To have my blood boiling in defence of mumsnet

[Sunflowersforever]

I'm telling you people, I'm mighty pissed off this morning.

What's getting my plus size knickers twisted on such a sunny Sunday morning? Well, to again have mumsnet referenced as some sort of devious place where women (shock horror) are 'allowed' to talk among themselves about stuff related to them with the insinuation it must be stopped.

Sorry for the language, but Fuck Off.

I've used this place for all sorts of brilliant support, from my daughter being bullied at school, step children challenges, menopause angst, to name a few. I've also been part of the transgender debate and have learnt lots, and challenged other views. It's called debate and discussion.

But someone else has said AGAIN how mumsnet is a dangerous place that encourages violence against people? WTF. No, never, doesn't happen.

What is this about? Why the push to close us down? Approaching sponsors to withdraw from mumsnet? FFS. So so angry about this now.

I love this place, it often keeps me sane.

HANDS OFF MUMSNET TOSSERS

Phew, feel a bit better after that.

AUBU?

There are transwomen on mumsnet being called terfs. It's all a bit ridiculous really. But at least more and more of the general public are becoming aware of the issues and, in fact, it's being discussed more widely than ever before.

I've actually switched off my ad blockers for MN based on this. I don't consider it to be trans phobic to expect to be able to debate something that affects all of us directly. I don't want to deny trans people rights, i simply want my rights to be considered, respected and not eroded. the lack of debate is one of the most frightening aspects of this whole thing.

@Skarossinkplunger I'm evidencing how free debate works and should be allowed to continue- the whole point of this thread.

You made statements about mumsnet, I disagree with them, but I don't then make out this site should be shut down because of that or that the mumsnet founder is involved in some sort of plot that is beguiling us poor stupid women without us realising.

sunflowersforever I absolutely knew that people would disagree with me, and that’s fine, and I did not say the site should be shut down.

To be fair MN does do a lot of censorship

No - MNHQ deletes posts/threads which do not adhere to its not-very-onerous talk guidelines. There is no 'censorship' of civilised, rational debate.

To be fair MN does do a lot of censorship, its not exactly a bastion of free speech.

^ This. Also the rules of the site seem
quite ‘flexible’ when it comes to Trans threads.

I'm not angry; I am proud of Justine for standing up for MN and for what she believes is right, even if it means taking an economic hit.

Thank you, MNHQ.

To be fair MN does do a lot of censorship, its not exactly a bastion of free speech.

Free speech does not mean having the right to say whatever you want to say.

@AsTheMilesTheyDisappear

I agree. I've struggled with remaining on MN because of this but I figure better to stand strong in the face of prejudice than to give into it.

Free speech does not mean having the right to say whatever you want to say

No your right and as long as you say things that MN deems appropriate then you can say whatever you want.

The Feminist threads do seem very anti trans people. It's not to my taste and I don't read any of the threads now. I feel there are so many anti trans threads it's too much.

I'm sick of the sea lions on here.
But I find that if I ignore them it keeps my blood pressure down

Sea lions?

There are sea lions here?!?

Daffodildelight
The Feminist threads do seem very anti trans people

Not ant-trans AT ALL.
Pro-women, pro-free speech, pro-biological reality.

Without MN I would never have come back to actually thinking and debating about feminism. I'd drifted into a bit of a haze of focussing only what directly affected me and my children in a very local way during the long slow haul of pregnancy, sleepless nights, toddler land, school run days etc... It was only when my daughters became teenagers that I really started to have time to think about the world they were progressing into. Apart from a few whinges to friends about how all clothing and toys seemed to be gendered in a way that didn't happen in my own 70's childhood I hadn't really got involved. Then I tripped over a thread about it in (I think) Feminist Chat - and started to get angry. Angry because manufacturers and advertisers seem to be in an unholy alliance to force all children to be either pink fluffy unicorn loving little girls or macho football loving little boys, leaving no space in the middle for boys to enjoy flowers or girls to want to learn Physics.

Definition of TERF as far as I can see is trans-exclusionary radical feminist. I don't think I've seen any trans-exclusionary behaviour here by the moderators. I've seen posts ranging all the way from "people who still have penises and want to stay with fully male physical characteristics shouldn't be able to declare they are women" to "anyone can legally be whatever gender they feel like at the time, and to hell with anyone else's rights, feelings, privacy etc". If Mumsnet was anti-trans, as you infer, surely I wouldn't have seen anything like the latter comments as they would all have been moderated away.

I also can't recall any posts that seem to be anti-trans in general, only those that are against self-ID which is a very small sector of the trans community and unfortunately is a definition that is open to abuse by men. Most of the discussion seems to be around whether a very small proportion of trans people who are genuinely feeling they are a different gender to their physical sex but don't want in any way to change that physicality, should have rights that open around 50% of women to potential abuse from men who use that as an excuse to gain access to women only spaces.

To my mind the problem is that one issue is now skewing the whole site. In the rest of the world the trans debate barely raises a mention but it seems here and some dark recesses of Twitter, it’s an obsession.

Watching from the sidelines it seems like there are arseholes on both sides who are now coming here to have their squabble and expecting those who don’t really care to take a polarised view.

I think eventually MN will either ban it or a lot of posters who aren’t interested will go elsewhere.

Despite a number of people asking for a trans forum this has always been refused because the issue is ‘too important’. Nobody argues that trans threads belong in AIBU, they argue that the remain there so they get the biggest audience. And so
MNHQ allow them to remain.

There was a thread on here along for signatures to a petition, again placed in AIBU for more traffic, it was pointed out that it really belonged in Activism. MNHQ was directly asked and this was ignored until after the deadline when it was put in Activism.

As I’ve said I don’t mind the debate but the players should have courage to say what they believe.

Wisdens

So law changes which have a profound effect on women's rights, should be ignored, because most people are too uninformed or unaware?

Have you actually read this AT ALL??

sages.org.uk/publications/sages-factsheet.html

Definition of TERF as far as I can see is trans-exclusionary radical feminist.

Totally ridiculous acronym bearing in mind RADICAL FEMINISM automatically includes TRANS IDENTIFYING WOMEN [aka trans men].

An acronym that contradicts itself.

To my mind the problem is that one issue is now skewing the whole site. In the rest of the world the trans debate barely raises a mention but it seems here and some dark recesses of Twitter, it’s an obsession

Because it affects 51% of the population. What we used to call 'women'.

No I have t read it SuitedandBooted.

But now you’re demanding that I take a stance. Why is that?

The Feminist threads do seem very anti trans people. It's not to my taste and I don't read any of the threads now

I think this is a common response from lots of people who don't read the threads.

It's a bit of a 'head in the sand' approach.

Would you call this thread anti trans people daffodil?

Because it affects 51% of the population. What we used to call 'women'.

Plenty of other things affect half the population but they’re not debated in the same aggressive way.

Wisdens where is the aggression?