Gender stuff gone mad ....

Maddyone:

'Women are more vulnerable than men, and more frail ( especially older women) and most certainly weaker.'

No they're not! Some may be - others aren't.

'that’s why women need safe spaces in certain situations such as female only changing rooms'

(Here we go again - for the Nth time) there have never been safe, female only spaces - apart from imaginary ones - as nobody is ever checked.

Namsnanny
You can be assured that I put my granddaughter right every time she comes out with any of this crap, no holds barred.

And for the Nth+1 time - it's not about checking! If an obvious man had walked into a Ladies' loo or a changing room a few years ago he would be challenged. Now all he has to do is say he's a woman, and there is nothing anyone can (or is willing) to do.

Years ago, my friend was sexually assaulted in the Ladies in a student bar. It may have been much worse had someone not spotted a man going into the corridor where the loos were. These days that wouldn't happen.

Does nobody read these threads?

Luckygirl that must be difficult for you. I know what you mean about lines being drawn. I think all you can do is make it clear that they can be redrawn if your granddaughter wants that.

Hetty58

Maddyone:

'Women are more vulnerable than men, and more frail ( especially older women) and most certainly weaker.'

No they're not! Some may be - others aren't.

'that’s why women need safe spaces in certain situations such as female only changing rooms'

(Here we go again - for the Nth time) there have never been safe, female only spaces - apart from imaginary ones - as nobody is ever checked.

There was a time when if an obvious male tried to enter a designated single sex space for females he would be challenged. It's obvious you have no interest in even trying to protect females in any situation.

There are people determined to rape, burgle, assault, defraud and a myriad of other offences. We can't stop them all, is your position we don't even try? How many cases of a female physically overpowering a male to 'rape' him can you link to?

Do you have any explanation as to why we've had separate divisions for women's and men's sports? Was it just because the outfits were different? Or maybe because there are different physical differences between men and women?

Luckygirl3

*But I can sympathise with anyone who feels they are in the 'wrong body' - for a few years, I definitely was.*

I share that sympathy. But the problem lies in the fact that it has all become a "cause" with rights to fight for.

Young people are not allowed to have a period of confusion without now asking themselves if they should be treated medically, or attaching a label to themselves. The sort of strident campaigning and medicalisation that we have now is a serious danger to young people, who need the peace and privacy to adapt to who they are without some faction jumping on their bandwagon and drugs companies and private surgeons exploiting them.

By the way, I endorse the recommendation of Grayson's Perry's book "The Descent of Man." It is intelligent and compassionate.

Wholeheartedly agree.

Looking back, it's obvious that the gradual shift from childhood to adulthood is going to be 'difficult'. On the one hand you are treated as a child - on the other, you are expected to assume the responsibility of adulthood. Throw into the mix the expectations that you conform to the stereotype of your sex and, well - there's the recipe for those 'troublesome', confusing years which - as you say - have now been medicalised, and hijacked by those with an agenda.

I wonder how history will record this era.

Rosie51

Hetty58

Maddyone:

'Women are more vulnerable than men, and more frail ( especially older women) and most certainly weaker.'

No they're not! Some may be - others aren't.

'that’s why women need safe spaces in certain situations such as female only changing rooms'

(Here we go again - for the Nth time) there have never been safe, female only spaces - apart from imaginary ones - as nobody is ever checked.

There was a time when if an obvious male tried to enter a designated single sex space for females he would be challenged. It's obvious you have no interest in even trying to protect females in any situation.

There are people determined to rape, burgle, assault, defraud and a myriad of other offences. We can't stop them all, is your position we don't even try? How many cases of a female physically overpowering a male to 'rape' him can you link to?

Do you have any explanation as to why we've had separate divisions for women's and men's sports? Was it just because the outfits were different? Or maybe because there are different physical differences between men and women?

There was a time when if an obvious male tried to enter a designated single sex space for females he would be challenged.

Precisely. Strange as it might seem to some, men generally did not go into women's toilets, nor barge into their changing rooms. So those spaces were in fact safe spaces, as far as it was possible for them to be so.

Of course there were men dressed as women who used women's loos when they needed a pee - we also had unisex toilets. But that was before men were 'licenced' to wave their girl-dicks around in women's changing rooms on the basis of declaring themselves 'women'.

MerylStreep

Namsnanny
You can be assured that I put my granddaughter right every time she comes out with any of this crap, no holds barred.

How does she react towards your information?
Afterall the whole sum of her experience is from school and the wider society
She has to balance what she is seeing and hearing every day against the facts you are giving her.
Btw, I think it is admirable that you would do that

One of the worst things about all of this is that it is being used as yet another way to divide generations. There are often rather smug posts on here about how young people feel xyz, implying that only what young people think can be right, and that the only reason people think as they do is because of their age. That may be the case for a limited number of people, but in my experience people think for themselves with their age being very much a secondary factor (eg if they have lived through something that younger people haven't).

Also, it is simply not true that younger people think in a knee-jerk manner and simply accept propaganda. A quick glance at MN is testament to that, as are the various stories that arise when schools try to push the trans agenda too far. It is true that people of working age are more directly affected by things like declaration of pronouns and similar Stonewall-inspired strictures, but that doesn't mean that they approve of them. I personally know many people who comply because they have seen what happens to those who don't, and when they are already juggling a career with running a home and bringing up children it is asking too much of them to fight a very unequal battle on top.

I always think that assuming that others' opinions are based on age (or sex, or race, or anything much) is lazy stereotyping. Older people may or may not be as familiar with the ever-changing lexicon that always surrounds a cause du jour, but that doesn't mean that they are incapable of original thought.

Well said Doodledog. Sex matters. We must have zero tolerance towards enforced pronouns. If the name doesn’t suggest the gender then suffixing it with Mr or Ms is sufficient. This is supposing that these people haven’t met and are to be referred to to others. People can always state they are trans if they wish. Normal good manners would avoid embarrassment of being misgendered. It’s the enforcement of a metaphysical belief on others who do not believe we are born in wrong bodies that is so reprehensible. People may believe they are the opposite sex but they can’t force others to believe it, they can only make their preferred gender known by their pronoun statement if they wish to make things clear. Not make everyone else do so with the threat of them being slandered as transphobic. Perhaps we should call pronoun enforcers cisphobic.

After all the whole sum of her experience is from school and the wider society. She has to balance what she is seeing and hearing every day against the facts you are giving her

Dd ....My perspective was less from the pov that MS gd would disregard her GM ideas/thoughts etc., on the subject, based on MS's age, or even her familial position.

More that it would be a sizable cognitive leap for her to dismiss everything she had been indoctrinated taught over her short life.

The few teens who do go against the schools position are the exceptions.
They are roundly attacked by the teachers let alone the other pupils who consequently learn to stay schtum.

As you have mentioned, we have plenty of examples of adults going along with pronouns for a quiet life.

What is the saying, all it takes is a good man to stay silent?

Must be very hard for teens (let alone younger children) to stand out from the crowd.

Rocknroll5me yes I agree it is reprehensible.

I wasn't thinking of MS's granddaughter, but about life in general. Anyone speaking out against 'gender' woo is accused of being out of touch and told that young people think xyz, even when that is patently not the case. It's another way of shutting us up - sexism and ageism in one.

Yes, I think anyone who speaks out against the tyranny of this ideology will be attacked in all sorts of ways.
Dividing generations is only one.
Educating children that they can only get the 'truth' from schools is another.
Which further destroys the bonds of family.

I had an email from a University and it was from someone named Samantha and underneath it said “she/her”.

Primrose53

I had an email from a University and it was from someone named Samantha and underneath it said “she/her”.

Par for the course, I'm afraid.

Had it been from a TW Samantha, it would probably have said exactly the same.
If the whole point of pronouns is to identify sex then adding she/her is useful, if the person was called Sam. (Samantha is a female name.)
If they are used to imply that the person is not male, then we’re back to the lying and cheating that some TIM indulge in.

My name can be unisex, and I see no reason to declare my sex on things like letters or emails - what difference does it make? I am not employed as a woman, I am employed for my expertise, which would be the same if I were a man. People do assume that I am male sometimes, but I take no offence (why would I?). It just doesn't matter. If I sign off an email as 'Alex' (or whatever) people can use the same form of address to reply - to use an argument favoured of some on here, people don't need to know what is in my pants .

I find it regressive that people are expected to let people know if they are a woman. It fits with the return to the 50s that so much of the gender stereotyping is doing.

I find it regressive that people are expected to let people know if they are a woman. It fits with the return to the 50s that so much of the gender stereotyping is doing.

Exactly-and back then it was also used to exclude women from the shortlist if they’d already decided they wanted a man for the job.
However, I’m just as concerned about TW applying for posts and using she/her to be deceitful.
If there’s supposed to be equality, then men pretending to be women defeats that objective and shows their misogynistic need for control.

Staceyann

Allsorts

Staceanne if I see one of those bags I will get it. Its like living in la la land a lot of the time.

She got it from Oxfam - onlineshop.oxfam.org.uk/rainbow-pride-tote-bag-pride-collection/product/HN505267

Well of course. No surprise there. Oxfam the home of abuse by so called NGOs . Foul company.

I agree Freya5. But so many charities on the high street are signed up with SOGI, ESG, etc that I am.at a loss to know which one to support.

Yes very difficult to choose. Can't understand why local charities have signed up to this, one a private Canadian foundation pushing an agenda.
Can't charities just raise money without all this ridiculous .... Will carefully look at those I support, and cancel if they are involved.

I think it is wrong of charities to go beyond their remit, other than to ensure that employment conditions for their staff are beyond reproach.

I have cancelled my long-standing membership of Amnesty, as they became political, when previously they kept out of politics and campaigned for prisoners of conscience regardless of the circumstances. I now support Freedom From Torture, which AFAIK is sticking to that brief.

I think that charities who campaign for a cause should be legally obliged to support that cause and not to divert funds to other causes without ensuring that their supporters are on board with the changes. To use an extreme and hypothetical example I don't want to donate to Shelter in the cause of UK homelessness and find that I am supporting an alligator sanctuary in Alabama.

Oxfam has been particularly arrogant in this regard - banning the sale of games that feature women because there are no transwomen, for instance. this has nothing to do with famine relief or global poverty, which is supposedly what Oxfam exists to prevent. I'm not saying that I would never buy from them again, but I now take decluttered items to Relate or BHF instead of the Oxfam on my High Street, and if I had had a Direct Debit with them I would have cancelled it.

Considering the amount that big charities spend on PR this is a very basic error, I think. They seem to take their supporters for granted at best, and for fools at worst.

Perhaps OXFAM is under the impression that all the trans and TRA are suddenly going to contribute to famine relief and global poverty instead, to make up for any shortfall.

It's not just about trans issues, although the banned game fell into that category. It is imposing any set of values on others, which is inevitably going to alienate those who don't share those values, and is even more foolish in a charity with a global reach dealing with countries that have actively oppositional social systems from one another.

The relief of poverty and prevention of famine is Oxfam's remit, not imposing contentious views onto either their supporters or their beneficiaries.

I agree about Oxfam. They have a 94 page document explaining the ideology and how the word 'mother' is not acceptable. None of it makes sense. The only reason can be that there is a transactivist in the marketing/pr department and people on the whole don't like objecting to 'progressive' movements. But of course they should. My local Oxfam is awash with LBGTQ+ merchandise. I don't know what will stop them but it is quietly alienating many. The whole idea of communicating with mothers all over the globe (apparently variations of the word mother is recognisable and similar in EVERY language) and asking someone who does not have English as their first language (mother tongue!) whether they are the 'birthing parent'.
We can only hope that people who donate a lot to them will start to protest.
I got an apology from local Oxfam bookshop who ran an online book club and asked what we were reading. I said Kathleen Stocks's book Material Girls and was told that transphobic people were not welcome in the shop. When I protested I was told that it must have been a volunteer....