AIBU to think women should not be banned from Social media for asking the question - Thread 2

[Thewithesarehere]

Many women have been suspended from sm for asking the question:
“Do you believe that male sexed people should be allowed access to changing rooms and showers for female sexed people and teenagers?”
Seems like a perfectly reasonable question which we should be allowed to ask.

Let’s vote with our AIBU.

Yes I'll stop too. Sorry for the off topic.

Current voting status is an all time high I think.

unherd.com/2021/01/for-clinton-feminists-not-all-women-are-equal/?tl_inbound=1&tl_groups%5B0%5D=18743&tl_period_type=3

This new essay on The Unherd might interest some of you - it talks about the intersection of liberal US feminism, class and gender.

Some insight into ‘how we got here’ I think.

OvaHere

Thanks.. That is a nice yacht. And is definitely more neutral than was available when my daughter was into Lego. It does seem that the Friends sets have improved and I see that the current 'pizza' sets have both sexes.

I never policed toy choices on any thing other than age /ability suitability.

Pretty much. Encouraged diversity where ever was possible.

Although I do have more lego than I'd like

So much lego...fire stations,.police stations, Harry Potter House, friends pool, helicopters , police planes...

Should be renamed lego planet

Although I do have more lego than I'd like

Is that possible?
LF wasn't around when DD was the age for it, she had some sets of the even pinker 'Belleville' range - alongside loads of general structural bricks, a cool insects set etc. In her teens she had the robotics stuff, which got dug out just ahead of going to uni as it's what they used for the week one icebreaker labs.

She preferred k'nex (awesome for building structures and simple machines) and electronics stuff though. There is more to life than Lego!

Including comments such as i deserve to watch my child be raped with their girl dick, the usual rape threats against me etc.

They make me absolutely sick. As does anyone in the authorities who minimises this kind of direct threats (isn't there a criminal offence of behaviour likely to constitute harrassment, alarm or distress)? Yet the Humberside 'police' force can happily ring a law-abiding citizen telling him they want to 'check his thinking' because he's clicked 'like' on a transphobic limerick. He hadn't even written this material himself, mind, just 'liked' it.

Then there is a respected member of this site blacklisted for hate speech, having not been accused, tried or convicted of any crime, because someone saw fit to report her on Twitter for asking similarly moderate questions about women and safeguarding. The historical parallels of the kind of people who kept similar blacklists in the last century make for sober reflection.

Yet a hideous threat like made against someone's child is apparently quite acceptable and it was (as ever) the woman's fault for daring to exercise her entitlement to freedom of speech. Surely to God there is going to be a backlash of gargantuan proportions against this wholesale silencing and cancellation of women as a group? What more glaring example of bigotry could you find? You have to hand it to the TRAs: their institutional capture is like nothing a society set up to benefit men could ever have been achieved by women, and they have got DARVO down to a fine art.

Glenthebattleostrich -

@lifeturnsonadime

But they just said she was transphobic, by and large, but do they really think that?

She's not saying anything different. She's talking about women's rights.

@lifeturnsonadime reading her essay - is there any transphobia in it do you think? www.jkrowling.com/opinions/j-k-rowling-writes-about-her-reasons-for-speaking-out-on-sex-and-gender-issues/ For this, there were people bad mouthing her, burning her books, threatening her, some of the staff at her publishers walked out. Every reference to Rowling now mentions her trans views. Would any thoughtful, rational, frankly intelligent person, think this remotely fair? I obviously have my thougths on the subject. But this is it in plain sight.

@JoyousAsOtters

unherd.com/2021/01/for-clinton-feminists-not-all-women-are-equal/?tl_inbound=1&tl_groups%5B0%5D=18743&tl_period_type=3

This new essay on The Unherd might interest some of you - it talks about the intersection of liberal US feminism, class and gender.

Some insight into ‘how we got here’ I think.

This all leaves American supporters of women’s rights in a bit of a bind. Trump may have grabbed ‘em by the pussy, and bragged about it in a repulsive way. But is it really better to be governed by an administration that lacks even The Donald’s (apparent literal) grasp of female anatomy?

Great point.

And on the subject of reasons why people don't speak out, some more examples: Prof Selina Todd at Oxford Uni now teaches with security I believe. There was a Cambridge Councillor who spoke up for women - he was a porter at one of the colleges, a vocal element of the student body called for his sacking. A cafe owner in Brighton has been targeted by activists for refusing to put up a poster asking for donations to someone's "top surgery". This is the atmosphere, it is why people don't speak up. It is so much easier to ignore. But if we didn't all ignore in en masse, much easier to support each other. There is the example of Nicola Sturgeon's twitter speech last night. The capture of our culture is almost complete and it has been under the radar of most of the women busy bringing up kids. Most journalists wont touch it. Suzanne Moore at the guardian was great, but bullied out. The papers reporting on this are The Times and The Spectator. Take a look at the BBC offering for kids.

YANBU. I am on a journey learning about this thanks to the very eloquent posters on the feminism board. What I've come to realise is - if you question it, you're transphobic and shut down, and also the fact that shared spaces etc always seems to come at a cost to the women. I don't have a problem with a shared/common space, as long as it's not at the expense of the current single sex space.

The violence I've seen on twitter has shocked me to the core.

I think it is high time that MN reviewed and revised the guidelines on these topics, in order to allow topics to be discussed properly, without having to twisting our words about

Agree fully with that too. This linguistic contortionism has only been made necessary by language policing to the nth degree. T S Eliot was pretty prescient when he wrote of 'that intolerable wrestle with words and meanings'. It's fucking exhausting. This ideology has an entire vocabulary of its own that's now being foisted on wider society against the will (or at least the interests) of at least half of it. One where women are no longer women but reduced to chopped-up little bits of our anatomy: exactly the way some misogynists refer to women as 'cunts'.

Is this really how far society has regressed?

Just catching up. I'm learning so much from this thread (and the one from yesterday).
@MoleSmokes that video was eye-opening.

I've been getting more and more concerned about the outright nasty punditing on Facebook and Twitter by someone (non-trans, male) who even two years ago I would have considered to be a close friend. At first I agreed with him but then gradually his views started getting more and more radical. Anyone says anything at all and he's kicking off about how much he wants to "Punch A Terf". Anyone (female) questioning the trans ideology is a Terf in his mind. Of course, by definition, men can't be Terfs so that works out well, doesn't it? He now goes out of his way to find GC women, ideally academics (he's an academic too) and attack them on Twitter.

Why is he allowed to speak his mind and publicly say such vile, vitriolic, hateful things about my gender that I was born in and have no control over, and yet I'm not allowed to respond at all without the wrath of Khan coming down on me?

I have a lot to learn about all this, but I feel very angry that he can say what he wants and anyone who even questions it is silenced and accused of "hate speech".

@PinkFondantFancy - sadly this is all about so much more than space, but have tea for your journey, it is a bumpy ride.

I recently read a new policy at work in relation to trans employees. It said that at whatever stage of transition people are at, they can use whichever bathroom they choose.

That was it. No consultation with all employees. Just a sweeping, here you go this is how it is. No regard for how a woman who may have experienced sexual violence may feel about a man in the toilet with her, as an example.

My reaction startled myself actually. Because I so strongly felt that it was wrong that female employees were not given a voice on the issue.

I can’t speak up on this issue at work, because my employers are holding the image of the only visible trans person in the company up on the internal intranet, LinkedIn, media etc as a sort of token placard to show that they’re inclusive.

The image is like a shield against the views of women. Because you can’t argue against the guy in heels and a skirt, paired with a suit jacket and tie can you?! Because then you’re transphobic rather than pissed off that as a woman your voice wasn’t regarded highly enough to be invited to the conversation. But the guy in the skirt gets to control the narrative.

"People are up in arms that social media is cracking down on hate speech"

Standing up for women's sex-based rights is not hate speech

Standing up for women's sex-based rights is not hate speech

Indeed, and men shouldn't be banned from SM for doing it either.

The violence I've seen on twitter has shocked me to the core.

@PinkFondantFancy me too. Right now, it feels like some men out there have just been waiting for an excuse to attack women using a means where there's no comeback on them at all. It reminds me of that scene in Mars Attacks where the alien goes "we come in peace" while shooting everyone in sight with a laser gun.

• I recently read a new policy at work in relation to trans employees. It said that at whatever stage of transition people are at, they can use whichever bathroom they choose.

That was it. No consultation with all employees. Just a sweeping, here you go this is how it is. No regard for how a woman who may have experienced sexual violence may feel about a man in the toilet with her, as an example. *

About 30 years ago, DH worked on a site occupied by various companies. An employee of one decided to 'transition'. There was apparently a lot of discussion about the toilet arrangements. It was, iirc, settled simply enough by re labelling one loo just as 'Toilet'. Apart from it being in different times, it may have been relevant that it was historically a very male dominated sector, in which awareness of women as a discriminated-against minority would presumably have factored into the decision.

@lifeturnsonadime

But they just said she was transphobic, by and large, but do they really think that?

She's not saying anything different. She's talking about women's rights.

She's talking about women's rights.

Why have women had to fight for rights for hundreds of years? It's because it's an uphill struggle. We are all are born into a sexist society. We're swimming upstream.

Some men fight for women. Many men don't even notice that women's rights need fighting for. And some others actively fight against women.

The latter are absolutely loving an ideology that has been painted as progressive, tied to gay rights, and looks kind, but still sticks it to women.

Getting praise and back pats for upholding sexism and misogyny. It's a dream.

There are, of course, some men who are speaking up for women, but many others don't even notice. You have a hard enough time convincing your average man that women are disadvantaged, without trying to convince them that something that doesn't affect them, and they don't really care about, needs relentless defending please.

The issue of sport is creating a bit more of a kerfuffle. Because understanding competition and fairness in sport is fairly universal. But then again, it doesn't really affect men, does it? You don't see any transmen affecting men's sporting achievements.

So in answer to your question, most men, and some women, too, aren't invested in women and their rights. Men are the ones with all the power, after all. They could have changed it any time they liked. Why start now?

The flip side to that is that this issue is making many women far more aware of how sexist our society is. It's creating new feminists at a rate of knots.

It's no coincidence that the feminist boards are getting busier and busier.

When I first joined mumsnet, I didn't know anything about this. I quickly acquired late onset feminism. As anyone will tell you, it's highly contagious.

By framing the thread as a debate about 'hate speech'. The question is in the OP and is clearly not IN ANY WAY 'hate speech'.

Isnt that subjective?

Many women have been suspended from sm for asking the question

What do you think a private company should do if someone breaks the TOS? Should it be ignored just because you agree with the sentiments? Plenty of people agreed with Trump do you think it was right to ban him?

Isnt that subjective?

Describe how it could be construed as "hate speech"?

Is the Equality Act 2010 also "hate speech"?

Of course a private company can enforce its rules.

But I find it strange that the question in the OP cannot be asked - whilst at the same time Twitter allows other users to post threats with “lady diques” and conversations between “minor attracted individuals”.

It is a mystery what is considered hateful and what is not....