The deletion of the Upfield thread on AIBU

[PencilsInSpace]

Deletion message: Hi all, as there is already an active thread about this subject on the Feminism boards we're going to close this one.

I don't understand or agree with this decision.

1. people often start threads on the same subject on different boards - is it a new rule that there can only be one?

2. Lots of posters hide FWR so might not know what has happened

3. Upfield made their insinuations against all of MN, not just FWR

Can you say a bit more about your decision please?

LOVE THE NEW POLICY

Lioking forward to the deletion of approximately 76 billion Brexit threads and 45 million my MIL is a bitch threads. Oh and the eleventy billion ‘why fat people should just fuck if & die’ threads!!

Brilliant.

MNHQ can you give us a proper reason for the deletion please? This is all over Twitter. Why the inconsistency in moderation for threads about current affairs?

NoCauseRebel

Yes, I agree. It appears that no one is happy with the thread deletion. Whether they are feminist or not, whether they hate feminists or not.

The non-feminists would like the opportunity to have their say in AIBU. And the feminists want the exact same thing.

The only reason I can think for the deletion is that HQ do not want the Flora issue reaching a wider audience, for reasons unknown.

But that wouldn't explain why they put out a statement on Twitter, which is going to reach far more people.

Purely stating “you’re transphobic and a bigot” in response to someone simply saying that the discussion of shared spaces needs to happen is unreasonable. However, so is stating things like “a woman doesn’t have a penis/men will never be women,” which is just two points I’ve seen made on one of these threads.

Back up a bit here.
'A woman doesn't have a penis'.
'Men will never be women'.
How is it unreasonable to state these two facts?
What is unreasonable about it?

Apologies, everyone - we intended to close the AIBU thread while we got ahead of the reports - there was a bit of miscommunication between us on what was a v busy Friday night . We've reinstated it now.

I used to avoid the Feminist section, too. I found it too aggressive, too intolerant of other views.
I said so in a debate on AIBU and Bertrand suggested I give it another try. So I did (thank you, Bertrand ).

I discovered that the posters who’d been so aggressive were no longer there. I found feminists from all shades of the political spectrum. I found trans people who agreed with the GC stance, and women who did not. I found my eyes well and truly opened to what was going on with Women’s Rights and I stayed, appalled.

I don’t agree with everything. I do feel able to say so without being piled on, unlike other areas of MN and social media.

If you can hack it on AIBU, you can cope with Feminist chat.

I don't care what the topic is - it could be "which chocolate do you think melts best" or "are aardvarks cute?" - but any poster on any thread who writes "newsflash" in that way makes me want to fucking roll my eyes.

"Newsflash! People disagree with you!"

Well no shit Sherlock.

LangCleg

I saw that thread because it came up.in active threads and the point is the thread was started by an op who had been chased off of another thread and made to feel that she wasn't educated enough to be able to join in a feminist discussion.

If feminism is meant to be for and about women then why should more academic women be able to talk down to less academic women and make them feel bad?

Purely stating “you’re transphobic and a bigot” in response to someone simply saying that the discussion of shared spaces needs to happen is unreasonable. However, so is stating things like “a woman doesn’t have a penis/men will never be women,” which is just two points I’ve seen made on one of these threads.

How can you discuss why sex segregation is important, if you can't describe the criteria that qualifies you to access them?!

How can any feminist, anyway, ever speak about feminism, if they are not allowed to define and categorise the people they are speaking of?

It doesn't make sense. Unless I've completely misunderstood your comment.

YetAnotherBeckyMumsnet

Excellent.

Exactly. The original comment was deemed offensive and so was deleted so why would Datun post an undeleted post as proof that inoffensive comments are deleted?

Because you can see the words that were substituted. Unless you think Barracker was using words that are really offensive, and not man, woman, girl.

In which case, I can't help you with that.

Thanks for biting (I genuinely mean that).

I have often asked the question along with why my DD 11 would have to get over herself if she ever had to change for PE next to a transgirl. I have literally asked the question as I have now, as have other posters and actually, yes, it is met with the accusations I mentioned above. I don't think there is anything in what I've asked that should get people's backs up. Similarly when posters question the ethics of a medicalised route for kids questioning their "gender" it's shut down with "transphobe"

I also believe that it's the steadily growing, very vocal, well funded anti biology brigade led by Stonewall and Mermaids who are doing the most harm to all of us.

It’s back! Thank you MNHQ.

Sorry I missed the "woman can't have a penis" bit.

That will never be true.

Fab! Thanks MN

Thank you, YetAnotherBeckyMumsnet, both for reinstating it and for explaining that it was an error.

@BertrandRussell

No, I saw the apology but that sort of ignores the fact that the op was basically made to feel not good enough when posting on a feminist thread. That is, frankly, par for the course on that board (as witnessed on here to be honest with a poster thinking it ok to have a go at another poster for not declaring her VI) and had that op not posted that thread she might have simply done what other people do and hidden the FWR board.

“ No, I saw the apology but that sort of ignores the fact that the op was basically made to feel not good enough when posting on a feminist thread.”

Actually, surely what it means was that someone was a dick and apologised for it. Which is an incredibly unusual thing to happen!
I don’t understand why the FWR board seems to be held to higher standards than any of the others. Do you think women should be unfailingly nice, never lose their tempers, say something dickish or take things someone else says the wrong way?
And it does seem a bit strange that to support your view that FWR is a nasty vicious pit you use a thread where someone apologises profusely for upsetting another poster!

@Datun but there are ways to say it which don’t launch straight into an attack on others.

E.g. the point about shared spaces is valid, but surely it would be better to suggest that people have issue with sharing a space with someone who is a pre-op transsexual rather than launching into “women don’t have a penis”? If that point is then shouted down then you can make a more reasoned argument as to why there are concerns.

I have previously made the point for instance that actually, shared spaces is an issue which could put transgender men at risk as well, after all if we send a transgender man to a male prison then surely that transgender man is at risk of e.g. rape and sexual assault if he is still biologically deemed to be a woman? And yet no-one has ever acknowledged that point, it’s all been lost in the “men don’t have a penis” argument.

It’s also worth acknowledging surely that there are many transgender men and women who don’t agree with this stance either re shared spaces... It is a minority of radicals who become quite so vitriolic on the need for trans rights and even those on the trans side of the debate are attacked by them.

Surely, rather than debating against all trans people it would be better to join ranks with those who are in agreement and thus leave the shouty minority behind?

“ Surely, rather than debating against all trans people it would be better to join ranks with those who are in agreement and thus leave the shouty minority behind?”

How do you do that without being called transphobic?

Thank you YetAnotherBeckyMumsnet

NoCauseRebel

I don't know how often you talk about this, but, if you are actually talking about it to someone who has a different view, the entire premise, literally all of it, comes down to the definition of the word woman.

Because you can talk about what kinds of men should have access to women's spaces, but at the end of the day, the only criteria that produces the statistical risk is their sex.

You are already differentiating between pre-and post op.

Where statistics will tell you, that in terms of risk, there is no difference. It's an emotional difference that you feel.

The other thing, of course, is that your focus is on the man concerned, or men concerned, and what they have to do. Whereas feminism will focus solely on the women.

So if you are talking about what a man would have to do to qualify to be a woman in a certain space, I would be thinking about the women in that space. And how what the man thinks in his head couldn't be more irrelevant to them.

When you've had this conversation 200-300 times, you don't keep starting at the beginning. Which is why we have the 'break it down for me thread.'

Can I just add that it almost doesn't matter what you say to try and differentiate between men and women, it will be considered transphobic.

The dictionary definition of woman as an adult human female is considered transphobic. The objection being that it is said deliberately to marginalise transwomen.

You just have to think about that for one second. How can the actual definition of a woman, marginalise men? If you're saying it's not men, it's transwomen, you must instantly understand why we have to categorise according to sex, not gender.

Thank you @YetAnotherBeckyMumsnet

Thanks, Becky. Have some , and some too, sounds like you're in for a hell of a weekend.