To think mumsnet needs a separate 'Gender' section?

[Jargoyle]

I've been lurking here for years prior to signing up, but have now all but abandoned the women's rights section due to the overwhelming proliferation of trans threads.

I get that self ID is a big issue but I was saddened, for example, during the whole Irish abortion debacle that the first thread on it was barely two pages long whilst people were happily discussing Caitlyn Genner's style comments until the cows came home.

I think a separate section would be beneficial where the same old posters can have the same old discussions about it all.

What was the subject of that thread

It was a very general discussion of issues facing women globally and what charities posters were currently supporting.

If you agree "echo chambers are bad" I'm not sure how you can defend that kind of behaviour.

I don't. And I can't see how anything I've said could imply that I did. I did ask which thread it happened on though. And neither you nor the other poster who said they remembered it provided an answer.

I can see what people are saying. It's a really important topic in your opinion and why shouldn't you discuss what interests you? Fair enough.

Even so, the effect of the discussion does seem to be a stifling of more diverse feminist debate, but maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it's stifled for other reasons and trans just fills in the vacuum. Could be.

It was a very general discussion of issues facing women globally and what charities posters were currently supporting.

If it's the one I'm thinking of, it was started by someone who doesn't agree with the majority of posters about trans issues, but it ran to several pages with lots of useful and interesting discussion and information.

I can't remember if I posted on it, but I read it, and there were many of the usual FWR posters on it, and I don't remember any aggression towards the OP or anyone else.

But like, for example that thread about Harry Miller. He's getting hassled for liking a poem about a trans woman on twitter. Does that even have anything to do with feminism? To my mind, the association is a bit of a stretch. I know a lot of people will say it's about free speech and women defining who they are and so on, but it seems as though its become its own anti trans movement, really. There aren't even any women in that Harry Miller story.

So maybe it would make sense to separate the discussions.

Even so, the effect of the discussion does seem to be a stifling of more diverse feminist debate, but maybe I'm wrong.

Read my post at 10:50 and explain how we discuss these issues without accepting that some people are male and some people are female, and our life experience depends on which category we are born into.

You have taken my breath away, Hairday, you really have. And not in a good way. Where to flippin start? I need another coffee.

Harry Miller didn't write the poem, he merely retweeted it.

His case is absolutely vital as we have already seen women (funny how it's always women) dismissed from jobs for stating the fact that human beings cannot change sex.

If Harry is successful women will gain greatly from being protected from 'thought crime' accusations.

If he isn't society is completely fucked. We will be living in a totalitarian state.

Oldcrone, you and I both know what men are and what women are. We are in agreement, as are most of the world, so we can certainly have those discussions without difficulty.

There are people in the world with a different view on sex and gender, yes, and that's interesting, but it's not a reason to halt all other discussion in my opinion.

This sort of pedantry only seems to be directed at FWR and not at other sections of MN. Nobody is starting threads asking for reasonable people to be coralled out of AIBU. It's just a tedious attempt to silence uppity women.

If he isn't society is completely fucked. We will be living in a totalitarian state.

I know, it's crazy. That whole thing about a policeman chatting about hate incidents in the absence of any crime. It's outrageous. But is it feminism though?

Hairday this is the whole point. Any GC thought is being suppressed and censored. That's what this thread seems to driving at too!

Hair there's definitely a Mrs Miller!

The story has lots to do with feminism, it refers to a limerick disagreeing that presenting as female = female. Women defining who they are is pretty centric to feminism and the powers that be who Harry is pushing back on are the same groups who claim the dictionary definition of woman is anti trans. I don't know how that can be called "a stretch ". I believe it has everything to do with feminism as it threatens the tights of women and girls.

BTW real concerns about this topic do not equal an anti trans movement.

Fleet you best share that coffee

Also the rights .

Oldcrone, you and I both know what men are and what women are. We are in agreement, as are most of the world, so we can certainly have those discussions without difficulty.

We should be able to. But are you not aware that the word 'woman' is being erased from areas such as healthcare provision because it is seen as trans exclusionary? That a 'woman' is no longer an 'adult female human', but 'anyone who identifies as a woman' (which is a meaningless circular definition).

And the Scottish Government has drafted legislation to allow everyone to choose their legally recognised sex.

www.gov.scot/publications/gender-recognition-reform-scotland-bill-consultation-scottish-government/

How can we discuss women's issues if any man can choose to be a woman?

Well, I don't want to censor gc discussion. Ideally, there would be all the gc discussion AND robust, interesting discussion on other aspects of feminism. That's what I would like to see.

Probably is a feminist issue though,

Firstly hate crimes in general are a feminist issue, as sex is the only protected characteristic that is not also protected through hate crime laws.

Secondly, if the issue is that it's illegal to consider a transwoman as different in any way from a woman, eg through different biology, then I would really like to know. And I feel rather threatened by anyone who thinks that women and transwomen are a single class of people

I guess that's because my gender identity isn't woman, but my sex is. Where do I belong in this new classification? What am I? What do I fill in on my paperwork When applying for a job?

"it's outrageous, but the important thing is that you should all talk about it somewhere else"

@Cohle I remember that.
Wasn't that the poster who had repeatedly been told to start threads she'd like to talk about then if she didn't like the ones she saw, so she did (FGM was one if I remember correctly?)
The amount of people trying to discredit her and telling her she wasn't posting in good faith etc was awful.
She was really knowledgeable on the subject too and it would have been a really good discussion from the start if people had let it be instead of attacking.
Anyways, in regards to the OP I'm in favour of a separate board as the one at the minute is one track and as people are saying impossible to post there if you don't always agree due to said attacks like poster mentioned got.

But is it feminism though?

I don't think it is feminism per se but without free speech there is no feminism, discussing women, our needs, our problems will be illegal, so I do think it reasonable for the discussion to be in FWR.

What is less reasonable is the lack of discussion elsewhere. If you don't have free speech all other rights collapse. It is absolutely fundamental to a free society and to democracy.

but it's not a reason to halt all other discussion in my opinion.

Nobody on Mumsnet can "halt all other discussion". Although there are plenty who would like to halt all women's discussion on gender identity issues.

When women like Margaret Nelson are getting a phone call from the police about this blog: deadinteresting.blogspot.com/ then you should realise that Harry Miller's case is vitally important to women, and thus discussed on FWR.

I really feel that women on FWR are just being told "you discuss this too much, you should discuss other things more!" - which is in itself an attempt to control what women discuss.

Anyways, in regards to the OP I'm in favour of a separate board as the one at the minute is one track and as people are saying impossible to post there if you don't always agree due to said attacks like poster mentioned got.

But you post here all the time.

You can have your separate "gender" section if we can also have a separate "sex" section.

I'm well up for a section that discusses the lifelong impact of being born female, and boots out anyone born male who wants to tell us who we are, what we are, what rights we should have, and how we should behave.

Anyone who believes in "gender" can go and chat there. It could be called Gender ideology or summat.

Anyone who cares about sex, though, specifically the female sex, can come to the female sex section.
We could call it Fem...female...let's see...feminist chat? And anyone wanting to post about the GENDER rights of people could be shown the door and directed to the GENDER section.

A gender section, and a sex section.

This is all beginning to sound appealing.

I really feel that women on FWR are just being told "you discuss this too much, you should discuss other things more!" - which is in itself an attempt to control what women discuss.

But there is a particular group of posters who try and control the dialogue on FWR and steer it in one particular direction. When that is called out and discussion initiated around a resolution, they then attempt to control that discussion as is happening ITT.

I'm warming to that idea too.