AIBU to ask Mumsnet to reconsider a decision

[Mummyoflittledragon]

… to relegate certain threads from the AIBU board.

I imagine AIBU is probably the most active board on Mumsnet and therefore reaches the highest audience. Now when someone creates a thread about children’s boundaries being crossed by certain people and women being scared into silence and being attacked by certain groups, the thread quickly disappears out of AIBU and onto another board.

Once off AIBU, the thread receives far less exposure thus radically reduces the possibility to offer information to the widest possible audience. Information, which could be used to help people and particularly women make safety and / or safeguarding decisions about themselves and their children.

Mumsnet to me is like the BBC (in its hey day) of parenting sites. And as Mumsnet is renowned for being such an esteemed hub for information, AIBU to ask Mumsnet to not give in to outside pressure from certain groups and to stop relegating important informational threads without looking at the wider implications.

Well, do you believe that male-sexed people have the right to undress and shower in a communal changing room with teenage girls?

I can see the deliberate attempt by some posters here to get the issue of predatory male behaviour towards women and young girls. To derail and get it moved so people cannot see just how bad it is. Trying to insinuate it's all about trans people. This is about safeguarding and it's about male behaviour. That's it. Sick of the transphobia and racism from some people here.

@DifferentHair:

Assaulting children and indecent exposure are illegal. Trans people don't have a pass.

and yet that is exactly what people are arguing for when they state TWAW, it's a lady penis, acceptance without exception, full access to all single sex women only areas. The Spa stated quite clearly that the fully genitally intact male could access the female only space where women and children are naked providing said male identified as a woman, the man in reception who argued with the woman complaining said the same that the person is transgender therefore has a free pass. No-one can confirm whether the person was trans or a chancer because no-one is allowed to query their status once the magic words have been uttered.

I'm not familiar with the details of what you're describing, just as you are not familiar with the details of thousands of sexual assaults that are committed by cis men every day but apparently aren't as critical or interesting to the GC crowd, who would rather zoom in their focus on the small minority of sexual assaults that can be attributed to a minority group and extrapolate to conclude, baselessly, that all trans people are a particular risk.

Perhaps you should familiarise yourself before shooting off at the hip. Only too well aware of the thousands of sexual assaults perpetrated against women every day by men, one small protection from them is single sex female only spaces where women and girls are likely to be in a state of undress remaining female only, no males whatever they identify as allowed in at all. No-one is saying that trans people are a particular risk, the risk is men and transwomen are male. It may be only a small number of sexual assaults committed by trans but that proves there is still a risk and why add to the already thousands, do you honestly take the view that a few more doesn't matter?

This discourse belongs on the main board, the incident involved children. Safeguarding of children should be paramount for everybody.

Well, do you believe that male-sexed people have the right to undress and shower in a communal changing room with teenage girls?

No they absolutely don't. See the point Quaggers? MALE sexed people. That's it.

Assaulting children and indecent exposure are illegal. Trans people don't have a pass.

I'm not familiar with the details of what you're describing, just as you are not familiar with the details of thousands of sexual assaults that are committed by cis men every day but apparently aren't as critical or interesting to the GC crowd, who would rather zoom in their focus on the small minority of sexual assaults that can be attributed to a minority group and extrapolate to conclude, baselessly, that all trans people are a particular risk.

Quite confused by your post.

You state you are not familiar with the details, yet remonstrate me for what... transphobia? Yet you acknowledge that trans people don't have a pass on indecent exposures...

And, in what way am I not familiar with the details of thousands of sexual assaults that are committed by men every day? I am quite surprised by that statement.

It does seem though that you are forgetting that safeguarding guidelines are actually created to protect children and women from all males, however they identify. Because they are based on statistical evidence not the desire to be 'kind' or to ignore a group because they wish to be excluded from safeguarding. And the UK statistics do not indicate that transition changes male patterns of crime.

Either way, however this male identifies, the questions remain the same.

And of course, the question of whether safeguarding issues can be discussed in AIBU.

@Etorih

I can see the deliberate attempt by some posters here to get the issue of predatory male behaviour towards women and young girls. To derail and get it moved so people cannot see just how bad it is. Trying to insinuate it's all about trans people. This is about safeguarding and it's about male behaviour. That's it. Sick of the transphobia and racism from some people here.

No males in any female only spaces where women and girls are vulnerable, in a state of undress or likely to be naked, no males, none, all males excluded. No discrimination the rule applies equally across the board to all males.

Any male attempting to access said spaces would then be clearly identified as the danger they are.

Simple, straight forward safeguarding.

No males in any female only spaces where women and girls are vulnerable, in a state of undress or likely to be naked, no males, none, all males excluded. No discrimination the rule applies equally across the board to all males.

Exactly.

@Differenthair this is about single sex space and the right of women and children not to see a penis in it.

It is not an issue about trans people or rights. If you read the whole thread you will see that.

It is however a discussion about open access policies and their impact on women and children.

This is an amazing thread on Twitter, related to this. And no, it's got nothing to do with trans. Just penises in women's spaces.

twitter.com/FemmeLoves/status/1412316271698448386?s=19

Here is the twitter thread from twitter.com/FemmeLoves/status/1412316271698448386?s=19

Femme Loves💚🤍💜

8h, 29 tweets, 6 min read

BookmarkSave as PDFMy Authors

This is a thread about why telling girls to “avert your eyes” when they see people with penises in the changing room is so wrong. It is a thread about red flags, and seeing no evil and why most people fail child safeguarding at the very first hurdle.

The sexual abuse of children thrives in the dark. Most abused children have multiple people in their life who “half know” what’s going on. Most people I have told as adults said something like “I had my suspicions.” Many people in authority had the chance to intervene and did not

For example, my father lost his teaching job for inappropriate sexual behaviour with teenage girls. He had three daughters at home, the oldest of which was a teenager. No investigation of his home life was done, he was allowed to retire quietly.

All a child abuser asks is that you politely look the other way. See no evil. Don’t cause any waves. Weesht. Just mind your business, wash your hands of it like Pontius Pilate. After all, it’s only suspicion. He’s harmless. Sure he does loads for the community, avert your eyes.

An abused child cries out to be heard, is desperate to be heard, but the things she has to tell you are horrific. An abused child demands action of you, action which may result in the fracturing of your family and your community. Easier to avert your eyes. See no evil.

I can feel it in me now, still, that desperate need to be heard, seen, believed. The loneliness of not being believed. The absolute betrayal of the adults in my life who should have protected me, and instead, protected the men abusing me. They averted their eyes.

I didn’t need to “tell” what was happening to me. Everybody knew. Instead of taking action, I was labelled a bad kid, a “terrible teenager,” because sexual abuse caused hypersexuality, and led to me seeking out situations in which I could be reabused. I was shamed for their sin.

I just accepted it – ok, I’m the bad guy. I’m a slut, I’m responsible, as a young teenager, for adult men wanting to fuck me. I didn’t have the language or understanding to explain any of it, and even if I had, I would have been blamed instead of helped. I just needed to be seen.

But nobody saw me, they just saw this terrible teenager, this slut, this lost girl who put herself in harm's way, who climbed out of her window and fucked strangers and got falling down drunk and didn't care what happened to her. Nobody really looked beyond that. Avert your eyes.

Averting your eyes is loaded language for abuse victims in another way, though. There’s a defence mechanism called dissociation which involves essentially averting your eyes from your own experience. I went away in my head.

I can remember very little of what I actually did not just when I was being abused, but of all the sex I have ever had with men as an adult. I just went away in my head. I have fractured, broken images, but mostly I averted my eyes, Elvis has left the building.

Victims’ tendency to blame ourselves for what happened is another way to avert our eyes. We can’t look squarely at a person who was supposed to protect us, and accept that they abused us instead. So I went back and forth between the poles of a Hobson’s choice.

My father used to make it feel like the sun was coming out. He sat me on his knee and sat me on his workbench and threw me in the air. I loved him. If he was a bad man, then one of the only bright spots in my childhood wasn’t real, and I had lived without love.

Easier to avert my eyes from evil, literally, to see no evil. Easier to take the shame on myself. Easier to conclude that it was me who was bad, that I deserved it. But if you see no evil, you take that evil on yourself, and live without love either way.

This aversion of the gaze is why abuse victims’ accounts of what happened to them may sound deceptive, even to professional lie detectors. Dissociation, guilt and shame conspire to make truthful narratives sound like lies, full of holes.

It is also why victims so often feel so desperate to speak, to tell the truth about what happened to them, and so desperate to be heard, to be believed. I used to feel like I was in a crowded room, screaming, but everybody just looked the other way.

The first rule of child safeguarding is that if you see a red flag, you have a duty, as an adult, to take action on it. A penis in a women’s changing room is the red flag equivalent of the Kremlin on the anniversary of Lenin’s death.

If you are swinging your dick in the women's changing room, you are not dysphoric. I am married to somebody who lives with dysphoria. If you're dysphoric, you want to hide. This is not a case of a trans person just wanting to get changed. Make no mistake, this is a pervert.

It is already flashing, which is a sexual offence. The men and women saying, without a hint of irony, “avert your eyes” are directly enabling sexual abuse. They are giving a free pass to flashers. They are emboldening perverts. They are feckless, thoughtless cowards.

They are averting their eyes, they are seeing no evil. They are excusing predators and perverts with whatever excuse seems most fitting to them. And they are encouraging others to do the same. I hope they are proud of themselves.

It couldn’t be me. I swore, before I had children, that little people would be safer around me. That I would see red flags and act on them, that I would not avert my eyes, not from what happened to me, and not from adults around me.

I am here, looking the truth in the face, and the truth is that defending flashers, perverts and molesters by saying “it’s a woman’s penis,” and doing it in public, is the exact same energy as moving paedophile priests to different parishes.

It is the exact same energy as failing to investigate the home life of a teacher who has teenage daughters, and has lost his job for interfering with teenage girls at school. It is gaslighting, it is covering up for child abuse. It is a cowardly, polite kind of evil

I will leave you with this. I have done a lot of reading about molestation and grooming, trying to understand what happened to me, and learning how to spot red flags, how to protect children. Of all that reading, one phrase stuck with me.

It was from a prolific abuser of children. He said that even if he didn’t actually get to abuse a child that he was grooming, he would “get her ready for the next guy.” Telling a child just to “avert your eyes” is getting her ready for the next guy.

It is breaking down her boundaries. It is telling her to ignore her feelings and her gut. It is gaslighting her. Child molesters are pure evil and fairly rare, but the kind of craven coward who covers for child molesters and blames the victim are ten a penny.

If you say and do these things, you should know what you are. You are Pontious Pilate. You are seeing no evil. You are looking the other way and allowing the sexual abuse of children on your watch, for woke points. I despise you.

Thanks to@JamesBarry1789who planted the seed of this thread last night with the excellent point about averting your eyes.

@PurgatoryOfPotholes

Thanks for sharing this.

Thank you for sharing @PurgatoryOfPotholes That is a truly heartbreaking piece

That is a gut wrenching reminder on where safeguarding has come from and to make sure it doesn’t fall back that way again.

Thanks for posting purgatoryofpotholes.

Thank you for posting that PurgatoryofPothole a harrowing but vitally important read.

All those who defend, deflect, dismiss or lol about what is happening, i hope you are proud of yourselves.

Gosh that is harrowing. Thank you for posting.

Something else FemmeLoves wrote, which is so true is ‘Trans people are not human shields for flashers’.

This is so true. And again why certain threads should remain in AIBU.

Wow, what a thread that is from Femme Loves.. Thanks for posting that, Potholes, so powerful.

So harrowing, and so clear-sighted.

Clear-sightedness is what we need the most right now, right here.

The willingness and ability to see what is in front of our very eyes.

And clear language to name it.

Courage and honesty are the two best weapons against abuse.

And the answer to the Staniland question is, of course, as always, a resounding, straightforward, clear NO.

YANBU, OP, and thank you for starting this very much needed thread.

the GC crowd, who would rather zoom in their focus on the small minority of sexual assaults that can be attributed to a minority group and extrapolate to conclude, baselessly, that all trans people are a particular risk.

This is, at best, a misrepresentation, but really, just a lie.

Interesting my post was deleted. I wonder which part broke guidelines. There was no personal attack or anything else. Inflammatory maybe? Because I’m angry at those who wish to minimise this issue? Who knows .

Those who think we shouldn’t focus on a single incident and keep it in its niche space if we want to discuss it, can you please outline how many children need to be exposed to a male’s penis in a female space before it qualifies for mainstream discussion?

Is it 10 children?
100?
1000?

What’s the threshold for when this can be validly discussed outside of the normal places?

There are myriad threads which basically boil down to

So? What's it to you what other people think? Scroll past. Your contempt for the feelings, consent and beliefs of other women is palpable.

Do you think that many different posters posting their opinions means 'shouting'? Genuine question? Do you think once someone has stated an opinion no-one else should question it or agree with it?

I honestly can't understand this mentality that you shouldn't have to read people that disagree with you because it's aggressive or shouting or what have you.

This. Get over yourselves, FFS and recognise that other people have different beliefs to you, when most of the people wailing about transphobia have zero regard for other women's rights and are happy to throw us all under the bus. Stop trying to censor others. You don't have to agree. You don't have to read it if you don't want to. Grow up and move on.

This. Get over yourselves, FFS and recognise that other people have different beliefs to you

I completely agree, but I find that completely at odds with your usual statements!
Unless you've had an about turn or change of heart or whatever.

there are myriads of threads basically boiling down to

What?? Whether or not it is ok for a pervert to take all his clothes off and sit down naked next to a 8/9 year old, naked girl in a jacuzzi???

Is this so common that we have stopped discussing it?

Basically putting his exposed penis about 50cm from her face if she was sitting down when he came in?

Why is this ok? Why can’t we discuss it??

Male exposes genitals in front of unwilling women and children, who are also put it in a position where they are exposing their own bodies. We have absolutely no idea if this person is trans or not.

Women used to be able to say 'there's someone who shouldn't be in there, exposing themselves, can you get them out please?'. Enough women felt uncomfortable with this situation to leave the area to complain to reception. But are then called 'transphobic' and 'a dick' by a member of the public in the reception area for raising concerns because the person exposing themselves 'might be trans'. The women have no recourse and are now being told by newspapers and social commentators that it's a moral panic, that they should just look away, that they shouldn't use spas then.

Do people commentating on this thread who believe that the whole thing is transphobic in nature really not think that sexual predators, however they identify, will take advantage of situations like this?