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?

Around the world, botched abortions are the leading cause of death for pregnant women. I don't think sending pills to womenpills which are safer than birth, incidentallyis "winding people up." I think women ought to all know about how they can perform their own abortions, so this right cannot be taken from us.

Well those people are here, and MNHQ have clearly put their needs above your want to be controversial.

Hmm, if MNHQ are going to do this, then they need to be consistent.

I cringe half the time when I see any of the "cunt" based usernames, also not particularly fond of "AnyFucker" - nothing against her posts, just don't like the name.

You're either allowed to call yourself what you like on here or you have to abide by guidelines.

But those guidelines should then be clear & apply to everyone.

As it is OP, you're not in the wrong and I think you should leave it as it is...

You were obviously winding people up on the transgender issues, and you also don't seem to have any sympathy with people who might find your name to be distressing.

Yeah I thought about the cunty and Fucker nicknames as well. Consistency be damned, eh?

@AbortionFairyGodmother

I'm not transgender. I posted in transgender threads mostly in an anti-transgender phenomenon way; I believe transgender people are not best served by transition. My posts were deleted even when they didn't violate guidelines earlier today without explanation and now I'm being asked to change my nick. This is harassment and silencing by the admins here and I'm calling it the hell out.

Hi

Please be assured, we don't do harassment or silencing- we just don't.
We are always the first to put our hands up if we've made a mistake.

Your earlier post was deleted and we did explain why on the thread - it contained a personal attack.

Hope this clears things up.

WRT to the email - our points, we think, still stand, though it's great to hear that your nickname has such a noble etymology.
Peace and love, all
MNHQ

And all those ranting about people's health should read up a bit on how pregnancy and childbirth can be detrimental to health, even fatal, especially in certain countries.

I'm also not "winding people up" on trans threads by having a controversial opinion. I am writing a book of feminist theory on transgender topics right now; I know the topic well.

How is this a "classist" place? You have no idea of the socioeconomic backgrounds of the people who post here...

Seeing the word 'Fucker' isn't going to cause someone serious upset.

Seeing the word Abortion being used so flippantly could (and apparently has done).

Its a foul name. Wise up to yourself.

I can guarantee you a lot of you are not thinking about the issues of a Texan mother with 8 kids who needs multiple appointments at a clinic six hours away, or an Irish woman with a job that will fire her if they find out she's aborting. Not thinking about the dire economic consequences of abortion from women means you don't have a lot of class consciousness, yeah, I feel pretty justified in saying that.

Let me guess: Calling people classist is as bad as being classist, because it makes people feel bad!

And yet, AFG has explained why she chose the name, and it's not flippant at all.

Given that it's not flippant, and serves a purpose, I don't see the problem.

You may do excellent work and being open about it may have helped you reach more people however your user name does not, in itself, describe what you do or the service you offer. Using the name on any post without a narrative about it does nothing to further your cause but may well cause upset.

If your aim was to further your cause or advertise your service there are far better usernames you could have chosen which wouldn't have caused upset such as "pmforadviceonunwantedpregnancy" or "wouldliketoseepregnancychoiceavailableworldwide" or many hundreds of other options which wouldn't cause upset to some people who have, themselves, faced terrible situations.

Abortions are very necessary, but they are also not pleasant.

While it is important to recognise that for many people they are not traumatic, it is just not realistic not to see that for many people the circumstances surrounding an abortion are very painful.

I actually missed the harassment bit.

This is all very attention seeking.

Your cause sounds noble and fab

Your name sounds like an attention seeking school kid getting into riot grrrrl fashion while trying to play off being cutesy and flippant. That's poss what the sore point is?

So you want everyone to hear your views, using a provocative name to boot, but you don't want to hear any one elses views (as presented by mumsnet hq with the email)?

You could make your posts sound less arsey without losing the drive of what servoce you provide and why

I'm grateful you chose that name because without it you'd never have posted this thread and I'd never have clicked on it as I did out of curiosity.

I consider myself strongly pro-choice yet to my shame until tonight I'd never heard of anyone doing what you do. I need to give it some thought, do some reading up, but on the face of it my first reaction is that it's a bloody marvelous thing to do.

Thanks for the education.

"Given that it's not flippant, and serves a purpose, I don't see the problem."

It might serve more of a purpose on MomsNet tbh, here it's far more likely to just distress people.

And yet, AFG has explained why she chose the name, and it's not flippant at all.

Even assuming like minded individuals who are sympathetic with the explanation, there is no facility on mumsnet to attach that explanation to every post.

I don't see why you have to have a username that has anything to do with your profession or specialisms at all. Smacks of advertising plain and simple to me. I also don't think sending abortion pills through the post to people you know nothing about - how can you be sure they are going to women who actually want an abortion and aren't being forced to take them - is anything to be particularly proud of either.

Fucker is just a swear word. Harmless and most grown ups find it inoffensive.

And I really don't think that a UK parenting website is an appropriate place for someone to act as AbortionDrugs2U sending out fuck knows what.

There are reliable websites www.womenonweb.org/en/i-need-an-abortion available at a single Google search that will do that.

Your name sounds like an attention seeking school kid

But don't all the "rebellious" usernames with rude words in them?

They all make me think of stroppy teens "pushing back against the squares".

You may not find "Fuck" or "Cunt" offensive, but not everyone wants that crap thrust in their face when trying to read a forum.

I personally find Abortion less bothersome than Cunt...