How do we think Gen Alpha will approach gender ideology?

[musicalfrog]

From what I've seen of some of my Gen A kid's online group chats, if it comes up (which is rare), 'identifying' as anything is largely met with derision and/or mirth. They are talking about third or imagined parties rather than anyone in their contacts. They're a pretty clued up bunch, from what I can tell.

I wonder if these kids are bored of it already, see it as unfashionable and are going to be less susceptible to the ideology (and indeed any belief system)? Or they just don't know about it yet (which is encouraging in itself tbh).

My genA son signed up for an online account for something today, at the 'gender' question, to which there were very many multiple choice options, he just laughed and said 'I am a croissant'! He thinks it's ridiculous. Perhaps there is hope for the future generation?

My youngest’s secondary school had an intense spate of trans pupils a few years ago with several teachers bending over backwards to force feed the whole queer agenda on the rest of the pupils.
As the older pupils have filtered out they have been replaced by a bunch utterly sick of it all, and many of them are openly homophobic as the LGB has been tarred by the TQ+ as having unreasonable expectations of everyone around them.
I think this will result in difficult times ahead for those who are LGB, and perhaps a time of welcome respite from the demands of the TQ+.

I have to ask… what’s the age range of Gen Alpha? 😂

I think you can’t generalise. They are about 11 at the oldest. Which means they aren’t peer-focused like 13+ yo children. Peer focus is often the issue with hating adults, making their own cliques and social groups, and adopting identities. Whether that’s being a punk a goth or an NB.

Give them time and see what they do!

2012 onwards.

Actually don't think there is anyone that DS knows of in his year group that identifies as anything.

My dd has friends that are therians. I've pointed out to dd that it's odd that they're ALWAYS foxes or wolves and NEVER dung Beetles. She thinks it's silly but I think she is jealous they get to wear tails at school. She knows that you can't change sex. But she also knows it's a bit like religion so if people want to pretend then just let them unless it involves invading spaces/risk of abuse.

There are a lot of very 'cool' parents in our group though who are very much TWAW and encourage their dc to Pride to march along with furries and men in s&m gear though so I think it's very variable.

The proportion of US undergraduates identifying as trans has practically halved in the last two years. I suspect that by the time Gen Alpha are that age identifying as the opposite sex will have gone back to being an extremely rare thing affecting a handful of people with genuine dysphoria.

I think they're too young to give any indication of how they'll respond.

I hope they are less earnest and worthy than gen z.

They are still pretty young.

Anecdotally, I have noticed with my 20 year old there still seem to be lots IDing as trans. With my 17 yo there are some, but many of those who started at 12 or so have now desisted. I don't know of any in the class of my 15yo.

I do think that there is also an element of rebellion in the school toward what is perceived as right-on adult stuff, mainly by the kinds of boys that like to rebel. LGBT stuff is seen as "establishment mentality" so it seems to be ripe for pushback.

Even among kids that are fairly artsy and such there seems to be a resurgence of swear words that are basically the things you are no longer supposed to call people. It's ironic as far as I can see but it's clearly done because they are taboo terms.

I've noticed this. I heard some teenagers calling each other 'gay' like we used it in the 90s. I thought that had totally died out.

Massive backlash against it. Seen as ridiculous.

Yeah I agree they’re fed up with it. I sometimes have to ask teenagers equality questions in work and they will often eye roll or say things like “I was just born”.

Get to wear tails at school? Seriously? And the staff are ok with this?

I have no idea if the tails stay on past the gate. I doubt the staff have any idea about therians or furries. The parents don't seem to know the murky underpinnings to it all.

Gawd love em! 🫶

There was a kid who thought he was trans in my daughter's class. He was suspended, then expelled, for racism and bullying, he was specifically picking on those who looked different in some way. The other kids think it's all attention seeking, demanding special privileges, and were very tired of it. Then the school cancelled the LGBTQ+ lunch club!

UnHeard had an article a few weeks ago that suggested there's evidence that Trans identification is on the decline. So, aside from the vibe check there's some quantitative data pointing to the diminished influence of GI.

https://archive.ph/glJcD

What has always struck me is how so many adults including professionals do not understand that children differ cognitively to adults.

children have vague ideas about sexuality right up to teens and sometimes beyond.

Because they are not sexually motivated, they are socially motivated.

So many children have same sex love friendships, and also opposite sex love relationships.

Otherwise known as erm friendships.

then adults come along claiming we must address certain phobias early doors, and help Gay and Trans children avoid exclusion.

children are alerted to differences in themselves and others just by life experiences.

Wannging on at school about sexual preferences early doors has no benefit to children, it just puts in their head concepts beyond their understanding.

and as a matter of fact makes vulnerable children even more so.

pisses me off no end, my children are both adult and parents i told them about sex reproduction and sexuality when they asked about it and not before.

I hope that this bullshit has left the room before my grandchildren go to school and are made available to assuage the guilt or shame of adults.

I guess lawyers will be circling as there will be plenty of work for the foreseeable future.

My daughter is Gen Alpha and only 10 but was kind of 'exposed' to it via a slightly older friend when the older friend covered it at school a couple of years ago, so we've had some chats about it. She's quite relaxed about it to be honest but doesn't believe people actually change their sex. She's picked up on the stereotyping involved especially in girls who adopt a non-binary identity. She's got the simple part down but she's not had to navigate it in real life in a peer group so we'll see. So far this is nowhere in her school in terms of kids identifying as anything - it being a largely middle class thing holds up in my experience as it's just not coming up in the schools or nurseries my siblings and I are involved in. Also in my experience with her class and friendship groups loads of them seem to have this kind of serious, pragmatic and quite literal approach to many things which might be their age more than anything but I hope that kind of realistic grounding carries them though. Socially they remind me a lot of xennials. I know it's just generalisations and anecdotal though.

Some of the kids' parents are a different story to the kids though.

Edit: just to add on the back of pp, they don't seem to be homophobic. They do talk about whether they like boys, girls, both, neither and I've not heard of any issues around that.

Ha! love this.
My gen alphas laugh at it. We often joke about they/them and call our pets that sometimes as the male pet seems maternal (calm down its a joke) and furries are the weirdest most ridiculous thing ever to the point dc will not wear an kind of teddy fleece type of cardigan as ewww people would think you're a furry. They had a furry at primary school who went to school with a cat tail sometimes.

I've noticed my Gen Alpha's absolutely loathe rainbows or anything brightly coloured and striped that resembles one.

That's a decent piece, but,

They support the idea of a “social contagion”, first proposed back in 2017

back in 2017, I don't think I had a clue, but I can't believe the concept of social contagion wasn't talked about, here and elsewhere?

This. Suddenly feeling rather old 🤣

My DD is 13 and Gen Alpha; and amongst her social group gender ideology is horrendously uncool. They all regard it as something quite cringe that the sixth-formers and a few “gender people” are obsessed with (and DD says that only the sixth-formers seem to put their pronouns on everything, whereas no-one in the lower school does). This makes me think that it’s increasingly a fad which is going to go out of fashion amongst the younger cohorts (despite taking a while to pass through some older ones).

University students still seem pretty captured, but much less obsessed with it than two or three years ago, when they were announcing their thoughts on gender at every opportunity and their pronouns in every email.