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).

I do get the impression that lot of the older teens are getting fed up with it too, and recognise it for what it is. Unfortunately schools still push the trans acceptance (aka encouragement, thanks to the SNP and the 'Greens') aspect, actually often to the detriment of LGB pupils.

Interestingly I can't find any reference on mumsnet to 'social contagion' re: transgender identification prior to 2017. This is the earliest:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/lgbt_children/2891898-Another-teenage-girl-who-want-to-be-a-boy

But, a Google search shows at least one article using that term before 2017: Wall Street Journal, 2016.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-transgender-battle-line-childhood-1451952794

So, it's not correct to say the concept was novel in 2017 and presumably it was being used in some circles long before.

I have two gen alphas in the house. One at 13 is very socially astute and engaged in school life. She says it barely comes up now. She finds it a bit much and has an eye roll attitude to older GI adherents.

The younger is just in yr 7 and is less socially adept. Very much into nature etc. The attitude there is “it’s stupid” as he knows you can’t change sex as a mammal and all about mammalian procreation.

I know they’d both accept someone dressing outside stereotypical norms, it’s just they won’t take the dishonesty of someone claiming to be what they aren’t.

If the result of this is a return to bigotry I don't see it as a win.

Relieved that my gen alpha may be spared the angst of questioning their gender and potentially the rest of the TRA agenda (and i say 'their' because i dont like to give out personal info on my kids, including their sex). But not great for people who are anything other than heterosexual. And not really great then either because bigotry.

Whilst I am relieved to hear all this anecdotal evidence of gen A being less interested in previous, the analysies of the data - both by Twenge and Kaufmann - is not without issues (see BARpod episode 20/10). I got the impression that good data into gender identity trends is difficult to find.

Having said that, my own anecdotal data as a GP is that presentations from teenagers has fallen off. I do very much wonder whether Cass, and making treatment less medicalised, has changed things - expectations or presentation to medical services. Can't comment about wider identification though.

Lack of evidence is rife through the whole thing. That's a real scandal. I read the other thread about testosterone in menopause with interest. So much we don't know or understand.

Hormones are weird. Feels like an experiment where we aren't collecting any data.

Agree completely. Possibly this discussion belongs on that other thread but i think that because hormones are 'natural' (in both MHT and trans discourse), the fact they are given as exogenous drugs, with very real (and poorly understood) risks is ignored or downplayed. Hormones = safe and Drs = troublesome gatekeepers.

Anyway, yes data needed. Much data. Politically difficult to acquire but the efforts of the wonderful Dr Sullivan and Dr Gribble to clear up language must help.

It's not a return to bigotry.

The anti gay absolutely is. And don't get me wrong, it was very much predictable and predicted as a consequence of alphabet soup. Doesn't make it right.

My 14 yr old is very questioning. I can’t help but think the phrase “born in the wrong body” dominated and gaslit more than one generation into thinking that’s a possibility. I hope TWAW doesn’t have as much traction, it does after all sound a bit demanding and desperate.

I'm not anti gay, I fully support LGB rights, so do most of the young folk who find the constant transwashing tiresome.

As do most people (i hope). I was responding to the comments above about use of the word gay as a derogatory term and avoidance of rainbows.

Children below 13 will generally just parrot their parents’ views on stuff like this.

My mid teen boys are very gender critical, but they say that the majority of girls that they know are far more ‘woke’ and accepting of trans.

It does vary a lot though.

Rainbows are the most hijacked symbol there is - just enjoy the science of it, and stop attaching extra meaning. 😃

Yep. We - women, mainly - knew and warned that the groups who would face the backlash were women, traditional transsexual people, and LGB people. And so it is. Although of course homophobia never went away anyway and was ingrained into trans 'rights' in the first place.

The gen alphas I know find the whole thing ridiculous/cringy, and regard the older kids they know who are non-binary/trans as basically attention seeking weirdos.

Listening to them talk about it reminded me of being a young teen in the eighties and talking about my older (late teen) cousin who was posing as a tortured poet/artiste type, all big flouncy white shirts and tousled hair, he was such a pretentious arsehole (although I like him now).

I wonder if there is an age thing rather than a generation thing going on with gen Alpha. My son was the most logical, science-minded, “colours are for everyone, people are stupid if they say only girls can wear pink” boy in primary. When he hit puberty, which he hated, all that logic went out the window in favour of an explanation (trans) for his discomfort that he could retro-fit onto his past (liking pink).

We didn’t affirm, school didn’t either, and post-puberty (and the other side of some horrendous years of worry) he seems to have desisted. But seriously, do not underestimate the chaos that goes on in a pubertal child’s brain.

I would class anyone born in 2011 onwards as Gen Alpha. My daughter is 14. She seems to be on the cusp of acceptance and cringe. She has a few in her year and is understanding of them but its not a trend.

It’s very heartening to hear that the school-age social contagion is wearing off. How do people think this will translate into institutional change? Will these Gen Alphas have to play along at pronoun games with Gen Zs to get jobs?

Do you think schools themselves bear a bit, or lot, of responsibility? My daughter's school just has never had the time or resources to pursue anything like it. They follow the curriculum in terms of RSHP but that's as far as it goes. The staff have got enough to be going on with.

What makes me sad is that I am a youth leader. I have a whole cohort of about 8 girls from before lockdown who are now young adults. They are all either NB or now identifying as 'he" They were all born in the same two years and have all fallen victim to this social contagion!

Some have medically transitioned which makes me very sad.

Will these Gen Alphas have to play along at pronoun games with Gen Zs to get jobs?

No, because eventually the Gen Zs will mostly grow up and hit their 30s and look back at their late teens and early 20s and cringe like a lot of people do.

I say mostly, because clearly there are people in their 30s onwards who haven’t grown up yet and are still in the thrall of gender ideology.

It's worrying, isn't it. I see it as the new racism/sexism that we had to deal with in office politics previously. Now it's this crap. Funny how humans don't seem to change all that much, there's always something.

That really is awful, especially the medicalisation. Being old and never having given a damn about keeping up with any Kardashians, I find it sad when lovely-looking young women feel they have to get boob jobs, or butt lifts, or face fillers, but this is next level awful, and even more of a threat to health.

Yeah, back in the day, when everyone felt sorry for women who got extreme surgery to look like Barbie or Cleopatra (where clearly there's an underlying mental health issue). And now this surgery is even more extreme and harmful, but people are celebrating it. Nuts.