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See all MNHQ comments on this thread

TransAgenda BullShit: The I am Spartacus Thread

1000 replies

OscarDeLaYenta · 25/08/2016 19:17

Post deleted by MNHQ as it broke our Talk Guidelines

OP posts:
Thread gallery
7
Klaptout · 26/08/2016 09:39

I believe in everyone's right to be exactly who they are and to be treated with respect.
You can change identity.
But, You can't change chromosomes.

I'm reminded of this.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=sFBOQzSk14c

FlorisApple · 26/08/2016 09:43

I am Floris (and a bit late to this party, but bloody hell, it's making me love MN even more - how ironic if I get banned?! There are some really great posts here.)

I believe that gender is a changing ideology that has been used to oppress women over millenia. Biological difference, on the other hand, is an empirical reality, and the way our species reproduces itself.

I am very fearful that MN is one of the only places left to discuss these issues truthfully, and if MNHQ decides to close this space down to open discussion, then that is one more nail in the coffin for women to discuss and decide our own destiny.

What next MNHQ? Will we still be allowed to say we believe in the theory of evolution if a creationist says they find that offensive?

Here is another analogy: if a friend suffering from anorexia nervosa came to me and told me she was really overweight, really fat, I would empathise with her, I would care about her, I would urge her to get treatment, but I would not enable a belief that encouraged her to mutilate her body, possibly to the point of her death. I cannot stand idle anymore, while many many children are changing their bodies, permanently affecting sexual function and fertility, on the basis of an erroneous belief about gender. Why is it seen as okay to suggest these permanent physical changes, but to suggest working on mental health issues is absolutely verboten. I fear for my DD and my DS; MN should be a place we can discuss this issue without fear.

CoteDAzur · 26/08/2016 09:45

"Spartacus was a man"

I Am Spartacus refers to the scene in the movie Spartacus starring Kirk Douglas where a Roman general asks the group to identify Spartacus. If not, they will all be executed. Spartacus gets up and says "I am Spartacus". In order to stand with him and to prevent Romans from identifying him, one by one, the other slaves start getting up and saying "I am Spartacus".

That is the phenomenon OP is referring to. Not all of us identifying with Spartacus as in Je Suis Charlie.

SeekEveryEveryKnownHidingPlace · 26/08/2016 09:49

Yeah, that's what I meant when I used the phrase on the other thread. MN can't ban everyone who says 'a man is a man and can't become a woman', so if enough people say it the bannings/deletions must surely stop.

KateMumsnet · 26/08/2016 09:50

Hi all

As you know, we generally aim to let the conversation flow, and keep intervention to a minimum.

We do, however, usually delete posts which deliberately use a pronoun which an individual has expressly rejected; apart from anything else, we don't think it's really in the spirit of MN.

That said, we know that lots of you want to discuss the differences between biological sex and gender identity, and we don't wish to shut that debate down. We're trying to steer a sensible course in what is a rapidly shifting landscape, and one way for us to do this is to take our lead from mainstream scientific thinking. This means, for example, that we won't usually remove posts which state that sex is determined by chromosomes, and so forth, unless they otherwise break our talk guidelines. As ever we'll delete posts which are goady, deliberately inflammatory or a personal attack - one recent thread, for example, was deleted because we felt that one poster was getting a particularly rough time.

We're not always going to get it right though: these are complex issues and our thinking is evolving with everyone else's. What we all want is a forum where no-one feels belittled or silenced - but that's actually quite difficult to achieve, and you're going to have to bear with us while we work out how to keep everything in balance.

Thanks for letting us have your thoughts though - a few of us are on our family hols at the mo and beyond easy reach of the internet, but please do continue to feed back your views.

MNHQ

paddypants13 · 26/08/2016 09:51

I am Paddypants13

XX chromosomes are female.

XY chromosomes are male.

It is not possible to have a female penis or a male vagina.

Anyone has the right to refuse to have a relationship or sexual contact with a person for any reason. It doesn't matter whether the reason is shallow or hurts someones feelings. No one has the right to demand a reason from a person who does not want a relationship or sexual contact with them. To quote Mumsnet, no is a complete sentence.

Biological women or those assigned female at birth deserve safe spaces and services dedicated to them alone.

Biological men or those assigned male at birth deserve safe spaces and services dedicated to them.

They cannot refer to a single person.

missedmebythatmuch · 26/08/2016 09:54

I will not be no-platformed on one of the few female-safe spaces on the whole wide Internet.

There is no such thing as a female penis.

VioletBam · 26/08/2016 09:56

Kate it's easy to say "Oh we're all on our hols!" as a "get out" but the fact is YOU are here. This thread is vile! It needs getting rid of. At best it's ignorant and at worst it's hate filled and goady.

disfasia · 26/08/2016 09:57

2016 and we are here having to state the obvious: the earth is not flat, a male cannot become a female, nor a female a male. Biology is real and women face its dire repercussions far more than males because of reality (if that is still a thing).

I used to use the preferred pronouns and now recant those words because in trying to be polite to my transgender friends, I realise that I was adding on to the political force to erase reality and wrongly play into their pathology. The way in which gender dysphoria is simultaneously pathologised and then not, that it is an identity or is it a disorder, that gender is wrongly assigned at birth so let's correct it with a consult to its not a binary but let me act the opposite sex out to a parodic T, contributes to the ongoing cultural schizophrenia regarding this matter, to end with the residual silencing and political erasure of women.

MN has a responsibity to hear women's voices since we are the mothers, we are the ones who reproduce the human species and we are the humans most affected by the largest brainwashing of a society since the Third Reich. It is not a coincidence that many western governments are bending to this lobby, that WPATH a splinter group made up of disgruntled medical practitioners and male clients with a load of money, and that women are left being labelled TERF. Our only power, as it stands, is with an epithet that not only did we not choose, but which does not represent us. The circularity of a term which says that we are 'excluding' another group whilst we speak of our realities and experiences, reveals truckloads about the narcissism of the transgender movement (ie. that even in our speaking of ourselves it must be about them).

I suggest that MN make a statement on this measure and that we make a collective stand against the erasure of women, of biology as real, and of the parody of women as damaging for us and our children, both male and female. The political silencing of women, to include female journalists who cannot easily publish on this matter, falsely makes this issue appear that most women are on board with the erasure of our lives and bodies. Most are not. Should this thread no be a demonstration of that resistance?

I am not cis, nobody has a gender because because gender is a social construction not a possessive of the personal, everyone is gender non-binary, only females give birth, everyone is gender variand women have a right to safeguard their personal and political space by calling out male aggression no matter WHO is commiting the aggression, no matter under what banner they are speaking, no matter how oppressed their theatre would seek the sympathy of its sycophants. As someone who has many transgender friends, I am growing weary that the acceptance of another human involves, no necessitates, our political agreement. I have zero problem with a man wearing a dress, having long hair, painted nails, the works! Go for it. But our right to define our experiences as females which obviously and necessarily will exclude males just as refugees rights will necessarily exclude the rights of wealthy homeowners is essential to our cause, to our freedom!

situatedknowledge · 26/08/2016 10:02

Violet I'm sorry if this appears dim to you, but in what way is this thread hate filled or goady? To me, it appears the contrary, or have you missed what has been going on here the last few day.

To be clear, I am absolutely not being goady. I just don't understand your post.

SeekEveryEveryKnownHidingPlace · 26/08/2016 10:04

Violet read the thread properly. It's not about hating people, it's about frustration with an ideology.

And no, it's not 'ignorant' - ignorant is insisting that being a woman is a feeling in your head.

DoinItFine · 26/08/2016 10:04

Thanks, Kate.

This is a very tricky subject to moderate and I think overall MN has done a great job of leaving space free for us to discuss this critically, which is not offered elsewhere.

The worldvis fill of Violets who want to silence women's speech.

milpool · 26/08/2016 10:05

As ever we'll delete posts which are goady, deliberately inflammatory or a personal attack

What, like this entire thread, you mean?

If people want to debate the difference between sex and gender then that's one thing, but that's clearly not what this thread is for.

BeyondLovesSweetDee · 26/08/2016 10:06

"take our lead from mainstream scientific thinking"

Which states there is no known innate difference between male brains and female brains? So it is impossible - with current scientific thinking - to be "a man in a woman's body"? It is just dysmorphia?

JacobFryesTopHatLackey · 26/08/2016 10:06

I am Jacob Frye and I agree with everything posted so eloquently by other posters. I support the right of anyone to identify how they choose and violence and discrimination against them is abhorrent and deserves condemnation. But they are not women. Biologically or genetically they are not.

Ban me if you like HQ. I've become increasingly disillusioned with the lack of response to this and challenging disabilist attitudes.

IfTheCapFitsWearIt · 26/08/2016 10:07

Don't let the thread be derailed.

BelaLugosisShed · 26/08/2016 10:14

I am Spartacus.
#Biologyistheonlytruth.
XY is MALE

Glosswitch · 26/08/2016 10:15

"Generally we delete posts in which people persistently refuse to refer to people by the pronoun (he/she/they) by which they’ve asked to be referred, out of respect for that individual’s wishes. We tend to take the view that folk should refer to people by the name and pronoun those people choose - and we at MNHQ will be discussing all the points you’ve raised about this."
I can understand how this may seem straightforward and respectful as a principle. At first glance it seems the same as remembering someone's name or where they work. But gender doesn’t work like that. It is relational and hierarchical. If we admit that sexism exists at all, then we admit that there is a dominant group (men) and a subordinate group (women). Is it reasonable or fair to allow individuals to define which group they belong to solely on their own terms, regardless of the privileges they enjoy and the power they exert? (If so, why can’t I claim to be working class, despite my middle class background? Either material and social benefits matter or they don’t.)
Both online and elsewhere, women know when men are exploiting their status and privilege to attack and undermine us. To then ask us to completely deny the very existence of any hierarchy - which is what happens when we are obliged to call the person who is sending us rape or death threats "her" or "she" - is simply not right. It allows the abuser to have the final say over what is happening, positioning the victim as the mean, bigoted woman who won't even extend them the basic courtesy of respecting their identity. The “misgendering is violence” mantra insists that calling your attacker “he” is worse than anything he is doing to you. As any of us who have experienced other forms of abuse will know, this pattern is very familiar (manipulate the audience so that even your victim starts to doubt herself).
Women need to be able to name what men do to them. Women's perception of what is being done to them is as important as the perception of the doer. By not allowing women to use pronouns which define their experiences at the hands of others (which take place in the wider world, not just in their heads) we do women a grave injustice. I won't ever call the person who put me on a TERF website and shared photos of my sons, or the person who threatened to set me on fire, a woman. These were men. That is my experience of them and my experience of them is as pertinent to the social and political realities of the matter as anything they may think or feel. (I might add that since he was never caught, I also have no final confirmation of how the stranger who sexually assaulted me identified. Am I being an unwitting transphobe by thinking of him as male simply because it felt like I was a woman being attacked by a man? Have I any right whatsoever to categorise this as male violence against women or is that cissexist and presumptuous?)
I am conscious that moderators will upset people either way here. Contemporary backlash politics has placed them in an impossible position. I’ve written pieces where I’ve used preferred pronouns against my better judgment simply because I knew that if I didn’t they either wouldn’t get published or people would ignore the broader arguments and focus solely on my pronoun “crimes”. But it’s just not right to make this all about an “individual’s wishes”. When we talk about gender we are talking about the oppression of half the human race.

BroomhildaVonShaft · 26/08/2016 10:15

KateMumsnet there is no mainstream scientific consensus around pronouns. Much of the deletion frenzy recently has been people using the 'wrong' pronouns. There is no logical reason to call a male person 'she' apart from courtesy. Many of us have stated that we will call a trans male person 'she' if we feel a sense of politeness or respect towards them but that we do not agree with being forced to call strangers 'she' when they are fully intact males and have done nothing to merit respect (Caitlin Jenner who killed a woman, Ada wells who is a racist sexist homophobe, Davina ayres who raped a child, the sex offender who assaulted a child and was given a suspended sentence recently etc)
People have been deleted and banned for refusing to use female pronouns for these male humans who are deserving of neither respect or courtesy. What is the scientific consensus that drives that decision making? You have accepted the idea that refusing to use chosen pronouns, despite pronouns denoting sex not gender and sex being immutable (according to scientific consensus) is transphobic and hate fuelled behaviour. I disagree. So do hundreds of posters on this thread. Please reconsider this position!

ScrambledSmegs · 26/08/2016 10:21

When we talk about gender we are talking about the oppression of half the human race.

THIS.

OscarDeLaYenta · 26/08/2016 10:22

KateMNHQ

I'm afraid that is a contradictory position. I cannot assert that eg Alex Drummond's chromosomes are XY and that this makes him a man (I am not going to tie myself up in meaningless linguistic knots by saying that he is a 'biological man', or 'according to biology this makes him a man'), yet then go on to refer to AD as she.

(So in fact it would be impermissible for me to state 'according to biology this makes him a man'.)

The MN-approved statement would then read:
Alex Drummond has XY chromosomes and a functioning penis. She is a woman. She is biologically and physically male.

This is a nonsense.

Thee is a difference between deliberately using a pronoun, in the sense that one selects the sexed pronoun that matches an individual's actual sex, i.e. one makes a deliberate choice. And maliciously using a pronoun, in the sense that the context within which one uses a pronoun and the other language that one uses clearly conveys a malicious and vindictive intent. The latter could constitute bullying, the former never can. NOTE: this is about this is about INTENT and NOT PERCEPTION.

MNHQ: Language is an interrelated system. You simply cannot seal one part of it off (pronouns) and assert that these can only be used in particular ways, yet permit the rest of the system (statements concerning the immutability of biological sex) to remain unchanged. the system then breaks down, utterances become meaningless and we end up with nonsense statements such as:

Alex Drummond has XY chromosomes and a functioning penis. Therefore she is a man,

You have to decide.

OP posts:
VestalVirgin · 26/08/2016 10:22

Sex is real.
Gender is a social construct.

That's how it is, and not the other way round.

I am Spartacus.

SitsOnFence · 26/08/2016 10:25

I am SitsOnFence

I believe that rigid gender roles are damaging to everyone; women, men, girls and boys.

I am happy that men and women are challenging these gender roles by dressing and acting outside of the defined boxes. I believe that those who choose to do so often suffer terrible discrimination and that we, as a caring society, should do our best to protect them.

I also believe that, for many people, sexuality is wider than simply homo/hetero/bisexual. And that's great too.

I do not believe that a man can change into a woman or that anyone born male can be a lesbian. No matter how he presents himself and no matter what hormones he takes AND I DO NOT BELIEVE THAT A LESBIAN IS TRANSPHOBIC FOR NOT WANTING TO HAVE SEX WITH HIM. With or without penis.

This entire mess is the result of gender, and my heart goes out to everyone caught up in it. Pretending men are women, and women are men won't help fix it though.

GinAndTunic · 26/08/2016 10:28

I am Oscar. And Spartacus.

PaulDacresMicroPenis · 26/08/2016 10:29

Excellent post disfasia
If, 5 years ago, David Cameron (remember him?) had stood up & announced in the Commons that any man could legally gain access to women only spaces by simply saying "I feel that I am a woman" there would have been uproar.But because a very vocal minority are framing it
in terms of equality, compassion and (let's face it) 'what are you silly women worried about, stop being such bitches' a lot of people are shocked to find out what's been bubbling away under the surface.
Another Spartacus here.

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