Why is Mumsnet so GC?

You can be GC without being unpleasant to trans people you come across too.

Can you explore what you mean by "unpleasant"? IME, what counts as "unpleasant" is not a point of agreement and can depend upon perspective. E.g., Is compelled speech and thought "unpleasant" as well as a milestone towards compelled action?

Haven’t RTFT but in answer to the OP, because it’s representative of real life. I’ve never met anyone IRL - not one single person that I’ve ever talked about it with - who thinks men can become women or women can become men. It’s actually normal to be GC.

You can be GC without being unpleasant to trans people you come across too.

Mumsnet educated me on this topic. It was around the time of the Women's Equality Party becoming established (which I initially thought was a great thing) and I was feeling increasingly frustrated at finding the MN feminism section full of threads about the 'trans' issue, as I couldn't understand why it was taking up so much airtime. Having recently had my DC I was more bothered about things like maternity rights, equality in the workplace and sexual assault.

I can't remember who, but it was a MNer saying that once any man can declare himself to be a woman on self-ID alone, not needing to go through any medical process, then any female space was open to him and therefore access to vulnerable women and children. At that point, something clicked in my mind and I realised that, with the self ID bill looming, this was an emergency.

The second point that got through to me was around transitioning young people. I had taught in diverse areas of London throughout the noughties and this issue had never, ever come up, so the idea that there was a sudden epidemic of young people with gender dysphoria being treated with irreversible processes was horrifying.

I was also old enough to remember the surge of people suffering from multiple personality disorder in the 1990s - plus other peaks in psychological disorders during the noughties and 2010s - so wondered if this was something similar.

From that point on I have been working behind the scenes to stand up for women. I am not brave enough and my situation isn't secure enough to be completely 'out', but I have completed consultations, donated, written emails, spoken to my local councillor, complained to the county council about a display in my library, written supportive emails to key GC women, nominated GC women on International Women's Day and a few other things I have probably forgotten. Plus quite a bit of passive resistance to language changes in the workplace.

What had I thought before that peaking moment? I hadn't heard the term 'transgender', I knew that there were transsexual people who suffered from psychological difficulties around their sexual identity, but I assumed that they all went through a surgical process before 'becoming' the opposite sex. I thought it affected a miniscule proportion of the population who were so much the exception that they might need special arrangements for compassionate reasons.

Did I ever imagine that a man just dressing as a woman would be expected to be seen as a woman and allowed to get changed with women in a changing room or competing in a women's sporting event? Or that women could be censured for objecting to this situation? Or that the language used to describe entirely female experiences like periods, pregnancy, birth or breastfeeding could be changed? Not for one second.

The first time I became aware that there was a growing conflict between trans people and women reality was when I read about Helen Steel and the anarchist book fair (I'd just returned from living in Thailand for 10 years, so had missed other events).

I read people describing Helen Steel - HELEN STEEL! - as bigoted and fascist. When I tried to discover more about what happened my usual reliable sources were either silent or agreeing that what she had done was terrible - though they were quite vague about what she had done.

As I searched for more information I came across the FWR board on Mumsnet. At the time it was literally the only info I could find that was not pure TRA propaganda: TWAW; No Debate; everyone adding 'T' to everything then claiming it had always been there.

It sometimes takes me a long time to decide where my loyalties should be, and so many people I had regarded as truthful and allies were TRAs that I found it difficult to believe the evidence of my own eyes. The Tara Wolfe case pretty much had me convinced, but it took rubber-wanking-in-the-loo-at-a-children's-charity-man for me to fully realise that the TRAs would defend absolutely anything as long as it had 'trans' before it, that compromise could not work with ideologues and truth deniers.

I've never left. Thank you mumsnet.

I think in some settings - my lefty academic-related workplace for example - GC views are common. It’s just that they’re held by a silent majority.

So looking at our workplace you’d see that a third or so of people have chosen to include pronouns in their email signatures, and you’ll see the endless promotion of trans months etc in the company-wide newsletter.

What you wouldn’t see is me and (I hope and strongly suspect!) many others like me rolling their eyes and muttering to ourselves at the latest email on trans awareness, or the fact that Dave has unnecessarily added he/him to his email.

Our GC views here aren't normal in a lot of society

That just isn't true. The difference here is that we can express them.

Even in younger age groups, the majority do not support the Stonewall position. And remember that lots of people are still confused about trans terms and think that TW = biological woman who IDs as trans. The true figures are probably higher.

And it's not just here on Terf Island - similar findings in NZ.

It is crucially important that we do not tell ourselves we are in the minority. That's what TRAs want policymakers to believe, but it's horseshit. We are the majority, and we will be heard.

My close coleagues are all GC but we work in a very PC environment where identity issues are prioritised so its whispered and acknowledged quietly.

I think society is GC, I dont know (apart from clients of the group who are trans or their family who push it) who arent.

100%

All the same views as us, but without identifying as nasty fash vipers.

Our GC views here aren't normal in a lot of society and it's nice to be able to speak openly about scientific fact without being shut down.

I wonder if preference falsification is in play.

http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674707580

Preference falsification, according to the economist Timur Kuran, is the act of misrepresenting one’s wants under perceived social pressures. It happens frequently in everyday life, such as when we tell the host of a dinner party that we are enjoying the food when we actually find it bland. In Private Truths, Public Lies, Kuran argues convincingly that the phenomenon not only is ubiquitous but has huge social and political consequences. Drawing on diverse intellectual traditions, including those rooted in economics, psychology, sociology, and political science, Kuran provides a unified theory of how preference falsification shapes collective decisions, orients structural change, sustains social stability, distorts human knowledge, and conceals political possibilities.

A common effect of preference falsification is the preservation of widely disliked structures. Another is the conferment of an aura of stability on structures vulnerable to sudden collapse. When the support of a policy, tradition, or regime is largely contrived, a minor event may activate a bandwagon that generates massive yet unanticipated change.

In distorting public opinion, preference falsification also corrupts public discourse and, hence, human knowledge. So structures held in place by preference falsification may, if the condition lasts long enough, achieve increasingly genuine acceptance. The book demonstrates how human knowledge and social structures co-evolve in complex and imperfectly predictable ways, without any guarantee of social efficiency.

80000hours.org/podcast/episodes/cass-sunstein-how-change-happens/

This is a decent podcast which discusses preference falsification among other factors influencing mass social change. Transcript available.

The real question is .... why isn't everywhere? Wherever women are taking up space they should be knocking up against this nonsense ideological smokescreen for taking our rights.

Can't say it better than this.

The acceptance that there are two sexes and sex matters is standard, normal and widespread. This is just one of the few sites that actually allowed the majority a voice.

"Do you actually know anyone who thinks gender identity is more significant than their sex? Give a few examples like sport or rape crisis centres. In my experience most people agree with the women of mumsnet, it just isn't spoken about."

I think the key thing here is the difference between 'organisations/institutions' and 'the people they serve'. Organisations have/produce policies and activists target policy makers to influence policies. If the people served by the organisations write the policies, they would look very different.

The TRAs who have influenced policy makers like to think/ pretend that the policies reflect 'what the majority want' but they know they couldn't have achieved the policy from the bottom up as they don't have majority support. They have had to use smoke and mirrors to get buy in at the top. Now those at the top are realising their mistakes through losing tribunals and court cases!

Lots of people pretend they do believe that, becaue it has become attached to the idea of 'progressive' politics - which is American university campus in origin. It forms part of 'Intersectionalist' politics and the politics of identity.

So anyone who believes themself to be 'progressive' has to believe this particular article of faith. You will find the same people on pro Palestine marches every week - even though they don't really understand either the politics, or the history, of the Middle East. .

You'll probably find as many explanations as there are people.

To my mind 'radical feminism' is just good old fashioned women's rights whereby the focus is always on women - regardless of class, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation; although I'd also say it did become associated to an extent with lesbian separatism - the idea that 'patriarchal oppression' was only avoidable by living separately to men and rejecting relationships with men.

Intersectionalist feminism arises out of post modernistic theory and the american experience, especially as it related to race. It codifies axis of oppression according to your belonging to specific 'identity' categories or groupings It works from the assumption that previously, feminism was about the white experience only - but I've never bought that idea.

In my experience feminism was always enbracing of women's diverse backgrounds and experiences and was always focused on what unites us all as women.

I'd also say that there is a difference between 'equality' feminism - which has an emphasis on being equal to men in all areas of life - and what i used to think of as 'Goddess feminsim', which focuses more on the strength of the female experience; on the power of female sexuality; the experiences of being menstrual; becoming pregnant and giving birth - and on all of the unique female only experiences that flow from these things. Very earthy, practical and rooted in the body. Woman as adult human female.

Mumsnetters have nailed it again.

There are high numbers of GC posters on Mumsnet because there are lots of GC people. The fact that there aren't lots on other sites is because these other sites don't allow GC posts.

Do you actually know anyone who thinks gender identity is more significant than their sex? Give a few examples like sport or rape crisis centres. In my experience most people agree with the women of mumsnet, it just isn't spoken about.

My frustration is the increasing number of reactionary right wingers calling themselves gender critical when they are the opposite.

People are self-IDing as all sorts and it doesn't make it true. I agree that it does make it easier to smear entire cohorts who are accepting their thoughts and perspectives from others.

I disagree with the original premise of this thread- that most spaces aren't GC. I think the majority of people in the UK don't consider themselves gender critical but their views align with key aspects of GC thinking.

Most people aren't interested in trans issues. Not because they are transphobic or trans allies, but because they know trans people are people and don't understand the fuss being made about gender expression. In the UK today, even conservative people tend not to get excited about gender non conformity when it comes to gender expression. Most people are pretty liberal when it comes to who wears what and what names people choose. Most people are fine with this.

The majority also do a mental translation exercise when people discuss trans woman/men. You can see their brains whirring and trying to remember if the word transwomen means a woman wanting to be a man or a man wanting to be a woman. Those who have 'less fucks to give' talk this through aloud.

The majority (who tend to think they don't care about trans issues), tend to have a view about preserving single sex provision where it's needed.

These views are prevalent because they are formed from life experiences (not ideology, post modernism or feminism). People know that there are 2sexes, they know that what people wear, how they style their hair, or how they think about themselves, doesn't change their sex. Most people don't think this is worthy of any headspace.

This is why TRAs won't give up their approach of trying to bring about their wishes by stealth and when that fails by bullying and intimidation.
They won't win people over through critical thinking/reasoning.

Ultimately they know they will fail (which fuels the anger). The stealth changes come to light and people push back and they are undone. The bullying and intimidation only controls those who are trying to appease. It won't work on 'the man on the Clapham omnibus' such as the angry dad who finds out there is a male in his daughter's changing room.

Remember the baffled (male) journalists discussing why we're TERF Island? And it prompted the response, "The answer is Mumsnet, I believe".

https://twitter.com/DouthatNYT/status/1506639811771305985

Good Twitter (as was) thread with contributions from Suzanne Moore and Hadley Freeman in response to 3 men who are perplexed by the level of "TERF representation in the UK elite".

Yeah there's nothing quite like endlessly feeding a new baby at night to make one receptive to the idea that possibly, women and men are somewhat different to each other and that equality can only work when that fact is recognised, not ignored.

Edited to add I am aware plenty of women who don't have children come to this realisation too, and most women to their credit realise it before I did in mid 30s.

Because here, much to the TRA's horror, you can't block someone, or mute them or only mentioned by them. Posters have to stand by their comments and back up any statements with evidence. It means that unlike other platforms, where dissenting views can be blocked, any lurkers here who might be seeking information are able to see all the evidence, discussed and evaluated, and are able to come to their own conclusions, as opposed to any questions or mild querying being met with 'you can't question that, you bigot!!'.

Because it's one of the only places this can be discussed, online or in real life. As pp's have said, I might not have agreed with every decision made by MNHQ but they've held out under pressure from advertisers and activists which is to their eternal credit.

Because I discovered this place when I was struggling to breast-feed in the middle of the night, crying from the pain of mastitis, desperate for advice. Women here have all dealt with the realities of their female body through periods, puberty, infertility, pregnancy etc.

Because they shut everywhere else down

This is the key point. Every survey of the public, taken anonymously, shows that the majority of people want trans people to have the same rights as everyone else, but also that the public are also overwhelmingly "GC" when it comes to sports, prisons etc.

It is a site where, unusually, women predominate, the majority with children.

Quite different to Reddit or TwiX.

So motivated by concern for our children, particularly girls, with empathy for vulnerable women in, say, prisons or refuges.

The better question might be why are women’s voices not being heard outside MN.