Mumsnet moderation of trans rights and gender critical issues II

@KateMumsnet would you please reconsider allowing certain posters to continually goad by posting the same mistruths again and again across multiple threads.

Individual posts may not breach guidelines but taken as a whole the pattern is clear to see. Such posters, and one in particular, are not interested in discussion. They seek only to provoke and their constant policing of threads is tedious at best and certainly not in the Spirit of Mumsnet.

Wading in with my GC size 5s.

Many, many posters have expressed my views far better then I ever could, but I wanted to add my support. I refuse to accept lies and won’t be told what to think.

I’ll be courteous in the interests of polite debate (although I don’t think the other side are concerned with such niceties) but I won’t use fictitious terms.

I mean to say this in the most non-confrontational way possible so hope it is not read as being awkward, it is just making me rather anxious to have to follow rules that I do not understand, under threat of banning from a forum I rely on.

This.

Beyond - I expect that MNHQ will soon realise that rules designed to appease gaslighters are impossible to enforce upon a large population of clearsighted and educated posters.

Will there be an overview of a poster's contributions e.g. If individual posts might be okay, just, but the overall tone is bullying, finding and silencing?

Kate, unfortunately I do not understand the rules that I have seen and thus rely on other posters to clarify things. If there are misconceptions, it would be really helpful if mn could confirm when they pop up, rather than just refer back to the rules.

I mean to say this in the most non-confrontational way possible so hope it is not read as being awkward, it is just making me rather anxious to have to follow rules that I do not understand, under threat of banning from a forum I rely on.

If MNHQ is attempting to implement similar guidelines to those in place for workplace harassment - there's some good news and some bad news.

Bad news first:

Workplace bullying is an abuse of power or authority which attempts to undermine an individual or group of employees, and which may cause them to suffer work related stress.

There seems to be case to answer, judging by the number of women citing their distress at the new moderation guidelines.

The Good News is:

Under the Equality Act, employers are also responsible for their staff who harass other employees, but can escape such liability if they can demonstrate that they took reasonable practical steps to prevent the harassment from happening

Thus MN - you took reasonable steps, the vast majority of users on the FWR board rejected those attempts - thus you are off the hook. Carry On.

Religion held by a person is a protected characteristic. So it’d be wrong of you to say, sit at work and rant about Christianity and mock it on front of a deeply Christian colleague, or prevent her from worshipping/subject her to discrimination etc.

Butvit wouldn’t be wrong of you to criticise the religion itself in as harsh a way as you like in a general sense on MN. It wouldn’t be wrong to say, wrote a sitcom about three priests in a parochial house on a small island. Or write a cartoon where Mohammed and Jesus sit in the pub rather a lot and discuss life.

The protected thing isn't the religion itself, it’s the people who hold the religion. And that’s right and fair.

So it’s the same with this issue. Abuse of, discrimination at work against etc of someone who is a transwoman or transman is wrong. The law protects them because of their protected characteristic.

It does not protect the ideology itself

No ideology is immune from discussion in the uk. None is immune from criticism, mockery, humour, sitcoms or anything else. The ideology is an abstract. The people are what are protected.

What’s happening at the moment is akin to religious people trying to ban blasphemy. Blair tried it. Luckily the idea was shot down.

Now I don’t know about anyone else, but I’d prefer not to live in a theocracy, they tend not to be terribly nice places.

Religion, like gender recognition, is a protected characteristic. So if I, as an atheist, were to persistently refer to believers as 'God-botherers', and belittle their beliefs, and some posters on the MN religion threads (assuming there are some) objected, would that fall foul of the EA 2010 and MN guidelines too?

In all likelihood I might vehemently disagree with opinions expressed, but I would never expect believers to be compelled to change their language to accommodate the likes of me.

But on the FWR board, feminists and women are expected to do just that?

Jeez. There’s a belief that MN actually started this ‘trans issue’. Such effing bullshit given credibility by this new moderation.

I never thought the day would come when Mumsnet capitulates to the demands of men. How wrong could I be.

I am so relieved that there are more and more women standing up to this shit.
I am horrified that MN is turning on the very group it set out to support.
Men win again and MN is rolling over and letting it happen.
I thought they were strong women.

mansnet

peoplewithtesticalsnet please ;) that's very inclusive for all except women so pretty much fits the bill

Hang on, we cant use peoples legal names?

Are they taking the piss?
Just change the logo to MansNet and be done.

Amalfimama - in your defence, the person to which you refer often begs for donations to a paypal account in that name, as it has not been changed.

womanformallyknownaswoman

Great questions.

We seem to have lost our transexual ladies. Truscum gets 💐 but the rest, well, sinking ship and all that.

Well we aren't sinking and to madly mix metaphors i wonder if there are no plans to reach-hitch the wagon once we get out of this little local difficulty. Which we will - hurrah! It's already happening.

@JustineMumsnet

You have the support of millions of mumsnet users, we are behind you @JustineMumsnet, all the way.

It’s obvious now that mumsnet has been targeted by a group whose purpose is to make you comply with their demands, or bring you down.

When you first set Mumsnet up was it to provide a space online for women to get together? What would you have told yourself to do in this situation? How would you feel/do you feel about being forced to engage in doublespeak?

Tell the Men’s Rights Activists to get to fuck.

They can set up their own website if they wish, mensnet, TRAnet, XYnet, whatever they like.

They can take away their blatant misogyny, and they can also stop co-opting people with genuine body dysphoria into their movement, and just leave us women, and our allies the hell alone.

Woah! The legal names of transgender persons are not allowed?
That is a bizarre rule.

Seems to me MN are treating the board like a workplace and are policing misgenderiing or anything that would result in them being accused of harassment.

The flaw in that approach is the FWR board isn't a workplace plus women aren't accorded the same treatment and respect by the moderation policy - for example why are women here expected to tolerate verbal abuse and trolling tactics of derailing etc - which is targeted abuse at women here in the FWR board? Why don't MN defend women being targeted, as any responsible employer would?

Why isn't the distress caused by the appropriation of women's sex plus policing of their behaviour taken seriously by MN? Why don't they declare FWR a protected space for women? Why are MN replicating male violence tactics by coercing and silencing women? Why are MN sanctioning women who report abuse instead of those who cause unnecessary conflict by their trolling here and on Twitter referencing here?

Why are you forcing women to tolerate illegal behaviour on the FWR board from abusive men who crossdress? No one had any problem with those transsexuals who are reasonable - only those who aren't.

If want to treat the FWR board like a workplace then take workplace bullying seriously because what is happening here is serious sexual harassment under the guise of freedom of speech for men who cross dress.

Are we allowed to say that 'top surgery' is breast amputation and bottom surgery is castration?

Oh I'd like to know the answer to this, definitely. Also are we allowed to point out that a vagina cannot be made out of colon or inside out penis and that claiming it can is one of most disgusting and misogynist things that men have ever come up with?

It certainly is a big story if we're to be deleted and banned for uttering someone's legal name. Or for referring to their actual, legal sex, despite everyone agreeing that sex and gender are not the same thing.

As an aside, it's so gobsmackingly ironic that after lifetime of the patriarchy ostensibly valuing cold hard facts over subjectivity and personal feelings, all of a sudden Their feelz take priority over all else, logic, truth and other people's rights be damned.