Disability hate on MN

[IClaudine]

Hi MNHQ

Since Sunak’s announcement on disability benefits, there has been a big increase on MN in hostility towards people who receive then.

The abuse, hate and outright lies (my neighbour’s son’s cousin’s wife climbs Mount Everest but gets PIP etc) being spewed on MN towards disabled people, a group with protected characteristics, has been dreadful and very distressing for disabled people and their loved ones to read,

Please can you do something?

Here is a small selection of the threads where the disability benefit bashers have paid a visit and had a field day. There may be more, but I can’t face searching for them!

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5064828-to-be-terrified-about-pip?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=share  

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5065470-people-who-work-have-anxiety-too?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=share

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5066670-aibu-to-hope-that-able-bodied-people-will-support-disabled-people-against-the-tory-attack-on-pip?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=share

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/money-matters/5064856-pip-vouchers-to-replace-money?reply=134966246&utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=share

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/money-matters/5066331-do-you-feel-bad-for-receiving-a-high-amount-of-uc?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=share

There also needs to be some looking at these kinds of posts - where someone who dares to question anything that someone on disability benefits is doing, gets put in the 'jealousy' bucket. I am not jealous of anyone on benefits at all, I recognise I am lucky to be able to survive without needing them.

This is a reply on a post I was on.

Witchling · 29/06/2025 22:18

Petitchat · 29/06/2025 21:26
I may be wrong but I get the feeling that the stupid comments may be from people who are jealous that OP receives disability money.
There's a lot of bitterness about disability benefits just now for some reason and it might have been better if OP hadn't mentioned it.
Sad, but that's the way things seem to be....
Show quote history

jealous that OP receives disability money
Yes, I'm totally jealous of the pittance the government gives people who are on disability benefits and in no way grateful that I dont need them.

Right so enough money put aside to be able to live and pay all the bills/mortgage and clothe and feed yourself plus the person you have to care for, potentially for the rest of your life, without receiving a penny in benefits. How much money is that exactly? How many people would actually be able to have a baby if that was required?

Hmmm. No your posts are ableist because they’re….ableist.

Nope, they really aren't. It's like the TRAs deciding that anyone who is gender critical is transphobic. You're diluting the meaning of the word by misusing it like this. People can be critical of a system relating to the disabled or even an individual with a disability without it being ableist.

Not necessarily, no. The whole premise of this thread is that many of the posters on this thread think that various posts are ableist and should be removed. MNHQ, an objective party with nothing to gain from leaving up ableist posts (and a lot to lose!) have disagreed. In this context, I think it's fair to say that there are posters on this thread that are particularly sensitive to discussion on this topic and will accuse others are ableism when the threshold has not been met.

This isn't unique to this topic and you will see that often on abortion threads where pro-lifers are routinely accused of being misogynist, gender critical posters are accused of Transphobia or even on Royal Family threads where criticism of Meghan Markle is assumed to be rooted in racism. I think for many people on this thread suggesting that reform of the benefits system is necessary and explaining why it might be needed is inherently ableist.

MNHQ who may have no experience of ableism.

No one has suggested that the benefits system needs an overhaul. But there are suggestions from posters with zero experience who claim everyone they know is faking it

You don't need direct experience of ableism to be able to judge what it is and apply an objective test to a post to see if it meets the required threshold. The fact that you think someone does need to have experienced ableism to judge when it's present implies that you think that someone's judgement should be influenced and informed by personal experience as opposed to objective fact which actually would have the potential to introduce sensitivity and bias.

Perhaps some people do know a lot of people that are 'faking it's. How do you know this isn't true? How do I know that what you're telling me about your own situation is anymore true than what they are claiming? Don't you see that a moderator like MN also can't make these judgements either easily.

I don't think I've ever seen transphobia on Mumsnet?

I have seen many many posters not wanting womens rights to be eroded.

I've seen many many posters not wanting people who have (or have had) a penis, in womens spaces and womens sports.

But I haven't seen transphobia.
That would mean a fear of transpeople or dislike/ hatred of transpeople wouldn't it?
I haven't seen that.

We see different things then. Lets just agree to disagree, and leave it there. I have had the same response from some posters when I have raised the issue of racism on MN too. The claim not to see it. I am not wasting my time with those posters either. Good Day!

That ditch is getting deeper with each post.

You don't need direct experience of ableism to be able to judge what it is and apply an objective test to a post to see if it meets the required threshold

Ableism takes many forms and, like other flavours of bigotry, can be insidious and sly.

A non-disabled person cannot have the knowledge and experience to always recognise when ableism is happening. Just like I, as a white person, cannot have the knowledge and experience to always recognise when racism is happening.

I would not dare to have the audacity to talk to people of colour about what defines racism in the way that you are talking to disabled people on this thread about what defines ableism. That you do is telling in itself.

@BeckyAMumsnet out of curiosity, what sort of training do the mods have? Do they do any form of training around awareness of ableism on social media?

Your approach is incompatible with the law as well as any reasonable practical application of the law. There are objective tests in place for protected characteristics and these can be applied by anyone irrespective of their own characteristics. A judge doesn't have to be disabled to make a judgement regarding ableism and a white judge can absolutely make a judgement regarding racism.

It would not be practical for Mumsnet to find moderators that have specific characteristics that to satisfy specific posters idea of someone that really understands a specific form of discrimination due to their lived experience. Firstly, there are obviously lots of protected characteristics so this would be difficult logistically. This would also assume for example that disabled people all have the same idea of where the threshold lies between legitimate debate and ableism. We know from previous threads this simply isn't the case and we often have disabled posters accusing other disabled posters of ableism. The same goes for all the other protected characteristics and why we need objective tests in place.

It would not be practical for Mumsnet to find moderators that have specific characteristics that to satisfy specific posters idea of someone that really understands a specific form of discrimination due to their lived experience

Where have I suggested that @Bumpitybumper? You have not understood my post at all, but thanks for another lecture.

I will leave it there. Enjoy the 🌞 if it is shining where you are.

You have suggested that only those who are disabled can truly understand ableism and things like micro aggressions etc. Therefore logically MN would need a disabled moderator to moderate posts regarding disability appropriately. Correct me if I'm wrong.

I'm happy to leave it there but just wanted to clarify.

Unfortunately MNHQ’s new mods are not much better and actively refuse to delete most of the ableism I’ve reported. It’s astonishing

It would be nice to know nonetheless if/how often mods are diversity trained and if recruitment to modding is diversity tracked. You can recruit based on a preference for underreprestened groups and characteristics, too.

I don't bother reporting it as I feel it's just a waste of time as they don't appear to do anything

They are all at it again in the "Tax increases imminent" thread 😡

Excellent point at the end there 👍

its useful that someone has come on this thread and shown what disabled people have to put up with.

I'm pleased to have been of service. Seriously I am. This thread is an echo chamber and I'm pleased that MN haven't caved to the sentiment that only disabled people can define what is and isn't ableist and that anything a disabled person considers to be offensive must automatically be ableist. This isn't what the law says and would be a huge impediment on debate and free speech.

⬆

Yup.