@JustineMumsnet please consider reinstating LangCleg after a temporary suspension. It would help so many of us. Mumsnetters please sign!

[loveyouradvice]

@JustineMumsnet

We the undersigned would like to ask you to consider reinstating LangCleg after a temporary suspension, as you have done with others.

Or perhaps, consider reinstating her for a three-month trial period and then reviewing.

We know you will have realised, from the two other LangCleg threads, how much her wisdom and constant voice in support of robust safeguarding is welcomed by so many on this board. It is truly a great loss to us, and to the depth of discussion about such important matters.

We hope Justine that you might do two things:

• Review what actually happened with LangCleg and decide whether it really was so dire that she deserves permanent expulsion, or whether perhaps there was an element of misunderstanding on your moderators' part (which Michaeel's post indicates may have happened) and, that perhaps she was being held to an inappropriately high standard compared to others
• Review the process, so that strong voices on here are able to continue to be heard for the benefit of all Mumsnet users

Or perhaps do neither of those things, and just reinstate her because you recognise how important your other Mumsnet users find her.... I guess the equivalent of a Royal Pardon,

Please hear our voice.

And everyone on here, please do sign if you want LangCleg back - just that, a signature with any discussion continuing on the LangCleg 2 thread. A signature to say you want her back and hope that @JustineMumsnet will consider this.

Thank you - both my fellow mums netters and Justine

We do

Always

Signed.

as it’s outlined here, LangCleg was ‘a’ safeguarding expert, not MN’s appointed safeguarding lead. so it’s all a bit of a red herring suggesting MN have made a grave error.

and for those continuing to ‘sign’, save your pixels. it ain’t happening.

Nothing to see here, eh? Move along and stop talking about safeguarding. It suits some people very well, I suppose.

It ain't happening, get over it. End of.

What a disappointing decision from @MNHQ. The wrong decision.

I hope that Lang starts a blog.

No it probably wont, but we will keep talking about it, and that seems to upset some people.

What actually happened?

I miss Lang so much. The absence of her voice is so noticeable.

I have plenty of pixels left and talking about recent forum history seems a reasonable use of them. Especially if people would prefer we didn’t for whatever reason.

I knew almost nothing about safeguarding when I first got interested in GC topics, so slightly more than Aimee Challenor. I owe Lang and other posters a debt for their clear and knowledgeable posts. Now feel much better informed.

Belatedly I would like to contribute.

I respect MNs rights as a commercial operation and their duties as an employer. I think it is important that posters here are mindful of the potentially different views of both MN staff and of other users of the site. No one has an indisputable claim to be right. No one. (OK, Papal infallibility, but I don't think he is here.) We need to debate, to evidence and to justify, and be respectful of other views. That is how we will roll back some of the nonsense that crept in under the cover of #nodebate.

We should also be grateful for the moderated space MN has given us. There is a genuine generousity in a commercial operation allowing us to be here when there are clearly emotional and financial downsides.

That said.. please consider allowing Lang back. Her absence is noticeable. We need the clarity and inclusiveness.

save your pixels??

They're not pie, you know.

Agree with @Needmoresleep.

I do think we should acknowledge that Mumsnet have continued to allow this discussion, despite losing contracts because of it and coming under immense pressure. Mumsnet is in no small part why gender critical thought is becoming mainstream again - it allowed a place women could meet, and think, and organise, and allowed others to read alternative perspectives, and come to their own, free of bullying and manipulation.

But I also think someone with that level of expertise in safeguarding is simply irreplaceable. I recognise the need to be even handed in moderation, and I recognise that staff have a right to feel, and be, safe (and let's be honest, most of us wouldn't moderate this community for a day if we could avoid it - the AIBU alone would destroy the will to live, sometimes, with the spite expended on trivia as a matter of course). I do see that Mumsnet have a primary responsibility to staff.

But this is a really special case, because there are huge safeguarding implications to this movement. It contravenes almost all safeguarding principles, to allow any form of self-ID by males, simply because males pose a risk females don't. And training children, and indeed women, out of their instinctive awareness of boundaries has serious repercussions. Lang Cleg was expert at noting all that and her loss is great, accordingly.

I just wish some sort of compromise could be reached. I don't know how, or what, but discussion on that would be valuable. Because her contributions were. Immensely. And Mumsnet is a company fundamentally based on supporting women and children. As someone who's been here since 2007, I truly believe that they do. It's not just talk. They've shown it time and again, and are still showing it by platforming this conversation at some commercial risk and cost.

So if there is a way they can work out a compromise, in recognition of the importance of Lang Cleg's contributions to the conversation, then that would be brilliant.

What need more sleep put so well.

That's a useful and canny suggestion wellbehavedwomen

I just wish some sort of compromise could be reached.

But for MNHQ this is a compromise.
They have put in place their guidelines, but over and over again FWR regulars complain about "compelled speech, that they won't compromise and use the pronouns that individual trans people request. That for some even full surgery and a GRC isn't enough to allow individuals into female spaces, and that there can be "No compromise"
If this is the case, and if LangCleg was abusive off the board to admins; how can there be any compromise here?

That for some even full surgery and a GRC isn't enough to allow individuals into female spaces,.

Not "individuals", males. ...'isn't enough to allow males into female spaces'.

I agree wellbehavedwoman

merely rude. They are very different things.

A privately owned company providing a publicly available service has every right to choose when to turn off that service to a user. Employees of that company should not have to experience rudeness or abuse on a regular basis.

If you choose to use a service provided by a company, you abide by their guidelines. You don't get to retrospectively whine that they're a bunch of meanies who won't let you do what you want.

That for some even full surgery and a GRC isn't enough to allow individuals into female spaces
Allowing males into female spaces makes those spaces mixed sex
Humans can’t change sex 🤷‍♀️

There is a wide range of views. Hence the need for debate. There never should have been an attempt at sneaking through significant societal change, essentially redefining sex, on the basis of #nodebate. This was shocking even totalitarian.

It is always odd when the many posters of MN FWR are portrayed as absolutist and uncompromising. I know who I would attach those labels to.

When the full story is told, we will hear more about the pressure MN have been put under. Though FWR is lively, I dont think it is a big revenue earner, there is not a lot that can obviously be sold to us. (Now those ads for gay cruises have gone - I hope those lads are safe from coronavirus. They always looked very jolly.)

So two things to take away.

1. MN deserves our respect and cooperation. They have stood (relatively) firm, one of the very few places that have done so. They have invested significant resources into moderation. We know they have faced pressure but I suspect we do not know the half of it. They have been real, practical and constructive champions of womens rights.

1. Langcleg's posts were bright, incisive and knowledgeable, and often funny. I hope there is a way for her to come back.