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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to think Mumsnet need to revise their talk guidelines?

379 replies

abeautifulmess · 05/03/2018 15:43

I have reported a number of threads recently and the mumsnet response has been 'we don't allow posts that break our talk guidelines' and nothing has been done when the whole thread has been attacking a particular (and vulnerable) group.

AIBU to question these guidelines and how they are applied?

OP posts:
blastomama · 06/03/2018 21:04

P59, 279 : 'Further, under the equality act 2010, all organisations (including employers and public bodies such as the NHS) must respect a trans persons acquired/affirmed gender and any associated change of name. Failure to change pronouns, names and gender markers (including honorifics and pronouns) on records in respects of a trans person would (with a few exceptions i.e criminal records) constitute unlawful direct discrimination under the act'

So as long as you write Ms instead of MR on the records you're fine then?
Not really what you said though.

crunchymint · 06/03/2018 23:07

Yep this is about the organisation and its records. It is not illegal for anyone to call a man who says he is a women, he. No one can be, and no one will be prosecuted for this. But I see transactivists scaring people into thinking it is illegal. It is not.

CobraKai · 07/03/2018 04:48

Blasto - and refer to them as, and speak to them as their preferred gender and pronoun. At no point in any consultation, meeting, discussion, clinic letter etc could you refer to them by their non preferred gender or pronoun.

The clinical demographic on computerised systems is of the gender they have aligned with/transitioned to and does not say 'trans' woman/man. It says woman/man.

FallenforTom · 07/03/2018 07:03

People that have transitioned get a new birth certificate, passport etc with the gender they have transitioned to on there.

Iminthecclubnow · 07/03/2018 07:13

Is it transphobic to say 'trans women are not women'? Is it an 'attack'?

MaisyPops · 07/03/2018 07:20

Personally, I accept transitioned transwomen into the fold. I don't accept them as biological women, but shorthand yeah women. They've gone through transition and I have no issue with them.

I do have an issue with men putting dresses on and self IDing as women. I do not believe they are women or transwomen. I would use their prefered pronouns just as i would call someone their preferred name (like when people go by their 2nd name). That's being polite.
If they want to dress as a woman and play woman then i'll run with it. I'm not going to call them 'he' to prove a point. HOWEVER, they are NOT women and whilst i wouldn't walk up to them and call them a man in a dress, if they started telling me how hard it is being a woman, I would politely disagree and point out their experience is someone who identifies as trans and their experience is categorically not the same as my experience as a biological human female with all that comes with it.

CuriousaboutSamphire · 07/03/2018 07:21

People that have transitioned get a new birth certificate, passport etc with the gender they have transitioned to on there. No... gender is incorrect.

They get a new birth certificate with the sex they have transitioned to. That is another reason so many here are discussing it. Changes to the law, some that have already happened, are insisting that sex = gender = choice!

FallenforTom · 07/03/2018 07:24

As far as I know the current legislation is that once you've got a GRC you are 'in the eyes of the law considered to be your acquired gender'. That's the wording used.

CuriousaboutSamphire · 07/03/2018 07:31

But birth certificates don't have the word 'gender' on them! They identify the sex of the individual.

So a certificate issued after GRA says that the sex of the individual is that of the gender they have assumed.

So sex = gender = choice!

FallenforTom · 07/03/2018 07:36

Oh I see what you mean Curious.

Maisy - you don't need to have surgery or hormone treatment to get a GRC so a lot of transwomen who have transitioned are still 'men in a dress' under your definition.

Iminthecclubnow · 07/03/2018 07:37

Yes, it's stupid. Humans can't change their sex!

MaisyPops · 07/03/2018 07:40

fallen
I don't agree with it, but at least there has been some sense of accountability and people who have gone through the currebt system have done more than click their ruby slippers together and said 'i am a woman'.

Personally, I think you should only be able to have GRC once you are transitioned.

FallenforTom · 07/03/2018 07:46

That is the case already Maisy. You can apply for a GRC if you're over 18, have a diagnosis of GD, have lived as your preferred gender for 2 years and intend to for the rest of your life. No surgery or hormones are required however.

RubyLennoxExists · 07/03/2018 07:49

Well said MaisyPops

I don't see attacks on here against individuals with genuine gender dysphoria; I do see attacks on men who want to use trans issues as a means of attacking and reducing women (and who, despite their claims to be women, seem to really dislike other women).

CuriousaboutSamphire · 07/03/2018 07:49

Fallen It's really hard to get your head round, isn't it?

As I have said a few times, a year ago I wouldn't have thought twice about GRA and birth certificates. I would have thought of my friends who have them and nodded, quite comfortably with the idea that they have them. They have had a lot of surgery and transitioned over a decade ago.

But now I am really not so sure. I fear this is a battle we have lost and self ID will be in the legislature fairly soon. And then we will have to work out how the hell we react to that without it becoming anti trans in reality!

FallenforTom · 07/03/2018 07:53

I'm with you Curious. I also think the battle is lost because most of us didn't know it was even happening!

CuriousaboutSamphire · 07/03/2018 07:59

There's a post somewhere, someone has been over to the Other Side and linked to a post about feminism there. It is alarmingly naice very handmaiden!

I think the majority of people are still in that broadly complacent mode. DH was frustrated with me, when we first discussed, this 'non issue'. Then he got all 'manly' and was angry that anyone could fall for such bullshit (to be honest he was crude and belligerent). Now he notices stuff in the news and we can discuss it properly. But it wouldn't surprise me if most people we know or meet will never get beyond being a bit bewildered by it all!

HandbagKrabby · 07/03/2018 08:01

The battle is not lost. Women still exist as something that is not defined as an idea in someone’s head for the time being.

You have to stop worrying about being called transphobic unfortunately because to worry about being called transphobic is to spend your time tying yourself in knots. Men aren’t women. We should have empathy and compassion for people who feel they’re not right in their bodies but we don’t have to rewrite the world and it’s history to make them feel better, I’m not convinced they will feel better even if we do.

Our lives and feelings are just as important and should be respected.

CuriousaboutSamphire · 07/03/2018 08:09

I'm not bothered if someone considers me to be transphobic! Not in the slightest. And I wholly agree that we shouldn't be at all revisionist in order to make 0.8% of the population feel something.

And by battle I don't mean we have lost the war, just that self ID is, in all likelihood going to become a reality and, whilst we shouldn't stop fighting it - or we should start, perhaps - we need to look at how we, women, feminists, politically active individuals, private individuals, LGBT community, etc, all work together to limit and then overturn the TRAs actions.

And that requires spaces like this to discuss it, without being banned for discussing the rather weird, sheep like acceptance of a number of trans individuals into out mainstream political arena and other places.

ButteredScone · 07/03/2018 08:10

Humans can’t change their sex. No-one can ‘become a woman’.

The OP has just tried another softly-softly No Platform/No Debate technique.

This preys on MNHQ’s politeness/niceness/desire to be inclusive at the expense of robust discussion and proper enquiry about contemporary issues. I’m really pleased MNHQ have held their intellectual ground.

TerfsUp · 07/03/2018 08:16

Is it transphobic to say 'trans women are not women'? Is it an 'attack'?

According to transideology, yes and yes.

HadronCollider · 07/03/2018 08:16

I dont think most people care its happening. I

HandbagKrabby · 07/03/2018 08:30

I don’t think most people know it’s happening. The nodebate technique that this thread is part of has been very effective in painting any discussion as just a few transphobic nasty old feminists being horrible.

I can see how people sleepwalk into these situations and are then too scared to rock the boat. We just need to rock the boat!

PositivelyPERF · 07/03/2018 09:50

I was thinking this morning. It affects men in no negative way to ID as women. They gat to take female spaces, while retaining their old birth certificate to gain entrance into male spaces, eg be a woman while in changing rooms, while maintaining your golf membership in the old boys club. If really is a win win for them.

Iminthecclubnow · 07/03/2018 10:11

positively I was thinking about some of the men I have seen on twitter. Men who very obviously hate women and have found the trans agenda a great way of constantly having a go about TERFs and having an outlet for their women hating, whilst also managing to stay right on. There are some, straight men who are not trans, who have things like 'hater of TERFs, trans lives matter' in their bio, and just have tonnes of tweets about how awful TERFs are, treading the line so carefully that they still appear 'tolerant and kind'. I'm not talking about Owen Jones and his ilk here, this is more sinister.