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.

I don't know why or where they have come from

Thumb, you have answered that in your first paragraph - predatory males who see an opportunity for themselves to gain access to potential victims.

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.

This.

Politicians too cowardly to do the right thing now - like slow this down, think, look for third ways that meet ALL needs involved - need to give serious reflection to how fucking scary it is going to be to undo this mess. Because it will then have to involve the removal of legal rights from a group in the face of massive public backlash, and despite the fact it will be 'rights' that never should have been 'rights' in law at all, it will still take a bloody scary kind of politics and will set a precedent to remove other rights from other people too. A lot of innocent people are going to be affected by this thoughtless mess.

YY Knicknackpaddyflak.

Just putting this here for us to ponder on. I hope the NSPCC are paying attention.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3360110-The-Times-Trans-person-seeks-to-rewrite-their-criminal-history-on-basis-of-privacy?watched=1&msgid=80874112#80874112

I suspect the NSPCC bods are congratulating themselves on having dodged a bullet by not getting embroiled in the debate on MN. I doubt they are actually looking at the problem with open eyes, and seeing WHY the "problem" happened in the first place.

I wonder how much the NSPCC ran away because they honestly do not know how to try and talk about this or balance rights in a way that does not expose them to vicious and very public attack from the TRA lobby, their powerful establishment back up and the rules around public funding.

At this point in time, the establishment is too afraid to safeguard, or even to admit out loud that there is a problem. It's utterly shameful.

At this point in time, the establishment is too afraid to safeguard, or even to admit out loud that there is a problem. It's utterly shameful.

YY.

Hence the GC questions that were asked.

Just leaving this here as I think it is a clear and level headed analysis of WTF is going on.

janeclarejones.com/2018/09/09/gay-rights-and-trans-rights-a-compare-and-contrast/

Good morning @MNHQ. Any thoughts yet?

What do you think of no longer having live chats? Or maybe putting the questions to guests in advance? Or clearly explaining the parameters of the discussions to MNetters (you can ask what you want, but guests do not have to answer or even acknowledge your questions) and to guests (you may be asked a lot of questions about trans issues, ignore them if you don't wish to answer) in advance.

I understand that this may be a difficult line for you but I would appreciate a reply. As I said on pg1, there is more to safeguarding women and children than trans issues. On Mnet we are used to the arguments regarding Trans, I would like to hear about other ways of safeguarding too.

Safeguarding women and children is best done by retaining the existing safeguards that as a society we have already put in place and improving on them further.

I for one am very grateful to @MNHQ for hosting a site where I have had the chance to read so many well thought out and referenced posts from women passionate about safeguarding and women’s rights.

I try to encourage every woman I know in RL to the FWR board as it is an informative, supportive and hilarious read.

DioneTheDiabolist. You are right that there is much more to safeguarding than trans issues.

I think there is a very simple explanation for why the NSPCC were asked so many trans questions.

And it is that a lot of people cannot believe that organizations such as the NSPCC are going along with the transing of children. Children who, if left alone, would most likely either simply grow out of gender dysphoria or grow up to be homosexual.

In other words there is a strong element of gay conversion therapy and or Munchausen by proxy to the transing of children. And grooming, especially online grooming.

The transing of children is culturally fashionable at the moment. There is no evidence as to the long-term safety of this new trendy practice and few sane people support the sterilization of children and the permanent and drastic modification of their healthy bodies. These children do not change their reproductive sex and most sane people think it is cruel and abusive to pretend to them that they can.

There will be a medical scandal. A huge one. By which time it will be too late for safeguarding. The harm will have been done.

And lots of us cannot quite believe that the NSPCC is not doing anything to investigate WTF is going on and doing something to protect these children.

Haven't been on MN much recently due to the school holidays so I missed the NSPCC webchat fiasco but it seems to me that by not bothering to go through with it they've actually answered everyone's questions i.e. they haven't considered the issue properly and didn't have any answers. Personally I think it damages the NSPCC way way more than MN.

I don't remember David Baddiel ducking out of a webchat a few years ago when I said I could never buy his new children's book because I didn't want my money to be used to buy porn (think he skirted that comment though).

What do you think of no longer having live chats?

Way to go! Free speech is too unpredictable. It's awkward, so let's shut people up.

Or maybe putting the questions to guests in advance? Or clearly explaining the parameters of the discussions to MNetters (you can ask what you want, but guests do not have to answer or even acknowledge your questions) and to guests (you may be asked a lot of questions about trans issues, ignore them if you don't wish to answer) in advance.

Old hat. Standard MN since forever.

I would like to hear about other ways of safeguarding too.

What ways would they be? The way where you ask children to ignore the evidence of their eyes and ears? Or the way where responsible adults facilitate grooming by keeping secrets about children from other responsible adults?

Agree with Thumbwitch that the NSPCC bods are congratulating themselves on having dodged a bullet by not getting embroiled in the debate on MN.

I wonder if they will review their income from donations over this period, though, to see if it has gone down. Charities need to get used to answering to the public about what they're doing with the money we give them, and getting hold of unrestricted funds (money to use as they wish rather than for specific projects) is getting harder. People are beginning to take notice of how their money is used and charities are getting an image problem in general and have to compete with each other for their donations.

Hi there OP and really sorry we missed this.

We've been thinking about this a lot here and in fact we recently updated our webchat guidelines - we've added a couple of lines to let people know that, if one topic looks likely to dominate a discussion with a guest, mods might request that people don't continue to post what's effectively the same question/point.

Have a look over here - we've promised that if we do this, we'll be very clear with guests that the issue is one that many MNers feel really strongly about, and that the questions on the thread are only a sample. As ever, we'll encourage them to engage meaningfully with the topic in their answers.

We hope this'll allow other issues to get a look in, while still ensuring that guests understand the strength of feeling here.

Cheers

MNHQ

Thanks KateMumsnet. Hopefully the updated guidelines will go some way to preventing members from spamming the question threads and guests from cancelling.

When there are already a number of questions on a single topic, MNHQ will usually ask for people to stop repeating the same question. Please follow their instructions to avoid deletion and possible suspension. Rest assured we will ALWAYS let the guest know that it's an area of concern to multiple users and will encourage them to engage with those questions

I think ^^ should be particularly helpful.

And thank you to everyone who made relevant posts on this thread.

The "guests" cancelled because they were incapable of answering completely relevant safeguarding/women's rights questions, Dione.

The "guests" cancelled because they were incapable of answering completely relevant safeguarding/women's rights questions, Dione.

And because, despite what has been said on this thread, nobody complaining about this asked any questions about anything else. If you want webchats to go ahead and be filled up with pleasant puff questions that you know the guests will be able to answer, you will have to ask such questions.

The "guests" cancelled because they were incapable of answering completely relevant safeguarding/women's rights questions

The "guests" cancelled because they refused to answer completely relevant safeguarding/women's rights questions,

They could address this issue, but choose not to.

Fair point.

Dione, no one was "spamming" the NSPCC thread. Everyone was asking relevant questions, concerned with child safeguarding.
The NSPCC refused to answer.
If NSPCC thought the questions were repetitive, they could have given an answer covering them all for MNHQ to publish, along with the cancellation post.
NSPCC didn't do that.

and, if I remember correctly (don't have time to look right now), the first GC question was asked after 3 or 4 days of no questions at all.

So not as though nobody else had no chance to ask questions and got spammed out.