FWR more unpleasant than ever

[Snappity]

The Talk Guidelines have done little to improve things. The majority of threads are about trans matters and very few, if any, positive. Misgendering is increasingly rife. "They" for a trans woman is as bad as "he".

Even the sex of trans women with female birth certificates is not respected.

There is post after post that trans women are not women and that sex is biological and cannot be changed (totally ignoring that many aspects of sex can be changed).

Then increasingly material from elsewhere which is anti-trans is being linked.

While individual comments are fair enough, the sheer volume means that FWR is a thoroughly unpleasant place for the majority of trans people and those of us who have trans family members.

Intersex women are also repeatedly disrespected with frequent posts that women are XX or are those with female reproductive capacity. It is hugely offensive.

I am going to be here less. The harassment - and I think that is what it is - has driven me away. It is a shame because trans and intersex feminists - indeed trans inclusive feminists - should be as welcome here as any other feminists. If MumsNet believes in debate that means ensuring that one side isn't shouted down - and the sheer volume of people saying that trans women are not women and belong in male spaces (because anyone "male" is a risk to women) is shouting down the other side of the debate.

FWR needs to regain a balance.

[Bowlofbabelfish]

On hormones trans women develop breasts and trans men develop facial hair, male patten baldness and their voice breaks. All changes in attributes of sex.
Biological sex isn't binary. It is a categorisation based on several attributes of sex and consequently biological sex can and does change. That's the science.

Breasts and facial hair are secondary sexual characteristics - women can and do have facial hair, men can and do grow breast tissue. Neither of those situations changes a person’s sex at all, in any way.

Are you saying that the multitudes of women in he world who have a moustache are Male? That men who suffer from gynacomastia are female? Of course they aren’t. They’re just hirsute females and men with hormonal abnormalities. I bet half the women on here have bleached or waxed off a tache at some time.

Sex is binary. Beards and boobs can be grown with a little hormonal tinkering. Doesn’t change anyone’s sex in the slightest.

That’s the science.

[Bowlofbabelfish]

Hahahah. Sorry! It came up as about three different things - thought I’d changed it 🤦🏻‍♀️

I swear my autocorrect is sentient.

[R0wantrees]

[Bowlofbabelfish]

snappity

Can you please provide evidence that a kidney changes sex? The recent case in the USA where a transman ended up in stage four kidney failure because they were using the male reference ranges for kidney function would seem to argue against this.

An organ has the same chromosomes as it always has. It doesn’t become a different sex. It may be affected by the immune status of the host, but it’s not changing sex.

[Snappity]

If I’m on mumsnet, as an anonymous individual saying that I strongly disagree with aspects x and y of said religion that's not wrong.

As an individual, true. But I am talking about the aggregate.

But if a public site's posting and moderation policy means that 99% of posts are so aggressively against a particular religion that most members of that religion don't feel comfortable using the site - or a particular part of a site - isn't that indirect discrimination by the site which could change it's moderation policy to restore a better balance?

[daimbars]

I agree OP it's pretty hard to say anything remotely pro trans on here without being piled on and shouted down.

There is a clear bias for GC feminism from MNHQ - so many posts that break the talk guidelines are allowed to stand but I got a post deleted just for expressing a pro trans view.

When I queried it with MNHQ I was told it was 'goady'

It's a sorry state of affairs when expressing an opinion in a calm and reasoned way is seen as goady.

[NotTerfNorCis]

Transmen might get facial hair but they won't grow a natural penis.

Transwomen might get breasts but they won't grow a natural uterus.

The changes are superficial- secondary characteristics.

[ballsballsballs]

Go well Snappity.

[ADastardlyThing]

Ok, bye snappity :)

And it's the TRA that bring intersex into it. Every. Single. Time. But don't let facts get in the way of this flounce.

[CaptainBrickbeard]

Snappity, a lot of your arguments boil down to the fact that your partner gets upset. You seem to think that someone getting upset means that a conversation on the internet has to stop.

Well, there is tons of stuff on the internet that I find really upsetting. I have never gone onto a site and told everyone on it to shut up. And it’s telling that you’re on the feminist section of a female-dominated website telling women they shouldn’t talk because it hurts your feelings but you don’t go and tackle the actual grotesque transphobia elsewhere online, on male-dominated sites. It’s only ever women that you want to silence. But you never engage with any thinking about why that is.

You want us to be ashamed and feel we’re being mean and consequently go along with whatever you want us to think and say. You want control over the words we use. That is sinister and it’s unacceptable and you have no intention of stopping. Believe me, you are not changing anyone’s mind on here.

[CoteDAzur]

"On hormones trans women develop breasts and trans men develop facial hair, male patten baldness and their voice breaks. All changes in attributes of sex."

Externally-supplied cross-sex hormones change the outward appearance of a body to resemble one of the opposite sex - i.e. a man grows breasts, a woman grows a beard, etc. These changes also happen with hormonal imbalances and treatments (see testicular cancer survivor in Fight Club). They don't mean that the man is now female and the woman is now male.

"Biological sex isn't binary."

It is, actually. Humans are a sexually dimorphic race. The exceptions are mutations and disorders. In the rare cases where genitalia is ambiguous at birth or doesn't correspond to chromosomes, it is invariably because something has gone wrong during conception or gestation.

"biological sex can and does change. That's the science."

It doesn't and it's not.

[R0wantrees]

Interesting comments with regards characterisation of posting styles.

Is there an implication that assertive posts are 'aggressive'?

Is the suggestion that 'calm / reasoned' posts cannot also be 'goady'?

[shitsgettingreal]

Byeeeeeeeee!

[Snappity]

Can you please provide evidence that a kidney changes sex? The recent case in the USA where a transman ended up in stage four kidney failure because they were using the male reference ranges for kidney function would seem to argue against this.

I haven't read it myself but Transsexual and Other Disorders of Gender Identity: A Practical Guide to Management edited by James Barrett might have something

[Bowlofbabelfish]

But if a public site's posting and moderation policy means that 99% of posts are so aggressively against a particular religion that most members of that religion don't feel comfortable using the site

No.

If 99% percent of those posts are ‘kill all pastafarians!’ ‘Let’s organise next Wednesday and go and stand outside the church of the spaghetti monster and burn it’ ‘let’s wrap some barbed wire around a baseball bat and smash the antipasta!’

Then that’s incitement to hatred. And that’s wrong and well you’d hope it’d get taken down but hey ho look at some of the awful anti Muslim and anti Jewish stuff out there - it all seems to stand...

If those posts are discussing the latest financial scandal at the church of the spaghetti monster, or how the spaghetti cult lures in children and drugs them on pasta sauce, or how they insist on attempting to get an academic fired because she doesn’t like spaghetti, then frankly the pastafarians can be as offended as they want but it’s not hateful. And it stands.

Taking offence - no one has a right not to be offended. you just don’t. You have a right to be safe. But you don’t have a right not to be offended.

I find people coming out with scientific inaccuracies to prove their point offensive - I don’t need to get them shut down bough because I’m the one with the logically coherent argument.
I find the idea of children being pushed down medicalised pathways to sterilisation and surgery about as offensive as it’s possible to get - so I’m going to speak out about it peacefully as is my democratic right.

If the ideology behind what you want is scientifically correct, and medically ethical, then talk about it in public and engage with your detractors. Just like they let Nick Griffin speak in newsnight or any questions - his arguments were easily refuted and it was far more effective than banning him.

You don’t get to shut down people who offend you.

[ADastardlyThing]

Sorry everyone, I've just read the other thread.

Won't engage further, it's clear there is stuff going on.

[nauticant]

If you're wondering how to act in response to this @MNHQ, have a think about the following:

There is post after post that trans women are not women and that sex is biological and cannot be changed (totally ignoring that many aspects of sex can be changed).

The OP is saying that posters should not be permitted to say that sex is biological and cannot be changed. Would you ever want to moderate in favour of fiction over material reality?

[Bowlofbabelfish]

I’m not ploughing through an entire book to disprove your statement. You bring a statement you prove it.

EGFR (the glomerular filtration rate, which is one marker of kidney function) depends on age, sex and race (one of the very few lab values where you do actually need to know race, incidentally, and we usually record as ‘is patient of black African origin ? YES/NO’

I work with lab values daily. Most have sex differences and many have age differences in their reference ranges.

[Snappity]

Well, there is tons of stuff on the internet that I find really upsetting. I have never gone onto a site and told everyone on it to shut up. And it’s telling that you’re on the feminist section of a female-dominated website telling women they shouldn’t talk because it hurts your feelings but you don’t go and tackle the actual grotesque transphobia elsewhere online, on male-dominated sites. It’s only ever women that you want to silence. But you never engage with any thinking about why that is.

Suppose you were interested in golf and went on a couple of golf forums.

One one, some posters express a view that the ancient golf clubs should exclude women. That would be OK wouldn't it?

But if the second had poster after poster saying that women can't really play golf - they just pretend that they do - and shouldn't be allowed in any proper golf club so that most women fled the site, wouldn't that be wrong?

[Amalfimamma]

FWR is unpleasant


What OP really means is I've been found out as a liar and someone who understands little of the topic discussed where I continuously try to shit down debate and call women bitches

[Snappity]

The OP is saying that posters should not be permitted to say that sex is biological and cannot be changed. Would you ever want to moderate in favour of fiction over material reality?

No I am saying that having one or two people saying it is free speech but when so many say it that it shouts down any reasonable opposition that that is oppressive.

[Snappity]

I swear my autocorrect is sentient.

[NynaeveSedai]

Interesting that as a direct result of the TRA bullying of mumsnet, leading to the crackdown on language and content, mumsnetters appear to have increased discussion and debate. Who would have thought that trying to silence women wouldn't work?!

Also hilarious that daimbars believes there is a GC bias in moderation.

[nauticant]

Oh, so there should be a limit on how many posters are allowed to state a material fact.

Well, as others have said, go well Snappity.