Reducing Moderation Load for MN (continuation of Dealing with Inflammatory Posts)

I truly can't understand the position of those who believe you can continue to fight for the rights of the biologically female, of women and girls, after ceding that there exists no such common group.

Quite.

I don't see this as being about using academic or elegant language. I have always been far more careful about what I say on these boards than I am on other threads because it's so important. But I think directness is fine. Some of the things I try and avoid are:

Sarcasm - and sometimes it's the people who write well who are most prone to this.

Making personal comments, and in particular talking about anyone's clothing or appearance.

Threads about what some nutter has said on Twitter. I don't really see the point.
There are probably more.

I actually think the phrase 'peaktrans' might be unhelpful because for a long time I misunderstood and took it to mean being fed up of trans people. I doubt I'm the only one who's made this mistake.

And yes, I totally agree that nothing will be good enough for abusive TRAs and if they are getting to MNHQ then that is deeply worrying. But in the meantime, the people I always think about are lurkers - because I was one myself for such a long time.

I truly can't understand the position of those who believe you can continue to fight for the rights of the biologically female, of women and girls, after ceding that there exists no such common group.

Once you've decided woman is nothing more than a sound, a label with no meaning that belongs to anyone, how do you even talk about the people in the world who are there in plain sight suffering for being female, let alone fight for them?

If you can see sex, understand it, perceive it, know it, BUT not name it, or talk about it, or protect it, how will you fight for it?

I just want a place where I can talk about me and those like me. My daughter. My mum.

The big threat (patriarchy) has now found a way to manipulate us all into changing the actual definition of woman, making sure males are included in this new definition. It has found a way to erode women's boundaries without our consent.

It's pure evil genius. All in the name of transgenderism.

So I will have to respectfully disagree with Gasping.

you're isolating yourselves and eating feminism by splitting it into factions and the only winner is The Patriarchy.

How? Feminism has never been a monolithic block. There are a range of feminist opinions here. The majority are alarmed by the potential redefining of the word ‘woman’, by the removal of single sex spaces, by things like housing Male bodied prisoners in female estate. Far from eating ourselves I’d say no issue has united feminists this much for quite some time.

Is transgenderism a threat? I suppose that depends on the definition. Transgender people’s existence is not a threat - the prevailing opinion here agrees with that and says that trans people should be protected from discrimination, access appropriate treatment etc. The issue is self ID and the TRA/MRA lobby.

How do you think this issue is making feminism eat itself?

"the biggest threats to women and girls' rights in 100 years are the same as they always have been"

I agree on this, for example some things that have been going on for so long and been used to limit women's rights and freedoms;

• assigning the sexes/genders certain personality traits and abilities
• the idea of a male/female brain

But IMO "the biggest threat to women and girls' rights in 100 years" is not transgenderism, the biggest threats to women and girls' rights in 100 years are the same as they always have been.

Respectfully, I don't see how the definition of woman (adult human female) being redefined by men for men and the erosion of sex based protections leading from that is not the biggest feminist cause for concern in many, many decades.

That is the very definition of patriarchy at work.

"Yes. It also feels a little bit classist to me - where is the room for the more direct working class way of speaking?"

We're stuck in a catch-22, if we engage using blunter/less academic language then we run the risk of being shut down for being rude, but if we avoid it and speak in a more convoluted academic way then we are accused of being privileged, middle class, "white feminists". (NVM the offensive insinuation that neither WOC or working class women can write in an eloquent academic manner)

Once again they don't hold their own to the same standards.

Hi Gasping. I agree that there are really important things for feminism to do that have nothing to do with trans issues.

"But IMO "the biggest threat to women and girls' rights in 100 years" is not transgenderism, the biggest threats to women and girls' rights in 100 years are the same as they always have been. "

Right.

The existence and visibility of transgender people is no direct threat to women and girls. I wish them all well.

BUT

There is a dynamic at play currently which goes beyond - way beyond - the direct influence or visibility of trans people, and is not in the interests of women and girls.

it's interesting... I have read this comment about 'you're eating feminism' a number of times on twitter recently.
I have some specific concerns for women and girls at this current time. I am able to understand the nature of these. I would like to discuss them and have been made acutely aware in recent months where and how this discussion has being made difficult/impossible and the manner in which this is challenged.

@AntiGrinch I’m sorry for anyone treated that way. Like many of us I have experienced psychological abuse.

I also had "bad communication style" thrown at me just last week (as Spoonless) and told my concern wasn't important and that I wasn't entitled to draw any inferences from a fact. Sound familiar? The only situations in which I get that are when people are in an ideological bunker and can't or won't understand. GC is the dominant group on here and guilty of most of the things you're fighting back at.

As @thanksjaneshusbandatcaresouth has said elsewhere, of course we each see our "side" as victim, so that makes the actions of the other "side" look aggressive to us when they band together, even though it feels defensive to them (and vice versa).

I know you feel justified by your rightness and I agree that you're damned-if-you-do/don't. But IMO "the biggest threat to women and girls' rights in 100 years" is not transgenderism, the biggest threats to women and girls' rights in 100 years are the same as they always have been. You are not "being rounded up in a ghetto", you're isolating yourselves and eating feminism by splitting it into factions and the only winner is The Patriarchy.

Meanwhile, misogynistic threads deriding the appearance of women are alive and well in AIBU. I guess it's only women with feminist opinions that need heavy moderation.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3221105-To-think-that-many-most-female-race-goers-attending-Ladies-Day-at-Aintree-look-a-mess?trending=1

As so very well put, we are being rounded up in a ghetto.

Like fucking lepers

Intelligent discussion *

This is so very very disheartening.
The last few weeks especially I was feeling so grateful that this amazing spreading of awareness and intelligent was happening and that MN was enabling it. It felt like a kind of revolution or explosion or something dramatic and exciting was happening.

Now it's all deflating...because as others have said, women may not have these conversations where anyone can see or hear. They can only be behind closed doors and the doors are closing right now.

It is horrifying to think that you have to be THIS good at talking to be allowed to talk at all.

Yes. It also feels a little bit classist to me - where is the room for the more direct working class way of speaking? (Thinking again of what the Deptford People's Project said)

Having just ploughed through a lot of the FWR board thread in active, I am so much in agreement with this. A lot of the 'serves you right' comments seem to come from people who feel they have been 'shouted down', which, having spent so much time on these boards lately, I'd say just means out-argued.

It seems that we're in a damned-if-you-do/don't situation. Speak plainly? Disrespectful. Goady. Not in the spirt. Put forward robust arguments backed up by fact? Shouting down. Being abrasive. Unwelcoming.

So many posters here, but all of us wrong.

This is a huge concern and one we really need to keep an eye on this. Clearly Mumsnet is under a lot of pressure to close this debate down.

For me there are a few things we really need to be aware of:

1 - Even discussing the idea that TRAs are spamming the boards and reporting everything fuels the fire. It's a bit catch-22. Anyone reading who is of this inclination will increase their efforts now that they are aware that the forum could be on the line.

2 - Free speech. This is what it ALL boils down to. We should be able to speak freely. It's an vital right to protect. Unfortunately this is a private forum, and ultimately the owners get to choose who speaks. It's not a public space.

3 - Policing tone is ridiculously subjective (and that's assuming it should even be done. Answer: it shouldn't). It's a bit like the debate on being offended; anyone can be offended by anything.

4 - I do think the key lies in self-policing. Maybe we should put together a group of women willing to act as, someone else said, another tier of mods. However this will only be possible if Mumsnet are willing to talk to us about what exactly they are requiring moderation of. Is it a matter of dealing with masses of spam reports (that don't really go anywhere but require time to check out) or a more subtle moderation of certain phrases, words, angles, opinions that someone at the top is considering "just too much". If this is the case, it's a bit closer to shutting down debate, which is a separate issue in itself.

5 - Making the forum invisible. I think this is an incredibly heavy handed tactic if it's being done in the name of "making it harder for goady people/trolls" to find us. Anyone coming here with the intention of being goady/a troll only needs to google the forum. They won't be prevented from posting. The people who WILL be prevented from posting are those curious about the trans issues because they are new to it. Those are the people who need to be led a little, so they can navigate the huge amount of information and come to their own decisions. We will lose them. We will lose the ability to gain in number.

It would be a massive shame if we lost this forum as it is one of the few places we have available that are so well-known. It's unfortunate that Mumsnet are under this pressure as they have worked incredibly hard to keep our voices being heard. But it does seem to be a slippery slope right now.

Mumsnet - work with us. What can we do to help?

Antigrinch your post at 7.35 is amazingly insightful. I never thought about that before and you are so right.

The point of this thread is to work out how to support MNHQ in keeping this open and I just don't know how to help because:

I don't know what the problem is. "root and branch" is too general; "goady" is too general; I'm honestly lost

I don't know where the pressure is coming from

And I don't know how they can shut this down. I am really interested and confused about the mechanics of this. We've seen women being threatened with violence and physically assaulted. Presumably not that? People outside Justine's house with baseball bats? I don't think so. What's going on?

Thanks AntiGrinch

It is horrifying to think that you have to be THIS good at talking to be allowed to talk at all

That is really what I was trying to get at when I was talking about newborns and caring. If we're held to an impossible standard that
will exclude tired women with non-perfect non-sleeping babies, or caring for elderly relations, or just trying to juggle work and caring. I know what I write is less clear than many of you, I've been struggling with various postpartum stuff this past year, but I still want to engage (respectfully of course), I want to write letters, I don't want to be completely invisible in society. What does it say if a new mum feels excluded from feminist discourse on mumsnet because she has to walk on eggshells and get the right 'tone'. This discussion is heading that way, it puts me off posting to be honest, and I've learned so much on here.

Yes Lang. I (rather clumsily) tried to make this point on another thread. The way the debate is currently framed you need to be steeped in a background of post modern academia to navigate it.

The average person new to this is going to be tarred and feathered as a bigot from the off because even using standard biological terms counts as phobic in all this.

It is horrifying to think that you have to be THIS good at talking to be allowed to talk at all.

Yes. It also feels a little bit classist to me - where is the room for the more direct working class way of speaking? (Thinking again of what the Deptford People's Project said).

Agree completely. The very idea of tone policing is antithetical to genuine discussion.

Outright abuse and guideline breaches have always been moderated on MN. But to say we can only discuss this if we are nice about it is a slippery slope. When factual scientific words are deemed hateful we have a massive problem - because it stops us discussing reality.
We can’t have discussion restricted to those with the linguistic fancy footwork. It’s not an academic seminar, it’s a public discussion board.

And I’ll say it again - this is the ONLY topic to be treated like this. Respectful but robust discussion is fine on any other topic on any other board.

WHO is pressurising MNHQ and HOW?

Meanwhile, in the nothing to do with trans issues part of the forum, we have a man calling himself patriarchy personified trying to sneakily undermine the credibility of rape victims, as he does on every thread where rape is the subject. And that? Is fine, apparently. But god forbid a woman not preface every comment she makes with a summation of the ways in which the person she's disagreeing with is actually right.

It is horrifying to think that you have to be THIS good at talking to be allowed to talk at all

The idea that a feminist forum should function like couples therapy is pretty weird.

Fuck me, yes. It's completely true. (and I'm the advocate for talking mindfully).

You won't be listened to unless you tread carefully.

That entire sentence means you're not worth listening to, and you never will be. Having your turn at talking should be conditional on nothing.

People have said over and over on these threads that women's voices don't count, and that male allies are useful, on that basis.

I hope some of them are reading this and they they work for a newspaper.