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.”

You can also register with the Times for free and read a certain limited number of articles each week.

I think this one still works:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/mumsnet-founder-justine-roberts-transgender-activists-try-to-curb-free-speech-on-site-z3sr3nf6q?shareToken=b2eb62822dd26aecc0f88653978ed23a

@birdbandit

Justine, MNHQ, Passionate Feminists, Long Time Lurkers - I fuckin love you all. This thread has made my day. Thank you everyone for standing up to be counted.

And if anyone hasn't seen this mega informative blog and could use a reminder as to what intelligent and thoughtful trans people make of the whole debate - put the kettle on (or grab a ) and take a look at this

debbiehayton.wordpress.com/2018/04/04/a-plea-to-trans-activists-we-can-protect-trans-rights-without-denying-biology/comment-page-1/#comment-63

birdbandit wishing you a shit hot lawyer

Cheers mumsnet.
This attack on women and girls has to stop.

@Beyond11cisRetinol

£5 raised so far for Tara's vocal surgery.

Should be enough to buy them a packet of Fisherman's Friends.

WRT Bird's post (another one rooting for you
I distinctly remember a thread on mn several years ago that I read like
A man had decided to transition and his wife had turned to mn for support.
The thread was largely along the lines of 'you should stay'. 'if you loved him you would accept him'. for pages and pages.

Thank goodness we have moved on.
I wish that was the case for the rest of the world.
Following Twitter whilst watching Transformation Street it was clear that many people thought it was the role of the wife to submit herself to whatever made her husband's life the easiest. i.e. to become a wife to a 'woman' and do whatever it took regardless of her own wants or needs.

How very traditional

I don’t often post on the feminist board but I do read the threads.

I’m very sad that a healthy debate is in danger of being shut down. Surely debate is essential, whichever side of the fence you happen to sit.

Not news international. Pay attention - we're paid by Russia/Russian bots

hi India, on my talkRADIO show this morning you claimed Mumsnet users were posting transphobic comments on the site. I can’t find any. Please can you tweet or DM the links to the comments which you found offensive? Thanks.

This is really good. JHB had to give IW the benefit of the doubt live on air but she's not going to be taken for a fool.

bird, I have heard several horror stories of counsellors siding with abusive partners in DV situs, so unfortunately I'm not surprised.

@birdbandit Great you recognised your STBXH is one of those aggressive types - lawyer is great idea - as you discovered many councillors don't recognise the aggression and in fact are groomed by the aggressor - I hope the lawyer understands the difference and how to hold him to account (so many don't - they don't get how they weaponise the divorce process).

However am sure support will be ongoing here as well…

I also don't understand why people don't recognise the aggressive TIMs for what they are

Good luck

Haven't RTFT and have kept away from MN recently due to a lot of the very depressing and often very ugly discussions of anti-Semitism and Jeremy Corbyn (and Israel), but am popping back to say thank you Justine - I'll actively buy from any advertisers threatened by the trans thought-police.

I also listened to your interview on Julia Hartley Brewer's show yesterday and thought you were excellent. Interesting how India, on the other hand, kept trying to talk over everyone. A very masculine trait, one might say.

Careful, confessions... 😬

Similarly worded posts have been told off for today/yesterday...

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3224110-Spartacus-believes-in-biology

I'm sorry to report that Tara has lost the Deliveroo job and is now crowdfunding for £2000 for medical bills. Clearly not to pay the fine and costs, as that would be against the rules of the fundraising site. twitter.com/cattdeskatgmail/status/985982923563298819

I hope someone reports that, what with us having an NHS...

I'm not sure the NHS provides all the surgery that Tara wants. The last crowdfunder was for surgery on the vocal chords. There was also some reference to how slow it was to get seen at the gender clinic so Tara had started 'self-medicating', which I took to mean buying testosterone on the internet. Risky.

On the other side of the pond there are the first stirrings that some of the HCPs who have been rushing to get involved in this area might be facing a backlash of sorts. wpathopenletter.wordpress.com/2018/04/04/genital-surgery-open-letter/ (Might contain some graphic content)

which I took to mean buying testosterone on the internet

I thought Tara was going the other way?

A must read... blogs.spectator.co.uk/2018/04/if-mumsnet-can-stand-up-for-free-speech-why-cant-mps/
Justine Roberts is great. Roberts is the founder of Mumsnet who has this week come out fighting for free speech and sensible political discussion, both of which are at risk in the debate about gender laws. Why Mumsnet? Because a website previously best known for chat about childcare, biscuits and something called a penis beaker has developed an important role in an important political debate.

Good spectator link; thanks

"I’ll repeat that. A woman who was assaulted by a person she considers to be male was told by the judge hearing the case to refer to that person as female – out of respect for her attacker’s feelings. That is the extent to which the enforced norms of the transgender debate can affect a person’s ability to express themselves as they wish."

None of us say it is an easy balance to get right of course but we need to be free politely to discuss the issues. If some transgender people don't like it that is just tough.

"Je suis Charlie". I have a right to offend others. I have a right to draw and public cartoons. I can mock. I can lampoon. These are the strengths of our democratic culture. Variety and difference of views is allowed. Debate is allowed.

Really pleased to see this has been picked up by the Spectator. A sign that the issue is starting to become more mainstream? Oxygen and publicity are essential; the more people that know about it, the more questions will be asked and the desperately needed debate and scrutiny will follow.

In a different world the Guardian should be championing this. But it's been increasingly apparent that women's rights only matter to the Graun if there isn't a better and more fashionable cause for them to support instead - as evidenced by the overwhelming silence in their coverage of the 2016 Cologne sex attacks. Thank god for Hadley Freeman who seems to be a lone voice of sanity.

James Kirkup's published a few articles on this now.

What I really like about him is that he's previously stated very clearly Janice Turner & Hadley Freeman were writing about this subject first, and that they get attacked for writing about it while he doesn't (or far less anyway). He's also gone after OJ on Twitter.

The comments aren't loading on me for that article, what's the response like?

Brilliant article.

Sorry, not testosterone of course! Oestrogen, I suppose.