Your peaktrans moment for today! Top this if you can.

I think Davina would be pretty unhappy with both, tbh. The fact remains she isn’t a homosexual female. There isn’t really a nice way to say it and still remain true to the facts

In fact bending over backwards to try not to offend individuals like Davina tends to result in them upping the attempts to control what you can and can't say, as happened to the unfortunate woman in the OPs post who tried her absolute best to be kind and inoffensive and got hounded and banned anyway. This is a pattern that can be observed in all kinds of spaces where TRAs operate - the more willingness women show to compromise the harder they push.

For some of us it is in fact about being blunt and not forcing ourselves to speak in ways that are unnatural for us. Again, your interpretation of other women's motives isn't as infallible as you appear to believe. Nor is instructing other women on the way you would like them to express themselves particularly feminist.

It's possible that I'm the only woman here who's getting very tired of the constant attempts to tone police other commenters, but I doubt it.

It’s difficult.

‘Dave, you’re not a lesbian or a woman’, vs ‘Davina, you’re not a lesbian or a woman’

I think Davina would be pretty unhappy with both, tbh. The fact remains she isn’t a homosexual female. There isn’t really a nice way to say it and still remain true to the facts.

AngryAttackKittens
It's not about being blunt. It's about taking the debate first over personal attacks.

I don't claim to have some universal truth. I do think that if people on the fringes of debate turn up here and see more digs and less debate then they may be less likely to find out more about the issues

There's so much to debate without playing into the hands of TRAs.

I draw a comparison between debating religon vs comments about the believer and debating periods vs comments about the person claiming men have periods to another thread in the same feminism board.

SporadicSpartacus
Exactly.
Debate the idea. And where possible be as explicit as possible.

So when discussing biological differences, keep he/she etc. Clarify that men = Biological adult male.

But if in general discussion, why purposefully try to get points by calling Davina 'Dave'? Or say they are deluded?

I think the idea of keep my male biology, don a dress, date a woman, make some youtube clips and claim I am a lesbian is an illogical and silly point of view. It can be debated without making persobal digs at the person spouting those views.

When this applies to the wider world, the people most likely to misgender are men. Not 'woke' men, just regular guys in the workplace. When they get pulled up on it, they will blame feminists and women for creating a ridiculous PC society, and so the cycle of hatred will continue.

Masie, if you think that other women speaking more bluntly than is your preference are "point scoring" then you may be having difficulty understanding the fact that different people have different personalities and this has an impact on how they express themselves. Your framing of this reflects how you see the world and how you prefer to communicate, not some sort of universal truth.

(Also, porting this disagreement over to another thread was pretty bad form and not really going high, imo.)

I can see your point, Maisypops. Antagonising people doesn’t help the (reasonable) message land.

However, if I were - for example - discussing evolution with a creationist, I wouldn’t change my language to accommodate their world view. I think if I did that, it would create an impression that both world views are equally grounded in facts and worthy of being taken seriously.

Play the ball not the , err, man ...

Havoc
But surely you can see there is a difference between saying (for example).

"Biological fact is that biological men do not have the required body parts to have a period and a full menstrual cycle"
And
(When discussing someone identifying as a transwoman who has posted something stupid and inflamatory)
" Just look at Joe Bloggs on Twitter. HE talks absolute nonsense."
Like when people to score point started calling LM Liam. Why? Isn't it better to debate the issues at hand than get involved in low point scoring.

Can only speak for myself but I'm going to continue talking about women's experiences, continue to hold there are biological differences and continue to have an issue with TRA. They may not like everything that's said. They may claim that any challenge or question is violent (don't get that logic) but the focus is on the issues, not low point scoring.

We can't call adult males he because it's not polite.

We can't talk about women's bodies because not all women have those experiences and it's exclusionary.

We can't comment on TIM behaviour because not all TIM do that, and we can find an example of someone, somewhere doing something worse.

We can have no words to discribe female experience because words change meaning over time.

We can't talk about women and our experiences because we will be in danger of being an echo chamber and not centring men.

It's best all round if we just stop talking.

And I disagree that what you're suggesting is what we need to win this. You can of course make whatever decisions make sense to you in terms of how you speak about this stuff, but you don't have the right to exercise control over how other women express ourselves.

Why hold women to that standard, Maisy?
It's not about holding women to that standard of always being nice and timid. It's about thinking of the end game and outcomes
If people look at what the TRA lobby are doing then people getting arsey or goady etc doesn't help.
E.g. why deliberately misgender someone to score points when it will just get screenshot, shared and used as 'proof' that MN/feminism has a transphobia problem?
There are so many ways to challenge this increasingly dominant ideology without providing TRA activists with stuff to helps them present this victim narrative they re creating

It's gaslighting on a societal level and women have every right to call it out and tell the truth, even if the truth hurts trans people's feelings.

Italiangreyhound Ordinarily I would agree with what you've said, but my concern is how long until we are not allowed to say that trans women do not have periods because it will be considered hate speech?

My ex used to gaslight me regularly. A cruel, horrible tactic that caused me to doubt myself so much that it affected my parenting, because I was constantly unsure if I was doing the right thing and would have to double/triple check my decisions. The relationship was abusive and although I was allowed an opinion it was always invalidated and I was told I was wrong even when I was right.

Now my concern is that will the government start telling me that black is white and if I dare to question that then I will be arrested and prosecuted. It's very much like 1984 and it terrifies me to be honest.

I’ve been deleted a few times today purely for calling a male person ‘he’.

I have explained my reasons for doing this. I will not be coerced or bullied into lying and saying something I do not believe to be true. I will not call a man a woman. Truth is important. Women must be allowed to tell it.

So disappointing that Mumsnet is silencing and censoring women for telling the truth.

Mods have prejudices too.

I'm going to continue mocking people who're being ridiculous, thanks.

How did Datun of all people get a comment deleted? Don't think I've ever seen her say anything that could be considered a violation of Talk guidelines.

Tglwgh

But why rise to it angry.

Women were concerned about the health of the person who may have been at sever risk dismissing abdominal cramps.
No one told them how to tell the difference between appendicitis and menstrual cramps, I don't think, but they knew it wasn't menstrual cramps.

I think it may just be best not to engage with stuff like 'periods' for trans women. There are more important things to worry about.

The example of having the wrong surname used, that's not violence, just annoying.

Words can hurt feelings, yes, but unless they contain threats I don't think they are violence.

Maybe I should disengage a bit. I think I will. @TransAuthor that's good advice the 'sticks and stones' etc. I really mean that.

When men are murdering people by driving vehicles into crowds and murdering a woman on a submarine, I don't think I care if trans women are imagining they get periods.

Why hold women to that standard, Maisy? Women are allowed to be angry, be snarky, mock idiocy. We are not required to be the loving mothers of every random on the internet.

Sometimes blunt honesty is the best way to cut through nonsense.

From what we can see of the exchange linked in the OP, the woman who was booted out was being very 'high and reasonable'.

But why rise to it angry. That's what TRAs do. They bait people and then play victim when someone does bite.

I don't believe biological human men menstruate, but there's every chanec there's side effects from hormonal treatment. Why not go high and reasonable, it makes perfect sense to discuss the impact of female
hormones on biological men (even opeb to the idea it may mimick some features of our cycles). But that doesn't require appropriation of a biological process unique to biological human women.

Random stomach cramps aren't a period. Maybe eating more fiber would solve the problem? Hope that helps (with your delusions).

Is what I would have wanted to write if I was part of that group.