Dealing with inflammatory posts re Trans on MN

[womanformallyknownaswoman]

I am concerned to see the message below from MNHQ at the end of the T thread. Regarding posts that I consider "goady", I have a personal policy of not feeding them, not engaging and not rising to the bait. I ignore them. OPs looking for conflict as a way to feed themselves won't get it from me. Firstly, it's exhausting-they are not interested in dialogue, despite what they say, and secondly the best way to deal with them, imo, is to starve them of attention and not rise to the bait. Don't give them what they want i.e. a fight and conflict.

My concern is I predict there will be a lot more new threads and OPs looking for a fight, as the public becomes more aware of the issues and the tide starts to turn against TRAs. They will want to try and get this Place closed down for discussion, and none of us want that to happen.

Personally I have found it empowering to learn how not to engage and to turn it back on them if absolutely necessary, by the use of ridicule and short rebuttals of their nonsense. I am happy to share some techniques if it will help plus learn more from others. There's no point in trying to score points and win all the arguments they make as it's the engagement down their rabbit holes they want - they literally feed off conflict. They're anti-social remember, so any attention is better than none. They want to keep you coming back and arguing, so they can derail, prolong, provoke and generally make life difficult for MNHQ - to force them to take action. The negative attention "turns on" those looking for a fight….so please don't feed them, ignore them and lets keep this place open.

Message for MN:

Hi all

Since this thread is getting near its end, this seems like a good moment to make a really serious point.

We've just made some more deletions on this thread, and we're pretty exasperated tbh - we feel we're running out of ways to say 'please stick within the TGs or risk losing MN as a place to discuss this issue.'

We're really proud of our commitment to free speech, and we put a huge amount of time and resources to enabling this debate to take place - as many of you have pointed out, it's one of the few places left.

To those who haven't yet been able to stop and look at things from our end of the barrel - please understand that you're risking this space for everyone; if you really can't debate civilly with those you disagree with, it might be time to consider that MN is no longer the place for you. We're sorry to have to say this - we don't like it one bit - but tbh nothing else seems to have got through so far: we're at a point of last resort.

Thanks to all those who modify their first instincts and manage to make their points in a calm, considered and civilised manner - even in the face of goadiness. We appreciate it (and so would Michelle.)

Thanks all

MNHQ

You don’t have to scuttle back anywhere Playdohnut

I understand your point, it’s just that personally I disagree as it feels empowering to take the label I’ve been given and use it in a new way (in my situation using it to differentiate rather than an insult)

Many of the new posters tend to stick around for a while (come for the drama, stay for the facts ) and I think after a few threads the reason for the names becomes apparent.

Well you shouldn't, but what I am saying is that for parents of kids who are struggling with gender identity (which I think is pretty meaningless but they dont) the "we are at war" tone must feel quite offputting.
It's quite confusing actually. I know instinctively the difference between anow AGP ( what I would have called a transvestite)and a genuine transsexual.
I think most women do actually, so I agree with Tru that the term "trans" to cover the whole shebang is actually really confusing and unhelpful.

Playdohnut - Please don't scuttle off - I'm, a lurker, not a poster, and I felt quite daunted when i first started reading the board. But I've learnt so much and now understand the terminology ( more or less) and the voices.

Stick around and feel welcome . I did and do.

My post was replying to teacup

I post too slowly. :) I do find myself wandering into these threads increasingly, so I will probably scuttle back at some point when I'm feeling brave. Thank you for being less scary than I expected.

the framing of 'a war of two sides' and the deliberate positioning of those people asking questions as 'trans-exclusionary', 'anti-trans', 'bigots', 'nazis', 'terfs' etc serves only one group... that of some TRAs.

It is a tactic which has worked very well up to now.

There is much more to gained by engaging with Playdohnut & Koy with nuance and calm.... in fact this is absolutely vital.

I've spent the last three weeks trying to unpick what on earth might be going on. This has only been possible due to unusual personal circumstances... most people dip in and out amongst all of their other concerns, preoccupations and life! Like nearly every other person whom I've read on this board, none of the perjorative descriptors above apply to me. My concerns are solely on the damage that some TRAs are doing not least to many within the transgender community but primarily to women and girls and especially to political integrity.

I know there are many more with much greater knowledge and awareness- I do so hope that they help more people to understand what is an incredibly complex situation better.

I namechanged a while back, to reclaim the name TERF as Telling Everyone Real Facts. Because the term TERF was being used as a slur against us - with things like "Kill all terfs" and "punch a terf" being circulated widely on Twitter. Or my particular favourite, "I want to rape a TERF to death, and then cut up her body".

Telling real facts - like a person cannot change their sex, a man cannot become a woman, and woman is an adult human female.

We do not hate trans people - but we defend our right to speak in a language where words have definitions based on fact, not feelings. We want to preserve "woman" as a biological sex category, and that this is a women's rights issue.

I reject gender stereotypes, and "boy brain" and "girl brain" - because that sort of thinking is the root of women's oppression. Woman is not a feeling, it is a biological reality.

IfNot

The reason it must sounds like a war here is because the reality is so far beyond confusing and unhelpful. The word female is about to be changed forever to mean female and male (already happening in Scotland). Women will have to beg through the courts to ever have any women or girls only services or facilities. We can't even call men men any more in many female only spaces. In the US you can be fined a quarter of million USD for misgendering. It is actually quite extreme.

This site is helpful.
sexmatters.org.uk/

ifnot
I think you’re right that the tone must be offputting, but so much of the TRA’s argument is ‘but I want that’ and we have to be firm in saying no.

When I first came on here I was shocked by the way people just bold as brass called a trans woman Male. It was truly shocking to me but they are and we don’t do anyone any favours pretending otherwise.

The whole excluding/including thing is really silly. Radical feminism isn’t excluding trans people, being female is a sex category not a seat at the lunch table. Trans people are included in radical feminism, the only thing is we don’t think you can change sex.

The last thing we want is to develop our own echo-chamber. Dissenting views and questions asked in good faith are very welcome. I hope to see you all around [tea] [tea] [tea]

I mean!

Why not reclaim it? Because, coming in from the "outside" it is not clear whether those using Terf in their usernames are are reclaiming it or endorsing it - it is coming across that they actually are trans-exclusionary to the casual lurker.

By the same token, you are asking a community of women to stop all the things that bind on- and offline communities - the in jokes, the shared vocab, the common understandings. Because outsiders, many of whom are men, should be able to control their interactions if those shared bindings do not exhibit enough female socialisation and put people outside the community first.

This is unfair.

I am relatively new to the FWR board - much less than a year of posting. I was aware of the reputation of this section of Mumsnet before I posted. I read the threads for several weeks before joining in. I'd got a sense of the shared vocab and what was humour and what wasn't. I had some idea of the positions held by the board generally and by particular prominent posters. Thus I was able to join, start posting, and add my own opinions to the board without disrupting it. Some members agree with what I say and some don't. This is normal etiquette online.

This board is the same as any other board concentrating on one area of life. It has an overall flavour within which is a range of views. FWR has a gender critical flavour with a range of views going from very mild to very radical.

Some outsiders may well consider it transphobic as they would consider any gender critical opinion or community transphobic. Others may consider it enlightening and interesting and agree with what is said. I've seen more supportive testimonies about FWR from "normals" who are on neither side of the inflamed trans debate than I have negative ones.

Some of the "insider talk" may go over the heads of both sets of outsider but that is the case with any online community. It is unfair to hold feminists to standards not expected of other groups.

It's an interesting point about usernames, and one I've been thinking about a lot for the past week or so. I changed mine back in maybe January (? can't remember exactly) but it was when the word TERF seemed to be appearing much more frequently and being flung around at anyone raising the most reasonable questions.

It seemed to me an astonishing and ridiculous overreaction - a joke. That was the spirit in which I, and a lot of people at the same time, took it as a username. It conjures up an image that is SO FAR removed from the person I am that it was (to me) obviously ironic.

BUT. I realise that no one online knows who I am in real life, what I do, what I look like, what I stand for. And since I took the name, the climate has changed. It's ceased, sadly, to seem ridiculous when this term is thrown about. The similarity between the accusation of TERF today, and 'witch' in the seventeenth century has been made by many, and it's scarily apt. Although it seems to be a very precise descriptor, it is flung indiscriminately and without evidence, to discredit and demean, and to silence women's voices. It is used to widen that 'us and them' narrative and stifle reasonable, respectful debate. I am emphatically NOT trans-exclusionary, but the original irony has been lost.

As I said, I've been thinking about it a lot recently. And I will now change my username back to my previous (flippant, alcohol-based) one. Thanks for raising the point playdohnut (Salutes to all the other terf-usernames out there. This is just my take.)

I think most women do actually, so I agree with Tru that the term "trans" to cover the whole shebang is actually really confusing and unhelpful

Part of the report from the Equality committee recommended:

publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201516/cmselect/cmwomeq/390/390.pdf

"Each of us is at birth assigned a sex (male or female), based on our physical characteristics. Most people’s gender identity (the gender with which they associate themselves) and gender presentation (how they outwardly show their gender) will not differ from that typically associated with their assigned sex. Trans people, however, have a
gender identity which differs from that of their (assigned) birth sex. Trans identities take a wide diversity of forms"

And then there's this:

"The current process of applying for a GRC was described to us as “bureaucratic”,“expensive” and “humiliating”. Witnesses told us that it required the collection and submission of substantial quantities of evidence of a type which ought to have no bearingon the granting of gender recognition"

I would love to know who they spoke to in the trans community - and if they heard any dissenting opinions from transsexuals?

Seemingly not - because apparently transsexual is an outdated term

"A major criticism was that, as regards trans equality, the Act is couched in terms
that are seen as outdated and confusing, with its references to “gender reassignment” and “transsexual” persons.
90
93. And there is a consequent, apparently widespread, misapprehension that the Act only provides protection to those trans people whose transition involves medical “gender-reassignment” treatment.91 (Likewise, “transsexual”, being primarily a medical
categorisation, can be seen as referring specifically to someone who intends to undergo, is undergoing or has undergone such a medical intervention.)

Its no longer just an online community though... this board has been signposted as the (only?) place where open discussion is possible. It is being deliberately targeted by some TRAs as a consequence.
Many people who have started to ask questions or are aware that perhaps there are questions to ask are coming here... its an opportunity which really needs to be seized

Many of the new posters tend to stick around for a while (come for the drama, stay for the facts )

I love this! And Tru, the fact that your username was referred to as aggressive is a powerful irony that will not be lost.

yes it does make me laugh how certain TRAs are baying about the nasty mumsnetters (like we are some sort of homegenous group with identical opinions anyway!), wheras it is us that are constantly insulted with offensive terms like "cis" and "TERF"and every post constantly called "vile", "hateful", "toxic" and "phobic". I think the problem is they've overcooked it as those words have been bandied about so willy nilly (pardon the pun!) now, even when anyone can see that the threads here are reasonable and highly policed, both by MN and by ourselves, that they've lost quite a bit of power and any bit of meaning that they might have once had. I mean transphobic is and always was just silly.

The thing is mouth I have been on these threads a few months now, and was lurking a while before that, so I do know the arguments, and on the whole I agree with you I think-I want sex based provision for women, I don't want self Id, I'm very worried about the effect Mermaids etc can have on children.
So I am very much in favour of MN being a place where women (and men, as this will affect their female loved ones) can discuss the calm and rational reasons why the things I mentioned are important (which loads of you are doing, and thank you for doing it!)
Quoting horrific things nutters say in Twitter may be counter productive. Sadly there will always be angry men saying horrible things about women on the Internet. Some days I think that's what the Internet was invented for. ..but lots of people will have a transsexual colleague or family member who bears no resemblance to these lunatics and won't recognise some of the nightmarish situations that get referenced on here as being possibilities.
I'm totally on the side of protecting women's and girls rights, and I want to do so in the real world, with support from real politicians and policy makers. I find the acronyms and slanging matches really pointless and don't care if some random twitterbot calls me a terf, or a nazi. In fact I wouldn't even know as I can't stay far enough away from Twitter!

Just to continue my post above...

... would anyone think it wise or reasonable to go onto a UKIP forum and tell members with Cross of St George avatars to lose them because outsiders use that to accuse them of racism? Or onto a trans board and tell members with anime usernames or avatars to lose them because outsiders use that to brand them as creepy pervs?

I wouldn't do either of those things. I suspect most people wouldn't. But it does seem acceptable to do this to communities of women and criticise them for humour/reclamation of the slur "TERF".

God this moves fast!

Yes agree Langcleg. I had been mulling over similar thoughts.

would anyone think it wise or reasonable to go onto a UKIP forum and tell members with Cross of St George avatars to lose them because outsiders use that to accuse them of racism?

Well, the telling not so much perhaps. But asking what the avatars are all about and what people intend by them, why not?

I think part of the problem is that some here are so familiar with the arguments and have rehashed them so many times it's hard to remember that others are new to it and having to decode. Especially in a context where there is so much misinformation about.

Well, the telling not so much perhaps. But asking what the avatars are all about and what people intend by them, why not?

Exactly. Asking is very different.

But that's not what's happened on this thread, is it? We're being asked to not have in-jokes, not have shared vocab - like all other online communities do - because outsiders might not like them.

I think part of the problem is that some here are so familiar with the arguments and have rehashed them so many times it's hard to remember that others are new to it and having to decode. Especially in a context where there is so much misinformation about.

This is very true. But one of the things that stands out about FWR is that people asking good faith questions are treated very well with a large number of posters never complaining about having answered the same question dozens of times before. People don't get told to educate themselves here, do they?

No we're lovely

I'm just aware that the groups who could perhaps benefit most from a GC perspective have been told we're all evil old witches who wish their death. So I have a lot of patience for nervous people going agh, they're all called terf, maybe it's true?

I don't think we should drop the in-jokes but I'm happy to keep explaining them til the cows come home