We're being spammed

My issue is - is it more of an 'arf arf arf' noise or an 'owp owp owp'?

I have swum with a wild sealion. That was emphatically NOT tedious. She was fucking fabulous.

RatRolyPoly I quite agree. I don't mind being called a sealion to be honest. I think maybe the point of that cartoon is that there is no obvious bad guy. Or maybe i missed the point...

life goes on and fish is tasty :)

It would be nice if they could truly understand the issues and concerns that females have with transactivists and self - id without trying to remove our rights. They are basically trampling over our rights to boost theirs.

But we are subjected to pseudo science and psycho babble and some old philosophers chit chat bollocks to prove that (as transwoman) they are right and we need to get back to the kitchen sink.

Ack, rereading my post it's confusingly worded. By this:

And how is dismissing a huge number of valid concerns as 'not liking trans people' (or more accurately pretending they don't exist)

I meant 'pretending those CONCERNS exist', not transgender people.

That's very kind of you Barracker but this is not a category of my choosing so it is not for me to say who I share it with. It is a category devised and repeated by people who are looking to abuse and undermine posters who disagree with them, discourage others from engaging with them and to shut down debate.

"Don't feed the sealions", they say. I don't know what you think about that. I don't know if that puts me in the same bracket as carrier to you and I wouldn't presume to guess. But I wouldn't be on board with others using this line of attack, even if I agreed with them.

Strikes me the posters who genuinely want to discuss the issues and hear the different viewpoints don't realise they're not the bosses here. A very many more seem to only want a platform for their inflexible ideologies. And that's not a healthy thing.

Rat, since you're responding to Carrier, can I point something out that they wrote?

The fact remains, no one, but no one has come up with any arguements apart from "i just don't like trans people".

Do you agree with that statement?

Do you agree that, for example, questioning whether vulnerable women in prison should be housed separately from rapists who happen to be transgender, boils down to 'not liking trans people'?

And how is dismissing a huge number of valid concerns as 'not liking trans people' (or more accurately pretending they don't exist) in any way engaging in debate? Who's really being inflexible here?

Mute button in your heads people

If we asked really nicely do you think Mumsnet would build us a mute button?

Pages and pages and I'm none the wiser as to what Rat thinks. I assume this will go for some time

Oh, Rat, I think you are an inveterate, goalpost moving, disingenuous sealion. But there we go - you knew I'd say that, didn't you?!

Rat, I wouldn't put you in the same category as carrier (yet), but you could change my mind.

Read carrier's post up above and if you still think you share common ground you may save us all a lot of time.

It's hilarious, it's like a bat signal. But, you know, without the cape and the butler.

Alright carrier, looks like I'm not the only butt of the sealioning "joke" round here; makes me feel slightly better.

It's mad, when I first started chatting here everyone was all "god, I hate all these ploppers just dropping in with their statements and never sticking around to explain their point of view", so a couple of posters brave the abuse tone to engage in just such discussion, and god damn them, they're sealioning!

"I hate the ploppers, it's terrible when they never come back. The only thing worse is when they do."

Strikes me the posters who genuinely want to discuss the issues and hear the different viewpoints don't realise they're not the bosses here. A very many more seem to only want a platform for their inflexible ideologies. And that's not a healthy thing.

"stop engaging with Rat too, since she's our most prolific sea lion"

I didn't know the name for this, but yes, that exactly what she is

Agreed, the sealioning is getting out of control. Watch out for individuals who initially agree with what's being said but then start to raise amorphous doubts which need post after post of clarification.

People with genuine questions / doubts tend to come on and ask direct questions from the outset.

I have a

A wild sealion appears! Does anyone have a ball handy?

You can call people names all you like. The fact remains, no one, but no one has come up with any arguements apart from "i just don't like trans people".

When you are on the same side as trump and the daily mail shouldn't alarm bells be ringing somewhere?

I think most people lurking on forums only really take notice of what appears on the first page. It works the same way on another totally unrelated forum I'm part of.

The idea is to fill the first page with as much nonsense as possible to distract from far better threads that fall out of view due to people responding and bumping the goady threads.

Lack of response is the best action IMO but impossible to enforce so the second best option is if people are at least responding with clear arguments for the benefit of anyone reading.

Yeah the sports thread should have been fine, but then the tedious wanker showed up and started wanking.

I'm thinking I should take my own advice and stop engaging with Rat too, since she's our most prolific sea lion.

“So let's not comment on those threads. If just the most prolific commenters don't they'll drop off soon”

Exactly - just ask for them to be moved to Chat and leave it at that.

Angry I started the sport thread because I thought it was an interesting issue - though 250 odd posts later, the arguments have probably been made, the sealion is still sea-lioning, so you're probably right, time to let it drop down the list.

However, I think some response is important. I think the important thing to remember is to question and explain - "You haven't told me what you mean by woman in 'women's sport'", "reducing testosterone a bit doesn't level the playing field because...", "your study which you cite as a counter argument doesn't work because (small sample size)/(self-selected sample)/(lousy stats)/(no true Scotsman fallacy)."

Keep our eye on the ball - they want to close down debate, we want to keep it open.