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

I was taught that feminism is the social justice movement which is fundamentally about women's rights based on the fact that the three axes of exploitation are based on sex, race, and class. It should also be intersectional in the sense that sexism and misogyny women experience are also affected by their membership in a race and/or class category. But if you erase the sex altogether, as is now happening among the new intersectional and inclusive feminism then you have erased the whole central point of feminism and you should really call your movement something different.

I began as a very inclusive feminist when I thought that transwomen can be included in the social category of 'women' when others assume they are of the female sex, as they would then experience most of the same things all women do except for reproductive discrimination. Based on the same thinking, transwomen would be socially counted as men if they pass as they would be earning male privilege, including higher wages.

I was too naive to assume that transwomen and transmen wouldn't require the total abolition of anything having to do with sex, and I was too naive to realise that there would also be a nonbinary category of people having their cake and eating it, too, which would demand the same thing.

Once that became clear, those demands that is, I could no longer be inclusive as my not having those boundaries for my feminism let everything in it drip out and would leave me with nothing that could be fought for (thigh-high socks and short skirts as signs of womanhood is insufficient).

Indeed, as many inclusive and intersectional feminists so often tell us, women might have very little in common with each other which is one of the reasons intersectionality matters in analysis. But once you erase sex from this debate, the remaining group certainly would have nothing in common that it wouldn't have in common with some random group of people.

So for me the point of feminism would be lost. And this is why I agree with many on this thread who argue that what the OP asks for might well be worth having, but it's not feminism. It's something else, most likely trans and nonbinary issues.

Exactly, we were specifically told not to use the main Feminism Chat board for those discussions that some find difficult or troubling.

Ahh.... but how would MN monitor which board the threads should go onto? Because really, so many threads started on other boards get hidden or shunted here.

If a thread contains disagreement that males should be included as females for the purposes of the gap between the sexes for pay (and I DO mean sex) and discrimination based on a person's sex for instance, wouldn't it just get put into the main Sex and Gender board, as it is happens now. So, in effect, no threads would stay on the new board.

OP, I promise not to derail any threads you care to start on Feminism Chat.
Happy now?

At least we can talk about the risks of castrating adolescents without fear of deletion over on the Doghouse!

Brava

Still laughing/puzzling at "inclusive (non-GC)"

Hear, hear.

this thread where people are telling me no one ever comes to FWR is showing up in trending right now in fact. is this.....irony?

How do we account for the thousands of women who originally came for the parenting boards and stayed for the GC feminism?

I would love to have more conversations on women's paid work, earnings comparisons and so on. Should I take them to the Feminist Chat site or put threads up here? Sadly, even there sex would rear its ugly head as one of the main reasons why women start earning less over their working lives is that they are the ones to be taking time off to have children and the employers know this when thinking about whom to promote, retain or hire.

Also, January is a lovely month, trees showing their elegant bare knees against the white snow, the silence, like a deep breath nature takes between the wild fertility dances of spring, summer, and autumn.

It's interesting. I've seen more discussion around the evidence of risks/benefits of different ages for castration of dogs (and cats to a lesser extent) than I have for children and young people. I've actually seen NO evidence related to use of blockers/cross sex hormones/castration (testicular removal) in children and young people, as to what is the best/least worst age to do it, and the results at different ages. Is there any?

What about a thread about women who do not recognise misogyny when it is right there larger than life in front of them, and who then seek to shame women who do recognise misogyny?

I think this thread kind of proved OP's point! 😂

Hi there, JG.

If you think that my query to MN was in any way controversial or I’m going to “have my ass handed to me”, it rather proves my point that discussions unsupportive of GC feminism are unwelcome in this category.

Also not surprised at your take. Cheers.

And completely agree with poster above that there needs to be much more robust discussion about the CG overlaps with far right groups - like PA in UK and Proud Boys in US - and anti-feminist/anti-abortion groups, especially amongst the hordes of GC men on twitter. There's definitely a threat to women's bodily autonomy looming and it isn't from trans people!

This whole thread is just giving me flashbacks to the threads about the main board splitting.

There were so, so many posters who came on to say that all they desired was a space to talk about feminism without GC views. They were given that space - the Feminism:Chat board. They made it clear that those with GC views were not welcome to post on that particular thread, in very clear terms. I saw several posters with known GC views being told to 'piss off back to your own board'.

And all those threads and subjects they were so desperate to talk about? Never materialised. The many posters desperate for such a space apparently never felt the need to actually use the space.

I can completely understand the OP, as a new poster, not knowing the history of the split or thinking that the name of the board (I.e. chat) might not fit the needs of what she is looking for, might not know this, hence setting up this thread.

What I don't understand is the subsequent posts from other posters who have (presumably) read the thread, decrying the lack of such a space.

There is one.

A loaded question is a question that contains an accusation or unjustified assumption...

This is exactly where the demigender, aromantic-pixie-girl-unique-and-wonderful-self BS kicked off on TikTok isn't it? Girls (mainly girls) refining and defining their GI to create safe little bubbles where no one challenged them and they were safe from encountering handbags.

This article by Jonathan Heidt on why the mental health of liberal girls has suffered so massively will cast light:
https://www.thefp.com/p/why-the-mental-health-of-liberal

Of course it's a shock to find that Mumsnetters don't agree with them.

I was right!

👏 well said

lady - do it

bring your debating shoes though

Here we go, another ' inclusion ' guilt trip for women.

You can post your opinions. If you want to enter into a discussion about an issue as important as this then you're going to have people disagree with you and you with them and that's ok. You don't need protecting from that. You're an adult. What are you scared of?