Mumsnet Says They Are Trans Friendly; What do you think?

[Nightinghawk]

I’m coming over from Twitter since @/MumsnetTowers has encouraged people to join, promising that they would not ban people for using the word “cis” and also that they think “Campaigning against trans people’s existing human rights and legal protections is transphobic” is “an interesting question and a debate [they’d] welcome seeing on the boards.” When asked if they believe that trans women are women, trans men are men, and nonbinary people are nonbinary, they responded with “We believe adults have a right to say what they think about matters of active public debate.” However, they do say they do not tolerate hate speech, malicious content, sweeping negative generalizations, derogatory or aggressive content on their site.

Given the conflicting messages I’ve seen from them in the past, and the fact that they to this day think campaigns against trans people’s rights could in any way not be transphobic and their hesitance to affirm trans people’s autonomy in our self-description and our gender(s), I’m hesitant to believe that Mumsnet the site is actually trans friendly. I mean this as no disrespect to the mod team or others in position of authority; it is merely my opinion (and lived experiences) that any online forum that doesn’t immediately consider campaigns against trans people’s rights as transphobic tend to have (accidentally or otherwise) cultivated a transphobic customer base on their forums. I say this as a trans person who has been leveled all kinds of harassment in a variety of online forums, where those which had not condemned transphobia had immensely more transphobia in quantity and in vitriol.

All this is to say, I’d like to hear your (Mumsnet’s users’) opinions on the matter. Is Mumsnet really a trans friendly space? Do you believe that advocating against trans people’s existing rights is transphobic or anti-trans? Do you think these existing rights for trans people are “interesting” enough for “debate”? Do you think the term cis should be censored? Am I safe asking for/providing advice here as a trans person? Why? Why not?

For reference: I am nonbinary trans and use xe/xem pronouns. I understand they can be difficult to use or to remember to be used for some people. If you don’t want to use my pronouns, then please use my username: Nightinghawk, or NH as shorthand.

Poor kid

I haven’t read the thread but I would fear for a trans girl using the men’s toilets

Individual cases are emotive. What about a female child rape victim being forced to change in front of a biological male (who doesn't pass very well...)?

Society has to make laws to protect the majority. Then we can think of ways to support people who have challenges in conforming to them. However, that doesn't have to mean changing or eroding the laws which protect the majority.

@WoolOfBat

Can we just recap so I really understand what is going on? 😣 sorry.

We have a child with a penis?

The child with a penis “know” that they are a girl?

Therefore this child wants to use the changing rooms and the loos with other girls during puberty?

When most girls are horrified by their periods and embarrassed by their changing bodies?

Please tell me that I have got this wrong?

Only a bit!

The child is now an adult, this is what they did, not what they want.

The parent was complaining that people on mumsnet kept telling her to think of others peoples daughters, who apparently were just sensitive for wanting female spaces, unlike her male daughter who needed female spaces.

Ive paraphrased, but used the posters own words.

Unbelievable, isnt it!

FemBot do you also worry about the girls who now have no spaces without males?

It's not the first time this poster has posted about her trans stepchild, as she said.

@eaglerising

I haven’t read the thread but I would fear for a trans girl using the men’s toilets

Individual cases are emotive. What about a female child rape victim being forced to change in front of a biological male (who doesn't pass very well...)?

Society has to make laws to protect the majority. Then we can think of ways to support people who have challenges in conforming to them. However, that doesn't have to mean changing or eroding the laws which protect the majority.

They are aren’t they, emotive that is. I don’t know how to highlight just one piece of a post 😊

@PheasantPlucker1

FemBot do you also worry about the girls who now have no spaces without males?

I do, and boys that don’t have any male only spaces too. As @eaglerising said individual cases are emotive and feeling for one person doesn’t mean you can’t feel for someone else.

Oh...so the child with the penis needed to access the spaces with girls in puberty and who just had gotten their period?

Why wasn’t third spaces good again?

Speaking as the mother of a girl in puberty who is mortified by her period

I’m sorry, I thought it was a child being discussed.

FemBot fair enough, its just strange your sympathy is for the one male child who was given access to any space they wanted, not the hundreds of girls in that school who had all their spaces taken away.

feeling for one person doesn’t mean you can’t feel for someone else.

No, it doesn't. However, laws protecting and making single sex provisions for biological females are there for a reason. Do not believe that catering for transgender needs requires eroding these single sex provision and protection laws. Sex and gender are distinctly separate. The needs for each are separate and require separate provisions and protections. Conflating the two means vulnerable people lose out. There needs to be separate provision.

@PheasantPlucker1

FemBot fair enough, its just strange your sympathy is for the one male child who was given access to any space they wanted, not the hundreds of girls in that school who had all their spaces taken away.

I don’t recall saying it was 🤷‍♀️

I only said I’d feel frightened for them, wow.

So when you said poor kid fembot which one were you referring too?

The one I thought was being discussed in this particular instance, turns out there is no child.

@Fembot123

The one I thought was being discussed in this particular instance, turns out there is no child.

Yes, thats what I thought. The one who was given access to any soace they wanted.

Not the hundreds of girls in that school who no longer had a girls loo and had to hold it all day, or leave the school.

🤦🏼‍♀️ I don’t know what you want, I expressed sympathy for a non existent kid having to go into a what I thought was an adult male toilet, yes. As I also clearly said I hadn’t read the thread, haranguing me because presumably you think my sympathy is an attack on whatever your stance is doesn’t make sense. You have your opinion, own it.

@Ereshkigalangcleg

It's not the first time this poster has posted about her trans stepchild, as she said.

PBP as it turned out, I thought?

If it's the same poster, of course. Similar posting style, definitely.

I want to say a big thank you to kaineus for their very coherent post and I'd love for them to start a new thread so we can have some different conversations.

I've now followed two long, long threads in which transwomen as the OPs stomped in, never having used MN before, and demanded lots of understanding and toleration. They didn't seem to know the rules, have read other threads, or in this case noticed that it's based in the UK. There were loads of considered, intelligent responses, and lots of questions asked. The OPs in question answered a couple of questions with a lot of word salad, and then buggered off.

So I'd like to suggest that the question we should be asking isn't "Is Mumsnet trans friendly?" but "Are trans posters Mumsnet friendly?" Because the two I've seen seemed to come here with a heck of an agenda; they seemed to demand a lot of consideration without offering any from their side; and they took up a lot of people's time. But what did they actually offer in return?

Fembot123, I am so sorry if you are feeling attacked. Nobody want to make anyone feel unwelcome. We had a bad day yesterday and posters here were paraded on Twitter by an insincere poster.

Women here do feel terribly sorry for any trans child. Obviously they need a safe and secure space. My understanding is just that the poster never wanted that for their child. It was never about safety and only about validation. Any feelings of young girls in puberty was dismissed as “too sensitive”. And now the child is an adult, still using single sex spaces.

I hope you stick around. There are lots of good discussions- and some spiffing recipes!

I don't think most have an issue with existing rights. It's the removal of sex based rights that's the issue

If it's the same poster, of course. Similar posting style, definitely.

Yes, of course it may not be.

It was never about safety and only about validation

And sadly, society can protect and make provision but cannot validate individual internal conflict. Society can widen the band of what is seen as acceptable where this would not physically endanger anyone. So uniforms, for example, could just be a range of clothing options which either sex can wear, toys can include a wide variety but not have gender applied to them. So we can make it easier for people to accept their different tastes and interests but we cannot take away the internal conflict. Someone has to change their mind in some way and find a way to accept themselves to do that. Validating their unease with how their sex correlates to any gender identity they have does not provide a solution to it. It's just like saying, yes, no wonder you feel uneasy, you should!

Fembot if you hadnt read the thread I understand how you misinterpreted.

I apologise if I came across as attacking you, I was gobsmacked at you expressing sympathy for the male in the story who had been given access to the girls loos and sleeping spaces!

Thanks @WoolOfBat and @PheasantPlucker1, just a misunderstanding.