MNHQ We Have a Problem

[DioneTheDiabolist]

In the past week, we have had the NSPCC pull out of a Web chat about their Speak Out Stay Safe (teaching children how to stay safe from abuse and what to do if they have any concerns) and PANTS (teaching parents how to talk to young children about staying safe from sexual abuse in an age appropriate way) programmes.

We have also had Stella Creasey MP pull out of a Web chat about making misogyny a hate crime.

As I am interested and invested in the safety and wellbeing of women and children, I am disappointed that these Web chats did not take place, seemingly because the views of the NSPCC and Stella Creasey regarding Trans issues do not align with some GC MNetters.

I want to ask MNHQ, what are you doing/can be done to prevent this from happening again? Plenty of women and parents here would like to hear what they have to say about keeping our children safe and legislation being drafted to protect women.

But they can already ignore difficult questions; nobody has a gun to their head!

Of course they can but as an audience we can draw our own conclusions about the person/organisation/political party etc by seeing which questions they ignore.

If there are 500 questions and they only answer the ten which aren’t challenging their views/decisions/proposals/policies then that’s pretty revealing is it not?

There's a lot of cap doffing and forelock tugging on this thread and a bizarre unwillingness for public bodies to be held to account by a politicised media platform. Which I find strange as I suspect it's limited to this issue.

Here is an idea if you think FWR members are horrible loudmouths who make webchat guests run away:

Ask them some questions. Don't leave the threads about webchats empty for a whole week and then complain that FWR dominated them late in the day with their uppity critical questions. Ask some nice puff questions of your own.

There you go. Problem solved.

Truth of the matter: nobody gave a single solitary shit about safeguarding and the NSPCC until FWR women said something. If they had given a single solitary shit, they would have been on the thread already.

As a pp said, would it be the same for a Brexit chat?

What should have happened is they had a cut off and time to formulate responses. So say thread opened on the first, closed a week later then a few days to take the questions back and formulate responses to the main question types.

This would have allowed them to investigate if they weren’t aware and to talk internally about how to respond.

That seems pretty sensible. Thank the MNers for their thought provoking questions, hold your hands up that you aren’t briefed to answer those questions and agree to come back within a week or whatever.

Although I still think it’s fairly poor that an NSPCC media rep isn’t briefed on a current hot topic.

unwillingness for public bodies to be held to account by a politicised media platform

I think the thing is Eresh that some of us don't consider MN to be a politicised media platform at all. Or perhaps even that it should be.

But yes, perhaps a cut-off would be a thing. Although I'm not sure how that helps any guests stay on topic of what they want to discuss on MN.

I think the thing is Eresh that some of us don't consider MN to be a politicised media platform at all. Or perhaps even that it should be.

Were you here during the during the Scottish Independence referendum
Rat? The threads were vicious.

What about Brexit? The last general election? Any general election?

The US presidential election?Discussions about the NHS? About Education policy? Social Care? PIP? Universal Credits? Etc etc etc

Suggesting that MN isn’t polticial is hysterical.

Debates about the impact of Self Identification may be a fairly recent thing but debates about politics are an inherent part of MN.

I’m genuinely stunned that any MNer wouldn’t be aware of that.

Perhaps those wishing MN to be unpolitical should stick to pombears and prams?

Bollocks.

Nobody cared. People only cared when "bigots" asked questions

I dont give a damn how reasonably you pretend to be Rat. You only have 1 goal which is to silence women.

Well i say FUCK THAT.

The thing about all those other political debates though is that Mumsnet wasn't known for being on one side or the other of them.

MN isn’t ‘on’ a side though. All their statements have been about the need for debate, free speech and responsible discussion. They’re hosting A debate but they haven’t openly supported any specific position.

MN is a big site, lots of members, lots of opinions, demographically diverse. I don’t think there’s ‘a side’ the site as a whole is on. The FWR board is going to be gender critical - that’s just the nature of the beast.

Even allowing debate is seen as a threat, hence the legal action that seems to have been threatened.

I’ve seen web chats where the host merrily skips over stuff they don’t want to answer or answers just three questions in an hour blaming the internet or traffic or whatever. It’s not like it’s the first time that there’s been a controversial web chat and previously it’s all been platitudes and pombears.

Personally, due to several high profile and very serious recent events regarding poor safeguarding policy around particular issues, I think that people are considering there is merit in what is being pointed out - they just don’t know what to do yet. Hopefully loopholes are being addressed with a more critical eye.

Debates about the impact of Self Identification may be a fairly recent thing but debates about politics are an inherent part of MN.

This. I'm finding some people's positions increasingly bizarre as they attempt to justify their stance on this.

Yes if they can't answer the very simple questions it would appear that they know they have a valid point.

The thing about all those other political debates though is that Mumsnet wasn't known for being on one side or the other of them.

Does the fact that there are a significant number of gender critical posters on MN asking questions around this stuff make their views less valid?

It’s ok for MNers to discuss politics as long as they don’t make enough noise to be heard? Or enough fuss to upset the political apple cart?

Is that a position you really subscribe to Rat? Surely not?

Because it’s very, very close to saying women/mothers need to shut up and be “good girls”.

It makes me just as uncomfortable as the occasional newbie who suggests that MNers shouldn’t be swearing because it’s not appropriate for Mothers.

If MN just becomes somewhere to complain about MILs, swap recipes and feed trashy tabloid newspapers then it’s not the community I joined over a decade ago.

Because it’s very, very close to saying women/mothers need to shut up and be “good girls”.

Isn't it just. It feels like that Harry Enfield sketch about the Gold Standard.

FFS.

What should have happened is they had a cut off and time to formulate responses. So say thread opened on the first, closed a week later then a few days to take the questions back and formulate responses to the main question types.

Standard format. Has been used for many MN 'specials'. NSPCC could have requested changing their real-time chat to this. But they didn't. They bottled out completely.

Which is clearly the fault of these pesky, informed, concerned women.

I'm finding some people's positions increasingly bizarre as they attempt to justify their stance on this.

What "stance" are you talking about Ereshkigal?

The stance as expressed, Dione. That women with concerns and queries about the conflict between safeguarding/women and girls' rights and trans policies should have held back on asking awkward unpalatable questions so that the "guests" would stay and we could all benefit from their wisdom.

But I wasn't actually talking about you per se. I was talking about those people who don't think MN should be political.

Personally, due to several high profile and very serious recent events regarding poor safeguarding policy around particular issues, I think that people are considering there is merit in what is being pointed out - they just don’t know what to do yet. Hopefully loopholes are being addressed with a more critical eye.

I hope this is the reason that so man organizations and government representatives have fallen silent. I am skeptical but hoping.

I am skeptical too thebewilderness but I think the tide is turning. I think a lot of well meaning people are coming to realize that "transwomen are women" isn't simply a down with the woke youth soundbite.

They are coming to realize that they are going to have to put their money where their mouth is and become responsible for the consequences of that soundbite being taken seriously and acted upon if they continue to utter it.

And we are starting to see the consequences and they are ugly.

I think MN should be proud of being the sort of forum that asks the uncomfortable questions of our politicians and public bodies. In a controversy that involves the sterilization of, mostly homosexuel, children it shouldn't be much of a safeguarding dilemma for most people.

I'd just like to say that, in my own opinion, this isn't even about transwomen per se. It's about the risks of the changes to GRA act allowing non-genuine trans people to call themselves trans to gain access to women-only spaces. It''s about the predatory males who decide this is a good opening for them to gain access to potential victims. it's about removing those safeguards, and allowing active penises into female-only spaces.

But there appears to be a rise in activist transwomen who are demanding these safeguards be removed, that they are "women" and should be called that, that their "lady-penises" are different from "man-penises" and lesbians should accept them as such and engage with them, that only surgically reconstructed transwomen have vaginas and born women have "front holes" - and so it goes on.

I don't know why or where they have come from but none of this was so obvious before the proposed changes in the GRA act, to allow instant self-ID instead of the 2 years that is currently the situation.

due to several high profile and very serious recent events regarding poor safeguarding policy around particular issues, I think that people are considering there is merit in what is being pointed out

I agree. I'mean sure I'm not the only Mnetter grateful to FWR and MNHQ for the discussions here. I think many people have benefitted and learnt a lot over the past few years.

I'm also a big fan of PANTS. It's a programme that helps parents talk to children about bodily autonomy. Quite a few parents struggle with this.

I'm, not I'mean.

DioneTheDiabolist does it bother you that safeguarding recommendations for gender questioning children contradict some of the PANTS recommendations?

Do you think it is wise for trans activists to be allowed to influence safeguarding, particularly as that influence has been to erode safeguarding and encourage a culture of secrecy?

Despite what I just said above about the tide of opinion changing, I think self-ID will be enshrined in law. And this will essentially end safeguarding and sex segregated spaces as we know them today. And every flasher, groper, creep, perv, voyeur, upskirter, pedophile, rapist, exhibitioner and abuser in the land will be able to take advantage of that. And they will.

We keep being told that only a tiny proportion of the population is trans identified (although as far as the youth is concerned, especially girls, this is on the increase) so why are we getting our knickers in a twist? It must be because we are transphobic or hysterical or bigoted or frothing abusers of the vulnerable. Right?

Or is it because we are extremely worried about the widereaching effects that this tiny group are having on the rights of girls and women to privacy, dignity and safety from male sexualised violence?

This isn't as far as many of us are concerned about transgenderism per se. It is about male violence and female rights to be shielded from that violence as much as possible. (Cos it is unthinkable that men would stop with the violence already.)

And I'm upset that the NSPCC of all organizations can't or won't answer the questions of worried women. I'm worried that they apparently didn't anticipate questions about major far reaching changes to safeguarding and children's rights that we have already had a taste of and which are about to be enshrined in law.

I fear that if the NSPCC has nothing to say on this subject that the inevitable will happen. Girls and women are going to be harmed and there will be very little that any of us can do about it because it will be too late.

And then, as we count and comfort the victims of self-ID and the trashing of safeguarding and sex segregated spaces we will have to spend a lot of energy fighting to get our rights back to square one.