Would I be wrong to leave the b**stard?

[ScienceIsTruth]

George Washington once said: " If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter".

With these new guidelines in place, Mumsnet is starting to feel like an emotional abuser. Dictating what I can and cannot say, forcing me to lie and go against my morals and beliefs, and by using words in a dishonest manner in order to appease a group that can NEVER be appeased, and whose demands will only escalate.

I have Aspergers, and I've spent most of my life being bullied, so the truth is important to me, and it is distressing to me to be told that I must lie, or else face deletion. I have a degree in biochemistry and physiology, and I see science as searching for the truth. Biology is immutable and real, and I can't understand why I'm being expected to lie and pretend that it doesn't exist.

I thought that the EA 2010 protected SEX, and our right to hold beliefs, so why are MN putting one groups set of beliefs above mine? Why are they deemed more important? Why is the fact that making me lie about my deeply held beliefs, and causing me distress is ok, when MN are then saying we mustn't upset men, or women, who find reality offensive?

MN is meant to be a place for WOMEN run by WOMEN, so why are they allowing MEN, and mentally disturbed ones at that, to dictate to them? MN is a private business (as far as I'm aware) and as such is allowed to set it's own rules, so why are they kowtowing to outside influences? It's almost like they've been conditioned to 'be nice'.

Lying makes me uncomfortable and stresses me out, and that's without the deliberate misuse of our language where we use he/him to refer to males. My life is confusing enough without having to police my own thoughts.

I feel like I've stepped into the pages of 1984, where Newspeak and Doublespeak reign, and even our thoughts are seen as crimes. It is utter madness, and feels like emotional abuse, to be told we must lie and change our language (and the meaning of words) so as not offend a small minority of people. Especially when those people have the choice to simply NOT come onto this site.

You'd think it would tell MN something that these people are hunting down things to be upset about. To me, it screams that this is about power and control; just like all abusers.

The fact that MN are going along with it, and demanding that women bow down to the will of these men, makes them just as bad (if not worse) than the TRAs that set this in motion.

To my mind, MN are themselves behaving as an emotional abuser does, so should we LTB?

As Salman Rushdie once said: " The moment you declare a set of ideas to be immune from criticism, satire, derision or contempt, freedom of thought becomes impossible".

Also, another favourite quote of mine from George Orwell seems rather apt: "If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they don't want to hear".

Thanks for reading this far. I know I'm not as eloquent as most posters on here are, but I hope I've made myself clear enough.

I welcome all comments, including those that disagree with me.

Science great post, agree with all you say. I posted this in the original @MNHQ thread about the policing of language and as yet have not got a reply.

MNHQ says

2. We don’t allow posts which are derogatory or aggressive towards trans people. We believe there are ways to express both opinion and facts without crossing this line.

I wrote That's fine but could we please add in "we don't allow posts which are derogatory or aggressive towards women and girls" as well? Or indeed just stop at we don't allow posts which are derogatory or aggressive Otherwise it does appear that transpeople are getting special treatment and, by omission, that it's fine to be derogatory and aggressive to other groups of people, which presumably is not your intent? (and by other groups of people I of course meant biological women)

It is ironic that we are being bullied / coerced into using a word we consider only applies to biological females for biological males, yet our feelings about doing this are less important than the feelings of trans 'women'. So, it seems biology matters when it comes to whose feelings are more important even if supposedly these two groups of people come under the one umbrella of 'women'.

Also agree it's unbelievably difficult to uproot your language and changing the use of pronouns is pretty fundamental and something we do instinctively without thinking about it. Try reading a child's book about a dog and substituting 'cat' every time you're meant to say 'dog', or substituting another word for 'the'. Virtually impossible. You end up getting confused and tongue-tied.