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.

People keep mentioning that it's Latin, and I bet none of you are pronouncing it correctly.

Like sissy?

I have recently seen first hand, on TikTok, men who tell me they want to repeal the 19th amendment.

If a transwoman, born male, but who wishes to present as a feminine woman, was faced with a world where women were forcibly and legally denied the democratic right to vote, they could, should they choose, present as male in order to have their voice heard.

A biological woman cannot identify out of her biology.

Can you not see that?

@Liquorishtoffee

And inflicting words on people who neither want nor need them is just bullying nonsense.

Exactly

@bethanybiskits

I see people offended by 'cis'. Are you also offended by 'straight'? Because the exact same arguments have been made by homophobes.

It's not a slur, it's a completely appropriate word to use in the context of discussing gender and sex. I'm white. I'm female. I'm British. I'm cis. Frankly, it doesn't matter if you're offended by it, the word isn't going away; it's useful and is the correct latin form opposite of trans.

I'm not offended by people calling me 'cis'. They're just mistaken, as I don't have a gender identity.

I live in a mostly Muslim country & people often assume that I'm Christian.

I'm not - I'm an atheist.

This doesn't 'offend' me, & I don't get pissy about it, because it's actually FINE a) to not subscribe to a particular belief & b) for other people to come up with erroneous assumptions which one simply politely corrects, & everyone then moves on - or at least that's generally how reasonable people behave.

So - I'm not a Christian, & I'm not 'cis'. These are not my beliefs.

@midgedude

Like sissy?

Kis. But every time I've heard someone say it RL by someone talking about gender issues, it's been pronounced as in sissy.

Of course, I'm never normally so gauche as to say anything then, but then they don't normally lecture me on how it's Latin.

I recall being told that church Latin and Roman Latin had different sounds ?

Also 'cis' is fucking horrible Latin, given that no one reads Caesar for the language. There's a reason why De Bello Gallico is a GCSE text - it's straightforward clunky prose which was good propaganda at the time & is easy to de-code for students just learning the language now.

Alps aside, it never caught on .

I think the discussions on Mumsnet are predominantly and remarkably wide-ranging, interesting, and well-informed.

I think my late mother said much the same, and told me that since I was self-teaching out of school (she was of the last generation to do Latin at state school) to skip De Bello Gallico just because I could. I did have a look anyway, just because there's never been a time someone told me not to read something that I didn't think, "right then".

That is a bloody excellent rule to live by, Potholes

@midgedude

I recall being told that church Latin and Roman Latin had different sounds ?

Probably. They messed around a lot with Latin then. But I stick with the textbook pronunciation system I memorised, and use that when I want to be pretentious.

My heart always wrenches for poor Catherine of Aragon. Brought up in Spain to speak Latin as the international language of communication in the expectation of a foreign marriage, she got to the English court of Henry VII and couldn't communicate after all. Only the bishops could understand her spoken Latin because of her Spanish pronunciation.

To be incredibly simplistic about it, I find myself to be woman, man, and other.

OK have managed to RTFT here, and had a poke about on the other similar one, and one thing that has occurred to me is that this is an anonymous internet discussion forum.

Anybody could be anybody. One can glean a bit of insight into what a person posting is possibly like based on their style of writing, the subject matter etc etc. Even so, one has to take it at face value to a certain degree and accept they are " posting in good faith" until proven otherwise etc.

So it made me wonder why if TWAW they don't just rock up, post as women, chat about their womanly issues and just become part of the sisterhood they have always been a member of? We'd never know anything different as no doubt they would be invested in women's rights in general, safeguarding etc if they were posting here in solidarity, which I for one would absolutely welcome. It wouldn't preclude debate because the many various women here have many and varied opinions anyway.

Just wondered, that's all.

@MistressoftheDarkSide

OK have managed to RTFT here, and had a poke about on the other similar one, and one thing that has occurred to me is that this is an anonymous internet discussion forum.

Anybody could be anybody. One can glean a bit of insight into what a person posting is possibly like based on their style of writing, the subject matter etc etc. Even so, one has to take it at face value to a certain degree and accept they are " posting in good faith" until proven otherwise etc.

So it made me wonder why if TWAW they don't just rock up, post as women, chat about their womanly issues and just become part of the sisterhood they have always been a member of? We'd never know anything different as no doubt they would be invested in women's rights in general, safeguarding etc if they were posting here in solidarity, which I for one would absolutely welcome. It wouldn't preclude debate because the many various women here have many and varied opinions anyway.

Just wondered, that's all.

How do you know they don't do this?

How do you know they don't do this?

That's what I was thinking. This OP is just one person. Not representative of all posters on mn.

Cis and Trans are terms used in Chemistry, denoting mirror image molecules. Not anything to do with human mammalian biology.

The issue here is that some people believe that standing up for the rights of females to single sex protections in certain circumstances automatically means they are campaigning agains trans rights, that is incorrect. Some people hold the belief that people can change sex. I’d argue that far more believe the opposite, as it’s never actually been done. To state this is seen by others as hateful. But why is it? I don’t think it’s hateful for someone to tell me they believe they are now the opposite sex to that which they were born. I just don’t agree with them. No one can compel me to accept an ideology that I just don’t believe in. That isn’t hateful nor does it mean I want anyone to disappear.
As for phrases such as “lived experience”, that’s such a daft phrase. Any experience a person has is exactly that, because we don’t have experiences when we’re dead!
OP, I’ve seen very little of this campaigning against the rights trans people already have of which you claim. What I have seen is an uprising from feminists who are fighting to retain the sex based rights that we fought long and hard for in my lifetime. Gender ideology is just that. An ideology.

Good point. Maybe they do.

@Nightinghawk,

Ignoring the “spoons” which actually I found really interesting when you clarified, thanks, the rest of your replies are like a word soup.

To progress any type of debate or discussion it is key that the participants understand the language that is being used. With that in mind how would you define “woman” and “man”? Following that can you explain how it is possible for a human to be both “woman, man and other” at the same time and, in this context, what does “other” mean to you?

Thanks.

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

I think you’ll find on MB, people refer to other posts either by the name of who’s written it ie @Nightinghawk or by OP, as in Original Poster. Pronouns are not necessary. For some, it’s not obvious what their sex is from their user name.

They're just massively outweighed by the TRAs who utterly undermine their cause.

Perhaps the trans community should do something about it. Stop the TRAs and MRAs derailing things.

@bethanybiskits

I see people offended by 'cis'. Are you also offended by 'straight'? Because the exact same arguments have been made by homophobes.

It's not a slur, it's a completely appropriate word to use in the context of discussing gender and sex. I'm white. I'm female. I'm British. I'm cis. Frankly, it doesn't matter if you're offended by it, the word isn't going away; it's useful and is the correct latin form opposite of trans.

Re: The straight/gay, cis/trans comparison.

This gets raised alot,

I object less to straight/gay because it doesn't try to make anyone a subset of a group (except human) and because I don't reject the concept of sexual orientation but I do reject the concept of gender and don't have a gender identity. Cis is "when a person's gender identity corresponds to their sex as assigned at birth." and it was made up in the 1990's by a German sexologist. Well I don't have one, so you are creating one for me, and then saying it aligns with my sex. That is an assumption you are making about me.

Women and trans women, men and trans men does the job admirably.

Also we are told how we must refer to people and how we must not refer to trans people, but when we ask for the same consideration it is ignored and we are called hateful. This is double standards.

Sexuality is not a spectrum it's an attraction/orientation towards others It doesn't go:
very gay, a bit gay, barely gay, neither gay nor straight, barely straight, a bit straight, very straight.

You have an erotic or emotional target (a love interest) Sometimes it is directed to one sex, sometimes another, sometimes both, sometimes at objects instead of people, sometimes at people with specific qualities, sometimes inwards.

Some people need that person to be very physically stereotypical of the target sex, some people aren't that bothered.

I tend not to refer to myself by my sexuality, since it isn't an identity. If I had to describe sexuality, I would say I am female and in a very LTR with a the father of my children, I have not had very much experience of anything else (not from want of trying back in the day I assure you).
I would describe myself as pansexual /sapiosexual if I were on the prowl. I would not reject someone as a partner on the basis of being transexual. I would accept them on their individual merits and looks (and smell). However I could never be attracted to someone with an inflexible or irrational belief system.

Hopefully I wouldn't be expected to describe my sexuality and pattern of attraction in my email signature at work. It would be a bit intrusive and I would find gay/straight/bi a bit reductive.

@PotholeParadies

I think my late mother said much the same, and told me that since I was self-teaching out of school (she was of the last generation to do Latin at state school) to skip De Bello Gallico just because I could. I did have a look anyway, just because there's never been a time someone told me not to read something that I didn't think, "right then".

There's a bit in Goodbye, Mr.Chips where old Chipping, who teaches Latin, ridicules the school's new policy to pronounce Cicero 'Kickero'.

Meanwhile, I'm working on an update of the novel, called 'My New Transgender Life; Hello Mrs.Chips'.