TRA response to Mumsnet new pro trans guidelines

[Southfields]

As many on here predicted, they are STILL not satisfied. They believe the new guidelines from Justine are transphobic.

So, MN feminists don't like the new guidelines and nor do the TRA.

Where do we go from here?

By transwoman Natasha Kennedy:

Wednesday, 13 June 2018

False equivalence on stilts: Mumsnet's new censorship.

Today Mumsnet have come out with some badly transphobic guidelines which can only be regarded ill-considered at the most generous, profoundly transphobic at worst. They have said they are going to ban transphobia, terms like "TIM" ("Trans-identified male") and the like, although transphobes on Mumsnet are apparently already trying to find ways of producing new abusive and transphobic terms in order to get round this. How many hundreds of mods Mumsnet are going to employ to monitor this is unclear.

However for false equivalence they have decided ban the term "cis-". This is not only ridiculous, it is profoundly transphobic and reflects the institutional transphobia endemic at Mumsnet. "Cis-" as a prefix, they claim is offensive to "feminists", swallowing the rhetoric that "cis-" is somehow a form of abuse (in fact it is only a form of abuse if you are a transphobic bigot). Mumsnet are exposing their bias here and it isn't pretty.

The prefix "cis-" was first used in relation to gender by Dr Ernst Burchard, a cisgender doctor - and one of the earliest campaigners for gay rights - in "Lexikon des Gesamten Sexuallebens" published in German in 1914 and the term "cisgender" was first used by a cis male academic called Sigusch in 1998. It was created in order to provide a counterbalance to "trans-" so that people didn't have to say "non-trans" or "normal" when referring to someone who is cisgender. "Cis-" is effectively like the prefix "hetero-" in heterosexual. We don't talk about people who are not gay men or lesbians as "normal" people, so why should be have to do just that for trans people on Mumsnet?

In effect Mumsnet have censored trans people from using their discussion boards because we can no longer name people who are cisgender except in a way that Others us, pathologizes us or marks us out as somehow "abnormal" or not valid. In effect this is an Orwellian kind of censorship at a lexicon level (like "doubleplusgood") from a media platform that has complained noisily about Orwellian "censorship" when trans people called them out on the abuse we have been receiving on Mumsnet.

So it doesn't just reveal Mumsnet's institutional transphobia but their profound hypocrisy also. They cried foul to that other transphobic media platform, The Times, about being held to account for the transphobia in their forums yet have now banned some elements of the very behaviour they said trans people were threatening "censorship" by complaining about. In other words by their own standards of a few weeks ago they now are "censoring" themselves. This is not merely hypocritical, it is pathetic.

They are effectively excluding discussion by trans people and our allies by denying us legitimate terminology; banning a term that is, by the way, in the Oxford English Dictionary. Without being able to use a term like "cisgender" they are effectively making it impossible for trans people to engage in any meaningful debate in important areas. Their attempt to appear even-handed has ended up being oppressive and effectively taking the side of the oppressor. False equivalence is the name of the game, something trans people are very familiar with in the media, particularly broadcast media. And something the CEO of Mumsnet should be very familiar with since her partner is a senior commissioning editor in Channel 4, which recently produced an abusive and demeaning "debate" about my right to exist.

Mumsnet have got it badly wrong, they have demonstrated that

they are institutionally transphobic and in Desmond Tutu's terms are not even taking the side of the oppressor by being neutral, they are taking the side of the oppressor, period. Their motivation for this...? The only conclusion I can come up with is that they want to maintain their abusive transphobic user-base while avoiding complaints of abuse to advertisers; screenshots of transphobic abuse next to adverts make advertisers nervous. It is worth noting that trans people have been complaining about this kind of transphobic abuse on their site for literally years and they have arrogantly ignored us and brushed us off.

But the implications of Mumsnet's censorship go much further into dangerous territory...

As an academic the last place I would ever want go to discuss my work is of course Mumsnet, but now even if I wanted to I would be unable to since my most recent peer-reviewed publications, and some soon to come not only use terms with the prefix "cis-" ("Cultural cisgenderism" and "Cis-mythologization") throughout but they use them in the title. In effect my research is now banned from Mumsnet. No great loss from my point of view but should we should regard this as the modern equivalent of book-burning?

When the Nazis started to burn

books in Berlin University in 1933, among the first into the flames were those of Magnus Hirschfeld, a researcher into trans people. The comparison is too obvious not to make. Indeed I am not the only academic some of whose work it is now prohibited to discuss on Mumsnet; Gavi Ansara's and Peter Hegarty's award-winning research publication "Cisgenderism in psychology: pathologising and misgendering children from 1999 to 2008" (which originally coined the term "cisgenderism") is also banned under Mumsnet's new regime as are works by both transgender and cisgender academics including; Dr Ruth Pearce, Prof Dean Spade, Dr Julia Serano, Prof Rogers Brubaker, Prof Susan Stryker, Dr Jemma Tosh, Dr Diane Ehrensaft, Asst Prof Z Nicolazzo, Asst Prof Tobias Raun, Prof Sara Ahmed, Dr Meg-John Barker, CN Lester... I could go on and on...

To go from complaining to mainstream media about "censorship" to implementing a thoroughly Orwellian censorship regime of its own is quite a feat of hypocrisy even by Mumsnet's own pitiful standards, and something trans people are used to as pretty much the default setting of transphobes. However banning a term that is the equivalent of "heterosexual-" is not only bizarre but profoundly oppressive, the fact that it prevents the discussion of work by a wide range of academics is, in practical terms no great loss, Mumsnet is really just a cesspit of hate and ignorance. The symbolism of it however is very significant indeed.

uncommon-scents.blogspot.com/2018/06/false-equivalence-on-stilts-mumsnets.html

The attack on the Women's Library in Vancouver by a group was lead by a large man who ripped up posters and generally intimidated the women gathered to enjoy the opening.

The whole episode was covered by Feminist Current.

Do watch the video in the article. It's a really clear example of the kind of violence shown to women from those who wish to stop us talking. Some of the comments are enlightening too.

Mumsnet are parenting the fuck out of both sides.

Rat I so rarely agree with you but you've hit the nail on the head here.

I'm glad that they are hosting the debate, much as I disagree with censoring specific terms on either side.

It's all reminding me of the Fox Hunting bill.

Labour made a law banning fox hunting, which royally pissed off the pro-hunting side.

Labour made the law almost impossible to prosecute, which royally pissed off the anti-hunting side.

Result? Double the number of pissed off people.

MNHQ are going to have to pick a side because the transactivists are voracious. There will never be enough for them.

Didn't want either "cis" or "TERF" banned. Every time someone tried to call women here cis they were handed their arse using logic, likewise with the other term. A teaching moment.

I suspect that's part of the reason MN banned them. So they don't have to moderate these discussions when the TRAs whine.

Funnily enough TRAs are not choosing this tactic to 'expose' the 'transphobia' of feminists.

Isn't that strange, when they have such great convincing arguments.

It's actually classic male entitlement behaviour when you think about it.

YY.

Very clever of that person to use the word ‘Orwellian’ isn’t it?

As said before this is an outrageous DARVO. People with narcissistic personalities get a kick out of making people believe things that aren't true. Or controlling and manipulating them to say they do. The more outrageous, the bigger the thrill. It's called Duping Delight.

Didn't want either "cis" or "TERF" banned.

I didn't want them banned, either. Every time a TRA or handmaiden uses it, it reminds me how stupid transideology is.

I see it going down really badly when people get told they're cis, for the first time...nothing like living your life as male or female and then being told you're now just a sub-category of your own sex.

The discussion if you recall was about banning the use of tra*y and Trf as an insult. Odd that they switched to banning the use of TM, TF, instead, claiming that transgender people do not identify as T.
What happened to banning the use of Tra**y as an insult?

So glad that the op won't be bothering us again. Does this make me a terf?

and I hope transwoman and transman without the space are a breach of the new guidelines)

Not a breach - MNHQ confirmed it earlier.

I don't want any language banned. I don't want my language policed - I'm posting on a chat with other women/mothers/feminists - and even a few men and transwomen.

It's the TRAs who have called for our language to be policed - they will not shut up about it. The won't be happy until we're all shut down and not allowed to speak at all. Now - what sort of political regime does that remind you of?

Just in case some do not know. Transgender advocates want the word trans to be used as an adjective to modify woman, the example being tall woman or black woman or white woman. I think everyone can see why they want language that affirms them as a subset of female rather than male.
Some people prefer to use the noun transwoman and the noun woman.

Feminists did not usually use either term because they seem so entirely inaccurate to describe a person of one sex as the other.

MNHQ = literal Nazis

I think someone needs a and a and a nice long lie down in a darkened room.

I think MN have been unfair to feminists in the banned terms and how bad these changes will be remains to be seen in how they moderate.

But what i am loving is how post after post by women on here is saying we are tolerant of terms we don't like cos we believe in free speech and don't have the entitlement that would make us feel we have a right to control the speech of others, whereas posts by TA's here and elsewhere want none of their offensive terms banned, but all of those terms offensive to feminists allowed. Because trans activism is a mens rights movement seeped in male entitlement and the desire to control women. They always show themselves.

The goal is to eventually drop the modifier, and then we have: women and ciswomen. As I've already seen

^Absolutely this! Though i havent seen women and c*swomen, ive seen women and non-men

That's it? Cis? That's the only complaint this person has?

I think if I were them I'd take that one on the chin and suck it up.

(Not a euphemism)

Whenever these white dudes start talking about Nazi Germany and compare women calling men 'men' to Hitler I tune right out. I'm a Jew and I find it incredibly offensive.

I know that these autogynephiles will use ANY hyperbole in their narc rage response.

I find them pathetic.

I don't find MN's guidelines the end of the world. I trust that women will always find a way to talk about male violence against women adn the planet as this is the essence of transgenderism.

Am I the only person finding that parental tone immensely irritating? I think that may actually be the cause of a lot of the rudeness towards mods that we were told off for, the fact that we're consistently being spoken to like naughty children. You'd think that a site aimed specifically at women would realize that women get condescended to so often that many of us have an immediate fuck off reaction to it and take that into account in terms of how they communicate with members.

Someone mentioned that TRAs should just find an alternative to 'cis'. As a chemist, I can suggest another very similar pairing to cis and trans.

One is the addition of two substituents to the same side (or face) of a double bond or triple bond, - so that's the one to replace cis. It's called 'syn addition'. A bit of an unfortunate slimming word vibe...
The other is where two substituents are added to opposite sides (or faces) of a double bond or triple bond - so analogous to trans. That one's called anti.

Syn women and anti women? Think that could work?

Oh yeah, ban all words that identify male people as male people. But please do not ban genuine terms of abuse such as terf, or nonsensical terms such as cis. Sounds about right.

Nothing short of total capitulation will please them. This much was obvious already though.

By jove errol...i think youve got it

I would deffo suggest it to MNHQ

Still got all the chemistry bit so its like literal science and everything