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

@JustAnotherPoster00

Like the attempts on this one, for example?

Disagreement does not a derailment make

The thread is about MNHQ moderation policy on AGP. Not about your opinion on how people can’t correctly sex other humans. Do you think we should be able to discuss the broad trans umbrella and all of its components of what constitutes transition and their impact on women’s rights?

Adding to the ‘how would we know’ narrative, I recently read an article re a woman committing incest against her mother. ‘Daughter/she/her/woman’ was used throughout to describe the perpetrator of this crime. The pictures clearly showed a man with long hair. I was very

I assume this crime will be listed as a woman sexually assaulting another woman, rather than the truth that it was a man doing the assaulting?

Mumsnet do not like to upset The Menz. Despite being a website for women!!

WRT males entering female spaces and being able to 'pass' - attempting to do something by stealth when women have said no is not the fucking moral high ground you seem to think it is.

Datun is right though - this is transparent derailment. Sorry, I bit...

@JustAnotherPoster00

I would not feel safe in a changing room or on a hospital ward with people with a penis.

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

Are you implying that if it was made clear that a provider was providing a space using the exemptions available to them under the law, that a male who identifies as a woman would be so disrespectful as to insist on using it anyway?

Is that what you are saying? That we cannot trust a group to follow the rules set down by law?

I am going to go as far as to say MN should make a commitment to never ever close down entire threads about such an important topic.

Posts can be deleted in volume if need be, but unless we are able to call out the manipulation of negative and damaging posts for what they really are (attempts to silence and shut down debate) and for those that are genuinely posting in a transphobic fashion have no rights to be here anyway - then surely that is the solution?

The threads stay up, the posts that are breaking guidelines are taken down. Why can that not at least be agreed?

MNHQ don't like generalisations.

Unfortunately uncomfortable truths are not the same as generalisations.

Let's see how long this thread stands...

Mumsnet are in an awkward position. I have sympathy for that. A lot of us do. But this is the first thread I have seen where a moderator has had a pleasant, open conversation with the women who provide the content for the site, and given the amount of time this has been going on, the fact this stands out is half the problem.

It's refreshing to see some proper response to criticism. If it happened more often, MNHQ may have the support of more of us. As it is, I suspect lots of women find the arbitrary guideline application extremely hard to navigate.

What I don't understand, is how there are people on this thread vilifying posters for surmised the reasons a transwoman may keep their tackle, because women don't know how it feels to be trans.

However, it's OK than men know how it feels to be a woman in identifying themselves to be trans.

So one side can subsume the feelings of the other, without actual knowledge, but the other side must be silent.

Is this not the biggest double standard?

@JustAnotherPoster00

Why does a transwoman’s right to enter a female space trump my right to feel safe?

Without being able to peer in peoples underwear would you feel safer with a female passing MTF transwoman or a male passing FTM transman in a female space, or is this the usual 'men in a dress' nonsense that the usual posters come out with?

When people inevitably bring up variations of this argument, do they mean to make trans people sound so bad? In fact, can I report this post for containing the implicit generalisation that all trans people use facilities and services designed for the opposite sex, regardless of laws or people's feelings? I know for a fact that this is not true.

Think for a moment about social norms and laws that allow us to live side by side in cities far more populated with people than our village-sized brains can really conceptualise. No, we don't police every single action a person takes to see is it reasonable /law abiding /pro social etc. etc. We don't yet live in a Big Brother society. Societies work when there is a broad enough consensus on how we behave and when there is enough safety and not too much scarcity.

The argument about surgery is arse about tit. I would caution against any surgery as mental health treatment, including boob jobs. I would strongly encourage a transwoman to keep their penis because sexual pleasure and bodily health are important.

But I was taught (literally, at university) that genital surgery was key and because of a mixture of empathy (gender stereotype oppression sucks) and pity (how terrible to have surgery) and misinformation (this is a tiny minority of people) I accepted transwomen, believing them to be post op, into female spaces unquestioningly.

@FloralBunting

Mumsnet are in an awkward position. I have sympathy for that. A lot of us do. But this is the first thread I have seen where a moderator has had a pleasant, open conversation with the women who provide the content for the site, and given the amount of time this has been going on, the fact this stands out is half the problem.

It's refreshing to see some proper response to criticism. If it happened more often, MNHQ may have the support of more of us. As it is, I suspect lots of women find the arbitrary guideline application extremely hard to navigate.

I second this. It is nice to be spoken to in good faith, as human. Thanks anotherbecky.

Am late to this thread so I missed the more detailed explanation from YetAnotherBeckyMumsnet before it was edited. So I’m still confused about the reasons for deletion!

@YetAnotherBeckyMumsnet: Fri 06-Aug-21 12:02:50

Many posts were what we'd consider civil and reasonable, as many again were breaking guidelines. This is why the entire thread was removed. The entire thread was not civil.

So all someone (or a group of people) need to do to have any thread they don’t like deleted is just add some “uncivil” posts and the entire thread will go? So that is an avenue for certain “monitors” to have any thread they want removed in its entirety? That sounds like a guideline that will allow for the women of this board to be silenced….

@stepupandbecounted

I don't think the thread was in any way offensive, upsetting etc. It was informative, respectful and balanced.

So much for free speech! It seems that only some have the privilege of free speech whilst the rest of us are silenced, this is not helping mothers, women or girls is it.... I am really sad about the thread being deleted.

Me too

But I’ve been moderated for being too specific. If you talk specifically about medical treatments and surgery for example. So you’re encouraged to talk generally. And you can’t start threads about specific people. You have to talk generally about people in positions of influence and their ideology and identities. But if you post accurately about the evidence that we know, truths or things certain reporters don’t like, it’s too general.

And the rules are apparently clear to understand…

There were way too many of these type of posts on the thread to warrant keeping it (Nb we are going to edit this message shortly to remove these posts - it’s too easy for them to be screengrabbed and used against us.)

@YetAnotherBeckyMumsnet

This suggests that @MNHQ know fine well that people scan this board looking to make reports to cause trouble rather than reporting in the spirit of mumsnet guidelines.

It also suggests that @MNHQ are more interested in hosting debates which are approved by trans rights activists, than hosting debates led by their actual subscribers.

Can we have the thread back up then?

Minus the posts that were not 'civil' please?

For what reason can you give for the entire thread needed to be taken down? Of course there are posts that need to be deleted in many/most threads, but we don't delete them entirely. No thread would stay up ever if this was applied to everyone.

@BernardBlackMissesLangCleg

it was a relatively balanced thread I thought. what a shame.

and a very good question.

women don't have penises. if a person with a penis wants to be a woman, why would they retain their penis?

Because it takes a long time to get that far into the process. I have a friend who has been transitioning for many years and is still a long way from where she will get that surgery. She doesn’t have a penis through choice.

Blanchard's identification of a particular group of men who transition in later life, after after careers in very masculine sectors, and after being married and having children, was a total eye-opener for me and explained a lot of things.

They are the ones with the money and connections to really drive this thing. If it was just a few struggling teens it would have died out by now.

Arty Morty, who's a gay man in Canada, also points out what a lot of us in the LGB community have known for years, that for gay men who've been brought up in a very homophobic family or culture it's easier to transition to be a woman and then sleep with men than is to come out as gay. This is the solution in Iran, where a gay or lesbian couple can live openly as long as one of them has had surgery and transitioned, so that society can view them as a heterosexual couple.

@Chickenyhead

What I don't understand, is how there are people on this thread vilifying posters for surmised the reasons a transwoman may keep their tackle, because women don't know how it feels to be trans.

However, it's OK than men know how it feels to be a woman in identifying themselves to be trans.

So one side can subsume the feelings of the other, without actual knowledge, but the other side must be silent.

Is this not the biggest double standard?

This is precisely how it works. Transwomen can espouse on what it is to be a woman but women are not allowed to discuss their opinions on trans.

@TrifleCat

There were way too many of these type of posts on the thread to warrant keeping it (Nb we are going to edit this message shortly to remove these posts - it’s too easy for them to be screengrabbed and used against us.)

@YetAnotherBeckyMumsnet

This suggests that @MNHQ know fine well that people scan this board looking to make reports to cause trouble rather than reporting in the spirit of mumsnet guidelines.

It also suggests that @MNHQ are more interested in hosting debates which are approved by trans rights activists, than hosting debates led by their actual subscribers.

Agreed. I get the feeling Mumsnet consider cyber attacks and losing capital more important than their subscribers. And considering I and others paid when Justine told us the site risked folding, I do feel negated.

We are now at the mercy of anyone wishing to shut down and close down the debates we have about safety.

Any one with an agenda can simply come on derail and post vile things and the thread disappears.

Why is that okay?

@BernardBlackMissesLangCleg

it was a relatively balanced thread I thought. what a shame.

and a very good question.

women don't have penises. if a person with a penis wants to be a woman, why would they retain their penis?

In some cases it's because invasive surgery is too risky or tomophobia.

The rules are clear, in that some of them are written down, and you are told you can ask what you did wrong. You will usually be given a quote from your post, and a section of the guidelines. So, you might be told you're generalizing, or you have been uncivil. If you ask for detail on exactly how, you run the risk of being viewed as something of a trouble maker, especially if you point out that the opaque nature of the guidelines and their application means that the moderation system can be applied in an arbitrary fashion by those who wish the site and the women who post on it, ill.

Lang, late of this parish, was banned for such unreasonable email exchanges. I might get my arse slapped for mentioning it.

It's hardly surprising some of us lose our patience from time to time.