All the Mumsnet hate on Twitter. Have we friendzoned India's penetration?

[RefuseToDenounceBiology]

It seems that India is a little obsessed and is even now actively encouraging brands to stop advertising with Mumsnet.
A picture of a 17 year old with a semi in a skirt will stop a baby formula brand wanting to be associated apparently twitter.com/IndiaWilloughby/status/987348210858577921?s=20

The thing is you don’t represent women or mumsnet. Many many women who use these boards disagree with your views

Whether they disagree with my views or not their boards are being threatened too, are they rely gonna stand around tutting at other women and members here while these people try and shut the place down? And tbh agree with GC or RF views or no, the fact is lots of women are being threatened and slandered, venues are being threatened and slandered, and the people doing that are masking up, using foul as fuck tactics and like it or not the main TAs are non passing autogynephiles. So what if some women here don't agree with GC/RF views, we aren't threatening anyone or masking up etc, we are ordinary everyday women and the ones here are mostly mums, and what is being fought for right now is the right to speak and discuss these issues. Believe what you want, the facts about this battle are pretty clear, and the gen public once exposed to those facts I am 100% sure are not gonna fall on the TAs side. They freely admit they have got where they are thru covert political action, make it all public and let's see what happens.

As for Lila Perry they freely posed and courted mainstream media, those pics aren't from a private account ffs. Are women not supposed to notice the semi on what is a young adult, not a child, and one that was insisting on the right to be naked round girls the same age as them no less, esp when so many of those girls made their concerns known? Would you be protecting any other male their age who didn't identify as trans who was commiting what we generally would see as indecent exposure and sexual harassment?

itll be a shame if we have to stop buying Aunt Bessies roasties but if i have to take one for the team i will

Interesting thread by Ray Blanchard, Researcher in sexual orientation, paraphilias, & gender identity disorders

twitter.com/BlanchardPhD/status/986825374398115840

I don’t hold an 18 year old of any gender or identity to the same standards as people my age (35) who I consider adults. I don’t think teenagers have the maturity and insight to make consistent good descisions. My understanding is that there is recent and compelling evidence to show that adults don’t reach brain maturity until around 25.
I don’t think teenage girls should be forced to share a changing room with someone they perceive as male. I do think an alternative should have been sought, but even if adults disagree with this kid’s wishes, I do think it’s incumbent on them to deal with an 18 year old’s wishes and feelings with compassion and respect, whether they agree with them or not. Ridiculing them and talking about their genitals is abhorrent to me. Seriously.
I don’t feel mumsnet as a whole is under threat, I do think the feminism boards are which makes me very sad. I also feel they have already been changed beyond recognition over the past year and a half and are no longer a space for me (and maybe there are others like me) to learn from others and discuss concerns and ideas with like minded people. The trans population is minuscule, how many transgender people are in your lives? I have considered the evidence and I don’t perceive a widespread threat to womanhood from individuals who identify as trans. From what I have researched about trans activists it seems that amongst a community that primarily exists to support trans people, there are a small, vocal, violent group who are looking for an enemy and these boards have given them one. There might be some reasoned debates and logica points but there HAS been some offensive and nasty rhetoric. Nobody identifies as transgender because it’s easy or fun. To many people who end up on these boards (because they constantly pop up in active threads) it seems weirdly cruel to attack on a group of people who are likely to have already experienced emotional and physical harm, isolation, shame and danger. I’m not saying you should accept their definition of gender, self-identity or spaces reserved for women but I would love to see the name calling, sneering, ridicule and self-righteous “well I’M a real woman” rhetoric fade away.

catgirl1976’s excellent post has been quoted...

twitter.com/DamienJStarfish/status/985873603035049984?s=20

I do think an alternative should have been sought, but even if adults disagree with this kid’s wishes

An alternative was sought and offered. Lila claimed that the alternative was transphobic because it singled them out as different to the female pupils.

The trans population is minuscule

Sure their numbers are tiny, but trans activists money, political influence, and their impact on women is not miniscule.

We are also increasingly hearing from transexuals that they do not see themselves as part of the trans activist movement and that actually their own rights and safety are threatened by the TAs political trajectory. These transexuals are called traitors and truscum etc by TAs.

I don’t feel mumsnet as a whole is under threat

Then you should read the trans activists tweets. Was the rest of the boards be protected by the doxxing palaver of the last few days? If Mumsnet is fined or Justine defamed (which she is being) does that impact only FWR? Do you think it likely that if Justine closed FWR that these people would back off or would they smell blood in the water? Have you noticed that they are pushing for all female centred words to be essentially outlawed as transphobic? Front holes and chestfeeders ffs. How do you think Mumsnet will be effected if the TAS get their way?

From what I have researched about trans activists it seems that amongst a community that primarily exists to support trans people, there are a small, vocal, violent group who are looking for an enemy and these boards have given them one

Your research is lacking. Mumsnet are far from the only group of women who are being targetted by TAs. Have you tried listening to lesbians talking about how they have had to take their own groups essentially underground to protect themselves from TAs? Have you listened to women from different religious groups telling how their leisure activities are under threat? Have you thought about how girls in schools are impacted by TA lobbyists in disguise as offering LGBT training? What about the women being forced out of political parties and denied representation? Mumsnet is only one of the latest groups to be targetted. This isn't going away.

Nobody identifies as transgender because it’s easy or fun.

Maybe not but some do for an easy way to get fodder for their fetish while pretending to be oppressed. This is a fact, it's not transphobic to pay attention to the Stefonknees out there. Try researching some of the trans forums online or check out #girlslikeus, Google sissification if you really want your eyes popped.

You call the GC & RF women posting here and their arguments all sorts of names - self righteous, sneering, nasty. From my perspective your post is ill researched naivety and expressing the opinions you are about us while having missed so much easily accessible information is self righteous to the extreme.

i will happily boycott any business who go along with this regressive bullshit.

Actually, maybe that's the way to go, we work out who's funding this insanity, and write to the CX and boycott them. Tell them what we're doing, we're only birds after all, sell your shitty frozen roasties to and your delicious dumplings and yummy yorkshires to the TRA's...

rebecca

The roasties are nice

But the yorkies are better...fair point

When has any of these TRAs ever been selfless enough to cook a roast dinner for anyone? When have they ever fed a baby Cow & Gate?

If Pot Noodle or Ginsters pasties advertised on MN and the TRAs threatened to boycott there might actually be an impact.

the little frozen ones in tinfoil?? they're my midweek jazz up tea addition.

Many many women who use these boards disagree with your views and are frustrated by the femisnism section being dominated by never ending debate on trans issues.

The current amendment to the laws affecting women's rights and the unintended consequences of the GRA and the EA are what we are discussing. The transitioning of children is an emergency.
These are women and children issues not trans issues.

TBC I think online spats with ‘media career’ folk like India are probably doing more harm than good.

I think the thoughtful discussions that went on before as regarding policy and how it affects women and children are being lost and that’s a pity as these are important points.

We are just women trying to get out point across about our concerns, trying to be heard above all the noise around this.

Perhaps we should just leave these Twitter warriors to their keyboards and continue to voice our concerns about how this affects around healthcare, education and employment opportunities for women.

I see what you are saying, but the reason I started this thread is because I find IWs obsession with MN so bizarre and spiteful.

Mumsnet is an absolute lifeline for women - especially in the early stages of motherhood when it is so full-on and women have so much less adult company and can become isolated. It is an amazing place where you can joke, vent, learn, share and support each other.

I just can't fathom how deeply misogynistic and vindictive India Willoughby is, wanting to kill that off - for some petty egoistic point-scoring.

I think people ought to know.

rebecca

No we get the pre cooked one, 4 minutes in the oven

little frozen ones in tinfoil??

I was picturing the ones you get from petrol stations

Everything you need to know about Mumsnet = sometimes people who India doesn't like send Justine polite messages asking if they can send her a message via Twitter?

Shocking.

refuse

I wiuld not put those ones with your roast

Homemade is better...but I'm too lazy

Exactly kittens clutching at straws or what?

RosenbergW, tricky to respond because you have cherry picked some of my words and completely ignored others. I am disturbed about grown adults ridiculing teenagers and talking about their genitalia, for any reason. Whatever this young person is going through or the merits of her arguments, I feel the rhetoric used about her is unacceptable.

In response to what you did take from my post.

I find it difficult to believe transgender politics have the real world influence not claim it does. How many female spaces used by you or anyone on this board been rendered unsafe in your estimation? What is your lived experience of trans rights impinging on your rights (as opposed to theoretical objections to how they hypothetically might)

I have read tweets by aggressive TRAs active on Twitter and some of it is undeniably awful but social media is not the real world and I don’t feel these people deserve more attention than sexist, racist or violent trolls of any other persuasion. I am certainly not about to dive into that particular Twitter rabbit hole.

The trans threads users are at more risk of being doxed yes, that is the target of troll anger. As for the rest of the site, it’s a smaller risk but anyone who posts online runs that risk and I think most people are aware of that. When I said I don’t think mumsnet as a whole is at risk I meant that I think there’s a risk the feminism boards will be shut down or policed because of the impact this is having on the site. I don’t think the rest of the boards are at the same risk.

You’ve made a lot of assumptions about who I have listened to and what I have read because I haven’t reached the same conclusions as you have. My research isn’t lacking, I just don’t see danger at every corner in the way many posters on here seem to. I don’t think trans people are waiting to look at my boobs in the changing rooms at M and S, stealthily overtaking the Labour Party or trying to indoctrinate my children. I think there are some angry, sad, agresssive, misguided activists who are hell bent on finding a target for their rage and unhappiness and they make a lot of noise. I think there are many more people who have a complicated relationship to gender identify, some of whom identify as trans and who society has historically treated with ridicule and violence.

I know what sissificaiton is, I know what fetish is, I don’t have a problem with what consenting adults do. I would have a hypothetical problem with a hypothetical individual who had this particular fetish and who was so overwhelmed by by their sexuality they hypothetically allowed it to override their judgement, the law and the real life consequences and hypothetically infiltrated a female space for brief sexual gratification. I would want that hypothetical individual punished for their actions. While I can see this hypothetical situation could occur I don’t consider it a meaningful risk in most of our lives and I think our concern should be proportionate when their are so many overwhelmingly real dangers for women in public spaces.

And finally, you state that I called GC women and their arguments a list of names. I did not. I specifically referrred to the offensive rhetoric that sometimes occurs on these boards and I stand by that. It’s awful.

Yy spring

It's all so bloody narcissistic "What about meeeeee? Women should be centering meeee!".

I am still so insulted that IW expected MN to be like a 'nice coffee morning' and was aghast at our strong feelings and political opinions. So bloody sexist.

In today's MOTD own goal round up, we have IW - who a few days ago claimed that male teenagers didn't pose a risk to girls, and who today points everyone (well, everyone IW hasn't blocked) in the direction of Lila Perry.

And another TRA angry with Mumsnet on Twitter directed randoms to go have a look at the controversy over Danielle Muscato.

It's kind of amazing how much success they've had when they're so bad at this, when you think about it. Surely there are examples they could choose that are less likely to alarm the general public.