MN needs a closer watch of FWR

[BodegaSushi]

There is a concerning growth of posts with racist undertones cropping up on these boards, all under the guise of being proudly 'anti-woke'.

Apparently diversity is 'woke' and worthy of derision.

This is the thread I'm referring to here.

Disney went woke now they're going broke www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4836570-disney-went-woke-now-theyre-going-broke

Mumsnet needs to looks at why that board draws such types of posts, and why posters feel so comfortable openly airing their racism.

Yes all trans women are male.

Otherwise they are not trans.

The majority of the accusations of transphobia on FWR derive from males wanting to access women's spaces. The trans women who think that women should still have single sex spaces are not likely to be the ones claiming that FWR are transphobic.

So, you want special privileges above any one else?

How can you consider that me wanting to be able have my right to freedom of speech is me wanting special privilege? I don't report or get posts deleted even though I find them extremely offensive.

I thought that was what you always say on FWR? That you're entitled to your freedom of speech even if some people find what you're saying offensive?

I consider this to be MY mistake.

I apologise for the misunderstanding.

I am now very keen to see just what group it was that supposedly flooded FWR from the Telegraph?

And acknowledging that lots of trans people are just people trying to get on with their lives makes the whole thing worse. Perhaps you are not one of the posters who are willingly transphobic and have just got caught up in the vitriolic whirlwind of FWR's attitude towards trans people, but the fact that you would try and defend and deny any of the things I listed being transphobic suggests otherwise.

You're losing me with this.
Please can you set out what it is you believe I think, and what is wrong about it.

You fling out 'bullshit' about my posts and say I'm the same as everyone else but then say I shouldn't tell you when I'm not the same as everyone else?

You're very muddled.

You've misunderstood me. I said "they are, are they" because you have claimed that "trans women" (the entire group) are all demanding unfettered access to women's spaces. By default, because they are trans women. AKA treating all trans women as a homogenous group with the same motivations and desires.

You misunderstand

No one says that all transowmen are demanding access to women's spaces

They are saying all transwomen should not be allowed in certain women's spaces

You've misunderstood me. I said "they are, are they" because you have claimed that "trans women" (the entire group) are all demanding unfettered access to women's spaces. By default, because they are trans women. AKA treating all trans women as a homogenous group with the same motivations and desires

Well I can see how I have been misconstrued.

What I mean is that the entire group of trans women are male.

In reference to this post and the FWR situation the ones who call women transphobic want access to single sex spaces.

Hope that clarifies my position.

Do you read things quickly and then interpret them according to your own bias ?

You've misunderstood me. I said "they are, are they

This is just one example where BEING SPECIFIC and replying to the thing you are responding to would have made your point clear. I'm not asking this to be an arse or to thread police or what have you but if everyone's just yelling words that can be seen to apply to any other sentence on the screen it doesn't convey what you mean.

You literally treated the whole of the post as a homogenious group of words in your response by not being clear about what your 'they are, are they' was in regards to. Do better.

Can you link to or explain what the Telegraph group thread is?

"How can you consider that me wanting to be able have my right to freedom of speech is me wanting special privilege?"

Perhaps you should have read the post.

"And now you are complaining that you cannot use a word that many women find offensive 'cis'? While the list of words feminists cannot use on FWR is rather long?"

"So, you want special privileges above any one else?"

I thought I was following a normal written communication convention for English. Wasn't I?

Shall I make it clearer?

You complained about the fact you were deleted for using the word 'cis'. Many people on FWR find the word offensive. All people who post on FWR must follow the set guidelines and that word has been made clear is offensive.

My point is that you are complaining about not being able to use it. There are many words that we cannot use that would be useful for 'accuracy' that you claim you were seeking in your posts that were deleted.

Therefore for you to be able to use that word would be an additional privilege that you are seeking to have over all the other people who post on FWR.

"wanting to be able have my right to freedom of speech is me wanting special privilege?"

Well, we all fucking want to have our right to freedom of speech and we still have to abide by the MN guidelines. What makes you so special?

And Candlelight please explain why you deserve freedom of expression (you do ) but telegraph readers don't?

Candlelight

"I saw myself a poster saying how a bunch of them had got banned from the Telegraph forums so hopped over to Mumsnet."

Which group was this? Please be specific? Where did you get this information from?

@Helleofabore

the owner of LibsofTikTok, an out and out racist, homophobe, and transphobe encouraged death threats and bomb threats to the Children’s Hospital which threatened the lives of doctors and shut down services for all children."

Libsoftiktok posted content from a hospital and declared they were concerned by it. This poster declared that this was encouraging death threats. This is purely opinion from a group of people keen to make women speaking about their concerns responsible for the actions of people who lack impulse control and commit violence.

Actually, this episode occurred as reported, so I don't know what your issue is with it? You're not defending Libsoftiktok, are you?

Otherwise, I don't think anyone is really understanding what I'm trying to tell them, which is fine - keep on in the bubble.

It’s pretty clear that @Socrateswasrightaboutvoting meant that they felt (or others felt) that they had been attacked/ridiculed for saying "x is being racist" with other FWR posters saying "don’t be ridiculous x isn’t being racist".

Perhaps such an exchange did happen. But, it’s hard to revisit or re evaluate this argument without an example or context provided.

Going by this thread, the one example raised so far appears to be that characterising surrogacy as ‘selling’ babies is appropriation and, as such, is racist, but I’m not even sure that’s an example of what @ReleasetheCrackHen or @Socrateswasrightaboutvoting are talking about without further confirmation.

There does seems to be a lot of miscommunication on this thread. @ReleasetheCrackHen asked So, why have I touched a nerve in you particularly?

The accusation (as per the OP) that MN needs a closer watch of FWR in particular is the nerve touched. There have been many many attempts to silence women on that board by TRAs. The OP made absolutely no mention of any other boards. Why is that?

Then subsequent accusations of racism on FWR but without specific examples, and making no other accusations against any other boards, leads people to wonder if accusations of racism is another attempt to shut the board down. The one example provided of FWR racism was posters ‘being angry’ at (an apparently) black poster explaining the wiki editing process and contributing to this poster being ‘hounded’ off MN. However, when I looked at that original thread, there were only comments thanking that poster.

Evidence is very important. Both for confirmation of accusations being made, as well as facilitating learning.

You said they were encouraging death threats and bomb threats so can you post links to where they did this. I did ask earlier but you must have missed it.

I have lost the plot
It seems to go

Someone encouraged death threats to someone
The same someone also dislikes transgender people
Therefore women should stop worrying about transgender people
?

You do know that sone people issue death threats against women ?

It's completely shameful what this FWR board has become.

So, @CandlelightGlow thinks it is bigoted to assume that everyone holding one characteristic - say, being trans, or posting on a specific section of the internet - acts in a particular way, or holds particular beliefs, based solely on the actions or opinions of a subset of that group.

When I point out exceptions, and they still say I'm wrong because The Group Of People are just like that, so the exceptions must also be like that, that in itself is a bigoted act.

I personally feel that this thread has shown that MN's approach of asking people to report individual posts/threads and then they decide whether to delete or not is correct.

The best time to judge whether a post or thread is sexist/racist/transphobic/homophobic/disablist/<insert phobia or ism here> is there and then on the thread.

There will always be grey areas where one or both sides of any of these feels hard done by. That's life.

This list is not something that I see the majority of the regular posters on FWR doing.

"Treating trans people as a homogenous group"

Of course we know this. Quite a lot of us have trans people we love in our lives. And we also have actively been in discussions with trans people who hold very different views to extreme activists.

''Asserting the notion that being transgender is solely a kink or fetish"

I don't believe that this happens. It is widely understood that female people with trans identities are not in this group for instance. That would remove half the people from your generalisation right there.

However, do you agree that there are SOME people who are trans and who might have a fetish?

'Asserting the notion that being trans is a by choice identity that can be ascribed to for all trans people"

Have you missed the group of young transitioners who have publicly now come out and said that they have chosen to be trans as a choice? Plus, have you missed the discussions around the transmaxxers?

"Holding the belief that trans people are only trans due to predatory intent"

And anything posted in this vein is generally deleted. Because that would be a negative generalisation and is against the talk guidelines and is, of course, not true.

"Transmedicalism"

Please explain this. Or do you mean that some trans lobby groups have been actively involved in changing treatment plans around the world to be worse for trans people because it lacks evidence and it lacks the exploratory therapy that is needed to identify comorbidities that require treatment first?

"Refusing to use preferred pronouns in every day life"

This is your own person boundary. If you believe that others can enforce language use on you, are you being hypocritical about your 'freedom of speech'?

You cannot have this both ways.

"Mockery and ridicule of trans peoples physical appearance"
"Mockery or ridicule of fem presenting peoples' physical appearance and doing so on the assumption that they are trans"

Any posts or threads that do this are generally deleted. You might wish to clarify though what you believe is 'mockery or ridicule' because many words have new meanings and much lower bars to reach those meaning than in the past.

"Only ever basing ideas of trans people and their thoughts and beliefs on TRA twitter trolls or convicted predators not representative of non offending trans people"

I don't believe that this is true of the regular posters. As I have said, you have also again used 'trans people', have you again hived off female trans people? Because I can assure you, we have not forgotten female trans people that you seem to have forgotten in your list here.

"Callousness and general disregard for another person solely based on their gender identity that you wouldn't otherwise have if they were not trans"
"Offering support to groups of individuals who call for the active exclusion of trans people from society (and not just in specific situations e.g. DV shelters)"

This one requires evidence. You seem to have missed the many many posters who declare that, of course, trans people should have facilities that are there for them to use. But that it is NOT women's roles to sort them out and they should have been sorted out years ago.

That is not 'excluding' trans people from society. That is stating the needs of female people and the fact that those needs were deprioritised to centre male people.

Unless you produce evidence that explicitly states that these males should be excluded from receiving assistance where they need it, or shouldn't have facilities of their own, I call this emotional hyperbole.

Please post the evidence of your claim.

Please post the evidence that Libsoftiktok called for death threats and bomb threats.

That is a very serious claim you are making.

"Otherwise, I don't think anyone is really understanding what I'm trying to tell them, which is fine - keep on in the bubble."

We understand what you are trying to tell us.

We disagree because we have a deeper understanding of the accusations you seem to be making and a deeper understanding of the feminists in this movement.

I think it's entirely fair to say that the culture of the FWR boards is increasingly hostile towards trans people.

That tone is definitely present. It is insidious, emboldening through it's normalisation; people feel entitled to express similar attitudes because of the culture that has been normalised.

CandlelightGlow's examples of transphobia, I believe, are fair.

There is a huge amount of conversation, communication and expression that contributes to new cultural norms of hostility towards trans people which still go under the legally defined threshold of hate speech.

And if you talk to trans people it is not simply the legislature that concerns them; their daily lives are made worse by the commonplace interactions that they have with others, who treat them with hostility, fear and disrespect. These microagressions, day after day, week after week, take a massive toll on well-being, and they occurring because of a cultural shift and a normalisation process which is enabling this.

This is just more of your own prejudice about people you describe as 'right wing'.

You created a long list of 'transphobic' things that involved the same blanket statements while telling us all that we were the ones guilty of making blanket statements. There seems to be a disconnect here where you feel you are perfectly ok to make blanket statements while vilifying others for doing so.

I note again that when a poster (me) identified as ND and requested more clarification, candlelight not only ignored me but then called my post 'bullshit', implied my opinion was 'not needed' and said I was probably 'willingly transphobic'.

I don't think what I posted warranted that level of bullying. I'm used to being singled out - some people seem to take it as a personal slight that I want to fully understand what they are saying - but generally we try to accommodate all types of people on here - or at least I do and several other regulars, I can't speak for everyone who's ever posted.

I think I'm out anyway (yea - I know I said that earlier!). Feel free to imagine anything you like about what I think but do understand that it's exactly that - your imagination.

I have done it.

Because in that list were things was things that would be considered transphobic and against the FWR guidelines, and things that are NOT considered transphobic under the FWR guidelines.

I felt it is important to separate them out.

I don't consider this 'very juvenile'. I consider this important to work out where differences in opinions about transphobia lies between a poster accusing a board of many transphobic posts and what other people believe.

If Candle was not making such statements about transphobia on MN it would not be really relevant.