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.

And I find it the height of hypocrisy that some posters will post complaints about civility, yet don’t ever seem to step in when another poster is acting with incivility towards the group as I have seen on some threads. But instead that poster joins in with that uncivil behaviour.

Surely a poster who wanted civil exchanges would take the time censure any poster who was uncivil not just the posters that they disagree with?

I find it fascinating how 'we' are supposed to tell a newbie apart from a oldie when name changing is so easy, and being told to do so by someone who named changed to do it.

Then was 'specific' about one person bringing their posts into this board to castigate them, and decried their mental health was an issue when people said 'hang on a minute'. Being 'specific' on the FWR board can earn a fortnight's suspension. As can 'generalising'. So we walk the tightrope day in day out, trying not to go either one way or another. Yet the same does not apply when it is 'us' that is being singled out.

But genuinely, if 'we' are missing the important key issues, please do go onto FWR and explain what it is 'we' are missing. 'We' are not the borg, 'we' often have arguments and differences of opinions and feisty spats as 'we' do not all think the same things and 'we' do not all get along all the time, indeed some not any of the time.

But don't expect zero questions to be asked, or the rationale to be requested, as many of 'us' are old and came from the days when robust arguments were presented with facts and evidence and a proper factual evidenced challenge is anticipated and welcomed.

If all people have is 'you are big old meanies' then you will indeed get upset when 'we' ask awkward questions.

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

I'm talking about people who clearly aren't civil, OP. Like many of the people complaining about women on FWR.

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.

And I'm calling the posters attacking women on FWR here, uncivil too.

Yes. I'm wondering if that is perhaps what OP is complaining about? It's certainly rude to call people bigots and transphobes.

also highlight the flipping of criticism legitimately made of genderism to apply to gender criticism where it just doesn't make sense

For me, this was one of the first things that stood out about trans rights activism when I first came across people who thought women should be happy to fully go along with the idea that males were women, even when it was harmful to us. It's a particularly heinous type of gaslighting.

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

Special pleading. It's sexism.

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.

It was rightly deleted as a personal attack on the posters who had just posted, and called out by at least 3 other posters. Because just to jog your memory, actually the wording was:

"Aaaand here they are, so unpleasant" - so clearly referring to individual posters.

As I said, please practice what you preach. As you said, people should be capable of being civil in discussions.

I would love to know how to be more feminine and ladylike in my responses in general. I've already asked you but you seem to have skipped my request.

Unless you mean men can't have civil discussions because they are too masculine 😯

Piles-on tend to be just lots of people on a thread. The only way to avoid that would be to limit the number of posters or the number of times someone could post on a thread.

Even if they had three boards - TRA, GC and a debate thread, im guessing the debate thread would be seen as agressive and not welcoming, GC transphobic, and the TRA empty. Just my guess.

The argument really comes down to should a group of men avoid safeguarding and safety standards? Should they be assumed to be safe up until the point they arent, and then lose their rights?

Because no one is advocating for Isla Bryson to be in a women's prison, no one thinks he should have the opportunity to be in a public toilet alone with a 12 year old girl.

Should eddie izzard be allowed to be a womens public toilet alone with a 12 year old girl? As far as i know he hasnt been charged with a sexual crime?

If we cant treat men with gender identity like men, but instead give them privileges up until they commit a crime, how does that work? How do i know a mans gender identity how do i know his criminal history.

How do we allow some men to clearly avoid normal safeguarding standards, and teach girls to avoid being in dangerous positions with men?

Because no one is advocating for Isla Bryson to be in a women's prison, no one thinks he should have the opportunity to be in a public toilet alone with a 12 year old girl.

Aren't they? I'm not sure about that. There are people in the world, mostly men, who think that it's a fair price to pay for trans self ID. Collateral damage.

I don't know. I think a good gauge as to whether your posts show your personal bias and are unreasonable characterisations that you are doubling down on and getting 'incivil' in defending is whether a senior judge in one of the higher branches of court agrees.

And if a judge in a Victorian court points out the lack of credibility of the things that you are posting as being an accurate characterisation of events and how others have reported on them, perhaps you are not succeeding in seeing things from an impartial perspective.

People certainly were advocating to allow any trans-identified male into women's prisons and publis loos.

Whenever those of us who disagreed pointed out the capacity of dubious men to find and exploit any loophole, we were howled down as evil transpobes who were cruel, heartless fascists.

As @Ereshkigalangcleg says, the screechers were okay with the collateral damage.

I wasn't, and I'm not. It's why I have always objected to self ID.

yep.

I think from experience, what is expected is that a poster can come onto a thread and make a statement and that any disagreement of that statement needs to be done in a very gentle way where you acknowledge that someone has the right to have that opinion but that you disagree because 'x'.

And it has to be ever so gentle and polite even if the poster has posted their post in an authoritative tone and in an inflammatory way and is posting an opinion that is actually based on either the poster's or someone they have read's bad faith interpretation.

And the poster can make declarations about the topic that are based on bad faith interpretations but there shouldn't be any push back because everyone is entitled to their opinion. And they should be able to express that opinion even it is not based on accurate information or a balanced interpretation.

There is no symmetry in expectation.

I can only assume that being 'feminine' in style means always just letting someone say whatever they want and being kind even when the poster is not being kind themselves.

It is not necessarily the poster who started the thread that I am referring to here, it is a pattern that I have seen with a few posters.

There is no symmetry in expectation.

Precisely. As I said, one of the most reliable patterns I've ever come across is that people posturing about "kindness" are usually the exact opposite themselves.

@Ereshkigalangcleg

"Aaaand here they are, so unpleasant" - so clearly referring to individual posters.

As I said, please practice what you preach. As you said, people should be capable of being civil in discussions.

An observation, as yes, so many posters had descended at once, making the thread - unpleasant. And I felt I had to leave it, but other posters felt bothered this post above to the point you're still complaining about it? Please.

It's just hypocritical, OP. Don't start threads about "uncivility" if you're not prepared to be civil yourself, maybe?

I don't think I was. Compared to the rest of you, I've been a saint.

I was thinking people on this thread.

They are talking about unfairly categorising all TW as abusive, so i assume they recognise some are?

So the rationale is TW are safe, until they aren't? But thats not safeguarding.

You really have not. But do carry on being "civil".

Let's not forget that there are posters on MN who post about posters here and link to threads here onto other discussion forums where there are boards dedicated to bullying posters on this site.

There are those posters who will post links to threads that they start or support on that other site so that the posters from that site will come and post usually carrying the derisive tone (to put it mildly), including targeting particular posters.

If you are going to complain about a group, big or small, then of course they are going to come along and either defend themselves or ask for clarity.

You seem rather naive about that OP.

EDIT - I'm still wanting clarity on your feminine/masculine tones btw.

I was thinking people on this thread.

I wouldn't assume that they don't, given some of the dismissive and callous attitudes to women's rights a couple of posters have come out with.

Saint Civil

probably going to ramble, and maybe not the thread to discuss, but i wanted to come back to the 'why' of why i don't post much on FWR.

I probably share more beliefs with the regular FWR posters than i do differences, my issue arises that there are some places i disagree, and they're where the arguments come up when i get involved.

As i said upthread, my stance is based on my personal experience, the people around me, the things i learn.. what i struggle with is what comes across to me as the anger towards transwomen, and the stance that they're all perverts with genital obsession that some vocal posters have.

I don't see that in the transwomen i know, and it creates a dissonance that i don't know how to counter.

No i don't think they belong in womens sports, nor do i think they ought to have blanket access to womens spaces. I don't mind them being in my space, my friends and acquaintances pose no threat to my status as a bio female. They, on the whole, just want to be referred to as she (Which i'm fine with) and treated like i would any other friend. There is one who plays football, but they don't demand to be on a womens team, instead playing in a league that is unisex. None of them claim to have a 'girl dick' or periods, none of them scream 'transphobe' when they're misgendered by accident.

I've been pretty solid in my stance on being accepting and finding a lot of the anti-trans rhetoric floating about online (not necessarily on mumsnet btw) distasteful. I acknowledge there are problematic transwomen out there, and i understand the dislike towards them, but see them as a tiny minority and not representative of the trans community at large.

However my 'faith' if you like is being challenged recently. One someone i know has recently (about a year/18mo ago) come to the conclusion they're trans.. and they are doing all the things that make me side eye them, and feel, for the first time, that they're trying to undermine the status of women around us, and i'm wrestling with it internally, trying to work out if its just that i don't like them as a person (which tbh i don't, and didn't pre-transition) or that i don't like how they're choosing to behave while they transition. They're loud, and have a lot of friends, and when they declare something that is inherently female is actually clearly a trans-icon/transcoded, and yell 'transphobe' at every women who objects it grates my very soul. My social scene is very LGBT oriented, very gay male heavy, bio women are very under represented, and their behaviour feels incredibly misogynist and devaluing to the few of us who exist in that scene.

For the first time, I'm seeing, first hand what a lot of posters on here are talking about, and the challenge to my own established beliefs and feelings around trans folk is deeply unsettling to me. I know in my heart i support my trans friends in living their life, except that one, that one i don't, and can't, and what does that say about me?

So.. at the moment, while i'm trying to work through this, i don't post on there, because i don't know how i feel one day to the next, i suddenly don't feel i can argue from where i used to stand, but taking a different view feels like it goes against everything i stand for socially and spiritually.