Misgendering and abusive male pattern behaviour

[lisamuggeridge]

As far as I was aware all mothers had a legal responsibilit to identify and stand up to male pattern abusive behaviour. Its fairly well defined, the duluth wheel, intersectionality, case law, we know what abusive behaviour is. If someone is demonstrating male pattern abusive behaviour they are expressing their gender, so how can you be misgendering them by identifying and managing that risk? Are we not legally required to disregard identity when male pattern abusive behaviour is demonstrated? Has this changed?

[NettleTea]

I agree with you.

I also dont understand where safeguarding has gone when it comes to whats happening to kids - why a thorough investigation and exploration of the previously acknowledged triggers for gender discomfort are not permitted to be investigated, just taking a child's, or a parent's word.

[lisamuggeridge]

I have been using the acronym TERF, when it has institutional backup, like with La Graun and Labour and the other political parties, as an admission they are not aware of the rule of law in this area, which after austerity is not suprising. Same with contested medical treatment for kids. Even if a kid is within Fraser Guidelinesyou cant discuss treatment without prognosis, implications, side effects, age and maturity of the child. Its almost like this is being pushed by media nad academic and political institutions who are not aware of these frameworks. That there are posters attacking mothers for knowing the law that binds them, that they are the bottom line of responsibility for with an acronym which accompanies violence and demands of subordination is extraordinary. The only adults who demand that other people are harmed to manage their identity are those demonstrating risk.

[Bowlofbabelfish]

Women have always been the thin line between children and those who wish to harm them.

Anyone lobbying for women’s rights to be diminished is suspect.

Anyone lobbying for anything that will both reduce women’s rights and their ability to protect their children is suspect.

Anyone lobbying for actions that will actively damage child safeguarding is suspect.

This plus the push for demedicalisation for adults and medicalisation for children. The push to get children medicalised younger.

Deeply, deeply worrying.

[AtreidesFreeWoman]

I'm often astounded that some people can't see this for what it is.

Language is profoundly important and there is no more effective tool to coerce people than to eradicate their ability to contextualise the issues by deliberately re-defining the the key terms of the debate and/or seeking to make truths unsayable.

[LangCleg]

As we've said many times hereabouts, schools are being given guidance that advise accepting confidential disclosures and doing away with multi-agency working. Add this to the legal duty of mothers under the Children Act to identify risk or make themselves vulnerable to a care order removing their children, WTAF is going on?

[newtlover]

well, it's mostly being pushed by younger people who have never had to face up to such responsibilities

[IAmLurkacus]

Thank you Lisa for always articulating so well how this should all be viewed through safeguarding frameworks.

This is national grooming on the scale of Savile and it is FUCKING APPALLING.

[Popchyk]

"This plus the push for demedicalisation for adults and medicalisation for children. The push to get children medicalised younger. "

This.

We are hearing two simultaneous mantras from one powerful lobby:

• Adults must not be medicalised because that is inhuman
  
• Children must be medicalised

[lisamuggeridge]

Apparently children being taught they have boundaries, basic safeguarding, children being central stakeholder in a discussion about child protection, frameworks for contested medical treatment, safeguarding, is hate speech and being mean. Whatever it is that is going on, its quite the demonstration cos I dont think these frameworks are gpoing anywhere and I think you have to take attacks on them at face value even if the person doing it is just managing a fragile identity. Adults dont get to behave that way in this country as far as I knew. Till the term TERF was invented, which to be honest aint that new.

[lisamuggeridge]

@popchyk its that THOSE are the two demands along with a demand that lesbians give up their identity and boundaries and an obscene level of obsession with sex.

[Snappity]

Am. I understanding the OP correctly?

If some supports trans women as women or that doctors should decide whether and when trans children should receive treatment, that is male pattern abuse so anyone advancing those arguments should be gendered male and male pronouns used to describe them?

I really hope I have misunderstood. Please tell me I have. I am struggling with the OP because it is not clearly written.

[KataraJean]

I think you raise an interesting point Lisa ; social work assess the ability of the person with primary care (usually the mother) to keep their child safe. It was the massive eye-opener to me that when xH was investigated for offences by the police, it was me who was investigated by SS (when I had done nothing wrong). I was the victim of abuse, not the perpetrator.

However, if you are talking about male-pattern violence, that implies it is an attribute of sex, rather than gender, I think. It is a way of upholding sex-based hierarchies. Violence may be a result of male socialisation and the gendered expectations of men in society, rather than innately of biology, but it is not their gender which makes men violent, because gender is not a thing which belongs to an individual - they are male sex, and socialised to a range of sex-based expectations (power, control over women), which feminists used to call gendered expectations (masculine/feminine).

I don’t know, I may be nit-picking and I am full of respect for you and what you are doing, so I hope my comment is not seen as unhelpful.

So, I think the argument is that, even if someone says they are identifying as female, but exhibits male-pattern domestic violence or abuse which puts women and children at risk, then they are expressing their socialised natal sex, not their assumed gender.

The counter argument would be that women are of course violent too, but that is a whole different argument which is not borne out by statistics or comparable.

[LangCleg]

I think Lisa means "expressing your gender because gender is not an identity: it is a power relationship".

[LaSquirrel]

THOSE are the two demands along with a demand that lesbians give up their identity and boundaries and an obscene level of obsession with sex.

Yes!

[KataraJean]

No, Snappity, I think Lisa is saying that children should not be given medication to suppress puberty when they would normally be seen as too young to consent.
That mothers, who are normally tasked with protecting their children, cannot speak against puberty suppressants for fear of being called transphobic or accused of hate speech.
These two things are safe-guarding issues.

[KataraJean]

I assumed she meant a person identifying as female in the opening post, LangCleg. But I am tired and I still need to hang out my laundry, so leaving it just now.

[lisamuggeridge]

If you are demonstrating the behaviour which the Duluth Wheel will give you an outline of, which is very much male patern abusive behaviour and routinely used to subordinate, and which until the middle of last century was hidden in family units, you are demonstrating male pattern abusive behaviour and recreating power relations to subordinate women. At that point you are expressing your gender. If you are identified as an abusive male, because someone is managing risk you have said you pose, you are having your gender and sex correctly identified, that person would be chastised by the courts for prioritising your identity if you harmed their children. This is the law that binds British mothers, and they and politicians are the baseline of responsibility for this. If you are expressig your gender through male pattern abusive behaviour, it doesnt actually matter how you see yourself. It never has and never will. Which is why the social media debate on this is so bizarre.

[Snappity]

If someone is demonstrating male pattern abusive behaviour they are expressing their gender, so how can you be misgendering them by identifying and managing that risk? Are we not legally required to disregard identity when male pattern abusive behaviour is demonstrated?

This bit is the concern.

It seems to be suggesting that anyone supporting doctors deciding on appropriate medical treatment is guilty of male pattern abuse and must therefore be gendered male.

I am seeking clarification.

[lisamuggeridge]

I#ll give examples without naming anyone so I dont get accused of misgendering. If you are requesting a safeguarding debate, a prominent spokesperson in that debate has a history of extreme violence, is CURRENTLY expressing that they believe female consent is not only a irrelevant but an injury to your identity and you state you feel validated by a newborn infant being denied nutrition to gratify an adult male because that male identifies as female, thaht is three crucial pieces of information in a safeguarding debate. That is past behaviour, current attitudes and attitudes to people who are vulnerable. It doesnt matter in that instance that you have appeared in vogue because its a safeguarding debate and THAT is the only three pieces of information that matter. Similarly if you are twice the sizre of most women, you write rape apologism and regularly argue their sexual boundaries are yours to overcome, that is an expression of your gender, even if you see yourself in a different way. Intersectionality was about laws and systems that evolved around these power dynamics. Safeguarding. Domestic abuse. This stuff hasnt changed and isnt going to. Any adult demanding that ALL people around them alter and are subordinated to manage how they see themselves is expressing idsorder. The only way I can account for how screwy this safeguarding debate has become is that media and politics institutoins are not aware of the laws they are the site of political responsibility for.

[lisamuggeridge]

Snappity, the difference between our positions appears to be you not knowing the sex split in offending rates. I am discussing male pattern offending, and this is consistently demonstrated in every country including this one. Which bit is confusing for you? The understanding of this is wound deep into our laws and systems is this new to you? Context you were not aware of? Children Act updated 2005, women can lose their kids for failing to properly recognise MALE pattern abusive behaviour and can be mandated by law to attend courses learning how to. Freedom Programme comes to mind.

[LaSquirrel]

It seems to be suggesting that anyone supporting doctors deciding on appropriate medical treatment

Appropriate medical treatment? This is where we disagree. Puberty blockers, followed by cross-sex hormones, are likely (for most) to have significant health issues for the entire lifetime. That is what mothers want to guard against, and this is what you deem 'appropriate' medical care for children. Children are too young to understand and consent to that.

[LangCleg]

Lisa - we have asked Mumsnet to consider training their mods via the Freedom Programme so that they too are better able to recognise these patterns of behaviour. They have said they will consider it at the next office meeting.

[OvaHere]

The government doesn't seem to know what they are doing. This was reported in both the DM and The Times at the weekend.

So on one hand they are focusing on children as young as 4 understanding boundaries and consent yet on the other hand...

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5955437/Children-young-four-consent-lessons-counter-soaring-number-sex-assault-cases.html

[LassWiADelicateAir]

I am puzzled too snappity

. Parents have a safeguarding duty towards their children- both parents have a legal obligations to protect their children from abuse by the other parent or anyone else. Failing to do so is an offence.

The OP's posts are presumably clear to her and those replying - but not to me.

[lisamuggeridge]

''It seems to be suggesting that anyone supporting doctors deciding on appropriate medical treatment'

We have very serious and sophisticated frameworks for assessing contested medical treatment for children, with a huge list of stakeholders. Parents, teachers, doctors, judges, other family members, young people themselves. You'll have to point me in the direction of where twitter and activists managing their own identities fit in that list, cos as far as I was aware a parent would be chastised for ignoring the child cruelty act(section 1) and Children Act frameworks for medical treatment. We do not discuss medical treatment for children, by focusing on adults who have identity issues, we discuss the treatment, the thing its treating, the child, and the context in which they live. This isnt new. Not going anywhere.