AIBU to be shocked that the NSPCC cancelled their Facebook Live session with Mumsnetters, because they didn't like the questions? That they can't explain why they aren't putting children in danger?

[loveyouradvice]

I am reeling from this - Mumsnet promoted a Facebook Live for Thursday 12.30... to talk about keeping Kids safe from Abuse, and to publicise their PANTS and SpeakOut StaySafe campaigns.

NSPCC just didn't turn up - and only 4 hours later published a brief statement that said nothing!!!! So lots of people waiting for a no show.

It is fine for them to have the policies they have - IF THEY CAN EXPLAIN that they really are in all children's best interests and that they aren't putting girls at risk..... They haven't even tried to do that... Just ignored us and run. Ignored MUMSNET - which is full of people who raise or give money to the NSPCC, and who use it.

HOW??? I am bewildered beyond words.....

Oh ... and hopefully clicky link here of the questions Mumsnetters asked - really thoughtful cogent ones!

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/mumsnet_facebook_live/a3343961-Facebook-Live-about-talking-to-kids-about-staying-safe-from-abuse-with-NSPCC

Tbh I would expect that most MNetters who are interested in the PANTS campaign already know about it and don't have any questions

Oh, the arrogance.

Safeguarding, along with any risk assessment, is about looking at the likelihood of an incident happening along with the severity and trying to reduce that risk

And one of the big things pushed in safeguarding is to tell the safeguarding lead if a child discloses to you. Unless of course that child is trans.

You know that gender dysphoria affects both genders, right?

You do know that most violence and sexual abuse is carried out by males?

I will put money on that thread having been advertised on another GC forum as being a good opportunity for exposure. I fucking BET that's what happened, and if you're reading this and know that to be true, have a long hard look at yourselves and think about those kids you've screwed over.

What she said

Not on any forums I'm on.

That's what TRAs do, the batcall pile one.

I just saw it in active.

Weird that all the people upset that the wrong questions were asked, literally asked none themselves.

Perhaps next time, step the fuck up yourselves? Just a thought.

Are you suggesting that parents asking unanswerable questions about safeguarding risks are responsible for screwing over children, and that to make children safer parents should just shut up and let those risks go unquestioned?

Have you considered that the reason you may feel so defensive is because your position is entirely indefensible and your only recourse is to demand people shut up?

This is what happens when so many other sites and organisations impose censorship:

We debate trans issues on MN so often because it's one of the few places left where this is allowed
The TRA movement has managed to censor women's concerns on most other forums

That's why so many different women were worried enough to post such questions to the NSPCC
If we could debate fairly freely in lots of other places, then there would be far fewer trans threads & questions here.

The NSPCC should have answered the questions - if they are so sure their policies are properly based
Reassured all the anxious Mumsnetters
However, like all such organisations, they can't justify their policies that way

I see too the trans supporters resorting to their usual attacks on those of us who can see the Emperor Has No Clothes and who refuse to pretend otherwise.

That doesn't shut us up;
it just makes us more determined to protect the rights of girls & women.

Protecting girls and women means keeping sex-segregation, to help keep out the predators
We won't pretend that men / boys with body dysphoria are women / girls
That's not transphobia; It's biology

"both genders"

ahem

You seem convinced that noone ever pretends to be trans to commit a sex offence

I think Jess 'just popping my penis out at my desk at uni - nothing to see here' Bradley might have passed them by.

Because it never happens AMIRITE?

I really doubt that it was any sort of 'orchestrated attack'

The thread would have popped up on active

Safeguarding, along with any risk assessment, is about looking at the likelihood of an incident happening along with the severity and trying to reduce that risk. In schools, it is JUST as possible that in a single sex environment, abuse could happen (less severe things like bullying, physical or emotional abuse, stealing, racist abuse... list goes on). For that reason, children aren't left unsupervised for more than a few minutes and are rarely out of earshot.

So are you advocating the removal of sex segregated spaces within schools then?

Either people believe that sex segregated spaced should be upheld or they don't. You can't have sex segregated spaces but 'any male who says he is female can use the female spaces'. It completely defeats the object.

@itsallgoingtobefine Years back, I knew one 'trans' girl (they didn't use the term then) who turned out to be biologically female according to a chromosome test. However at birth they were deemed intersex and more male than female so the parents were advised to raise them as male, which they did.

How would you feel about that persons right to a space? They were female, they believed themselves to be female from a young age but a medic had made that huge decision when they were an infant that they should grow up male. That decision had led to suicide attempts. Should they be excluded?

Stop bringing intersex people into it - they have requested that they are not dragged in as show pieces.

Get over yourself. Stop trying to silence women who don't say what you want to hear.

Hahahahaha

I will put money on that thread having been advertised on another GC forum as being a good opportunity for exposure.

There are millions of MNers. Millions. A good number of us are seriously concerned about women's rights. There is simply no need to go around gathering the troops from other websites. Discussion is so shut down elsewhere that we're all already here. The questions were polite and the posters well-informed about what they were asking.

Anyone could have joined in on that thread and asked other questions. Why didn't they?

What planet am I on that a group of mothers asking a leading charity questions about a serious safeguarding issue has caused such a problem? This is ridiculous.

It's screwing over children to undermine and suck the life out of a campaign which is doing something VERY important because it doesn't have quite the focus you would like. You know very well that any charity is in an impossible position speaking to the feminists of mumsnet. They can't speak for both groups at once and this is a much, much more complicated area than you would like to think. Trans people do matter, like it or not. Balancing the needs and rights of everyone is difficult and it's a process. Meanwhile you're waiting with the gullotine if anyone puts a foot wrong. No wonder the instinct of every charity with funding to secure is simply not to engage.

But that doesn't have to mean every other thing they do is worthless and should be ground to a screeching halt until you've got what you want out of them. You didn't have to do that. You did sacrifice the NSPCC campaign (or its publicity on mumsnet at least) to do that.

That was not cool.

itsallgoingtobefine Years back, I knew one 'trans' girl (they didn't use the term then) who turned out to be biologically female

Intersex does not equal trans. People who are intersex have repeatedly asked to not be used in this way.

Thread did you see my question to you?

Nspcc set up a Webchat for one agenda and MNs wanted a different agenda. So why don't you get some evidence together, get some publicity and set up a meeting with NSPCC? Typically if you want your agenda on the table its on you to make the move?

Threadastaire it's the same agenda, though - safeguarding. That's what all these questions were about.

Some of us - me included - have had extensive talks with the NSPCC over several years, and still not got any answers, hence asking here. We've done our homework, we've put the effort in, and the NSPCC haven't given substantive answers to any of the questions.

@itsallgoingtobefine what are you blathering on about that if a child is trans things arent disclosed? Is this another tin foil hat conspiracy?

Fwiw I do hope that all of you ranty 'won't somebody think of the children' folk put as much effort into supporting vulnerable children in real life as you do arguing on the Internet. If you really feel that children aren't being heard, become an advocate, an independent visitor, a mentor.

What I have found when working with trans children and their peers (whether trans male or trans female, or other identities such as gender non binary) is that other children are remarkably more accepting of the child than some adults are. I dont mean unquestionably so, but they're less focused on the gender part and more on what they think of them as a person.

Where is all this “A really bad thing happens regularly so why talk about other bad things at all?” coming from?

The point is yes most children who are abused, are abused by people they know. This is something that is campaigned about, there are processes. Of course it always needs more work and updating, of course.

Children who complain about people accessing their sex segregated spaces are being told to put up and shut up. Secrecy is involved where it ought not to be. There is no “speak out” allowed here.

This cannot continu.

It's screwing over children to undermine and suck the life out of a campaign which is doing something VERY important

I think the NSPCC's work on safeguarding has become actively harmful, as with one breath they are telling children to speak out about their boundaries being violated, and in a second breath, they are telling girls they have to shut up about their boundaries being violated.

I desperately want the NSPCC to be fit for purpose. But at the moment, it isn't.

@itsallgoingtobefine the reference to that child was in response to the repeated assertion in this thread about a child with a 'functioning penis' and the threat of rape. The child I referred to fitted the threads criteria of a child who should be excluded.

*heartsease68

Tbh I would expect that most MNetters who are interested in the PANTS campaign already know about it and don't have any questions

Oh, the arrogance.*

I'm not quite sure why you think this is arrogance? Can you explain then, why the thread sat quite happily with no questions for DAYS at the top of chat, and no PANTS questions were asked during the many hours it was in active threads?
Where was your question for example?
I dont have any questions about the PANTS campay, and neither does my 4yo. It's not that hard....

what are you blathering on about that if a child is trans things arent disclosed? Is this another tin foil hat conspiracy?

Oh yes you are right, we are all making this up.

Gosh we are so dim.

We haven't read the guidance given to schools at all.

Thank you for showing us just how deluded we are.

Or you could just do some research yourself! And find out exactly what the guidance is and how it is being applied? Just a thought.

Fwiw I do hope that all of you ranty 'won't somebody think of the children' folk put as much effort into supporting vulnerable children in real life as you do arguing on the Internet.

Threadastaire very many of the women I know who are gender-crit have spent much of their lives working to support women and children - in refuges, domestic violence campaign, refugee support initiatives, rape crisis centres, playgroups. The gender-critical position frequently comes out of great experience of working together and creating inititatives - often with very little money and resources - to keep children safe.

The pants campaign tells girls they can say no to being naked with boys, and that they can speak up about it and adults will back them up.

Seems like the people who support that principle are being told to shut tf up with demanding that it be respected, the people who think that principle is both totally important and simultaneously totally transphobic are tying themselves in knots trying to blame the pants supporters for being consistent, and the people who created the principle in the first place are too scared to come out and defend why they've been recently advocating the biggest dismantling of the principle imaginable.