Compromise for new FWR section - could you support this?

I'll guess there's been some carpet bombing of HQ.

Yup the monitors terrified of more sunlight after yesterday.

No. Not happy about this at all. It would be a retrograde step for sure.

You can’t remove sex from feminism even if you might want to - it’s absolutely integral to the subject!

There have been repeated threads started (never by long term members) to the effect of oh all the threads I'd love to post on FWR but I can't because of you making it an awful place all about GC issues.

I'll guess there's been some carpet bombing of HQ.

From bitter experience of running groups HQ: those who come to you saying 'I'd participate if you'd only do x' (and shut up/stop that group/clique) never actually do participate when you do it. You just upset and turn off your key users.

I'm also honestly not sure how you're going to have feminist chat that manages to ignore the gazillion elephants currently galumphing through feminism and women's rights. But fine, have a libfem board. I shan't be reading or posting there, because it's women's rights that matter to me.

I think MNHQ can try to hide us away but how many of us found feminist chat or FWR through a Google search when something in the news about self ID made us sit up and take notice and we wanted to know more. The thread titles mean we will always be found.

I absolutely disagree with this proposal, it seems like an attempt to silence us after the judgement yesterday but on reflection I know they can try but they won't succeed.

The defence of sex based rights on FWR seems to me to be the prevailing view, voting on related threads on AIBU, more recently, nearly always reflect GC or radical feminist views even if the women posting there may not describe themselves as either.

I think if MN want to split the board they really ought to create a new subsection for people not happy with the current feminist board and leave us alone. Perhaps it could be called the validation express.

Lib fems. Not sure anyone is going to a lib dems board these days

It would be interesting to know the statistics for the last year of those who got to FWR/first go there. IIRC the last couple of times showed numbers many multiples higher than any of the other boards.

I don't in principle see why fewer numbers would go to a "FWR here be transphobes" board and the lib dems board. It's obvious many many women are interested in the sex/gender debate. I just instinctively jib against it because we've so marginalised anyway, this just feels like salt in the thousands of paper cuts.

Doesn't work for me either.

We discuss all kinds of things here, porn, surrogacy, sex trafficking, domestic abuse, gender ideology (in everything from government, charities, supermarkets and schools). Sex is obviously relevant. How would we know where to post?

Creating a sub topic as means to bury these discussions tells me one thing.

Someone doesn't want us talking about them. At all.

Because the aim is not to have us discuss somewhere else, the aim is to SHUT WOMEN UP.

It is also naive to imagine that the people who are displeased with us regular FWR posters wouldn't be just as displeased with us anywhere else. Giving up this space does not mean they won't follow us to the new space and keep complaining.

I think everyone on here thinks its a stupid fucking idea

BUT

If they are deffo going to do it then I’d rather this board was untouched

To be clear, op, I don't think your solution is a bad one, but I am seriously irked that we seem to be the ones expected to find a compromise and then do the heavy lifting to make it happen. It feels like women's lives in microcosm.

I find this absurd. This board has substantially increased the number of people visiting and taking part in discussions on a wide range of topics. It is alive and thriving. What on earth would be the benefit of changing it.
What aspects of feminism is it that people can't discuss? No one is compelled to read every thread, let alone every comment. If there's a demand it would be apparent in the new threads started.
Does this just apply to sex/gender or will it extend to wrong think about sex work, porn and the prison system.?

Keep FC as is.

Do away with the F sub sections nobody uses (4 of them)

Create a Gender/Trans Chat forum where activists and allies can post.

You'd still end up with fewer forums for admin purposes.

Actually, there's part of me that thinks "crack on". I don't post much anymore after all the hate years ago that culminated in Dittany not being around anymore because it was clear that loads of people were reading, judging and taking notes for the next lancing of boils. Always with the premise of "I'd post but feel that I can't because of all of those nasty women". So, here we are again. So, hive off the most important discussions for women in years. Let's see what happens.

@shesellsseacats hi, my objection was to the originally proposed idea of moving the discussion away, which comes across as hiding it, especially from newcomers to the subject, not to your comment or attempt at a compromise. So many of these subjects are interlinked though, especially sexual harassment and online porn to the rapid rise in girls identifying as 'trans' or 'non binary', and we need to be able to see and discuss the big picture.

Feeling a bit Aesop's fable and being asked to give up something, like The Lion in Love .

fablesofaesop.com/the-lion-in-love.html

Well I don't actually know @shesellsseacats - I agree it's unique and this is what is so awful about this- if the one place where we've felt able to discuss gender issues wants to silo us off away from the board where we belong, I don't very much feel like staying on here. Which is a massive shame as I've learnt so much from the women on FWR.

I'll be honest, I'm not keen.

Rightly or wrongly I feel very connected to Feminism Chat and the women I've learned so much from here.

When I first started lurking many years ago it was because (despite being a strong LGBT ally) I had become increasingly concerned about Stonewall's direction in expanding the definition of Trans and the push for Self ID.

I felt concerned but struggled to articulate why.

It was a massive eye opener to come here and have the sheer scale of the issues laid out for me and it prompted me to do my own research and really think hard about my position on what is an emotive topic.

Had this forum been tucked away as a sub section above another that didn't reference these issues at all would I have had the same experience/opportunity?

I'm pretty sure I wouldn't.

I not against "liberal feminists/Intersectional feminists" having their own forum but since I disagree that any "feminism" that doesn't centre women is not feminism, I'd be most unhappy with that section "top trumping" this or FC having to change its name to accommodate them - the whole reason we are in this mess is because women were expected to "accommodate" non female centric demands.

If they (MNHQ) do this I would most likely get off MN and just stay on twitter. FWR is one of the reasons I've stayed on MN so long and why I'm a subscriber as I wanted to help them out when advertisers on here targeted by TRA's.

I don't post much, mostly as I'm not as well read as other posters but I've learned so much from the feminist board.

One of MN 's tag lines was ( something like) "I came for the advice on raising children and stayed for the feminism".

Well that is me and if they make the trans/womens rights part a subsection I won't stay.