Argument with younger family members

[CandidLurker]

I know there’s been a couple of threads but could do with thoughts/advice as to how to settle this in my mind.

At a family gathering yesterday someone brought up the SC decision. I knew exactly the reaction of two young women (both 20’s/very early 30’s) in the family so I tried not to say anytthing.

However, one did argue it from the point of view that this is an oppressed minority and it’s treating them like gay men used to be treated which annoyed me because I don’t think it’s the same at all, then I said I agreed with the SC decision and oh my God the outrage….
….some of the things that were said….no trans people were consulted in the SC decision…trans women don’t have a physical advantage in sports because they can take puberty blockers during adolescence….one shouted at me “BUT THEY HAVE GRC’s” and almost spat out JK Rowling’s name like she is an evil bitch.

I’m kind of upset because these are 2 young privileged women with parents who have helped them overcome every possible difficulty in life they have yet encountered. They’ve probably never encountered sexism in the workplace to the extent I did starting work in a male dominated profession in the 80’s. They weren’t born during the AIDS crisis and have no knowledge/memory of the kind of institutional prejudice gay men encountered (eg not being able to be honest about being gay as then they couldn’t get life insurance which was a requirement for a mortgage in those days).

i feel like they hate me. It feels a bit like when you are a child and you are accused of something serious you haven’t done!

I don’t think trying to speak to them about it will achieve anything..

Any words of wisdom appreciated.

My DD definitely gets her opinions from TikTok.

my son doesn’t believe in (his words) all this trans shit but as he says it is dangerous to be against it in the current political climate.

it’s dangerous for people of his age (24) to be gender critical because it’s seen as not having the right values and you will absolutely be ostracised and get a load of shit for it. So he keeps very very quiet.

Younger people will always be more progressive and less afraid of change. You can spend your days arguing with them and stay stuck in the past or try to learn to better understand the modern world and people who are different to you, such as transgender women.

My son is similar to yours. But is unable to keep quiet. I am pleased he is not ashamed of his views, but I worry he will be shunned by his peers who are lamenting the judgment as of it were a genocide. Frankly I find it hard enough as a middle aged Gen X woman, would be much harder as a Gen Z person trying to make a start on career etc.

I have a similar situation but in my case the person I disagree with is my 80-year-old mother, (who is very intelligent, well-educated and in full command of her faculties). The subject has come up in conversation once or twice and I mostly try not to respond at all, but it does infuriate me that someone as intelligent as my mum can’t see the damage caused by this ideology and blindly accepting that a man can become a woman.

I asked my daughter to explain what JKR had said that was so awful. She said trans friends had explained it to her and she believed them. She couldn’t explain herself though.

I suspect that she is being loyal to her girlfriend (and possibly their friendship group) even though she knows somewhere deep in her subconscious that I’m right.

Not sure if we’re allowed to say yet that we think there are aspects of transactivism and so-called LGBTQ+ culture that are somewhat cult-like, but it is very much my opinion that that is largely how this operates. Once in, no questioning of the tenets is allowed.

Long time lurker here just to give you some positivity.

My daughter is 16 and 100% quietly GC as are all her friends, male & female. No idea if she is typical (we're Irish so of course it's not our court's decision either) but they see that mid 20s generation as "old" and basically interchangeable with boomers/millennials.

In her worldview they see trans ideology the way I would have seen Church ideology, something hypocritically forced down her throat by teachers and other sanctimonious adults. Something you have to sit quietly through but have no real belief in. There were a few kids who went NB/trans at a younger age but have stopped now - they see it as a thing 12 year olds do rather than teens, and certainly not cool. She would see blue hair the same way, something "old people" do to be cool, and therefore about as far from cool as it's possible to be.

I saw some UK stats somewhere say the 18-30 generation had moved from 17 to 25% holding GC views and I wondered very strongly if that was the younger generation turning 18 and moving into the survey cohort.

Hope you're feeling ok after what sounds like a bruising encounter.

Yes, young family members also know deep down it is 'safe' to sound off in this situation. They can express their views, even with vitriol, but their older relatives are sensible grown-ups and won't cancel them ever after. They know this.

I've found that using fact based arguments i.e., rates of offending in trans women is the same as that in men and considerably higher than that in women, as a society if we record the trans women crimes as women's, as we no longer present a true picture of offending in society, how could we then find solutions to it? or there are biological differences and health impacts between men and women, if we collect health data for women which includes data collected from trans women then the conclusions drawn and treatment based on that data could cause health harms to women.
Once they realise isn't about 'feels' (valid though those are) they are more willing to engage, they may not agree but they will think about those issues long after the discussion.

Thanks for all the info. I’m not sure anything I could say would change their thinking/stance. Because if you believe, for example, TWAW then nothing anyone says is going to move you from that view and any challenges anyone makes are brought back to that position..

Did you point out to her that her trans friends are the least neutral people in the world on this topic, and if she wants to make sure she's actually got her facts straight she should probably go to the source material and read what JK Rowling has actually said for herself in order to make her own mind up?

In that case if the topic comes up again, you say, "Look, the Supreme Court's role was limited to interpreting the law. A landmark piece of legislation passed by the last Labour government. And the Supreme Court's decision was that female people exist as a recognised category in law, a category which does not include any members of the opposite sex regardless of how they identify or what pieces of paper they have, and that it is both reasonable and lawful for female people to have some single sex spaces and services. If you disagree with that principle you should write to your MPs and start campaigning for parliament to change the law and legislate to erase female people from the statute books, if you think that is the truly progressive point of view. But continuing to rant about this is about as productive as shouting at fruit in Tesco."

I have a thought that they are so vitriolic to JKR because she is a mother figure they can be comfortable in hating.

Representative of their mothers’ generation who they think got feminism so wrong, a bit like the railing of younger generations against boomer generations blind to their civil rights activism.

Never mind the Romans and Medieval times and the Victorians - we need to strengthen mid-twentieth century social history from the UK on school curriculums, KS2 and up.

It isn't true that younger people will always be more progressive. Nothing demonstrates that more clearly than young people's slavish adherence to this REGRESSIVE and misogynistic ideology.

My DD is at sixth form and was horrified when I said it was a great outcome. She stated that everyone in her generation thinks it’s a bad thing.

I was somewhat surprised as she’s normally very pro-women’s rights but we agreed to disagree. I told her I had very firm views on this that wouldn’t change and pointed out that the law hasn’t changed etc. .. she’s living in a bubble…

@MissScarletInTheBallroom

Yes it did occur to me when this point was made about trans people not being consulted well why would the judges consult interest groups. It’s not a consultation. However wasn’t quick enough to articulate this thought and I think I was a bit stunned by what felt to me like some hostility.

Same here although my daughter is 20, and a uni student living at home. Sadly trans identity questioning has been a heavy feature from her early teenage years to date. In many ways thankfully we're out the other side without the serious harms that many have suffered. But I am very careful around her and we rarely talk about it. I see her furiously typing away at times and wonder if her thoughts and feelings are similar to the confused visitors we occasionally see on these boards. I hang on to the hope that with maturity she will come to better understand both sides. Her Autism does appear to cause her to see situations as black or white and when she latches on to a cause she will hyperfocus and no reasoning can sway her. She more recently has become passionate about the Palastinian/Israeli conflict and refuses point blank to acknowledge any sympathy or understanding at all for Israel. My son who is slightly younger seems to take a much more nuanced approach and we can have open discussions where we both learn from each other. With my daughter if it gets to a point where we say something she doesn't agree with she will become physically distressed leading to meltdowns. She then will say because of our views she no longer feels safe in her own home. In view of this we avoid discussion.

I have teens. Neither of them believe TWAW or TMAM.

The boys are fairly open and relaxed about it.

The girls would like to be kind to their friend who says she is a boy and changed names and pronouns. But is clear to me that it’s courtesy, not ideology.

I have spent a lot of time over the years having calm, quiet and reasonable discussions about just how problematic gender ideology, balancing out the nonsense they hear at school and online.

I understand. It's easy to think of all the best responses after the event, but in the moment it's such a hostile environment.

My best friend believes TWAW and by mutual consent we very rarely discuss this. We (along with our other friend) did once have a conversation about this, it was very civil, we agreed to disagree, no one called the other person an evil bigot, and even then my heart was racing.

It's very difficult to express yourself well when you're under attack.

I don't know if it's the right way to win hearts and minds but in your position I would be very tempted to take the view that the Supreme Court have spoken, they have confirmed that the law agrees with JK Rowling, the adults have re-entered the room, and if the toddlers want to keep having tantrums about it that's up to them but they are wasting their time and making themselves look thoroughly silly.

FYI I am still (just about) in my 30s so not much older than your relatives.

Most unusually, I'm posting without have read ANY of the thread beyond the OP.

Distilling all the input from various threads, I think the best advice is DON'T.
Just don't.

Arguments within families are rarely about what the argument seems to be about. Somebody - very often mother - is always going to be in the wrong.

Practice resting quietly in your own GC opinions - you think you are right, we [most of us] think you are right, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland thinks you are right...

Chill.

More tea, anyone?

I think the word "courtesy" is really powerful here. If deployed well, it can reframe the argument.

The essence of the Supreme Court decision is that women are female people and have sex based rights. Trans women are male people who we refer to as women out of courtesy. They also have protection from discrimination on grounds of their gender reassignment status, however, this does not trump women's sex based rights. Now this has been made clear, the conversation now needs to move on to how trans people's needs can be met in a way that doesn't infringe women's sex based rights.

DD was home this weekend and from past experience I know that is a subject that its better we avoid BUT DH would not let it go, he is ND and gets a bit hyper fixated on things. I just wanted to enjoy our limited time with DD so I just kept changing the subject.

My daughter’s a couple of years younger, but says that amongst the younger ones at her school, gender stuff is seen as “cringe” and very passé — the sixth form have a few nonbinary students, and the sixth form girls put their pronouns on everything; but she says that in the lower school (11-16) the pupils just roll their eyes and laugh at this.

She’s very GC and so are all her friends — they hate gender neutral toilets, they think the rainbow stuff looks cringy, and they see the “gender people” as attention-seeking. Interesting — that it could well be that the gender stuff eventually dies a death because gen Alpha see it as embarrassing and old fashioned, as opposed to millennials/gen Z, for whom it was the next big thing.

The way I framed it with my daughter is that courtesy is important but also has limits and should be allowed to set clear boundaries.

So my DD might be happy to use cross sex pronouns for her friend but I am not. That in no way impedes me being a perfectly polite and gracious host to the girl when she comes to my house. I use the name requested of course and in first person conversation it doesn’t take too much effort to avoid personal pronouns.

However courteous I am to my daughter’s friend I will not share a public loo with a man, regardless of his clothing choice.

Society requires boundaries for safety, privacy and dignity. Laws have to be based on facts, not feelings. Laws aren't written for individuals but for society as a whole.

They are adult women who have as much of a right to an opinion about a women’s right issue as you or anyone else. They are allowed to disagree with you. You are allowed to disagree with them.

You also have absolutely no idea whatsoever what struggles they may or may not have faced as women. You had your own struggles in your 20s that they won’t have to experience, but they will also be experiencing struggles you never had to deal with at their age.

The internet and social media didn’t exist for a start. They are dealing with men who have access to hard core pornography on their phones 24/7. Organised, violent, online incel culture the likes of which we have never seen before. Pressure to have botox and fillers as teenagers. I think dismissing their opinion because they weren’t born during the aids epidemic is bizarre. You don’t get to have an opinion as a woman only if you’ve been alive X number of years.

I agree with JK Rowlings overall stance on trans issues but I detest her needless nastiness and find her to be off putting to many people who could otherwise be persuaded to join her crusade.

I also don’t think they are entirely wrong to draw a comparison to how gay men used to be discussed. I’m old enough to remember concerns about gay men becoming teachers because they’d molest all the little boys. The absolute irony of this when everyone I know remembers a hetero male teacher who ended up with a female pupil…It’s the direct line drawn between X and sexual perversion. Gay = pedophile, trans = rapist.

I want to make it clear that I fully support female only spaces and I understand that women are of course wary of anyone born with a penis, because they have been a threat to us since the dawn of humanity. However people can rarely have a sensible conversation with nuisance about this topic. Everything is always black and white.

My advice is don’t discuss this at the family dinner table. Just like it’d be unwise to discuss abortion, religion, politics or anything else that people have strong emotive opinions on.

Nobody is saying they aren't allowed to an opinion.

But they seem to want to force their opinion on others.

Regardless of your opinion on whether you personally feel happy to share changing rooms with male people who identify as female, you should respect other women's right to say no. You don't get to consent on anyone else's behalf.

That's why their point of view is wrong.