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.

I would lie a separate space so we can go back to discussing abortion, pay, domestic abuse, etc etc etc without everything being dominated by arguments about people who used to have/still have penises ( trans women)

You can discuss all those things. The FWR still discusses all those things.
The reasons trans always crops up is because it has infiltrated all of those female topics!!

Sticking your fingers in your ears and telling us to stop talking about it does not mean it's not happening. Why would you want to live in the dark?

Abortion: female/woman's issue.
Except they are changing the language and removing the word woman. Oh and did you know men get pregnant too.

Pay: Women paid less than men. Unless you are a trans woman and while they demand to be called women theh ain't giving up their male pay check.

Dv: Womens DV shelters now have TW working and living there. How bloody distressing must that be for a woman fleeing an abusive man!

These are all female issues and GC women have not invited TW in to the discussion they barged in and now it affects us but you dont think we should talk about it?

So, ok, I’m not a real feminist because I don’t trace every feminist issue back to trans. Women were discriminated against, abused, raped, patronised and paid less long before the trans thing became a thing. I’ve never been treated unfairly or badly because trans

I have been mistreated by men (non trans men - a trans woman is a woman I don’t differentiate) and I know how much of it still goes on, mostly casual and habitual. But there’s a lot more men than trans women.a lot. And I don’t see my fight as being with them. Yep, it’s unfair they keep their advantages - it’s not fair because those advantages come from being male - the advantages shouldn’t exist full stop, the whole field should be fair.

Fine if on the FWR people want to focus on all feminist issues linked to Trans. But personally, that’s not my focus and even this thread is now deeply mired in the trans thing, with a variety of berating and patronising posts demanding a justification for their view (which is actually ‘trans is bad and none of your reasons are right so just agree (implied lack of intelligence or validity in the language). FWR is an anti trans echo chamber and if you disagree you will be ripped to shreds as the regulars draw together to decimate anything you try to say. You’re not even allowed to agree to disagree.

What the heck is anti trans?

Or am I not allowed to ask?

@Bunnyfuller - I don't think anyone's tried to say that "trans issues" exist because trans women treat women badly. That's not the point. No one is saying, or has said, that trans women treat women especially - and certainly no one's said that trans women treat women worse than men as a class or as individuals may treat women.
The point is that current culture and pseudo-legal arguments attempt to create a situation where:

1. Sex is replaced, in law and for practical purposes such as e.g. rights and equality law, with 'gender'. That means that in law, women lose status as a separate, protected group.

and:

2. With self-ID, any male can 'identify' as a woman. That means that women lose rights to women only spaces, etc. It also impacts further on women's rights, because it means that in situations where it's vital that biological is properly recorded - e.g. for medical purposes, to monitor trends re. career progression, etc. - essential, accurate means of recording and treating essential information are lost.

Respectfully, feminism isn't about choosing a group of people to demonise or pick a fight with, it's about looking at how best women's and girls' human rights can be best protected, and how structural inequalities can best be addressed.

What the heck is anti trans?

Or am I not allowed to ask?

You can ask, @PityParty4one, but you might need a special board to do so. Shall we have a straw poll, or just post on SiteStuff to ask whether MN will create one?

FWR is an anti trans echo chamber

Yes I can imagine it must be more comfortable for you to be in a TWAW echo chamber. Like most other "feminist" spaces.

@PityParty4One From my perspective it is the attitudes around trans and refusing to accept them as they feel they are.

Hopefully you will accept that is my view, even if you don’t agree with it as a view. So we don’t need to go down the rabbit hole again. Or rather, I won’t be taken down the rabbit hole again.

I posted to add MY view, not to debate what my view means, or how it is wrong. To ask what i meant is at best disingenuous as this whole thread is around the fact that many of us don’t see trans rights as an issue.

I don’t see a separate board as detracting from the FWR board.

Youcanask,@PityParty4one, but you might need a special board to do so.

It's just so ridiculous though.
Feminisim is about centering women. Protecting women.
Which is why I find it strange when feminists want to discuss various issues that affect us females but refuse to acknowledge the elephant male in the room.

I posted to add MY view, not to debate what my view means, or how it is wrong.

And people are going to disagree with you and tell you why. Stop trying to control what other people say.

I'd be interested to see what happens, actually. Whether or not any activism happens on the back of it, and what occurs when you come up against discrimination laws, which are a cornerstone of any feminism.

I agree. In the past the distinction always used to be made that liberal feminists sought to operate within existing frameworks while radical feminists sought to overturn them. It's a completely valid perspective and one I've been more inclined to in the past.

Bunny I do accept them as they are. They are male I accept that fact.

I don’t see a separate board as detracting from the FWR board.

Neither do I. I just find it odd that you want a safe space to discuss topics that affect you free from distracting pov or or a rhetoric.
Yet when we say we want a safe space to discuss topics which affect us we have a bunch of extra hoops we must jump through and a fine line to toe. Not to mention the regular TRA input calling us bigots/terf/cis and we risk permanent deletion for calling a male a man.

'It maybe called the gender pay gap but it's based on the sex of a person. Makes are paid more than females.'

Re previous posts and don't want to derail but gender pay gap is based on self reported gender. Although records are from payroll etc so a person would have to have had their work record reflecting the gender they ID as. But it is definitely not based on sex.

Over time this could well skew the stats.

Don't want to derail but it's important to know what stuff is based on. The assumption it's sex is, in this case, incorrect.

Will ignoring the sneering for the time being...
I think some of you are missing the point.

On FWR, you expect that people will jump in at any opportunity with some form of TWANW, that’s fine - that’s the status quo there and crack on! I don’t think you should be shut down or stopped talking by any stretch.

Some people however, are not as interested in that one particular topic. Either because they have different views or they simply don’t see it as the overriding factor in feminism or are just plain bored of it. So rather than expecting conversations on threads in YOUR space, to not follow a line of conversation that we all know they will follow... we are simply asking for an additional space where people can still discuss feminism, without the default being discussions around trans women.

If every post or comment in the ‘dog house’ became about dangerous dogs, some may suggest separate spaces for dog owners and those wishing to discuss dangerous dogs so that those who are seeking similar discussions can continue to do so and those who want to discuss other things can do so, too. It’s not a big deal.

Re previous posts and don't want to derail but gender pay gap is based on self reported gender.

No it's not. It's based on sex. It takes lots of factors in to account including maternity leave and motherhood since when did a gender give birth?

It takes in to account that most single parents are female so they struggle to maintain higher management positions due to childcare ect.

that’s the status quo there

It's the objective truth.

Not wanting constant trans discussions doesn’t mean we’re in denial, don’t know what a woman is, can’t ‘identify’ a woman, it means we just want to discuss women and feminism without constantly battling the ‘what is a womaaaaaaan’ crap over and over and over.

This. Exactly. We get the sex gender distinction and we are not in denial. Not being particularly interested in what you're saying (again) is really not trying to silence you.

From my POV and someone who has been here since it was all fields 😁

First there was no specific board for feminism, and threads would be started on feminist topics wherever seemed appropriate , and people who posted who had a big interest in women's rights roamed the boards freely.

There was a suggestion about having a feminism board, views were mixed. Half said why hive feminist views off they are relevant across lots of topics. Half said yes then we can talk on topic and not have to argue the same points on every thread etc.

Good points on both sides. I was in the second camp. Fwiw.

So we got the board and it was good but the downside was if anyone esp the well known feminist posters, brought up feminist viewpoint on other boards (when relevant) lots of people would say sod off to your own topic, essentially. Which is not so good.

Re liberal feminism Vs 2nd wave etc, the fact that the second viewpoints are more popular is surely not surprising on a website mostly populated by women with kids, often middle aged +? Certainly my views have hardened as I got older.

Anyway. No there shouldn't be a separate board for either libfem or GC, as they are all a part of feminism (whether you agree with them or not) and if it gets split it will be like the original split all over again.

A no from me.

Not being particularly interested in what you're saying (again) is really not trying to silence you

Actually I agree with you there.
I really am not interested in TWAW let them be posts it's boring me to death. So do you think MNHQ would delete all posts on the FWR board that state TWAW and let it be a TWAW free topic?

Pityparty I can't find the link now! It was quite definite, maybe a copy of a foi request.

I also thought it was a blunt instrument, with fairly basic data collected, not rates of maternity leave in companies etc.

I've had a Google but not much joy, do you have anything fairly easy? My industry is 40% :(

Actually forget that is totally off topic sorry!

I'll keep looking!

Pityparty, it's not that TWAW or that they are not. It's both sides of the argument. If that's the main issue in feminism for you, then go on discussing it. Why would you care that other people who aren't so interested are discussing other issues on another board? Why would that be a problem for you?

It's not a problem for me if say trans discussion was being banned from cat litter. I would agree as what real relevance does it have.

What you want is a topic within feminisim banning GC feminisit posters from mentioning trans on a thread when its relevant because the trans movement is negatively affecting abortion, women's reproductive health, women's academic places, women's jobs, women's rights the right for women to call themselves woman.

There are a fair few posters who don’t completely agree with everything on feminism chat

They aren’t yelled at, or kicked off the board or bullied

But i think the difference is that those posters may say they have no problem with transwomen in the toilets for example ...but they appreciate that other women may have a problem, and they are supportive of that

I’m wondering what those of you who “don’t want every thread hijacked” think is going on with the women who are heavily invested in the self ID debate.

Why do you think so many feminists are suddenly so focused on this issue?

banning GC feminisit posters from mentioning trans on a thread

I'm not sure what others have in mind but I wouldn't be seeking a 'ban'.

I'd hope it would work in the same way people generally aim to keep threads/posts relevant to topic as a matter of goodwill/common sense. E.g. You wouldn't post 'Recommend a good brand of cat litter' in 'The Tack Room' or 'The Dog House' even though those topics, with 'The Litter Tray' share a broader common theme of 'animal care'. (Although I am prepared to be told that's a hopelessly naive view because of the greater contentiousness surrounding FWR)

Put another way, if you have four existing topics in FWR which have a GC consensus, what would be your reason for wanting to post GC views in a fifth topic which was aimed at people who either didn't share that consensus, or did share it but didn't want to discuss it?