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.

@Helleofabore

=/=

What does this symbol mean?

It means "does not equal". Making the sentence grammatically nonsensical, but I'm too polite to point that out.

What i was objecting to was the posters conflating Trans Women=/= pervert

Who was that?

scuse me for using the wrong symbol, jeez. it was a missed edit as i changed what i was saying and forgot to change the =/= to an = on its own.

This is why people don't want to talk or discuss anything on here, because you get ripped to shreds like you've personally affronted someone or made a huge irretrievable error.

Back to the point in hand.

It's one of those rock/hard place things isn't it, and there is no clear answer if people want to be inclusive, or not fall foul of equality laws... so your either left with the frankly irritating options of either a blanket rule that the spa is unisex and therefore everyone needs to either a) accept they'll see penis, or b)wear swimwear.
or
make the ban about genitalia and ban any person with a penis of any variety from entering the space.

Until the laws change, there isn't much else anyone can do, is there?

I'm really not seeing any suggestion from the other side that won't fall foul of current equality laws on how to resolve this either.

Could you answer the question please, or retract the statement that people on the thread are conflating MTF trans people with perverts?

Again, as in other areas of the site, especially other AIBU threads, if you say something that doesn't make sense people will comment on it, quite often negatively.

What i was objecting to was the posters conflating Trans Women=/= pervert

Who was that?

No one in good faith. It’s a straw man deployed by gender ideologists to misrepresent what GC people are actually saying.

The GC points are (1) males perpetrate far more sexual assaults than females and there is no evidence that trans women follow female pattern rather than male*. (2) Even if TW do follow the female pattern, since there is no objective criteria for whether a male is a trans woman or not, there’s no way to allow the safe TW entry but bar the dangerous males.

This gets misrepresented as “GC say trans women are perverts” by ideologists who prefer that their followers only hear GC arguments through their own distorted filter than risk them hearing what GC women are really saying, and so becomes a “known fact” in TRA echo chambers.

• Prison stats suggest TW are actually more likely to be sex offenders than other males but I think (hope) that’s more to do with the incentives for male prisoners to identify as trans than a true correlation.

@Blibbyblobby

This gets misrepresented as “GC say trans women are perverts” by ideologists who prefer that their followers only hear GC arguments through their own distorted filter than risk them hearing what GC women are really saying, and so becomes a “known fact” in TRA echo chambers.

Very well put.

why should i retract it? If you haven't made that assumption, then it doesn't apply to you, so ignore it.

No one in good faith. It’s a straw man deployed by gender ideologists to misrepresent what GC people are actually saying.

I agree.

why should i retract it? If you haven't made that assumption, then it doesn't apply to you, so ignore it.

I haven't seen anyone "make the assumption". Without the evidence apparently on this thread that you seem somehow unwilling to provide, it smacks of a dog whistle to smear women because you don't have an argument.

I think you know that there is no obvious way to tell the difference between one male who is a pervert and another who is not. And it's all academic because women's rights to privacy and dignity should be paramount.

@Ereshkigalangcleg

why should i retract it? If you haven't made that assumption, then it doesn't apply to you, so ignore it.

I haven't seen anyone "make the assumption". Without the evidence apparently on this thread that you seem somehow unwilling to provide, it smacks of a dog whistle to smear women because you don't have an argument.

No it doesn't.. ftr, i will say i haven't directly seen anyone say it that i recall, but when i posted it, i was responding to a general line of questioning going on where the subject of trans women and male perverts popped up, and there was that general air of assumption in preceeding posts.

IF no-one HAS directly said it, then i will rescind it with apologies.

I'm certainly not following any kind of agenda, or trying to 'smear' anyone.

Ignoring that part of my post, can we return to the point of the discussion?

People need to learn the difference between Trans Woman, and Pervert.

This is impossible to do until after the fact. That's why we have certain sex-segregated spaces and safeguarding procedures. The point is to prevent things from happening before they happen. Why is this difficult to understand? Put aside your politics for a moment and realise why this is crucial for the safety of women and girls.

The male-bodied person in question in the moved thread is most likely a pervert.

So what should have been done to prevent him sitting next to a little girl with his cock out? If he identifies as a women that's lovely for him. But he still has a cock and bollocks... soo... what do we do? There's no perverted screening process that can happen at the door. The women and girls in that space had a right not to see a naked man amongst them. That was violated.

There is nothing inherantly sexual about nudity, the human body is the human body.

That's a sweet thought, but untrue. We're sexual beings. In some cases men and women require privacy and separate spaces from each other. It's not prudish, it's sensible.

I've never seen anyone on MN posting on FWR in good faith who thinks that all MTF trans people are perverts. It's not what I or anyone else I know believe. Women should be able to have female spaces without the presence of males. Any males, however lovely or bashful.

Blibbyblobby

I agree. However, I did want to know if Batsy had seen this specifically or whether this was, as you say, another attempt to discredit people stating that boundaries have been well and truly crossed here.

The hyperbole rolled out across this thread by those seeking to discredit some very well informed answers has been quite eye opening.

It is quite noticeable after coming off the FWR boards where the generalisations such as being deployed here would earn a poster a strike and then a ban. What makes it clear I guess, is if a reader is aware of this they see the clear double standard.

All the hyperbolic claims makes the prejudice against voices that are reasoning that this is a safeguarding issues much clearer.

@GromblesofGrimbledon

"The women and girls in that space had a right not to see a naked man amongst them. That was violated"

I don't disagree, 9yo child aside, it was basically public unsolicited dick pic in person :/

I wish i knew the answer, i do believe in Trans folx having rights, but like a lot of people, i'm as puzzled as the next person on how to resolve the female bodied right to private, single biological sex spaces, with not making Trans women (or men) feel excluded or discriminated against.

(And apologies if words are out of place, i have ADHD and quite often i find getting my thoughts rounded up and in a straight line so they make sense a little difficult, as when i'm typing stuff out, another shiny new thought will pop in and derail things )

So, do you think it is ok to imply as you have, and like many other posters on this thread, that people arguing for stronger safeguarding measures to prevent this from happening again are hateful, when no one has?

Because, if someone posted this, it would be deleted. Generalisations such as that about trans people are deleted.

Generalisations about women discussing these topics are left to stand. Bit of a double standard really.

@Batsy

(And apologies if words are out of place, i have ADHD and quite often i find getting my thoughts rounded up and in a straight line so they make sense a little difficult, as when i'm typing stuff out, another shiny new thought will pop in and derail things )

Apologies Batsy. I have read this after I posted.

ITs ok, and no, i do not think they're hateful at all, so again, i apologise if that's how it came across.

I've been trying to find a way to make more clear what i was trying to get at, and failing.. and more or less digging myself a hole.

batsy it’s difficult when its words on a screen

Both ways 😀

Batsy I think you have the same view as most people. That you want to be inclusive and kind to trans people but that there is a conflict with the rights of women and girls to privacy and dignity.

What's the LA thing? I must have missed it!

Batsy you've nailed what the problem is, and at least you are honest about not having an answer - because it is one of those sort of paradoxical situations. One may wish to allow one sort of male into a female space but anywhere you try and draw a line seems unfair or problematic and in any case goes against what ppl are now saying is an invisible internal sense of gender, which can only ever be self-reported.

There are GRCs, which make a difference in e.g. women's prisons but there are campaigns to remove any procedure around acquiring these (which involve invoking horribly stereotypical and nonsensical assumptions about what "living as a woman" constitutes).

And yet still we are called vitriolic bigots for attempting to even discuss it, untangle the knots in the problem.

@lllllllllll

What's the LA thing? I must have missed it!

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4281706-pushback-at-wi-spa-in-los-angeles