FWR

[MarsScarlet]

FYI: I've name changed for this to avoid a pile-on.

This post is about the overwhelming negativity and hostility with the FWR board that new posters and posters with a differing viewpoint face if they attempt to use the board.

There is a persistent group within the board that are, to put it simply, hateful towards others. Despite posting there on and off for more than 4 years, I have never felt welcome, despite not holding any particular extreme views or being abusive to others. Without exception, I am accused of being another poster, or a man, a TRA, or some kind of paid activist. This occurs again and again until I leave a thread in frustration.

I’ve seen this happen to many other new posters. Few return. Why would they? Such an acidic atmosphere doesn’t encourage healthy discussion. I’d just like to discuss women’s rights, but this board makes discussion impossible.

I’m not exactly sure what the answer is, except for @MNHQ to request the board to tone down the rhetoric a bit and back off on any new names they may see on the board. Let people engage with you rather than actively drive them away.

They really do.

Some clarifications for those who require it:

1. I am only asking for more civility in discussion, particularly with new posters. This does not mean to be more "feminine".

1. Facts/evidence/experience are great, just don't use them against others. (Eg. We've been here longer than you, we've been fighting this fight forever, read all the material..)

1. Hellofabore was brought up once, in context, as an example of a poster who does write about knowledge/experience frequently, as Eresh wanted examples. I gave an example. It was not a personal attack on Hellofabore.

• Hellofabore was brought up once, in context, as an example of a poster who does write about knowledge/experience frequently, as Eresh wanted examples. I gave an example. It was not a personal attack on Hellofabore.

The personal attack was when you called several posters unpleasant. Practice what you preach.

• I am only asking for more civility in discussion, particularly with new posters. This does not mean to be more "feminine".

This was you, wasn't it, OP?

"you've given yourselves the permission to be more male in your response patterns"

Civility isn't going to be my priority when being called transphobic, bigoted, blah blah because I won't go along with the Emperor's New Clothes. And neither should it be for anyone else. Nope.

It's quite clear that for all the posturing about "civility" some posters much prefer to just call women transphobes rather than advance any sort of convincing rational argument as to why we should see some males as women and why our rights and feelings should we should come second to theirs.

I totally struggle with men standing before me purporting to be women when i know they are not women.

Me too. It's misogyny.

Unlike misogynists, even the ones among my own sex, I don't think men come first. I don't think they take precedence. I don't think males claiming to be oppressed is more important than all the shit women have to put up with.

I was not keen for the posters from FWR to look up any posting history and use it against me. I’m fine that MN can see it. I have nothing to hide from them - I’ve been here for almost 20 years and have had relatively few deletions.

If I had posted under my usual name, I would never be able to post in FWR again. Ever. My posting history would be forensically picked apart for everyone’s enjoyment, so I wasn’t doing that.

You were name-checked and your feelings were hurt? I apologise. Perhaps you have an idea, just a little, how it feels on the other side. It isn’t a great place.

My OP has little to do with the above. It’s about the lack of civility and a general tone of hostility on the board, primarily.

I didn’t call posters unpleasant.

So. Unpleasant.

That was the post. Oblique, but it was referring to the way the thread had turned - posters were attacking me. I sent a message to Hebe reporting the thread saying I was leaving it as it was affecting my mental health.

That was what it was about.

Not the same thing. That’s an observation, not a directive.

No one is asking you to change your opinions.

Sorry, that doesn’t make sense. You can be civil and also debate these things rationally.

How do you get your way about this without making the lives of already marginalised people, who haven't done anything wrong, even harder than they need to be? Can you accept that not all women perceive the same level of threat as you do? Some of us would like to treat trans women like human beings, not the enemy

It never ceases to fascinate me that people see violent men, who say three little words 'I'm a lady' and think this wipes all their aggression and violence away and we immediately have to treat them as if they are the most vulnerable special people over everyone else. What happens in that change to the onlooker to cause that reaction?

Take any of the murderers or rapists that declare themselves women in between the crime and the handcuffs. This is the attitude that places these violent men in women's prisons and this subjects every woman in there to a lifetime of hell. I just don't understand what goes through the minds of the people who do that.

But they never explain it, they just call the people saying 'this is madness' all the names under the sun and refuse/accuse/flounce.

Sports -

www.shewon.com

www.boysvswomen.com

Ideology -

www.gov.uk/employment-tribunal-decisions/r-d-adams-v-edinburgh-rape-crisis-centre-4102236-slash-2023

Safety -

www.nationalreview.com/news/transgender-sex-offenders-placed-in-womens-jails-in-scotland/

archive.ph/2022.10.04-232359/www.thetimes.co.uk/article/half-of-scottish-trans-prisoners-changed-gender-after-convictions-pftqbbhg6

www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/scottish-news/anger-trans-inmates-revert-males-25840252

Can't edit at the moment so

www.shewon.org

I don’t have the time for a more in depth response right now, but I see @blownawaybyit has perceived my invitation to FWR for a discussion as a bit of a threat or like a call over there. I only said that because this thread is actually supposed to be about something else, and I thought it more appropriate to discuss @blownawaybyit’s arguments in a more appropriate place, not because I wanted some kind of ‘home advantage’!

Yes. There's a lot of unsubstantiated accusations and misinterpretations in that post I'd like to address (and also highlight the flipping of criticism legitimately made of genderism to apply to gender criticism where it just doesn't make sense, rather than, y'know, starting with what GC people actually say and think and basing criticism on that) but I don't want to bring that conversation into this thread. I would be keen to join a discussion of that poster's points on an appropriate board though.

@blownawaybyit I'm not interested in proving you right or wrong or anything like that, but i am interested in finding out a bit more what you mean and where we agree/ disagree. Would you be interested in that at all? On another thread?

I'd love to know what these 'actual issues' are.

OP, you can't force people to get along.

If this thread is affecting your mental health, and FWR upsets you, I'd gently suggest you ask yourself why. There will always be people on the internet who say things you find hurtful.

FWR is on the whole fairly civil, but at the end of the day it's an anonymous internet discussion board.

It seems to me that you are perhaps looking for something else. Wishing you all the best.

I see.

You thought it was illustrative so you thought it was appropriate.

Well I think it was highly illustrative of the negative feedback farming that some posters engage in. I don’t believe you are careful at all about your own civility, just how you personally get treated. And if people point out that your post is incorrect and engage with you as to why, and even when your evidence is not credible, you resort to the very behaviour you complain about.

Just like this post here.

I read your ‘You were name-checked and your feelings were hurt. I apologise. Perhaps you have an idea, just a little, how it feels on the other side. It isn’t a great place.’ and see it as no apology. It is a sorry, not sorry statement starting with more jeering and then followed by a ‘but you deserved it’ .

And that jeering is entirely illustrative of your own posting style.