Vice: how an online forum for moms became a toxic hotbed of transphobia

[NotTerfNorCis]

broadly.vice.com/amp/en_us/article/a3mn9k/mumsnet-uk-mom-forum-terf-transphobia-feminism

Thought people might be interested in this article. One thing that strikes me is the 'reducing women to their biology' argument. Don't transwomen 'know' they're not male because their body feels wrong? Then it is about biology isn't it? Otherwise why do they think they're female?

Yes, that "especially narrow vision of womanhood" (ie women) is very funny.

I honestly don't know what this bit means:

Prior points out that this narrow view of feminism is also embedded in the British media and political establishment: “I see it as an axis between the right wing-press and the idea that it is just a forum for everyday moms. It gives the press some legitimacy in their false dichotomy that this is a battle between trans women versus cis women.”

It's gibberish, isn't it?

But centering the reproductive role of predominantly privileged women may have led to the Catch-22 that the company finds itself in today: How can it deal seriously with increasing public criticism of exactly the kind of discussion that seems to keep its users engaged and Mumsnet influential? Or—as former employees like Healey and Woodhead claim—does Mumsnet simply not care?

But Eve love, there simply isn't increasing public criticism of the discussion. It's only you, Prior and Feminist4. Oh and Willoughby.

Or—as former employees like Healey and Woodhead claim—does Mumsnet simply not care?

Now, that would be an outrage, huh?

And I wish Eve good luck with finding them penis inclusive TWAW allies among working class women, or 'brown', Muslim women.

Interesting that nowhere does Eve define what Eve thinks woman and womanhood actually are

It's something to do with clownfish and mushrooms right? With some magic sparkly fairy dust or something...

Interesting that nowhere does Eve define what Eve thinks woman and womanhood actually are

Just like the rest of them, she can't define it. Which, as I will repeat til the cows come home, is the peak of self-unaware stupidity.

Interesting that nowhere does Eve define what Eve thinks woman and womanhood actually are

From the NUS document by Eve (linked previously)

Women:
‘Women’ is taken to
mean all who selfdefine
as women,
including (if they wish)
those with complex
gender identities
which include
‘woman’(NUS
Women’s Campaign).
‘Woman’ is generally
used over ‘female’ for
this inclusivity

It is under this same scrutiny that Mumsnet finds itself in its current existential dilemma.

T'is the genderology that is having the existential dilemma. We are fine.

Check out these polling results. fairplayforwomen.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/gender_recognition_act-1.pdf

People haven't bought the fake news you are selling Eve. We were not born yesterday, unlike you. We knew trans people when you were in nappies. Your naivety is showing.

And on Emma The Brave Whistleblower- Emma, coming from a grown up working a serious industry: causing your employer to have to report themselves to the Information Commissioners Office because of the data breach you caused will not be a good enhancement to your cv. This will affect your employability, because future employers will not care that you believe you were justified. They will perceive you as a risk, and employ the candidate without a record of potential GDPR violations.

Ironic isnt it (or a very poor reflection of the education system where they were educated) when a person called Eve appears unable to define woman.

Which, being circular and non-objectifyable, is not a definition, R0wantrees.

Wow who’d have thunk it! People (adult human females) who create and nourish a brand new human life using their bodies think biology may be important!

(Yes I know lots of MNetters don’t have children)

It's strange that the worst thing she could muster up in the article was being called a "witless handmaiden", what with all the violent threats and harassment she was getting from gender critical women

The description of her was specific to her sharing of the malicious, widespread myth that 'feminists were hiding razor blades' behind the 'women don't have penises' stickers. She also implied that the 'side' behind the stickers as 'evil'

I only know this as she linked to the page where the comment is in the article.

when did schools stop teaching comprehension skills?

deepwatersolo

I know!

R0wantrees I know that you know. Just wanted to make the obvious point again. (This inability to come up with any definition of 'woman' while being super vocal about the issue really vexes me).

Deep I know you know I know

It is incredidbly vexing.

Jane Clare Jones 'THE ANNALS OF THE TERF-WARS'
(Extract)

"Episode 1: The First War Continues. Scene 2: Cyberspace – around 2013-14

Enter Intersectional Feminists from top, bottom and side of screen….

Intersectional feminists: THEY WILL NOT DEBATE THEIR RIGHT TO EXIST YOU FUCKING BIGOTS.

Feminists: Hang on, we thought you were feminists. We thought you cared about female people.

Intersectional feminists: Female people are so last century. Only White Feminists care about female people.

Feminists: White what?

Intersectional feminists: All the feminists before us were white middle-class women and they only cared about what white middle-class women care about and they were only interested in getting good jobs for white middle-class women and they didn’t care about Black women and were dried up whorephobic prudes who didn’t realize sex work was liberating and mostly they just wanted to kill trans people.

Feminists: That sounds like some mad-ass caricature.

Intersectional feminists: You would say that, you oppressive old crones. You’re just saying that to maintain your power.

Feminists: No we’re not, we don’t have much power. We’re saying it because it sounds like bullshit. Starts trying to explain all the things second wave feminism did to help women

Intersectional feminists: We’re not listening to you, you oppressive bitches. We’ve hidden all your books in the library to protect young minds from them. You are whorephobes and transphobes and racists. We are intersectional. Only we have learned from the Tumblr-oracle how all the different oppressions have different points on a scale that add up to who is the most oppressed and you are white (so are we mostly but we’re pointing at you because somehow that means something, maybe because we have asymmetric hair-cuts and our profile pics give great side-eye) and you are women and that means that you are the least oppressed and that means that your feminism is shit and that means that you have to centre all these other people in your feminism and if you refuse it’s because you’re the oppressors and the most oppressed people are trans women and they must be the centre of feminism from now on.

Feminists: You want us to centre male born people in our feminism?

Intersectional feminists: THAT’S RIGHT BITCHES. And there is no such thing as ‘male-born people.’ That is cissexism and is literal violence. You need to educate yourselves. We don’t have the spoons.

Feminists: Um yeah, we know quite a lot about the history and practice of feminism and we’ve thought quite hard about it and I think we’re going to carry on centring female people if you don’t mind.

Intersectional feminists: OPPRESSORS

Feminists: Female people are oppressed and our political movement…

Intersectional feminists: SWERF AND TERF. SWERF AND TERF. SWERF AND TERF.

(Ps – Would you like to try this sourdough bread I made with yeast from my vagina?)

Feminists: Okay. This is getting REALLY fucked up now.

Intersectional feminists: Run away and cry your ‘White Feminism TM’ tears you dried up old witches. And don’t fucking kink-shame us or we’ll shank you.

Feminists: Um, this feminism seems not very…

Intersectional feminists with new blue hair: BIG DICK ENERGY.

TERF-blocker descends

(continues)

janeclarejones.com/2018/11/13/the-annals-of-the-terf-wars/

definitely worth a read

BubonicTheHedgehog: And the ones who are past all that are probably farting loudly in public with no embarrassment whatsoever.

So YOU'RE the one who keeps giving me hard looks on the bus! Well, better out than in, I always say!

Janice Turner & Hadley Freeman are on it twitter.com/victoriapeckham/status/1070993080088711168?s=21

I have to be honest I couldn’t read the entire article as it was extremely badly written. It had a tendency to drift into word salad with a side order of virtue signalling.

I have to say that one of the worst things to come out of the social media revolution is the obliteration of print journalism. We are overwhelmed with information from dubious sources and of dire quality.

I’m assuming the writer is very young? She’ll grow up (hopefully). We can be hopeful that she retrains into a career that doesn’t involve writing.

I love 'witless handmaiden' - so pithy, precise and with a timeless quality to it...

‘Women’ is taken to mean all who selfdefine as women, including (if they wish) those with complex gender identities which include ‘woman’(NUS Women’s Campaign). ‘Woman’ is generally used over ‘female’ for this inclusivity

Sigh.

But logically that has to mean that everyone selfdefining as a woman knows exactly what a woman is, otherwise how could they define as one? It's an adult human female, it's just not 'inclusive' to admit this out loud because some adult human males struggle with their physical reality. Not really a good reason to lie and erase the reality of half the human race. And yeah, female isn't an inclusive term, it's a yes or no fact. That may be sad for some, but unfortunately it's true.

It's an adult human female, it's just not 'inclusive' to admit this out loud because some adult human males struggle with their physical reality. Not really a good reason to lie and erase the reality of half the human race. And yeah, female isn't an inclusive term, it's a yes or no fact. That may be sad for some, but unfortunately it's true.

on talkradio this week and on current thread Debbie Hayton (transsexual) explains that she considers the sex 'F' marker on her passport:

"to be a descriptive marker rather than a prescriptive marker. My legal sex is determined by my birth certificate that does say M."

I'm really struggling to get my head around this

That screenplay ^^ is just brilliant

A quotation from Eve promoting her article via Twitter: "There's been lots of good writing about Mumsnet recently but here's an in-depth piece I've worked on for a while".

If I was trying to promote any article that I had written, I would not say "there's been lots of good writing but here is my article".

Why would I read Eve's article? I'd read one of the good articles instead.