Probably been said before, but an area just for Trans issues?

It's offensive to me to hear people telling me that the thing that makes a woman is having a lady brain, not a female body. Grossly offensive to suggest that - because the logic that follows on from that is I could escape my female oppression if I just thought differently.

I don't think saying that you have very little sympathy for someone is unreasonable (even if you say it sarcastically as in your example) - you'll get far more robust pushback if you say something like 'I change my bedding every couple of months'.

And as for responses - far fewer people care if one person's husband watches porn - it's hardly going to be discussed in Parliament is it? Whereas women's rights affect the majority of the people on this board, of course more people are going to have strong opinions.

If a poster (for example) is saying that men should be allowed in the women's changing room, they're also going to be defending children, so even stronger feelings, I don't think dancing around the reason why women don't want men in there with them will help anyone - of course assault and women's rights will be mentioned - VAWG is a massive problem in society, women's rights matter to women - especially on the feminist boards - so the idea that they wouldn't be mentioned is ridiculous surely?

I also think there isn't much room for a middle ground with this issue. Either TW are W, 100% - or if they are not 100% the same as a born woman then they are a man and the whole thing falls apart. Despite their attempts to escape the 'binary' - the issue is extremely binary. There's no real compromise that either side would entertain, trans side think TWAW and terf side think TWAM.

The thing is many of us grew up vaguely lib fem, had children and then the scales fell from our eyes. We realised that society still has so far to go and that WE are society so we have to get off our backsides. This whole men's rights movement (aka trans activism) has set women's rights back hugely and worse, hardened the lines between lib fems and rad fems. So women have started fighting each other while entitled men slink past and use their male privilege to dismantle our rights, aided by various useful idiots.

And for @pikkumyy77 I find your posts incredible. I have long suspected that the USA right wing were the ones funding trans ideology because it pushed the pendulum so far that it caused an inevitable pushback against liberal progression. Your daughters may be very privileged or indeed may be bisexual and for those reasons may not feel like they have anything to be worried about re men calling themselves lesbians. Trans activism has caused massive damage to the acceptance of LGB people, particularly amongst younger people. It has also harmed young lesbians who were called sexual racists for not accepting dick, not to mention the young, autistic women who have ended up mutilating their bodies.

But yes, you can be sure the Trump voters weren't voraciously reading MN the night before the election 🙄

I think you don’t find middle ground because the middle ground viewpoint comes from those people who just want to get on with their lives and not be drawn into radical discussion.

Let’s take religion for instance. There are some extremely evangelical people of all religions who will spout the most unpleasant views about how being gay/a single parent/unmarried/not believing in God should make you an outcast, and those are the people with the loudest voices. And as such religion has the reputation of being homophobic/anti women/discriminatory in so many other ways.

And yet there are plenty of people with a faith who simply don’t hold those views, but who just get on with their lives without being drawn into discussions. And they shouldn’t be expected to speak out equally loudly just because they feel they should be heard. They don’t want their name associated with anything which relates to those views.

Similarly the trans debate. We hear the louder views. The people crying out for equal rights, claiming that trans women are women and shouting down everyone who thinks otherwise. There are equally gay rights activists who do the same.

And yet of the trans people I know, two who have been trans long-term so way before all this started, and one who has recently transitioned from female to male, who simply want to live their lives, and aren’t remotely interested in getting into the discussions demanding for x and y rights. They’re just perfectly decent people who happen to feel the way they do and who are living their lives accordingly.

In short, it’s usually those who shout the loudest who are heard above those who are just living their lives. And in truth those who shout the loudest are usually in the minority, but they create the majority opinion of that which they are shouting about.

It absolutely does not describe FWR well.

Reason being, it attracts lots of 'interest' from TRAs and supporters who are drawn straight there to tell us we're wrong. This brings out a good deal of debate with all sides represented and some detailed, intelligent dismantling of the issues.

Echo chamber my fanny. Sometimes it feels more like the front line under enemy fire.

I absolutely agree with you there and have experience IRL of some feminist activism groups, whilst many women were lovely you did get a few hardliners who were just very extreme in their views and yes this did sometimes tip into transphobia (such as a view that ALL tw are sexual deviants) which is why I eventually left. But as a lifelong studier of human nature and psychology I find it interesting to view the debate from both sides and observe human nature in action. Both sides think they are absolutely right and the 'other side' are bonkers/evil/whatever. Some exceptions of course, but I haven't found much middle ground.

I don't think tone policing is appropriate
If someone's posting ideas that others find deeply offensive, there's likely to be some pushback.
Why is it offensive to someone to hear the other side of the coin? A discussion is to see a broad range of arguments for and against and being open to that, otherwise it’s just talking about one viewpoint and silencing others feels like there is this unspoken of club of women who seek out these responses and their job is to be nasty. I don’t mind pushing back on people that are unkind, or respond by swearing or calling people stupid, but I think you know what I meant in my OP.

And having many replies is simply the nature of bulletin boards like this
Sure, but when Annie posts on AIBU about her husband watching pornos and the majority of posters say oh what a dirty bugger and a couple say ‘don’t be daft it happens’ which is arguably the minority viewpoint, they may get 2-3 quotes. Someone with a different to the majority viewpoint on a trans thread will get a lot more than that, and they will automatically label that poster as anti-woman, suggest they’re okay with assault and other very extreme conclusions.

Lucky for MN it still has some brave posters who will tell come out little jems like :

Dont do safeguarding as men will rape anyway so why get fussy over a small number of rapes.

Anyway men will ignore the rules and use womens single sex spaces so lets not have rules to allow women to have single sex spaces.

Having an opinion I dont like means you are transphobic.

Be kind [ and shutup about your rights ] and let me tell you what rights you should be allowed.

Biology is not real so there are more than 2 sex class of humans

He is a man with his female brain in his male body.

The man just knows what being a woman is because his feelings are womens feelings.

If only you just accepted that I am right you would not have to continue to explain why your opinion matters [ < tbf that is a whole lot of MN threads anyway 🤣 ]

Sex and gender is a topic under womens rights

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights

And on a mainly women using board in an area which is focused on womens rights not mens rights.

Poster A should stop telling Poster B that Poster A is not in agreement with Poster B's opinion because Poster A had a similar discussion with Poster C because its an creates an echo chamber?

If MN wanted to add a Trans-General_chat to the Talk section it would be fine. Car parking with diagram issues, being able to 'rant' in public, access to medical hormones or hair removal etc may work with "local" knowledge and would not fit into sex and gender anyway.

But other stuff eg smear test fear, or being bullied at work would get more replys in under the specific Talk topic

I don't think tone policing is appropriate - within limits - it feels very much like expecting women to be kind, to ask nicely, where that's not expected of others. If someone's posting ideas that others find deeply offensive, there's likely to be some pushback.

And having many replies is simply the nature of bulletin boards like this - anyone can post in response to whatever you say, you can't stem the deluge if people have strong opinions in response to your strong opinions. It can feel overwhelming, but what do you suggest? Some kind of response only by invite?

The extremely narrow definition of human, women, gay here at mumsnet.

I am intrigued by what a wider definition of human is

I'm pretty sure I know about women/gay - the wider definition being 'anyone who says they are', but since I've not seen the dogs with buttons or chimps with signlanguage suggesting they're human anywhere, I'm wondering what a wider definition of it is...

This. there are undoubtedly people who do go on to those boards, but statistically there are less of them than if the topic appears in AIBU.

I’ve hidden all the feminist boards as have a large number of MN posters because they might as well be named the anti trans boards, but even without the anti trans focus, anywhere there are radical views tends to attract unpleasant people.

Just as evangelical religious types, rabid pro trans, pro environmentalist/vegan and so on have hardline and unpleasant ways of putting forward their arguments, so do radical feminists. It’s no different.

I also have the COVID board hidden in Covid because it was full of conspiracy nut jobs and really, the discussion of Covid didn’t need to transcend everything else.

Oh it absolutely is.

But to create the topic would be an active confirmation of the fact.

So at the moment MNHQ can claim that they’re not transphobic and are just “pro women’s rights,” create a trans discussion topic and they’ve actively created a space for transphobia to flourish and as such they lose any right to “defend” their stance.

that seems logical, however my experience of MN is that I’ve never looked for trans specific threads / boards - it’s not a topic I’ve felt the need to engage in. But MN, especially in the last few weeks has boomed with these threads and they are disproportionately anti - and that’s what pops up on active and trending which is what the average user will see

edited to add:
you can then hide boards you don’t want to see / engage in so if they’re all in the right place you can just choose to ignore

But surely people who want to counter any pro trans threads would just go to the pro trans board and post/ reply on there?
Just as pro trans posters go on the fwr boards to argue or provoke

MN can’t be seen to have a trans topic as that would be essentially creating a space where transphobia can flourish, and would be an admission that on the whole, MN is seen as transphobic.

That horse bolted long ago. Mumsnet is well known as transphobic, whether you agree with that or not.

I don’t think the issue is with politely discussing issues and viewpoints. I have seen countless posts though that have mocked and laughed at trans people, comments along the lines of ‘get my tiny violin out’. Also the impression I get when skimming through those threads is that as soon as Someone with a different viewpoint joins the discussion, they get bombarded with Responses that are designed to silence, label them, and essentially bully out of the thread - That is not a discussion, it’s a Thread for like-minded people only, so it’s only right that they have their own board where they can share information amongst each other and don’t have to spew over into Chat and AIBU. I think whatever AI tools @MNHQ Have, they could be used to scan threads for this subject and move them into the designated board.

MN can’t be seen to have a trans topic as that would be essentially creating a space where transphobia can flourish, and would be an admission that on the whole, MN is seen as transphobic.

Because let’s be honest, this isn’t just about the SC ruling. For some it is, but there are posters here who will turn any discussion into an anti trans one, even if the word trans hasn’t been uttered, and a trans board is just going to create a platform for that.

What should exist however is the ability to hide threads without having to click on them. People say “don’t click on the threads,” but you have to to be able to hide them.

So MN continue to get clicks which presumably translates into interest their world, but actually some of those clicks will be so that posters can hide the threads. So make it possible to hide the threads from the front page.

It really is this. It’s about the importance of kerping all men out of female only spaces. When males are allowed in for any reason, any man can come in. Their identity doesn’t matter.

TRAs have never answered how you keep men out with bad motivations, when you start allowing men in. The only arguments you here are ‘no man would don a dress just for that reason’ , which ignores the fact that men don’t have to don dresses to get in and gender ideology argues very hard that ‘gender expression does not need to match gender identity and no one’s gender identity should be questioned. The other argument is ‘if a man wants to attack you he will anyway’ which is just an argument to remove all safeguarding for women as we aren’t worth protecting and should accept male violence against us. It also ignores the fact that some men just enjoy the power of making women feel intimidated and vulnerable.

You’ve clearly never encountered the fights that break out on FWR even between GC women, let alone with TRAs who regularly post there.

It’s extraordinarily clear that you have never bothered to look into, listen to or read the arguments of the ‘side’ you think you don’t agree with. I presume you are so sure you are right, you think you don’t need to.

You don’t even realise the British women’s rights movement is largely composed of left wing women, many of whom have decades of experience of left wing activism.

It’s not honourable or honest to form your opinions without thoroughly investigating all sides of the argument. If you only know your side of the argument, you don’t even know your side of the argument.

This issue is unfortunately a major societal one now, but the Supreme Court ruling has been made, and the immediate reactions have taken place.

Yes, it is a major social issues, with important consequences for the sex-based rights of women and girls, and their safety , dignity, and privacy. It is also a major social issue because of the ciolence threatened or acted on towards women who speak up about the issue - death threts, physical atacks, job & freelance work losses.

So why shouldn't it be discussed widely, and through a lot of differing points of view?

Why are you so scared of the issue, and why don't you see how it affects every single woman fundamentally. I don't want a group of men who think they know what it is to be a woman, telling me that I don't know - which is what the trans lobby has been saying.

There is one. Sex and gender discussions.

I only learned a week or so ago that you can tell who reacted to your posts by clicking on the wee icon and what surprised me most when I checked out a few reactions was that 95% of them were from usernames I had never seen on FWR or otherwhere in MN. There seems to be a large number of people who read and react but don't post, so if FWR is an echo chamber, it's rather larger than it looks, more like an echo mansion.

It really is.