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?

Thanks for pointing out personal experiences where this is impacting you and your families, I haven't had those yet.

"I just feel a bit like a lot of it is misogynists/trolls going LOOK OVER THERE and we all look over there" - when I say this I don't mean people trolling on this board, I mean people are doing it elsewhere and this board pays attention.

@LibertyMole

People complaining that they have to hide the feminism board because it is doing feminism wrong have also been a main feature of the board since its inception.

Oh, that is somehow unsurprising.

OP have you tried to post your own threads? I think that various topics are discussed here. It’s just a reflection of reality that so many aspects of women’s lives (school indoctrination, sport capture, menopause, pregnancy etc) are captured by the ideology that is based on sex stereotypes that in not surprised it might look like it’s one topic.

I just feel a bit like a lot of it is misogynists/trolls going LOOK OVER THERE and we all look over there. Meanwhile shit continues to go down.

It does indeed go down, but you seem rather dismissive of the concerns women have about this. The denial that sex is important is all part of a whole attitude towards women's rights, and yes, as you said, you are being naive.

I've written under other usernames about the CSA which makes me unable to deal with men in enclosed spaces especially toilets.

My university has literally made it impossible for me to use our new sports facilities or half the toilets across campus.

I'm sure in a lovely ideal world I could deprogramme a fear of men, but you know what, if I haven't been able to by my early 40s, it's not happening.

I'm sure people out there couldn't care less about me and my selfish sadness about being excluded from some things, but it's not just me, and it's not just these things. It's vulnerable women everywhere.

This is not some theoretical daydream fantasy to wish away. This is a programmed and systematic attack on women's rights.

Yes. I am battle weary, and pissed off at the "Go away and be upset somewhere else please" brigade. I don't know how you can just brush these issues aside, I really don't.

I’m really not interested in hearing more about this issue.

What issue?

And yet for such a tiny amount of people, we actually had to fight to have the word mother included in a bill on maternity leave, phrases like “people with cervices” and “vulva owners” are used more and more, women have lost single sex spaces so TW don’t feel excluded, jobs advertised as being for women are given to TW, in Scotland the major political parties opposed women having the right to insist on a woman examining them after a sexual assault

How have such a small group of people obtained such influence?? Women fought for their rights for years and years and within a few years they’re handwaved away because a very small number of TW and their allies are pissed off about women having them

For me it intersects with all I know of feminism.
For example, I am really invested in getting girls into sports. The statistics on how active lifestyle for girls drops off at teenage years and beyond are sobering.
So my real life solution was to start an all abilities, girls only football tournament at my school.
It got a lot of girls into football.
Now it's worrying to think that by sparking a 'gender non conforming' interest in those girls they're at risk of trans ideology.
That's worrying to me on a very personal level, which is why amongst other reasons I'm interested in this fight.

It isn't going to die down of its own accord. Or at least not as you might think.

Maybe once you have seen this year's olympics you'll change your mind - assuming Laurel Hubbard does indeed compete. Once that is seen by millions there will be backlash and mamy more people will gain a broader understanding of the issues we have been boring you with!

Listen to the left wing man I quoted upthread. Pontificating about the EHRC as if he is an expert on discrimination, saying that women shouldn't be "allowed" to question the trans agenda, and it's just like being a Holocaust denier.

That is what women are up against. The basic right to speak about anything that is exclusive to female people in a way that joins the dots about sex based oppression. How does "feminism" exist outside of that?

@TheThermalStair

"I just feel a bit like a lot of it is misogynists/trolls going LOOK OVER THERE and we all look over there" - when I say this I don't mean people trolling on this board, I mean people are doing it elsewhere and this board pays attention.

If this board hadn't been paying attention all these years, I dread to think where we'd be by now. It's bad enough as is but I imagine loads of us would either be blithely assuming that women's hard earned sex based rights were pretty safe, or feeling very alone with our misogyny radar screaming Danger when we're supposed to welcome lady dique into our safe spaces.

I think there’s a few things at play here. Whether or not it’s a topic you are interested in, it is of huge significance, it is impacting the protections women have (fought for by our feminist predecessors) across the board, and is being enshrined in organisations and the law in ways that we will not easily be able to roll back. So of course it’s an ongoing area of discussion on a feminist board.

Secondly, GC women are being harassed, threatened and silenced, and this board is turning out to be almost the only place in which these issues can be discussed, hence it maybe seems disproportionate to conversations you’re having in real life, mostly because people either don’t get it yet or are wary of discussing publicly.

Finally, like everything, issues rise and fall in terms of relevant and how much interest and engagement they generate. This is feeling particularly pertinent these days, because of the near constant developments, in schools, organisations, the law etc etc. The only hope is that with more high profile interventions such as EHRC, things will start moving in the right direction and we can all be less worried in time.,

I don’t think its a good idea having a separate board for GC

Mainly because the non GC board will be policed to within an inch of its life and will be full of posters demanding that posts be moved to the relevant board no matter how pertinent the post

I can understand the idea with that, that it would just allow people to more easily locate other kinds of discussions.

I'm not sure it would work practically though, and I think there would be downside. I've seen other boards try and split of a topic that was very controversial for similar reasons, and it just didn't really end up separating the discussion much at all.

I think it's probably a better solution to just try and contribute to the threads you are interested in and avoid the ones you find overwhelming.

I used to lurk without posting on FWR, when it was FWR, because I was too scared to interact with the incredibly intelligent, educated feminists here. I used to discuss feminist issues elsewhere instead, where it was a bit less elevated in tone.

Except I no longer can, because any time I try and discuss anything that is just about women and girls (FGM, refuges, sexual harassment...), someone comes along and saying "but what about transwomen? They have it worse!" Someone always changes the subject to trans issues somehow.

Try it for yourself.

Ironic that on here, posters complain that we discuss the impact of trans activism on women's rights too much.

Off the top of my head, on this board I have learned about the femicide rates, we can't consent, the 'standard male body' we deviate from, racism, FGM, underage marriage around the world, school dress codes...

MN is my only feminist education and I'm far more knowledgeable about a wide range of issues than ever before.

I'm not up to remembering the names of campaigners and activists, so it's a bit of a rough summary.

There's plenty to be learned here.
I'm interested in more on menopause and it's treatment, and the falling off of women in powerful positions as they hit that age.

I've just read the very interesting post on feminist protest in China. However, I know nothing about the subject, and have nothing to add to the conversation. This is probably the same for many readers - whereas many have experiences to post on the trans topic, as it's closer to home.

Sadly, that means interesting topics like the China one are likely to quickly fall down the board. That's the trouble with chat boards. If the board were more sophisticated, there could be a sticky at the top of the forum with a list of subjects, and links to the most recent threads.

Too much ranting by even people you agree with can be too much, though I am not sure reddit would be better.

But the idea that saying that it's bigoted to talk about biology and it's consequences is pretty much the basic problem, so if you are ok with that it's not a conversation that will resonate.

I've just read the very interesting post on feminist protest in China. However, I know nothing about the subject, and have nothing to add to the conversation. This is probably the same for many readers - whereas many have experiences to post on the trans topic, as it's closer to home.

Yes, I think this is definitely a factor.

This is raised almost every week - well maybe month. Someone says why aren't there other topics. Well because those on FWR are able to post what they want.

So it just comes down to not why are the majority of postes about trans issues and the undermining of women's rights, but why those who say they want to discuss something else dont post those issues.

Its a bit like saying why was everyone going on about Trump after he was elected. there are so many other issues in the US. As indeed they were but unfortunately once Trump was in power he dominated what was happening.

Many women who are feminists, including those active since the days of Women's Liberation would love to be part of pro active women's innitiative. But the problem is every time women put forward an idea that might be an advance for women they are undermind not just be trans activists, but by those who have bought into the trans narrative. And for those who believe that women's issues are based on the common experience of the SEX discrimination women face it is fundamental.

So this is about trying to regain the ground lost since the 70s. And part of the problem, as we learnt, is that by not paying attention we nearly didn't realise all our rights as women were about to be taken away.

So if posters on FWR are over vigilent it is because we learnt our lesson. Women's rights are not guaranteed. In the past we might have said we should be monitoring government or media. We never thought we should have been monitoring the systematic growth of queer politics in universities that started by ending women's studies and ended up with those educated being in positions of power changing our language and effectively moving to erase the reality of sex. And certainly none of use thought that the most overt threat to women's rights would come from an organisation initially set up to protect the rights of people who were same sex attracted.

When the ground you are standing on is being swamped day by day you tend to be on the defensive.

Look forward to OP starting many interesting threads on issue of relevance to women.

Yes, reddit is very male centred. It genuinely would be the place for anyone who's sick of the topic of women here.

There are some elements of the old feminist boards that I miss. It was very strong on the value of unpaid labour and of the importance of supporting single mothers. It didn’t look to equality between individual men and women within a relationship as the solution to misogyny and women’s problems. It really did have a focus on liberation.

And of course that way of thinking ran entirely to contrary to austerity measures. I heard the guy from the Tavistock, the whistleblower who created that report, answering a question on why cases among girls went up 5,000 %. He said partly because of austerity. Women are associated with dependency and austerity is a war on dependency.

So you can’t really discuss any of these women’s issues without discussing the public response to them of supporting gender identity. It is the elephant in the room.

David Bell was the man’s name.