When did this board become a "safe space"?

[OmiOmy]

Long time poster here, name changed.

I've recently seen this board as being described as a "space space"? This has happened a few

Wikipedia says The term safe space refers to places "intended to be free of bias, conflict, criticism, or potentially threatening actions, ideas, or conversations".

Well, going by that, it's hardly a safe space, is it? We have robust discussions here that are rarely seen on other parts of the internet.

I don't know, I feel cross and disheartened to hear the term "safe space" being ascribed to this board as if we're too fragile to cope. Ugh.

Instead I would describe this board as broadly supportive, wouldn't you?

I mean, I don't find it safe. I am not gender critical and as soon as that is disclosed anywhere I'm ripped a new one. So personally this is the opposite of a safe space for me. Not just this section either.

MangyInseam
And that’s the issue isn’t it. The Op asked if board had become a ‘safe space’ as in ‘no debate’ and a couple of us dared to say it has! But the reason it is so one sided is because of the utter unwillingness of the people in this board to debate areas that for most of the population is a nuanced debate. So they don’t reinforcing the echo chamber

Right, but the opposite of 'that absolutionist nonsense' is in fact a woman somewhere being forced to birth a child she doesn't want.

And I can't get behind that.

Equally surrogacy needs to be reevaluated. Unlike abortion in this case it's the baby's rights that are at risk. I'm not sure I can support a system where a baby is removed from its mother at birth for no good reason.

Those conversations do happen, there is variety of thought and expression.

People move along the range of opinions and back again.

The problem of reflecting a range of gender views seems to be that those pushing genderism don't like robust discussion with those expressing gender critical views seems to be that their arguments aren't very solid, and they don't like the bruised feelings.

Mylittlesandwich
its ok - you are allowed to say it. Mostly women don’t want to outright ban every trans women from every women space unilaterally and absolutely. The facts of the matter is that there is a middle ground in the trans debate and one that society is going to have to find but sadly not debating / discussing here.

In this particular context, where women raising GC / safeguarding concerns are often fired / sent death threats, “Mumsnet is a safe space” means that here we can say what we really think and not worry that we’ll lose our income or physical safety as a result.

In that definition of a safe space, I’d agree

That is totally different than saying people can't discuss or have views that you disagree with because you don't happen to think they are insufficiently centering women.

That's not what I said. Of course people can (and do!) have views that I disagree with. I said that in my view, a feminist space should centre women. If it doesn't then it's not a feminist space.

Ugh I quoted wrong above! I'm going to report my post and try again. It's just too messy otherwise.

I want to ask you why not, but it feels like a trap. Are you going to interpret any questions anyone asks you as being "ripped a new one?" And yet if you didn't want anyone to respond to you, why did you post?

so I'll give it a go. Why aren't you gender critical? I wouldn't ever bother to ask most of the "non gender critical" posters on this board the reasons for their opinions; they are mostly very tedious people. You seem different from most of them, however - I believe you're actually female. How did you come to whatever conclusions you have come to on this topic?

By the way, if you think that women shouldn't be locked up in prison cells with rapists who have a penis, or that thirteen year old girls are too young to decide to get a mastectomy, or that rape victims should be allowed to ask for a female forensic examiner, or that spas where women and girls get naked should be legally allowed to exclude men - you ARE gender critical. If you voiced those heretical opinions on social media you'd be attacked and called a TERF.

@TastefulRainbowUnicorn no I don't think being asked questions is necessarily an attack. Although it often turns into one eventually but I'll bite because hopefully this won't go like that. I am female and was assigned this gender at birth. I don't believe that someone's gender is as simple as their genitals. I believe that expression of gender and who feel like you are is valid and should be seen as valid. I believe that there are shitty people in the world who do heinous things and that being transgender won't change that. I do not believe that people would put themselves through legally transitioning just to harm others.

I don't want a bun fight, I know many don't agree with me and that's totally fine but I am generally afraid to voice my opinions here because of what I'm pretty sure will happen after I press post.

FWR isn't a feminist space though, it's more of a gender critical space.
The board is still called Feminism,

Actually, for you this is a 'safe space'.

Posting on Mumsnet is a place where you can say things other people strongly disagree with, but you do not have to fear being doxxed, death threats, actual violence, attempts to destroy your financial health, to destroy your business or career.
These are what you risk if you have an opinion in most internet places.
Here, whether you believe in rapists being allowed sleepovers with preschoolers if they want to identify as a 4 year old girl, or that all men should stay out of womens spaces you can say it.

The worst that might happen is your post gets deleted or someone doesn't agree with you.

Just because you can't post stuff & gain instant praise for towing an ideological line doesn't mean a place is not safe.

Nobody comes knocking on your door because you said something on Mumsnet.
That is what TRAs do.

Yes, I'm afraid this probably is going to turn into you feeling like you are being "ripped a new one" because I find most of your above statements nonsensical, and it's not very likely that you can defend them logically.

So it seems likely you're going to say that you're being picked on, and run away. Maybe I even am picking on you. Apologies, if so. I like words that have meanings and you've used a lot of words that mean very little, it's a bit of a red rag to my bull in a china shop. :)

Just for example:

assigned gender? Why would you say gender assigned at birth and not sex observed in the womb? What is this assignation process? And is "female" a "gender" now? I thought it was one of the two sexes.

"Gender isn't as simple as genitals" - in my personal opinion, genitals are complex and magnificent and awe inspiring, whereas gender is bullshit made up by boring self-obsessed people, but whatever floats your boat I suppose. A more relevant point is that you need to coherently define gender to decide how complex it is or isn't, or why it matters if it's complex. I have no idea from your comment why it is supposed to matter.

I think that most people are completely wrong about who they think they are. that's the human condition, and I don't know what "valid" means in that context. Who keeps track of whether someone is valid, why does it matter if they are valid, who validates them and is validation a one off process or is it ongoing, would the validation seekers leave us alone if they were all given a rubber stamp to self-soothe with?

I do not believe that people would put themselves through legally transitioning just to harm others.

Oh thank goodness, this is a statement of a concrete belief where all the words mean something! But it's very obviously wrong. If sexual predators will train as priests and social workers to harm others they'll certainly go through the much easier process of buying a wig and putting on lipstick. And besides there are already loads of examples of this thing that doesn't happen, happening - many male prisoners in Scotland detransitioned right after getting released from women's prisons

Anyway - after all that abstract waffle (sorry!) can we discuss the concrete? Do you think that that women shouldn't be locked up in prison cells with rapists who have a penis, or that thirteen year old girls are too young to decide to get a mastectomy, or that rape victims should be allowed to ask for a female forensic examiner, or that spas where women and girls get naked should be legally allowed to exclude men?

@Brokendaughter I don't want praise. I'm happy to have a conversation about, well most things really. And like I said I know how I feel and my opinions are not universal. Most opinions aren't. I've never wandered into a conversation declaring that I'm right and everyone else is wrong. I was involved in a thread, granted several years ago now. Where I was called horrible things because of the opinions I hold. So I kept my opinions to myself. Which is a shame because prior to that I had found a lot of great information and discussion on these boards. By your definition the whole of Mumsnet is a safe space as we can all post whatever we want anonymously, but I think we can all agree that if someone posts the wrong thing on AIBU it isn't going to end well.

I used believe throughout because I'm aware these are my feelings and opinions. That's all.

I used believe throughout because I'm aware these are my feelings and opinions. That's all.

But doesn't it bother you that you can't define the terms you are using or explain what any of those opinions actually mean? Don't the real world consequences - the real people who are being seriously hurt by the downstream effects of that kind of abstract soulless piffle - mean anything to you? Doesn't it concern you that the one belief that you listed that is a testable proposition about reality... is false?

I guess not. But damn. Couldn't be me.

You want to call it sex I want to call it gender. Two differing opinions. That's fine. My belief is that as I looked like I was female both before and after I was born that's what was declared when I came into the world and that's how I was socialised. Fortunately for me that's also how I see myself so no drama there.

Gender is complex but from defining it people can find where they belong in society and the wider world because like it or not it makes a huge difference. Boys and girls are raised differently, society views them differently. That's not my opinion that's just how it goes.

Transitioning is much more than a wig and some lipstick and I assume you know that. The fight for how "easy" it should be to transition rages on.

The Scottish prisoners detransitioning was something I was unaware of and certainly appears to be an area that needs to be addressed. Of course people shouldn't be able to play the system to go to a woman's prison so thank you for bringing that to my attention. That doesn't however mean I feel that every trans woman in prison is there to play the system but clearly there's something that needs to be done.

Should children be allowed to make irreversible changes to their bodies? Probably not. Should they be allowed to live as the gender they identify with with a look to fully transitioning when they're older? Probably.

Should female rape and SA victims be allowed to ask for a female examiner? Yes but how would you define female? Are you going to ask them to drop their pants and look for surgical scars?

As far as changing rooms I can't say I have a huge amount of experience as any time I've been to a spa it's been an individual cubicle where I cared not a jot for the gender of the person in the next room but I would say generally anyone of any gender behaving in a predatory way in a changing room or any other area should be swiftly barred.

I've come back with a longer response it just took a minute.

I mean maybe a hot take but maybe people need a little bit of both? Maybe sometimes we need an echo chamber to go to where there are like minded people so we can just angrily rant in a place where there are little to no people to disagree so we can just get things off our chest that we would normally never be able to say but then we also need places were there is a healthy mix of opinions so we can have real discussions that challenge our minds and help us grow as people?

I don't know just an idea.

Transitioning is much more than a wig and some lipstick and I assume you know that.

I don't know that. I've been on wlw dating apps. Even the wig and lipstick are optional. Why do you think that transitioning is more difficult than becoming a social worker, to the point where it presents some kind of insuperable barrier to sexual predators?

I'm defining female in the normal way, nobody needs to pull anyone's pants down to see what sex they are, and the reason I used that specific example is that TRA politicians in Scotland from the Green Party and the SNP fought against the right for rape victims to ask for female examiners. Do you think that's acceptable? If not - then I'm afraid that you'd be labelled a TERF.

And I used the spa example again because of a specific example - where a known sex offender was using a nude spa and getting uncomfortably close to a young girl of 7-8 years old, but it was impossible for the spa to prevent this from happening because of the pro-trans laws in California. Again, if you don't think that's acceptable, that's a bit TERFy of you.

It always seems like it has to be all or nothing though on here. I support peoples rights to live in the way they choose and are comfortable with. Of course I don't think someone, anyone, grooming a child in a nude spa is ok. I also can't help but question who takes their child to a nude spa? The trans rights debate is nuanced and difficult. I'm happy to have conversations but, for example, should I use the word gender rather than sex. Even in relation to a gender reveal. It's received poorly.

When you say you'd see someone's sex the way anyone would are you saying that if someone presents as female to you then you accept that they're female because that surprises me.

Being disagreed with =/= being ripped a new one

And I entirely agree, but previously I have been called names and stupid etc, very personal comments. Which felt unnecessary to the debate. I don't for example feel I'm being ripped a new one at the moment because nobody has personally attacked me for my views.

I also can't help but question who takes their child to a nude spa?

Koreans.