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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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To think Mumsnet is OBSESSED

974 replies

AccidentalKylie · 22/03/2018 20:11

I used to read Mumsnet because it was a lot of clever, funny women talking about stuff I was interested in, but it's become a one issue forum. It's exhausting.

To think Mumsnet is OBSESSED
OP posts:
Thread gallery
10
ArcheryAnnie · 23/03/2018 11:39

Disclaimer: I haven't RTFT.

< raises hand > I'm "obsessed", sure. A lot of my personal political activity is now tied up with defending sex-segregated spaces. It's what I've written to my MP about, it's what I've phoned the BBC about, it's what I am often on MN about, it's what I've raised in my community organisations.

Do I want to be obsessed? Hell, no. I have a million other things I'd rather be doing. There's a lot else I'd rather my MP be focussed on. I don't want to be raising an issue in my community organisations which might lead people I like and admire to sneer at me, call me a bigot, shun me. I don't want to be worried about posting on social media in case I get death threats or I lose my job because my employer is too frightened to continue to employ me. I would rather read a chapter of my book than post here in this thread, about this.

But I continue to work on this issue because I don't want to lose all the rights which women have spent decades fighting for, and I don't want to lose all the women's resources that women have spent decades creating. It's not an option for me to sit back and say "eh, I don't care, nothing to do with me" because it affects every woman and girl in the country, and I won't let it lie. Even if I'd rather read a book.

RedToothBrush · 23/03/2018 11:40

Hating someone because of what type of person they are, and inventing devious characteristics about them, is prejudice.

This is a mischaracterisation. One of the issues I have most problem with in this whole debate, isn't anything to do with trans people. Its how their cause has been piggy backed and weaponised by alt right against women. Its created a toxic political environment where everything is about them and us and everyone shouts but no one listened.

So I'm going to say here, just how much listening are you doing Djnoun?

Social media adds to the problem by making it a competition where you have to 'win' or prove you are right. There is no room to step back and actually say, 'ok I fundamentally disagree with you on points x, y and z but on a and b you are spot on.

The culture surrounding this subject has become you have to belief and support every single idea coming from trans activists and if you don't you are a traitor or a bigot.

That's deeply unhealthy on a wider political level. Plus its also potentially harming to trans people themselves.

It always find it striking how voices within the trans community itself are ignored or dismissed as not the right kind of trans or how the experiences of those who thought they were trans but have changed their minds are ignored. Why? Keep asking why?

So I'm going to say here, just how open minded to these arguments are you Djnoun?

It's so easy to go back to the biology answer. Ok, cool. Although, we don't necessarily know everything there is to know about the human body, and especially we know hardly anything about how the brain works. But that doesn't excuse the nonsense projections about how we're all going to be violently assaulted.

No we don't know how biology works. So why aren't we exploring it more instead of simply ignoring what biology we do know in favour of what we don't know?

You have conflated two very different concerns here by linking it directly with violence. Some argument about biology do come back to violence. But not all. Some are about the biology of men and women in a totally unconnected why - for example in research, and for example is there a difference between the experience of men and women who transition and their reasons for doing so. If you remove the concept of sex and replace with gender which is happening, you are also removing a huge about of information and data and degrade sciences ability to find medical patterns and solutions.

You have no evidence that these people are violent and want to rape us. You may believe it strongly based on your prejudices. But that doesn't make it a fact.

Sometimes the absence of evidence, doesn't mean something isn't happening. We need to be conscious of this in politics. Why didn't all those women report Weinstein? Why didn't all those people report the sexual abuse they suffered as children? Power imbalances mean that the most disadvantaged in a society are simply voiceless.

In some cases it is true that prejudice and unconscious bias does play a role in seeing demons where there are none. Equally too though, blindness to a problem because your experience of life is narrow or privileged is also an issue and barrier to seeing problems.

This is no where near as black and white as you make out. We should ALL be challenged in what we think and question ourselves if we feel the need to turn off the computer if someone does say something which gets under your skin because someone says something that makes us want to switch off the computer. Is it because they have said something offensive or is it because they held a mirror to ourselves which revealed a glimpse of the uncomfortable truth within ourselves that we don't want to acknowledge?

Engage with the debate and what people are saying rather than dismissing them from the outset as 'transphobes' and bigots.

We ALL might learn something if you do. It at least moves things forward rather than being stuck in this rut of silencing.

merrymouse · 23/03/2018 11:40

Great article Noqontrol

NoqontroI · 23/03/2018 11:42

We see you.

Yep I second that. No one bullied you DjNoun but you did your best to derail the thread and shut down conversation. It didn't work. You just didn't achieve what you set out to do. And now you reach for the bully card. You weren't bullied and you know that really.

We do see you.

BigChocFrenzy · 23/03/2018 11:43

"Transwomen" are a subset of "men"

We should never be cruel to those who suffer from body dismorphia, or from any other illness
but that doesn't mean we should ignore biological facts to make the sufferers feel better.

… and then then are the far greater number of hangers-on and pervs who are at least as dangerous as any other men.

It is logical that an aggressive campaign to bully / brainwash women & girls into accepting biological men as women
should be discussed a lot on the Feminism Board

"TERFs" want to retain safe spaces for women, not just in toilets and changing rooms,
but also in womens' refuges, hospital wards, prisons, sport

We don't want transwomen who commit murder, rape, other sexual offences to be classed as "women"
and hence gloss over the massive problem of violent males

YetAnotherHelenMumsnet · 23/03/2018 11:44

Hi everyone. It might be best to move on from the events of last night and go back to discussing the OP and the subject raised, if that's okay?

GlueSticks · 23/03/2018 11:44

Although, we don't necessarily know everything there is to know about the human body, and especially we know hardly anything about how the brain works.

This is a really crap argument. Its similar to "we don't know EVERYTHING yet so we should just ignore what we DO know". And "scientists were wrong once so we can't possibly trust anything they say ever again". It smacks of someone who is scientifically illiterate and can't be bothered to even try to understand. Similar to those who have "had enough of experts".

Generally, scientific knowledge is built up slowly. We start with one thing then we pick up some more, them some more. It is iterative and progress is generally very slow. The ideas which are genuinely groundbreaking are so rare that even the average person on the street is likely to have heard of the scientists involved (eg Newton, Darwin, Einstein). All of science is "just" a theory and any part of it may be rewritten if future experiments show fundamental flaws. What makes science worth listening to and relying on is that it is actually the best description that we currently have of the world around us.

So yeah, feel free to ignore the current science in favour of your personal beliefs (like people who refuse cancer treatment and think that praying will work instead), but don't expect that laws will be rewritten based on your belief without some serious fight back from those who engage in critical thinking.

BigChocFrenzy · 23/03/2018 11:45

I would be outraged if an aggressive campaign called me a "cis-Arab" and said I was fascist / phobic / "literally killing them" - for not accepting white people who self-ID as Arab

Even more outraged if people kept trying to shut down debate and protest about this
Many "trans" threads now, like this one, are just trying to shut down criticism of the TRA agenda, not discuss issues.

There are vastly more important differences between me and any man, including transwomen,
than between me and a woman of any race or class

Arealhumanbeing · 23/03/2018 11:45

Making up some, at best projected, at worst imaginary, horror stories about deviants dressing up to rape us in hospitals is not logic. There's no evidence.

Men are already raping women in hospitals as they already have access. Men are also raping women in the women’s toilets despite not (yet) having access.

The worry is that men will be raping and assaulting women in prisons, refuges, rape crisis centres, changing rooms. Also men will be able to assault MORE women in hospitals and GP surgeries because women will no longer have the right to insist on seeing a female HCP. In fact, that would be a hate crime.

YetAnotherHelenMumsnet · 23/03/2018 11:46

Also, for those posters looking to hide the Feminism boards, the how-to is here.

www.mumsnet.com/info/faqs

How do I customise the way my Talk boards look?
Click on 'Customise'. You can then use the drop-down menu to choose various options, from the reading direction of discussion threads to colouring your own posts to hiding whole discussion topics.

NoqontroI · 23/03/2018 11:47

Ok YetAnotherHelenMumsnet

Thanks for letting us continue the debate here. Flowers

TerfsUp · 23/03/2018 11:49

Good grief. That BuzzFeed article was a pile of unmitigated shite.

BigChocFrenzy · 23/03/2018 11:50

Thanks, AnotherHelen Thanks
Mumsnet remains one of the few forums where women are allowed to discuss these issues together

merrymouse · 23/03/2018 11:50

There are vastly more important differences between me and any man, including transwomen,
than between me and a woman of any race or class

Interesting point, but not sure what you mean here. Except for biology, I can think of a lot of men who I have more in common with than, for instance, Nadine Dorries. Most of the time, (At work, doing the washing up, walking the dog etc. etc.) I'm not particularly aware that I am a woman.

BigChocFrenzy · 23/03/2018 11:52

The likely problem is not that people don't know how to block topics & threads
but that they want to compulsorily block them for everyone
and hence shut down all debate

Terfragette69 · 23/03/2018 12:07

Bit of light relief.... My new fave video by Peachyogurt.

TerfsUp · 23/03/2018 12:08

It is, however, deeply transphobic to decide that you never want to date any transgender person ever

Paging Owen Jones. Mr Jones to the transphobia phone, please.

BigChocFrenzy · 23/03/2018 12:11

merry Why I as a mixed race Arab consider biology is so important
in my daily life, it determines much of how I interact - or avoid interacting - with other people, especially when alone.
Online is different, of course.

It's about comfort / embarassment, but overwhelmingly wrt safety

Men are a frequent source of "low-level" aggression: catcalls, unwanted groping
as well as a vastly higher potential source of violence than women.

Men commit 85% of all violent crime and 98% of sexual crimes
and they can do so because most men are so much physically stronger than most women.

Like most women, I know many women who have been raped or beaten by men.
Like most lone women, I plan journeys and time outside the home to avoid being in isolated places with men I don't know - women who don't do this, are "stupid' and "asking for it' when we don't.

I live alone
but I go to the gym most days, where we have a communal changing room for women and another for men.
My home is made as secure as possible from intruders - but I'm not worried about women breaking in.

I work ft
and I go to the loo a few times per day and value this space free from men, when I am in a cubicle with my knickers down

PsychoPumpkin · 23/03/2018 12:13

It’s not at all trasnsphobic to stand by your own sexual preferences.

You can’t guilt someone into having sex with you by calling them a TERF for not wanting to have sex with you. It doesn’t work like that.

Nobody owes anyone sex and i’ve Rejected many a potential date before i’ve Had a look at the contents of their pants. I just know I’m not interested and that should be enough.

BigChocFrenzy · 23/03/2018 12:14

In comparison, the racial differences affect me much less.
They were much more important at school in the 1960s, where I was racially bullied as routine.

BigChocFrenzy · 23/03/2018 12:15

Sexual attraction is overwhelmingly about biology, at least in the first instance

Handsoffmysweets · 23/03/2018 12:25

This reply has been withdrawn

This has been withdrawn by MNHQ at the poster's request

MyLittleVespa · 23/03/2018 12:27

It is, however, deeply transphobic to decide that you never want to date any transgender person ever
More gas lighting, of course it's not anythingphobic.

The twisted bit about this 'view' (if it is indeed a view rather than pure gas lighting) is that if you follow this argument than the trans person is the actual phobic actor in this boring pseudo drama. The man who doesn't want to be a man may arguably be accused of being 'manphobic' or 'malephobic'.

I am somehow reminded of Magritte's The Treachery of Images here.

Just as the visual representation of a pipe is not actually a bleeding pipe, a man wearing skirt and make up is not a woman. Don't get me wrong, I am all for pairing pipes in various shades and colours and for men wearing whatever the heck they like but do not tell us that it is the REAL thing. Cos.. that's hoodwinking you see and quite rude.

Ceci n'est pas une pipe = French for this is not a pipe

To think Mumsnet is OBSESSED
CadyHeron · 23/03/2018 12:29

The tactics used to try and indoctrinate others into hatred is a big part of why a lot of us on MN no longer want to see it. How many times last night did I have to ask to be left alone?

You were repeatedly shouting leave me alone when nobody was saying a single thing to you. It was truly bizarre,almost like you were just trying to shut down debate.

CadyHeron · 23/03/2018 12:31

Oops,sorry just seen HelenMumsnet's post. Agreed, best left alone and debate to go on.