AIBU to ask MNHQ if we can have a trans discussion section?

[Skarossinkplunger]

Out of the first 10 threads showing on my AIBU page 4 of them are trans threads. There is seriously no escaping, please can they have their own board?

Yes you are being very unreasonable.

The reason that there have been so many trans threads is that there is about to be a change in the law that will allow people to choose which sex they want to be with just paper work, and that will affect us all. It is removing the 'gatekeeping' so anyone will be able to do it on just their own say so. It does not involve taking hormones or having any bits cut off. It was supposed to start in the autumn.

Justine Greening has already received an award for her work on this but this has been going on for quite some years under the radar. In fact, there was Maria Millar's private members bill which got cut off when the government decided to hold their general election over the brexit debacle - if that had gone through then you wouldn't have known about it until it was all over. It has been resurrected so that they can look virtuous in the current shambles. (Watching programmes like The Thick of it is unfortunately more of an education in real life than you would like).

Any debate, questioning of the idea, has been stifled in social media, by activists who complain about every little thing and get it banned/taken out. This is especially bad in the so called liberal press. There has been virtually nothing in newspapers for ages. This is a really bad thing and now people are seeing that there are loads of unintended consequences to this sort of legislation that no one has thought through.

It is not good for women. It is not even good for the people who have gone through the gender recognition process either. They are not able to speak up either.

The debate on these threads has been really good. I have learned a lot. I am now reading 1984 (which I have avoided doing my entire life). I am looking for a course I can do to learn about Critical Thinking (another area where my education has been lacking).

Now the newspapers and mainstream press are able to take notice, there are more threads in AIBU because it is current news. It is all very interesting and it is worth reading some of them and finding out about what is going on.

No separate section please.

I hate the way debate on this issue is shut down, mumsnet is the only place you can discus the way TRA's behave or how the proposed changes to the law on the GRA will adversely affect women.

If we have to rigidly compartmentalise, can we have a mil board and move all the Christmas threads to the Christmas board?

The section for "discussing" trans issues - or rather discussing how they impact on feminist issues, as is actually the more usual case - is in Feminism. Move all the threads that fall into this category into there I say.

And the main reason there shouldn't be a "Trans" section? Because unlike all the other sections on MN it wouldn't be a place people either within the trans community or with personal experience could go for support. In "Parenting" most threads are parents seeking support in their parenting. In "Feminism" it's usually feminists discussing and exploring their feminism. Imagine if "Bottle Feeding" was primarily a place for militant breast feeders to discuss how problematic they thought bottle feeding was - the idea's completely ludicrous and completely at odds with I believe MN is good for.

Move 'em all to feminism I say, until the day those personally encountering issues request a specific place to seek support.

Great post Terrylene

Someone posted this the other day:

www.futurelearn.com/courses/logical-and-critical-thinking

Also, if you find 'Philosophize this' podcast, there are several critical thinking podcasts. (And it's am amazing podcast site)

@RatRolyPoly Good point - I agree.

militant feminists
Well it didn't take too long for the insults to start. None of the feminists on this board come across as militant. The TRA's however are scarily militant.
And I haven't seen anyone 'chased' off threads. I have seen posters unable to form a cogent argument, rationally addressing the points they were asked. Then they start yelling bigot and transphobic, because intellectually they have nowhere to go with their argument.

Yabu
Why the need?
Why can’t trans be discussed in an open way ?

"Move 'em all to feminism I say"

Because trans rights only effect women?

YANBU

Tidy them to their own board, same as everything else. Go find them if you're interested.

No BigDesk, do any of the issues raised under feminism only affect women? No. But categorisation on mumsnet is a broad brush, and I would suggest that broadly speaking this topic is usually raised in respect to women's rights/feminism. Hence why I think that's where these threads should sit.

YANBU

YABU.

I've clicked on a few in chat and AIBU and learnt a lot - I wouldn't have gone to a dedicated section as wasn't something on my radar and had no idea how it could affect me and my family till I read some threads.

It's the utter selfishness and mind blowing ignorance of this kind of attitude that gets me.

People are so fucking privileged that they mind reading a title of a thread in the active board. It's must be so irritating for you.

Never mind that this is the biggest threat to women's rights in a century. Never mind that women will have their freedoms curtailed and their safety compromised. Never mind that women, as a category of human beings, will cease to exist

It's terrifying and for the life of me I cannot understand the laziness of women too bloody self centred to care about other women

Oh do fuck off Assigned. Plenty of educated people have a different opinion to you.

No one is saying don't discuss it, it just needs its own board

AssignedPerfectAtBirth

How dare anyone think differently to you hey.

No red I will not fuck off.

Anything else?

Go on then, what's this thinking differently. Because the trans ideology does not stand up to any scrutiny, as can be seen over and over. It falls like a house of cards

Which is the entire point of these threads

anyone with a contradictory opinion is soon chased off
Yes, if you hold a different opinion you're called ignorant, stupid or you don't care, by the same people.
Why would anyone post a different view?

Go on then, what's this thinking differently

Well as this thread is about a seperate trans board then that.

Imo there should be.

Those that think differently to you on this aren't ignorant, selfish or lazy.

HTH

As evidenced above.

Perfectly demonstrated on this thread MrMe

No, not at all. You are perfectly welcome to put your point across. It's YOU who want US to be 'tidied' away back to a corner.

We Are Not Going To. Clear?

anyone with a contradictory opinion is soon chased off

That's not true. Every time someone pro-trans ideology turns up I really hope they'll stay because I really want to understand their argument - I'm sure I'm not alone in this. But they never do. They call us transphobes, berate us for being hateful (when no one actually is) and then bugger off.

If anyone here can explain why they support trans ideology and what they think it means in practical terms that would be a huge step forward.

I would suggest that broadly speaking this topic is usually raised in respect to women's rights/feminism. Hence why I think that's where these threads should sit.

The single most worrying aspect of this debate for me is how it affects gender non-conforming children. That is surely something of general interest on a parenting forum?

A generation ago a little girl who preferred to wear trousers, climb trees and play with construction toys was called a tomboy but nobody doubted she was a girl.

Little boys who liked dressing up and playing with dolls or their mum's makeup would probably have had a very hard time and been labelled cissy, but not many people would have said this was a sign that they were not really boys and needed medical treatment.

Now parents are reporting that if their children don't fit the increasingly rigid gender stereotypes they are frequently asked if the child is trans. Worryingly, some of this is coming from schools. Most parents are robust enough to ignore this but some do end up convincing themselves that there is something wrong and seeking treatment for their children. See this legal case for a particularly troubling example.

And of course once the children are in their teens they are heavily influenced by their peers and by social media and so we end with the phenomenon of ten girls in the sixth form of St Paul's Girls' School asking to be known as boys or gender neutral. Does anybody really think that there is no social contagion involved there?

This is happening disproportionately often to children who are also at the early stages of realising that they are gay. So that's an issue of general interest too, isn't it? The way things are going all butch lesbians are going to be reclassified as transmen and all effeminate gay men as transwomen. Why can't they just be themselves? Why should they be pressured to take hormones and maybe even have surgery to be acceptable?

4thwavenow.com/ is a good website for exploring this issue further.