Should MN have a Gender Identity (or similar) subsection?

[TheThermalStair]

I used to be a really active member of this board, for years. Similar with real life groups. Now there are very few discussions about most feminist issues, and tonnes and tonnes about trans/gender identity issues.

I FULLY UNDERSTAND why people are interested in talking about this, on all sides. But I miss discussions about other issues. To me having a feminist board that seems to be 90% gender chat isn't representative of the feminist issues that women face in the UK let alone in the rest of the world. The alternative would be to have a "non trans/gender identity related feminist chat board" but that feels pretty silly. Is it just me that feels this way?

As far as I am aware there is not one single trans man or woman in a position of authority in our armed forces, civil service, the NHS or any private entity that has any influence on policy and government direction.

And yet we see the political women’s officers who are influencing policy that are male and some who transitioned within 2 years of become chairpeople of women’s group or women’s officers.

They are actively involved in shaping policy and campaigning. There are transwomen in executive positions and in lobby groups that are, actively involved in shaping policy and government decisions when they are, in fact, not elected government representatives.

And there are quite a number of prominent transwomen spokespeople who get access to the government committees and to media. And much less so transmen spokespeople.

Do you have any figures to support that male partners of trans women in the UK are less violent to them than their counterparts to women who aren't trans?

Although this is again male violence between those who are male, and those born male who identify as female. I wonder if this is a similar rate of violence to males who are in relationships with those who are male and identify as male.

Although TBF. I'm more interested in preventing the violence that males inflict on women.

I’d love there to be an active feminism board where threads were not dominated by the GC dogma.

Unlike every other feminist space which has been completely taken over by gender identity ideology dogma, pronouns, female erasure with awful "inclusive" terms like menstruators and cervix havers.

If some are sick of seing certain topics, then I would support a seperate area for those people to post about whatever it is they want to post about that they apparently cannot post on this section because reasons?

I am not really one for 'they are talking about something I am not interested in, remove them' tbh. On any topic.

I am actually interested in how a bunch of 'feminist topics' could even be talked abut without any referal to 'GC' (which to many seems to mean, even referencing sex) though. So I would lurk said section for a while I think, if it appeared!

Steph

I think you might be right. Two women in a week die violent deaths, overwhelmingly at the hands of people they know. Normally partners or ex partners from predominantly heterosexual relationships. Targeting mainly trans women in an effort to put a stop to this is most likely not too going to be as effective as some think. By all means criticise trans people but the real battle is with your husbands, your brother's and your sons. In my opinion, a separate gender identity section would ensure those seeking to progress the safety of women across the world weren't bogged down in the intolerance of trans exclusionary bigots hiding under feminism. (Tebhof's).

Funny you should say that. Check out my thread. The Counting Dead Women project, which aims to increase awareness of EXACTLY the issue you describe, was lambasted across social media for not centring transwomen, just after Sarah Everard was killed.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/a4189718-to-be-FURIOUS-that-Karen-Ingala-Smith-and-the-Counting-Dead-Women-Project-were-defamed?msgid=105481607#105481607

@Floisme

Why am I'm beginning to feel like I've heard some of these arguments before:

'We don't like this space. Give it to us.'

'We've worked very hard to build up this space. Why don't you start your own? Some of us might even be able to help you.'

'No we don't want to do that. We want your space.'

Exactly this.

Entryism: the policy or practice of members of a particular political group joining an existing political party with the intention of changing its principles and policies, instead of forming a new party

The Progressive Cycle of Entryism.

Step 1. Select number of people, or a specific group, make a space for themselves and others like them to exist, socialise, or otherwise engage in association within.

Step 2. This space becomes successful, competitive, popularised or otherwise noticeable and at least somewhat desirable, due largely, if not entirely, to the work efforts of the aforementioned select gathering of people or group.

Step 3. Outsiders who played no role in the creation or success of said "space" begin to exclaim, often fraudulently, that they are being intentionally excluded from this "space" and demand they be included to make said "space" more "diverse" and "inclusive".

Step 4. Outsiders who played no role in the creation or success of said "space" begin to exclaim, often fraudulently, that due to the exclusionary construction of the "space", said "space" must be changed to better suit the outsider's needs in order to be truly "inclusive".

Step 5. Outsiders who played no role in the creation or success of said "space" begin to exclaim, often fraudulently, that the majority of those who constructed said "space" are bigoted towards "inclusivity" and "diversity" and must therefore be removed from said "space".

Step 6. Those who are removed go back to Step 1. And the cycle begins again.

FWR has gone from being a sparsely frequented board (relative to the other boards on MN) to a place where GC women worldwide know they can visit and get support and information. Genderists know it, and that's why they would like GC women moved on. But we all know they won't just leave GC women alone to talk, share knowledge, mobilise. We are not allowed to have our own space. Our reliance on logic, science and actual experience of womenhood is too dangerous to their ends.

I am reminded of the words from HG Wells' War of the Worlds: Across the gulf of space... intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us.

My post in March

As I'm sure many of you know, for International Women's Day, Jess Phillips MP read all the names of the women killed by a man in the UK since the last IWD. One hundred and eighteen names. Usually she gets accused on social media of not caring about male murder victims afterwards. This year, I thought no-one would dare do that.

However, this afternoon, just a couple of days after Sarah Everard was found, a writer criticised the list on twitter, and claimed it was incomplete. She said,"Incorrect. Jess Phillips has never read out a complete list. Phillips and the author of Counting Dead Women deliberately exclude the names of murdered trans women (or as the founder of CDW calls them: 'males')."

That attack has been shared across twitter and across social media in general.

Just one big issue though. As Karen clarified, no names of murdered transwomen in the UK could have been read out, becausenonewere murdered this year.

Karen said:if anyone wants to know why Jess Phillips didn’t read any names of men who identify as transwomen in the list of women killed by men since IWD last year, it’s largely because there were none.
There were 118 women though. One hundred and eighteen. Why do you overlook them?

She went on to add that if a transwoman is murdered, it would be Jess Phillips' decision, as she's the one to read the names in Parliament, whether to add her name to the list. (Which seems perfectly reasonable to me.)

This lie that names were left out has gone round all over the place. I don't expect it'll ever fully die.

Why was it so easy for people to believe the worst of Jess Phillips and Karen Ingala Smith? Thousands of people believed the worst of these two women who have done SO MUCH for women, on the basis of a twitter thread from a writer.

How much must a woman do to help and support others, before people give her the benefit of the doubt and do a fact-check, when someone smears her?

This has just broken me, more than any other amount of foolishness on SM ever has. That anyone could spread these lies, this week of all weeks. Someone will always find some excuse to get the public to dismiss projects like Counting Dead Women, instead of focusing on over one hundred dead women.

@MotherOffCod

MNHQ have been asked before to either rename this board, or to provide an alternative for feminists who are not GC. They’ve declined, consistently, for years.

The hostility directed at posters on this board who aren’t GC has been escalating for years. It’s beyond satire at this point.

And more than that, there’s a presumption now of posters here being very GC, and that tone is totally off-putting.

Its like sitting at dinner with a load of people all loudly being horrible about people you care about, and you have to keep quiet because otherwise they’re all going to start in on you.

So the non GC posters are long gone, or maybe like me they stick their heads in now and again to see what’s the latest state of things, and whether there are any threads that aren’t denigrating trans people.

I’m not willing to be part of threads that denigrate trans people in general, misgender them, take the piss out them for being trans, call it dangerous nonsense, and so on and so on.

And the vast majority of threads here are like that. Even when they start off not being like that, because the board is overwhelmingly GC, almost all threads cover that angle at some point.

I’d love there to be an active feminism board where threads were not dominated by the GC dogma.

But it’s not going to happen.

That ship has long ago sailed and MNHQ seem content with the situation. Meanwhile, FWR attracts a whole lot of posters and lurkers to mn who are seeking out exactly the sort of community and posts that have driven away trans inclusive women.

Sad, but true.

Even in AIBU now there are things that as soon as the thread starts, you can guarantee it’s going to get swooped on by posters pushing GC dogma.

It again, MMHQ seems content to let that continue.

There’s no hostility, there’s defence, look at your own post which is you flouncing in, accusing and then flouncing off again, now you’ve made your point. Except you haven’t made any points.

You haven’t engaged on a single point of what GC women find problematic. You have accused on masse. End of.

Feminism isn’t cosy, polite or nice.
This board is one of the last places where women can talk.
And a handful of people come in and say “we don’t like it”
What don’t you like exactly?
You don’t like women talking!

Thank you, Stonecat . But I should say that almost none of that post on entryism are my words - these are from an excellent diagram I saw (probably on these pages) a while back. I wish I could name the person to whom I owe the credit.

(and obvs, thanks to the wonderful Glinner for my username )

Hi thermal I've been posting here a very long time. Probably almost 10 years. I miss the old board too and I agree with what you say. Unfortunately MNHQ decided to punt all the trans threads over here (with support of many mumsnet members I think who regularly ask for trans threads to be moved). Then reddit gender critical got closed so I think we got new members.
It makes me sad that threads that aren't trans related fall down the boards quickly and don't get replies.
The MRAs are still quick to derail anything they find threatening e.g. threads about prostitution. But it's noticeable to me that there are far fewer now the board is dominated with discussion about trans politics. I think that shows how successfully feminism has been disrupted by the issue.
I also personally get annoyed by the number of posters who aren't feminist and don't have much knowledge of feminism being drawn here because they want to discuss the trans issue, then posting anti-feminist piffle on other threads.

I haven’t read the whole thread and so it’s probably already been said, but I wouldn’t go near a gender identity board, as I’d assume it was pro TRA. I do refresh the Feminism board regularly to see what is there and there are non trans issues raised which I do see.

@QuentinBunbury

Hi thermal I've been posting here a very long time. Probably almost 10 years. I miss the old board too and I agree with what you say. Unfortunately MNHQ decided to punt all the trans threads over here (with support of many mumsnet members I think who regularly ask for trans threads to be moved). Then reddit gender critical got closed so I think we got new members. It makes me sad that threads that aren't trans related fall down the boards quickly and don't get replies. The MRAs are still quick to derail anything they find threatening e.g. threads about prostitution. But it's noticeable to me that there are far fewer now the board is dominated with discussion about trans politics. I think that shows how successfully feminism has been disrupted by the issue. I also personally get annoyed by the number of posters who aren't feminist and don't have much knowledge of feminism being drawn here because they want to discuss the trans issue, then posting anti-feminist piffle on other threads.

Useful post, thanks. Good point that so-called "trans issues" get pushed here out of other subsections because a few posters moan loudly about it if there's any sniff of trans topics in Chat or AIBU. There's also the LGBT Children section that could get more use I think, but FWR has become the default 'oh it's about trans or gender or gender identity or biological sex so put it there' section.

And there are definitely posters who join in threads regularly claiming to be feminist but if you look at their posts elsewhere just seem to like disagreeing with things for the sake of it without actually putting forward their own argument or being able to articulate an actual position, so it becomes very tediously just sniping. Or every thread gets derailed to become about toilets, which I despair of, but fine, if that's what posters want to discuss - again - , I'll take my boredom elsewhere!

The long and short of it is we have some absolutely fantastic knowledgeable posters here with a range of experiences and ways of seeing the world and it'd be great to continue to let them have room to post and expand everyone's knowledge. I know I'm fed up of having the same arguments and do wonder why I keep at it - and the answer is still, years later, that I can't bring myself to believe it's all based on sexist stereotypes, so I try and find what the opposing point of view/argument actually is - basic stuff like 'what is a woman', 'what is gender', and more head-scratchy stuff like 'what does gender have to do with bodies', etc - I've seen glimpses of posters that might be able to talk me through this but they either get drowned out by the shouty ones (on both sides!) or get offended/defensive/deflective when you ask such questions.

Sure, ask for a gender identity board, but we will still discuss gender ideology/self ID etc in the FWR section because it's currently a huge threat to women and girls and a massive safeguarding issue.

The reason there are so many threads about this subject is because of how much this harmful ideology is affecting every part of the experience of being a female in this world. I don't like the threads either because they remind me of how badly women and girls are being fucked over, but this is precisely the reason we have to talk about it whenever we can, especially in the feminism section. It's 100% a feminist issue.

@QuentinBunbury
I also personally get annoyed by the number of posters who aren't feminist and don't have much knowledge of feminism being drawn here because they want to discuss the trans issue, then posting anti-feminist piffle on other threads.

What should the entry level qualification be for the right to discuss women's issues on the FWR board? Do you mean knowledge of feminist literature/theory? Isn't that a bit exclusionary?

Unfortunately MNHQ decided to punt all the trans threads over here (with support of many mumsnet members I think who regularly ask for trans threads to be moved).

So why are you surprised that women who want to discuss the matter generally, or more importantly, seek help and support when it affects their lives, post on here?

In any event, whenever I have seen posts in AIBU or elsewhere defending the rights of women against genderism, the support has been overwhelmingly positive. I would be very happy to see the matter being discussed on the more popular boards, because it has a negative effect on all women, whether they consider themselves to be feminists not. However, those who complain that this board is far too GC also complain whenever GC views are discussed on other boards. Let's be real, they don't really want to move the discussion onto a different board, they want us to shut up full stop. Because we are winning the argument.

What should the entry level qualification be for the right to discuss women's issues on the FWR board?

I don't want to speak for Quentin, but generally - to want to end the oppression of women as a class.
I don't think QB was implying you need any qualifications, but the ability to scrutinise and question one's own attitudes and biases/socialisation is important. So, as one example, there is someone who posts on here fairly regularly who posted elsewhere defending a business practice that preys primarily on low-income women but refused to acknowledge this and that it disproportionately affected women. Or those who say they wouldn't employ a woman of childbearing age etc etc (I've seen this!)

I do wonder if the regular posters from 5 or 10 years ago are still here now and have all decided that GC stuff is the number one focus

I think it’s more that the issues have suddenly come to the fore, OP.

I’m a lifelong feminist, but I had barely noticed the gender identity movement until I read about the attack on Maria MacLachlan in 2017. Now it’s unavoidable.

Once I saw the removal of women’s single-sex rights, the damage to young lesbians and the shredding of child safeguarding policies, I couldn’t ignore it all.

I think what is sad about this whole proposition that somehow anti trans non feminims posters have colonised FWR and alienation old timers is exactly the tactic that men use to say you made me do it.

There are very, very few social media platforms where gender critical feminists can post. Gender critical as in early Women's Liberation feminist that gender is a social construct that damages both men and women.

So obviously those who saw, in response to the consultation on the GRA a place where they had the freedom to discuss openly an issue that is being used, by others, to undermine women's rights.

All this talk about MRAs coming here, is just one persons personal perception. When you compare how MRAs are using trans rights to silence and get banned women who want to speak up for women's rights it is laughable.

And lots of us for instance post on the terrible toll of domesstic violence. Some of us have tried to provide practical support and links to women trying to escape DV. It is incredibly arrogant to say that because the OP hasn't notice them they aren't happening.

And again, it is a total failure to recognise what is happening in the real world. Women's refuges are loosing funding because of wanting to implement the legitimate single sex service for women. Going all I'm really the only one who really cares and not being aware of this threat to women's services is just, I was going to say absurd, but is actually frighteningly unaware of what is going on in the women's sector.

And as other's have mentioned up thread, after the murder of Sarah Everard you would thought that women would come together and share ideas about campaigning, etc.. But no, the women who decided to appropriate the slogan Reclaim These Streets than started censoring women who talk about sex being a biological reality. Additionally they refused to say that any money collected in "their" name would go to any women's projects that ae single sex provision.

It isn't GC feminists who are shutting down conversations.

I dont know what planet you have been on, but the world has moved on.

I have been involved in feminism since the days of women's liberation and with what is known as the women's sector, ie women's refuges, rape crisis helpline. Gone are the days when you might do a fundraiser so that children living in refuges could get a holiday over the summer, our lobby a local authority to provide another house because the demand for bed spaces have gone up.

Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING that women want to do for themselves and for other women in now constrained and actively undermind by the demand that women MUST accept that trans women are women.

It impacts on funding, it impacts on who gets consulted, it impacts on women have save spaces, it impacts for some women on whether or not they lose their job.

It is pie in the sky to claim you can discuss women's issues without this coming up - and being used against women who want to fight for women's rights and women's right to live without fear of men's violence.

And yet somehow OP twists this round that those pointing out this staggering power that the TWAW lobby has, are the problem. The problem are those who want to silence women's voices. And now OP comes on one of the few places where women can freely discuss this and say it is alienating.

You have the whole of the rest of the internet to discuss issues pretending this threat to women's rights doesn't exist, but you come to the one place where women can talk about their rights and not be bullied into saying they agree that others rights come before women's rights.

How can you not see this when you must be aware of the totally onslaught JKR had. Not just on social media, but in MSM.

And just to add although some on MNHQs rules are really strange (that whole petition thing not being allowed to appear in threads aobut the issue the petition has been set up for ) many thanks to MNHQ for allowing women who are silenced everywhere else to have a forum.

I was told off by Dittany. I learned a lesson about radical feminism that day a decade ago :)

Someone up thread mentioned a thread on site stuff about FWR.

What a bunch of underhand definitely "not in the spirit" posts. If MNHQ took up the ideas of these posters and nobody on FWR was even aware it was up for discussion, it would be totally undemocratic.

And again this notion that everyone is acting in bad faith.

Yes there are loads of duplicate threads. That's because more often than not someone sees something or has a thought and just posts without bothering to check if there is any existing thread.

Also many seem to think give a thread an obscure title is somehow going to make it more interesting, whereas the most on FWR will probably skip over thinking I dont have time to work out what this is about. eg a thread on the change to toilet provision was titled well, well, well. So guess what somene came along and thought FWR users will want to know about this and created a thread clearly stating what the issue was ie the provision of toilets for women. (IMO! I would really encourage creating titles that are explicit about the issue, not just to make FWR easier to use, but because - as someone pointed out to me - google obviously scans this site and there is no better way to get an issue into the wider public consciousness than have a FWR thread come up first on a google search.)

I am not so keen on those who immediately assume someone has started a thread in bad faith, and /or aks why someone has posted on a feminist thread. Whether it is about bras, yes women who are feminist do have concerns about bras, or an issue about a child at school, there is no harm in starting out assumping the post is in good faith, and wait to see whether it plays out like that.

I agree OP.