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

Could we have a statement that sums up our views that we all keep somewhere and just copy and paste that statement?

That we it comes across as a placid ‘no coment’ kind of post while actually saying what we think.

SimonBridges I've been thinking we should use posts in the Feminism Theory board for that. Then people can link to them.

It used to be that referring to trans people as a group by their correct pronouns was OK. So referring to an anonymous transman as she - fine.

But singling out individual trans people and not using their preferred pronouns could get you deleted. Apart from anything else it's rude, which is why I try not to do it.

In reality the feel of the place to many is transphobic.

As a business I'm not sure I would want the reputation that this place has gained, and as an advertiser I sure as hell wouldn't put an advert here.

This just shows the standard to which women are held and the topics they are expected to stick to. Never question, never say anything that isn't 'kind', never stand up for yourself.

There are loads of places on the Internet where there is real, rife transphobia. I have seen it, it's absolutely disgusting, I can't even repeat it. Now I know its not a race to the bottom, but I do wonder why Mumsnet and TERFs are always singled out as the enemy of trans people? Why not go after the thousands of men who say horrible, transphobic stuff all over the Internet, in FB comment sections and on Twitter, as well as less savoury places like 4chan, Reddit and ARRSE or whatever its called.

Why Mumsnet? Why 'TERFs'?

Because we're women.

I agree Ellen. I am concerned by how much of the debate we forfeit if we allow ourselves to be strong armed into accepting language set by trans activists.

We know that there is a concerted effort to push the boundaries that women are expected to accept - we've gone rather rapidly from a position where we've accepted transwomen in women's toilets as a form of courtesy, to being told that transwomen are women, to now being told transwomen are female.

At which of those three points do we draw the line and at what point does refusing to conform become transphobia? I agree with keeping debate polite and civil, but we are at a point where many trans activists believe stating facts is hate speech.

Kate was clear, it's antagonism that is the problem. It's obvious that HQ will be dealing with an inundation of complaints, accusations and demands for deletions, that's a well known tactic. It will take up a LOT of HQs time and energy. What Kate was saying is that when the tone of MNetter posts becomes antagonistic it gets hard for HQ to defend and stand up to the accusations and demands to stop allowing these conversations. It gets hard for them to say this is civil discussion and free speech, and to protect themselves.

This is what I took from it also.

Look, I failed female socialisation. I'm straightforward, blunt, don't mince my words. I have absolutely no talent whatsoever for doing emotional labour so that my responses to GFs do more to mind their feelings than rebut their GF goads.

But I'm not a child. I have control of my tongue and my typing fingers. I can be plainspoken without being personally antagonistic. Since that's what's being asked for, I'm more than happy to commit.

Exactly. If I say "X is a man", I don't mean "X is a terrible person and I hate him". I just mean "X is an adult human male". If X looks very male then my brain is always going to go "man" even if I try to train myself not to say so. If not saying so becomes a requirement either socially or legally then we've been put permanently on the back foot and in a situation where we're inevitably going to get it "wrong". Accepting that framework has very serious implications.

I think we can stand up for ourselves without being abusive. It's actually more effective and some posters are brilliant at it.

It reminds me a bit of some of the martial arts (which I dabbled in many many years ago) in that if you lose your temper you're probably going to lose the fight. Self discipline is key.

Why Mumsnet? Why 'TERFs'?

Because we have reasonable concerns.

Why Mumsnet? Why 'TERFs'? Because we're women.

Oh FGS. Certainly women's voices are often ignored, and women are sometimes criticised for things a man wouldn't be, but a simplistic analysis of 'because patriarchy' or 'to deliberately oppress women' is rarely sufficient explanation for most things in modern day Britain.

MN are being targeted because the #manfriday campaign has been incredibly effective, so it drew attention.

WPUK and feminism in general are a bigger target than unreconstructed, bigoted morons for a number of reasons:

1. Many are politically very close to a lot of the TRA- left wing/liberal, so criticism hits home more, is seen more and feels (to them) like a betrayal.
2. Feminist make coherent arguments, which are hard to refute. Bigots tend to make themselves dismissable by the end of the first sentence.
3. GC feminism is now organised on this; it's working. Bigots are ignored by most of the population and the best strategy is to ignore them- that hasn't worked for feminists.

Lets be a bit more analytical in our annoyance with the newcomers. #TGLWGH

Sorry cross post. I didn't mean to imply pronouns are abusive - that concerns me too but personally I just avoid using them. I think it's perfectly ok to sidestep sometimes. There's no need to go punch for punch.

Yes, I'm not saying we should be rude and abusive to anyone who comes in with a different view. In fact, I always feel that the tactic of continuing to just bombard such posters with calm, polite, reasonable facts and debate works much better, as they then have nothing to throw back. As others have said, there are several posters on here that are excellent at doing that. Getting cross with them doesn't actually get anywhere and then they go back to Twitter and tell everyone about the 'horrific abuse' they suffered on Mumsnet.

I just think that boundaries are continuing to be pushed and saying 'actually no, you are not a woman, so no, you can't come into this space' is NOT transphobic. As a pp said, for a long time, women were perfectly accepting of transwomen in the loos because they were just getting on with thing and so were we.

But there comes a time where we have to say 'no, enough, stop'. We are allowed to state our boundaries and boy they have been reached and then some.

donquix I would say it's a mixture of what both you and AngryAttack said tbh. Yes of course they are scared of such a well organised, reasoned and well orchestrated campaign making great gains. But I would imagine that the fact its women organising these campaigns is not an insignificant detail either. The misogyny oozes from some TRAs, and TERFs/Mumsnet were a huge target long before ManFriday.

So was the site invaded yesterday by TRAs posing as GC feminists posting "repeated slurs against transwomen" then?

That really does not sound typical of FWR regulars or MNers in general. And as it happened halfway through after lots of reasonableness and the troll sharing on other sites...

Wow, speaking of hostility, don't you think that was a bit ott?

Thanks MNHQ for continuing to have this discussion here. It's hugely important.

Not Patodp. Telling women they're playing the victim on a feminist forum. Or getting angry with them for pointing out that women's opinions are policed more harshly.

It's a bit jarring, in the middle of a thread about attempting to aim for more civility and less hostility.

Floisme
I normally write my post then leave it for a few minutes and think about whether I'm really contributing anything. If I'm angry I often write something angry but then delete it.

This is an excellent idea. There's also an useful acronym for such situations - SFTWD (smiling from the wrists down).

I do fnd it staggering that the TRAs care more that we disagree with them on basic points of fact and biology, but wish them nonactual harm, when there are people on 4chan and other trad male forums openly stating that they want them to violently die. I suspect we're seen as an easy target as i dont think they'd have the appetite to take very macho, violent men on. I guess we just have to be consistent, comsiderd and polite in our response, as ever, to take the moral highground.

"This statistic presents the number of unique visitors to Reddit.com from April 2017 to December 2017. It was measured that almost 1.66 billion users had accessed the site in the most recent period.
users - Reddit"

That's comparable to MN surely?

Its just that Reffit, 4cyan etc are either seen as predominantly male or non-specified and dont have anything to do with being a woman or parent.

MN was setup as such and hence provided a nice, coralled space for politicians etc to jump on and try and gain influence over a particular demographics voting and purchasing habits. Sonas usual, easy target to try and shutdown that demographic's opinions.

It's always predictable and deplorable that concern trolls appear to derail any reasonable discussion - their MO is new OPs who criticise everyone else on here, whilst expressing their so called "concern" for MN and the "transphobic" nature of the debate, and who go on to attack and character smear other OPs. Other genuine OPs get angry and express it and are then told they are hostile.

Just to let you know you have been reported.

Arrse, 4chan and Reddit don't attract anywhere near the level of users as MN. When was the last time a major politician appeared for a web chat on them or they were quoted by major columnists in national papers?

In the internet domain women, using MN, have far more of a voice than ever. With that surely comes responsibility? Or are you just looking to play the victim?

Well, it's an interesting question really isn't it? Why does Mumsnet, a forum for women, get so much attention, in the way that forums for men don't? Why does The Sun have a 'Mumsnet' section where it regurgitates threads from here? Why does the DM constantly write articles from threads on here, or have journalists make up threads to get replies? Why is Mumsnet portrayed as this homogenous group of screeching Harridans and bitches by people who have never even really used the site? Why isn't the public perception of Mumsnet that its a place where women can get loads of support for stuff that, let's face it, most people aren't that interested in, like breastfeeding, weaning, trying to conceive?

What do you mean when you say 'responsibility'?

Wait, to be clear, OP, did you just report me for objecting to another commenter describing women here as playing the victim?