Thoughts on MNHQ's response to the Spartacus thread

[OlennasWimple]

As the Spartacus thread is about to reach capacity, here's a new thread to discuss MNHQ's response to the issues raised on that thread and in a few other places over the last week or so.

is lesphobic to insist that a lesbian likes penis. Feck off with that shite.
Add message | Report | Message poster KateMumsnet (MNHQ) Tue 30-Aug-16 21:08:00
Hello all

Thanks for all your input on this - we've been listening and thinking hard.

Couple of quick points to clear up: it's actually not the case that people have been banned solely for misgendering - it will have been part of a broader discussion here about whether that poster is able to stick to the rules generally.

We must admit to being slightly taken aback at being cast, by some, as the evil slave-baiting Roman republic in this grin - as lots of you have pointed out, Mumsnet remains one of the few places where these issues can be discussed at all. It would have been much, much easier (both in terms of the resource and the toll on our moderators' sanity!) to shut down the debate as others have done, but instead we are working hard to find a realistic balance between free speech and being a space which welcomes everyone.

From our perspective, the whole issue is pretty much covered by our Talk Guidelines. If people are using sex-at-birth pronouns to provoke, inflame, or belittle, then that's against the rules and will usually have to go. If it happens as part of an otherwise broadly respectful (even if heated) discussion, we look at it in that context and take a view.

Some of you have pointed out a disjunct between allowing posts which mirror mainstream scientific thinking, while asking MNers not to describe a trans woman as 'he'. We can see your point on this,and also accept that there is a fair amount of dodgy stuff on the trans side that can rightly be described as anti-feminist and regressive - but what we'd ask you to think about is the impact on the parent who's not an activist, and likely isn't even posting, but whose adult child is transitioning, or who is doing so themselves. Would they feel belittled, mocked or attacked? Would they think Mumsnet was not for them? If so, we're going to have to remove it. It's a fudge, but it's the best we can do at this stage.

In all but the most extreme headline-grabbing cases, we do think it's possible to debate the core principles without referring to individuals in a way which will cause hurt. Most of you have said that when talking to a trans person face-to-face you wouldn't insist on using birth pronouns or names - and generally, on this and other issues, we encourage people to treat others with the same courtesy they'd use in real life. For every MNer who posts on a thread there are likely to be ten who are lurking - statistically, some of those will be trans or love someone who is, and we need to take account of them too.

We hope that makes our thinking a bit clearer overall. Do continue to tell us your thoughts - it's probably unrealistic to think that this issue will be quickly resolved here or across society as a whole, but it would be brilliant if MN could be part of the solution, we think.

MNHQ

Dwork I don't refer to myself as cis. But then I don't refer to MTT as men either!

Blistory - I agree that personal attacks on another poster should be deleted. I don't think a statement of scientific fact is a personal attack. I understand that those statements may be upsetting to some people, and I regret that (and am phrasing my posts in as pompous and dry a way as possible to avoid it ), but no-one has explained why this issue is any different from discussions about god or vaccination. And MNHQ have not provided an assurance that they won't delete posts that state biological facts and reason critically on the basis of those facts. That, to me, is chilling. I agree with vesuvia - language is not neutral. And with Dworkin. And am still Spartacus.

This is the email to Posie Parker

I have permission to share it.

I'm just gonna bold that......

...to be called cis, or to call oneself cis ... means to agree with gender that females are weak, stupid, passive, hysterical, a fuckhole, a breeder, a skivvy ... [It] is a capitulation to misogyny and patriarchy, it is a betrayal of self and of your sex, it is masochistic, it upholds your oppression, and above all, it's unnecessary

That cupcake article was scary. The idea that a cake looking like part of a woman's body is too exclusionary to be part of an womanfest event - it's like being through the looking glass.

Had to search back, but found the screenshot of posies email...

Ha, x post fret!

That certainly looks like someone banned for refusing to misgender a hypothetical future person to me.......

I don't respect special pronouns [either], if you want to call yourself "they", don't expect me to go along with it

I'm Posacus.

So what if they delete a post ? Challenge them on it and if they were wrong, they're usually quite good about reinstating and apologising on the thread. If they disagree, they disagree. I don't censor my posts so they don't get deleted. I censor them so I don't hurt people. Most of the time.

For me, I'm done arguing about the deletions and the definitions. It's time for me to start to push back where and when it matters. It's about ensuring that I have these discussions with my friends and family, colleagues, networking groups, it's about talking to my MP and MSP and forcing them to acknowledge that women are being harmed and it's going to get worse.

I couldn't care less about being called cis - it belongs in the same I couldn't give a shit category as my authentic self, being on the right side of history, deadnaming and transmisogynistic whatever the fuck. Having angry theoretical discussions about language has value but I'm pretty sure everyone on MN has done these discussions to death and it's gotten us the sum total of nowhere while the MRAs and transactivists have made huge inroads into changing social perception.

Blistory, yes, I can see that. For me, reclaiming the language is vital - I can't make the argument otherwise. Good idea re MPs - not sure mine has heard enough from me this year.....

Great post blistory. MNHQ are in an incredibly precarious position and having to tread a very careful line. The consequences for them of being publicly labelled an institutionally transphobic organisation would be catastrophic. There are already people on Twitter asking mn's advertisers to withdraw their business.

Don't imagine, by the way, that the charge of being institutionally transphobic would need to be substantiated, or that Mn would be given a fair hearing.

I agree with almost everything said on these and other threads but asking Mn to shoulder the entire burden of actively promoting an anti-trans activist stance is not just unrealistic, it could be the end of Mumsnet. There isn't a single political party, charity or commercial organisation prepared to take this stance at the moment. If my mortgage or salary were at stake I wouldn't publicly take it either.

We can say a great deal more about gender critical stances on Mn than we can on any other network or site without getting closed down. I'd rather cooperate with mnhq' pretty reasonable pleas for compromise and continue to have this space where we can talk about this stuff.

YY Blistory. In particular, I agree with: "Many posters seem to be pushing MNHQ to come down in favour of one side once and for all - I don't think that's a fair expectation."

We don't expect MN to come out in favour for or against the anti-vaxxers, or the posters who think controlled crying is harmful, even if there is strong evidence one way or the other. But we do expect them to moderate the debate if it turns personal and offensive, and I don't see why their attitude to the trans issue should be any different.

I'm not bothered by being called cis either (I realise I'm in a minority, and I do understand why other people care) - I'd much rather argue about the issues that seriously affect other people's lives, e.g. the pressure on non-gender conforming teens to identify as the other sex. People who don't know much about the issues are much more likely to be persuaded by concrete examples.

If one doesn't believe gender is anything beyond a social construct, designed to oppress women by putting us into boxes, why must gender be treated with such reverence?

I don't believe in god/God/gods/Gods either - I'm allowed to be an atheist.

The MN discussions are important as they a) highlight the danger of gender self identification and how wide reaching it is and b) give women the solidarity they need to fight it.

My peak trans moment came from that God awful ALW ( amazing leftie women) a Facebook group of. 20000 who joined post the tories getting elected. I was completely unaware that just anyone could say they're a woman and most others would go along with it, that the thing (vagina, breasts actually being female) meant nothing to transactivists and that they really hate us for it ( even though it doesn't exist.). I was shocked to learn that women, special kool Aid drinking head so far leaning in understanding they could barely stand competitively accepting women, were happy to put the needs of transwomen before women, that it was bigoted to say you didn't want to piss or change next to s transwoman, that your your young daughter would fear a transwoman in their space.... A very verbally aggressive transwoman came into the space, ALW, and told hilarious jokes about tying up women (ha ha girls) to radiators and letting them die in a basement, when challenged she had to tell me that she was more woman than me, more nurturing, more feminine...
An admin messaged me to tell me the transwomans "male voice" that she could hear in her posts were triggering as she had been a victim of sustained violence herself. However the same admin, in public, also toed the line of transwomen are women....

And now MN has decided that it cannot whole heartedly support women who are bucking against this new age of male privilege in its new guise, transactivism. It's no mistake that MRA and trans activist language is the same. No coincidence. Same men, different clothes.

I'm going to c&p what I posted on the bullshit thread regarding hypothetical parents of trans kids:

There are so many places, both online and offline, where parents of trans children who affirm trans ideology can easily go. There are virtually none, except 4thwavenow, where parents of trans children who are sceptical about making their child a long-term medical patient, potentially with healthy tissue irreversibly amputated and all the psychological damage that that entails, can go for sensible, critical debate on this issue. We are seeing ever more detransitioners popping up all over the western world - kids who were sold transition as a magic bullet for all their ills, and who quickly discovered that it is often not the panacea it is evangelised to be.

MNHQ , I would counter that you have a responsibility to include differing views on this subject not in spite of these parents, but specifically for their benefit. You include the pros and cons of various controversial methods such CIO and co-sleeping - why not do the same for transition? We understand that you are under pressure to conform to the orthodoxy as we all are, but if you really are by parents, for parents, you must understand that that means approaching such crucial subjects with bluntly critical reasoning, not blind submission to whatever happens to be today's cause celebre.

not blind submission to whatever happens to be today's cause celebre.
Exactly.

We don't expect MN to come out in favour for or against the anti-vaxxers, or the posters who think controlled crying is harmful, even if there is strong evidence one way or the other.

The difference is that MN does.not delete posters for saying that antivaxxers are selfish, or that controlled crying (or attachment parenting) is harmful.

MN does delete for saying that it is not possible to change sex.

Let's stop using the term MNHQ and look at what we are really asking the women behind MN to do, to risk.

This community has it's head well and truly above the parapet. There are plenty ready and waiting to take it down and put us all in our place. But when it comes to scrutiny and ridicule, it won't be me or any other poster who takes the fall. It will be a couple of women who will be left exposed to the shitstorm, who will have to shoulder the bile and hatred that will come their way. We're demanding that these same women take a public stance and hold their nerve when no other website will do so and yet we're not prepared to give them our support on an anonymous forum by simply being a bit aware of the harm that our posts can do.

How about MNHQ invite gender critical dad for a guest blog post??

Totally agree with 'cis is unnecessary' - it is. Utterly.

I don't get this fixation on pronouns - the very tiny number of people I know in actual RL, away from the weird bubble that MN is these days, that describe themselves as 'transsexual', I very happily address/refer to by whatever pronoun they prefer.
I don't give a flying shit about that - it's the wider implications for women and women's rights that aggressive TA is damaging that I am angry about. AND I would argue it is also damaging to those who are struggling with their sex/sexuality/body or whatever we are now meant to describe transsexual people.

How has this ever become such a wide public debate?? IMO the phrase First World Problem has been invested for this.

There are millions of oppressed/violated/damaged people around the world, many/most of them female/not-Caucasian/not-ablebodied/poor/not educated. Without getting too much into inter-sectionalism, surely there are more pressing and more widespread social problems in the world than the out doubted challenges transsexual people face?!
FFS.

NB: Long day in the office. I am grumpy and cross and not at my most reasonable and I don't feel the need to try and be reasonable.

From the link above

" I think it is now well established that the ‘ice your own vagina cupcake’ implies that you need a vagina to be a woman, which excludes trans women. "

YES! Ferfuxsakes Yes! WTAF is wrong with your brain to think otherwise, because it def isn't what is proposed to be 'ladybrain'

Great posts Blistory.

"Implies". Not it means just that, no implication