Any chance of a review of the FWR moderation rules in light of Maya Forstater's success in court please?

[ViperAtTheGatesOfDawn]

The belief that transwomen are men and that transmen are women has been accepted as a legitimate and protected belief, yet we are not able to state this on Mumsnet under the current rules.

It has become increasingly difficult to discuss feminist issues on the dedicated feminism boards as a result of the moderation rules.

In light of Maya's success in court, and that 'gender critical' beliefs are considered protected under the Equality Act, would it be possible for the FWR sex/gender mod rules to be re-visited please?

Apologies, haven't rtft.
Fwiw, whilst I haven't found the feminist boards hostile, I guess some people do. Although as someone has already pointed out, it's often a tough and confrontational topic and if you don't like that, maybe it's not for you.
Having your opinions challenged can be uncomfortable.
I'm not particularly averse to a GC feminism board as it's content will be clear and anyone stumbling in and being offended will only have themselves to blame. Although I would ask that the balance to that would be more realistic moderation of terms and language.
I think MNHQ is perfectly capable of dealing with a bit of flack as they have lots of practice
Feminism as a concept exists across so many of the topics, even if it's not named as such. There are women helping and centering women everywhere.
GC feminism is the hottest of feminist topics at the moment and there are parts of the feminist board that barely get traffic.
I doubt that the monitoring of us will be hugely affected as people comb through for offending material anyway.
I would hope that the archive of previous posting could be saved though as there's some great resources there.

Just catching up with this too. So in answer to the advertising issue, Justine said this:

Just to take the most recent example, a couple of weeks ago a commercial competition we were running with the board game distributor Coiled Spring was picked up by activists on Facebook and Twitter, who targeted Coiled Spring directly and in reasonably large numbers, threatening to withdraw business unless CS publicly disavowed us.

We pushed back both publicly and behind the scenes, strongly making the case that women are entitled to discuss the impact of transactivism on women’s hard-won rights to single-sex spaces; you can see our statement (which CS shared on social) here. We explained fully how and why we host these conversations, and shared testimony from respected journalists and commentators who have supported our position. This all takes a significant amount of time.

CS were actually pretty solid on social media, but have paused future activity they had lined up with us despite the competition actually being massively successful.

So in answer to my question, are these the most stupid companies ever, the answer is “yes”. These companies would rather pander to a small group of offended misogynistic social media bullies than have access to millions of users to whom they can sell their wares. Why don’t these companies tell these bullies to fuck off? Why doesn’t Justine tell these companies to fuck off, that if they’re going to pander to bullies intent on silencing discussion of women’s rights, then Mumsnet won’t comply? And why does their due diligence for them? Again, these companies are so bloody hopeless they can’t even do their own research into the services they seek to use. I just can’t get my head around how backwards this all sounds.

This constant pandering to keep Twitter users happy is bonkers. Fewer than 3% of the world’s population uses Twitter, the disproportionate need to keep people from being outraged on there is also bonkers.

I hope that the recent decisions and reports, confirming that GC ideas are lawful and reasonable will help pushing back the argument that we're all transphobic baddies. It's very clear that this is not a legally valid argument and to use it is discrimination.

Also the confirmation that a lack of belief in gender identity is protected. I feel this is a more accurate reflection of many people's position.

@R0wantrees

Also the confirmation that a lack of belief in gender identity is protected. I feel this is a more accurate reflection of many people's position.

Well yes.

Personally I am past the point where I need to get involved in discussions about brain sex, clownfish, suicide statistics and DSDs. They are circular and tedious.

I'd far rather just say well that's not my belief, so I disagree and that's why I want single sex spaces.

The problem is (and always has been) that feminism isn't a welcoming inclusive topic. It can't be. It's not a cosy group of ladies talking about naice topics in a lovely way, who delicately yield the floor to every newcomer. It's a bunch of pissed-off, exhausted women who can't believe the shit they're still seeing.

That's a really good point. I think you do need to have a certain degree of resilience to lost here - I've certainly been handed my arse on multiple occasions. When I'm feeling a bit bruised I lurk and read for a bit before I dive back in.

I think that is actually one of the reasons I like FWR so much - it's not all fluffy and people being kind to each other and very careful about hurting other peoples feelings. It's about a bunch of intelligent women robustly debating issues which really matter to them.

I also think that non-GC views are welcome as long as their owner can intelligently and robustly defend their point.

IMO this board is only hostile to people who aren't willing to intelligently debate a position.

I think that is actually one of the reasons I like FWR so much - it's not all fluffy and people being kind to each other and very careful about hurting other peoples feelings. It's about a bunch of intelligent women robustly debating issues which really matter to them.

In order to actually improve things for girls and women by centring their needs.

Article by Zara,
'Dear Feminists: Be Meaner
When Patriarchy Wants Us to Be Nice, It's Time to Be Mean.'
(extract)

"We cannot in any realistic way prevent billions of men to suddenly stop being patriarchal. But we can model for women and girls how to put themselves first, so that they can say “back off,” or “go away,” or “I don’t care.” And by getting girls to care less about being “kind,” by getting women to understand that there’s nothing wrong with being mean if it means putting women first, we create feminists, we create stronger women who can join a battle to actively tear down our oppression." (continues)
theblisteringrebuttal.substack.com/p/4183e962-ded5-47f7-b89f-c49b9de6cbb5

Also to add @NotBadConsidering I thought logical business sense these advertisers would know who their target buying market is.

Am sure the advertiser that pulled out will sell lots of board games to activist! I certainly wouldn’t entertain buy one now for child.

And when war is won all these spineless companies need not bother coming out from hiding in spineless corner

@LangClegsInSpace

On splitting FWR

To quote one email we received this morning, ‘There is definitely a sense that Feminism Chat is only a place to discuss gender critical feminism. Any posts which question GCism get flooded with hundreds of hostile responses. Which might be more fair if MN was an explicitly GC site, but it portrays itself as a space for all feminism.’

The email you quote does not support your proposed solution. That person is not saying they want to discuss topics that are not about gender ideology and its effects. Their complaint is, 'Any posts which question GCism get flooded with hundreds of hostile responses.'

They want somewhere they can 'question GCism' without challenge.

I'd like some clarity on this.

Is it your intention to move ALL discussions around gender ideology and its effects to the new topic, including those who wish to 'question GCism'?

Or is it your intention to provide a space for people to 'question GCism' with no right to reply from regular fwr posters?

Just to get it out of the way, 'hostile responses' usually means 'lots of people disagree with me' or 'I don't have a sensible answer to this question'. If you want a real time example of this then go on twitter and look at discussions around the Fawcett Society and Ayesha Hazarika's article in the ES.

I'd appreciate an answer to this too. I had assumed the intention was to have all threads about the sex / gender debate in one sub forum but, as Lang says, that wouldn't resolve the issue highlighted in that email. But surely the intention isn't to create some kind of space where people are 'safe' from having their views challenged?

@JustineMumsnet

The brand new News channel GB News, hosted by Andrew Neil has suffered from its advertisers being targeted over disagreement with its content.

Andrew Neil, once again, basically told them that they would not ever be welcome if they thought they could hold his channel to ransom. And they are all starting to backtrack.

His new station has got massively high ratings three nights in a row, I believe the highest of any news channel. Advertisers want to advertise.

People are beginning to confront the realities of cancel culture and shine a light on its undemocratic nature.

If your advertisers are being targeted, it might be useful to inform them that:

MPs, free speech campaigners and business leaders branded the companies 'anti-democratic' and 'hypocritical', with Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden declaring businesses 'must not succumb to pressure groups'.

There is a massive backlash against minority lobby groups wielding such power in the name of being powerless.

It's not a good look for any advertiser to cave to what is fast becoming a very unpopular political weapon.

I genuinely believe you hold all the cards in this.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9699891/Major-brands-row-GB-News-ad-boycott-Moneysupermarket-Ikea-Vodafone-Bosch-down.html

And no, I'm not apologising for it being a Daily Mail link.

That is interesting, Datun.

It’s true datun. There was massive backlash on the advertisers just not doing there research on what the group who were targeting the GB news station where up to

The station had only been running for 3 nights but the campaign group had been working for 4 months previous to target them as a hate news station 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

I'm seeing quite a few of my otherwise very sensible left leaning friends sharing stuff about how very terrible GB news is. There are lots of people wanting to see it fail. But I suspect there is a huge appetite for something other than the usual outlets and for something that reflects a different audience.

There are a lot of keyboard warriors with a LOT of time on their hands (and down their pants) who simply get off on targeting women centred companies, and other platforms deemed un-woke.

The problem is (and always has been) that feminism isn't a welcoming inclusive topic. It can't be. It's not a cosy group of ladies talking about naice topics in a lovely way, who delicately yield the floor to every newcomer. It's a bunch of pissed-off, exhausted women who can't believe the shit they're still seeing.

This

1. MN does well to push back on this even though it probably has a lot of London female woke young staff.
2. This is well said by Datun "People are beginning to confront the realities of cancel culture and shine a light on its undemocratic nature. "
3. Money usually decides most things. I was writing terms for a website last week and thinking about these issues but the bottom line for the client is we want rights to remove just about anything we want ever as there isn't time in practice.
4. The massive issue is the public silencing of different views by the woke left using bully boy tactics. it is dreadful. We seem to have moved from being kind to others and tolerant even if we hate their views to wanting to shut them right down and censor them. I would rather transmen were on here every day telling me i am wicked than we cancel or remove loads of posts. If people get upset about things on any side of any debate that is a change but the solution is put your computer away and go for a walk, or take therapy or cry in a corner but do not censor the more robust of us.

we want all Mumsnet users to feel they can use these boards to discuss the hundreds of ways in which sex - and gender roles - impact on women’s lives, irrespective of their views on sex and gender. So we’d like to introduce a separate topic for Sex and Gender issues

Does this make sense to anyone else?

No.
It didn't work the last time they did it, because although the 'problem' posters are all being labelled as radical feminists, the fact is that radical feminist theory is almost never discussed on FWR.
What's usually discussed is just boring old mainstream feminism. About women, by women and for women.

And its a rubbish response to the OP. But then I can remember posters patiently explaining GDPR and data protection for several threads, and to much resistance.

To just go back to GB News and advertising - yes, isn't it fascinating how Andrew Neil stood up to the advertisers and how they've started to backtrack?

Bear in mind that for the most part, advertisers don't really give a shit about the issue itself, they just want to look woke and not be slaughtered on social media.

Twitter is a huge part of the problem here - it makes a minority of opinions sound like they're mainstream, when they're not.

GB News is a good example as the woke left decided they were in a category or bucket called bad as they have a kind of simple outlook - you are with us or against us. Instead in reality people are a mixture of different views and you cannot put them into particular buckets of Tory voter bad, Labour or green voter good, women good men bad, Brexiteer bad, Remainer good. The woke left decided GB News as in the bad category even before they had seen the programmes, many of which are no worse or better than plenty of UK chat news programmes from breakfast TV to sky news. They decided we will stop and cancel this (and they failed).

Instead it would be better if the "liberal left" was resurgent wanting freedom of people to express all kinds of views and the like. May be the Chesham win for the Liberals and success of GB News can begin a sea change to freedom. Remember those of us on the side of freedom don't want the "woke"/politically correct censored either. I don't mind if they say XYZ is dreadful because we want everyone to self declare. That is fine. I want to listen to all voices.

@Vanishun

Bear in mind that for the most part, advertisers don't really give a shit about the issue itself, they just want to look woke and not be slaughtered on social media.

Twitter is a huge part of the problem here - it makes a minority of opinions sound like they're mainstream, when they're not.

Exactly. Justine wrote:

who targeted Coiled Spring directly and in reasonably large numbers

But it won’t be “large” numbers at all. It will be a relatively small number of Twitter users, many of whom won’t be in the UK, won’t have any followers who matter, and won’t have any actual reach, especially when you look at what a company like Coiled Spring actual sells. I can only imagine that there’s some young woke idiot who is in charge of the social media, gets wind of some negative trending, and freaks out the bosses by making it seem way more significant than it actually is to the real world.

It’s exactly the same reason why Labour keep falsely thinking they’re going to get elected, because they think winning Twitter matters.

Yes, I think we've all seen a number of examples of incompetent, inexperienced eejits being left in charge of organisations' Twitter accounts.