A woman is an adult female human

[Pratchet]

Of the sex whose reproductive role is to gestate and bear young.

Let's just say this while we still can. Because it's true, and however many people try to make us lie about it, or remain silent, it will always be true.

In times of universal deceit, speaking the truth is a revolutionary act.

It hurts MY feelings to see 'transwomen are women'. It damages MY mental health to see that, it makes ME feel erased and MY identity feel destroyed. I have a voice and I deserve that voice. WE deserve it.

I am Spartacus. A woman is an adult female human. Sex is binary, immutable and defined by reproductive role.

If you report me, or get me banned you shoot the messenger. Because this is true and will always be true. And this day, this day of a lie, I WILL say it.

#Spartacus

I’ve been being told to be nice in various ways for over 30 years and I’m fucking sick of it. Some points are too important, they need to be made, regardless of who might be offended.
I know I’m a woman. I’m breastfeeding a small human every night. I’m growing another miniature human in my womb. I’m worried based on the tiny human I lost a few years ago. A transwoman couldn’t have any of these experiences. I don’t say that to upset anyone, I say it because it’s true. Biology matters. Biology is what brought me to MN, newly pregnant and excited but then a little worried about losing symptoms. I found reassurance, support, then friends and feminism. I don’t want to lose this place but I also don’t want to tiptoe around being scared to say anything contentious.
This is not my MIL’s house.

There are no gondolas (or people eating cornettos) in my fandjo!

Thank you to those GC women who I have been admiring for some time now, who are saying with such knowledge and articulation what has been floating round in my brain for a few years. Ever since a rather bizarre transgender training session at work where I was told each child can play with whatever toy they want and can dress however then to be aware that if they like boys toys they may well be a boy or if hey like girls toys they may well be a girl. I ‘joked’ “what would they be if they liked dogs’ toys” and the stoney (deliberate pun) silence was a glimpse into the fact that I was way out of step with the company line.

This is batshit. I'm only about half way through the thread but wanted to throw in my support and agreement with the OP.

I am Spartacus.

Praise be, bitches.

Gondolas, this ise of the things I love when reading threads on mumsnet, they can be all over the place.

Just to throw my support behind saying, wtf, HQ? And stopping there, I am much better on twitter standing up to the TRA bullies there than I am on long eloquent posts here...

Indeed, Pratchet. As for the ward I'm sure none of the other women would be prepared to share with men.

It is so depressing that a location that I always had found so welcoming of meaty, meaningful thought and speech from women is now telling women that their free speech is not allowed and not acceptable.

There are so many contexts in daily life where we are ignored and dismissed and where we struggle to be recognized and heard just to be included. Now people who are not biological women get to literally shut us down, shut us up, shout us down and tell us they are offended by our biology. Our attempts to defend ourselves and talk openly about biological reality and objective biological truth are unacceptable.

My biology has dictated my experience: admitted to hospital during my finals at university because of endometriosis, 4 pregnancies, 3 living children, breast feeding for years and now as I approach 50 I am about to start chemo next week for an aggressive cancer. All these experiences are due to my lived experience as a mature biological woman. That is my starting point, this is my basis of my existence. No-one assigned me my ability to have children and my current diagnosis.

It is offensive that stating a biological truth is deemed unacceptable and I have to be given permission to say it.

Shall I be silent about my cancer because a biological man cannot share my experience? Why is our very physical being in the world offensive and not allowed to be acknowledged for fear of true scientific statements of fact being deemed a tactic of exclusion?

By allowing reality of biological fact to be outside the realm of free speech MNHQ is redefining women's reality. Women's biology - our defining characteristics - are now offensive. We have come full circle where we once again find biological men deciding what women are allowed to say and we must accept their worldview. They can coerce others to deny us free speech and the bald and honest statement of the truth of our lived reality.

I want to be accepted for who I am. I want to be able to state as much as I want and whenever I want that I am a mature biological female. I am a woman and a biological male can never have my experiences because of the indisputable facts of my biology.

I've just read KateMumsnet's second comment again do note that we won't be able to allow threads like this going forward.

Then Mumsnet, which has been a great source of support and advice for me over the many years that I've been a member, has changed beyond recognition from what it once was. And that saddens and worries me in equal measures.

I believe there's a word for people who continue to use a pejorative term for a whole other group of people, having been told that it is offensive, and even accorded the courtesy of having it explained to them why it's offensive.

However I'm not sure we're allowed to be blunt about the "other side" because currently the rules of the debate seem rather heavily stacked in their favour, so I'll adopt the rather excellent suggestion of "gadfly".

(Hmm, musing on the rules of discourse, and indeed the rules of the system as a whole being loaded against us and thinking "this feels a bit familiar - oh yeah, that'll be every patriarchal system ever, then." Remember we've had a lot of practice with this sort of thing. We're used to fighting it - and we instinctively recognise when we're being shat on from a great height and told it's just brown snow. Meet the new masters - same as the old masters).

I rarely post on the matter but I am deeply, deeply upset and disappointed.

@Mumsnet-

When this topic began, ages ago my thought was "What's the problem? Where's the harm?" And maybe Mumsnet did too.

Then I began reading. And your wonderful, patient, consistent women outlined in many many indisputable ways how damaging this would be. To women. The very backbone of your business. We fought years to have our voices heard. And now a global company is silencing us. Is that right? That's how it utterly feels.

It's my respectful opinion that MN should nail their big, biological, girls pants to the mast and support its members. And women who aren't members. And girls who will become women.

I'm inclusive. But I will not state that a human being born male with a penis is a woman.I will wholly support anyone who struggles with identity through the correct, safest route for them. But I will not compromise women's spaces. I will advocate support for young adults who are struggling. But I will not accept that a young, troubled twenty odd year old biological male who believes that a white, middle aged female is a black male because she feels like it. Nor do I respectfully believe that that person can represent or have any concept whatsoever, about women.

I honestly thought MN would take the correct stance on this. I'm disappointed thus far. But I will wait, and watch to see what happens. When more and more consequences of self Id occur hoping that MN will be Spartacus too.

That was actually meant for the Welsh women's refugee thread (where a poster is doing the thing of repeatedly calling other posters cis, and doing the "but it's in the dictionary" defence). However it seems to fit here.

Anyone born male with a penis is not a woman and can never be one.

Oh, Mumsnet. You have such an opportunity here to be a beacon for women and girls in the weeks, months and years ahead.

I just don't understand why you're ducking the challenge. We - the 51% - will support you.....if you support us.

Sneaking in on the end here to say thanks Prachet for the OP.

At a time when the UK Government has opened a public consultation by stating something that is biologically impossible (TWAW), it is essential we challenge the terms that the debate is framed within.

Woman is an adult human female.

Humans cannot change sex.

NO the definition of the word woman cannot be extended to include men who say they are women. The answer is NO.

And I will defend this to my dying breath.

It's devastating that many decades on from women gaining protections that allowed us to participate fully in public life with safety and dignity we are in a position where it will all have to be fought for again.

Despite assurances about EA exemptions it's clear that many businesses and organisations are not going to uphold them and what will be considered 'proportional means' will be the tiniest sliver of nothingness in reality.

This is probably going to take years of dedicated fighting and expensive litigation to gain any real protections back.

In 2018 women are considered the lesser subset of their own sex class.

@Katemumsnet, HOW can it be “inflammatory” to repeat a scientific fact that just three years ago would have been entirely uncontroversial and indeed incontrovertible?

The very fact that such a assertion has become perceived as potentially inflammatory in such a short time frame, is reason enough to pause and reconsider what exactly is at play.

Can we please have some common sense applied instead of taking lobbying pressure as the basis for deciding what’s reasonable to say? This is all so asinine.

I can believe mumsnet will be silancing this thread at 1000 it's just not right

I really think that @MNHQ are in danger of losing all credibility unless they employ some yardstick other than appeasement.

That is when threads close. The next thread on 'how many gondoliers are there in my fanjo' will be coming soon to an FWR very near you.

I'm currently in the UK with my family. I came to this forum over Kenwood Ladies Pond because I was flabbergasted that a women's space suddenly no longer was a women's space.

In conversation on Sunday it became clear that my relatives had a vague idea about what self-id meant. When I elaborated on it, explaining the ramifications they were aghast. They had no clue. Yesterday I noticed they listened up during the news when Mrs May came on.

I am raising a teen who already has strong opinions on gender (everyone should be allowed to be who they are). She becomes exasperated whenever she sees a book lying around with the word "feminist" in the title. As she grows older, I worry more and more about the pressure she and many others will/continue to be subjected to in society. My daughter believes the world is fair and equal. I know it's not. We are the unfairly treated sex.

I spent three years in a job where my five male team members were all paid more than I was. I fought for my raise and was made to feel bad even though I was the most qualified person on the team. I have since moved to another profession.

Our cleaning lady was told by a (Muslim) doctor in A&E to go back to her husband after the police brought her there because he had beaten her up. That was my wake-up call. We helped her get back on her feet and she is since divorced but it set me thinking.

I am now more than ever convinced, and so are many of my friends, that although we think we have better rights we are being fooled into thinking this. They are easily eroded as this debate has so amply proved.

I'm glad this space exists. In recent months I have learnt a lot and while I didn't always agree with everything I tried to understand everyone's point of view. It has given me plenty of food for thought.

But today I'm angry. I'm here to say I will not stand down, I will not be ignored. I am a woman. I am proud of being a woman. To tell me that I can't voice this pride is to strip me of my right to be what I am. And that just isn't right.

It's extremely sad to see a forum for women silence those women when they try to stand up for their rights, to pander to male bullies and prop up their distorted angry misogynistic worldview.

MN took the path of least resistance.

They sold women for profit.

Also proud to be a woman. An adult human female. With a female body for all its good and bad.

Viva Spartacus.

Yesterday was a bit rubbish all round for me. So I was rather hoping, when I woke up this morning, that I might have imagined the Orwellian statement in blue.

But it’s still there:

Hi all

Thanks for bearing with us - the thread was moving very quickly so we suspended it briefly while we discussed it here.

While the guidelines allow posters to 'discuss biology and scientific evidence' in the course of civil debate, we don't think that's quite what's going on here. The purpose of the thread seems to us to be to gather posters together to repeat the same point over and over again. In effect, the thread as a whole is inflammatory - that isn't conducive to civil debate and seems likely to make Mumsnet feel hostile by most trans people, regardless of their ideology.

We understand that there is great strength of feeling today about the opening of the GRA consultation, so we're going to let this stand for now. But please be very aware of out Talk Guidelines when posting, and do note that we won't be able to allow threads like this going forward.

Thanks

MNHQ

And I still cannot believe I’m actually reading this.