Does anyone else feel that the tone has changed on this board?

[ViceLikeBlip]

This board has been incredibly important to me, especially when I felt like I was losing my mind because no one else seemed to see a problem with self ID, and everyone else seemed to believe TWAW (or, I now realise, everyone else was too scared to suggest they might not believe TWAW).

You guys helped me rationalise my thoughts, and realise I wasn't some awful transphobe, and I've been really grateful to be part of this community. And I really felt like I belonged: we were pro women's rights, not anti trans rights, and we didn't believe that all transwomen are dangerous perverts but rather we recognised that dangerous perverts do exist, and they will readily take advtange of any loophole that gives them access to women.

More than anything, you guys have been an absolute mine of information - facts, stats, latest developments, and you've pointed me in the direction of news articles and twitter rows that I never would have seen otherwise. I'm genuinely grateful for this.

But recently the mood seems to have shifted significantly. There seems to be a lot of open animosity and ridicule towards all things trans. The recent outcry about M&S letting some people put their pronouns on their name badges felt uncomfortably close to clamouring to have M&S "cancelled".

I guess I used to feel like this was a safe space where I was with like minded people, but now I don't think everyone on here can hand-on-heart maintain that they're not anti-trans anymore, and it makes me very upset to see this shift happening (and happening quickly).

@foxgoosefinch No I have not made a false claim. And this is what I mean when I say people get driven off this board.

For me the tone was set when I was appearing in O'Donnell v Times in Edinburgh, corrected an incorrect statement about the case and explained politely that there was a limit on the public comment I could make.

Comment then turned to my choice of clothing...

I made up my mind about your 'tone' after reading your blog. You have a lot to say about women's clothing on there.

My old employer got rid of the female loos. Kathleen Sock lost her job. Men are in women's prisons. My parents failed to try 'to socialise me as a woman', whatever that means. I'm angry.

[quote julieca]@foxgoosefinch no I have just double-checked, there was not.
All movements are made up of people, and since some people are racist, racism will be present. But the GC movement just continually glosses over racism and ignores it, or defends it.
Partly because of the racism of some leading people I suspect.[/quote]
Julieca, have you read the full thread? People are able respond to posts and topics without quoting your username. I've just read the thread in its entirety and there are several posts clearly engaging with this issue. Please read the thread again. You are wrong.

@foxgoosefinch I have read for a third time every post since my original post about racism. Not one of the posts after my post talks about racism. There are lots of - we are not going to be nice and we don't have to get things perfect kind of stuff.
And I have seen lots of women explain why comparing this to blackface is racist. It still continually happens.

There are no posts for example between 8am and 9am this morning about racism?

I would argue that this is a very female experience. Everyone comments on women’s clothes all the fcking time. In the office, among “friends”. Women’s clothes will be criticised in newspapers. Nasty comments about clothes have probably been directed at everyone here. But we don’t whine about it.*

It is a rather good point Double.

Posts by Purgatory, violetanemone, Eresh and Empressaurus among others?

Can you go back and read the thread again and then tell me again that there are no posts about racism anywhere on this thread apart from yours @julieca please?

you might feel that you are missing out and ask yourself why they don't engage. They don't feel they are missing out.

I don't and I don't. I don't have any interest in whether or not your friends come to Mumsnet or whether or not they feel they are missing out. Hope that helps.

[quote julieca]@foxgoosefinch I have read for a third time every post since my original post about racism. Not one of the posts after my post talks about racism. There are lots of - we are not going to be nice and we don't have to get things perfect kind of stuff.
And I have seen lots of women explain why comparing this to blackface is racist. It still continually happens.[/quote]
The conversation had moved on. I found your last post (the one you were expecting people to respond to) poorly written and incomprehensible.

I don't think there's an issue with racism in the GC movement any more than there is anywhere else. Most of the women who have had court cases which have been largely funded by GC women - Allison Bailey, Sonia Appleby, Maya Forstater, Keira Bell, Raquel Rosario Sanchez - are not white. This is not about white feminism, however much that's a slur that's constantly and boringly flung in this direction.

So someone turns up and turns the talk to clothes. Isn't this the same as saying 'Oh, look - a squirrel!'?

So.... women now owe others replies to all posts. Even ones where specifically posters complain about when others not agreeing with them will make posters feel like trolls, men and run them off.

And now pressuring women to reply to their posts.....

In the same thread as we have other posters complaining they never get any 'substance' to their replies.

As I get told so many times by people who disagree with me on this board, no one owes anybody anything on this, a anonymous forum. So many people post all the time and never get acknowledged. And they also bring up very important discussion points. So what?

Now. I also feel pressure to say bollocks, bollocks and more bollocks because there seems an awful lot of them on display at the moment.

The GC legal fight is being lead by BAME women.
They’re literally spearheading the movement.

@thinkingaboutLangCleg

Oxfam … withdrew a board game from sale which is about women and girls’ achievements intended to encourage little girls. Not very kind of them. I wrote and they answered saying they did this to support their LGBT staff.

Oh god, I hadn’t heard of this. So celebrating women and encouraging girls is somehow anti-trans? (Oxfam can’t be saying it’s anti-LGB, because high-achieving people are as likely as anyone else to be gay or lesbian.

So women must be silenced, belittled and hidden from view. Thanks, Oxfam.

I've seen several times people say/tweet that 'women's rights' is a 'transphobic dog whistle'.

This should at least raise questions.

The posts responding to your point about racism are there, julieca.

I’m not sure why you are pretending that they’re not. Between 8 and 9 am from the posters fox lists.

If there is not substantive engagement, that is because the topic of this thread isn’t racism, but the tone of the debate. Women here are trying to explain why we express ourselves as we do, and whether that has contributed to a perceived change in tone here. It’s not prima facie evidence of racism if people on a thread not about racism don’t engage on the topic.

It doesn’t actually matter if anyone’s trans friends, be they ever so grand engage here or not. I’d be delighted to welcome them, provided it was a civil engagement, but given the amount of exposure we’ve all had to the trans issue, we’re not exactly flailing round in the dark about what trans people think. I read and listen every day to people fromthat “side” of the debate. I know their position. I disagree. But I think I understand it, because I’ve listened- for one thing, I was a self declared trans ally for several years.

If we're talking about being ignored, I note that nobody has responded to my panto call upthread.

Any comment can derail any thread, on purpose or not. Some derailing attempt are sophisticated, some are obvious.

I am only saying that women have been criticised for their clothes since I don’t know when. Didn’t someone ask Amal Clooney what brand her court robes were? Ridiculous. Wasn’t Theresa May criticised for her shoe choices?

I actually skim over these comments, I don’t read them anymore. But I would argue that it is a male privilege to expect people to ignore your clothes.

I would also argue that transwomen get an easier ride than women when it comes to hair, makeup and clothes. Especially women can be brutal to other women. I don’t think I ever have seen a transwoman pulled apart for their clothing in the same way as biological women are.

@foxgoosefinch

There are no posts for example between 8am and 9am this morning about racism?

I specifically said that everyone ignored my post about specific issues to do with racism. You said they hadn't. I have read three times and they had. Now you are referring to earlier comments. I will go and read them now, but this was not what I originally commented on.

@ArabellaScott

If we're talking about being ignored, I note that nobody has responded to my panto call upthread.

Oh no, we didn’t

Sorry Arabella

Order is restored. Thanks wims.

I'm mostly a lurker and found this space after the JKR craziness last year and becoming bewildered and shocked at how mainstream media outlets like the NYT, Washington Post and the Guardian were calling JKR a transphobe.

I find the tone of most threads I've read here far more nuanced and balanced than the tripe I read in those outlets and FWR opened my eyes to the absolute batshittery of the genderist ideology by using plain words and non-coddling approach.

So thank you FWR for not being #kind, for using plain words and for your no-bullshit approach. I tip my hat to you.

I just wanted to add something that has been on my mind a while. I haven't read past he frost 2 or 3 posts, so forgive me if this has been said before.

@ViceLikeBlip you said that women's reactions to M+S pronouns badges felt like cancel culture to you. NO IT IS NOT!

There's a bloody huge difference.

What Kathleen Stock and others have experienced is cancel culture. They had their jobs, livelihoods, reputations trashed and their ability to speak removed - literally - in any number of ways.

Some TRAs refute this because she is now geting a lot of media time. But to get that she had to 'spend' at least 3 years of her life, her speaking circuit, the presumed safety of herself and her family and, ultimately her job.

The reaction to M+S is a removal of custom. M+S has not been threatened, had crowds, masked or otherwise, shouting at them. The compaints email has had complaints. Nobody has had their person, their job threatened.

To liken that to cancel culture is ludicrous. Devalues, debases the reality of what happened to people like Kathleen Stock. Ignores the violence, implied and actual of TRAs against women.

Have a rethink.

And I'll now read the thread!

@ArabellaScott

If we're talking about being ignored, I note that nobody has responded to my panto call upthread.

I did see it.... but it was 'too early'... as you rightly suggested.