Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Feminism: chat

See all MNHQ comments on this thread

Original poster

Dealing with inflammatory posts re Trans on MN

835 replies

womanformallyknownaswoman · 07/04/2018 17:37

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

OP posts:
Thread gallery
5
PencilsInSpace · 09/04/2018 22:23

Useful tool - Basic questions about sex and gender for progressives by Rebecca Reilly Cooper.

We can start asking these when we're stuck in the loop.They are non-aggressive yet cut straight through the bullshit.

TimbuktuTimbuktu · 09/04/2018 22:35

Oh yeah thebewilderness id be really interested in the tigtog story.

thebewilderness · 09/04/2018 22:50

Not much to tell, Pencils.
Hoyden about town was one of many self styled feminist blogs. There were lots of blog wars over things like the appropriation of Black women's writings by commercial feminists. There were some serious conflicts over predatory male feminists like Hugo Schwyzer using commercial feminists books in his classes in exchange for promoting him. Feminists were trying to find a way to talk about the divisions between women without exacerbating them without much success. Transgender males had been turning up on Feminist blogs more an more often insisting that women had an obligation to include them in Feminist advocacy for women's rights.
During a heated discussion among feminists on her blog tigtog announced that Radical Feminists were too doctrinaire and inflexible and the last straw was excluding transgender males from feminism. Further that Trans Exclusive Radical Feminists were not welcome there. So we all left as requested.
The sex pozzie blogs and the transgender community quickly adopted TERF to dismiss and silence women who disagreed with them. As you know it is now directed at transgender persons who deviate from today's 2 minute hate script.

CrustyCob · 09/04/2018 22:51

I've sat and read this thread all evening, including the links.
(Sue, I see that your last link, includes in the Acknowledgements, funding from Mermaids. Interesting).

I appreciate the contributions of the lurkers. I'm encouraged by the answers from those who have spent considerable time here already.

I think that this is a significant thread, and it's been a light bulb moment for me.
Thank you all.Smile

PencilsInSpace · 09/04/2018 22:57

Well that's really interesting. So often I have heard that terf is not a slur because it was a term coined by some radical feminists to describe themselves. Thank you for confirming it originated as a term to exclude and discredit gender critical feminists.

Ereshkigal · 09/04/2018 23:07

Second that. Thank you Bewilderness.

Bouledeneige · 09/04/2018 23:18

I have very little history with this subject, established positions, anger or hate.

I'm a heterosexual woman, a CEO, and a feminist. But I'm not politically aligned to any party or a radical on anything. But through my job I'm engaged in political discourse and lobbying on my area of concern which relates to disability, health and social care.

I will always be a liberal in terms of accepting anyone to have any orientation or identity - let anyone be who they want to be, change, express themselves and champion their place in society. I am always angry about discrimination or hate - we all have a right to be who we want to be.

But as a liberal I am very concerned that no one's rights can traduce anyone else'is. I will never accept that women's natural rights can be overridden by anyone else's and no one else can speak for them and know their experience. Not for me - no thank you.

But i know as a professional lobbyist for a charity that I cannot engage openly in this debate. Because the trans lobby will vilify and bully me and threaten my job. So, out of fear, I can only engage with this issue on Mumsnet.

I thank you for allowing me to express my views - I do not accept any labelling or vilification. I just want the experience of women to be championed, and accepted, separately from others - whether trans or whomever else. In return, I will champion forever your right to be you.

Sue0001 · 09/04/2018 23:36

As a person who was sexually and physically abused as a child and sexually assaulted as an adult I think I can speak about my own experience to live in a place of hope and love. I refuse to be a victim. I refuse to live in a place of oppression were I am the jail keeper. Life is wonderful, people are wonderful. If you give hate you see hate. I give love I see love.

Why are some people so afraid of others being authentic to themselves and to the world in which they live?

The real issue is more than 75% of sexual abuse is committed by someone known to the victim. That percentage rises to 90% for children.

Juells · 09/04/2018 23:36

discoversociety.org/2018/04/03/viewpoint-understanding-anti-transgender-feminism/

In what follows, I will attempt to help the majority – trans-positive feminists – to understand the seemingly opaque interior of anti-trans feminism.

She must be right, she's an expert.

Juells · 09/04/2018 23:37

Why are some people so afraid of others being authentic to themselves and to the world in which they live?

I would ask why some people are so afraid of allowing women to own their own identity?

Ereshkigal · 09/04/2018 23:40

As a woman who is also a survivor of multiple incidences of sexual violence and domestic violence I think my right to consent, my privacy, dignity and boundaries should be respected, as should any woman's.

BrashCandicoot · 09/04/2018 23:42

I take issue with anti-trans, personally. I think the majority of people here aren’t “anti-trans”, but “for” the protection of sex-separated spaces for reasons including dignity, privacy and safety.

I also question why intersectional feminism has to include male bodied people. Is it so hard to define the words woman and man?

BrashCandicoot · 09/04/2018 23:48

The real issue is more than 75% of sexual abuse is committed by someone known to the victim

I can name precicesly one thing all my sexual abusers all have in common (other than me).

With respect, I’m not playing a victim. I don’t talk about my abuse and assaults in real life. But I refuse to accept that we can blithely ignore the one thing that the vast majority of those who carry out sexual crime and violent crime have in common. I know women can be violent and abusers too, but they don’t carry it out nearly as much as the other half of the population do.

thebewilderness · 09/04/2018 23:52

This is where the DARVO alert flashes: Why are some people so afraid of others being authentic to themselves and to the world in which they live?

If claiming to be the opposite sex and demanding that others affirm that you are the opposite sex is your idea of authenticity I do not know what there is to say to you except to share this.
humpty.jpg

Dealing with inflammatory posts re Trans on MN
thebewilderness · 09/04/2018 23:56

Transgender advocates appropriating intersex terms and intersectional theory from Black Feminists is not viewed as appropriate by either of those groups who have requested repeatedly that they desist.
People who refuse to take no for an answer are not safe to be around.

AngryAttackKittens · 10/04/2018 00:07

The real issue is that 98% of sexual assault is committed by males. The majority of whom will indeed already be known to the victim. Being known to the victim doesn't erase their sex or mean that it's irrelevant.

Ereshkigal · 10/04/2018 00:13

People who refuse to take no for an answer are not safe to be around.

Agree. Boundary violation is a huge red flag. It's often used by predatory men to test what they can get away with so that they can keep pushing until they get their victim where they want them. People should read the "Gift of Fear" and not encourage women to ignore fears, red flags and their instincts.

RedToothBrush · 10/04/2018 00:16

Why are some people so afraid of others being authentic to themselves and to the world in which they live?

Because its not about being authentic to themselves. If it was, they would understand the importance of it to all people, not just their own community.

You CAN NOT redefine what it is to be a woman without it affecting women's ability to define themselves.

You CAN NOT decide you are now someone's sister or daughter or mother when they have had many years of defining themselves as having a brother, son or father.

It is impossible. Unless you give up your own identity, past and self worth to it. You hide behind the lie and lose your own authentic self to be able to do that.

It is truly about power not identity or this nonsense of the authentic self. As soon as you say what it actually is, the mask slips.

People who have felt they have no power for whatever reason and see this as the way out. It doesn't matter the impact of that, because if they didn't do it, they'd kill themselves. Power, you see. Power.

AngryAttackKittens · 10/04/2018 00:17

Seconding the recommendation that women read Gift of Fear. In combination with the Shark Cage article someone posted a week or two ago it could be very useful for those whose sense of their right to maintain and assert their own boundaries has been eroded by socialization and/or abuse, or was just never built up much in the first place for the same reasons.

A person whose response to "no" is to push harder is telling you something about themselves. Please listen.

Sue0001 · 10/04/2018 00:27

Changes in society are hard for many people but it is not hard to treat all people with respect and dignity.

Ereshkigal · 10/04/2018 00:31

It is Sue, as we've said. Some of these things cause a conflict. "Your right to swing your arms ends where my nose begins" as the saying goes.

LightofaSilveryMoon · 10/04/2018 00:35

Sue0001, I believe in treating all people with respect and dignity, not just men.

RedToothBrush · 10/04/2018 00:39

I wish you'd met my sibling's partner.

Respect is a two way thing. You earn it. You don't immediately metaphorically slap people in the face for bending over backwards to try and be respectful. When you've been treated in that way a few times, patience wears thing on the whole respect and dignity thing. Its meaningless if when you do, its thrown back in your face with aggression. The effort has to be appreciated, even if you don't quite say or do the right thing occasionally.

You make it sound as if no one here ever really tried. You know better and everyone else was just bigoted from the world go.

You really are naive to think that. And really rather patronising.

Swipe left for the next trending thread