To want to know more about Amazon UK and it's defunding or otherwise of Mumsnet?

[12boo]

I saw (via twitter) that a spokesperson for audible has made some unpleasant remarks about MN users and they have pulled their MN advertising after complaints from "trans activists" that MN is a hive of "transphobic bigots" so I have cancelled my audible subscription because I find MN enormously supportive and I don't want to support a company that vows so readily to the "born in the wrong body- men are women if they say so" cult.
No clear response has come from Amazon itself in this matter. Does anyone know what their position is? TIa

AskingQuestionsAllTheTime

You articulated it far better than me

And as for ‘can people provide example
Send a link ‘

I have been seeing this for YEARS now.
Years and years this has been going on
So not I can’t provide a link , or quotes

But when Numerous reasonable and sensible posters All
Consistently say we have seen transphobic comments , I think we deserve to be believed

As another moderate voice i would just like to pick up on the trans child/tent comment

From what ive seen the vast vast vast majority, if not all, posters on the FWR board have no problem with confused 12 year olds...some of them have one

They have a problem with the organisation behind those decisions and the choices that organisation has made

Its the adults that bear responsibility...not the children

People have spent years caveating their posts with not all transpeople

Oh should say that quite obviously its perception that counts in these sorts of issues

When quite obviously it shouldn’t...but virtually all of us do it, its very human

Tilder

It’s such a new topic I agree

And so many shades of grey

A convicted rapist who decided they are ‘female’
A 12 year old who are confused and unhappy and have been for many years
A fairly stable TP who made their decision over a decade ago and live their life in (relative) peace
An agressive TRA who spend their time inciting hate online and bullying lesbians
A 55 year old who after decades decide they have to make a change for their own sanity

All very very different

That's not the majority view, though. For most of us it goes like this:

• Most physical violence is committed by males
• Males are on average stronger than females so the damage a male can do to a female is considerably worse than the other way around
• Males commit almost all sexual crime

Therefore:

It's important for women and girls to be able to get away from males to do things that make them vulnerable, e.g. getting changed, going to the loo, having a smear test.

It's important for women and girls to have female-only spaces to recover after domestic or sexual violence, and so that women from some strict religious communities have places they're allowed to go to.

It's not all about violence. There's also privacy, respect and equality of opportunity to consider.

It's important for women and girls to have separate sporting competitions and records so they have a realistic chance of winning against people of comparable anatomy. In the case of contact sports it's essential for the safety of participants that they're segregated by sex as well as by age and in some cases weight.

It's important for women and girls to have some separate scholarships, selection panels and so forth so that there is a mechanism to increase representation of women and girls in male-dominated areas like the House of Commons and STEM courses and jobs.

It's important for women and girls who are same-sex attracted, i.e. lesbians, to have support and social groups which are female-only.

It's important for women and girls to have issues that only or disproportionately affect females openly discussed and to have research done into medical problems, laws and policies made to combat discrimination, improve health outcomes etc etc, and not to be shouted down as exclusionary for wanting these things to be addressed.

Transwomen are males. Nobody thinks that transwomen as a class are more dangerous than other males, but there's no evidence that identifying as trans changes male pattern behaviour. If all males are justifiably excluded from something, that should include transwomen

Also, if self ID is acceptable, there's no obvious way to tell who's a genuine transwoman and who's a non-transwoman chancing his arm.

The confused 12yo male child who now identifies as a transgirl is probably no danger to anyone, but I'm afraid there are 12yo boys who commit sexual crimes, e.g. voyeurism, inappropriate touching. Sexual violence is on the increase in our schools and is not being taken seriously enough.

If we exclude all the other 12yo boys from the girls' changing room we should be doing the same for the transgirl. The girls need privacy and safety just as much as the transgirl.

A third space is perhaps the way forward there, although my preferred option would be to work with the boys (and girls) on learning to accept gender nonconforming behaviour.

although my preferred option would be to work with the boys (and girls) on learning to accept gender nonconforming behaviour.

Yes, absolutely

The overriding negative language and basically assuming evil intent from every single trans person is exactly why MN is getting suck a bad rep here ("such" a bad rep, perhaps?)

I would take issue with this being a valid reputation because I have not seen assumptions that all trans people are of evil intent.

What I have seen is concern that people who are not trans but actually fully male will take advantage of the present "we must be nice to these poor abused trans people who are more oppressed than anyone else ever has been in the whole history of the entire world" climate to get sexual gratification from abusing women while claiming to be the women's victims. If transpeople read "we don't accept sexual assault" as meaning "we dislike all trans people", I think it says rather more about their idea of how transwomen behave than it does about how this this board thinks all transwomen behave. (I have never seen anything at all that was opposed to transmen, so "trans people" is ingenuous there.)

People like Karen White are a genuine risk to the health and safety of women, and their sexual assaults on vulnerable women have been being sanctioned by authorities who really ought to know better, just because these predators are able to play the "pity the poor trans!" card and somehow thereby justify rape. This understandably worries a number of people of both sexes, and so it should!

Women cannot use a penis to rape anyone, because they don't have a penis to do it with; I think most women can tell the difference between a rapist and a transwoman, and do not (even on these evil boards) get the two confused.

The reputation, of course, is caused by and prevalent among people who despise women anyway on autopilot and are delighted to have a reason to slag them off. That is as standard as woman having a reputation as gold-diggers (among men who are kept by women), women having a reputation as airheads (among men who can't do basic maths), women having a reputation as bad drivers (among men who had not noticed that women got cheaper car insurance because they were safer drivers), the assumption that women's brains are inferior because they are smaller (among men who, erm, can't do basic maths), the assumption that women are in all ways inferior to men -- there is nothing to be done about basic misogyny and men vilifying women, because they do it. Some of them, anyway; mostly ones whose opinion is not worth a row of beans. This tendency is also displayed by men in frocks who wear too much make-up because they think that is what Real Women do rather than being rocket scientists or research chemists or air traffic controllers, to mention the careers of three women I know. They are just men, with male attitudes, whatever they are using to cover their nakedness with.

my preferred option would be to work with the boys (and girls) on learning to accept gender nonconforming behaviour.

That's what we were trying to do in the sixties and seventies. It didn't work: the pink-or-blue stereotyping has got worse, not better, in the fifty years since. In the eighties my male and female children were able to wear similar clothes to each other (t-shirts, jeans, shorts, sandals in summer) and have their hair cut short so it wasn't a nuisance to them; my female grandchild wears shoes with a heel, skirts and frilly shirts, and has long hair "because that's what girls do". AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!!!!!!!

It's bizarrre, isn't it, Asking! It manifestly isn't what grown women do, over the age of 40 (say), anyway. I see loads of older women with short hair and the older the woman is the more likely it is that her hair will be short. But when you look at children, teenage girls and young women, short hair is so unusual that it gets remarked on, even though for those of school age it must be a pain in the neck to deal with the headlice risk and all the extra work of keeping it clean, tidy, off the face for school and (by the teens) appropriately styled to fit in with the oppressive norms.

And that's just the hair on the head. There are so many more expectations. It's no wonder some young women whose lack of interest in all this stuff would have passed totally unremarked in decades gone by find themselves questioning if they really are women.

AskingQuestionsAllTheTime

I am afraid your post landed for me as MN Trans phobia typical bingo

(1) usage of the term men in frocks

(2) a sweeping generalisation saying
we must be nice to these poor abused trans people who are more oppressed than anyone else ever has been in the whole history of the entire world

Which is NOT my view , never has been and never will be

But lastly and most pertinently the mention of one name in your argument
karen white

I wasn’t 100% sure so I googled and yes ! Your one named individual happens to be a prison rapist . Of course , they get thrown into every conversation .
So yes too many red flags 🚩 for me there

Let’s agree to disagree

It's not like Karen White's case is a trivial overblown concern, though, is it? There's a real problem with male prisoners identifying as transwomen and seeking transfer to the female prison estate. The safety and privacy of female prisoners has not seemed to be taken as seriously as what these male prisoners want.

This has been a recurring theme in all sorts of fields - sport, education, women's refuges, healthcare, lesbian groups, all-women shortlists. Women urged to be kind and make room, putting their own preferences and needs to one side, men berating them as bigots if they have the temerity to say 'no' or even 'hang on a minute ...' and meanwhile doing absolutely nothing to challenge the gender stereotyping that had led us all into the present position.

As for 'men in frocks' - I can see why some people find this offensive, but it is a shorthand way of expressing frustration with the anti-science view that says being a woman is all about external appearance, being emotional and other harmful stereotypes, instead of a matter of fact acceptance that homo sapiens is like all the other mammals - two sex classes for reproductive purposes, and the class with the anatomy to produce large gametes and do the gestation is female.

The poster you're responding too pretty clearly thinks the concerns about Karen White are overblown gasp0de. It would be so much more convenient if you could just not bring it up.

Yes, I'll just slap my own wrist, BlackberryCane. Silly old me thinking there was public interest in a convicted rapist carrying out several other sexual assaults while detained at Her Majesty's pleasure.

The poster you're responding too pretty clearly thinks the concerns about Karen White are overblown

Untrue and incorrect
I think it’s disgusting , can’t think of anyone who wouldn’t

I do however resent having this name chucked into every single conversation on the topic
This vile individual shouldn’t be thrown like a hand grenade into every single conversation on the topic , as probably the vilest example

I just thinks it’s a sad ‘own goal’

Mumsnet is actually a safe place for women and one that is used On a daily basis . Most pertinently for domestic abuse issues.
It helped me and is probably helping someone right now

But using terms like ‘men in frocks’ means that any searcher can find this term and use this as an excuse to accuse this site of being transphobic. Maybe unfairly

So own goal

I don't know what is transphobic any more. I have no problem with people who want to change their sexual characteristics, and do so. I also have no problem with men who want to wear womens clothes and inhabit an entirely female persona. Why would I? I live in a man's world after all, so I spend most of my time trying to be a man in order to avoid all the sexism and be more successful. But the moment the law allows anyone who says they are a woman into a woman's refuge, then I don't quite get how that is supposed to work. The law is a blunt instrument and individual situations are not well solved by changing the law. Why is that transphobic?

I used the phrase "men in frocks" as an exact description of the sort of nit-wit to whom I was referring; the sort of silly little person who wears a white linen suit with a short skirt to a barbecue in a garden, unlike the two other transwomen who were there in jeans and t-shirts because that was more appropriate to the occasion. (She knew exactly what the particular barbecue would be like, because he had been to barbecues held by the same people when he was being male, so she had precious little excuse.)

And who (oh god) simpers.

I have no time for anyone of any sex, race, colour, creed or species who simpers.

anyone adult: a child of five might get away with it because they are too young to know any better....

People seem to get called transphobic in MN just because they express their opinion. I’m not going to get into what my views are on the trans movement but everyone has the right to think what they think.

That sounds awfully like policing what women should and shouldn't be wearing.
What on earth is wrong with wearing a skirt suit?
You should be able to wear what you bloody well like, unless there was a dress code of only jeans type clothing.

@fuckinghellthisshit

‘It is not transphobic to think it is impossible to change biology sex.’

Yes! I’ve been called transphobic for daring to suggest this to my sister 😆

Men are and always will be men - even if they have bits of paper and surgery to appear different.
Women are and always will be women - even if they have bits of paper and surgery to appear different.

COVID knows this
maybe people should learn from a virus

I do however resent having this name chucked into every single conversation on the topic. This vile individual shouldn’t be thrown like a hand grenade into every single conversation on the topic , as probably the vilest example

That means you think the concerns are overblown then thisisworsethananticipated. You've just spelled it out, again, very clearly.

The woke brigade doesn’t like the phrase “men in frocks” because it’s much to clear s as NC straightforward. They rely on Orwellian language and double think to push this stuff through. The more out in the open the conversation becomes, the more pushback there is. (Very much the OPPOSITE of discussions about civil rights, apartheid and gay marriage I might add. This is not the same and second rate politicians who don’t think it through and jump on the bandwagon are getting their asses handed to them on a plate by the electorate.)