Ooh step back, India Willoughby is going to penetrate the Mumsnet debate

[ALittleBitOfButter]

Just saw on twitter that IW says will do radio interview about Mumsnet. Sorry can't link as on phone.

YY Angry, me too.

I prefer the avoidance of he/she pronouns as a compromise when individuals have a legal status.

I don't think we should misgender IW because they at least have been through the legal process and obtained surgery and a GRC.

Whether such a process should be available to people who quite obviously dislike women as much as IW does I think is something that should be debated.

In cases such as IW and also Jane Fae, of domestic violence gone wrong fame, (not sure if Jane is post op) there are questions to be raised about whether the psychiatric pre screening process even touches on the attitudes of the patient towards people of the sex they wish to become.

It's not just about someones inner feels, as has been demonstrated it's also how they are going to present to the rest of the world.

Self ID of course will make this situation worse x10.

Exactly AAK.

I have been a radical feminist for many years but the people around me are mostly not even feminists. I often here words and arguments and stereotypes that go against my own politics and when I can I make the arguments, sometimes there isn't time or its not worth it as they are unwilling to hear me. I hope that over time they will come around to my way of thinking, and I choose to avoid the unrepentant and immovable sexists.

Were I to insist on a compelled and complicated language and silence of all these issues from non feminists, I would never be able to talk to 99% of the people I meet. This sort of control over the discussion feels like abuse (not by Mumsnet I should add, I can see they are in a hard place, but by the trans activists and the people reporting posts on their behalf).

The problem with this legal status stuff is that the LAW cannot change reality.

He may have a bit of paper that says female, but that does not actually make him female.

Biology does that and no laws can change biology.

”goalposts constantly move.”

Yy willow. I doubt it will be long before “they” and “” will be frowned upon as a way of not using the “wrong” pronouns.

I have liked the ingeniously worded “h**” and “” that I’ve seen recently

We are left with no language. We are being backed into a corner and made to comply.

Yes.

I have heard complaints of transphobia for using "they" for some years now. They call it "playing the pronoun game".

And you know then they will move to a position that not calling yourself a "cis woman" is transphobic. And organisations will comply and enforce.

Just like so many other issues - the pronoun issue boils down to whether pronouns are/should be linked to gender or sex.

If pronouns reflect gender then we will need infinite pronouns to reflect infinite genders. If they reflect sex then 2 will do.

Radical genderists want to see sex as a category eradicated and push for pronouns to be determined by gender.
Gender criticalists want to see notions of gender eradicated and push for pronouns to be determined by sex.

MNHQ want to be like Switzerland whilst allowing debate to flourish.

I can see why it is difficult to be clear about which pronouns people should use. There isn't really a neutral stance to promote!

Even if I call IW a woman, to acknowledge the commitment and transition and legal status, forbidding the use of male prevents discussion of the difference between sex and gender. It forces compliance with the idea that sex and gender are the same thing. I am super compliant, probably because of my ingrained female socialisation. I try really hard to be polite, but language is important, and if we accept this, we have no language to discuss the issue. It is not acceptable.

By the way, I took great exception to the description of mn as a "cosy coffee morning, where the days events are discussed".

Clearly never seen the multiple, multiple threads on dv, women attempting to escape abusive relationships, women posting about a situation and slowly learning / realising the coercion, abuse and control they're under, the threads on miscarriage and still birth, threads on extreme poverty and desperation from women trying to look after their children on their own. And the patient loving and practical support other WOMEN give them. A truly SAFE SPACE.

Yeah, it's all about the coffee.

It’s the same misogynistic view that most non mners have. Penis beaker, lolz...

Exactly. If "woman" no longer means "female", then how are we to communicate the fact that we're talking about a "woman" who is not female? How are we to refer to power relations between male and female people, and the way they play out in relation to trans issues?

The reason the message I got from HQ alarmed me so much is that if we make this particular concession I think we'll regret it.

It forces compliance with the idea that sex and gender are the same thing.

I do feel the same.

I think TGLWGH is a bit more about attitude to discussion. Or WWDS (what would Datun say).

As far as I understand some languages don't have gendered pronouns (not a linguist so willing to be corrected on this).

So given that they aren't a universal thing I don't really see neutral pronouns they/their being vastly problematic when trying debate something where nuance is everything to avoid your point being misunderstood.

I agree we need to be clear about people with male or female biology of origin to be able to have the language to debate at all.

Cosy coffee morning...currently I'm following a thread in AIBU in which a woman is in what's clearly an abusive relationship and struggling to admit that to herself. Her husband has gaslit her into thinking his behavior is normal. It's not. Lots and lots of women are currently telling her so and urging her to find a way to stand up to him. There's both sincere, heartfelt advice and snark (at the husband's expense).

That's what a woman centric site like mumsnet is for. If someone can't understand that, well, that tells us some things about them.

I just read on another thread that conservative grassroots sent all Tory MPs and open letter requesting that Self-ID is dropped.

It looks like nothing will change law wise for four years, unless the government falls.

We have four years to work on those that were ahead of the law and get policy, procedures and guidelines to invoke sex exemptions.

I don't believe in innate gender. I ordinarily use pronouns to refer to sex, not gender. I don't believe that a person can change sex. GRCs are a legal fiction. If I do choose to use the opposite-sex pronouns for a trans person, that's a polite fiction because I don't wish to hurt their feelings.

It isn't, and shouldn't be, a requirement, either legally or ethically.

RosenbergW is absolutely right that they keep moving the goalposts. Ten years ago I remember having to apologise in the comments to someone's blog for very thoughtlessly writing trans instead of trans. Recently I was told that using trans is now transphobic.

I'm happy to say 'they' or 'IW' or whatever, but it won't be too long until it's decided by transactivists that this just isn't enough capitulation to the their ideology. We have to profess the faith and call them women, don't we? Otherwise we're nasty transphobic bigots.

"Assigned male at birth" had also come and gone from favour as "always a woman because hormone wash in the uterus" has come in.

Trans activists used to call radical feminists 'feminazis', just like MRAs did/do. Then we became 'radscum'. Then that moved to 'TERF'. Now there is a move to call us merely 'transphobes' as a way to hide that this has always been about misogyny.

These are the people setting the terms of the debate. Why do we have to accept that?

@AngryAttackKittens
That is exactly where I think mn really comes into its own.

I had no idea about half the stuff I've learnt since being here, especially anything along those lines.

There's a new thread on the TGLWGH; I think these two posts illustrate where I feel it's useful:

Toss if we don't go high we are in danger of losing this space
And in danger of losing the argument. If we can't argue without resorting to personal insults etc we have lost the argument. The only way to win people over is by calm unemotional repetition of the actual facts.

And

• I just listened to the discussion between India Willoughby and Justine Roberts on the radio. IW sounded unreasonable, shouty and bullying. JR sounded reasonable, measured and calm. That will win in the end.*

I don't feel discussion of biological sex oversteps this mark. Context may sometimes be where it overlaps with perceived insult I suppose. The perception bit is complicated though and where free speech gets confusing for some. Julia made some excellent points on this.

Oh yes, there was the rise and fall of trans* as well.

The point of all of this is to make people scared to speak out for fear of 'not getting it right'. It is as a previous poster said about power. There is no way to keep up with it, they will attack no matter what terms are used, their allies are always fair game no matter how much they try.

I guess everyone has a different idea of acceptable language.

Datun's posts are very direct.

As are terfinator's.

The nastiness isnt' saying "Paris: to me, you are a man and therefore xyz".

That's the same as a man saying to me "Thanksfor, in my opinion, because you are the wife, and so you should be the primary carer."

In both cases it might be considered oppressive but it opens up a right to reply.

It's the snarking snippy "oh it is a transmaiden" type stuff that would break me. So if transwoman X is asserting a right to be called a woman, it's fine in my book to answer straight back saying "I consider you to be a man" but not to add in a snarky "oh look what he's saying now!" in a sort of "did you see what I did there?" kind of way.

However, as has been pointed out before, I am not the language police.

AngryAttackKittens
I was reading that thread - and there are several others today with the same theme. I've been reading around the boards recently - bereavement, relationships, SEN, pregnancy & conception, the birth injuries campaign. The idea that people like IW just dismiss the complexities of women's lives and experiences and reduce boards like FWR to 'hate speech' is so profoundly ignorant.

It's odd for a lifelong leftist to find herself hoping for the continued health and wellbeing of a Tory government, and yet here we are.