KJK opposing fertility treatment for gay couples

[SapphosRock]

KJK seems to have an ongoing beef with same sex couples having fertility treatment. Why? How is this benefiting women's rights?

Is is definitely not benefiting lesbian rights.

It also appears to be attracting all the homophobes on Twitter.

So no one should ever say anything, in case a homophobe says something in response?

It doesn't seem to be adopted in general in the case of giving a platform for misogyny, does it?

I think it's important to be clear that KJK wasn't responding. Sapphos has used a screenshot which makes it look as if that's the case, but KJ's comment is a stand alone tweet.
Why Sapphos chose to present her op this way, I obviously do not know. It was pointed out to Sapphos very early in the thread that it was misleading but I haven't seen her acknowledge this.

Perhsps one of the most heartbreaking outcomes of IVF is when it fails for a woman who donated some of her eggs due to financial coercion.
That she may have a biologically related baby out there who is another woman’s child must be a fucking horrendous thing to come to terms with on top of reconciling with her own infertility/childlessness.

That this may disproportionately be happening to lesbian women is something I hadn’t considered, and this is the sort of infertility inequality on the basis of sexual orientation that really needs to be examined, imo.

I can see how it could act as an open invitation for homophobes to express anti-lesbian sentiments openly

This is from your previous comment and I meant to respond to it in my previous comment but hit reply too soon.

I think it’s absolutely fair enough to request/remind feminists and women’s rights campaigners of all sorts to be vigilant about not allowing open and realistic discussion about fertility tech to be used as a respectable-looking cloak for actual homophobia.

We should also be careful not to let fertility tech be used as wedge between women of different sexual orientations (or between women of different cultural/religious/class backgrounds nor between women of different ages or as an excuse to marginalise women with serious illnesses or disabilities).

The same goes for other difficult emotional/ethical topics eg abortion.

Kemi Badenoch’s comments yesterday re: Kate Forbes’ religious beliefs were a great example of how we can disagree respectfully without using our personal differences as political capital or attempting to shame each other into publicly professing agreement.

It’s way worse when it gets to egg donation - at least sperm is easy to extract from a healthy, functioning male body without any consequences to the man’s health or future fertility.

Whereas egg retrieval and the side effects of the drugs involved can have life long effects on a woman’s health - thankfully paid egg donation isn’t a thing here but in some countries it’s normal for egg donors to be middle class college students (usually white) suckered into paid donation by the normal temporary cash flow issues student life can bring and for surrogate mothers to be of lower economic status, often located in developing countries (and thus likely to be women of colour).

Some of these young egg donors have lost their own fertility in the process of these invasive medical practices. It’s grim.

Whenever I post on Mumsnet threads about surrogacy/fertility tech I get a run of ‘Give women the gift of children! We’ll pay your for your eggs!’ ads on YouTube.
It’s predatory.

Also, the same drugs we have learned to be highly suspicious of as ‘puberty blockers’ are sometimes used by Big Fertility- women have reported all sorts of terrible side effects.

Helping infertile or same sex couples have babies sound like such a lovely thing on the surface but underneath the veneer it’s very murky.

thankfully paid egg donation isn’t a thing here

That's true in the same way that paid surrogacy isn't a thing here. It is technically illegal, but unscrupulous people find a way round it. For example, by offering women who are struggling with fertility absolutely huge (ie thousands of pounds) discounts on IVF treatment.

There is a really eye opening AMA from a woman who donated eggs on here. I had no idea how awful the process was and they really didn't explain it to to her.

Here: I donated my eggs AMA www.mumsnet.com/Talk/AMA/4715888-i-donated-my-eggs-ama

Floisme - Sapphos did not say this "I don't actually think KJK is homophobic herself but she is very comfortable sending an open invitation for homophobes to express anti-lesbian sentiments openly" - umbel did.

There’s also a great documentary about this topic called Eggssploitation. It completely opened my eyes. It was quite shocking. (I think it’s available on youtube)

So lesbians don't want men in any way unless they can harvest their sperm? And saying that lesbians do not have an automatic right to use men for their sperm alone is discrimination?

Nope. @SapphosRock said that.

@umbel said: I don’t find KJK’s comment as a stand alone anti-lesbian, and am all for pro-realism and clear language, but I can see how it could act as an open invitation for homophobes to express anti-lesbian sentiments openly.

In typical Sappho fashion, she rephrased it as a smear. It's quite the art.

I think it’s absolutely fair enough to request/remind feminists and women’s rights campaigners of all sorts to be vigilant about not allowing open and realistic discussion about fertility tech to be used as a respectable-looking cloak for actual homophobia.

Thank you.

Sadly true. A poster above has pointed out that lesbian women are likely disproportionately affected by this sort of coercive egg ‘donation’ - which makes sense, if you are in the fertility clinic due to social reasons rather than physical reasons, you are statistically more likely to have healthy, desirable eggs to extract than the women who are in clinic due to their own physical infertility. The industry is so predatory!

Plus the world is now so connected that it’s relatively easy to buy eggs from a woman in a country where it is legal (although this obvs isn’t a reason to just roll over and legalise it everywhere, as Big Fertility would like us to believe!)

Just dropping this here for anyone whose interest in the darker side of the fertility industry has been piqued by this bizarrely motivated thread, it’s about paid egg donation in the US:

This sort of discussion re: both ethics and material effects of fertility tech take place fairly regularly on this board but usually inside the surrogacy threads, which tend to start with a particular news story -often a celeb- and then go off on all sorts of tangents.
There is absolutely no desire to cause additional hurt to women who are struggling with infertility or childlessness, nor those who have already used tech/donor gametes to achieve their much-wanted families - perhaps it is easy to miss these topics when you aren’t actively seeking them out precisely due to us not wanting to wave theoretical or political objection in the faces of women dealing with these issues directly?
See also: why we aren’t starting threads on these topics on the IVF or donor conception boards (and it’s not because we are motivated by homophobia 🤦‍♀️)

Cross posted - link in my previous comment!

Thanks for doc rec. Will take a look

Plus the world is now so connected that it’s relatively easy to buy eggs from a woman in a country where it is legal (although this obvs isn’t a reason to just roll over and legalise it everywhere, as Big Fertility would like us to believe!)

Indeed. We may not be able to protect all women across the world by banning some things here, but we can protect our own citizens and potentially some overseas women too (eg by removing licences of clinics who use "paid for" donor gametes).

Thanks for the documentary too, I will hopefully have time to watch it over the weekend.

First of all, this is emphatically not what your OP did.

Secondly, how on earth is this supposed to work? I can't "allow" or prevent anyone from speaking or responding to my words. How is KJK being held responsible for the things that other people say? That's not a fair requirement to put onto anyone.

I think that's unrealistic and impossible. You can't have free speech and then doctor hundreds or thousands of independent responses to it, unless you freeze comments or do what some dishonest publishers do and 'shadow ban' comments that diverge from your philosophy.

I think when it comes to online conversations in particular, they reflect more accurately the underlying reality of thought in the population. In this respect they may diverge from the conversations we have in everyday life, where people must by necessity curtail their beliefs to fit in. And this can be confrontational and upsetting. But it is a truer reflection of reality none-the-less.

I had a similar experience to that of the OP when KJK was talking about child grooming gangs. The topic attracted out and out racists. Now as a so-called WoC and a CSA 'survivor' (I hate that term) I disagree with the way this topic is framed with it's focus on race. That's by-the-by. But in expressing that, I received really nasty racist comments. They weren't personal, but in the nature of 'All <insert race> are rapists' type sort of thing and worse.

I was quite shaken by it and really tempted to hide all comments. But I forced myself not to. I also felt quite pissed at KJK for not saying anything but again, I made myself question: is that her responsibility? In light of where we are now, where speaking biological facts is now defined as 'hate speech', should I now hold a person who probably doesn't agree with these views responsible for the speech of everyone else commenting? I am sure some of my private beliefs would be seen by someone, somewhere as egregious.

I decided I was living in a fantasy utopia where society is overall 'nice', and I cannot hold someone responsible for bad faith band wagoners jumping on their threads. Best I stay away if I can't stomach it.

In essence I really don't see how KJK can be said to be 'allowing' or 'inspiring' homophobia by dint of randoms commenting homophobic comments under a topic she raises.

Maybe I'm wrong but that's the conclusion I've arrived at.

That’s my quote Beastly - by not ‘allowing’ I just mean piping up when you see it occurring - obvs no one can stop a quote tweet or an out- of-context screen shot.

KJK has a lot of followers/audience reach and there is no indication she saw that quote tweet, certainly not by the time Sappho made this thread: Sappho definitely saw the quote tweet, so Sappho could’ve piped up.

Here is Sheridan Sinclair (gay man) piping up, as an example of how homophobic attitudes/hijacks can be challenged without making it KJK’s (unpaid) job.

(I posted this same SS yesterday but that seems like a very long time ago!)

I certainly don’t think we should shut down free speech - just challenge nonsensical ideas as and when we see them (rather than make up stuff about supposed intent).

By ‘challenge’ I may sometimes also mean ‘mock’ 😁

I wasn't referring to umbels' comment but to yours.

Here's what you said again.
Yes. And WTF was the comment she was responding to anyway? Children are the natural result of a desperate drunken het shag out the back of the local as much as they are a 'loving relationship'.

I assumed you were referring here to Sappho's op in which she uses a screenshot and it therefore looks as if KJK is responding to a homophobic post. If I was mistaken then ok fair enough, but given the way you worded your post - you even echoed the words 'loving... relationship' then I think it was a reasonable assumption to make.

It may seem like a very small point and I'm conscious that the thread has moved on. However the whole basis of the thread is that for some reason Sappho chose to use a screenshot for her op rather than KJK's original, stand alone tweet.

Well yes, people can challenge ideas and words they don't like. But I think your original formulation of making sure KJK doesn't allow homophobic responses to her words to be unrealistic and unfair. She's not responsible for what people say in response to her words. We can only hold her responsible for what she says - and that goes for any of us. We can't be held responsible for things we don't say, things someone else says, things that someone 'reads into' things we didn't say, misunderstandings, twisted interpretations etc etc.

We are wise to try to be clear and precise in our words, but beyond this, I don't believe there's any responsibility to "allow" others or prevent others from responding in any way they choose.

crypto thanks for posting the documentary link.
Bloody hell no research/ follow up on on the women who donate their eggs, how has that been allowed? It's so unethical. Women who donate their eggs are seen as nothing more than a walking egg factory, no thought or care given to them. Just awful.

But I think your original formulation of making sure KJK doesn't allow homophobic responses to her words to be unrealistic and unfair.

That wasn’t my point tho! I was responding to another poster, and I’m no longer sure if the misinterpretation is due to my words or due to Sappho clipping it out of context (as is the theme of this thread)

What I meant was that it is fair to flag up that these things (things= talking about difficult ethical issues) can be taken out of context and used in a manner that they were not intended to be used, and I was referring to my own quite strident opinions on fertility tech rather than putting anything on KJK and my own commitment to challenging it when I spot it.

Sappho has actually done the exact same thing as the woman in the original screen shot - taken a statement of fact made by KJK and used it to fit another agenda.
When I say we shouldn’t allow these things to be used without challenge I am speaking about both Sappho and the random woman in the screen shot. I’m here, challenging Sappho’s nonsensical idea that KJK must be a lesbophobe based on KJK’s recognition of mammalian reproductive reality.

How Sappho managed to make my critique of Sappho seem like I agree with her is truly a thing to behold.

I don’t think KJK is at all responsible for what the quote tweet said, nor any future quote tweet. I do think Sappho should’ve challenged the nonsensical ideas in the quote tweet when she saw them rather than screenshotting and rushing over here to tattle on KJK.

If I’d seen the quote tweet I would’ve mocked it (I don’t really do twitter, I’m too long winded!) so what I did see is Sappho’s nonsensical idea that is the basis for this thread.

I still stand by that it’s fair to remind people that what they say can be taken out of context, that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t say it, or that they have any control beyond challenging/mocking or strategically ignoring. My personal standard is to not allow nonsense to slide by whenever I have the energy to challenge it but energy is a variable factor (also, I am still trying to avoid the tiling job I started yesterday).

Both Sappho and the woman who quote tweeted have done the same thing - used KJK’s neutral statement of fact to try and promote homophobic ideas, although Sappho has pretended to fight (imaginary) homophobia while spreading homophobic talking points (and trying to create divisions between women of differing sexual orientations where no divisions actually exist).
Both Sappho and the woman in the quote tweet have been challenged.
KJK still isn’t a homophobe.

🥳

*Donor conceived children do not have the biological connections of children conceived by straight couples.

Of course KJK is entitled to her opinion but this is anti lesbian.*

No. This is not anti lesbian.

It is anti donor conception!

Of course children can suffer if 50% of their biological genes are unknown!