Feminism Boards

[Superlambaanana]

Whats the difference between the Feminism Chat board and the Feminism Sex and Gender board?

There's a thread on the Chat board about the Girl Guides' trans policy- surely that should be on the Sex and Gender board? And I see threads about discrimination against women on the Sex and Gender board which aren't related to gender (in the trans sense).

Maybe it doesn't matter.

Or maybe the Sex and Gender board isn't intended to be exclusively about trans issues as feminism is obviously a sex based issue.

Or maybe the trans issue is now so entangled that it's impossible to have a discussion about feminism without referring to it, but I do hope that's not the case!

Wouldn't it make more sense to have a board for trans related discussions and a separate one for all other feminist discussions?

The trans issue takes up a lot of airtime here and seems to be drowning out other discussions about feminism- discrimination, women's rights, women's history, feminist literature etc etc. I'd welcome a break from the constant head fuck of the trans debate which I believe is, in itself, a form of discrimination against women as it is forcing us to spend so much time talking about men's desired rights!

There was a big push to split the boards a couple of years or so ago- not by regular posters I don't think but by people who said they wanted to post regularly but couldn't because issues arising from the debate about what women actually are were hindering discussion - at the time many people said it wasn't obvious which feminist topics didn't boil down to Sex and Gender so you'd have people arguing over which board they went on.

Yes, it's an important and immediate facet of women's rights, but there are plenty of men out there who don't identify as women who are perpetrating violence against women; indirectly perpetuating inequality; and directly conspiring to keep women down.

Data shows that there is an increase of women perpetrating violence against women; indirectly perpetuating inequality; and directly conspiring to keep women down.

Only they aren't women are they. They are men who identify as women. If data is corrupt, how can collate evidence to illustrate how women are discriminated against? If all women shortlists contain men who identify as women, how we challenge that?

We need to sort out the 'men are not and never can be women' facts first imo.

It's not necessarily "trans" but if no-one can even agree what group of people we are talking about when we say the word "women" then it results in talking at cross purposes. Is a woman a female or someone (male or female) with a certain type of personality/ feelings/ appearance/ preferences/ behavioural traits / abilities etc?

And there have been loads of great threads about e.g girls reclaiming spaces, how we can support women and girls in less privileged countries, experiences of being a gay woman, workplace and training discussions - I think to ignore those is to do the boards a disservice. And often those topics are based in feminism but aren't even posted on the Feminism section at all!

Given the tiny proportion of trans people it's still going to be a 99% liklihood that somebody described as female is a biological female. The trans lobby can only ever have a limited scope of impact due to their tiny numbers, even if they're extremely vocal.

how we can support women and girls in less privileged countries

I daresay the trans debate is the last thing on most of these women's minds. In the type of countries where gay people are thrown off buildings or put in prison the trans lobby are likely to be keeping their heads down.

Not when it comes to violent crime or sex crime, it seems. The number of male crimes described as being perpetrated by "women" is disgusting.

As women almost never commit these crimes, it takes very few trans identifying male offenders to completely skew the data.

Yes, that's what I mean. Discussions about the things I mentioned, and not gender identities, which have been posted on either board.

But you have demonstrated how trying to talk about them seems to invite comment on "the trans debate".

That's a fair point but you can almost always tell they're not a real woman when you see the article. In terms of stats it's kind of annoying but what are stats really good for anyway other than arguing about which sex is most violent - which will always still be men statistically.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean here.

Stats are enormously important. Read Invisible Women if you need convincing how crucial it is to keep sex-disaggregated data. (Read it anyway, it you haven’t already, it’s a game changer

Stats are what we use to predict what services are needed and where, how populations are changing, where needs are not being met and where new problems are arising.

Thanks, I'll look it up. I still think the number of transwomen won't remotely outweigh more general male violence patterns, but I agree that in certain specific areas it could defo skew things - i.e. things like sex crimes.

Most serious, right thinking people are not taken in by the inane ranting of cartoon profiled, multi hair coloured man babies with a weird sexual fetish.

This is transphobic, and reductive.

Also go talk to the women for eg sharing a female prison estate with a male offender, or women who can’t access rape support services because those services believe TWAW so have transwomen ie male staff and/or service users.
And I wouldn’t describe Stephen Whittle (look up Press for Change) as a “multi hair coloured man babies”.

I also don't believe trans women will eventually take over from women in the workplace because employers will want to save on maternity cover. To suggest nonsense like this does a disservice to the genuine concerns about single sex spaces and women's sports, and gives non-feminists a reason to ridicule feminism and perpetuate the hysterical trope.

This is sexist, and shortsighted.
There was a board of directors that had a 50\50 quota but also believed TWAW so 50% men and 50% transwomen was all dandy thank you.
Go chat to the women who don’t have a female only Hampstead Heath pond to swim in, even though there are 3. 1 men only, 1 mixed, 1 women only, but the ponds believe TWAW, and there is at least 1 v vocal, probably quite well known transwoman who uses the women’s pond, and probably others who don’t crow about it on X.

Most serious, right thinking people are not taken in by the inane ranting of cartoon profiled, multi hair coloured man babies with a weird sexual fetish.
You'd hope not, but most of my friends and family have been convinced that human hermaphrodites exist and that male criminals should be allowed to do their time in women's prisons if they claim to feel like women.
One friend, with a degree in international politics, was under the impression that so-called sex-change operations actually change a person's sex, and that only a little more research is needed before men can give birth. I managed to explain about large and small gametes, but she still insisted that there is an ineffable essence that decides a person's gender identity from within them. She believes that surgery and hormones can easily adapt a person's body to match this mysterious gender essence.
It has been a profound shock to me to learn how easily serious, educated people can be convinced to believe outrageous lies. It's also surprised me how passionately the same people will argue for those outrageous lies as a sort of reflex action.

Like for example, men in prison who say they are women are there for sex related crimes at three times the rate than men who don't say they are women?
59% as opposed to 18%?

And that's not including the ones with a GRC who will be counted as female?

Do you think we have been banging on about this for nearly a decade just for shits and giggles?

It has corrupted everything.

My friend plays warhanmer, and estimates that 90% off competitors are men, 5% are women and 5% transwomen. This means only 50% of “women” are women.

As with prisons, the impact of transwomen is far greater where women are already massively under represented. Obviously, it’s quite hard to get worked up about warhammer, but it’s easy to extrapolate from this to things like incentives for women’s participation in STEM and see that the same issue will arise there. Without proper data, we just do not see it, and people working in diversity and inclusion are amongst the least likely to think it’s even a problem in the first place.

It’s easy to think there are no problems when no one is looking for them. Without proper data, we’re just searching for keys under the street lamp because that’s where the light is.

Honestly, you're all putting me off even engaging here because some of the comments are just nuts.

Cries that I'm 'sexist' (wtf?!), 'transphobic' (erm, yes I probably am, but so what, so are many other MNers - not believing trans exists beyond a fetish/ mental health problem would definitely be branded a transphobic view by some!).

The comments here seem to fall broadly into two categories-

1. trans is the only issue facing women and we cannot talk about women unless everyone has first agreed to adopt the same definition for women. And,
2. Trans is an issue, but not the only issue, the boards are a mess/ not what they were and feminist discussion is being drowned out by the trans debate.

I'm not convinced by those who believe 1.

'My friends believe men can become women' does not mean everyone in society is captured. Your friends are not an adequate sample size to represent everyone else. And as for Warhammer - wtaf?! Are we really extrapolating up from some obscure game now?

I honestly am coming to the view that MNers aren't helping the trans issue at all because the boards are all over the place, and the threads are really just a lot of hand wringing and over exaggeration, resulting in a blurring of the actual issues, leaving room for prevarication and misdirection. Which is exactly what the trans lobby wants.

I honestly am coming to the view that MNers aren't helping the trans issue at all because the boards are all over the place, and the threads are really just a lot of hand wringing and over exaggeration, resulting in a blurring of the actual issues, leaving room for prevarication and misdirection. Which is exactly what the trans lobby wants.

I think that view is wrong. if only for the fact that MN is one of very few places where women can come together online and discuss these issues.
Furthermore as these issues are more or less completely ignored by some aspects of the printed press or main media outlets, the S&G board is a good place to go to get information on tribunals, discrimination against GC women, breaking of single sex spaces in prisons/sports etc. etc.

I'm also not entirely sure what you actually want here either. Is it to discuss other feminism issues? If so then start your own threads. Or is it to shut down discussions on trans issues? In which case you are on a losing battle here.

I go back to what I said at the start. If you think that threads on Feminism Chat belong on the sex and gender discussions then report them and quite likely MN will move them.

Yes, it's a good point that MN provides a space for discussion where most (all?) contributors are GC. I haven't seen anyone defending trans rights on MN yet (there are some #bekind type views on the main boards but nothing pro-trans in women's sports etc that I've seen).

It's not that I 'want' something per se. It's just that I find the two feminism boards confused, with no clear delineation between topics based on the board titles.

I don't plan to start reporting posts and trying to have them moved as I am relatively new and am not clear on why there are two boards if the boards don't have a clear separation of purpose/ focus.

I haven't seen anyone defending trans rights on MN yet (there are some #bekind type views on the main boards but nothing pro-trans in women's sports etc that I've seen).

On the S&G discussions board people do try to defend the TRA position. However ultimately, their position doesn't stand up to knowlegable scrutiny so they tend to flounce off with 'you are all TERFs' or 'do your own research' or they just ignore basic questions.

Those 253 have directly affected over 1000 women. Each of the 3 medal placings would have been different (the women who got silver would have got gold, the women who came 4th would have won bronze etc) plus the 253 who missed out on a place to compete at all as (just random number if there were 10 places in the competition only 9 women would have been able to compete).

I’ve not even included the other competitors who were all pushed down a rank.

I don't plan to start reporting posts and trying to have them moved as I am relatively new and am not clear on why there are two boards if the boards don't have a clear separation of purpose/ focus

We try and separate humans into two categories for the same reason.

The boards were split following an email campaign by some posters who insisted that threads regarding women's sex based rights being eroded by gender ideology were taking over the original FWR board and they felt they couldn't start threads about other topics. The boards were split and then posters who are known to have gender critical views were told to 'fuck off back to your own board' when trying to take part in any conversation on the Feminism Chat board.

So the posters on the Sex and Gender board discuss all and any topics relating to feminism. The threads which the posters who insisted they weren't able to start unless the boards were split have never really materialised on Feminism Chat. I suspect some threads are left on there so it's less tumbleweedy, to be honest.

This discussion comes up every few months or so.

(I don't post on the Feminism Chat board generally after seeing other posters being told to 'fuck off back to your own board'. I post on the board which discusses many different issues, on specifically titled threads and throughout threads. I have only posted on this thread because (unusually for a Feminist Chat thread) it has come up on Active.)

I haven't seen anyone defending trans rights on MN yet

Trans rights are defended all the time on MN. Maybe it's too subtle for you to see. Transgender people are not campaigning for any new rights. They already have the same rights as everyone else.

What rights are not defended? The right to not be discriminated at work? The right to maternity care? Be specific.

Forcing other people to use the wrong pronouns for your obvious sex is not a right for anyone. Forcing other people to have the same beliefs as you is not a right for anyone.

The boards were split following an email campaign by some posters who insisted that threads regarding women's sex based rights being eroded by gender ideology were taking over the original FWR board and they felt they couldn't start threads about other topics. The boards were split and then posters who are known to have gender critical views were told to 'fuck off back to your own board' when trying to take part in any conversation on the Feminism Chat board.

So the posters on the Sex and Gender board discuss all and any topics relating to feminism. The threads which the posters who insisted they weren't able to start unless the boards were split have never really materialised on Feminism Chat. I suspect some threads are left on there so it's less tumbleweedy, to be honest.

This.

I haven't seen anyone defending trans rights on MN yet

In a weird twist, most people on the S&G board would indeed want women who say they are men and who then get pregnant to have all the rights that a woman would have, rather than all the rights they as a self declared man would have.

So is that for or against 'trans rights' whatever 'trans' actually is?