Civility, reasonableness, and those rules

I find it really wrong that women are forced to mis-sex anyone.

Agreed. It's like insisting we all say the sky is green, even though we can see it's blue. It's that level of denial of reality. We evolved to be able to tell the male sex, it's an intrinsic instinct. It's REALLY abusive to compel our speech in this way.

I don't believe in gender. Therefore I use sex-based pronouns, as has been the norm for all of recent history (probably the whole of history in which we've had speech involving pronouns though I don't have time to verify that)

I'm not going to change so that I can be sexually harassed by someone wanting to rope me into his fetish.

The best they're ever going to get from me is avoiding pronouns altogether.

There must be some payoff to the policy though - although it’s not clear to me what.

Because currently unique voices are being lost over minor infractions (eg Lass was a strong dissenter, Girl was chill, Jess was forthright, Floral was measured - and I never saw them being goady in the least!)

and come to their senses before (in many cases) throwing a grenade into their children's lives

being consumed by a fetish is not a healthy way to live. we saw with the NSPCC rubber pup, it can lead you to make choices which jeopardise your livelihood (or should). In the case of AGP men it could lead to damaging their bodies with hormones and surgery

If a little sniggering helps them to come to their senses before making life changing decisions then I would consider that a kindness in the long run

It is sad to see Mumsnet mods behaving much like the police at last night's WPUK meeting in Brighton

They never got back to her, never undid the temporary suspension and that was that

unbelievably uncivil. It seems only men warrant civility MNHQ?

I just wanted to add the following:

A friend of mine got banned for posting something pretty innocuous. Probably along the same lines as a Panto Dame comment.

The Mod who responded to the appeal said they were having a meeting about whether it broke the new rules or not.

A - the rule was made after the comment so my friend couldn't have known about the rule as it hadn't happened yet. It was applied retrospectively.

B - if the MODERATING TEAM have to have a meeting about a rule, and whether a comment does or doesn't break that rule, how on Goddess's Green Earth are the users supposed to know whether it does or doesn't break a rule?

They never got back to her, never undid the temporary suspension and that was that.

A conclusion I'm increasingly coming to is that many of the men adhering to this ideology are autogyneaphiles - they are acting out a fetish. The transwidows thread is very eye opening in that respect

Attempting to compel women to use female pronouns for these men, and to go out of our way to 'make them welcome' in spaces like MN, predominantly used by women, is compelling women to stoke these men's fetishes. I don't consider that to be reasonable or civil to women

As discussed on a thread earlier this week, how on earth do you deal with someone who is trying to make you participate in their fetish against your will?

If a person has made themselves look objectively ridiculous in public (I'm thinking of say, adult babies or puppy play types here too, not just AGP males), or is behaving ridiculously (ditto) with the intention of roping bystanders into their fetish, ridicule is an appropriate defence.

It might upset men to be ridiculed MNHQ, but since when was championing the rights of men to be unchallenged when behaving ridiculously part of your ethos?

@donquixotedelamancha

I want to be respectful of the rules, I think there is some advantage to rules which limit the obvious transphobe trolls (real or not). But I think it's really wrong insisting women miss-sex predators who are clearly driven by a hatred of women; like Yaniv, White or Hayden. I wish they'd operate a little more judgement.

I find it really wrong that women are forced to mis-sex anyone. Compelling us to deny our own reality, compelling us to pretend that men are women, is the greatest mind-fuck ever, the ultimate annihilation of women, putting us back in our box, showing that they can 'woman' better than we can. In their heads, anyway.

I will never do it. Never.

Not even bothering to link the offending thread because filling in the template that you use to threaten users is too much work is a particularly striking display of contempt, imo.

@MNHQ - seriously?! That's on a par with the "how dare you be uncivil when a transactivist posts dancing on grave gifs when an influential young feminist dies" deletion message!

Come on now.

You know the status quo is not working here. If you're going to continue to impose it, don't you think basic standards of courtesy and civility also apply to staffers?

Yes I’m aware of a women having to leave shelters in this context.

Don’t get banned Kitten!

It may be that all the moderation team are from relatively more comfortable backgrounds, and have never known someone who has (e.g.) been homeless or incarcerated etc?

Thus, they do not appreciate how predatory males can so easily take advantage of trans policies to access women and children.

Separate homeless shelters would help keep everyone safe, but we can hardly even discuss that without being deleted.

I hardly ever post on FWR threads but read / lurk a lot and this has really caught my attention. There is definitely one set of rules and implementation here and another for the rest of Talk. It’s very obvious even to an amateur like me.

kittens, I do genuinely think they sometimes have knee-jerk reactions to things. Probably due to the number of reports, as effective posters like you get massively targeted.

And sometimes, after reflection, they see it. Fingers crossed.

We asked for more transparency a while back. Still waiting for a definitive reply. Although I have stopped waiting and now post where my contribution is welcome, rather than tolerated for the click count.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/site_stuff/3674784-Deleted-posts-Suspension-warnings-FWR?

I guess the requirement to be constructive is yet another secret rule that only applies on FWR.