Mumsnet demanding that I change my nickname

[AbortionFairyGodmother]

Suddenly after posting on several transgender issue related threads, I am getting a note in my email inbox:

"We wanted to drop you a line about your Mumsnet nickname, because we've have had a few reports from other posters about it and how it has caused distress.

Our aim is to make parents' lives easier by pooling and sharing advice and support, and while we're all for free speech, we really don't feel that this nickname is in the spirit of our philosophy.
We're asking therefore if you can change it please. "

Yeah, well, a lot of parents need abortions. My nickname is here because I am an abortion activist who sends abortion pills to women (mostly mothers!!) who desperately need them and are not in areas where they can access them.

Watch this, women. This is what censorship looks like. No "misgendering" people, no getting too far out of line, no being too public about your activism. Because it will offend someone. Best to make my nickname something like KittensAndFlowersLOL, right?

I think we have more freedom to talk about silencing of women over trans issues than in most places on the Internet. I think MN have taken a pretty brave stance on that, and it worries me that trans activists will congregate to close that down.

I don't think MN posters in general are trying to shut down the discussion, nor would they accept most trans arguments. I haven't been on the trans threads on chat, but have been on many others, and don't feel at all silenced on MN.

OP - just wanted to say thank you for what you do, both for providing abortions to women who need them and for talking about it openly. I freely admit: it was always a horrible shock whenever I came across your username. A good friend of mine had a late term abortion for medical reasons several years ago and I still can't even think about it without crying so hard. I don't even know why it affects me that much. It was a terrible choice she had to make but I'm glad it was hers to make. I'm glad for her and her baby girl who didn't have to suffer. So thank you again for providing other women with that choice.

^^^
I got asked my MNHQ to change this NN as it was a bit suspect. I was using it on a dodgy thread and I have to admit I was being a teeny bit quite a lot goady . I changed it immediately to a less contentious one and I don't use it anymore. I thought the MNHQ email was polite and reasonable.

I lie... I used it the other day on a thread that MN had confirmed WAS a troll thread so I assumed it would be ok to use.

I've only used it here to show the OP that MNHQ do keep an eye on NNs.

Ha! Thank you. I am definitely reassured, and feel silly about my paranoia.

Womb - glad you've changed to the new name, I like it so much better. Not much point reiterating what everyone has already said but yes, AGF was a standout "OMG" sort of name, for its trigger-potential rather than anything else.

The service you provide is great, hope that you continue your work. :)

So all's well that ends well!

It's an awful nn OP. I'm definitely pro choice but women have abortions for many different reasons and for a lot of them, it takes a lot of soul searching before they can make the decision. It might not be the right time for them or even their much wanted baby may have a condition which isn't compatible with life.

You, lightheartedly, calling yourself a 'FairyGodmother' is an insult to the women who have made this truly horrible decision.

I agree with what you do op but the name suggests your making a joke out of it. It's not a joke as your keen to show the seriousness off what you do with your examples of why you do it up thread. So the name you use is contradictory.

I wouldn't think an abortion activist or a pro choice activist would use such a flippant name. It undermines the the work that you say you do.

MumOfOne14

"An abortion is horrendous & shouldn't be taken lightly. At the end of the day you are taking a life. Those decisions should be kept to yourself. You helping those people OP should be kept private too."

Wtaf???? I find this kind of opinion far more offensive than anyone's nn.

Yes, but its the only one remotely like it in a thread of 235 messages, so best just ignored eh Stinkersmum? You only get a complete consensus on a miniscule number of threads, and that's usually on subjects like "Aibu to think okra is the most disgusting thing you could put in your mouth?"

Sorry Mintyy, what's your problem?

Just to confirm - Abortion Support Network is indeed one of the five organisations we'll be asking YOU to donate to during Mumsnet Giving Week 2015 - which is NEXT WEEK. Donations made via our special JustGiving link will be matchfunded by MNHQ. So please keep your eyes peeled for more info next week and tell all your friends - even if you can only afford a very small amount it will be doubled by the match-funding.

The other four orgs are Rape Crisis, SWAN UK (for undiagnosed genetic disorders), IPSEA (independent advice and legal help for parents of children with SN) and Count the Kicks.

Oh and thanks to BoreofWhabylon for flagging it up (and just for generally being herself )

I don't have a problem Stinkersmum. I was just suggesting that we don't go down the route of stoking this up into the usual pro or anti abortion debate (because this thread is about something else) by picking up on one non-typical post in a long thread.

That's all.

And anyway, op has changed her username and acknowledged that she is not being unfairly picked on, so all's well.

I luvs okra

Famous - Strangely, most of the people I've seen supporting the original username on this thread are FWR regulars.

You may want to rephrase your remark as 'trust feminists not to give a shit about real women's feelings about abortion, the evil cows'.

Wombofonesown - I like the new nickname, but had absolutely no problem with your previous one. People, including women (because - newsflash - we are people too) should be allowed to get angry about hideous injustices - and if you google the number of women worldwide who die from unsafe abortions, that's something any normal person should be getting bloody angry about. If you're not angered by women having to carry an 8th baby to term when they may die giving birth or be left unable to feed the other 7, if you're not angered by women in Nicaragua being denied treatment for ectopic pregnancies because doctors are terrified of being imprisoned for "carrying out an abortion" when in fact they're giving life-saving treatment - if you're not angered by these things, then I think there's something a bit screwed about your value judgements.

And there is to my mind nothing wrong with having a user name that expresses that anger. Angry satire as a weapon to puncture the complacency of the comfortable (and most of us in the UK are comfortable on a world wide scale - and certainly when it comes to reproductive rights we are way ahead of the game compared to most place) has a long and honourable history. Would Swift's "Modest Proposal" have carried any clout if it had said "Well, the people suffering in the potato famine could always ask nicely for carrot seeds next time round?"

Women are subject to such strong socialisation never to express anger that I think we've lost sight of the fact that anger is the appropriate response to injustice and oppression.

Lurcio, what has any of that got to do with this thread?

The OP hasn't come across as angry at all.

OP, what a fantastic service you are doing xx

I thought your previous name was fine. To many woman access to abortion is a God send. You shouldn't have changed it.

I took it that AFG's original name was in reference to her work helping women in countries with no safe access to legal abortion - fantastic work driven by a passion for her fellow women, for women' s rights and anger at the injustices they'd suffered. I meant anger in that sense - justified outrage at human rights abuses - not anger in the sense it's sometimes used as a passive aggressive silencing technique (the sort of post which says "ooh, OP, youssound a bit angry".) I was actually trying to make a distinction between the two precisely because accusations of the second kind are often used to prevent women expressing anger about social injustice. Perhaps another way of saying what I was trying to get at might be: AFG was a provocative user name but that in and of itself is not a sufficient reason to request it be changed - sometimes people choose to be deliberately provocative to draw attention to things that need to be thought about (and given the huge tracts of the world where women have no control over their fertility and the ongoing undermining of reproductive rights in eg the US this is actually an issue that needs to be kept at the forefront of women's minds).

But none of that is coming across in her username.

And if she isn't actually from those countries, there is a real element of Western Saviour about the username, not the OP's work.

Well, I didn't know any of the back story when I first encountered her name - but I was aware of the situation in various other countries, the constant erosion of reproductive rights in the US and the way right wing MPs in this country are starting to learn from US republicans (i.e. that you're unlikely to get the law changed by a direct approach - so instead try and pass lots of seemingly innocuous pieces of legislation like lowering the time limit, insisting on scans and counselling by "independent" organisations, in the US insisting doctors performing abortions have "admitting privileges" at local hospitals when the only nearby hospitals are run by church related charities etc... just make it de facto impossible if you can't make it de jure impossible). I always read her user name as a kind of "Vera Drake figure" protest, to say, "actually women need these services and it is not morally bad to provide them."

Now I know the work she does, I'm even more impressed. And I'm glad people do care about other countries as well as their own. (Interestingly, it's another case of women can't win - try to discuss women's rights in your own country and you get accused of "worrying about first world problems when women have it so much worse elsewhere", try to discuss women's rights abroad and you're a "Western Saviour". Damned if you do, damned if you don't... again!)

But I didn't say that. There's nothing Western Saviour about discussing women's rights abroad or supporting women in other countries.

There is about saying (in the second post) that the fairy godmother part is in reference to helping a woman in South America. 'WOC call me a fairy godmother' is about the closest I've seen to someone actually saying I am a Western Saviour. And the person making a first world problems type comment on this thread is the OP.

Not long ago Buffy posted about the Stanford free online course on International Women's Health and Human Rights. As well as covering the disability and death caused by lack of access to abortion, it covered a lot about the world's missing girls, forced abortions (particularly on immigrant populations) and the misuse of contraception on women in poorer countries. Doing that course has made me more aware that for many women, reproductive rights are about the right not to have abortion and not to be forced to have contraceptive implants or the coil.

I would recommend the course to everyone. The boards have feminists from all over the world on them. It is very much about women's material reality, and the one poster who started on the 'this is cissexist' argument got a very cold reception.

Greer has also talked about this - women getting anaemia from the coil due to development programs, cultural issues around abortion.

So I don't associate abortion with being overwhelmingly a positive thing. It very much depends on the context. And it is very hard to get across a context in a username.