Well, that's us told

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

lux-magazine.com/article/the-road-to-terfdom/

This is an article about Mumsnet FWR boards. Author doesn't like us. Oh dear.

As people get drawn into these communities, they become obsessed with a misguided sense of victimization and start to focus single-mindedly on their newfound worldview.

That doesn't sound like TRA spaces at all oh no no.

it's funny how these people completely bypass the relationships board with its daily round of practical grassroots feminism, freeing women from shitty marriages. no, MN is all talking about wallpaper and buggies.

It feels like a rehashed article, freshened up to look updated. Many of the examples were older.

I do love people telling feminists how to feminist though. Always good for a laugh to see the tired out old tropes. Oh and... right wing affiliations, let’s not forget.

Rosa Luxembourg would be turning in her grave! Btw plenty of us are not white, and find the racism of the TRAs very insulting.
It actually makes me laugh when American 'feminists' try to scold us on t*rf island, we've had rights for decades they can only dream about.

Strange how she can come to this conclusion about mean terfy mumsnetters and MRAs, but can't see how much of an influence online communities might have in encouraging gender confusion in vulnerable teens.

Indeed. Plus the sort of individuals who spout violent rhetoric towards "t**fs" from social media accounts with anime avatars. This article will do nothing to subdue them.

It feels like a rehashed article, freshened up to look updated. Many of the examples were older.

There are about six of these boring, unoriginal articles.

@ArabellaScott

The 'About' section was hilarious.

Forget about concrete & practical progress for helping women overcome structural inequality, that's so old-fashioned - what we really ought to be doing is dismantling society altogether! Genius!

I thought the careful addition of access to beauty and pleasure was a nice touch!

@ArabellaScott

Portentuous opening music, followed by

• Various suppositions made about MNers

• eminently reasonable positions taken by MNers.

And various other suppositions that didn't really logically follow - something something feminists are just like MRAs?

[climactic organ music]

All summed up with - what's portentuous backwards? Something like the Carnival of Souls end sequence, maybe.

Anyway, if anyone comes here via that article I'll be amazed welcome! Kick back and enjoy the evidence-based discussions!

Good summary! She came within a whisker of logical thought at one point. Yes, something does often change when women give birth. That's often when we realise that biology is the root of our oppression. The parallels with incels and vague 'feelings of isolation leading to bigotry' really doesn't hold together as an argument at all.

Well at least they wrote it down. Thats going to be embarrassing to read when they re-enter reality.

I am getting so tired of this idea that everyone on Mumsnet is privileged, straight, white, middle to upper class, rich! I am pleased that she directs people to Contrapoints, though, as Contrapoints videos are so daft that they direct more people to come and check out what we're actually saying.

Good grief. I read the first few paragraphs but I'm not wasting any more of my precious life reading that load of tedious codswallop.

Jog on, love.

Can you actually buy a Radicalised by Mumnet t-shirt though?

That's honestly my takeaway from reading the whole article because the rest was just more factless sighing over women not giving in to what men want.

It would be nice if govts etc... listened to this forum as much as the author seems to think they do though.

“the empire promoted laws criminalizing homosexuality and enforcing the gender binary”

Isn’t this incorrect in some respects in that Queen Victoria famously thought it was not possible for women to be homosexual?

So, if laws against homosexuality are supposed to have increased the likelihood of an entrenched idea of binary in th U.K. it can only ever have been half so.

Also, whatever the law, wasn’t homosexuality always called ‘the English disease’ by foreigners. If it was the English disease they might have been less binary according to the argument.

What could have been more stereotypical than the entrenched binary stereotypes of US films?

In practice the U.K. was always more liberal in a hidden way than (white) Americans with their more Puritan roots. Hence many US parents were shocked by the Beatles, Rolling Stones etc. U.K. had David Bowie, Punk Rock more avant-guard fashion. Individual thought. Eccentrics.

I really liked all the quotes from the posters on here. They added sunlight the issues to anyone reading. I know they were added to make her points but I think it was counterproductive.

The piece was so uneven that it was almost like she was in awe of the board to be honest but couldn't quite admit to it.

Personally I came away thinking the author is completely transphobic - after all, she denigrated and misgendered the ManFriday protestors, calling their beards "fake".

That's literally violence Katie, you transphobe. Who are you to question someone's gender identity?

You're right, @WarOnWomen. The author's so firmly convinced she's preaching to the choir that she's neglected to obfuscate and evade gender-critical arguments to the usual degree:

“'Carrying my child and birthing my child was not a fucking social construct,' another wrote."

"I read about outrage over a gym that segregates changing rooms by gender identity instead of biological sex."

The TRAs are having a normal one in reaction to the article. Apparently this board is responsible for the deaths of transwomen in Latin America. Who knew all those violent men are FWR regulars.

mobile.twitter.com/julie_neuhouser/status/1382042421517688833

@WeeBisom

I am getting so tired of this idea that everyone on Mumsnet is privileged, straight, white, middle to upper class, rich! I am pleased that she directs people to Contrapoints, though, as Contrapoints videos are so daft that they direct more people to come and check out what we're actually saying.

Exactly this - it’s so racist to assume that none of us are BAME. Most of the women I know who are gender critical are women of colour because we are the ones who have grown up in cultures where bad things happen to us because we are biological females. I doubt I could have identified out of an arranged marriage. What a fucking stupid article.

Liberal feminists - happy to ignore the lived experience of brown women everywhere in favour of hoping men will like you if you agree with everything they want to do to women.

What's the difference between an MRA and a MN?

Wallpaper

I was going to say I don't imagine Lux will get much in the way of readership beyond their own small circle jerk of the already converted - but then it was pointed out that Lux is already the name of a pre-existing magazine.
I can just imagine the confusion of ordinary people, who don't live their lives on twitter, just wanting a gander at a photo of some billionaire's bathroom and stumbling across this:

TERFs believe that women are defined by their biological differences from men. They want liberation from gender stereotypes, but don’t think it’s possible to be freed from biological sex, and argue the latter goal is not just naive but hurts efforts to combat sexual violence and discrimination.

Instead.
How many of them will read that and have a major wtf moment? The disconnect between something so blatantly true being presented as a form of radical bigotry will send them all over here just to find out what the hell is going on.
And all they wanted was to find out what kitchen appliances Kim Kardashian uses.

And as for that 'about' page ... the only concrete thing I could see they stood for was the abolition of police. That's just ... that's ... nobody takes people who want to abolish the police seriously.
Everyone with more than two brain cells understands why that is a terrible idea.
How can they be so stupid and expect anyone to take anything they have to say seriously?

When this craziness is over, some people are going to be so fucking embarrassed.
The fact that nothing is ever really lost from the internet is one of the worst features of the internet ... but sometimes it's one of the best features too.

Yes interesting choice of quotes. I wonder why no one ever chooses to demonstrate the “transphobia” here by quoting posts such as:

“I think it’s wrong that a child rapist should avoid prison just because they are going through transition.”

I wonder why?

TERFs believe that women are defined by their biological differences from men. They want liberation from gender stereotypes, but don’t think it’s possible to be freed from biological sex, and argue the latter goal is not just naive but hurts efforts to combat sexual violence and discrimination.'

I went back and read the whole article. Others quoted this and it really is the standout paragraph. She is so blinkered by her overwhelming belief that T*RFs are bad that she is unable to see that the above statement does the opposite of what she thinks it does.

So her claim is that “it’s possible to be freed from biological sex”

Go on then love, tell us how that’s going to happen. By what mechanism are we to be freed from that?

‘TERFs believe that women are defined by their biological differences from men. They want liberation from gender stereotypes, but don’t think it’s possible to be freed from biological sex, and argue the latter goal is not just naive but hurts efforts to combat sexual violence and discrimination.'

I assume someone writing that is secretly gender critical. It sums up gender critical beliefs really well and almost everyone will agree with it.

That and other quotes like the giving birth one basically function as an advert for gender critical feminism.

Research shows that nearly all Mumsnetters are women. More specifically, they are believed to be mostly white, middle-class, heterosexual women

Looking at her journalist profile, the author also appears to be white and middle class with nothing to suggest she is homosexual 🤷‍♀️