Please can we have a Trans topic?

General 'trans affecting women' stuff is usually in the Feminists topic.

Current news items are the only ones I see in AIBU, Chat, In The News etc.

As they should be.

A vulnerable group of people? What? Men?

This is a chat site.

I think a trans topic is an excellent idea. As then those who want to chat about it can find it easily, and those who don't can hide it all (rather than having to hide every thread).

It's not othering or ghettoisation, any more than other chat topics - read the list, they range from the weighy to the trivial and are in no way related to any perceived 'worth'

I am not aware of all the current trans threads and certainly haven't seen all the trans threads on MN, but I can think of atleast three current, news based issues that have nothing to do with violence or scaremongering and a lot to do with feminism and parenting.

These are genuine issues. If they were non issues, it should be possible to explain why in a clear, evidence based, logical argument. 'Dissenters' tend to get 'jumped on' when they fail to do this.

It makes as much sense to demonise any group of people as it does to call them gentle souls.

Come off it Judy. You are one of the most pro-trans on here, which is of course fine, but don't make out that it's not in your interests for the topics to be sidelined or that all is equal with the Active convos

I'm not pro-trans so much as anti the way a vulnerable group of people get demonised round here. As such it isn't in the least in my interests for the topic to be sidelined: I simply don't care. I feel even more strongly about, for instance, Trump, but I don't care if pro Trump topics appear in Active Conversations. It's really quite bizarre to think I would. But surely all is equal in Active Conversations? Threads appear on there whenever someone posts on them, even if they're started in the most obscure of sub-topics. So even if that were my evil plan, having a separate topic wouldn't achieve it.

But then if you're happy for them to be there, happy to post on them, happy for them to be in Active Conversations.... where's the problem with things as they are?

It's a complex mix. They tend to eat topics like AIBU in the same way as EU threads did, which ultimately decided MN to move them to a separate topic. It seems illogical to treat them any differently. With one or two honourable exceptions, they tend to lead down the same path with the same points being made again and again and again (often by the same people), and dissenters being jumped on repeatedly. Sometimes there is outright bullying - and there has been at least one instance when a poster who blatantly bullied a trans woman got banned and MN got lambasted for that. They tend to demonise a group of people who, in my experience, are usually pretty gentle souls who just want to get on with their lives and wouldn't in a million years contemplate violence in any shape or form whether they possess a penis or not, and who have no wish whatsoever to use their male attributes to gain any advantage over women (and who in fact may be seriously disadvantaged by virtue of being trans). They tend to scaremonger about things that, in many many cases, simply aren't genuine issues; and they tend to jump on each and every negative event involving a trans person and represent that individual as being representative of all trans people. And there are probably other reasons that don't come to mind at this time of night.

I know it isn't going to happen, and I think there's an interesting question about why, when you look at all the topics that do get moved to different threads. But it's a perfectly legitimate request.

Cock off!

see what I did there?

when people have openly admitted on the threads that they wouldn't e.g say that in RL to a real trans person.

I'm not sure what kind of comments you are talking about, but I don't think a lack of willingness to confront individuals in real life is an indication of lack of conviction.

The reason they don't post on MN saying 'here's what I'm doing in RL!' is quite obvious really. The abuse targeted at people by transactivists is extremely vicious. I wouldn't dare mention anything about RL awareness raising on MN due to fear of what might happen to me. I've had enough abuse already on my anonymous twitter account, thanks.

I don't absolutely know that but I rarely see 'this is how we do this in RL' threads. There was a link for MN 'refugees' to a sub - Reddit forum on one thread which I looked at and was horrified by the abuse on there -some of which was directed to a MN trans poster and I don't want anything to do with that.

There's a thread in feminism now looking for gender critical feminists groups (by a prolific poster who talks sense mostly and you would imagine was active in RL) which hasn't come up with much other than a radfem group which I don't consider myself to be.

I honestly don't see any RL galvanising. I see anonymous arguing in a 'safe space' when people have openly admitted on the threads that they wouldn't e.g say that in RL to a real trans person.

Galvanise in RL - absolutely! I may or may not get involved

Every time there is another thread, or another issue is raised, more and more women come along and say wow, I had no idea. This is how people become inspired or moved to become active in RL. How do you know all they are doing is posting on MN?

Don't we have an equal need to raise awareness of disability and SEN?

Yes, and we have discussions about disability and Sen on many different boards (along with health, politics etc) - there is a sn board, but it is mainly for support and advice.

I don't think it should be given a topic to itself because I do think it publicises issues that many women aren't aware of.

But I agree that when you are aware of the issues; it's tedious to see the same people having the same arguments using the same histrionic examples. I look at them all with the hope there'll be something new but there never is.

And I'd like some discussion about what to do in reality if you're unhappy about some aspects of the trans - movement. I see too many women who appear to think that endlessly arguing on MN is striking a blow for womens rights and it really isn't.

Posting how angry you are on an anonymous forum that most of the world doesn't give a shit about does fuck all. And I'm not saying i'm doing anything in RL because I'm not; but I also didn't engage with all the 'This is SO important, women need a space to say this, MN what ARE you doing?, I have tears in my eyes reading all these women taking a stand' hyperbole that was on the Spartacus threads.

Galvanise in RL - absolutely! I may or may not get involved (female spaces I would; insisting on calling a TW he; no I won't so I wasn't Spartacus) at least it would be making a real stand. Posting anonymously on an Internet forum then getting on with your life thinking you'r making a stand is meaningless if you ask me.

But then if you're happy for them to be there, happy to post on them, happy for them to be in Active Conversations.... where's the problem with things as they are?

I assume nothing, merely suspect. If I sounded aggressive rather than maybe a bit pissed off, I apologise.

Come off it Judy. You are one of the most pro-trans on here, which is of course fine, but don't make out that it's not in your interests for the topics to be sidelined or that all is equal with the Active convos. Everyone knows that the boards like chat and AIBU have the most traffic and that's the reason that people post in these areas (not just trans either).

See, the use of "whiners" and the baseless assumptions about their motives exactly demonstrates my point about the aggressive stance taken towards people who dare to hold a different opinion. I for one have no problem whatsoever with these threads showing up in Active Conversations, and obviously if they were in a separate topic they still would show every time someone posted on them because, y'know, that's how Active Conversations work. If we were genuinely delicate little flowers who couldn't cope with that it's easy enough to deal with, after all.

I suspect that a lot of the whiners would really prefer for threads they might not like didn't show up in Active Convos. Isn't that where most people pick up on new threads from?

I still stand by my original post. Going by some of the replies here this topic still needs a lot of education...

No i don't think there should be a separate trans topic. I had no idea about any of the these issues until I started to read about them on here. I certainly don't agree with all of what's said but these issues are important and having an honest discussion about them is important.

If an important thing like Feminism can have its own board full of topics, why can't Trans issues?

Trans issues almost invariably intersect with feminism. A lot of trans threads are there anyway.

No, I don't think it's the same as having specific boards for other topics. If you want to ask if you're being unreasonable, you can post in AIBU no matter what the thing is you might be unreasonable about. (AIBU to think cake is foul/AIBU to have asked this man to leave the changing rooms/AIBU not to want to travel to this wedding/AIBU to think my disability isn't a reason for my boss not to include me in meetings).

And the other main place that threads where posters are really concerned about the trans narrative eclipsing and eliminating women's rights is, naturally, feminism.

If somebody wanted to post about being trans, there's LGBT - though they do not have to post there, as you could post about a 'trans child' in parenting, education, or AIBU as well.

If they want to post about yet another instance of problematic trans activism, that might fit in politics, AIBU, or FWR.

Since when did Mumsnet have a responsibility to make sure nobody ever has to click on a thread they may not be interested in? Mumsnet is massive - if you want not to read about trans things, there's bloody loads of it apart from that!

trans' stories are mainstream now.

But so are stories about the EU, politics and disability.

How can the problem simultaneously be that these issues don't interest most people and that too many people are posting about them?

Who said that too many people are posting about them? To be honest, the issue is that the same people are posting multiple threads. I wouldn't mind if they actually had anything different to say, but they rarely do. I also wouldn't mind if they followed the pattern of the one thread on this subject that I can recall in which there was a civilised and constructive discussion, as opposed to what tends to happen with people who dare to dissent being regularly misrepresented and attacked.

I think it's horrifying that other women are trying to shut these debates down.

That's an extremely strange interpretation, and rather illustrates my point about misrepresentation. Since when was asking for a separate topic shutting a debate down?

The trans issues affects ALL of these areas

But then you can equally validly say that politics, disability etc affect all other areas.

The same applies to the "You can just click away from the thread" argument. Take the opposition to this idea to its logical conclusion and you have hardly any separate topics at all.

who wants you to shut it down?

I don't want to shut down the debates and conversations.. its important.

I'd just rather you did it over 'there' and not wave it about in front of me like its THE MOST IMPORTANT TOPIC IN THE WHOLE WORLD all the time.

I'm sick of seeing it... its becoming like opinion and dicks.. you might have one, but i don't really need it taking out and waving in front of my face.

If an important thing like Feminism can have its own board full of topics, why can't Trans issues?

I agree I'm sick of it.

an endless stream of black and white repetitions of the same old anti-trans rhetoric.

Sorry, correcting myself, but that's not a fair statement. Should be;

an endless stream of black and white repetitions of the same old anti-trans and pro-trans rhetoric.