Is Mumsnet HQ evil or not very bright.

[TiggyD]

As some of you may already know you're allowed to call transgendered women "men in dresses" and refer to them as "he" and "him.

"So some men dressing as women..." as one posted said in relation to trans women got the reply from RebeccaMN:

We agree that this post is in poor taste but we don't tend to delete on those grounds because it would be really hard to know where to draw the line.
The truth is, we don't think we should be the arbiters of what people should find offensive and what they shouldn't. In these instances, it's very rare that a tasteless comment is left unchallenged, and we would highly recommend that you put forward your point of view on the thread.

Well firstly I think Mumsnet should draw the line at discrimination of a protected minority group.

Secondly, if MN don't think they should be the arbiters of what people should find offensive, maybe they should ask a representative from a human rights or anti discrimination group? Misgendering is always wrong.

Thirdly, is it rare an tasteless comment is unchallenged? Now the trans people on Mumsnet refuse to post on trans related threads who the hell is going to challenge them?

Fourthly, that post was unchallenged. Have a look at the thread.

Fifthly, "tasteless"? "TASTELESS"?! WTF? Tofu is tasteless. Would MNHQ describe calling people spastics or coons or faggots as tasteless? Misgendering is a put-down towards an entire minority. Dismissed as tasteless.

A quick look at a quote about the 2010 equality act:
"harassment - unwanted behaviour linked to a protected characteristic that violates someone’s dignity or creates an offensive environment for them".

Is there harassment in trans related threads on here? Is the dignity of all transwomen violated by referring to them all as men in dresses? Bleedingly obviously yes. Does it create an offensive environment for them? How the hell could it not? Does Mumsnet do anything to stop it? No.

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It all makes me wonder if the people of MNHQ are deliberately letting all this unkindness and discrimination and harassment go on because they evil, or because they don't know any better.
I think I have it. I reckon it's like the Ricky Gervais thing where he started doing "Mong" faces. All kinds of people told him it was offensive and an unkind name for people with Downs Syndrome but he refused to accept it. I think he thought that as he believed himself to be a good person, and he used the word mong, that mong had to be an acceptable word because he was good. I think it must be like that in MNHQ. They believe themselves to be good people and when they allow people to call transwomen men on thier site it's fine because their belief in themselves being good trumps all the views of the victims.

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One question for MNHQ that I alluded to earlier. Have you ever asked any kind of trans, human rights, or anti-discrimination group about how to treat trans people?

Have you?

Ever?

Did we ever establish the ins and outs of this in comparison to the Rachel Dolezal case?

Like, someone claiming to be black gets rounded on while someone claiming to be female gets protected under law?

Could you in theory take drugs to change your skin colour, dye your hair, have facial surgery to assume the appearance of a 'black person' and then get your right to be called black entrenched in legal terms?

I don't think so. Because that too is farcical.

You're being misogynistic Tiggy. Women and trans women are NOT the same.

I don't care if a trans woman doesn't want to be called 'trans' - she's not a 'woman', you don't get to appropriate my term
just because YOU want it.

Why on earth you think the word 'woman' is up for grabs for any person who self identifies as a woman is beyond me - that includes 'women' who live as men half the time? Have all the privilege that goes with it?
'Women' who don't gender reassign at all?

You're saying that ANYONE who wants to call themselves a woman is entitled. ?

Nope, disagree entirely.

That's not treating everybody equally is it?

It's treating people factually. There are women, and there are trans women. Some people may prefer to pretend that's not the case, but we don't all have to play along with that delusion.

Transwomen don't want to be called trans you know

But that's what they are. Pretending otherwise does nobody any favours. There is a difference between women and trans women, there are biological differences and sociological differences. Equal doesn't mean the same.

In order to be a woman you must grow up a girl. The shared experiences along the way are an important part of being a woman. Trans women do have their own shared experiences, and im quite happy to indulge them by calling them by their chosen name, and respecting their right to trans women only spaces, sports etc. I dont accept that they are women. I dont want them women only spaces, where women are talking about violence and sexual assault commited by men. They are biologically male. I would never DREAM of going to a support group for trans women and demanding entry because if they are 100% women, then so am i and DISCRIMINATION, OPPRESSION, which is basically what trans women are doing.

I know this thread is basically shit stirring, but I must say, I'm finding it fascinating.

Transwomen don't want to be called trans you know

Maybe not the ones you know, Tiggy, but the ones I know couldn't give a shit.

I don't think any person born biologically male actually has any idea what it actually like to be a girl or woman in society. They can't possibly understand what it is like to be raised female in a patriarchal society, you can't possibly understand the position women are in. All men I know fail to understand the importance of girl/women only spaces, because they come from a lofty position of of power and dominance. They fail to understand just how important it is for women.

Yes, you can understand how hard it is to be trans in this world, yes, you can understand that life is hard. But that's not the same thing. You find that you're marginalised and treated unfairly in a subtly different way, sure. But, if people (men particularly) insist that if anyone identifies as female, then they should be allowed into the Female Only space (toilets/gym/whatever) - that only goes on to show that the patriarchy feels they have a right to be involved in every aspect of life and should shove women once more to the fringes of society. Your feelings and rights are less important than this man who feels like they should be a woman. So there we go, women are yet again subjugated and classed as the lesser of the sexes.

Ridiculous!

I am quite gobsmacked at the offensiveness of the thread title. Makes me want to send MNHQ a large bunch of to say that unlike the op, most of us appreciate how hard they work to get these things right! Thank you MNHQ!

I also note that Tiggy has failed to engage with the mostly respectful and reasoned debate on the thread, confining himself instead to foot stamping and weird demands (which I'd be astonished if MNHQ gave a shit about). Not covering himself in glory.

Is there another term that transwomen would prefer? I think there's justification in women (ciswomen) saying that they don't want to have to be called 'cis' because some men have chosen to convert.

Likewise, I think there is validity in the discomfort expressed about transwomen who don't physically transition. It's like cherry picking the advantages of both genders.

Where does gender fluidity fit with all this?

There is no other term than trans women would prefer that I know of.

Only the OP (a man who is not trans) wants them to be called women. He is not identifying himself as trans just 'telling' us that we (women and feminist women) have to call them women and if we don't we are 'trans phobic'.

I'm not remotely trans phobic btw.

I think it's really important to bear in mind that this post is just a man telling women what to do.

There are NO trans people that I know of who hold this view so in my opinion Tiggy is just a bloke shit stirring with feminists and women.

It's interesting to see how Men's Rights Activists have already latched on to this Cis and "TRanswomen are women" nonsense, in order to have another stick, this time a politically correct one, with which to beat women.

"That's not treating everybody equally is it? "

Anyone who knows anything about justice and liberation politics, knows tht treating everyone equally is a load of bollocks.

MRA's can be quite keen on equality too, for example when equality puts women at a disadvantage. They argue that of course they don't mind women being in the workplace, as long as they don't ask for "special treatment that isn't equal" like maternity leave (IE the acknowledgement that women are different from men and if you want real equality, you have to construct the workplace so that you don't build in a disadvantage to women from the start, by not acknowledging the fact of pregnancy), or things like height restrictions which automatically rule out a much larger percentage of women than men. MRA's are very keen on that sort of equality, they bleat on about how they just want everyone to be treated equally and women want special treatment.

It's not a coincidence that Tiggy's trump card re Cis appears to be "treating everybody equally." #WomenCanSee

If it makes you feel any better Tiggy, I've reported lots of your posts (and I know other women have too) and MNHQ rarely delete them.

There are several trans-woman bloggers who call themselves trans, and who definitely don't need the misogynist tiggy d to stick up for them. They're quite comfortable with their trans identities.

"harassment - unwanted behaviour linked to a protected characteristic that violates someone’s dignity or creates an offensive environment for them". Is there harassment on your site

tiggy I feel you are creating a hostile and offensive environment on here due to your unwanted behaviour of trying to stop me talking about matters that are important to women. You have been persistent in this behaviour for more than a year. Last year you had a go on site stuff at having MN strictly control how women discuss trans issues to confine it to a way you think is acceptable. Trans activists have succeeded in this approach across most women's sites and you seem unable to accept that there is a little corner of the Internet here on MN where women are allowed to say the unsayable.

The prefixes are only needed when talking about trans issues to distinguish between tran and cis women or men

Says who? Why do you get to decide that I should be referred to as cis? Because you're a man? Because you've decided that transwoman is offensive but we're not allowed to find cis-woman offensive?

It's got jack shit to do with society and nature v nurture. It's because I have a vulva, a womb, a uterus etc.

I don't identify as a woman. I am a woman. I don't have to change my role or my title to suit someone who has decided that he identifies as a woman.

I have no problem with men who want to become transwomen. I have a big, giant fucking problem with men telling me that I then have to shift my position, my very being, to facilitate it.

And, really, it seems to me that your only interest in this is that it's another way to stomp women into submission and into a role in society that we don't want.

Telling trans people they're women can be considered trans phobic.

It takes away from the very real and personal discrimination suffered by being trans by just lumping them in with 'women'.

It's just lazy - it's saying 'oh look women suffer discrimination, so do you - go off and join this other oppressed group' .

Bollocks to that, the trans experience is a valid perspective on its own and isn't like just being a 'woman' and minimising it is not ok.

I would never say as a woman that trans women are like ME as that doesn't just minimise my experience of being female, it minimises their experience of being trans.

I think heartstrumpdiamonds has it absolutely bang on here:

'o someone outside this whole issue, it seems to me that the wider world (everyone - the LGBT world, academia, feminists, trans activists, the (wo)man on the street....) has not decided what is acceptable and what is insulting in this scenario yet.'

Some very vocal activists (allied with MRAs in some cases) have tried to steal a real march wrt the language that gets used around trans. But they have not done so with the consent of the general population. They think they can tell everyone what words to use - and that we MUST accept penis as female - because about 500 people in the UK have decided this.

This issue isn't anywhere near settled, thankfully. The generally accepted consensus about eg racist language is completely different.

You can shout and scream all you like (it's the function of activists, after all) but unless you get most of society behind you you will fail. And right now if you wander up to the average person in the street and say 'is a person with a penis a man or a woman' they'd think you'd had a funny turn.

You've got no mandate for this tiggy. None at all. You'd be better off explaining to us why you think anything said is genuinely hurtful. Shouting that people are bigots because they think of people with penises as being male is completely counter-productive. I feel a good deal less open-minded on this issue than I used to because I am so utterly sick of being called a bigot because I subscribe to completely conventional biological concepts that have formed the building blocks of human society for millennia. What a crock of shit, honestly.

Well this is just another "peak Tiggy" moment for me.

I think he is pissed off because lots of MNers are discovering how anti women a lot of trans politics are and we are voicing it.

This thread is simply one big willy wave.

Some men find it disconcerting and then infuriating when women won't do what they tell them.

Maybe we should take this thread as an opportunity to stand by MNHQ who have been IMO very intellectually honest in allowing women a space here in which to discuss the trans movement.

Thanks MNHQ. Keep us the good work (it was inevitable that you were going to get attacked for allowing women to voice their opinions and I don't think it is a coincidence that your rather vehement attacker is a man).

Aha, a man telling women what to think and what to say.

how modern, OP, how openminded....

Also, those are the 2 options for women, are they tiggy? We're either evil, or not very bright

Or a third possibility: we simply don't agree with you, and have good reasons why not? Have you considered that possibility at all?