First, I'm afraid I made a hash of my archiving. It appears that when I saved the pages I didn't save them in their completed state of development. This vexes me greatly, as I thought I was being thorough. It seems a lot of stuff is missing.
Links to my main contributions:
– My opener
– Diving right in with Rachel Rooney and JKR
– From Question Time to Billy Bragg going Godwin to Magdalen Berns to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie to "reframe your trauma"
– TERFs, anonymity, Posie Parker; followed by a rebuttal to the rising tide of TRA.
@FOJN "The conversion seemed generally civil"
It was, for most of the thread, though fairly early on it was obvious to me there were a few people who were going to be a problem. You mentioned someone I privately started calling Intersex Guy, who whilst professing to be interested in debate, simply would not let that go. When I presented him with Robert Winston in all his glory (not as a rebuttal to his intersex nonsense - I used this to address that - he first largely ignored Winston; then when I reminded him, suddenly embraced the good professor as if he had made that discovery himself, showing "the highest regard" for the man's work, only it was such a shame there were problem's with what he'd said… yes, I'm sure the world awaits the debate of Intersex Guy v Robert Winston, FMedSci, FRSA, FRCP, FRCOG, FREng.
Then we had those who were visibly distressed that this subject had been posted on a cycling forum, seeming to forget that I'd specifically posted on a board full of topics about everything but cycling - though of course it does veer topical with Emily Bridges, Veronica Ivy and others.
Through it all we had a gentleman completely unable to come to grips with the very concept of GC, even though I'd explained what it means in my very first post.
My most dogged antagonist was someone I'll call Trying to be Reasonable (As if), or TRA for short. TRA popped up shortly after Intersex Guy, at first perplexed about what I was on about, then after I broke it down for him, merrily gish galloping away.
At one point he and others started pronouning me, though I never brought up pronouns, and had made it clear what sex I am when I talked about my wife's experience of being, you know, a woman. (I am aggrieved at my typo in Sarah Everard's name.)
Towards the end my 'motives' for posting were rapidly achieving dominance in the conversation, as if I hadn't made it clear from the start why I was worried about the sorts of things I was.
The coup de grâce was delivered by the moderator himself.
I think my approach flummoxed them all. I wasn't just dry and factual (although there were plenty of facts and links). I didn't want to be dragged into countless little arguments. Clearly, I talked about things they didn't want to talk about, like empathy, and what makes for respectful debate. I also don't think they liked me poking a bit of fun.
One thing I found particularly striking is they weren't at all keen to discuss women.
In the end, they provided a textbook example of why these debates often go the way they do. Their replies were lousy with rope to hang themselves. (I feel ridiculous saying this, but I don't want anybody to hang themselves.) But after my banning, everything I said is retroactively suspect, and the thread is gone, so people can only refer to their memories.
I'm actually relieved I was banned, as it provided exquisitely appropriate closure.
@WarriorN – It got three or four thousand views in the few days it was up. The forum is part of the website for the nation's premier cycling organisation. I haven't made a count, but there can't have been much more than a dozen, if that, who posted on the thread.