If you don't like the idea of hiving off sex/gender issues into a separate board...

[YourSexNotGenderIsOnFire]

I have suggested to MNHQ that instead of moving sex/gender talk to its own forum they could either:

• implement a feature allowing people to block all threads containing a particular word or phrase (eg "trans");
• have a tick box that you can tick when creating a thread on FWR to note if it's intended to focus on transgender ideology's impact on feminism.

What do people think? My view is that this would allow the people who really want to avoid sex/gender issues to filter most of it out whilst leaving us free to largely continue as we are.

If you would support this compromise then please comment on the thread on site stuff: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/site_stuff/4270115-Hide-threads-containing-a-particular-word-or-phrase?msgid=108194142 MNHQ have said "We'll keep an eye on this thread too to see what the general consensus is."

I am finding it really striking how all the suggestions for compromise seem to be from current users of this board. By contrast, all I have seen from posters who don't like the current arrangement is an expectation that we should move over for them. Quite honestly @MNHQ how much traffic and business do you expect to generate from a split board if this is the extent of their engagement?

Adults have a responsibility to remove themselves from discussions they don't like. There's a hide button to facilitate that.

Threads can and should be hidden by those who dislike women talking about their own rights.

Mnhq attempting to create yet another feminist ghetto will fail, because if the last few years have taught us anything, it's that wherever we talk, our haters will follow, telling us to shut up.

This will fail too, because the problem is the censorship of women, the goading of women, and the subsequent exclusion of women from their own spaces.

So.
At some point you can't retreat further because there's nowhere else to go. At which point you turn, face your pursuer, and take your stand.

I think it's probably time for that.

I don't want to read a post in feminism where its obvious what the OP is getting at but they're having to police their own language in case it derails into a "you can't post that HERE!" pile-on. And other posters also having to follow suit, everyone tippytoeing round each other, bollocks to that!

Agreed. Here I was hoping that Mumsnet would feel safe cutting back on the eggshell dispersal after Maya's judgment came in, and now we're looking at this instead....
The selective mute option seems better in theory at least.

@WarOnWoman

Since when did mumsnet need to have a safe space to discuss and debate issues because some women (and men) are too triggered/annoyed etc by the threads on sex and gender identity issues? Just scroll on down or hide the threads.

FWR is female focused so, of course, we should be able to talk about what concerns us and right now it's how trans ideology is impacting on our lives. It's a huge subject and concern.

Shunting off FWR topics into niche areas (and let's be honest here, it's one topic) is an attempt to destabilise and fragment our voices. It's very concerning that MN would even consider this as it's the last mainstream website with women's issues can be discussed.

This. It's bad enough with the censorship HQ have imposed on us already. Show some backbone! You're not seriously proposing to shut women up a bit more? Not after MF won her case? Surely not.

GNCQ
MNHQ could keep "Feminist Chat" and create a separate "Intersectional liberal feminism chat" for gender ideologists.
Second thoughts they could keep "feminist chat" and add a "gender ideology" area."
*Thecatonthemat
Consensus to leave FWR/ feminism chat as it is . There are so few in opposition as to be negligible. *

• 33feethighandrising How about leaving this board as it is and having a sub-board for those who want to have a chat section free from the things we want to talk about.* This, this,this!

(Tried to put all the quoted bits in bold but for some reason.my stars didn't work!)

How about leaving this board as it is and having a sub-board for those who want to have a chat section free from the things we want to talk about.

We already have that. It's called Chat.

Someone or some group wants to hide the fact that sex is central to feminism, meaning that the current attempt to blur the line between sexes is a critical threat to women. Trying to hide it is a political maneuver.

@Barracker

Adults have a responsibility to remove themselves from discussions they don't like. There's a hide button to facilitate that.

Threads can and should be hidden by those who dislike women talking about their own rights.

Mnhq attempting to create yet another feminist ghetto will fail, because if the last few years have taught us anything, it's that wherever we talk, our haters will follow, telling us to shut up.

This will fail too, because the problem is the censorship of women, the goading of women, and the subsequent exclusion of women from their own spaces.

So.
At some point you can't retreat further because there's nowhere else to go. At which point you turn, face your pursuer, and take your stand.

I think it's probably time for that.

Always always right barracker

Well it sounds like this is a fait accompli. I can understand why they are considering it, as there are so few places where sex/ gender issues can be relatively openly discussed, and as it is a pretty pervasive topic within feminism this board is very GC focused and I can see other views/topics get swamped, much like covid versus every other health condition.

@MNHQ if it is to be an experiment can I suggest that it has some clear criteria decided at the outset that would allow the success of the experiment to be evaluated. I am still not clear what the outcome you are hoping to achieve is.

Is it more hits on the Feminism chat board? More topics? Threads that stick around longer. How will this be measured? How will you know if it has 'worked'?

This is going to cause a lot of heat and light, at the very least it would be good to know that someone is getting the right result out of it.

Also, it was quite shitty to drop the half formed idea into the site stuff board. If you are going to rearrange the deck chairs, then always best to speak to those occupying them first.

@Floisme

I am finding it really striking how all the suggestions for compromise seem to be from current users of this board. By contrast, all I have seen from posters who don't like the current arrangement is an expectation that we should move over for them. Quite honestly *@MNHQ* how much traffic and business do you expect to generate from a split board if this is the extent of their engagement?

This.

I think the argument is that the prominence of this debate is pushing other issues off the board. But can anybody think of an issue where this debate is not central
Sexual violence (no)
Pay gaps and employment outcomes (no)
let clothes be clothes/toys be toys (no)
political representation (no)
child marriage/rape (no)
FGM (no)

????????

But there are those other issues on the board, all the time.

I think many of them have a tendency to drop down the active list simply because there's often not that much to say about them - 'bloody hell thats appalling' , there's often not much that's debatable.

The other things that can distort the appearance of the board is too many essentially duplicated threads, sometimes because of unclear thread titles. It's quite easy to put in a link to another thread, and MNHQ will delete duplicates if requested, and also edit thread titles.

This debate is a key discussion and attempts to marginalise it are not impressive.

Whenever we find a place to talk the pressure starts to break us up. It may be overt like the people wanting to ban our voices entirely or less obvious like when our existing space is renamed, made harder to find or simply disrupted in the hope that a few more people will leave. The intention of this new sub board is not to enable new voices to speak it is to disrupt and distract the people who are already here. New voices would be calling for a new space this is simply an attempt to weaken gender critical voices. It hasn't worked before and it won't work this time, this issue is too important.

The downside of a 'trans tag' is it makes it easier for the watchers to target only the threads they want to report rather than having to Wade through all that feminism to find them - I suspect this is actually what this move is about.

Sorry I realise that sounds as if that is the OPs agenda and that is not what I intended! I was simply highlighting the unintended consequences

@Pudmyboy

*GNCQ MNHQ could keep "Feminist Chat" and create a separate "Intersectional liberal feminism chat" for gender ideologists. Second thoughts they could keep "feminist chat" and add a "gender ideology" area."* *Thecatonthemat Consensus to leave FWR/ feminism chat as it is . There are so few in opposition as to be negligible. * * 33feethighandrising How about leaving this board as it is and having a sub-board for those who want to have a chat section free from the things we want to talk about.* This, this,this!

Agree with all these too! I can't possibly see any sort of hiving off OR tick box thing working, it would take massive effort to monitor and I reckon there could be very few, if any, "feminism" threads that would not end up touching on sex and/or gender in any way.

And as above, if there's demand for a separate board, surely it's the ones pushing for this who should be accommodated somewhere else, not the current population of FWR who are clearly by a very large majority in favour of the current arrangement.

I don’t understand how or why, now that GC has finally been validated as a legitimate belief in law, there is a move to hide the topic.

It's because belief in biological sex has been legitimised in law that we are being shunted off to somewhere out of the way. It pains me to describe the material fact of biological sex as a belief but here we are.

This would be treated as a "triumph " by TRAs who like to tell women what they can and cannot talk about. They hate Mumsnet because of the refusal on here to deny biological reality.

I've suggested this before.

But MNHQ might consider creating 9 new boards.
One for each of the legally protected characteristics in the Equality Act.

That way, The protected characteristic of sex will have a ring fenced discussion area, and those wishing to constantly hijack it with discussion of other protected characteristics can be politely directed to their own special board.