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?

Without the ability to define what a woman you could find threads on this board about the unfairness of funding for prostate cancer treatment as that will become a feminist issue.

No. I think this is relevant to feminism and reflects what people want to discuss. I agree that there are more pressing issues but there are threads on other topics. There are also a lot of posters on this section who aren’t necessarily feminist in their outlook but I think that increases in traffic to the site are a good thing.

And Personally I think you are minimising something which is the biggest threat feminism has ever seen.

Your representation in parliament could, in a heartbeat, be taken by a male, as could your representation in every political party, in women's groups, in the decision-making positions in rape refuges, domestic violence shelters, in student unions, trade unions, in broadcasting, publishing, the lot. And yes, abortion protocols. Not just by a male, but by a male who advocates for sexist stereotypes, or a male who specifically seeks out those positions which give women power.

The very gains that women have fought for, to have these positions where their representation is heard, are the ones being targeted.

It's an attack on the heart of feminism.

And the biggest weapon being used is one of enforced silence.

So it's a no from me.

100% to all of this.

It's not a question of wanting to keep it the central issue on the board. If other posters want to come on here and start threads that are on other issues and the board gets a greater variety of threads, I can't imagine that anyone on here would have a problem with that. It's more a case of not finding it acceptable that people want us to be shunted off to some new board.

And yes, exactly. I found it really quite presumptuous, that people who hardly ever post here think they should be able to dictate what I post here.

I think it's cool actually.

The feminists who are interested in females should go to a discrete section. That will make it easier to get the section banned, see which posters are interested, try and work out who they are irl possibly.. The other cool thing will be that the monitors won't have to open and read any threads they're not interested in eg sex offences in schools and waste their time.

The main board can then be used for real feminism.

Sex work is work.
Age of consent laws are problematic.
How to express your femininity through clothes and makeup and be empowered
Activities to improve self confidence eg burlesque.
The joy of having power over men by hypnotising them with sex appeal.
Why porn is great and kink shaming is bad.
Fighting the bigoted attitudes towards those who take their whole self to work and joyfully masturbate and piss in their rubber pants at work.
Ideas about why women who are older are so shit.
Etc etc

Sounds wonderful! And also then it will be a truly modern feminism like on Twitter.

Sounds wonderful! And also then it will be a truly modern feminism like on Twitter.

What an amazing modern space it would be. We'll just push off to the basement 👍

@NiceGerbil

I think it's cool actually.

The feminists who are interested in females should go to a discrete section. That will make it easier to get the section banned, see which posters are interested, try and work out who they are irl possibly.. The other cool thing will be that the monitors won't have to open and read any threads they're not interested in eg sex offences in schools and waste their time.

The main board can then be used for real feminism.

Sex work is work.
Age of consent laws are problematic.
How to express your femininity through clothes and makeup and be empowered
Activities to improve self confidence eg burlesque.
The joy of having power over men by hypnotising them with sex appeal.
Why porn is great and kink shaming is bad.
Fighting the bigoted attitudes towards those who take their whole self to work and joyfully masturbate and piss in their rubber pants at work.
Ideas about why women who are older are so shit.
Etc etc

Sounds wonderful! And also then it will be a truly modern feminism like on Twitter.

And how anal is super-empowering Maybe also some stuff about how my feminism will centre trans women OR IT WILL BE BULLSHIT

Not to mention important parenting issues:
What drugs to take to induce milk-like-body fluid production for chest feeding.
How to get the best bargain when looking for a gestational carrier.

Why feminism activism should stop focussing on gynocentric issues?

Where to get the best packer for my 3-yo trans son
How cis women need to STFU and check their privilege
The Shon Faye stan-thread

Actually, I think Titania got it right a week or so ago...

“Bipedal gestation unit”

Catchy ain’t it? I think I could see it used in a headline in the near future for the threads of that board that will look largely like modern twitter feminism.

Honestly not wanting to talk about gender identity stuff as much as some posters here do is not equivalent to being some kind of super libfem stereotype and it's pretty shitty to pretend it is. I've been respectful on this thread as have most other people, so why be a dick about it? Perhaps save your ire for people who are actually in conflict with you.

I can see that this is a space where many people feel able to say things they can't necessarily say in the rest of their life, and some posters have been attacked both online and IRL, so it's not surprising if there's a "woman the barricades" mentality but there's no need to act like everyone except you is a crap feminist and/or out to get you. A lot of normal people are out here who may not be as deep into reading/campaigning on this issue as you but don't deserve your contempt.

Every single person bar one who has raised this topic in real life think it's rubbish.

I don't raise it myself for various reasons.

As for mocking. Yes I can see that. On the other hand all the items suggested have been raised at one point or another by those who support all of this.

So if it's things that are said, is it really mocking? And if it's seen as mocking, why, when all of the things I have written are things I have read. Some of those items in fact lots of them have been on pretty well known magazine sites, or comment pieces on news and current events type media.

And women who say they don't want male sex offenders in women's prisons are often claimed to be racist, classist, homophobic, extreme right wingers, no better then Nazis (!), upholders of strict sex roles, wanting women in the kitchen, believing women should not go to university, wanting and encouraging violence and murder of trans people, 'weaponising' their experiences of male violence/ male sexual violence etc etc.

Water off a ducks back for me cos I know what I'm like and that isn't it!

Fair enough Gerbil. But it’s a bit different some trashy journalists writing things for copy to just chucking it at posters on here.

That should say women's prisons etc. Sorry.

A lot of normal people are out here

How very dare you.

Thermal you started a thread suggesting the regular and semi-regular posters on FWR should be penned in somewhere else so that feminists can get down to real feminism. Many posters suggested starting your own thread and you posted about fathers walking women down the aisle - which with the best will in the world isn't the most pressing matter facing women in the UK when a) loads of women don't bother with that anyway, many people are given away by people other than their father, it's not required in a church or in a registry office and we can have civil partnerships now if we want and b) there are actual moves afoot to change the law so that any man who says he's a woman can access female spaces (that includes teenage boys in school using the same loos and changing rooms as girls, male prisoners being moved into the female estate and male patients being treated on female mental health wards etc) c) It is also the case that numerous sporting bodies are allowing male born people to compete against women in women's categories d) there are attempts to change the language women use to describe themselves in law, in the health service and in society at large, and e) and f) and g) on and on, but I guess whether or not some women feel obliged to have a very traditional wedding by contemporary standards is more important.

It’s weird that for a niche topic that no ones interested in (“normal” people is an unfortunate way of putting that), every time a thread breaks free and makes it to AIBU or chat, the vast majority of posters post in ways that would be entirely in keeping with posts on this board. The majority of MN users (80% maybe?) are broadly “gender critical” whenever you poll them. Last time was only a couple of days ago. I might dig out the link...

at Joody, yes isn’t it amazing how posters who just never darken the portals of this board are also completely au fait with everything that gets posted here, and manage to effortlessly find and comment on threads in here bashing the place. A rare talent!

It's not directed at anyone directly.

I was just thinking. That if posters are essentially barred on the main board from mentioning anything to do with that. Then all the MRAs, Reddit chaps, f4j, the others who have come here plus of course the current monitors will gleefully join and have at it.

If there's to be no use of girl, woman, female on the main board then arguing back is going to be tough.

Why are feminists who don't support categorising by gender so awful? (That would be fine as there's been more thann one thread saying they don't understand libdems!).

In reality what would the outcome be? I suspect a disaster. (I don't know obv. But for years the more outspoken women have managed to keep those people at bay. Learnt how to handle them over years posting on here. And from what I know, those who are still here do all see as the number 1 issue because women and girls are being harmed in so many ways and we are losing/ have lost the language to even talk about it properly.

So it's still a hard no.

Do you not think gestational carriers is a serious topic for feminist discussion?

LOL Hecate funnily enough I'm dealing with rather a lot IRL at the moment and haven't yet had much time to come up with scintillating threads to represent the whole gamut of feminism, but I have been getting stuck back in and posting on various other people's threads on the board so I hope soon to win my shiny FWR Poster badge back. Sorry I haven't impressed/delighted you enough yet.

And no-one has suggested "penning anyone in", do you think people posting in other subsections are penned in? Am I a sheepdog and do I go woof woof? I asked a question and there have been various answers with a clear consensus that a subsection isn't wanted.

' A lot of normal people are out here who may not be as deep into reading/campaigning on this issue as you but don't deserve your contempt.'

Oh lol I missed that. Bit of a slip that OP. Oopsie! The sort of slip that the other way around would be held up if evidence as all sorts of things.

I'm not on Twitter and if I was I wouldn't bother anyway because it's like stroppy teenage behaviour.

And anyway. What is normal anyway?

It was this one that I was thinking of:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4235031-To-think-that-a-Rape-Crisis-centre-should-not-have-a-transwoman-CEO

87% YANBU. More than I remembered!

What about cervical cancer screening and care? Is that something feminist should be concerned about now we are told it affects men as well?