Can MNHQ set up a new discussion category called Feminism: sex & gender discussion (inclusive, non-GC)

[PlanetLuna]

MN, will you please create a talk group/category of Feminism: sex & gender discussion (inclusive, non-GC)?

MN appears to currently have only 2 feminism categories:
Feminism: chat
Feminism: sex & gender discussions

But the Feminism: sex & gender category on MN is predominantly GC, with its emphasis on trans exclusion ideology. Feminists who do not subscribe to those beliefs are often unwelcome and treated with derision and hostility in discussions. Certainly not always as some GC posters do enjoy open, intellectual discussions but often enough that engagement can be toxic & intimidating all around.

It is almost impossible for non-GC feminists to find inclusive/non-GC feminist discussions, and we have to wade through unpleasant (for us) GC threads while attempting to do so.

GC feminism dominates on UK parenting sites in particular. However, inclusive/non-GC feminism is extremely popular around the world (especially in places like the US, NZ, and AU) and in the UK among younger feminists and those who do not see trans rights as a threat to women & girls’ safety. Many UK feminists are non-GC but may feel silenced on MN.

The addition of another category will help open up and improve MN discussions while reducing the toxicity and hostility that many feminists on both sides experience in discussions.

So I propose the following feminism discussion categories:
Feminism: chat (general)
Feminism: sex & gender discussions (GC)
Feminism: sex & gender discussion (inclusive, non-GC)

@MNHQ

So, we should be nice to someone who has posted a thread that denigrates posters on this board and who has had posts deleted in the past days for making negative generalisations (with slurs usually) because we are feminists?

Would you be nice if someone has repeatedly labelled you with slurs and then in the OP continues to denigrate the board? If so, why?

Serious question?

I haven't read the full thread, so apologies if I am blundering here. But reading the OP I think it is a terrible idea to silo off different views on the same issue. How else will us human beings ever find common ground if we do that? We need to come together more, not move further apart.

OP, if your arguments are shouted down, you need to make them more robustly, articulately, and coherently. This issue attracts high feelings because it is so important. Children especially are harmed by it. So do not be suprised at being curtly dismissed if you are not thinking things through. Many people here are parents or grand parents with experience of safeguarding. They know what happens when we drop the ball. We have seen it many times. Some of us are victims of the ball having been dropped.

Surely the point of a chat board is that everyone with all different views can partake in the discussion? If you have a separate board for people who hold a particular view for their discussions to take place then that is just an echo chamber?

How can you be a feminist if you can’t define what a woman is, @PlanetLuna?

Do you think biological women and girls should be allowed to have single sex spaces for their safety and dignity? If not, why not?

Do you think prepubescent children should be put on a path that leads almost always to the removal of healthy body parts and a life of reliance on medicine and surgery?

Do you think it is right to tell people they can change sex, when that is 100% impossible? You can surgically manufacture something that looks like a vagina and vulva or a penis, but they will never actually do what a biological vagina or penis can. And no treatment, medical or surgical, will give a man the bone structure, dna or endocrine system of a woman.

Is it OK for mediocre male sportsmen to identify their way into female sports, and dominate them because their male adolescence has given them more bone density, greater muscle mass, greater lung capacity and endurance, and greater strength?

Should female rape victims or domestic abuse victims who want to have counselling in an all-female space be allowed to choose that, or should they have to accept an obviously male bodied individual who identifies as female in their group, listening to their trauma and basically retraumatising them all over again? I am not saying that trans people do not need these services too, but I firmly believe single sex spaces should be available alongside unisex provision.

I believe that trans ideology is based on deeply old fashioned, toxic stereotypes of male and female - it is so regressive to say that a boy can’t like dolls or pink, so they must be a girl, for example. Surely it is much more progressive to say a person can wear whatever they like, enjoy whatever hobbies they want, play sports or do crafts, like pink or blue, have long hair or short hair, without it defining them?

Women have spent decades fighting these toxic stereotypes, asserting that women don’t have to be feminine, or stick to traditionally female roles, activities, clothing etc, and now there is a brand of ‘feminism’ that wants to send us crashing back to the 1950s.

Most of those topics aren't anything to do with feminism though?
The ones that are can happily go in feminism:chat.

Bloody good idea. Doubt Mumsnet will though. It loves is GC 'feminists'.

So start them. They sound like potentially interesting discussions. What you can't do is expect people to agree with you, or expect a queue of people willing to accept your ideas without them being backed up by exposition, information, evidence, etc.

Have you tried starting a thread on any of those topics?

Gender inclusive language is nonsense. It excludes women particularly. Women have been sidelined throughout history. The push for gender inclusive language is a new means by which men seek to exclude women from conversations about women. Many people disagree fundamentally about the ideas behind gender inclusive language, indeed the vast majority of humanity does. It’s a niche interest subject. People are allowed to post their honest opinions on it.
‘Discussions of whether the anti-gender movement aligns in many cases with the white suprematist movement.’ This is so insulting I am amazed you have the hall to write it. I’d be extremely interested to hear you extrapolate on this.

The balance of views cannot be controlled to avoid too many on either side, it is what it is and people are equally entitled to have their say.

I often wonder if those who wish to tone police here are equally firm with TQ+ political forums in their tone towards women, particularly the rape and death threats bits.

So, on the Jeffrey Marsh thread were you able to support your posts? Or were they just opinion posts that people disagreed with? And because the majority of posters disagreed with you, and you were not successful in convincing anyone that you were right and they were not, you called it a pile on?

I can assure you I am not frothing. It is quite simply a lie to say that I am. I have never said that you 'owe me an explanation' so you have clearly misunderstood.

My first post to you said this;
"OP - could you please set out what you think gender-critical actually means and why it's relevant to having a discussion on here?"

You have refused to do so yet call "GC" people rude and unkind things. I am trying to find out whether you are incorrect in what you think GC means.

Next, I asked "Just to clarify, a non-GC feminist is someone that thinks women have a common factor that is not sex, but it's.... what? I would genuinely love to know. I can't even tell if your feminism would include me or not."

I speculated that you would not answer, which has been a correct assumption.

Please - genuinely as I am ND - please can you set out what is wrong with these posts so I don't make the same mistake in future.

In case you can't see where I'm coming from - if I posted on a Religious beliefs board and said "can we have a non-Muslim space because I don't agree with Muslims being anti-left-handed" I believe it would be perfectly fine to ask me why I think Muslims are anti-left-handed. It seems at best a misunderstanding and at worst a deliberate attack.

You seem entirely uninterested in engaging, which is against MN civil discussion guidelines, so it does begin to look like an attack.

Again, if you can copy and paste words I have actually said and how you interpreted them as wrong, it will help me learn.

It really isn't. If you think that's 'toxicity', MN probably isn't for you. (Hint: don't start a thread in AIBU😂)

Sigh. I volunteer to water the pot plants this week. But I'm not doing it every week.

How about

Feminism: The Land of Make Believe?

As only a relatively new poster but long time reader of what was FWR I think the splitting of that to create a "chat" section was quite honestly a bit politically reactionary.

And commercially doesn't seem to have been a big sucess.

However ... I do feel that the relabelling by MNHQ (who are not our political dictators) has in fact had a negative consequence.

People who are employed to run an online forum aren't necessarily informed enough to take political decisions, because that is what they are. I am saying that based on them moving one of my threads to chat which I did not give them permission to do - and I have checked what I post is my copyright, and was done either because they dont understand the basis of feminism / women's liberation which is that women are discriminated againt because of our biological sex. Of course they might have just been desparate to appropriate a topic to give some sort of substance to "chat".

But I also think that subliminally the relabelling of what was (and still is according to the link) Feminism and Women's Rights have led some posters to effectively act as though it is only meant to be about gender VS sex.

We should never ever let media workers distort what is actually important by them wanting facile and easy boxes to put people in.

I do think that this relabelling has led some to act as though this forum is only about sex and gender, and too often think what is a clever clever remark, to impress other users, back fires. This can happen to genuine posters who are new, and dont know the unwritten rules that some think apply to how to talk about and respond to those who aren't in the know.

But most importantly, and this is addressed to the OP, sorry but what you are saying doesn't reflect reality.

Feminism / women's liberation is totally about sex. It is about the fact that the sex class of women are oppressed by men because of their / our sex.

And (I think I am quoting someone from the original discussion about manipulative splits) one of the reasons that this boards has a lot of posts about trans ideology, actions by TRAs is that effectively women have been silenced on all other public forums.

If this censorship of women wasn't going on than on any number of public forums about women's issue you would get a balance of issues.

So I may have been quite critical (and yes I was being politically critical not rude) about MNHQ, it is one of the few, if only, public forums that allow women to talk aout the reality of being a biological female.

Placemarking, with mouth agape...

'Discussions of whether the anti-gender movement aligns in many cases with the white suprematist movement.’ This is so insulting I am amazed you have the hall to write it. I’d be extremely interested to hear you extrapolate on this.'

It's interesting how some posters feel its fine to throw hugely offensive slurs around, call women 'hyenas' or say we are 'frothing' etc. But we are the ones they are also complaining are 'hostile'.

Sort of like going into a bar and insulting everyone in it, before kicking off that you're not getting friendly service.

Next, I asked "Just to clarify, a non-GC feminist is someone that thinks women have a common factor that is not sex, but it's.... what? I would genuinely love to know. I can't even tell if your feminism would include me or not."

I’d like to know the answer to this too!

In exchange, I bring information to share with the thread, the Trans Umbrella (not invented by terves):

"I’d like to see discussions about gender that don’t devolve into derisory demands of “what is a woman” ."

And the logic of that statement is that if you cannot answer what a woman is, how the fuck do you protect our rights.

If you cannot understand that basic premise, then I do recommend you avoid Sex and Gender discussions from now on because a feminist knows that if you cannot describe a woman, you most certainly are not working towards protecting any rights for female people.

By all means start a thread on how particular language advantages and supports one group.

What you cannot do is ask that no one points out how the same language may negatively impact another group, or have unintended consequences, and disagree with you.

Feminism / women's liberation is totally about sex. It is about the fact that the sex class of women are oppressed by men because of their / our sex.

Exactly - a lot of the discussion around the split was to try and determine why all Feminism topics wouldn't be in S&G (and if they'd be moved if someone thought they should be in the other one) because by definition they're about sex, if not gender.

NB I am not frothing nor demanding anything, I am contributing and, where relevant, politely asking.

So @PlanetLuna just to confirm in case I’m not understanding. You want a feminism board that is for people who are against everything feminism stands for and you want to control what is posted there, what is discussed and who can post? Ok then. Errr…. Maybe create your own forum…

I'm genuinely interested to hear from non-GC feminists (although I have to agree that to my ears that is an oxymoron) because I struggle to understand the values and beliefs that inform a position that is comfortable with males identifying as women and is happy to adopt the term 'cis'.

I am a GC feminist but not like the majority on here it seems.

Tbh I don’t actually care if a man wants to wear a dress and make up or if a women wants to shave her hair off and wear baggy jeans and boxers.

I do care about separate changing rooms, toilets, sports etc.

I also hate the message that if you like or dislike X, Y, Z that must mean you have gender issues instead of just not being a stereotype.

However, I also live in the RL and know that trans issues are a thing and it’s increasing.
And therefore I would like to discuss ways to deal with certain issues without being piled upon.

Many posters on this board are black or white.
They think you need to think that all trans people should be banned and are dirty perverts or you’re someone who thinks mens rights come before womens and you want children to have hormone blockers.

I posted about my ‘trans’ students (most of which are F-M) but one was M-F which I wanted opinions on.
I cannot have these discussions in RL and it would be nice to have a place where I can discuss them without being accused of all sorts.

But you've got your space for supporting men's rights.
Go to Feminism Chat.
That's what it's for.

Is it because your arguments are so flimsy that you feel you need a separate board? There's nothing stopping you posting on the boards that already exist, and even if you did get your special new board you wouldn't be able to stop people commenting and challenging your viewpoint.