Hi Mumsnet, if you are asking feminist women to consider whether Mumsnet is for them, please be clear that the space *we* made here is for *all* of us.

[leyat]

So apparently MNHQ is asking women they are suspending for saying things like men are men, to consider whether Mumsnet is for them.

I feel it's important to be clear that we want feminist women to have a home here, we - all the women who engage here - have made this board what it is (I'm relatively new so I am in awe of the women who have been shaping this wonderful space all this time) and we don't want women excluded from this space because they won't lie about biology and acquiesce to misogyny and genderism.

This is meant to be a kind of refuge for us, where we do not have to submit to male authority, where we can let off steam and share without needing to worry about dealing with misogyny, and where we can feel a degree of safety and find sisterhood. I can't think of anything more awful than a woman who comes here to share in this, in this one space we have that's meant to be ours, to then be told she should consider excluding herself because she won't bow to male authority on what a woman is.

So it needs saying, Mumsnet, this is a board for all feminist women, we don't want anyone excluded or made to feel that this space isn't for them too. And please understand many women come here from backgrounds of abuse, we do live in a climate of male violence and misogyny that is currently getting worse, so I hope MNHQ take time to ask themselves how they want to treat women who come here. Mumsnet own the site, but it's the women who use this space who made it the vibrant refuge of sisterhood and resistance that it is, so please don't shit on that or indeed on the women who actually engage on your forum.

Basically, I think justine may have had a rethink, after putting her name so publicly to the GC debate and experiencing the wrath of these people. Given she has already suffered at the hands of MRAs, I cannot blame her for not wanting to go through it all again.

But do suicidal thoughts and actual suicides go down after transition? A year later, 5 years, 20 years later, are outcomes measurably better for these children?

@Onthelist I said in one of my posts further back that even if they deleted the board, we would still be able to discuss feminism on MN on other mainstream boards and everything that we talk about here could still be talked about by all of us, so deleting the board wouldn't do anything except provide terrible optics for MN & create a lot of bad feeling between MNHQ and MN users.

I wasn;t meaning delete FWR. I mean shutting down conversation of trans stuff/GRA reforms alltogether. Just locking/deleting any thread started on the topic, anywhere.

Of course this would still not be enough for TRAs, who would swiftly move onto 'transphobic' campaigns and such. But this is just where I can see it all going. I hope I am wrong though. But giving an inch..to people like this..is totally the wrong thing to do. And this twitter reporting thing is just ridiculous. Why not encourage them to join up and actually partake in discussions, and report posts the normal way if they feel they cross the line?

Mind looking at the MNtransphobia twitter account thing, there is only one post that they have screenshotted that I would actually consider possibly transphobic. And even thats borderline rather than this apparent outright rampant transphobia thats here. Yes, I have seen transphobia posted here, but its always always deleted quickly. Because MN members report it. As they don't want to see transphobia either.

Have posted this before, but basically what MN are doing is giving in to MRAs.

And thats a horrible sign from a feminist website, tbh.

Ironically I've decided the feminist chat section is not for me because it's dominated by the trans debate. Maybe MNHQ are getting fed up with it.

That post is not me saying transwomen are male either^

Its me saying that MRAs and many manyTRAs have significant crossover and seemingly the same goals. Take from that what you will.

I expect we might be revisiting the topic of "let's hide FWR from Active" again, because wasn't the reason for doing that in the first place that the reports were taking too much of the mod's time?

Hiding from Active won't stop the TRA's seeing threads though, it'll just stop ordinary women seeing them

How many of us were entirely neutral (or even on the side of the translobby and the trodden-down minority etc etc) a couple of years ago, and only realised the wider implications by accidentally coming across threads here? I know I have - without MN I would have no idea that bonkers-ness like the NUS and their gender-neutral toilets were on the verge of being put into law, not to mention the issues of prisons, sports, statistics and safeguarding.

Lancelottie, it seems possibly not. But we will never know unless someone, somewhere, is actually allowed to do proper research on it. Not just self-selection questionnaire filling in.

I was @Maryz. In fact I was disgusted at what I heard of not letting trans women use preferred toilets around the time of the Trump election. I clicked on an Active thread and learnt a bit. Then came on here and learnt a lot more. My mind has changed completely.

I admit I don't like siding with Trump on anything and the realisation that he knew more of the nuances involved than I did is pretty soul destroying!

@sisterbumfacedcat well if you're not interested in what other women are interested in that's fine, you're not forced to view or interact with posts you don't want to view or engage on, and there's nothing stopping you from posting on what you want to discuss. The idea that other people discussing things you aren't interested in means you don't want to engage on the board or on feminism at all is..bizarre...and as or MNHQ, I very much doubt they want rid of the feminism board just because MRA's have decided to attack it...

@Onthelist transwomen are literally male, only males can be transwomen, and yup totally agree re the crossover, there's also a really good article in the Guardian in the crossover of violent misogynist in trans activism and of incels. Re the site, I don't see how they can ban any and all feminist chat, which is what they would have to do if they ban chat regarding gender; as much as TA's want to make this is all about them, mostly what we are discussing is the meaning of our own bodies and our own reality and our own rights, so this could take place in many other parts of the forum. I just don't think they would ever want to do that or find it feasible. So much of what we discuss regarding gender doesn't even have to mention trans people/trans issues directly to be viewed as transphobic, and this is increasingly the case.

@Maryz what does hiding from active mean in practice? I'm still quite new here...

@MipMipMip we must remember, the religious right are genderists just like trans ideology is genderist, they just disagree re the biology. What is the saying again...the right say that boys can only like boy stuff, trans activists say that boys who like girl stuff are really girls, and feminists say anyone can like anything and are fine as they are. My point being, they have far more in common than with feminists, it's only the feminist take that offer liberation from gender....

Meant to put 'boy stuff' and 'girl stuff' in quote marks :D

transwomen are literally male, only males can be transwomen

Yes, I know this. I thought it should be clarified so that I didn't get deleted. I was not saying that transwomen are male, I was pointing out the crossover thats impossible to deny. Same tactics, and same goals. But MRAs were pretty much condemned by all, where TRAs have convinced a staggering amount of people that they are the victims. Despite them being the ones who threaten women on a regular basis, and even physically attack them. Meanwhil;e, men are attacking transpeople, both physically and otherwise, sometimes in totally disgusting ways, and they are ignored and its still womens fault.

I have had a look onto many male dominated areas actually after this attack on MN, and some of the stuff they say is actually disgusting. But yeah, the focus is on mumsnet, because some women here dare to speak the truth. Without being offensive or actually transphobic. (On the whole, as I said I have seen some transphobic posts on here, deleted quickly, and often, from brand new users with no posting history at all, which is a bit suspect)

It's discussed on this thread leyat.

Basically a lot of people navigate through MN using "Active" or "Last 15 minutes" rather than go to each topic individually, and then click on threads that interest them.

If all FWR threads are "hidden from Active" people won't see them unless they specifically look in Feminism.

Many people would love this; it prevents lurkers coming across threads by accident and realising what's going on.

Research to do with trans reminds me so much of ME/CFS. I am stuck with it and I want every kind of research going, looking at both the cause and cures and alleviating symptoms.

There is a large group who try to shut down research that is to do with the psychological elements. They believe that investigating that stops research in other areas (ignoring the fact that it would likely be different reserchers). They don't want anything found out in case it could be found to be "all in people's heads". And they often try to stop treatments that have a psychological element, even if it can help.

My belief is that mind and body are interconnected. I don't think that fighting stops cancer and people only die because they didn't fight hard enough. That's nonsense. But we know things like stress can cause physical problems so it makes sense to investigate it too.

I see the same in trans. People shutting down research in case it finds that some people are unhappy even after transition. Stopping other options like counselling than transitioning. This research, this counselling, could help people long term. Finding out why (some) people remain unhappy after transition could change treatment plans and end up with perhaps fewer people transitioning or feeling the need to, but those who do transition feeling better supported. It could make a big difference to a lot of unhappy people. So why does it get shut down? I genuinely can't see the reason but we can't deny that it does.

Leyat don't worry - I can't see me agreeing beyond that!

Totally agree @Onthelist it's always women being targeted, cos we are expected to submit cos we're female, and then when we don't we are responsible for male violence. It's the same old misogyny and it's widely accepted, and at every stage TA's show how they uphold gender socialisation by expecting/seeking to subjugate women, and centering men in their activism to the point where trans identified females are pretty much invisible (unless they're pregnant).

Thanks @Maryz I see what you mean now. I think MNHQ just needs to come up with a clearer posting policy, I asked them about this directly on Twitter and despite the fact they responded to all the TA tweets they didn't respond to mines. But I didn't push it, cos I am hoping that they are taking time right now to figure out how to deal with this. They took a stance on free speech, but their deletion policy hasn't really matched that sentiment from what some people are saying, and opening up reporting to Twitter was a huge mistake. I hope they say something to us soon about what they're doing....

@MipMipMip yup I'm sure :D

Also, re research, the Swedish study showed that 10 years post transition suidicality actually increased compared to pre-transition. This was in relation to transsexuals, but what a complete failure in duty of care that there hasn't been more research carried out on this in light of these findings. I totally accept that for some transition is the answer, in that it is the best way for them to deal with their dysphoria, but we must support people to be able to find what is right for them, and we can only do this if we research this properly. So many young people today think they can literally change sex, and then are utterly heartbroken when they find out that they can't.

That's interesting. I don't suppose you have a link do you? I would hope that patents get to see that as well as the "I'll kill myself if I don't transition side.

I feel desperately sorry for parents in this. There is no right answer and they are being used as pawns. It must be so very hard.

@MipMipMip I do too, must be awfully hard to navigate; here's the link: journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0016885

Thank you.

Interesting that female-to-male but not male-to-female had a higher than birth sex criminality pattern. I wonder if male-to-female went down (and if so was it still higher than birth female) or if it remained the same as birth male?

It also appeared to say trans had a higher suicide rate than general population control but it didn't have a wanted-to-trans-but-didnt control. In other words, would it have been higher if they had not transed?

I have only looked at the front page but I'm trying to be fair. I think I would struggle with the whole report (I'm fog filled at the moment) but I hope someone smarter will come along to give it a decent analysis and maybe answer my questions.

The terms I used are the ones used in the report to avoid confusion.

The idea that other people discussing things you aren't interested in means you don't want to engage on the board or on feminism at all is..bizarre...

I don't mind others discussing a topic I'm not interested in at all, but why devote an entire space to that discussion without renaming it as such. A scroll through feminist chat and every thread bar one on two is a trans thread. You wouldn't get the same on AIBU or _chat, it's a shame one topic has dominated a section to the extent that trans issues are now seen as the one and only issue important to feminists.

@sinisterbumfacedcat We are not discussing trans issues, we are discussing how changes in the way sex and gender are understood in law and in practice are impacting on women and girls; regressive changes which are happening due to the fact that trans ideology and activism is behind an unprecedented attack on our rights and our very reality. That the biggest threat to our rights atm is dominating a feminist women's rights board makes a lot of sense. And there's no limit to daily threads, it's not like people posting on this are preventing people from posting or discussing other issues. Just do what we all do and engage only in what you are interested in.