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[DomesticatedZombie]

Welcome.

If you're new to Mumsnet and/or the 'gender' debate, and have questions, fire away.

Plenty of knowledgable women here happy to help you out.

We can provide links, evidence and explainers for many of the issues, and point you to further actions and ways to help.

Dive in!

Here is a good starting ground for the inclusivity in sports discussion.

It is done by the Australian TV channel SBS and has a number of experts there to provide perspective on the fact that male inclusion really is done at the detriment to females.

Hi cocoapopfan.

Funnily enough, gender identity ideology is not (so far) so widespread when it comes to developing countries.

Some people might say this is because it's a feature of developed countries, or even a 'luxury belief'.

Still, this will inevitably start to spread and take hold as the charity/NGO sector is well captured by the ideology. UNwomen have form on this. Several threads - if you google 'unwomen mumsnet' they will pop up in search results. Here are a few:

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/3939430-UN-Women-people-who-menstruate
www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4304349-UN-Women-want-submissions-on-status-of-women
www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/3647931-UN-Women-to-Replace-Women-with-Gender

Other than that specific organisation, there have been some terrible attacks on women campaigning to end FGM. Some trans rights advocates say it's 'transphobic' to use the word 'female'. Hibo Wardere, for example, has received terrible abuse online for her amazing work on raising awareness of FGM. Again, several threads on here if you search her name.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4170253-Anti-FGM-campaigner-Hibo-Wardere-comes-under-attack
www.filia.org.uk/latest-news/2020/11/27/hibo-wardere-one-womans-fight-against-fgm?rq=hibo%20wardere

Amnesty International have been captured for a while - I think not only are they proponents of gender ideology but they support 'sex work'

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4178832-amnesty-international
hiyamaya.net/2021/10/18/amnesty-international-is-sexually-harassing-women-political-protest/

Filia do some great work on international feminism.

www.filia.org.uk/

more on Amnesty: www.feministcurrent.com/2015/08/21/ftf-amnesty-internationals-convenient-amnesia-on-the-colonial-roots-of-sexual-exploitation/

Maori women speak out: www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4363787-Maori-GC-women-speaking-out-on-YT

Vaishnavi Sundar, Indian feminist writer and documentary-maker, includes this in her work vaishnavisundar.com/

-- that's off the top of my head, hopefully others will chip in.

Oh, Mexico: www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/22/mexico-elections-fake-transgender-candidates-disqualified

This is not so much 'developing countries' as just 'international' though!

A thread on Argentina, which has terrible femicide rates but a burgeoning women's rights movement.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4281846-Feminism-in-Argentina

Info on all countries involved in working for women's sex based rights:

womensdeclaration.com/en/country-info/

Wow, actually that last site has an absolute tonne of useful links /info across the globe.

I’ve watched this video - thank you for your link - and believe it should be watched by anyone who works with young people within any context, not just schools.

Truly eye opening.

Great, thank you. @PurgatoryOfPotholes I was trying to find that one, thanks.

Francesca glad it was useful. I'm about to write to my school about the Cass Review and was wondering whether to send this film as well. I will now.

Just bumping this thread for anyone who is new and wants some really good info to start with.

Loads of info. What would you recommend for someone who wants to understand why some people are so against pronouns? I just need something brief and to the point if I'm honest.

@CauliWobble another poster posted this a while ago and I saved it because it's short and to the point -

'This is what I sent to our diversity manager when asked to declare my pronouns.

1.I have experienced a great degree of sexism at work. Bringing attention to my sex increases the likelihood of my being treated differently as a woman as this experiment demonstrates: www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/gender-inequality-man-woman-switch-names-week-martin-schneider-nicky-knacks-pay-gap-a7622201.html
2.Singling out a woman’s female status can result in ‘stereotype threat’. hbr.org/2016/08/why-women-feel-more-stress-at-work
3.I hold ‘gender critical’ beliefs, which are protected under the Equality Act and recently confirmed in www.gov.uk/employment-appeal-tribunal-decisions/maya-forstater-v-cgd-europe-and-others-ukeat-slash-0105-slash-20-slash-joj'

For a longer explanation, the 'Pronouns are Rohypnol' article is a good one.

There's also the issue of compelled speech. The Scottish Government 'encourage' their staff to put their pronouns in their email signatures despite 60% of the staff saying that they do not want to. Just one example.

There's a really god article about pronouns that I will try to find later if I have time, but basically it talks about them not just being a kindness, or an accommodation, but rather a sort of statement of truth, or an assertion of a 'truth' - that everyone has a gender identity - which I don't believe in.

And more importantly, if that assertion is used to allow men to access women's spaces, it's not just a kindness, it is facilitating something that disadvantages women and girls.

Just like I should not be compelled to say 'Jesus died for our sins' or whatever other belief system I don't ascribe to.

*good article, not god article😱

That does sound interesting. I guess for me I'm struggling to understand why if someone else wants to announce their pronouns it is a problem for some people.

People can announce them all they want, what some of us object to is organisations and workplaces adopting them wholesale, which seems to be happening on a large scale. It's the implication that everyone has a gender identity, which I don't believe.

Do you think it's appropriate for someone in a workplace setting to announce their religious or political beliefs? What if you then stated that you didn't believe in God, and were then labelled hateful for insulting someone's religion? Do you not see the conflation here? Non - belief should be protected too.

Gender identity ideology is a belief system, one that places the concept of gender above biological sex. I believe this harms women and girls, who are discriminated against on the basis of sex, not gender - and I do not want to go along with it.

If someone wants to announce their pronouns that is their choice, however in social settings like workplaces, there tends to be pressure to conform and go along with things and 'play nice', even if you don't agree.

@Roseglen84 Thank you so much for taking the time to write that. It explains it very well thanks.

Here's the pronouns guide from Sex Matters

sex-matters.org/posts/updates/pronouns/

fairplayforwomen.com/pronouns/

This was first posted on Mumsnet. It's short and excellent.

I think there's differing levels on here and elsewhere about how people feel about preferred pronouns. Some people are happy to acknowledge preferred pronouns but object to being compelled to state their own and some people object to preferred pronouns because they are not true and people are being told to ignore the obvious in front of their eyes. The courtesy of preferred pronouns has become something to be obeyed, under threat of loss of employment/abuse etc. There's loads of people who fall somewhere in between these two points.

There's also the issue of preferred pronouns being used to refer to male criminals (including men who have raped women) and the IPSOS rules in particular leads to ridiculous news articles which obscure the truth and skew crime statistics. The most recent being a 'woman' who was missing, who was clearly a man - it was utterly unhelpful for anyone actually looking for that person given that the description didn't match the reality.

Something that is also seemingly becoming more and more common is people (particularly children) using their preferred pronouns as a sort of social control. Children are being bullied or disciplined for forgetting the pronouns of their classmate who has changed pronouns numerous times. Someone on here described a situation at their children's school where a child wore a different coloured wristband to show what pronouns they felt like on that particular day!

That is very powerful and I had never thought of it like that

Also helpful, thank you

This is the article I was referring to.