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

As a mature women I am appalled at what we are doing to young women.

@uniquehornsonly brilliant answer to explain why AGP does exist in some men and not in women.

It's good not to feed the seagulls but also to remember that people are lurking and it's important for them not to get some ludicrous idea that women are turned on by the idea that they are women!

Yes I agree @merrymouse males are not females ever. So the broad Stonewall 'umbrella' of people who are trans is confusing and unhelpful for transsexuals, I think. But either way the group is males and females who do not cease to be make or female because they get under the trans umbrella.

@Mouthtrousersafrocknowandthen were you personally at a training where people were lied to that sex would replaced by gender? Where you women were made to feel they had privilege. Confessions of (privilege' reminds me of what Mao did in the cultural revolution.

Can you complain anonymously?

I think newspapers should print up this shit and tell people what is going on. I don't go to work to be lied to!

Can anyone link to the Tara stuff or pm me?

Thanks.

pombear I hear you. That made perfect sense. Also do this myself, reading deeply into the subject, researching, listening to both sides, then drawing my own conclusions.

I may simply have experienced too much crap thanks to my sex to be able to centre men in my feminism - even those who identify as women.

Physical assault. Sexual assault. Harrassment. Intimidation. Coercion. Secondary Infertility. Pregnancy complications. Pregnancy loss. Birth trauma. PND. Incontinence. Prolapse. Such heavy bleeding that you prefer to stay at home when I menstruate.

Give up your career and PhD. Devote 14 years of your life to bringing up kids, dutifully moving cities, even countries, each time DH gets a new job.

The loneliness, the stress, the loss in self-esteem when you parent without a support network while your DH travels for work. When your male peers pass you by while you clean up vomit or tell your aggressive kid not to hit you for the 100th time or try not to explode when someone's dog bites your kid and their kid tells the dog to actually kill your kid afterwards.

Or when you finally, finally find a way to work and you realise all you've achieved is to add to your workload, coz your DH is going to keep on working all hours as he's now at the height of his career. No matter what he may have promised before.

And now you're getting old. And oddly more confident in yourself and shit, you've only got this one body, so isn't it time you accepted it and learned to love yourself, just as you are.

And you've seen all this crap the other women you know have gone through. Far far far worse than yours.

Then these woke genderqueer kids come along, demanding I centre them, then these middle-aged crossdressers come along, demanding I centre them, and I ask myself FOR WHAT? What possible fucking reason could I have to centre a man in my feminism?

Statement by the Womens Equality Party which is well worth a read
www.womensequality.org.uk/april_12

Sue, do you have any thoughts of your own or are you just here to post links that we've likely already seen?

Statement by the Womens Equality Party which is well worth a read www.womensequality.org.uk/april_12

Thanks, Sue, but there is a full thread with a good discussion about this already. Perhaps you could post your thoughts there so that we could keep this one on topic.

I ask you again - what do you think is the best way to respond to inflammatory posts in this forum? That's what we're trying to discuss on this thread.

CharlieParley

I too have valid reasons to not include males in my feminism.
Long story short - I bloody know what they're like!

CharlieParley - I identify with your post so, so much.

This is men taking feminism away from women. Telling us we're doing it wrong, as usual.

I don't know why we're surprised really. There have been a few sparkles of hope in the last century, but even a cursory glance at Twitter tells me that there are a fair few men that would like us to go back in time. Twitter is becoming a gathering of men delighting in abusing and silencing women.

The statement from the Women’s Equality Party is all about treating people with respect and dignity embracing intersectionality positively and collaborative politics the exact opposite of inflammatory posts. WEP is all about protecting women and girls and being inclusive

You can be inclusive without dismantling women's rights. They have somehow been unable to understand that so far. But we are all still hoping.

WEP support the individual who punched Maria Mac, which contradicts what they say they are.

CharlieParley I hear you. Your post really resonates. We always put our own interests aside for the benefit of others, and it just gets taken advantage of. I've had enough of it too

Yes to 'respect and dignity'. That's why we need women only spaces. sue I don't think you have any chance persuading women here that feminism should include biological men. But still you try. Why is that?

It is not possible to stand behind the agenda of self declaration without rendering the word 'woman' meaningless, dismantling sex based protections that are inconvenient to the feelings and wants of male born people, and removing the right of women and girls to privacy, consent and dignity.

WEP is emphatically not 'all about protecting women and girls'. I thought they were sitting on the fence trying to please everybody, but having seen today's tweet I see them for precisely what they are.

WEP is all about protecting women and girls and being inclusive

Unfortunately 'being inclusive' can result in not 'protecting women and girls'. It is precisely this that is the concern.

In my work I used to praise Mumsnet for supporting Mums giving them a place to speak and interact together with being a supportive environment with guidance and services for Mums. Today Mumsnet has become an echo chamber for disrespectful radical feminism which has nothing to do with helping Mums and everything to do with bigotry and hate. I’m out.

In my work I used to praise Mumsnet for supporting Mums giving them a place to speak and interact together with being a supportive environment with guidance and services for Mums. Today Mumsnet has become an echo chamber for disrespectful radical feminism which has nothing to do with helping Mums and everything to do with bigotry and hate. I’m out.

You do realise that FWR is, like, 1% of the forum activity on Mumsnet, let alone the rest of the site? Even if you don't much like what gets said on FWR, Sue, this does seem a tad hyperbolic.

Anyway. Go well, Sue.

In my work I used to praise Mumsnet for supporting Mums giving them a place to speak and interact together with being a supportive environment with guidance and services for Mums. Today Mumsnet has become an echo chamber for disrespectful radical feminism which has nothing to do with helping Mums and everything to do with bigotry and hate. I’m out.

This smacks so much of when, as a kid, your parents try bring you to heel by telling you how much you’ve disappointed them. Well, as the outstanding Ellen Ripley say in Aliens: “I’m happy to disappoint you.” There are always people willing to play on female socialisation to get women to STFU. There comes a point where its incumbent on us to speak up.

"WEP is all about protecting women and girls and being inclusive"

Inclusive of what? Males? If so, WTF is the point of calling it the Women's Equality Party?

Why can't males be inclusive of males who enjoy femininity?

Utter madness. And wagging your finger at grown women in disapproval is never a good look Sue

Just in case Sue has not quite left, I share a belief that respectful nuanced discussion is desperately needed and note Sophie Walker's comment in the document linked:
"The core aim of The Women’s Equality Party is to achieve equality for women and girls so they may be free. From our first policy document in 2015 we said we would also seek a spirit of collaboration that challenged the combative culture of old politics"

A fairly prominent member of the WEP has this morning described on their twitter account that the WP (UK?) are 'an abominable organisation that preaches hate rather than debate, So does the KKK. Well maybe not the same, they don't pretend'

The people here and at WPUK are asking 'what about women & girls?'

Do you have a link to that tweet?

They said WHAT ? I was at the WP meeting last night . It was the opposite of hate peddling. That is a libellous thing for WEP to say. Who said it ?
I feel absolute despair over the political culture now, the shutting down of debate. The lies. The lack of respect for difference of opinion, or of any attempt to empathise with women .
. Politics has started to feel like a group of spiteful adolescents point scoring.

twitter.com/antoniamichele7/status/984477169844932608

Too many people looking for their 15 mins of fame, imho.

Don't have enough talent to enter The Voice?

..... start a blog or vlog or outrageous twitter account instead.

Many of the leading TRA voices look like attention seekers to me, from my position on the sidelines.