Deleted/censorship on mumsnet now!

[HermioneKipper]

My thread asking about transwomen/transitioning/penises has been deleted.

Why are we not allowed to discuss this? It’s a genuine question and extremely relevant to the debate about transwomen entering female spaces.

There was no abuse of trans people that I could see aside from a few people attempting to derail by saying that they couldn’t see why women might be concerned about having to share their space!

This isn’t right

The individual concerned can check their own pants and if they find a penis they could decide that out of respect for women they won't invade their single-sex spaces. For some reason management of oneself and one's actions seems to be an impossible request.

An individual who has elected to have surgery on his penis and/or testicles does not/should not gain entry to female specific space on that basis. For all concered it is wrong to tie such surgery to access of women's services and spaces.

@TonyThreePies

I've read in the past that if a thread on this subject has a lot of deletions then "certain readers" use this as evidence of transphobia on MN. Look at all the deletions, look at all the transphobia type of glee. So, that's probably why the thread was pulled.

I have seen exactly that play out in another site where I happened to have seen the posts before they were deleted and know that wasn't the case. It had the unfortunate effect of reinforcing existing divisions, fear and misunderstanding between groups.

It would be helpful if the message remaining after deletion gave some indication like "personal insult", "not in good faith", "repeats a slur against [x] group", "makes an unfounded generalization of [X] group", "respectfully expressed but removed to avoid distress to [X] group".

An individual who has elected to have surgery on his penis and/or testicles does not/should not gain entry to female specific space on that basis. For all concered it is wrong to tie such surgery to access of women's services and spaces.

True.

@EarringsandLipstick
I’m lost. You say you fall into the GC camp. But seem to completely sympathise with transwomen more than natal women. I really don’t follow your arguments at all.

@nauticant

Re needing Pants Police to check for penises.

The individual concerned can check their own pants and if they find a penis they could decide that out of respect for women they won't invade their single-sex spaces. For some reason management of oneself and one's actions seems to be an impossible request.

Yes, absolutely.

@ R0wantrees - That’s the terminology used by the clinics performing the surgery.

LadyDanburysCane The same clinics promoted and described this surgery on male genitalia as 'sex-change', which was also misleading.

Medical ethics requires doctors to use clear, unambiguous language with their patients.

@Jorrris

You can keep on givng this answer but it never sinks in. Challenging women based on physical appearance could result in a good handbagging too. The GC argument is like a stuck gramophone record

Good handbagging? Really? Nothing like a bit of misogynistic female stereotyping is there. #weseeyou

Do you understand irony?

Do you understand irony?

Do you?

I AM Spartacus!

Get it now, thank you

Welcome to the club!

[quote Mummyoflittledragon]@EarringsandLipstick
I’m lost. You say you fall into the GC camp. But seem to completely sympathise with transwomen more than natal women. I really don’t follow your arguments at all.[/quote]
I think it is a matter of tone policing perhaps?

It always feels like we are the women in the naughty corner, whatever we say, whatever words we use. The very fact that many of us object to compelled speech in the first place is a thing of shame, yet, I never see it levelled at activists for other groups.

Particularly, those who insist on us opening up the words we use to describe ourselves to include them.

Do you understand irony?

I certainly understand hypocrisy.

EassingsandLipstick

The language, aggression, use of pronouns in quotes, I personally found abhorrent.
Many will roll their eyes at that, and perhaps say, the language reflects their passion & upset on the issue. I get that.
I just don't subscribe to advancing a point of view with harsh aggressive nasty language.

I wonder if you ever go on Twitter and ask this of the TRAs also? Or is it just women who have to always be respectful and think of others? Or maybe you know well that you'll get inundated with abuse.

From what I see, the 'other' side are not even called out for their rape and death threats, this is just seen as some sort of passionate defence of their position.

But women who say that they don't agree that TWAW or that they believe in biology are deemed to be spouting hatred and committing literal violence.

Funny that.

It would be helpful if the message remaining after deletion gave some indication like "personal insult", "not in good faith", "repeats a slur against [x] group", "makes an unfounded generalization of [X] group", "respectfully expressed but removed to avoid distress to [X] group".

This.

Also, only the offending term, sentence or statement should be redacted. Not whole comments where someone might just have used a term that isn’t allowed or phrased things in a way that doesn’t meet approval.

It gives a hugely distorted picture of what posters here actually say.

The VAST majority of deleted comments aren’t -phobic at all, IME. They just happen to fall foul on a technicality.

*Earrings

Helleofabore said it far better than I ever could.

The fact that we are resisting at all is seen as abhorrent and problematic by some, no matter how nice the language we use.

That's why many of us are sick of the 'be kind' mantra - it has gotten us nowhere.

The sad thing about the Spartacus threads is when I read the names of posters who I got to know and know have been banned from MN for wrongthink even though these were women who were here because they needed support, or who gave support to others over or about issues experienced by women as a social group. They were rarely if ever actually offensive - they just thought and said the wrong thing according to a demographic that is not even core to MN but who monitor and patrol us inciting others to censor our speech. .

How would you know if a penis entered the bathroom? Would there be an inspector? None of the bathroom proposals make sense unless there is policing and inspections. Which will never happen.

That reminds me of a sign on the door of the female toilets in a bar in Texas. I think it was policed by the clientele.

If you've got a dick you ain't a chick.

@YetAnotherSpartacus

The sad thing about the Spartacus threads is when I read the names of posters who I got to know and know have been banned from MN for wrongthink even though these were women who were here because they needed support, or who gave support to others over or about issues experienced by women as a social group. They were rarely if ever actually offensive - they just thought and said the wrong thing according to a demographic that is not even core to MN but who monitor and patrol us inciting others to censor our speech. .

I did notice lots were missing from current postings. It's sad, really sad. I expect we all end up there.

Without being able to peer in their underwear how would you know?

Of course we know.

Voice, hands, body shape, smell, way of moving. Usually we are too polite to say anything but any TW who thinks we don't know is fooling themself. You don't "pass". We are just being polite.

Maybe we should stop.

Was the deletion because we were calling men men?

Freedom of speech (something that doesnt exist in British law

Is this like owness? It's a basic principle of law in the UK. One of the most basic in fact. Try harder. Or read a legal textbook. Might help.

@Congressdingo

Freedom of speech (something that doesnt exist in British law

Is this like owness? It's a basic principle of law in the UK. One of the most basic in fact. Try harder. Or read a legal textbook. Might help.

Ah, owness. Now THERE was a thread. Or five.

It's here:

www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/42/schedule/1/part/I/chapter/9

It is highly vexing how trans activists feel free to lie just because it supports whatever point they're trying to make.

If you've got a dick you ain't a chick.

I am frustrated by a notion that defines women as 'people without penises', especially on a feminist board on a parenting website.
I rather hoped that we had left such phallocentric notions behind us. Sigmund Freud would no doubt be pleased that his theories were being reawakened.

relevant thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3300647-Our-Bodies-Ourselves-celebrating-womens-bodies-in-pictures

Women's bodies are amazing!