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).

This is all getting a bit precious isnt it - you put your thoughts on here and sometimes people agree and sometimes they dont. Posters arent here to be therapists. I do often see a lot of kindness and support directed at people, for example, parents who are worried about their children declaring themselves trans. I did find some of the intellectual comment a bit scary at the beginning as it was obvious some people had high powered roles in related fields or had studied to a high level. But in the time I`ve been posting, I havnt seen any major change in direction.

@julieca

The nuanced argument is not thinking racism is acceptable e.g. all the talk of comparing womanface to blackface is racist. Not dismissing away some of the leading people like PP racism. Not reacting to every attempt to address inequalities for LGBT people with outrage e.g. have seen complaints about attempts to address inequalities in health provision dismissed as why is this necessary. Some of the reactions and outrage simply show some peoples underlying homophobia.

Gender ideology is by its very definition homophobic.

Apologies, I see I’ve got the order wrong, juliec, and the posts I saw come before your posts about racism.

However, people’s posts get ignored all the time, don’t take it personally. It does not mean people don’t care. This is a fast moving thread, during which you’d already set your stall out as someone who doesn’t enjoy posting, and who feels chased off by the tone of the debate. How should women react, when we’re told we’re doing that? Can you honestly expect women to just go “oh, Here’s someone who has told me the way I debate is off putting, what I really want to do now is make sure I engage with that person on a tangential point” because…well that’s not how people’s brains or message boards work, is it?

And Robin, with all respect, you are upset about the comments about your clothes. 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.*

I'm at the idea that commenting on women's clothes is the fault of GC feminists. As others have said, @RobinMoiraWhite, it's been something that everyone has felt it fine to do about women for millennia. Remember how every public female figure gets criticised for her clothes? Cherie Blair, Theresa May, Samantha Cameron, Angela Merkel, ad infinitum? Remember those years of women pointing out that the media only comment on what women are wearing and not political or powerful men? There are satire accounts dedicated to this which pretend to discuss male politicians' clothes as if they were women.

It's a fact of life for women - young women, middle aged women, older women. My students think it's okay to comment on my dress sense in feedback forms or make comments about the style of my hair. (Remember when women at the bar weren't allowed to show an inch of hair around the wig? Surely you have an old copy of Glanville Williams lying about somewhere?)

(There's also a bit of a dismissive pile on happening here, which I don't think would have happened a few month ago. I've written some truly ignorant things on here before, and felt so welcomed because I wasn't ripped to shreds for it! Oh!

That and a few other posts changed my mind.

You came to chastise this time. That never flies well.

Maybe police your own tone before that of others? That way you'll never be surprised at the push back.

@Doubletoilandtrouble

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.

This is the thread. It's literally a couple of posts at most. I think Robin would be more upset if we didn't take note of their clothing. As I said above Robin has extensive opinions on women's clothing. Go read their public blog for further insight, it's quite an enlightening read.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3576805-A-Trans-Former-Editor-At-The-Times-Is-Suing-For-Transphobic-Bullying-And-Discrimination?pg=3

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.

I’m just baffled at the prospect of people thinking their posts MUST be responded to.

Do you make note of all the other posters who haven’t had replies and dutifully respond to them?

I think this board is amazing. That is all.

Okay I have read back and see purgatoryofpotholes challenging racism. The only poster who I have seen in the past who does always do this.

My point though was about a lack of nuance. That is what this whole thread is about. And lots of you are interpreting that as about refusing to be kind. For many of us it has nothing to do with that. It is about the racism and homophobia that is common in the GC movement.
Comparing womanface to blackface, extolling PP and dismissing her racism, and complaining about anything LGBT related. Not everything LGBT related is an issue for women rights. For example routinely attacking any display of the rainbow flag anywhere.

@N4ish

Completely agree with your post *@Doubletoilandtrouble* - the reason I feel so strongly about this is that my daughters are on the brink of becoming teenagers and facing into the storm of peer pressure now linked with gender ideology.

A young girl I know is sleepwalking down a road towards puberty blockers, binders and surgery and it's terrifying to see it happen and feel helpless to intervene. Pronouns on M&S badges, gender neutral toilets etc. may all seem relatively harmless and not worth getting worked up about but it's all part of a spectrum which leads to real and lasting damage for vulnerable girls and women.

This ^^

Over 5000% increase in girls referred to Tavistock between 2009/2010 & 2018/2019.

Over 35% of those are already diagnosed with autism.

People with autism make up less than 2% of the general population. Boys are much more likely to be diagnosed than girls, so it’s safe bet that less than 1% of the general population is females with autism.

Yet girls with autism make up 35% of all referrals to Tavistock.

While there’s minimal research on detransitioners what there is indicates that girls with autism are just as disproportionately represented within detransitioners. As are lesbians. As are girls who are csa victims.

This ideology is preying on the most vulnerable groups in society. Sterilising them. It’s a form of eugenics, and being ‘nuanced’ about eugenics is unconscionable.

@Sophoclesthefox its not about tone. It is in the past any woman who does not agree ith the majority being called a troll or a man.

OP I get where you are coming from. At a personal level, I have a trans friend, known them before and after transition, I respect their wishes and always use pronouns to match their presentation.

But.

I will NOT be told that biology does not matter or biological sex is not real.
My lived experience is female, with all that entails. Periods, smear tests, pregnancies, childbirth, miscarriages, fibroids, menopause. These experiences are intrinsic to my identity, which is female. I can't conceive of a gender identity separable from this. If I claimed to be a 'man' it would render the words man and woman meaningless.
Which is, I suspect, the ultimate goal of trans activism.

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.

My apologies @julieca, I had searched for your first comments earlier on the thread, and you are right that the discussion on race this morning was just before your post just after 10am. I'm very sorry indeed for saying they weren't.

I don't think GC as a movement is at all intrinsically racist. It's built on the work of second wave feminists like bell hooks, Angela Davis and many others. Many women of colour are the ones spearheading it and pointing out how gender ideology harms women across the globe, particularly non-white women and girls in the global south, as well as being largely irrelevant to their lives.

On the comparisons with race - well, I don't agree that any comparison at all between sex/gender and race is invalid. It's definitely the case that TRAs use race as part of their arguments - and that is often demonstrably racist. It's the whole gender movement that explicitly borrows terms most notably from African-American culture and the civil rights movement -- look at the term "passing". Now that was originally a term of opprobrium within the black community referring to the social necessity and practice of black people living as white, and has always been considered highly politically problematic. Yet it has been borrowed by genderists and turned into a positive term to be lauded. Isn't that problematic? Isn't that appropriative to take a term connected with other people's history and struggle and turn it into something that you celebrate and then claim it's the same thing?

"Race" as a concept has far less of a material biological existence and justification than sex does, by a very long way. Yet we are told by progressives that sex doesn't really exist biologically, but race is a sacrosanct material reality. Don't you find that problematic? Don't you think that when one group appropriates another's struggle and terms of oppression that this shouldn't be interrogated at all?

This thread isn't about racism and homophobia .

It's about women sticking up for their rights and being criticised for doing so.

If someone went onto the black mumsnetters' board and raised the issue of men in women's spaces and told people that they couldn't talk about race without also discussing feminism they would (quite rightly) be told to fuck off.

@foxgoosefinch I appreciate your reply.
Yes race is a social construct and there is lots of racism within the transgender movement.
As I said in an earlier comment, we live in a racist society, so any movement will have people within it who are racist. I don't agree that GC is built on the back of second-wave feminists, radical feminism certainly is. GC has influences from radical feminism and from right-wing movements, it is complex. I think GC is too new as a movement to judge how intrinsic racism is within it. But I do know key people who speak out within it are clearly racist and their racism is minimised or denied fairly routinely.
We compare all the time between civil rights movements and learn lessons from them, that is fine. But talking about womanface and blackface, and some make a very specific link between the two, is racist.

@TurquoiseBaubles Yes your attitude is a common one. Racism within the GC movement doesn't matter ergo black women don't matter.

[quote julieca]@Sophoclesthefox its not about tone. It is in the past any woman who does not agree ith the majority being called a troll or a man.[/quote]
The literal title of the thread is “does anyone else feel the tone has changed on this board”.

So yes, it is about the tone.

People who seem to be engaging in bad faith get pulled up on it because this board gets trolled a lot. And yes, sometimes one or two posters will call other posters men - so what? I get called “sir” regularly in real life. It matters not a jot.

Why would you stay on a board you don’t like?

I'd suggest that if a discussion is wanted regarding other topics, start a new thread.

This thread relates to comments from OP such as

now I don't think everyone on here can hand-on-heart maintain that they're not anti-trans anymore

Interesting that Julia feels that the GC movement is racist,homophobic etc, when some Trans rights activistsimply that black women ,
and women with DSD are not female and to be a lesbian is intrinsically transphobic.

But talking about womanface and blackface, and some make a very specific link between the two, is racist.

Why is it racist, @julieca? I have done research in that field and both are firmly bound up with each other from the 19thc, onwards in music-hall and travelling performance traditions in both Britain and America.

They shared the same stages and were performed by the same actors. They were performed together as a white man dressing up as a black "mammy" was an intrinsic blackface trope. They have common performance roots in the history of theatre.

I appreciate that if you are not a historian of American 19thc cultural history you may not know this. But are you suggesting for example that I as an academic am not allowed to discuss their common history which is demonstrably, literally there in photographs, performance records, and later on, film? Are you telling me that the substantive work on this is not allowed to show the fact that these two practices are linked together?

Why is it racist and not sexist ?

Racism is different from misogyny with a different history. Race is a social construct and is bound up with both seeing outsiders as the other and the slave trade. Misogyny is bound up with the creation of the family and men exploiting women for their own benefit both institutionally and personally. And woman is a biological reality and a social construct.
To simply compare the two as if they are the same erases and makes invisible the different roots and material realities of both.

@julieca

Racism is different from misogyny with a different history. Race is a social construct and is bound up with both seeing outsiders as the other and the slave trade. Misogyny is bound up with the creation of the family and men exploiting women for their own benefit both institutionally and personally. And woman is a biological reality and a social construct. To simply compare the two as if they are the same erases and makes invisible the different roots and material realities of both.

I am literally a historian of this and I can tell you that this is absolutely not true. What do you think slavery did with women? Why do you think 18th and 19th abolitionists and women's rights campaigners used the same arguments and borrowed from the same sources? Why do you think drag was an essential part of blackface shows and both were part of music hall?

It is in the past any woman who does not agree ith the majority being called a troll or a man.

Again, this is quite the leap. I don't deny that it happens. It does. It generally happens NOT because that person disagrees with the 'majority', but because their posts usually have a tone of underlying misogyny or seem to be following a predictable pathway of using incredibly undermining language such as anti-trans (as in this very OP), or other terms that indicate bad faith posting, or take a censoring tone.

If it has happened to you, post the link and maybe people can say why the comments were made.

18th and 19th century abolitionists made this comparison because they had no other way to begin to understand their own oppression. And yes I have read many of those original texts. Yes black women were involved in the slave trade because they were black. The misogyny added an additional layer of oppression. Just as it did for jewish women in concentration camps. But they were there in the first place because they were black and not seen as fully human.