Is Mumsnet shutting down GC views? FAO Justine Roberts

I hadn't read the whole thread, but I didn't see anything offensive.

Why was there a need to pull the whole thread rather than make individual deletions if they were truly necessary?

Who decides what is and isn't acceptable comment or observation?

Only when they tip over into saying things like companies should not employ trans people because they are mentally unstable, or advocating campaigns of harassment against individual trans people.

Most of the traffic on this site, from what I've seen, isn't like that, and remains uncensored. But this particular thread crossed the line on multiple occasions.

You aren’t paying very close attention or you would realise that both of these things can be true at the same time.

Yes, the GC position (or as I prefer to call it ‘material reality’) is the majority view on the site, just as it is out in the real world, but GC opinions are also frequently censored 🤷‍♀️

But I do have a big issue about being compelled to go along with a lie. Perhaps you don't suffer from the cognitive dissonance many of us do when required to pretend in public that we are not seeing what we are seeing and that all our senses are telling us is wrong? Do you have no empathy at all for the rest of the staff, compelled by peer pressure to go along with someone's fantasy? Why should avoiding the discomfort of one individual require the collective discomfort of many?

Yes, this, completely. I think it's the way that the majority science-based understanding is now being considered as hateful and intolerant; whereas the minority view is being pushed through as the only acceptable view.

Nobody (reasonable) is objecting to religious people who are devoutly living their faith themselves - even if whatever that faith is seems senseless to most other people - because they are not trying to force other people to live as if they too accept the faith as proven fact, with anybody peacefully disagreeing being intolerant or a bigot.

With the current Zeitgeist, it appears that the majority of us who do not whole-heartedly go along with these minority views are automatically 'wrong' - and many other negative slurs as well.

However I would happily work with, get to know and respect a transwoman colleague.

I wouldn't. Why the hell should I happily work with and respect a man who, in my opinion, is attempting to colonise womanhood by reducing it to dresses, breasts, and nail polish?

I did not see the thread in question but I have never seen GC views be censored on this site. In fact, they are by far the loudest and most visible.

No, not remotely. Where have I said that?

Demanding women-only spaces, or pointing out that trans women rarely 'pass' is not transphobic.

Lots of the posts on that thread were saying far more than that, and straying into some very dodgy territory (per my post above). I expect that's why it was deleted.

Suggesting the breaking of U.K. law and allowing posts that encourage the access of males to women's spaces is not in the spirit of a site for mothers.

Next time I'll be reporting all those posts.

Woman is fast being reduced to a free floating theoretical concept - rather than an embodied reality - and a concept or set of symbols which can be adopted by anyone who fancies.

Bloody hell. Glad I am getting on in years! but fear for my DGD future if this batshit theory and similar really take hold.

Big pharma......... no surprise there.

There’s general Mumsnet “not in the spirit” and there’s Sex and Gender “not in the spirit” and it’s clear there’s a different benchmark for the two.

Some of the anti-Megan Markle posts are really nasty and toxic but are somehow allowed to stay ...

So, are you suggesting that anyone who points out the ways that a TW, or someone presenting as a woman, does not pass and is clearly male is necessarily transphobic? Wouldn't that be like the child in the emperor's new clothes?

How can you tell of someone is "post op"?

How do you tell the difference between a transexual and an "erotic crossdresser"?

The transitioned males we can trust are the ones who do not attempt to transgress the social contract.

Basically, the good ones stay out of female single sex spaces so the bad ones stand out.

I just posted some articles about Leanne Mills on another thread, Leanne tells the story of declining to join the local gym as to use the women’s changing rooms, (where women were naked) wasn’t fair on the women, even though Leanne was by then post-op.

Sadly current day transactivism insists on the opposite, that female people who object to males in their spaces should be excluded
in favour of the male.

In the particular case of this thread, the parts I had read contained posts that were transphobic. I am gender critical but that doesn't extend to transphobia.

No reasonable person wants trans people to have fewer rights than anybody else, nor to be treated with any less respect; but the problem is that the 'transphobia' word is thrown around so much that it has ceased to mean anything anymore.

Simply being GC is framed as being 'transphobic' these days. If both somebody making violent threats and unfounded accusations against trans people and a woman peacefully stating that she is not willing for her legal single-sex spaces to be opened to male people and thus removed are 'transphobic', then the word has no practical meaning.

If the TRA side could be honest in distinguishing actual transphobia and actual violence from people peacefully expressing opposing beliefs, we could get a lot further.

Outright refusal to debate, discuss or tolerate any different beliefs or perspectives - obviously not about how people identify but rather about the practical applications of those beliefs that directly infringe on other people's beliefs, rights and freedoms - is only ever going to end in antagonism; and reacting with shutdowns, cancellation, refusal to debate, name-calling and (in some cases) violent threats will naturally cause people with conflicting beliefs to assume that you do not have the courage of your convictions and are thus just trying to force your views wholesale on to society, to the detriment and intolerant bigoted denial of conflicting views.

For the record, the general thrust of that thread wasn't transphobic. There were however a number of posts suggesting:

-that companies should not employ trans people because they were, by definition, 'mentally unstable'

-that stickers be anonymously posted around the workplace, to create a hostile atmosphere for the trans person

-that the OP should interact with the trans person as little as possible, in case they raised a trumped-up grievance

There were also a number of posts openly mocking the appearance of trans people.

Whatever you think of this (and there were some people defending it, and some calling it out), no-one can be surprised if MN - a private company reliant on sponsorship - doesn't want to be a harbour for that kind of thing.

However I would happily work with, get to know and respect a transwoman colleague.

And if they were using the women's toilets and you felt uncomfortable? Would you still happily work alongside them? I highly doubt it. Why does a woman's discomfort matter less than a man's feelings being hurt? If women are loosing women only spaces, because of a trans woman at work, is it not best to not work in a job where there is a trans woman?

" I'm pleased the thread has been deleted..."

So was it you who reported it?

What do you honestly think will be achieved by such actions? Do you not realise that censure of open and honest discussion will simply radicalise people and make them even more determined.

And in the long run do you envision women having to submit to their own discomfort and erasure in order to be kind to, and prioritise, males that seek to trample their boundaries? Is this what you envision?

Or perhapsare you suggesting that if women are just kind and get to know males who are identifying or presenting as women then the issue will disappear of its own accord?

I'd just typed out a response when it got zapped. I was massively fucked off with how many people were seriously suggesting "just use the disabled toilet". Amazing how hurting a man's feelings is so much more important than the protected characteristic of disability.

I'm also intrigued as to how it could be perceived as being "transphobic" to avoid a trans colleague in the workplace? By "avoid" I mean maintaining a professional, polite relationship but not engaging in conversation about personal issues or wishing to socialise outside work. There are a couple of colleagues I currently "avoid" in this way, mainly because I find their conversation (endless boring family dramas) tedious as fuck. I would also find having to do pretend pronouns tedious as fuck.

There’s general Mumsnet “not in the spirit” and there’s Sex and Gender “not in the spirit” and it’s clear there’s a different benchmark for the two.

Certainly not if voicing one's honest perceptions and experineces is out of the question and can be shut down as 'transphobia'. I don't believe anyone who calls them self GC but who then goes on to call out such honest self reporting.

i have experinece of males in women's spaces and i will not be told that my reporting of my experiences and feelings are 'transphobic' - because if trhat is the case then what is being suggested is that women's concerns, feelings and observations simply do not matter.

I feel for the OP of that thread. She can't voice her concerns at work. She can't discuss her concerns here either. She's not even, according to some, allowed to look for another job as a means of avoiding a situation which is causing her distress.

Does she have any options at all?

Further to my earlier point Lucy is clearly male - even if nobody is saying it out loud due to fear of censure. Getting to know this person would make not one jot of difference to the fact of their maleness, and the OPs discomfort at them using the women's facilities.

The OP was expresing her fear that she couldn't speak to anyone at work about her discomfort and concern at an obvious male using the single sex facilities - to the extent that she felt that she had to look for a new job.

That was her feeling. Who are you to censor that?

Personally I advised that if she felt that strongly she should definitely approach her team leader or boss. -because they need to know, and that it may also open the floodgates for others with concerns to express them too.