Corpus 2

[TokyoBouncyBall]

A summary would be good and I might do one later but Aston, data scraping, astonishing lack of contrition…

I have at least 20 usernames and a detransitioned child.

How does Mx Palmer plan to avoid causing additional harm to trans people/detrans people whilst also framing their family members as transphobic hate-crimers? Could individual trans people be identified by things supposedly said by their mothers?

I’m starting to think that Mx Palmer is only interested in they/themself and has no interest in the physical and mental wellbeing of the the transgender community.

Is Eden Palmer the real transphobe here?

I’m resurrecting this thread to ask @JustineMumsnet if any new information has arisen since the last post in Feb in relation to Eden’s unethical use of our data but also to confirm that / explain if the changes with the pay or consent model means that third parties can now access users data without breaking MN T&Cs?

Seconded

https://x.com/AIFL_Aston/status/1837237551830073629

'Congratulations to AIFL’s Eden Palmer, Lauren Morgan, and Jenna Elliott for passing their Qualifying Reports and becoming fully-fledged PhD researchers. All 3 demonstrated excellent progress over their first year, and we’re excited to see how the projects unfold!'

'Eden’s work looks at the nature and development of transphobic language online, using corpus assisted critical discourse analysis to unpick implicitly discriminatory discourse.'

Does it, aye?

I've left them a message on that Twitter feed. I retweeted it immediately, as I suspect it may be deleted. Nothing rude, or aggressive, just facr and my opinion.

And I've spotted I wasn't yet following you. I'm a more feathery animal over there.

OK. Have you posted on the Aston thread?

Ah, found ya!

I saw there were 7 replies but I’m not on X so can’t read them. It sounds like we’re still all slandered / libelled as transphobic.

@SinnerBoy and @NoBinturongsHereMate you've just got yourselves another follower!

I'm afraid I'm not going to say any more on here, don't want to make it too easy for doxxers.

There's only 3 now and 2 of them are congratulatory

Three 'replies' are just followup posts giving a potted bio of each person/project, 3 are congratulations, one is calling them out

Sorry for the delayed response - missed this and just found it buried in my inbox. There's no further news of substance. As things stand the matter remains unresolved. We’ve not received any further response from Aston University following our final settlement proposal and we've reserved our rights but we are not aware of any new or additional use of Mumsnet data by Eden Palmer or Aston University since that correspondence and we're continuing to monitor the situation.

To clarify your second point, the recent changes to our pay/consent model don’t alter or weaken Mumsnet’s data protections in any way. Third parties cannot access user data without explicit permission. Thanks.

The social landscape has changed so quickly that Mx Palmer’s PhD is gonna immediately become a strange historic relic, like a Betamax cassette.

The cut off date for the zir’s research is very poorly timed considering the massive shifts that Forstater and FWS at the Supreme Court have brought about, both in online discourse and in the real world.

oh well, never mind.

I hope that this was the end of their efforts at the university.

https://baalgensex.wordpress.com/events/forthcoming/

'Abstracts

Eden Palmer (Aston University)

A corpus-assisted critical discourse analysis of
‘trans-critical’ language on an Online Family Support Community, 2010-2023

This presentation provides an overview of a PhD project that
explores the extent to which ‘trans-critical’ language (TCL) can be evidenced
in an online family support community (OFSC), where ‘gender-critical’ discourse
is present (Pedersen, 2020). TCL is defined as broadly anti-transgender and
potentially ‘indirect’ (Derecka, 2019:102), making it harder to recognise
compared to conventional hateful language. The idea that there may exist
‘everyday’ (Anderson, 2025:2) ‘anti-language’ contributing to the normalisation
of transphobia is under-researched, presenting a research niche which this
project aims to fill.

This research centres around an OFSC where ‘gender-critical’
discourses are present, using a Corpus Assisted Critical Discourse Analysis
(CACDA) approach. Three corpus analysis processes: frequency analysis,
collocate analysis, and concordance analysis, are undertaken to compare
patterns of verb use across nine subcorpora. There are two areas of
investigation: how language directed at transgender people may change when
transgender men, transgender women, or nonbinary people are the focus; and how
feminist and ‘trans-critical’ discourses intersect.

The results show that, though much discourse in the sample
is trans-affirming, TCL occurs through four thematic topics perpetuating that
transness is ‘Harmful’, ‘Invalid’, ‘Temporary’, and ‘a Choice’. These themes may incite fear and concern among users about trans people and strengthen in-group relationships among cisgender users. '

July 2026

Palmer is still using the corpus for her bullshit PhD.

Hopefully MNHQ legal team already know about this?!

(https://archive.ph/9EpCh archived link for that page, just in case it disappears.)

That's persistent. I hope MN picked it up.

The idea that there may exist ‘everyday’ (Anderson, 2025:2) ‘anti-language’ contributing to the normalisation of transphobia is under-researched, presenting a research niche which this project aims to fill.

What is anti-language? Apparently its original reference by Blas is in relation to coding. But used here, how?

Using applied linguistics, everyday anti-language might be understood as: I get to impose my own interpretations of FWR posts (by assuming bad intentions), will ignore the concerns for women’s rights, and will take phrases out of context that the OP’s can’t refute or deny. Otherwise, no dissertation?

Eg ‘gender critical discourse’ becomes ‘trans-critical’ which becomes ‘anti-transgender’. Applied linguistics is such a convenient field. Able to make any words mean something else entirely and all without ever having to interact IRL with those whose words are being transformed.

It's manufactured bullshit, is that the gist?

I mean basically her PhD is just a big fucken scold, slander, and defamation of women, when the actual issue is, I expect, male violence.

'Transphobia' exists, sure. Go look into violent men, ffs, not monitoring the speech of mothers discussing women's rights. It's absurd.

Imagine identifying a problem as, say, purported hate crimes against trans people. Academics scurry off to examine women for wrongthink.

Who actually carries that shit out?

It's not the women of mumsnet, Eden. Mothers are allowed to discuss their thoughts, beliefs, and rights.

What a waste of everyone's time.

You might have been better off examining Reddit. Or Pistonheads. Or ARRSE. Or Cookd and Bombd. Etc. But that's men, so they're probably more responsible and able to think serious thoughts without accidentally doing a transphobic, and even if they do, that's okay because, you know. Cocks rock.

Witch hunts need women, amirite? And Aston University are Witch Prickers Extraordinaire.

Crikey, Aston. Your rank has slipped dramatically, hasn't it?

Guide year Guardian rank
2022 25
2023 22
2024 25
2025 21
2026 48

www.aston.ac.uk/undergraduate/why-aston/rankings/

Not quite so bad in the Times rankings:

Aston only fell from 35th to 41st in the Times/Sunday Times