Heads up: MNHQ planning to create a sex/gender topic separate from FWR.

What LGBT boards

They'll be referring to the LGBT board on MN I presume.

Never seen one, never posted on one. Just as I have never posted on any 'male' site.

My point was quite clear, you can pfaff around it if you choose to.

It looks to me as though we've gotten too big for our boots. Too much of our society is becoming aware of the sex v gender debate and as Denton's observed, if this is allowed to hit wider society, society will react. Society is now starting to react and every avenue we have at our disposal will probably be attacked.

This board has given voice to women, not just GC feminists, but ordinary women concerned about their and their children's lives and the how this debate affects them.

If MNHQ are keen to be inclusive, then why don't they just have another board that lib fems can utilise.

We are the ones driving back the advance of Stonewall Law and society is now listening. It's more like MNHQ were waiting for a moment like this to put a lid on our pesky ways.

I hope this will be a very carefully thought out move and not just a way of side-lining our debate. Keep records because resistance is not futile

Yet another example of women being shoved out of the way so it doesn't hurt the feelings of a tiny minority.

This is EXACTLY what we are fighting to prevent and if MN do this they are complicit in trying to hide us and keep us confined.

It is impossible to separate sex from gender in discussions because gender is being used against us as a sex class. Gender roles are force fed to us from birth.

I don't understand those whining about seeing these topics in FWR, which is about women's rights. Females as a sex class.
You do not have to open or read threads and are welcome to start threads on your chosen feminism topic. But telling us to move over because you don't like seeing us talking about something that is affecting the rights and protections of females globally? Because it doesn't impact you personally? No.

Despite all the malicious reporting of posters and complaints from genderists, this board has brought so much traffic to this site. Now you want us to go away and keep the noise down? Shame on you.

Not really no, posts on the LGBT boards are routinely hijacked. Using your analogy they shouldn't be, but there will always be a group of "rugby" fans who turn up.

It would be interesting to see some polling on this. By established members (and by that I mean, those who have been members of the site as a whole for a while, not necessarily prolific posters, rather than those who have very recently signed up).

Are there really many posters who genuinely can't feel they can post in Feminism the way it is at the moment and who would use it if all the threads that mention sex as an issue were hived off elsewhere?

And I know it's not necessarily just a numbers game - but are there more of these than those who are happy to keep the board as it is?

It would make more sense to split off the smaller group, surely?

I said no thanks on the other thread

Being a feminist drives a lot of this discussion to me and I don’t want it separated out

Mumsnet itself is a feminist site simply by dint of women talking and helping each other deal with the stuff that crops up in women’s lives. You don’t need a soft, don’t scare the horses feminist discussion board because that’s already covered by the site as a whole. You need a this-isn’t-nice-but-it-hurts-us-and-it-needs-to-be-said feminist discussion board or it has no purpose.

I agree, I've made this point before when people have complained about the focus of Feminism chat/FWR. This whole website is feminist awareness raising. Issues such as pay gap, work/life balance, sexual harassment, domestic violence are discussed freely on other boards and do not get shunted off into specialist feminist areas.

Is it really too difficult to ignore posters that aren't responding in a way you'd like and simply reply to those who are? Whilst also reporting any posts that go too far to MNHQ?

Maybe introducing a block button would help?

It might lead to the weirdness of a single thread appearing to be part of several parallel universes - but that feels more feasible that what is being outlined here. Caveat: - again, it would be helpful if MNHQ were to provide some examples of what they're proposing and would outline the moderation policies.

This is a stupid idea. You can't separate out bits of things that affect women

I'm GC and I honestly don't see the problem with this. The whole of MN is surely already separated out into different bits of things that affect (largely) women. And within most of the topic areas there are further divisions into smaller bits. The feminism section itself is already divided into separate bits.

Saying 'But how can you discuss feminism without mentioning sex?' is disingenuous imo. Having a 'sex and gender' subsection would mean having a section specifically devoted to the debate over gender identity and biological sex, it wouldn't mean that referring to sex or anything pertaining to what sex you are would be verboten in the rest of the feminism section!

Blibbyblobby 👏

If anyone is interested, the initiative around play spaces for girls which (I think) orginated from here has a website makespaceforgirls.co.uk/ which is really interesting - some great initiatives and research going on.

In terms of talk about how discussions around how feminism is affected by our biological sex being shunted off into some side board, the misogynist monitors must be loving it. It's also completely unworkable and will be constantly attacked by bad faith posters. But that's the point isn't it? Making it unusable until it dies a death and all those nasty 'transphobes' bugger off somewhere else. It's coming to a point where MNHQ need to decide where they stand, honestly, without sitting on the fence, particularly in view of the ruling yesterday.

I profoundly disagree, @Quaggars, that there is a prevailing situation that if you disagree the general response is that you don't know your own mind, that you don't know any better or that you're a man.

I'm not saying it never happens. I have seen some examples of the "you're a man" type posts, they aren't a majority and people often ignore or point out the unhelpfulness. Again, not always.

Is it really too difficult to ignore posters that aren't responding in a way you'd like and simply reply to those who are? Whilst also reporting any posts that go too far to MNHQ?

If there was a Sex & Gender discussion board, would it be bound by the current FWR moderation rules, @JustineMumsnet? Or would we be able to speak more freely?

I’m old enough to remember the internet before social media and then Trans Orthodoxy came along. It was very common for popular boards to have a Women’s thread or sub forum because women were usually outnumbered and wanted a place where their voices were not drowned out by the majority views and interests of men. Sites that survive from back then often still have them. Mumsnet is a really interesting exception in that being female-dominated from the start it went the other way and has a Dadsnet

So the women’s board would be set up. A typical dynamic would then play out. Some men would take exception to this and insist firstly that it was sexist and shouldn’t be allowed, and when that failed, that for equality to be served they needed a Man’s version as well. This would duly be set up and there would be an initial flurry of activity as the men involved congratulated each other. A few would try and post something “men’s interest” but as the initial excitement waned they would get fewer and fewer responses and the board would slowly die a death as no one posted.

These men’s boards typically failed because they weren’t needed in their own right as a place to talk, they were just set up out of malice and opposition with nothing to drive their own focus. Men’s needs/interests were already being met by the site as a whole so they didn’t need the separate space. Meanwhile, the women’s board would continue to be relatively active because it had a genuine purpose.

I’m pretty sure if you split sex-based feminism into its own area, a similar dynamic will play out here. The sex-based board will carry the FWR momentum and the gender-based feminism board will dwindle.

Mumsnet itself is a feminist site simply by dint of women talking and helping each other deal with the stuff that crops up in women’s lives. You don’t need a soft, don’t scare the horses feminist discussion board because that’s already covered by the site as a whole. You need a this-isn’t-nice-but-it-hurts-us-and-it-needs-to-be-said feminist discussion board or it has no purpose.

It would be interesting to see some threads classified as S&G or FWR to see how MNHQ propose to do it. I can't see how it would work.

I didn't say it was the whole of FWR at all.
Of course there's going to be different views.
It IS the prevailing view though when you post not agreeing with everything, you just get dismissed as not knowing your own mind, not knowing any better or you're secretly a man.
Because women just don't know any better if they don't agree Not any better if it's women doing it to other women, than when it's a man doing it.
That's what posts upthread were referring to, and I presume what MN meant too - an example comes along to show nicely and it's nothing to see here, we're not all like that.
Never said everyone was.

Ridiculous, patronising idea.

Also, the whole feckimg problem stems from conflating gender with sex!

Have a Gender board, by all means. But there can be no feminism without reference to sex.

but they need to see its for their own good

That will always sound dubious and corrective.

I do understand the need to read outside one's own perspective - however, in most specialities as well as in general, that confers no obligation to read unevidenced assertions nor proffers that appear to be from bad faith actors.

The day after a judge ruled a belief in biological sex was worthy of respect in a democratic society we're still being called transphobes and shuffled off out of sight. And people are still claiming confusion about why sex is so important when discussing issues affecting women. You really couldn't make this up.

Doesn't all feminist discussion fall under Sex and Gender? Or vice versa?

Personally I'd like to see trans/gender identity dominate less of FWR, but I understand why it does currently. I don't think dividing it off will help, and I hate the idea of separate libfem/radfem spaces. I think it would just contribute to the division and antagonism. When realistically if we want to make a difference to things life violence against women or structural sexism we need to find a way to work together ultimately - even if grudgingly.