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.

-----------------

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.

-----------------

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?

I believe he's also not too good at logic...

Calling someone with DS a mong is distasteful and wrong, because it's a derogatory slur. Calling someone a man isn't. Ever. Good person or no.

He does it because he's a MRA misogynist. And he's throwing his toys out of the pram because he thought women would be finally silenced by hiding behind fighting for trans rights to push his own agenda.

I will continue to fight for the right for women to feel safe in female spaces and for my right to be called a woman without a caveat.

I don't believe Tiggy is a trans ally at all. I don't think he likes or knows much about trans people generally, but he is happy to use the problems they face as a stick to beat women because he is deeply misogynistic.

Buffy - I wasn't trying to shame you, merely pointing out on which threads such statements had been made. Otherwise, there would've been cries of "I don't believe you!" and "where is your evidence!?".

Baking - "mutilated males" are the sort of things trans women are called on MN trans threads.

Apologies Tiggy. You didn't call anyone a Nazi that was another poster who posts regularly in trans threads you compared MN to a BNP website... so, Nazis then.

Pity, I've not seen that, however, you might be correct. You have the option to report if that offends you. In the same way as I have the option to report every single time I see Tiggy, you or anyone else using the word Cis to describe women. That's what it's there for.

Hopefully MNHQ have sent him a PM and explained it all, if he likes those so much.

Sorry I haven't rtft properly, what is a cis?

Cis is a propaganda term used by some trans people and their allies to further the idea that everyone has an innate gender identity and that it is therefore possible to be born with the wrong one. Some people like to claim that it means "not trans" but it actually means that someone has a "gender identity that matches their sex". It's bullshit because most people only feel like their sex because they've got the requisite parts, not because they feel male or female inside.

Why C.I.S.? Does it stand for or is it short for something?

Cisgender has its origin in the Latin-derived prefix cis-, meaning "on this side of", which is an antonym for the Latin-derived prefix trans-, meaning "across from" or "on the other side of"

Thanks Grays. I thought it was going to be something more modern.

Thanks for taking the time to come on Yvette.

Cock. Too many tabs, sorry, wrong thread

Ha ha Bean

Qu for those women who don't specifically identify as women /with female gender roles and object to being referred to as ciswomen: what would you think of the idea of being agender or genderqueer and female bodied?

I've never particularly felt like a woman or girl either, but it's not been a particularly pressing issue for me in the way it seems to be for trans people; and I'm also not a radical feminist, which I understand to be the prevailing opinion on the MN feminism boards, which I sometimes read but have rarely ever posted on. I go about looking like an ordinary [cis]woman and am not really bothered about it, but in contexts where it becomes relevant - mostly online or with LGBTQ friends - I consider myself genderqueer.

If you don't identify as a woman, you aren't, under this set of terminologies, cis, anyway. It's annoying to be called something you're not. But there are terms other than cis and trans for people who don't consider themselves to be either.
And there isn't a logical reason why using those from time to time (eg agender, genderqueer or similar) should get in the way of campaigning for rights & social standing of those who were born and who continue to be perceived as biologically female.

Agender is for boring people who like to pretend they're interesting.

We use cis all the time in science - eg a cell that releases a chemical that binds to itself, or to a different cell, which is trans

So what's queer then?

Biologically female/woman is fine for me, Marwood. It doesn't matter if I strong,y identify or not. I still am one. A m to f trans person is not and can never be.

Afaik
Queer = not binary/straight
Genderqueer = feeling like both a man and a woman
Agender = feeling like neither a man nor a woman

I'm happy to acknowledge that I have a gender and I am a woman in both physical and sociological senses but I believe that my sense of gender is a direct result of being female and growing up within the gender role that being female entails.

Look Marwood with all due respect, I don't fancy any of those peculiar terms.

They are all totally meaningless to me.

I'm a woman, because I have a female body and that is ALL there is to it. I don't really know how you define someone identifying as female or male anyway. You could say 'Oh I don't like wearing dresses' - so? That's nothing to do with your gender.
I don't get all the fuss. I really just don't understand it.

You can be a bloke and like wearing frocks, or a woman and like wearing jeans. It means NOTHING.

It starts and stops with biology for me. Everything else is neither here nor there.

And should anyone seek to define me by any of these terms, I would resent it, just like the time someone decided I was bisexual because I happened to engage in sex, once, under some duress, with a woman.

No matter why I did it, whether or not I enjoyed it, what my feelings towards other women are in general - bisexual was not a term I wanted to subscribe to. Heterosexual doesn't really appeal either - or gay - I just don't feel the need to have a word for what I am, or what I do, or what I feel. It isn't something I even think about - some people like and need those terms. I don't feel it is important.

Even if I was regularly involved in sexual relationships with other women, which I am not - no one else gets to tell me what I am, because it's a word, and it's subjective. It's no one else's business.