Thread about Kathleen Stock's book deleted

[BernardBlackMissesLangCleg]

Hello

It would be helpful to understand why the thread about Kathleen Stock's book was deleted if MNHQ wouldn't mind explaining their reasoning?

The thread was a number of women discussing the work of 2 feminist academics. Feminist academics are generally by their nature controversial and get up men's noses, otherwise they're not doing it right!

If you could provide some guidelines for how feminists can discuss Kathleen Stock and Julia Long's work on the Feminism board it would be most helpful.

Thank you in advance.

Elite feminism versus grass roots feminism, cuts right to the heart of feminism and women’s rights and it’s something that we should be able to discuss.

Agree, op. It cannot be that this is yet another verboten topic. FWR is becoming impossible to navigate.

I also fail to see what we can't discuss the content of a published book and/or disagreements between two well known feminist writers.

I don't understand the reasoning behind some of the deletions because I don't think anyone was being uncivil. It makes it look as though the deletions served a purpose to remove the whole thread.

Yes, I was surprised by this deletion, unless there were lots of horrible posts I missed. Thought it was a really important topic to discuss, and although the discussion was quite heated I didn't see any personal attacks.

My guess would be that it wasn’t about competing feminisms. It was about some people not liking the references to AGP.

Never heard of this book, must be interesting. Off to look it up..

Women on FWR have been able to discuss Dr Julia Long's articles and talks in the past including the one that Professor Kathleen Stock references in her book, 'Material Girls', titled, 'A Meaningful Transition'
uncommongroundmedia.com/a-meaningful-transition-julia-long/

Have Mumsnet FWR rules have changed in the last year?

Hello @BernardBlackMissesLangCleg it looks like quite a lot of the posts on the thread were breaking our guidelines. As a general rule, we'll remove posts/threads that generalise about AGP.

I KNEW it was going to be someone not wanting us to talk about AGP.

@YetAnotherBeckyMumsnet

Hello *@BernardBlackMissesLangCleg* it looks like quite a lot of the posts on the thread were breaking our guidelines. As a general rule, we'll remove posts/threads that generalise about AGP.

Can we talk about AGP if we don’t generalise about it?

If so, is it permissible to give the definition of it? It would seem strange if a condition was singled out as one that must not be defined.

Yes, say we were talking about the male trans person who masturbates in women's toilets and uploads to social media. Would we be able to say, gosh, that looks like a case of agp?

Medicine Net
Paraphillias.
(extract)
"Except for masochism, which is 20 times more common in women than men, paraphilias are almost exclusively diagnosed in men. Many people who suffer from one paraphilia have more than one. For example, about one-third of pedophiles also have another paraphilia. More than half engage in three or four such kinds of behaviors rather than just one. Most people who develop a paraphilia begin having fantasies about it before they are 13 years old.

According to the most current standard reference for mental disorders, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5), preceded by the DSM-IV and DSM-IV-TR, there are a number of different types of paraphilias, each of which has a different focus of the sufferer's sexual arousal:

Voyeurism: watching an unsuspecting/non-consenting individual who is either nude, disrobing, or engaging in sexual activity
Exhibitionism: exposing one’s own genitals to an unsuspecting person
Frotteurism: touching or rubbing against a non-consenting person
Sexual masochism: being humiliated, beaten, bound, or otherwise suffering
Sexual sadism: the physical or emotional suffering of another person
Pedophilia: sexual activity with a child that is prepubescent (usually 13 years old or younger)
Fetishism: sexual fascination with nonliving objects or highly specific body parts (partialism). Examples of specific fetishisms include somnophilia (sexual arousal by a person who is unconscious) and urophilia (deriving sexual pleasure from seeing or thinking about urine or urinating)
Transvestism: cross-dressing that is sexually arousing and interferes with functioning
Autogynephilia is a subtype of transvestism that refers specifically to men who become aroused by thinking or visualizing himself as a woman.
Other specified paraphilia: some paraphilias do not meet full diagnostic criteria for a paraphilic disorder but may have uncontrolled sexual impulses that cause enough distress for the sufferer that they are recognized. Examples of such specific paraphilias include necrophilia (corpses), scatologia (obscene phone calls), coprophilia (feces and defecation), and zoophilia (animals)."
www.medicinenet.com/paraphilia/article.htm

@YetAnotherBeckyMumsnet

Hello *@BernardBlackMissesLangCleg* it looks like quite a lot of the posts on the thread were breaking our guidelines. As a general rule, we'll remove posts/threads that generalise about AGP.

Could you explain why? It’s a recognised paraphilia so why is there a problem discussing it? Are we allowed to discuss other paraphilias?

@YetAnotherBeckyMumsnet

Hello *@BernardBlackMissesLangCleg* it looks like quite a lot of the posts on the thread were breaking our guidelines. As a general rule, we'll remove posts/threads that generalise about AGP.

Why do AGP men have the privilege of not being generalised about.? We can generalise about other types of men.

In fact if there's one thing the trans widows threads show it's that one seems to be able to generalise about AGP very reliably.
It's by being able to make these kind of generalisations about types of abuse that models such as the freedom programme were devised.

I too am mystified

AGP is a fact. It drives fairly predictable behavior in certain men. That behavior is often harmful to women. This is easy to prove (take a look at the trans widows voices website).

Why must women not talk about it?

Why do you single out AGP in particular mumsnet?

MN, why do you allow posters who freely admit they've come to MN with the sole purpose of gathering screenshots/trolling and getting banned, to post on FWR? Yet every other thread on AIBU seems to end up being deleted because the poster is a troll.

Why are the FWR regulars held to such higher standards than the FWR trolls?

This is exactly the reason why KS thinks it's over hyped; women aren't allowed to discuss it in many places, it's not acknowledged in many arenas and so they try to make the point as much as possible, when they actually can.

KS has heard the frustration. And the very real experiences of transwidows. It's not hyperbole. And mn let it play out again.

I do not see why the thread had to go at all.

No one can hear philomena's story nor any of the other stories on the website or on threads here without realising the issue is an issue.

Poor judgment.

HQ, it's very difficult to understand the rules about talking of AGP.

Firstly, are we allowed to talk about it?

Secondly, can you clarify how we can avoid generalising?

Because sometimes, we fall between the rule where you can't generalise, but also you can't be specific!

There is emerging publicity around this aspect, so people will be asking about it more often. Especially as it's just been raised in a book by very well-known feminist.

Yes, we're not allowed to talk about specific individuals are we?

So we're not allowed to talk in general or specific terms, about AGP? Is that right? Do you see the issue?

There is emerging publicity around this aspect, so people will be asking about it more often. Especially as it's just been raised in a book by very well-known feminist.

This is an important point. It is starting to look more and more conspicuous by its absence.

And as trans advocates push harder for its normalisation, mumsnet will eventually be accused of transphobia for banning it.

Surely it can’t be, that MNHQ can’t think for themselves, but just await new orders or permissions from trans activists?

Which parts of AGP can we talk about?

Is the generalise thing a version of namalt?

I don't think so because on mumsnet generally, we are 'allowed' to generalise about men without it being deleted, though you will get told NAMALT by other users.