I Would Like To Propose A Solution To The Trans Threads Problem

YY to a moaning section. Because it's not just the people bored by the trans debate, it can also be a place for all the threads about MN going to the dogs, to moan about there not being a trigger warning on threads, to moan that there is a trigger warning on threads, complaining about lightheartedness...

Life - re "I have found myself changing my views totally after accidentally wandering into a trans thread on MN. I started doing my own research to get solid arguments against the radical feminists who seemed to be so transphobic. Quite an eye opener - I was at how legislation was now being enacted which seriously disadvantages women and girls"

This is exactly why these threads need to stay on high-traffic common areas of MN like Chat and AIBU.

Just two years ago most of us on MN were completely clueless about the transactivist agenda and the danger it poses to girls and women everywhere to just go along with the "Born in the wrong body, poor dears, what's the harm in calling them 'women'?" line.

A few MNers even wanted MNHQ to have transphobia guidelines which would have made it a deletable offence to say 'transwomen are not women' or 'transwomen have no place in female safe spaces'.

We have come a long way since then, as can be seen in the I Am Spartacus thread and its sequel in Site Stuff. All thanks to the trans threads in high-traffic topics such as Chat and AIBU, which have raised awareness and allowed women to question the dogma prevalent in most media and online fora that goes "Transwomen are women, period. If you don't agree, you're a bigot." etc.

To an extent you could use whatever word you fancy. Objectively/physically there are two sexes. Call them poley one and holey ones if you want, but there is still two sexes. That is an objective and physical fact.

The words we use to describe these two sexes are male and female, and for adult humans men and women.

You can try to change those words to mean something else (although why you would I don't know) but even if you do you still need a word that describes "those people who have XX and bear young" vs "those people who have XY and produce sperm" . It matters not who named the classifications, the fact is that the classifications are based on physical reality

"old definitions and classifications that 'woman means a human with an XX chromosome'"

Old definitions, no less

I invite you to take a look at any dictionary, where you can see that the word 'woman' is STILL defined as "adult human female", which makes it the current definition.

I find it very hard to read your posts JAPAB, are you referring to the work of Nettie Stevens?

www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/nettie-stevens-a-discoverer-of-sex-chromosomes-6580266

Re the OP., I sometimes think that there should be a separate thread to inform some posters of the difference between an objective/physical fact and an institutional fact.

And to point out to those who are so wedded to the old definitions and classifications that 'woman means a human with an XX chromosome', and who are so highly resistant to any reclassification or redefinition of what woman means by "men" (that is, transwomen), well which subset of humanity do they think created those definitions and classifications in the first place.

I don't think a trans section would work in getting rid of trans debate on other boards because at the moment trans activism means the issue is in the news all the time.

Still don't understand why people can't just ignore stuff they find boring. I've never even considered that as an issue.
I can see parents of trans or gender questioning children or young adults having their own section but the issues raised by the trans lobby are so wide reaching that the topic is bound to turn up all over the place.

Preaching even.

You say preeching i say educating.

I find your opening post to this thread very preechy. I propose a new topic where all the moany we dont want anymore trans threads posters can go. That would clear things up nicely.

IBelieve This is exactly the sort of argument that I find so tedious.

All you have done is post a quote from someone on twitter, yet we are now meant to be trembling in fear.

I don't believe in demonising an entire group of people because of what one person says on twitter, no.

I don't see any current risk of MN being taken over by trans activists either.

…but I have to say that as an infertile woman, all this contraception-centric feminism over the last month has been alienating for me…

— Julia Serano (@JuliaSerano) March 3, 2012

This is a transwoman. Claiming infertility as a woman. Tell me this is not bloody nuts. And women talking about their fertility/infertility is alienating to Julia

How well do you think that would go down on the Fertility/conception boards on MN.

Still think we should just shut up?

I assumed if you want MNHQ to look at something posting in Site Stuff was a good start. Although Site Stuff seems to be the Trans Topic at the moment.

Funny noone mentioned the Transom activist who started a thread with a different viewpoint to spartacus and who said woman
Take happy pills
Are stupid
Ignorant

And that rape was 'the result of 2 drunk or drugged up people'

Before reading that post I was like leccy and the OP

now thanks to that person I am Spartacus

I wonder soarkling. There was a thread about disabilist posts that got totally full with no comment from MNHQ.

Do MNHQ not look at Site Stuff threads any more? This has rumbled on for pages now but no comment from them.

Hmmm. When other people do that, it's called derailing. hmm

I think it is derailing if it goes off topic completly or becomes all about 1 poster.

I cant see where this thread has done that. Most posts have remained on the topic of why we dont need a seperate trans topic.

Natural progression

Hmmm. When other people do that, it's called derailing.

Dion at no point have I said you started this thread as a stealth debate. I dont think you wanted a debate at all.
I think you just wanted to have posters and possibly mnhq come on and agree with your trans thread plan

As for my pulpit. There have been many contributors to this thread and a lot of thoughts and information shared.

I am afraid the trans threads will not just dissapear in to a dark corner of mn. The issues are too important to many.

So its back to why can't you just not open them and if you do why can't you just close them and move on to something else?

Can I request a Trans Meh thread for those of us who care neither here nor there, where we can have a nice cup of tea and wait for all this to blow over?

Go ahead and start one.

Well that might be because it's not necessarily relevant on threads specifically discussing biological males in women's prisons, Judy. How would you know what the trans threads' posters' thoughts were on those issues?

I have found myself changing my views totally after accidentally wandering into a trans thread on MN. I started doing my own research to get solid arguments against the radical feminists who seemed to be so transphobic. Quite an eye opener - I was at how legislation was now being enacted which seriously disadvantages women and girls.

The whole issue of gender non conforming children being made to think they must really be the opposite sex - and encouraged towards early "treatment" horrifies me.

IMO mumsnet is doing a great job in allowing this to be discussed. There are loads of threads that piss me off or bore me. If they piss me off that much I just hide them, it's not difficult to do, try it.

The difficulty is that most people won't want to have discussions in an echo chamber - the spartacus thread was a specific support thread so a little different, but most of the time many people want to discuss with a variety of people, get different views, learn new things. If you stick everything in a separate topic all the time then that doesn't happen as people just go to their favourites - I bet about 80% of site users only go on AIBU or chat! But the reason many regulars have come to like mumsnet is because of the more deep debates about certain issues that half of the time they didn't even know they were that interested in and may well not have hunted out a topic to discuss. I'm another person who wasn't that aware of trans issues until I read about them on MN. I wouldn't have gone in to a specific trans topic, because I would have assumed it was for trans people/parents of trans people.

I didn't particularly agree with a Brexit topic either although that was more understandable because the whole front page of chat and AIBU were filled. The volume of trans threads is nothing like that.

I know there has to be some sort of system/organisation but I think it should be up to the users where they put their threads according to who they want to discuss it with. Want detailed info on breastfeeding, breastfeeding topic is probably for you but if you want to have a wider discussion about whether you should breastfeed under a tablecloth then you might want wider views and choose to post on chat.

Venus, my issue with standing up for the rights of women in prison is that people on the trans threads seem to be solely interested in the perceived and pretty limited threat from pre-op trans women (bearing in mind the rules currently in place), and uninterested in the right of women in prison to be free from the threat posed by violent and abusive women prisoners and indeed some warders. I also don't recall seeing anything like the same level of interest and indignation in relation to the fairly appalling situation of pregnant women and the mothers of young babies in custody.