Emily Thornberry MP web chat

[midclegs]

Sorry for my fairly lame question to Emily for the webchat tomorrow. Hope you managed to get in better questions?

[Absolutepowercorrupts]

MN CALLING
this is a short version of the email MNHQ sent me.
Other users won't engage because of you mean women on FWR
Secondly we're finding it increasingly hard to tempt politicians onto Mumsnet because of fears they'll simply be harangued about this single issue and shouted at for not providing the desired response - which ultimately means no one will get to ask any of these important questions to our policy makers.
So we're emailing to ask you to please follow our webchat rules. We don't want to have to suspend your account, but we will do so if you can't stick to them
Best
MNHQ
My question to Emily Thornberry was 'Do you believe that this is a fair representation of natal woman on a Labour All Women Shortlist?
Complete with a screenshot photo of a supposed AWS
One post, one fucking post that was removed. And if I don't comply my account will be suspended.

[BatShite]

Politicians scared to come on as might be asked about how they plan to uphold womens rights, when posting on mumsnet. And MN backing up the lack of questions about womenss rights, unbelievable really.

This 'questions about gender put off people with other questions' is utterly ridiculous. Brexit dominates also, but those questions arent removed and members banned for it. The thought that someone asking a question about a topic I dont care about, would make me not want to ask a question about what I do want to know, is simply bizarre.

[traceyracer]

It is unfortunate we aren't allowed to discuss trans-issues in webchats anymore (or we are allowed just one Q on it), despite it being a topic that does warrant discussion.

[TheBewildernessisWeetabix]

The rights of half the human population is considered a single issue by Mumsnet admin team? I did not know that.

[Angryresister]

I had the same emailAbsolute I can’t believe that politicians should not be held accountable for the views that millions of us are questioning. And that our accounts suspended in favour of what exactly. Who is this serving. Let’s see which is picked for answering....

[NeurotrashWarrior]

Ooh has mine gone? I worded it differently.

[NeurotrashWarrior]

Ok mine is still there. I'm working today so can't engage further with her answer ...

[RufustheLanglovingreindeer]

Oh thats just fucking ridiculous

That’s exactly what i want in a politician ...fear that someone will ask them a question they dont like

And the shouting...sorry ‘loud typing’

MNHQ should just allow a few questions...maybe in conjunction with FWR and then not allow anymore...suspending people for asking a question is ridiculous

Although my understanding of the lang banning was that she kept asking why she had been deleted sooooooo....

[ItsAllGoingToBeFine]

Secondly we're finding it increasingly hard to tempt politicians onto Mumsnet because of fears they'll simply be harangued about this single issue and shouted at for not providing the desired response - which ultimately means no one will get to ask any of these important questions to our policy makers.

What utter utter bullshit. Questions on women's rights may be a "single issue" but they are asked by hundreds of women, and important to all women. This is meant to be Mumsnet FFS.

So what MNHQ are saying is that politicians don't want to engage with women's rights, and MNHQ don't think they should as there are more important questions (biscuits?) to be asked.

[stillathing]

The rights of half the human population is considered a single issue by Mumsnet admin team? I did not know that.

I am really quite upset to read that @MNHQ consider this a "single issue".

Self ID, which is already happening in practice, and which effectively renders anything single sex as mixed sex, affects me personally in these ways:

False data on crime stats. How do we solve endemic male violence without accurate data and media reporting? This is already happening (see thread "this never happens" ).

PTSD. As a survivor of sexual assaults I need to be assured that I can access female toilets and request female nurses for my smear test. A hospital trust recently decreed that a woman who could not consent to a male doing her mammogram was transphobic and shared her personal case (including the letter where she explained about the rape) during training as an example of unacceptable bigotry.

Safeguarding. I work with vulnerable children who are not neurotypical. Whistle blowers from the Tavistock have said that autistic, potentially lesbian girls are over represented in the children that are referred for potentially life altering hormone (and surgical) treatment. Children with SEN are already at a higher risk of sexual assault. They are being taught in school that humans can change sex and that they could be committing a hate crime if they challenge a male bodied person in a female space.

Gender non conforming children. My (happy, kind, flamboyant) child is constantly being told they must be of the opposite sex because of their clothing, personality and hair style choices. I've taught him that gender stereotypes are regressive, sexist, homophobic and limiting to both sexes. He is passionate about changing the sexist and homophobic culture at his school. Yet sooner or later he will get taught that actually, the kids who made comments were right, he must be a girl after all. And all that passion for changing the world should instead be directed inwards towards changing himself?!

This is just a brief list and I am fairly privileged these days. It doesn't even touch on how self ID affects less privileged women.

But yeah. It's not a "single issue". I'm a member of the Labour Party and would really like to know if I am able to vote for any of the potential leaders.

[RufustheLanglovingreindeer]

Well i think to be fair that politicians are frightened of answering questions that they can’t use a soundbite for

(Looking at you kier...mens rights are human rights, womens rights are human rights, trans rights are human rights....just say it mate human rights are human rights, makes just as much sense)

And questions that they won’t be able to answer with their actual thoughts

[ScrimshawTheSecond]

If we are not allowed to ask these questions here, we must ask them directly of MPs . I believe women are still allowed to vote?

[RoyalCorgi]

If politicians answered the question, none of us would keep banging on about it. The problem is that they don't. Maybe @MNHQ could pass that on to the politicians when they invite them on.

[ChattyLion]

I ALWAYS stick up for MNHQ because I am so grateful to have this site despite the increasingly hard-to-navigate rules... but genuinely, fucksake!!!

This is utter bullshit and smacks of MNHQ doing their own internal management and wanting to publicly stage manage FWR users.

Politicians can and should be asked about anything and everything- there are a multitude of concerns that voters have. (Even the female ones and the ones of those who have birthed children )

I have been here before with politicians not wanting to speak their views on abortion and other women’s rights issues. They need to understand: If hateful fuckwits pile on the politician for not agreeing with their cultish thinking, well those fuckwits wouldn’t have been voting for that politician anyway. Nothing has been lost to the politician by speaking out. Possibly they will gain from it. Other voters will also see that angry reaction and the deeply suspect arguments that support it and they will instinctively want to support the politician for taking a moral stand against bullshit. In this case, in support of women: preserving their single sex spaces and opportunities, and supporting the safeguarding of children and vulnerable adults against an ideology that could see them making permanent changes that they could bitterly regret later (and then be ostracised If they voice their pain at what has happened). Sunlight and fresh air and public scrutiny on all this is a GOOD thing. It may have political advantages.

This makes me very suspicious that politicians are being ‘tempted’ to do a MNHQ webchat not because MNers are seen as rational voters like anyone else but because we are expected to be nonchallenging and nurturing or some other shit. I mean why do they think a webchat with women/mothers is going to go a certain way and should be ‘managed’ for them?

Also, politicians doing media interviews don’t usually get to see the questions in advance- so if MN is ‘known’ for asking some tough questions- around access to childcare, education, healthcare support for our disabled children, Brexit, international relations -or how the gender identity cult is harming women- then this should be easy for them! They can have a good think about it all in advance like they have to with everything else.

If gender issues are becoming an issue at booking politicians in, then it must be that they don’t want to show their hand because it’s a controversial issue which the politicians would rather avoid. If so that is infuriating. it’s not a question that women have the option to duck.

I wish I could have said ‘oh no that’s too controversial’ and avoided it when my workplace allowed men in the women’s toilets which was degrading (but just one of the sexist things they did). I left the job.

I have gender non conforming young people that I care about, who are getting sucked into this cultish shite because they are probably lesbian and are struggling to deal with that and the onset of puberty and all the sexualised expectations placed on them by our pornified society. Their anxious parents are finding they can access very little professional support. Those parents and kids can’t say ‘oh no not touching that issue’.

I am a parent and volunteer for schools and am going to have to challenge them on their policies which confuse gender with sex deliberately all over the place because highly paid Stonelaw types have misled and lobbied them to the detriment of safeguarding. Parents have (rightly) campaigned for compulsory sex and relationship education for years and now we have it, we find it’s promoting a regressive sexist idealogy as well. Parents can’t just avoid the issue and hope that schools will teach their kids something sensible. They won’t.

I’m in another job where I feel I can’t say what I think about this. Right now a woman (Maya Forstater) is currently appealing a decision that says it’s OK not to give her paid work because she doesn’t believe that humans can actually change sex.. She didn't have the option to dodge that question and she’s now having to dedicate her energy to fighting a legal case for a second time..

All the detransitioned young people who are growing in number and still have no dedicated services and support or even acknowledgement by the NHS and private doctors that they took them through permanent changes that they couldn’t have genuinely consented to. They can’t duck these issues.

And we still can’t ask too many questions about all this on a sodding web chat?!! Jesus wept.

[ScrimshawTheSecond]

Hear hear, ChattyLion. What on earth is the point of having a 'q & a' where around half of the questions are removed?

Starting to wonder what the point of MN Feminist board really is at the moment, to be honest. We can discuss feminism so long as we don't bother anybody with it.

[BadgertheBodger]

I really don’t like the terminology in that email. “Harangued” and “shouted at”. It’s dangerously close to “nagging”, “hysterical” and a whole host of other words typically used to describe uppity women. Why can’t we all just be kind, stay in our lane and throw the poor old politicians a nice easy question about the best type of pram

[MrsFogi]

I refuse to engage with or click on any web chats now given that they are "censored".

[theflushedzebra]

I haven't participated in any webchats since the Phillip Lee one - where I asked one polite question about LibDem policy regarding gender neutral toilets - which had been reported in the press and spoken about by a LibDem peer. This resulted in me receiving the email in the OP.

No point anyway - all the Labour leaders are going to hold the line TWAW. And even if they talk about about single sex spaces, they're include TW in that.

Labour are lost - they cannot win the next election because they haven't learned the lessons from the last.

[LangClegsOpinionIsNoted]

Labour are lost. Yup. I used to be sad about that. Now I just think, you arrogant fuckers, it serves you right.

[MrsSnippyPants]

ChattyLion Big round of applause to that comment

[MrsSnippyPants]

Just had my comment deleted. I asked Emily not to conflate sex and gender, as she did in one of her answers. It was polite but apparently unacceptable. Fortunately I have a screenshot.

[BovaryX]

MrsSnippy

I saw your comment before it got vaporized. I thought it was eloquent and to the point. Very disappointing it's gone

[SonicVersusGynaephobia]

She's certainly the one who seems to understand the most that women are a sex class.

Please don't let us down, Emily!

[MrsSnippyPants]

Thanks Bovary. Given her answer on post-natal care, she does seem to understand what a woman is and mentions privacy and dignity. Could she be the last hope for GC Labour women I wonder?
She hasn't (as I type) answered any specific questions on this..........

[SonicVersusGynaephobia]

I'm basing that on her posts about maternity care and domestic violence, pay gap, etc