtful things, mostly by refusing to accept that there is a toxic sub-set of (mostly MtF) TRAs that are actually autogynephiles/INCELs with misogyny at their core, and that these people threaten actual physical harm to anyone (like JKR) who dares to question their claims of womanhood.

Help me. Help me find a way to reach her. She’s an intelligent educated young woman who has been raised with feminist values, I have modelled non-stereotypical behaviours and given her complete freedom to choose her direction in life, with no expectations or limitations based on her sex. I’m genuinely appalled to hear this garbage coming from her.

Is it not just that so many of us remember what it felt like to be young and sure and full of righteous passion then, but understand now how naive we were and how much we had to learn, and most importantly how the men we believed supported us and also wanted a fairer society somehow still ended up shafting us in the same old ways?

I assume she's not had a baby yet or had to navigate any kind of female health issue... this may open her eyes.

@MarvellousMonsters mostly by refusing to accept that there is a toxic sub-set of (mostly MtF) TRAs that are actually autogynephiles/INCELs with misogyny at their core

Do you know what an incel is?

Good man😀
It’s encouraging to hear of young people thinking for themselves.

I was a very religious teenager. I would have argued to the death to demonstrate my faith and loyalty to my adopted community.

I think had I been a teenager young adult in this age, I would have taken on gender ideology with the same level of vigor.

So, I try to see myself in those who are screaming at me that I'm a TERF - I was like them once, but really I was massively insecure, desperately seeking somewhere to belong and trying to prove my worth.

I grew up, moved away and had a more balanced view of the religious community and could appreciate how it had helped me but also how it had at time exploited me.

I'm an atheist these days, so I truly believe many of these young people will change their minds as they get older, gain a wider social circle and move beyond university ideas.

It's OK, you can read the OP's post, she's not celebrating the Jonestown Massacre. Though that you knew it was about transgenderism, without getting past the title you couldn't read, is amazing.

For your own peace of mind, please never look into the origins of the phrase 'avoiding somone like the plague'.

I haven’t read the whole thread yet and not sure if I will, but I am in a very similar position. Managed to get all mine through teenage, intact and unindoctrinated, then my daughter met a slightly younger woman from a very captured university and that was that.

We clung on for a while, but she gradually became more angry with me and finally cut me off after I was overheard talking to someone else about it.

The thing is, I know I haven’t failed. I was a good mother to her and she grew into a wonderful young woman. I honestly believe transactivism and sections of the so-called LGBTQ community are like a narcissistic boyfriend, who tries to alienate you from those who love you by creating suspicion and paranoia, pushing you to choose between community or parent, with threats of ostracism unless you do exactly what they demand.

I hope she’ll come back. It’s an agonising pain, but it’s impossible for me to do anything that will appease her, partly because I can’t lie about this and partly because no apology is ever enough.

Sending hugs OP. I hope you find a way forward.

@MarvellousMonsters no additional advice that hasn't been said but we are from a similar background and my eldest DS went through this and called me all the Terfs under the sun(and worse!) and came out the other side. Just sending love and good luck sister!

I do: involuntarily celibate men who rage against the women who they think should be providing sexual favours. By extension, any miserable enraged men who hate women, while of course remaining obsessed with us.

I think young (uni age and younger) people these days seem to have very entrenched views based on their "tribe". At both extremes. Challenging the freedom of thought/welcoming different viewpoints is a better line of attack than challenging her current ideology itself. So smile, respectfully, and say oh that's interesting, not aligned with my views but interesting, and modelling tolerance is the ideal approach. P.S. Mine had all sorts of views before becoming adult and utterly reasonable. This too shall pass!

I genuinely don’t care about sharing spaces like toilets, it’s possible to create safe unisex toilets, the focus on this is a distraction and needs to stop.

No, it isn't.

@StMarie4me I think your post is pretty disingenuous because I bet you know full well that Op probably doesn't know the origin of that expression, as many people do not, and that is why she used it. In which case she is not "being flippant about mass murder", she is speaking in ignorance, and your faux outrage is unhelpful. But I agree it is a phase no-one should be using.

@Hairyesterdaygonetoday I do: involuntarily celibate men who rage against the women who they think should be providing sexual favours. By extension, any miserable enraged men who hate women, while of course remaining obsessed with us.

That's incorrect. An incel is anyone who claims to be involuntarily celibate; it is not a gender-specific term.

Why are people who advocate for the rights of transgender people being conflated with incels? From what I've seen online, the most sexist men also seem to have an intense hatred for transwomen.

Calling trans people’not genuinely’ trans is considered transphobic in the trans community. So that makes you a transphobe.
Commenting that trans people have been born in the wrong body ..also transphobic. Women can have penises etc etc
Do you see the issue?
Being kind and live and let live? Where has that got us?
Men in our jails, support groups, refuges, changing rooms, hospital wards, sports etc in direct conflict with our right to safety, privacy and dignity.
As PP stated it’s all very well being kind and live and let live…until it starts affecting you!!

Oh, me too! I was just telling dh that NFW can I be honest on social media as I could lose my job. Wtaf but that’s where we are.

Are you American, OP? Koolaid isn't really a thing in the UK.

Ha! I remember my DD in her teens, telling me that I was homophobic because I said I'd never date a bisexual man. Now she's married and mid 20's, there's no way she would want her DH to be into men!

Anyway, I digress. I think I'd tell her that there are :

A) Men who genuinely want to be women, and live peacefully as a woman, and cause us no harm

B) Men who have fetishes, still want sex with women, and who will stop at nothing to get into female spaces in order to have unfettered access (men in dresses wanking in female loos for eg, and men in changing rooms, taking pics of women over the curtains, or worse committing rape)

And that whilst we probably have no issue with the people in band A, we can't allow them into female only spaces, because we have no idea whether they are, in fact, in band A or B, because it's not written on their foreheads.

I would also ask her whether she would be happy to be in a prison cell with Isla Bryson, the trans "woman" who was jailed for rape, and then went on to rape his cell mate, who had no say in who she was housed with.

I would also ask her whether she would be happy to stand as number 2 on a sports podium, because 6ft5 Jane, who was born Dave, beat her in her sport.

Will she be happy if she has a daughter, for that little girl to have a penis swinging in her face when she's changing after swimming. That sort of thing.

I have a feeling you will be shouting into a chasm. Which is a shame. You just can't make some young people see sense. Gives me the fucking rage.

Sorry you've had a falling out over this.
Let the situation calm before you talk about this again. You're not going to be the one who illuminates a different perspective on this. She is entitled to her own views, but I would say that whilst you can agree to disagree, you both need to be mindful of using appropriate language and being respectful.
This issue seems to attract a disproportionate amount of heat and fury in people.
Feelings are inflamed and there's probably all sorts of misinformation being circulated on the internet.
It's a clarification, not a new ruling but it will cascade to policy and provision of services. In reality I doubt it will cause that much trouble day to day to trans people. It's not going to suddenly affect toilets, but it might mean they have to have clearer signs for example, and I think it will enable single sex spaces to assert those restrictions and in doing so, I would hope that the needs of trans people excluded from those places are properly met elsewhere.

Agreed to disagree.

Do not try to convince her.

Tell her that calling other people bigots is intolerant authoritarianism and inappropriate.

Then hold on to your views and wait till she peaks (which she will)

My sister, whom I love deeply, and I have very different views on this subject. We've both said our pieces and know how the other feels and now we just don't talk about it.

What an odd question - I suspect most adults in the UK would understand the reference.

Regrettably successive government's have allowed Stonewall to propagate their dangerous, illogical ideologies and introduce misogynistic, autocratic policies into our universities and institutions. They have done their best to eradicate, womens sport, safe places and even the words women and mothers from the dictionary, reducing women to be described as a set of gynaecological parts. Your daughter may well be captured but why would she react so viciously to your views. Unfortunately, for this cult to survive, it demands total acquiesce to its beliefs and no toleration of any other views. Give her some space.

You'd have to ask her what her problem is with the decision by the Supreme Court that clarifies what sex refers to. I'm assuming it has to pass the burden of reasonabless to be workable, so where it could reasonably be argued that a transwoman should have access to spaces & services, that'll still be the case.

I'd like to think it'll put an end to the idea that women's refuges, prisons, rape crisis centres etc should have to accept anyone who identifies as a woman, but I'm not convinced. I don't think parliament will change the equality act, but I think there will be some interesting cases to come.

The rest of her concerns, I'm sure you have enough common ground to agree with her on.

Google is your friend here. It’s an infamous historical reference

Why are you absorbing so much of your time in debating an issue that really impacts a very small percentage of the population? There are so many other things that are detrimental to women’s lives e.g. inequality in healthcare, different economic outcomes after divorce, wage discrimination etc. And perhaps that’s why this ruling has been so hyped up, whilst we’re het up over this, we’re ignoring the obvious.

The fact that this has split your family is very sad.

It’s a thing on this (UK mainly) board.