Mumsnet moderation - response to yesterday's feedback

[JustineMumsnet]

Hi all,

I’ve had lots of contact about about yesterday’s thread which has now maxed out so thought I’d put a response here.

First of all our guidelines absolutely do allow people to discuss biology and science. And we absolutely see why some of Penny Mordaunt’s words yesterday would raise concerns amongst those with a gender critical POV - so maybe it wasn’t, in retrospect, the best moment to make a point. Nonetheless we do believe that as a rule Spartacus-type threads are not conducive to a constructive debate and that trans people would be likely to feel attacked and/or excluded by them.

To state the obvious and as I’ve said before, this is an extremely polarised debate in which even the most basic terms are disputed, so if we’re going to have it here we’re in danger of being attacked from all sides (which we are in actual fact). Nonetheless, we think it’s important, so we’ll keep at it and we’ll keep trying to moderate it to make it as open and civil as we possibly can.

You should also know that I’m due to meet soon with Penny Mordaunt to discuss “any ideas you may have on the women and equalities agenda’' and I will of course reflect the strong opinion of many Mumsnetters wrt to this issue and ask her to do a webchat too.

Thanks, as ever, for your input.

I object to women being policed because some people open threads of their own volition and are 'triggered' by them.

You could say this about anything...yet racist, misogynistic, disablest threads are rightly stopped.

I don't think Bowl has handed me my arse a few times now and even though she did it ever so politely, I feel she should get her comments deleted from now on because memememememe is a particularly great suggestion. Jus' sayin'.

You however frequently post genuinely offensive views.

As an infertile intersex woman I take huge and genuine offence at the posts which associate the esse of womanhood with chromosomes or reproduction.

It’s not even about who is more oppressed.

Trans gender people who identify as women aren’t actually women and we shouldn’t have to all pretend they are or make room for them in women’s spaces/groups/orgs.

Trans gender people who identify as women are men. They can either use men’s spaces or they can fight for their own.

And, more, what even is the point of recording sex officially if it doesn’t reflect anything real? Really, what’s the point in recording it?

It occurs to me that actually, if Justine had been trans, then her life might indeed have probably been considerably harder. Or rather, his life - Justin the transman, rendered sterile by cross-sex hormones would never have been a mother, could never have founded Mumsnet. But still liable to many of the problems inescapable for biological women. Still at risk from male violence.

Oh lols Lang. Ta.

U lot gave me the tools and the stuff how to say it so now I do

You’re being targeted because you’re a place where women speak, let’s be clear about that. If it was about genuine transphobia they’d be going after kiwifarms and reddit. But they’re not. Which tells you all you need to know. Women speaking together are a threat.

Bowl nails it again

Do u rember when the woman talking about the group she ran for ppl like me in deptford. Was it and was taken over by students from goldsmiths and they totally kille it

I also remember that woman's work and the way it was subverted.

There's also a prominent GC woman who is a Labour activist, who among other things organises children's clothes swaps in one of the poorest areas in London. (Sorry, have forgotten her name.) But the most recent two or three clothes swaps she's tried to run have been closed down by TRAs targetting the venues. That's right - children in poverty are acceptable collateral damage in these people's quest to shut down women's voices. That's what we're up against. Some of these people genuinely are monstrous in the depths they'll stoop to.

Not just the tools the reasons behib it

Venice Allen, Fermat?

i think if you start banning statements of biological truths even if they are repetitive such as transwomen are biological males... then you are curtailing free speech. This isnt transphobic or hate speech, it isnt directed at an individual. It is not meant to incite hatred of transpeople. It is a political slogan in the debate to maintain sex based rights for women and to make it clear that we are talking about biological women and not the 'transwomen are women' kind

It was Lucy from Deptford, not Venice

Think that was Venice Allen? And yes it was disgusting. There was a trans person in Canada who has had a legal battle with a Rape Crisis centre for years and its cost the centre thousands of dollars in legal fees to fight the case. The entitlement of some of these pp is truly horrifying. And anti women.

I am really really fucking angry

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3203804-The-Deptford-People-Project-and-the-impact-of-self-ID-and-transactivism-on-working-class-women

I don’t understand how trans people are the most oppressed minority. More oppressed than disabled people? More oppressed than black women?

I don’t believe they are the most oppressed.

I’ve been abused, molested, shamed, held back in my career for taking maternity leave, achieved poor GCSE (equiv) results as a result of horrendous period pains during my exams, experienced period flooding whilst at work etc etc. I think I’ve been oppressed.

For such an oppressed group, they sure do manage to put their oppression aside and hound, harrass and threaten anyone who thinks that biology exists.

Len McCluskey, head of the Unite union, has been hounded by this marginalised group on Twitter today for calling for respectful debate free of violence. They didn't like that. At all.

It seems that the transgender issue and its effect on women's rights is a subject that you don't know much about, Justine (no offence meant by that, honestly). Most of us on here didn't know much at first. I think you see transgender as someone who intends to have medical treatment and sex reassignment surgery. That is absolutely not the case.

Can I suggest that you attend a Woman's Place meeting? And actually listen to what women have to say before you meet Penny Mordaunt? By all means also attend a transgender event. Make your own mind up.

Miranda Yardley is a transsexual on here who I'm sure would speak to you privately if you wish.

Your life would have been "a zillion times harder" Justine, if you'd been any of the following:

• born into an Asian family where you were told on your 16th birthday that your marriage had been arranged to a man you've never met or even heard of, and that at the end of term you would be leaving school and travelling to India to live with your husband's family - again, all strangers. Your refusal was met with death threats because of the family honour. You told some school friends, one of whom had just turned 17 and had passed his driving test and had access to a car. Your friends managed to call a refuge - not easy in those days as mobile phones were the preserve of the very rich. You went off to school one day knowing that you had an hour where your Dad was at work, your Mum was visiting friends in the next town and your brothers were at work. Your friends took you to your house where you grabbed as many of your things as you could and then drove you to the refuge in another part of the country. You had to change your name and your identity to ensure your safety because if a member of your old community found you, they would have told your family who would have killed you.

• you were born into a family where you were routinely abused from a young age by an uncle. You tried to tell your Mum but she refused to believe that her brother would do that. You were told not to lie and not to make up horrible rumours about people. By the time you reached 13 you'd reached breaking point and you ran away. The police tracked you down and you ended up in emergency foster care, where you told social services what had been happening to you. The CPS declined to prosecute because it was your word against his and your entire family disowned you as a liar. You spent the next 5 years bouncing around the care system realising that nobody cared about you. You were bright but your potential was wasted because you were never in one place long enough. You turned to alcohol and drugs to numb the misery and sense of worthlessness that you were so awful that even your own family didn't love you. By the time you turned 21 you'd attempted suicide several times. Your mental health and addiction issues meant that employment offers were non-existent, so you turned to prostitution. You were repeatedly raped, beaten and abused but who was interested in what happened to a prostitute? One day you met a nice woman who offered you a route out, a safe space in a refuge and a chance to get clean. You took it and managed to pull your life back together. Today you live quietly and alone. Sometimes you think about what you wanted to do as a child - be a nurse, get married and have a family.

The above are real experiences. I know they are true because they happened to people that I know.

So do not sit there from your position of huge privilege and airily tell people that your life would have been a "zillion times more difficult" if you'd been trans - because you do not know that. Your statement is not only tone-deaf but completely misguided. Do not sit and tell a forum full of women that it's time to play misery top trumps and compete to see who deserves to have their voice heard because they've had it so hard.

Will nobody think of Justine?

biological claim

I don't CLAIM I have ovaries or a womb or a vagina or a cervix or periods or
that my DNA is that of a woman. This is a fact.

But some men think that if they jump up and down or stick their fingers in their ears then they can change a biological fact and use that male privilege to twist it.

Seeing as its July 4th this is for Justine:

"Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom."

"In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock."

"Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual."

"Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty."

"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive."

"I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led, and bearding every authority which stood in their way."

"It is always better to have no ideas than false ones; to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong."

"Truth is certainly a branch of morality and a very important one to society."

Everyone needs a little more Thomas Jefferson in their lives. Especially in 2018 when the priniciples that underpin democracy and liberty are under attack.

Bowl nails it again

bowl always nails it

With her biological facts an' all

If you think your life would be more difficult as a trans woman you’ve drunk the Kool Aid and need to consider your objectivity in this discussion. This site has a litany of women’s experiences that give voice to their historic and ongoing suffering and marginalisation. Of everyday and institutional sexism and misogyny.
Trans women seem to be of the view that there is a hierarchy of suffering, and inevitably - they place themselves at the top of that hierarchy. MN seem to agree. I don’t, and will continue to contest their ongoing desire to place themselves at the centre of everything. That is the patriarchy in action. MN has just become an enabler and servant in this process.

I would like to discuss this speech given by Heather Brunskill-Evans at a WPUK event
www.heather-brunskell-evans.co.uk/body-politics/1114/

Heather is an academic who has also appeared on TV and radio.
She was part of the group of women intimidated by young TRAs whilst trying to get into the We Need to Talk event in Bristol.

She is also a Quaker.

In her paper she discusses the life of Bruce / Caitlin Jenner., a person with considerable celebrity & privilege but the focus and context is her experiences and theories.

For coherence and I would suggest academic integrity Heather maintains 'he' pronouns throughout the paper.

Under current guidelines the article can't be quoted. This limits the opportunity to discuss it. We are grown ups!