Is anyone else fed up of being censored?

[TuppyTheDino]

I've had an account on Mumsnet for years but I've name changed for this. I'm tired of being censored by trans activists on social media. I had a Twitter account for other stuff but gradually got into the debate.

I was banned, despite trying to be respectful and polite whilst still making my point/s and was banned. I created a new account (and was banned). It put me off for a while, but I created a new account and within days it is shadowbanned so nobody can see or comment on anything I put out there. I don't hate trans people, I am worried about the erosion of women's rights

I'm so tired of it all. Why can't women speak? Why can't we have one small corner of the internet to talk about these issues without getting shut down or told to just be quiet. I am so sad and angry that women's voices are being shut down. I don't know what to do so I thought I would have a moan about it here.

Try not to get upset when you see things like tweets going down when you vote, or your account being banned for no reason.

It means they are scared of your words. Remember that they have to rig the game to beat you.

At some point, will users of popular parenting forums find themselves saying the same thing and never think about the number of times that threads were moved from a high-traffic part of a site to a 'naughty step' or they voted to split a high-traffic point of entry to neutralise its drawing power?

I know - I find myself thinking, well, parenting forums have to do that to survive, so I can see why their commercial success means that we still have a platform. So hiving us off into a dark corner means we at least have somewhere we can speak (as long as we keep it to a whisper in the dark corner, of course).

And then I realise I'm basically telling myself that I should be grateful to even have a platform at all to express gender critical views, like I'm actually doing something wrong!

Leafstamp

I’m speaking the truth here today:

Woman = adult human female
Man = adult human male

You will get no argument from me on either of those two points

A trans woman is a man.
A trans man is a woman.

Can't say I agree with that (but I would say that wouldn't I)

Much happier with

A Transsexual Woman is a (MtF)Transsexual Woman
A Transsexual Man is a (FtM)Transsexual Man

Which is not to deny any biological realities. I have a pesky 'Y' Chromosome whether I like it or not ... I chooses not to deny that 'Fact' but I do not describe myself as a man.

Semantics ?

I don’t have an issue with:

A Transsexual Woman is a (MtF)Transsexual Woman
A Transsexual Man is a (FtM)Transsexual Man

But my brain works like this:

2+2 = 4 = 2x2 = 3 +1 etc

Therefore:

Transsexual woman = adult and human and male and so = man.

@OperationDessertStorm

Absolutely. Even when you are so careful with language and to stress the importance of your actual support to gender non conforming and the LGB community and when you have actual facts and science - somehow you’re still a dinosaur!

It weighs on my mind far too much.

Stop being careful with language, stop stressing disclaimers of support for lgbt+ & gnc people, stop trying to justify yourself or trying to convince others you have a right to speak on women’s issues.

Just be direct and to the point.

Falling over ourselves to be kind and to support everyone and to argue our right to speak on women’s rights makes it sound like we don’t have any right, that we might not be kind and that we might secretly hate lgbt+ people.

Don’t pussyfoot around this stuff. It’s like people smell weakness or doubts and use it to pounce.

Just be direct and to the point.

Yes. And, in our own ways, we have to recognise and, where possible, resist our own self-censorship (within the boundaries of safety).

It’s dangerous. But let us refuse to say that which we do not think.
…
Our path is not to give conscious support to lies about anything whatsoever! And once we realize where lie the perimeters of falsehood, each sees them in his own way."

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4382551-Live-not-by-lies-Solzhenitsyn-no-tambourines-involved

In an era when metaphysical and existential certainties are in a state of crisis, when people are being uprooted and alienated and are losing their sense of what this world means, this ideology inevitably has a certain hypnotic charm. To wandering humankind it offers an immediately available home: all one has to do is accept it, and suddenly everything becomes clear once more, life takes on new meaning, and all mysteries, unanswered questions, anxiety, and loneliness vanish. Of course, one pays dearly for this low-rent home: the price is abdication of one’ s own reason, conscience, and responsibility, for an essential aspect of this ideology is the consignment of reason and conscience to a higher authority.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/a4380135-I-dont-want-to-add-my-pronouns-at-the-end-of-an-email-but-I-cant-explain-why?msgid=111794485#111794485

[quote EmbarrassingHadrosaurus]Just be direct and to the point.

Yes. And, in our own ways, we have to recognise and, where possible, resist our own self-censorship (within the boundaries of safety).

It’s dangerous. But let us refuse to say that which we do not think.
…
Our path is not to give conscious support to lies about anything whatsoever! And once we realize where lie the perimeters of falsehood, each sees them in his own way."

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4382551-Live-not-by-lies-Solzhenitsyn-no-tambourines-involved

In an era when metaphysical and existential certainties are in a state of crisis, when people are being uprooted and alienated and are losing their sense of what this world means, this ideology inevitably has a certain hypnotic charm. To wandering humankind it offers an immediately available home: all one has to do is accept it, and suddenly everything becomes clear once more, life takes on new meaning, and all mysteries, unanswered questions, anxiety, and loneliness vanish. Of course, one pays dearly for this low-rent home: the price is abdication of one’ s own reason, conscience, and responsibility, for an essential aspect of this ideology is the consignment of reason and conscience to a higher authority.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/a4380135-I-dont-want-to-add-my-pronouns-at-the-end-of-an-email-but-I-cant-explain-why?msgid=111794485#111794485[/quote]
It’s actually possibly careless of me to post what I did. I’m in Twitter jail currently also.

But while that’s irritating, it simply isn’t real life.

My kids are real life. Their schools are real life. The health care we access is real life. Friend we see are real life. Public facilities we access are real life.

I’m not about to fall over myself apologising for being honest about a safeguarding risk to my daughters. Pandering to that teaches them they don’t really have a right to voice safety concerns. And it suggests I’m worried I’m wrong. And I’m not.

When people know there’s a safeguarding risk and they don’t speak up that makes them the safeguarding risk. I don’t care enough about online bans to shut up about this in real life. Safeguarding matters more than my right to identify as a coward.

I recently opened a Twitter account. I did not post a single tweet, but I did "like" and retweet a number of GC posts.

After a while I tried to follow a link to someone's profile (FYI it was David Paisley) and was surprised to find he'd already blocked me, even though we've never interacted and I have never posted anything!

@Leafstamp

'The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it.'

~George Orwell

I am sick of it too OP. I’m speaking the truth here today:

Woman = adult human female
Man = adult human male

A trans woman is a man.
A trans man is a woman.

Yes.

I’ve recently been ‘permanently suspended’ from Twitter. As far as I can remember, I’ve never actually tweeted anything, only ‘liked’ and followed. Is that usual?

Falling over ourselves to be kind and to support everyone and to argue our right to speak on women’s rights makes it sound like we don’t have any right, that we might not be kind and that we might secretly hate lgbt+ people.

Don’t pussyfoot around this stuff. It’s like people smell weakness or doubts and use it to pounce.

It would be lovely not to have to pussyfoot around, but many women don't feel able to speak out because they risk losing their jobs, friends, family and the little bit of freedom they do have left.

I'm not saying it's right but women aren't scared for no reason - Stonewall say women don't exist and women's workplaces, banks, shops, doctors, colleagues, children and the government all agree because they sleep-walked into submission for fear of being labelled transphobic (according to Stonewall's definition, which includes thinking gender critical thoughts) too.

I hear you on not being a coward, but it's hard being constantly bullied and gaslit, and it wears you down. This is on top of all the other sex-based oppression women face, half of which they're not even allowed to name any more (e.g. see the Girls Night In thread). I realise that means there's more reason to speak out and not less, but none of us want to become the next test case either, as that would require us to suffer even more detriment than we already are.

I'm not suggesting we should all give up - obviously we should keep fighting. But I think it's important to acknowledge that women are in a complex situation here and currently, its not quite as simple as just speaking out as none of us are living in a vacuum.

@LonginesPrime

Falling over ourselves to be kind and to support everyone and to argue our right to speak on women’s rights makes it sound like we don’t have any right, that we might not be kind and that we might secretly hate lgbt+ people.

Don’t pussyfoot around this stuff. It’s like people smell weakness or doubts and use it to pounce.

It would be lovely not to have to pussyfoot around, but many women don't feel able to speak out because they risk losing their jobs, friends, family and the little bit of freedom they do have left.

I'm not saying it's right but women aren't scared for no reason - Stonewall say women don't exist and women's workplaces, banks, shops, doctors, colleagues, children and the government all agree because they sleep-walked into submission for fear of being labelled transphobic (according to Stonewall's definition, which includes thinking gender critical thoughts) too.

I hear you on not being a coward, but it's hard being constantly bullied and gaslit, and it wears you down. This is on top of all the other sex-based oppression women face, half of which they're not even allowed to name any more (e.g. see the Girls Night In thread). I realise that means there's more reason to speak out and not less, but none of us want to become the next test case either, as that would require us to suffer even more detriment than we already are.

I'm not suggesting we should all give up - obviously we should keep fighting. But I think it's important to acknowledge that women are in a complex situation here and currently, its not quite as simple as just speaking out as none of us are living in a vacuum.

I agree.

I’m not joking about being a coward. I am a survivor of csa, I live my life scared of everything.

But my safety doesn’t matter as much as children’s safeguarding.

And I think it’s important and helpful to challenge female sex role stereotypes, the need to be kind and qualify and justify our right to hold an opinion, because not challenging this conditioning doesn’t help how this is perceived from the outside. My daughters don’t need to see me apologising for holding an opinion because that perpetuates those female sex role stereotypes.

Thanks for your comments. I’ve found Twitter a tricky place to navigate as a woman. But the pile ons, misogyny, porn and boiling hatred feels worse than ever.

*“On Twitter it is unashamedly sexist and also secretive in the methods it uses (eg the shadowbanning and manipulation of likes).”

I feel the world of tech is just openly hostile to women and that makes me worried about the future of tech and how it influences conversations about women’s rights. I’m sure there’s an algorithm dedicated to sniffing out new GC accounts on Twitter and hiding them under a shadow ban. I know I’m not the only person to experience this either.

Semantics

the correct names for things are important. The reason it is inappropriate for people who refer to themselves as transwomen to use spaces and provisions set aside for women is that transwomen are men. those things are not for them. they are there to counter disadvantages and dangers that men don't experience.

It is important say, and to be able to say, that transwomen are men. otherwise nothing makes sense

@BernardBlackMissesLangCleg

Semantics

the correct names for things are important. The reason it is inappropriate for people who refer to themselves as transwomen to use spaces and provisions set aside for women is that transwomen are men. those things are not for them. they are there to counter disadvantages and dangers that men don't experience.

It is important say, and to be able to say, that transwomen are men. otherwise nothing makes sense

I agree, thank you for your eloquence and plain speaking Bernard.

A twitter acc is useful for reporting threats and harassment, that's all.

My fav is when they get suspended, create a second acc to whinge about getting suspended and then get suspended for operating another acc while suspended. That's the sweet spot.