MNHQ now email posters with how to "get around" the talk guidelines.

[GoshAnneGorilla]

There is yet another thread on FWR about trans people. Like nearly every other thread on there about trans people, it's a load of transphobia dressed up as gender analysis.

Nothing new, sadly.

What is new, is that MNHQ have now sent an email to a poster whose post was deleted, telling them how their post could be within the guidelines, even including a copy of their original post to make editing all the easier. This is because "discussion is important".

So, a few questions for MNHQ.

Are GLBT rights at all important to you?

Will you be extending this " How to bend the talk guidelines" services to racist, homophobic, or disabilist posts too, or is it only trans people who deserve to be discussed in a manner which is extremely offensive?

If a person (or MNHQ) does accept that there is a medical cause for trans, I hope they will have given a great deal of thought to how any such biological cause could apply to and explain the very different situations of transsexual people (who experience body dysmorphia and who've been on the medical profession's radar for about a century) and the larger number of people who are transgender (in which body dysmorphia is absent and no medical treatment is sought, and who were either non-existent or invisible before the hi-jacking of transsexuality, post-modernism and gender that has occurred in the past decade driven largely by the internet).

I disagree Kim. Although I can completely see why it is important for transpeople.

Whether the cause is medical/biology based or not, transgenderism is always going to be political because sex and gender are political.

Somebody could demonstrate to me water tight science for how transgenderism occurs in humans but it still wouldn't change my opinion that there are fundamental and important differences between women and transwomen and men and transmen that mean that we shouldn't have to pretend or adhere to the belief that we are one and the same.

I don't believe that biological women and transwomen are in the same sex category (biological or sociological) no matter what the root cause of transgenderism is.

I also find it very hard to believe that all transgender people, the world over, both transmen and transwomen are transgender for the same reason and that that reason is utterly unrelated to cultural influences, socio-political paradigms and subsequent socialization.

As an aside anyone who believes the theory outlined in the link above should be totally against the transgendering of children as it is at odds with a theory which considers the "cause" of lesbianism/homosexuality and transgenderism to be different levels of the same phenomenon.

The theory is very offensive to lesbians because it suggests that they are not really women or that they are faulty women. Lesbians have been stigmatized and othered by such theories for centuries. Enough.

ITA vesuvia.

The fact that doctors have medicalised transsexualism does not prove that it has a biological cause e.g. "male brain/female brain".

One problem with medical conditions (in general) is that doctors have a long history of classifying departure from the "norm" of human biology and experience as medical conditions i.e. pathologising people, often for the benefit of doctors and the patriarchal status quo rather than for the benefit of patients.

Doctors medicalise a condition for several reasons, not only for treatment of the patients' medical symptoms and any benefit to the patients. Doctors often medicalise conditions to control them politically and socially.

Examples are pregnancy and childbirth. I think it's ironic that doctors have a history of treating pregnancy as an illness when there is such a good counter argument that pregnancy is a sign of good health rather than poor health.

(disclaimer: of course, doctors also do a good job of treating many medical conditions and doctors have saved or improved countless lives etc.)

I think the F Word is trying to make sure that nobody accuses it of transphobia ever.
Mumsnet is likely to have a bit more confidence in the value and necessity of women talking about women's experiences. I love Beachcomber's post from earlier today.

See, I thought I wasn't at all Trans phobic, happy to share safe spaces etc. Then I read beachcomber's post and that seems to far to me. It should be acceptable for cis women to have a space to freely discuss the issues that are unique to being a cis woman.

Any chance of banning the word cis ?

Kim posted this:

MNHQ have deleted such comments before - and have pointed out that in their opinion, transsexualism is a recognised disorder and therefore such references are transphobic.

Except I have seen it stated often elsewhere, and widely accepted, that to so much as hint that any form of being trans can be classified as a "disorder" is really, really transphobic. Or that to imply that being trans includes having any kind of problematic relationship with the configuration of the body you were born with is (you've guessed) transphobic. These aren't people on the fringe, either.

I don't envy MNHQ their job. I think a lot of current trans activism is both misogynistic and homophobic, and I would mourn the loss of one of the few safe spaces to discuss this.

It's ironic you should say that, Kim, given it's lesbians who are now being shamed for their sexuality.

Why don't people just admit they are against people who are transsexual. Just like people a long time ago -and even now - are against people who are homosexual. It would save a lot of tip toeing about.

Kim, this is really disingenuous. I don't have any problem (and I've seen other posters state the same) with trans people who live their lives like the rest of us live their lives. I have every possible problem with a very vocal brand of trans activism which aims to stop women talking about their own lives, and which seeks to position women (and especially lesbians) as the recipients of privilege and the perpetrators of oppression, but leaves men (and patriarchy as a whole) to carry on just as they always have. I feel like we are fighting to hang onto the gains that we have fought so long for, and which are in real danger of being taken away. Like others have said, this is a fight that's been brought to our doorstep, not one we've gone looking for.

I could just as easily ask you, Kim: why do you focus so heavily on critisising posters who are trying to combat the misogyny and homophobia inherent in this strand of trans activism? Why are you so against people fighting sexism and homophobia?

Then why do you find it so hard to believe, Kim, that our problem is with the harmful implications of genderism for women and lesbians, rather than bigotry against trans people themselves?

I have nothing against trans people. I do have a huge problem with my lesbian friends being told they're bigots for not wanting to sleep with them, and an equally huge problem with this lady brain business and the genuine experiences of women throughout the world of oppression on the basis of sex, being invisibilised because we're all meant to be talking about gender identity.

I also have no problem with trans people. However I do not accept that phrases like "women menstruate" are transphobic and should be banned.

My personal "fuck it all" point, ItsAllGoingToBeFine, was seeing someone on a different social media platform post about FGM. And the response she got was not an expression of solidarity or sympathy or a call to action or an offer of help - she was called "cissexist" for describing the procedure as Female Genital Mutilation, because men have vulvas too.

If anyone can't see how fucked-up, misogynist and narcissistic that is, there's no help for them.