Can we stop being obedient soon, or will this coercion continue for evermore?

[theOtherPamAyres]

I know that Mumsnet moderators are hot on keeping respectful debate and for that reason does not allow misgendering, certain terms, and the like. It's their site and they make the rules and I respect that. This topic isn't about Mumsnet, it's about the growing confidence of feminists to refuse to use the terms and language of gender.

Karen Ingala Smith, speaking to the Womens Select Committee, showed how it could be done. As a result of the clarity of her language, she was able to cut through the nonsense and make her points forcefully. In contrast, Janet from Womens Aid, with her convoluted language about gender, sounded confused and muddle-headed.

When we are forced to use words like 'transwoman' and 'she' - for fear of prosecution, civil actions, job losses, imprisonment for contempt of court, exclusion, abuse and physical assaults - we have helped to normalise transgenderism. In effect, we are saying that a man can be a woman.

I believe that we can no longer support Trans Rights by default, by caving in and going with the flow. At some stage we have to assert the right to use our own terms - because we can't wait for legal precedents and government reviews. The more refusniks and recusants there are, the more confidence will grow.

What tips and tricks of language did you start using when you could no longer kowtow to the demand for obedience?
How did you write or speak about people/men/women who identify as trans? (Did you see what I did there?)

So MN are now lying about having been in touch off he boards with Barracker?

Or sandwiches?

So what do you reckon... do people have bots looking at all new posts and flagging them for people to mass complain?

I don’t know about bots. I do know there are some busy little bees on Twitter looking out for posts to object to.

In her speech 2017 at We need To Talk event (after Maria Maclachlan was assauted at Speaker's Corner) Dr Julia Long discussed the importance of naming within the context of feminist theory:

(extract)
"So. Why am I quite intent on naming, and hopefully many of you are too, or all of you are too - why is it important that we name men as men? Well, I perceive - all of those men that were in my little parade there - I perceive them all to be male, because of things that seem to me not particularly controversial, seem to me quite reasonable and seem to me also the fruits - particularly when we come to the subject of gender - the fruits of several decades of feminist scholarship and insight.

So I think it is quite reasonable ... [protesters yelling outside] ... God, they really are ... I could just get the megaphone and open the window and shout back at them but anyway, I've prepared my talk so I'll see it through.

I'm sure that this really is old hat to most of us here but I thought it was worth just going back to some really fairly key principles. So when we're talking about sex we're talking about biological features. There's been reams written, the more nonsense that gets written, the more scholarship that needs to be written in order to try and counter it. But I haven't really entered into all of that, I'm just saying there are certain biological features which designate us either male or female, which mean that we are recognised as being either male or female in terms of things like anatomy, chromosomes etcetera. So when we're talking about sex we're talking about whether someone is male or female and so, if we're talking about whether someone is male, I think it's quite reasonable to refer to an adult human male as a man and an adult human female as a woman. I don't think that there is anything particularly controversial about that and I think history is kind of on my side because for god knows how many centuries or millennia that has kind of been the case." (continues)
pastebin.com/nGwr3i4U

Transcribed by PencilsInSpace who was present at the event
Permissions given by both Pencils & Dr Long to share

Tricks of language I use, to keep on topic, is to use the surname.

It's easy to do because I've been gaslighted in a relationship/marriage and I know how to circumnavigate this.

Critiquing compelled speech is not generalising about trans people. It's is critiquing compelled speech.

It seems obvious to me that whoever moderated Barracker's posts misunderstood what was said, and why.

I hope that when the long weekend is over mumsnet will apologise to Barracker and lift the ban since it was not based on any of the guidelines. In fact I'd go so far as to say that banning Barracker for that analysis of the effects of compelled speech is "not in the spirit"!

At least we got a clear and unambiguous answer to the thread’s title
This.

Not in the spirit of a website set up by women primarily for women.

Barracker banned? And for a post that doesn't contravene Talk Guidelines? What on earth are you thinking? This is shocking, MNHQ. Surely this decision should be reconsidered?

The enforcement of compelled speech is itself a form of grooming.

Indeed. We're witnessing not just enforcement of compelled speech, however, but blatant enforcement of compelled thinking - for example, Edward Lord's brazen openness about discarding thousands of 'consultation' responses for failure to agree with the compelled beliefs of transgenderism.

@MNHQ - if you allow yourselves to go along with this - to the extent of banning people for using analogy or metaphor to make a point - you're supporting enforced belief.

Is that really what you want to do?

I find it fascinating that whoever feels motivated to reports posts such as Barracker's seem to be so driven by narcisstic outrage/outrage on behalf of others/a need to control other's thoughts and language that they never seem to pause and reflect on that well-known Streisand effect.

This could have been a slow Sunday thread about frustrations around language and control, given there's lots of other threads about news articles today.

Instead it's turned into a live action example, and keeps popping up to the top of the thread list.

The impact on the speaker of compelled pronouns (different to the observed sex) is the same regardless of the sex of the person being referred to or the sex of the person speaking/thinking.

I am one of those feminists who is afraid of speaking out because of the impact on my job.

I know that if I spoke out and was reported I would lose my job and I can’t survive without it.

The policing of thought and speech, the refusal to allow women safe spaces, the surrendering of our ability to name a basic, biological fact and the indoctrination of children from a young age is completely unacceptable.

Men are setting this agenda. Men are in control. I do not see many Trans men in this debate. I do see entitled, vociferous and aggressive men who call themselves Trans Women.

What on earth are you doing, MNHQ? You have actually went completely ‘against the spirit’ of Mumsnet by banning Barracker. I really hope it’s a new moderator that has jumped the gun and those with more experience will show some common sense and COMPASSION for a long standing, supportive and respectful poster such as Barracker.

We’ve had certain TRAs crowing about making Mumsnet close down the discussions regarding the impact on women’s rights by the forced use of language and refusal to believe in the ability of humans to change sex, then one of our most erudite posters is banned. Really?

Perhaps soma would have been better as an analogy than Rohypnol?

Do you know that reference, MNHQ?! I think some serious reflection is in order here.

‘The result of a consistent and total substitution of lies for factual truth is not that the lie will now be accepted as truth and truth be defamed as a lie, but that the sense by which we take our bearings in the real world—and the category of truth versus falsehood is among the mental means to this end---is being destroyed.‘ Jacob. T. Levy

Support for Barracker 💐

@SophieLMumsnet
I would ask you to reconsider your position that that post was 'not in the spirit' of mumsnet.
A highly intelligent woman referencing accepted social science theory about the impact of compelled speech on people's capacity to think critically and resist, discussed in the context of a challenge to women's rights and safety, is exactly in the spirit of mumsnet.

I would also like to register my outrage that you have seen fit to ban barraker over this post.

I'm not sure MNHQ get @ messages the way users do, so just in case I've reported the thread to ask for a reply re Barraker.
I'm guessing I'm one of lots, so hope we get an update soon.

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis suggests that language influences the way that a person thinks.

By creating new categories, we start to perceive things differently.

For example, if participants are shown slides that are green and then shown a slide which could be blue or green they label it as green. Other participants shown blue slides label the same slide as blue.

Although this has only been demonstrated with colour perception (AFAIK) the mechanism has been validated.

In addition there are islanders who perceive the ocean in much greater detail than others. They have words for colours and movements that others don’t even see.

This all suggests to me that the changes in language that are being compelled may well change how we think about sex and gender at a very deep level. This is particularly the case for children. They will grow up with a radically different notion of ‘woman’ than those not exposed to compelled language around sex and gender.

oh MNHQ, that is a harsh decision 🙁 please will you rethink?

It’s pretty clear to me that Barracker is following a long line of thought, as illustrated by the quotations on this thread, of analysing how language is used to control not just what people say, but what they think.

You’ve reacted as if she has attempted to make quite another point, but if it’s the point I think that you think she was driving at, she really obviously wasn’t.

@SophieLMumsnet @MNHQ has Barracker indeed been banned solely for a post that was 'not in the spirit' of Mumsnet?

Not for breaking talk guidelines or using banned words or acronyms.
A post that has subsequently been robustly defended, supported and even paraphrased and reposted so its point is clear for all to see.
So why the heavy-handed treatment of a respected poster, and why the silence on whether they have been banned or not?
Or are posters now being handed down bans for 'not in the spirit' posts that I thought were just deleted?

I am another one heartily fed up of the mimsy 'not in the spirit' messages from MNHQ.

Reply to my report re Barraker

We're resolving this off the boards and won't be able to come and update on the thread as this concerns an individual user.

So, we'll have to wait and see.

Barraker.

Weasel words. Ugh.
Surely a ban pretty much always concerns an individual user.

A highly intelligent woman referencing accepted social science theory about the impact of compelled speech on people's capacity to think critically and resist, discussed in the context of a challenge to women's rights and safety, is exactly in the spirit of mumsnet.

Yes, it fucking well is.