nastiness in the online trans debate

[dangermouseisace]

Posting here as I'm just feeling rather miserable about how horrible people can be. I know, I should just remove myself from such arguments, but I know there are a fair few other MNtters on twitter etc.

I don't know if it's just me…I'm hoping it's not…but I feel so awful about how horrible people can be on twitter. I don't care about if it's directed at me, that's fine, but I think that the deliberate targeting of trans people on twitter is not on. My philosophy is that no matter what my views on gender, these people are actual human beings living actual real lives, with feelings, friends, families and careers. I'm happy to have an argument about theory, politics or policy, but I feel that personal attacks are unnecessary and actually counter productive.

Some examples are a trans woman who works for womens aid NI. She seems to be doing a good job and relating the experience of her friend, not herself and she's been in a psychiatric hospital in the past. Why attack her personally? I think that is inhumane.

Also Dr Rachel McKinnon. I disagree with much of what she says and does but the level of vitriol is astonishing…people getting in touch with her university dept trying to get her sacked etc. I just don't think it's right.

I think there is nothing to be gained by personal attacks nastiness, apart from switching people off to the gender debate as many would just assume that gender critical feminists are balls of anger and hate. What ever people think about trans issues, these people must have had issues prior to transitioning that needed resolving to see transitioning as a solution, and I can't imagine it was something undertaken lightly. I am talking about those that have actually gone for sex reassignment, not transvestites such as Riley or that bloke that works for Stonewall by the way.

Am I not a feminist for thinking this way? Expecting to be flamed, off to borrow a fireman's helmet from my kids...

Not sure that link will work, hopefully this will:
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4533014/Scotland-Yard-officer-Britain-s-gender-fluid-cop.html

Look at who is being silenced to see where the power lies.
Look at how the power is being abused now to see the future for us.

Anger is a legitimate reaction to what is going on. It's also healthier than agreeing to be gaslighted.

On this forum a transwoman who has fathered a child told me that my pain at infertility is less than theirs... Because I was born with a womb. Fuck that noise.

I'm not on twitter so don't see what goes on. But I will robustly challenge assertions that penises are female, that women talking about our biology is 'cissexist' - indeed that we need cis as a qualifier ffs.

That's not really the choice, is it, to agree to be gaslighted or to be angry?

The only genuine nastiness I've seen in this debate has been from trans 'women' & their supporters dogmatically labelling people as 'cis' 3 & 'terf' against their wishes, calling vaginas dirty, insisting that Lesbians are bigots if they won't sleep with them, pretending that tens of thousands of years of oppression of women means nothing and that women are 'priveledged' not having been brought up to be male racing drivers or whatever. Most proper feminists are just trying to have a bullshit free discussion.

a Male toTrans in a womens aid refuge? What does your friend do there OP?
Why specifically are they targeting abused women?
How far have they gone down the path of transitioning

• not really fair on abused women to be faced with this.

OP, can you be more specific about the threats of violence you have seen from feminists towards TW? I'm not doubting what you say, but I have seen feminists telling TW to fuck off, or go fuck themselves, but never anything like the die in a fire, hope you get raped with a broken bottle stuff of TRAs.

Unless you describe misgendering as "literal violence", in which case, meh

I have very little sympathy for Mackinnon when it comes to people contacting their place of work seeing as they are partial to the doxing of women and the actual danger to their lives that ensues.

When a person is using their workplace to back up their claims, when those claims are spurious and laden with violence and threats, I have little problem with that workplace being made aware of that person's tarnishing their good name. In the end, of course, the university backed MacKinnon up to the hilt. Because Patriarchy.

hod it's not my friend!

olenna I blocked the person so can't remember exactly what it was…vague recollection of violent death type stuff. It was way beyond the chopping off appendages thing. But that's the only non TRA really violent thing that I've come across TBH…I've not come across any other feminist (if that person was really a feminist) pushing violence as an answer.

Had to google Dox

a transwoman who has fathered a child told me that my pain at infertility is less than theirs... Because I was born with a womb.

Why does it matter if it's a group insult or a personal one? It is any better to say all poc are cochroaches or disabled people are cochroches?

Encouraging children to contact their 'real' glitter families behind their parents back is grooming, so contacting the university would be correct.

OP am I missing something here? You're talking about just one person who's used aggressive language to/about some trans individuals (with very questionable agendas)? Against the backdrop of countless TRAs spouting their misogynist venom on a constant basis against gender critical feminists?

Is that right? I'm not being snarky I'm just genuinely confused and trying to understand.

SylviaPoe: There is no constructive way of engaging with abusers. There are only damaging and dysfunctional ways of engaging with abusive dysfunctional people. You've put your finger on something there that really worries me.

I fundamentally agree with you that you cannot hope to have a constructive dialogue with people who are abusive. My experience has taught me that all you can do is remove yourself/protect yourself from them. But this is precisely the problem here.

How can we protect/remove ourselves from abusive TRAs who are hellbent on invading women's spaces and appropriating our identities, and who are making it nigh on impossible for us to question their actions and their ideology?

I firmly believe the whole ideology is abusive in a systemic way, so not confined specifically to those who vent their narcissitic, misogynist rage on Twitter. And this continues to perplex me. I know the best way to shield yourself from abusers is to cut contact, to refuse to engage, to live your life without them in it. And of course when it comes to Twitter it's perfectly possible just not to engage.

But what about RL? What about the changes that we are seeing in policy and practice, the constant drip drip of TRA ideology into the mainstream, the fact that women only spaces (toilets, prisons, fem socs etc etc etc) are often no longer women only at all, that support for women now has to be shared with not-women?

You can't argue with abusers, you can only set rock solid boundaries, and atm those boundaries are being demolished and we are being demonised for wanting to maintain them. It's not so much the lunatics have taken over the asylum, as the abusers have taken over the refuge.

Quite literally as in the case of the MTT women's aid worker in NI mentioned above; when looking through some of the sub-reports submitted to the Transgender Equality report, I came across someone in Scotland doing exactly the same and deeply indignant about the idea that anyone could think of challenging their "womanhood" and their right to be there. They presented themself as the victim, and gender critical feminists as the ones hurting them, which is what abusers always do.

How do we protect ourselves from abusers who are being given free rein to gaslight, bully and intimidate? And if we withdraw from social media because it's so toxic, while the Rileys and all the rest keep on pumping out their unreason and flooding the virtual world with it, how do we have a voice in this and make that voice heard?

Just rambling to myself there, not expecting anyone to come up with the solution!

talkinginthedark no it wasn't just the violent that shocked me...it was more the pre transition photos, names, and personal attacks, contacting employers etc. But, as I mentioned in my post before last I've got a bit (ok a lot) more perspective through discussing the issue on here. I feel like I've had a reality check, and more steady in my convictions.

I don't think we should withdraw. I'm anonymous on there/shouldn't be traceable to angry people. I think if no-one is disagreeing or pointing out facts, then it gives free reign for transactivists to push their agenda unquestioned. Social media seems to be one of the few forums where we can question the trans agenda without being instantly shut down. If everyone was to stop I would be seriously concerned about the future of our kids, and for the future of women.

Stop questioning the trans agenda I mean, not just stop being on social media!

Um, that surely has to be the fastest volte face in the history of Mumsnet!

It's also worth remembering that the MTT isn't the vulnerable person here, it's the women and families using womens aid services.

Whatever discrimination/abuse MTT have as a class, and this MTT experience as an individual, is not relevant in this situation. The issues MTT face will not be solved by, and is not an excuse to, make vulnerable women and children feel more vulnerable than they are already.

well sometimes it's ok to admit that you were wrong. Although I wouldn't go for personal attacks myself I don't feel the need to dissociate myself from those that do, as it's a lot clearer why that happens.

I'm confused as to why you got a hard time here op (although I can see you e swerved anyway 😃). I read the op as assuming the posters here would be horrified by abuse rather than accusing them of abuse. Yes, most of the loud transactivist I've seen are fucking horrid. There are a very few feminists who say shit I wouldn't want to be associated with but mostly it's pales in insignificance to the shit given by mainstream feminist/transactivists magazines.

Similarly I've been feeling really put off by American liberals using terms like "repugnican" etc. It's just fucking stupid. And the comedian who used a severed Trump head as a photo prop made me feel sick... even the Simpsons have made two videos of various members of Trump's cabinet comiting suicide by hanging. Fucking hilarious I'm a full on left wing American but that shit is not happening in my name. I'd be apoplectic with rage if republicans did the equivalent with a Hilary head. It's hard but I think to a degree you have to keep the higher ground. At the end of the day if you're seen as "mean" you don't win people over anyway... trans agenda and the right wing both need to be won't the same way, with science whole lotta science

Thought i recognised the name. I don't agree with some Twitter behaviour but cant say i agree with this either. I rate McKinnon competing against and beating women as pretty abusive in itself.