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Original poster

Spartacus believes in biology.

5 replies

HairyBallTheorem · 16/04/2018 21:03

Transwomen are biologically male. They are born biologically male and they remain biologically male.

I accept that it must be very hard to suffer from gender dysphoria. I wish transwomen well. I support their right not to be discriminated against in housing, employment and in life in general.

But biology matters. It is biology which means that women in Ireland and across South America and in many other parts of the world are the ones who get pregnant and are then forced to give birth against their will by political systems that deny them the right to abortion. It is biology which enables people in cultures which practice FGM to recognise which babies are female and thus decide which ones' genitals need slicing off with rusty razor blades. It is biology which dictates which foetuses are aborted simply for being female, which infants are allowed to die simply for being female. It is biology which means we are, on average, smaller and less physically strong than men and thus at higher risk of domestic violence up to and including murder (2 a week in this country, into the hundreds in Russia which has recently legalised domestic violence).

I am not prepared to lie about biology. Facts matter. The intersection of facts and political beliefs matters.

This is a hill on which I'm prepared to be banned from Mumsnet.

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MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 17/04/2018 13:21

Hello everyone.

I think the key thing here - and the position I've been banging on about very publicly over the last week - is that Mumsnet believes in and stands for freedom of speech and diverse opinion. That includes the right to discuss the issue of self-identity and opinions around and consequences of that.

At the same time we are committed to our moderation guidelines - i.e. that we will remove hate speech, keep it civil and delete posts which are mean-spirited, deliberately inflammatory or personal attacks (which is in effect our moderation policy across the whole of Mumsnet).

So we're not talking about deleting posts where people say "I believe transwomen are male" But a thread which is specifically about a named individual who's self identified as a women and which repeatedly calls that person he or a man is potentially hurtful and unkind and we'd class it as a personal attack. (In retrospect I think it might have been better to delete the whole India Willoughby thread yesterday rather than select individual posts for deletion, as I can see why that's caused confusion.)

It's the effect of the thread in totality that feels mean and can make people feel under attack, rather than any one post in isolation.

Lots of people have spoken about WeGoHigh as a principle. I think that's a fantastic idea. Here's why: Mumsnet is committed to freedom of speech, we can see the importance of this issue and we want to provide a space for discussion of it to happen - but it makes our job much, much harder if things get personal. Harder because it obviously encourages external attacks and trolls, harder because it makes it easier for people to ignore the substantive points and to label Mumsnet as transphobic, harder because it makes it a lot easier for advertisers who effectively support the site to say I don't want to be associated with this.

I hope you can see where we're coming from. We've taken a stand on this - and made our lives quite complicated tbh - because we absolutely believe it's the right thing to do. We're asking for your support to help MN 'go high' (even in the face of at times considerable provocation) and to help us maintain a civil debate; and we'll endeavour to be as consistent as we can be in our implementation of our mod policy and to admit when we've made a bad call.

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 17/04/2018 13:29

@Hecalledmecarrots

WeGoHigh versus biological fact.

This is not going to end well!

No not versus biological fact, versus personal attacks!

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 17/04/2018 13:40

@Hecalledmecarrots

Justine, I know what you mean by your post, but there is a very, very fine line here.

For example, IW taking offence at being addressed as "You guys" by Julia Hartley-Brewer.

Personal attack or not?

I agree it's not easy - certainly taking issue with a ridiculous comment is fine, of course. A thread with 300 posts saying IW's a man isn't. Most of the time, inevitably we'll be deciding upon something a bit more nuanced but, in short, we're much more likely to be deleting things said about named individuals than about issues because they have the potential to be more hurtful/ come across as mean.

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 17/04/2018 13:57

@Idontdowindows

No not versus biological fact, versus personal attacks!

Saying that an adult human male is a man is not a personal attack.

It is the very definition of "man": adult human male.

This particular adult human male, and several others, may have had surgical changes to their body, but that makes them a facsimile of a woman, and not a woman.

It's not "going high" if women have to lie!

No, it's about singling people out personally and the effects of the volume of posts about an individual. We're asking you to put yourself in someone else's shoes here. I don't know if you've ever been on the "wrong" side of a Mumsnet thread, where the sheer volume of posts taking an opposite side to yours can feel almost overwhelming. By way of an example we've often had people writing in saying they feel 'bullied' when in fact what has happened is a lot of people in quick succession have disagreed with their view/side of the argument. That's why we're more likely to delete the personal comments but we're not saying we always will - as HairyBallTheorem and others have said, it can be nonsensical sometimes to raise an important issue without reference to individuals.

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 17/04/2018 14:11

@R0wantrees

It's playing the ball not the player isn't it?

& considering the bigger picture at such an important time.

That's exactly right I think thank you for the analogy. Not always possible, but often...

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