Before you rush off to a private chat/forum and before you post in Feminism chat.......

[MrsFogi]

I've seen a number of threads about leaving, moving to other private chat forums and also threads that are about trans/feminist issues but linked to more general issues. May I just ask everyone who wants to "do their bit" to think through the consequences of jumping ship.

The only way that anything will change is if people are talking about the potential issues of self-identification and their impact on women's rights. Talking on private forums is great and a way to release frustrations but is no substitute for firstly continuing to speak in open forums such as MN (albeit with the risk of getting banned for breaching one of the new "rules" but that is not life or job threatening) so that the issue continues to come to the attention of a wider group of people and, secondly speaking to people in RL about the issues. I would also argue that given the recent media coverage not many people will be risking their job by talking about these issues in RL if they do so in a polite way.

It is important to debate the issues on open platforms such as MN and in RL to continue to hone arguments, to get more people thinking about the issues (whatever conclusion they come to) and because there is always a risk of echo-chamber mentality if opposing voices are not present and responded to.

The trans activists are trying to silence women's voices. By moving onto private chats and forums women will have handed them victory and, more importantly, those on those closed forums will be wasting their time talking only to others who have already peak-transed. That may feel great but does not constitute an active defence of women's rights.

We need to keep talking to everyone and anyone (particularly those not yet aware of the issues) and ideally not on the feminist boards - get out there and weave the issues into your posts on other issues elsewhere on mn and everywhere else both online and in RL. The only reason we have any traction (and the reason for MN getting scared and introducing these rules) is because the media are now talking about this - now is the time to ride the wave an talk to everyone and anyone. Now is not the time to be retreating to the back rooms and talking among ourselves.

If you are moving to a closed chat - do it because you need to do so in order to organise real life action (in the way ManFriday is doing) otherwise please, please use your voices on here and elsewhere to continue to raise awareness of the issues.

To this end, when you start a new thread please consider if it could, by any stretch of the imagination, be posted somewhere other than Feminist Chat. Most on Feminism Chat already know about the issues, we need to be talking to people who are not yet aware or who have "hidden" the topic.

p.s. I am a woman who has grave concerns about the impact of proposed changes to the law relating to transgender rights will significantly erode women's rights. I am object to being accused of transphobia for asking questions about the reforms and I do not agree that we need to subvert our language or understanding of biology in order to respect the rights of people who wish to decide on their gender-identity. I urge all women to visit the Fair Play for Women website to read about the issues and form their own views. I am grateful to MN for providing a platform where the issues can be discussed albeit in a heavily-moderataed manner (in contrast to most other social media platforms which have banned or silenced open debate).

MyNewHobbyIsGin

This is a great thread with some really helpful links to make sense of things:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3145470-Break-it-down-for-me

And we all know it's harder for MTF trans women to pass so this burly man might actually have a GRC already in which case she has as much right to be in that space as you.

Which is exactly why the whole debate needs to happen. I know you aren't bothered daimbar but plenty of women are. Parents are concerned for their children too.

Which women's groups were consulted about this in the first place?

I do see your point, but trans women have been legally sharing our spaces for 13 years now and there haven't been any problems.

You can tell this lie every day for the rest of your life, or FWR's life, and it will never be true.
This Never Happens is a website that records the evidence that what you say is false today, was false yesterday, and will be false again tomorrow.

because they know that there is no formula of words that would be acceptable to both sides, and that by providing any approved form of words they would be considered to be taking sides

There is no need to provide 'any approved form of words' because the law provides them already:

"Where a full gender recognition certificate is issued to a person, the person’s gender becomes for all purposes the acquired gender (so that, if the acquired gender is the male gender, the person’s sex becomes that of a man and, if it is the female gender, the person’s sex becomes that of a woman)."

The words are man/ male and woman/ female. A person who transitions from male to female with a GRC is a woman or female. (I recognise trans woman/ man is acceptable to many). That is the approved form of words. It does not require posters or MN to come up with any.

Whether that is acceptable on this forum to both sides or not is an entirely different matter.

In that situation where one of the groups is a tiny minority, it loses.

I'm not clear what this means. People are being asked to use the appropriate language as has been decided by law in order to protect others from harassment. They are not being asked to change the thoughts inside their head.

Trying to remove the rights of trans women to be legally recognised as women under the existing GRA is a whole different battle than opposing the new self ID proposal.

Thanks R0wantrees. I opened the link and could have written that exact OP.

Also I've been googling I Am Spartacus as I wasn't reading in this section as much as I am now (am usually fannying around in S&B ). I remember it being A Thing and didn't know why. I can't believe you guys called this years ago. Feel like I've been living in fucking cloud cuckoo land.

Trying to remove the rights of trans women to be legally recognised as women under the existing GRA is a whole different battle than opposing the new self ID proposal.

But trying to remove the rights of women to have sex segregated spaces is fine of course.

@Fairenuff no absolutely not fine, we need sex segregated spaces.

Yes, yes John Smith. Another lurker here who has been made aware of these issues by reading MN. And peak trans by the ludicrous knots that posters like Gibberty tie themselves in. Please keep up the debate on MN, don’t disappear to a private forum.

I know at least one women's organisation doing good work with various women's communities that fell apart after a transwoman threatened legal action if they did not allow 'her' to become a member. I say 'her' in inverted commas because it was never clear what 'her' status was and there were reports of 'her' going to work during the week as a man. 'She' was accepted as a member of this women's group by a committee that was dominated by hardline Labour and left women. At that point the lesbians and radfems involved walked away, swiftly followed by the BME women who took their funding with them. The women's organisation folded after that. This was years ago and I can't believe it was the only women's organisation that was brought down in this way. It was pure disruptive misogyny.

Damn it sickens me hearing that

I really promise I'm not Hadley Freeman. It's important to stress this as most of my MN posts are on silly hilarious threads and the weight loss bits!

I object to being accused of transphobia for asking questions about the reforms and I do not agree that we need to subvert our language or understanding of biology in order to respect the rights of people who wish to decide on their gender-identity

I agree.

I faced a serious complaint at work for being gender critical on Twitter under my own name.

Posters here were fantastic in their moral support and in sending me ideas and arguments to face my accusers (most of whom decided to stay anonymous).

What I really really object to in all of this is that ONCE AGAIN

MEN (Male and some transwomen) are trying to tell women what it is to be a woman

Fuck that shit.

I agree OP, to keep as much discussion out in the public. Here at MN, for as long as possible, but the new rules are very limiting.

So I wanted to highlight what dolorsit said, because she nailed it:

However 20 years plus of lurking and I have noticed that women especially feminists are far more heavily policed in their language and the way they express themselves.

And it is never enough. There is always another word they shouldn't use or opinion they shouldn't voice.

And often the point is not to stop the women using the word or whatever, it is to disrupt the discussion taking place.

As a result, what may be a very nice request to be inclusive really is just a red flag to feminist who have seen this over and over again.

Thanks for that dolorsit. Exactly what is playing out right now, right here.

BorchesterTowers, I would love to read that thread but can't find it. Can you help?

BorchesterTowers did it all work out OK for you? I hope so. Can you imagine if someone was told they have to change religion, because a (insert any religion) person had joined the organisation and felt that those that didn’t follow their religion were hurting their feelings and making them feel ‘othered’? They’d be told to get a grip!

We need to keep talking to everyone and anyone (particularly those not yet aware of the issues) and ideally not on the feminist boards - get out there and weave the issues into your posts on other issues elsewhere on mn and everywhere else both online and in RL. The only reason we have any traction (and the reason for MN getting scared and introducing these rules) is because the media are now talking about this - now is the time to ride the wave an talk to everyone and anyone. Now is not the time to be retreating to the back rooms and talking among ourselves.

Agree with the whole post but this part in particular.

I have thought for a while that many of the issues should be spoke about in AIBU and stuff, parts of the forum where there are many many more lurkers. Talking about issues in here is basically preaching to the converted. There are a few dissenting voices yes, but it seems to be the same couple of people over and over, where I am sure there is more 'resistance' on the other forums where people are not 100% aware of the issues and whats actually going on.

The only reason more people are waking up to this all is because women are talking about it. On here, in real life, some journalists are getting braver and now dare to question too, following in the footsteps of the amazing Janice Turner.

I fully believe that the huge majority of the public would NOT be on board with what transactivists want, at all. Every single person I have spoke to about this issue thinks its insane, especially self ID..and the female penis.

I am tempted to shut up and leave. But I do think MNHQ are treading a thin line and they have to be seen to do something. I don't like blanket bans on words, however if they are getting thousands of reports a day from people for TIM or whatever, then it will lo9wer their workload considerably to just ban that word/acronym. BUT, they have also banned terf and cis. Which has really angered transactivists but how can they argue about it? They were the ones who wanted language censored and they got it. But both 'sides' were treat equally, which is not what they wanted at all. They wanted to censor our ability to identify a male person as male. So that we could not talk about the consequences of saying male people are female, and possibly so that we lost the ability to identify and talk about male violence (the very same male violence that affects transwomen too). Why? Because they are MRAs. Sorry, but its blatantly obvious that this lot are just MRAs masquerading as SJW type people. I will add this again, its one of my go to images with this..

In short, that was a very rambly post but I was tempted to bugger off, but yes, its giving them exactly what they want. They want people to stop talking about this on here, and in public. But fuck that, I am not letting the bullies win.

This is a great article and the lovely Tom Farr came onto the thread that originally flagged it a while back The Left Abandoning Women.

Great post Horny

And yes, MrsFogi, that's a great article.

That's a very helpful article, thanks for posting.

For John and other men - Jackson Katz's TED talk is the go-to place for men - it is up to men to show leadership to other men around male violence and what we are seeing is male violence towards women in different guises.

There are some men whose sexual entitlement knows no bounds and who have to have limits imposed on them legally - that's why the safeguarding is there in the first place. These guys are the male abusers who view women and children as objects for their use and abuse.

The behaviour of male dominators is to subjugate women by breaking their boundaries of self, unrelentingly, drop by drop. They play good cop with the public eg friends, relatives, work colleagues where they act like the "good man" and frequently play the victim by smearing women behind their back. They play bad cop at home or in places where they know they can get away with abusive behaviour. They corral, isolate and continually disrupt women, so they can control their communication channels and thus de-stabilise and then enslave them - starting with physical erasure (exhausting women by expecting them to do the heavy lifting), followed by psychological control using mind games of gaslighting, lying, blaming etc They actually want to destroy women, despite what they say in public.

So red flags appear for me when I see parallels anywhere with that male batterer /abuser behaviour, for example, coercive control plus covert abuse, behind closed doors or where they don't get pulled up, in order to dominate and take away women's autonomy. Ring any bells?

There are many men in public life who want to stop women from having equity by withholding anything that will benefit women and /or "trashing" them by put-downs, dismissals, boundary violations like sexual assault and intimidations, ignoring their needs, withholding appropriate financial support to force women to beg/or sell their bodies - these men test the boundaries of women, children and the legal system unrelentingly. They know no bounds.

There have been many manifestations of this delusional male control and entitlement throughout history - for example, The "Witch" Hunts, Spanish Inquisition, Trump & McCarthy in the USA, PIE in the 60/70s in the UK using women's liberation as a front to gain access to children for their sexual gratification, plus abusers & cult leaders of various types using religion, faith, and psychology to hostage people's minds and bodies for their own ends (Scientology etc).

These men move to different jurisdictions as the regulation of their traditional hunting grounds tightens up and they can no longer hunt unseen for their prey. They proliferated in the Churches using religion as a guise, in Hollywood using filmmaking as a guise. These jurisdictions, like violence in the home, are getting more and more regulated. So they have to find new hunting grounds.

For example, they now abound in unregulated cyberspace in various guises, with huge industries based on wholesale trafficking of the "cattle" - children and women forced into porn and prostitution. Slease, sexualisation of minors, hard porn viewed by boys at average age 11, plus the pervasive images of women as disposable sex objects for men's use on social media is all part of the backdrop of this - trying to normalise deviancy.

Limits are necessary - there should be no apologies for safeguarding - as history attests. Until men as a whole learn to control themselves and their fellow man and their perversions, safeguarding for women and children is necessary.

Another (liberal left leaning) lurker saying please don’t go - you are all doing such a brilliant job of bringing these issues forward.
Choc ‘s post so beautifully articulated everything I have come to feel about this debate.
@Mumsnet we need this debate to continue

Thanks R0wantrees that's a really helpful thread.

I thought so too MrsFogi - hopefully people will keep adding to it with helpful links etc. It also keeps it visible.

Mumsnet means a lot to me. It has benefited my life as a parent (and by extension, almost certainly improved my children’s lives) for over a decade. I’m grateful to all those MNers — mainly women, including a not insignificant number who have become RL, long-term friends — who have offered support, advice, comfort and intelligent debate on countless topics.

Being a tiny corner of the net to rationally discuss women’s rights in this brave new world of gender politics is one of mumsnet’s many facets, but it’s equally invaluable to me.

Please keep discussion alive here. Please keep posting here. It matters.

This will teach me not to refresh between reading and posting, missed John's comment.

For those promoting the transgender side, ‘cis’ has the same significance. Without it, they cannot define themselves in the category of ‘woman’ in a way which acknowledges their differences from biological women (and the majority of them know that they cannot simply pretend that those differences do not exist, otherwise they are seen as hopelessly delusional). Those differences are so manifestly obvious that if there is no alternative qualifying label which defines biological women as a subset of women, then by definition they must be men, because those differences are the very defining characteristics of the category called ‘men’.

I completely disagree that it is a term 'needed by trans'. Everyone has the understanding that 'woman' is an adult human female, there is no need to have a description that shoves adult human females into being a 'subset of women'.

By trans' own words, they insist that 'cis' "means nothing more than non-trans". But some of us are actually aware of their long game, and have been aware of it for many years. The most brilliant Dittany said to me years ago "never concede woman", she was 100% correct.

'Woman' is not terra nullis. There are over several billion inhabitants of 'Woman' existing (or will exist when they get older). We will not be shoved into some 'subset of woman'. There is no need for a descriptor of 'cis' (whose roots (cis-gender) reference enforced gender roles, something terribly anti-feminist).