AIBU to be extremely proud of Justine Roberts & Mumsnet right now?

[EmpressOfJurisfiction]

Open access link. www.thetimes.co.uk/article/mumsnet-founder-justine-roberts-transgender-activists-try-to-curb-free-speech-on-site-z3sr3nf6q?shareToken=ade388be59ac427155003eff83c5158c

“Transgender activists have contacted Mumsnet advertisers and said they will be organising a boycott of their products if they don’t remove their advertising from Mumsnet,” Roberts said.

“A significant minority of our users feel very strongly about women’s rights and very uneasy [about the proposals]. This is an issue that needs to be discussed and that’s why we’re prepared to take any potential advertising hit.”

Adding my name and my voice to this.
Thanks for taking a stand for free speech Justine.

I have lurked for years and only really started posting a bit in FWR in the last year or so. Have always found it a place for intelligent debate and have learnt so much. Thanks for all the support Justine and everyone else at MNHQ.

This is what happens when women start and run tech platforms.... compare it with Twitter and to an extent Facebook which seem to be MRA havens and of course 90% (my number - no stats) of the internet which is full of porn filth for men - all in the name of free speech.

Justine was interviewed by Julia Hartley-Brewer this morning on Talk Radio about pressure on Mumsnet (at about 09:20). Also featuring India Willoughby...

talkradio.co.uk/radio/listen-again/1523856600#

Anita, and part of the thing about David Irving is that other academics proved incontrovertibly that his theory was nonsense.

No platforming him was a stupid decision which gave Irving and his supporters credence. ‘Look at me, what I have to say is so dangerous to the status quo I must be silenced. People are scared about people learning this and are too frightened to challenge it publicly.’

In fact, any half decent group of undergraduates would have been able to effectively oppose Irving if not demolish him.

No platforming doesn’t work. And this campaign against MN isn’t going to work. The numbers are on our side and people are getting less afraid to speak out.

Agree completely on no platforming. When I was an undergraduate (last century) we’d often go to talks we didn’t agree with the speaker and they’d get a toasting :)

How are today’s undergraduates going to develop the critical thinking and debating skills needed to engage with ideologies they dislike or disagree with and disprove/argue them.?

It is SO much better to have rational voices opposing an awful ideology than it is to ban it even being whispered. I can only think that the powers that be don’t want a politically engaged, critical thinking mass as an electorate - they’d prefer a docile mass being told what to think.

But I’m not Ok with that. Speak freely and let us demolish your hatred with argument, facts, data etc. Truth requires that a light be shone on these ideas. Those that are awful will wither.

Totally agree, Mightymucks & Hypermice. Plus it draws so much more attention and publicity to them. I'll wager most people hadn't even heard of David Irving before.

Yes, there should be laws against hate speech and inciting violence - but this seems to have morphed very quickly into a certain set of people setting themselves up as the moral arbiter on everything, and no one else is allowed to even speak.

I think people are beginning to realise this. People are beginning to wonder "what on earth are these women saying??" - and of course, what we're doing is asking questions about the impact of gender self-identification becoming law - on women's and girls rights. Because it's very, very important.

How are today’s undergraduates going to develop the critical thinking and debating skills needed to engage with ideologies they dislike or disagree with and disprove/argue them

They won't. And they won't develop resilience either if academics who teach them stuff they find distasteful are constantly reported for making them anxious or upset or indeed suggesting that they might need to run a fucking grammar check.

Just listening to India WIlloughby on Talk Radio.

Julia Hartley Brewer really gets it.

It is disgusting, yes how are young people able to openly debate and challenge, if they are brainwashed into a certain way of thinking, it is not encouraging free and critical thinking, they are just creating robots who think and act the same. Flowers , they will never silence us.

It boggles me. That’s the POINT of a university education.

Learn, learn about everything. Some of it will be awful and you will need to learn to deal with it like an adult and develop the rhetorical claws to battle it in the real world.

The idea of academics having to self censor is horrendous. I’m so glad I got out of academia when I did. I’m in the bioscince field and I’d never be able to spout some of the really shit pseudoscience I’ve seen pushed. FACTS AND REALITY!

Anita, I agree and as I said upthread this is making me question my core politics because this is not the left I feel I belong to. If small c conservatism is allowing free speech and critical thinking over the left then I may well belong there.

This whole thing has been a huge eye opener for me

The denial of our reality makes me furious.

India Willerby’s denial of sexual predators - obviously she has grown up a Male so didn’t suffer the following home from school, the man in the park showing his penis, the comments, the humiliation as an adult Male felt entitled to comment on your body as it develops.

This shit starts from puberty for fucks sake. My daughters will suffer from it, and there is fuck all I can do about it while men and women like IW deny its existence.

This whole debate is women having to sort out men’s shitty behaviour. And by denying it IW is no better than those shitty men.

Free speech is the issue here. Free speech is what makes us better, a better society and better people. Yes, free speech leads to terrible things said and opinions aired, but there are laws that help govern that. If you let people say the good and the bad, the bad always gets caught out in the end. By shutting down free speech to avoid the bad, you never make the bad go away, it is just underground waiting to explode. But if you let it be aired, it always, always runs out of steam.

So thank you, mumsnet, for standing up for free speech and actually doing something no political party or organisation dares to do.

All this ‘sex is not a binary’ pseudoscience upsets me. I have PCOS myself and I’ve previously worked in endocrinology with people with a wide range of disorders such as Turner Syndrome. Despite their own insistence on defining their own sex TRAs label me as intersex and hijack some very complicated and distressing disorders to bolster their ‘sex isn’t a binary’ argument. But those conditions are irrelevant to them as they overwhelmingly don’t have them. It’s distressing for women who have things like PCOS or Turner Syndrome to be labelled ‘intersex’ because of disorders whilst people who were born into the exact physical binary of men are insisting that they are the ‘real women’. It’s crazy they’re insisting men are real women and women with physically identifiable disorders are not real women and are in fact intersex. It’s bonkers and so offensive.

It’s men dictating to women what their sex is. Bloody typical.

I agree about the no platforming. Let them speak where debate is on offer. Nick Griffin of the BNP on Question Time really exposed him and his beliefs. And that was the end of him.

It is Mighty, they are men, using their male power to shut women up. They are women when they want to be, but funny how they use their male resources when needs be. You may change your sex to look like the oppposite sex, but you will still be the biological sex you were at birth, its in your genetics.

R0wantrees JHB takes no shit, does she? I wouldn’t want to get into an argument with her. 😁
I think we should thank IW, for directing more people to the site. I’m sure we’ll get lots of, “you’re all horrible transphobes” for a while, then people will start reading and engaging. IW will have helped so many other people reach reality, and become aware of the risks of self ID. waves to new lurkers

"The oxygen of publicity" seems to suffocate those with weak, idiotic and hateful arguments.

Please, please please let IW, LM and the rest of the Mumsnet are TERFs crowd be granted as much air time as possible.

As soon as the majority of the population hear these jokers, they'll be on our side.....

Bought The Times today too....

Anyone who hasn't seen JHB interview LM should really take a look...

"I will boycott any advertiser that pulls out of MN due to trans extremist pressure. Brands that are complicit in bullying women into silence will not get my custom. "

I absolutely agree with this!

Thank you Justine

(I will turn the adblocker off my laptop when I find it!)

I've spent the morning trying to do something positive, so I've contacted companies who have deals going with MN to say that I'll support them as long as they support MN.

Along the lines of:

"Good to see your tie-in with the popular website MUMSNET. I'll buy your products as long as you support Mumsnet which in turn supports hundreds of thousands of women - you know, the ones with all that spending power. Mumsnet is a place where women can talk about the things that affect them, and discuss products, lifestyles, children, medical issues. The site has millions of hits a week.
Please don't let a vocal but actually quite small group of radical activists upset the equilibrium with their unpleasant and inaccurate portrayals of the women on Mumsnet.
Thank you."

I think if lots of MNers did this kind of thing and gave this kind of feedback it would be a positive step.

I used the companies' online contact pages. I just googled 'contact + company name'.

Thank you, Justine. One day your stand for the rights of women to discuss this will be remembered as brave, principled and frankly pretty bloody heroic. We know this issue must cause you headaches and increase your workload. You are seen and appreciated

Just listened to the talk radio interview.
Julia HB doesn't take any nonsense, does she
And IW was talking drivel really.

I am just adding my name as someone so grateful for MN for creating and sustaining a place where women are able to talk to each other.

India specifically insisted people come and check out Mumsnet (having helpfully warned them that although they might think it a nice cosy 'coffee morning type place') it was actually a site 'percolating hatred'. India especially directed people to the 'I am Sparticus' threads by way of example as this was all about 'outing' people.
JHB said 'if you still have a penis then you're a man'... later on she said she was going to look at the Spartacus thread.

IW loves a stereotype.