Mumsnet moderation of trans rights and gender critical issues II

Yeah the clarification post didn't help me at all tbh. But I've given up asking now, what's the point.

Why have HQ not clarified any of these points yet?

Kate posted a "clarification" post. Which basically brought all their non-clarifications into one place.

The water in mynorca don't taste like what it oughta yes I'm aware it was Majorca

I'm at this stage

What if we type it backward [mynorca]

When people are being deleted for typing the words acronym and redacted, it makes HQ look like fools. And as though Justine was not telling the truth when she advocated free speech.

She should be turning round to her detractors and saying no, of course I can't possibly delete people for using neutral words, fool.

Quite evidently, she is forcing people into a bottleneck of approved language.

Approve language is not free speech.

No part of it is.

Then why the need for new guidelines? The existing ones were perfectly fit for the purpose.

Other than outright banning of certain terms such as TERF, cis, TIM, etc. there was no need for a long ambiguous announcement that has just left everyone confused.

Most people are happy to stick to the rules. We just want to know what the rules are.

Justine is not a complete moron. I expect she doesn’t know what to say in the face of such eloquent articulation of the irreconcilable.

Why have HQ not clarified any of these points yet? Are we just to be ignored? The lack of information is frustrating posters. Are they just waiting for people to give up trying and go away?

Everything that Person said so eloquently.

Posting my message from the other thread, as its obviously relevant here

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I don't understand why male people are getting 'special treatment'. I have seen so much more abuse against, for example, disabled people that is left to stand on here. Parents of disabled children are told that its better to let the abuse stand and they should 'educate' the people posting it...moron, and many other words such as that are not deleted either.

Disabled people, and parents of disabled children have been pointing this out for years and nothing. But male people start kicking off about being called male and everything changes in a second. Its ridiculous really. Expected in many places, but I did not expect it of MN.

Also TIM is not a slur. It is a word that encompassed all male people with a trans identity. Saying we have to refer to these people as transwomen is actually quite excluding, as many male trans people do not identify as women anyway.

I would say that TIM is not on a level with TERF. TERF is a slur, TIM is not. The equivalent would be 'tranny', which interestingly enough seems to be allowed as I have reported a few posts previously with that word and nothing has happened, and its not mentioned in the new guidelines either.

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I would like clarification on many things, but this is the main one, how come disabled people and parents of disabled children are expected to educate people who say discriminatory things about disabilities, but MN mods will now remove any mention of male people being male, or seemingly random discussions about this?

I can imagine the pressure on MN to comply with the postmodern religion...but surely MN has faced such pressure before, one that comes to mind is the attacks from F4J, which is eerily similar to this whole trans ideology stuff tbh, given MRAs and TRAs overlap in their behaviour and wants. Its almost like MRAs have found a new way to attack MN, but because the magical 'trans' word is mentioned, this time MN complies instead of standing strong as they have in the past.

I hope this doesn't come over as an attack on the mods, as thats not what I mean. I am just really confused by this whole thing, and HOW these (vague) new guidelines are being applied by some mods.

Atreides I would really like clarification. I’m OK not to quote something non-MN-compliant in a post if that’s the requirement. But not to be able to even LINK to MN-compliant stuff is impossible to manage.

Exactly chatty.

How can we discuss positions being taken more broadly on this matter if we can't even raise them?

For example - what about articles using the now banned "cis" and "terf"?

How can we talk about the prevelance of this more widely if we can't link to relevant content?

Dear @MNHQ.

This is what I was just about to post on the Lisa Muggeridge thread with 250+ posts on with some really good points from a lot of people incl Lisa Muggeridge. The whole thread has been locked and pulled.

I saw your note saying the OP was not in the spirit, because it linked to (but did not quote) something that was not in the spirit. I feel the new guidelines are being expanded beyond a workable way of managing the discussion on MN if we have to apply new MN guidance to what is linked to. Have I misunderstood something?

SophieLMN please do reconsider and don’t take the thread down, this is a really important discussion. Did you mean that the OP’s opening post was not in the spirit?

The OP’s own post did not quote or use non-preferred pronouns. She linked to someone else’s post (not on MN, so clearly not subject to new MN guidelines) to start a discussion.

We really do need to be able to point to other non-MN hosted material for discussion which by definition may well not be in the spirit of MN guidelines because not subject to them. I imagine this is happening right now all over MN in multiple different areas of discussion.

I can only imagine the pressure you are under to take this thread down but please do reconsider, it is so important to let women speak about these issues. Please don’t hold us to a higher standard than the rest of the site. Thank you and to MN mods doing a hard job.

As the cunning disguise chosen by said foxes seems to be a mask depicting a fox, it's quite easy to spot them and not engage.

Don't feed the fox.

I can't help feeling we have some foxes in the hen house....

--Waves at former Intern "I define as queer" Emma and her friends.

That said I find most of the mods incredibly fair wrt how they apply the rules (even if I don't agree with some of said rules). Hebe is a favourite mod of mine for example.

It's a challenging time for them and us.

I am interested in whose head Mod though?

Is that Kate?

I've just started reading germain Greer's 'the whole woman' and I find myself getting more and more angry with this whole sham.
I will never say that a man is woman and I will never call him she, ever.

It’s not “safe” to follow either Justine or Kate’s guidelines. It’s never safe to censor yourself.

Pratchett your think so but Justine is unlikly to be doing modding where Kate is.

I have asked to see some (non identifiable) stats on the use of FWR as I believe, like many others, that people are registering to just make trouble. I hope I'll get them - as they would be shared with potential advertisers if requested I don't think they'll be commercially sensitive- but I'm not holding my breath. But I do think it could be really useful to demonstrate how core users of mumsnet use this board and that (if I'm correct) the ones trying to shut down conversation are unlikely to be the people their advertising is targeting. In other words - they can safely ignore the TRAs as most mumsnetters are happy talking about these things.

The request is on Site Stuff if you think of extra stats info that I should have requested

Wouldn't it be safer to follow Justine

Near everything kate posted contradicts what Justine posted, so how are we meant to make any sense of it all?

Surely its not too much to ask for a post clarifying the new guidelines, that is not contradictory and actually does make sense?

Like, justing posted talking about biological fact is fine, but Kate posted we cannot refer to male people as male as it might upset them. As an example.

ProperLavs - it’s a reasonably strong hypothesis that MNHQ is under significant pressure from advertisers to create a trans friendly culture and to ban conversations that could be construed as hostile to the trans agenda.

I dip in and out of these latest threads with feelings of horror and frustration.
Would I be wrong in thinking that it's about money here?
I am sure MN is useful to many women and perhaps the occasional male, but it is unrecognisable from the site I joined way back when.
It has become the website equivalent of M&S not knowing what it's there for or what it's doing.
Perhaps some brave soul can start a different forum where things can be freely discussed.

I do not doubt for a second that transgender people have all sorts of very difficult issues to contend with. I do dispute, however, the frequent assertion that transgender issues, and in particular the issues arising for people who were born male but would prefer to be female, have anything to do with my issues as a person born female and delighted to be female, despite the uniquely female issues that arise across my lifespan. No trans person can speak for me.