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

@onegirlandherdog

I think you also might need to do some reading on the predation point. 60% of trans women in prisons have committed sex offences against women or children. That is not the same as saying that all trans women are predators, but what it is saying is that some people (whether trans or not) will abuse identity.

Haha its tra and mra who are the fascists it's why they police gender and tell boys they can't behave like girls! Gc don't believe in gender so there is no specific way to act you just have a body. How the fuck people don't get this I don't know! How homophobic can you get, trans is so offensive to feminism and gay and non conforming people.

policing gender and denying bodily autonomy to women - trans or cisgender - and basically anyone else who doesn't fit a strict, readily identifiable gender binary. Which is exactly what GC people are also doing.

But this is rubbish, I'm afraid. Where did you get this from?

@PlanetLuna - I think sometimes the sheer volume of posts - particularly if they are disagreeing with you, and often vehemently - will feel like an onslaught. It is hard in an online environment to parse "volume" from "pile on", because they can feel the same.

On the other hand, I think that the anonymity of a forum means that many responses will be harsher: while some posters may well be happy to repeat what they have said to your face in one-to-one discourse, others would not. We lose the human-ness of people in a virtual world - and with it we tend to lose a sense of humanity. (This is true on all sides to some extent, but is, for me, especially true on one particular side - hence the need for this forum.)

If you can stand the cut and thrust, and not feel like everything is directed at you personally (because it isn't: no-one knows you; separate your words from you as a person), then it's easier to approach debate here with a sense of equanimity. And if that feels untenable, then there is always the "Report" link.

[New username; old, old poster.]

@onegirlandherdog Nope, not policing anyone's gender or denying bodily autonomy as long as they're old enough to understand the consequences of any changes they make. Just aware that you can't change your sex.

Far right: think your sex determines the gender roles you must follow. Don't like same sex attraction.
Far left: think your gender expression determines the sex you must be. Believe same sex attraction is akin to racism, is genital fetishism.
Gender critical feminists: think your sex is a biological reality and you can be whoever you want to be. Support same sex attraction.

We're very reasonable, accepting and stuck right in the middle of bigotry on both sides.

The reason far right groups overlap with GC groups is because a key part of fascist ideology is about policing gender and denying bodily autonomy to women - trans or cisgender - and basically anyone else who doesn't fit a strict, readily identifiable gender binary. Which is exactly what GC people are also doing

I don't think you understand the GC position. Gender stereotypes should be consigned to history, no one should be constrained by outdated notions of girl stuff/boy stuff.

GC feminism dominates on UK parenting sites in particular.

Mothers in "recognising how female biology is weaponised against women" shocker!

inclusive/non-GC feminism is extremely popular [...] among younger feminists

So amongst women who haven't had kids yet.

It's almost as if having a child grow inside your very female uterus, and having to push it out through your very female vagina or else be sliced open like a gutted pig, make women highly aware of just how much their female bodies do in fact affect their lives.

And no. Make your own platform. how entitled do you have to be to demand space on someone else's platform? I'd say, about as entitled as you have to be to demand access to the single-sex spaces of the opposite sex.

What's the betting that the OP is male?

I just can't see why the trans activists who want to enforce gendered roles on people don't understand what gender critical means. You have a permission or vagina which is not relevant to your personality or interests, we don't believe in gender! It's the trans people and far right who want to make people fit in a binary not gc people.

Except that this is rubbish. You’re just wrong, I’m afraid: and if you don’t like it when people point out that you’re wrong and call it “patronising”, god help you. What do you think gender critical feminism is, then? It’s entirely based on second wave feminist criticisms of gender as oppressive - that’s what it literally means.

NAH. I like it here. Other sites allowed me to be attacked simply because I am not a TWAW. A friend and I have a simple question and answer site for young girls. We explore the areas around puberty and periods. Apparently our small site caught the attention of some TWAW folks. We were told we were discriminatory simply we because we chose to say that periods were very much a part of being a woman. How dare we!

Cakes, curtains, pot plants............ how cosy this board is becoming!

And FWIW, many of the most “gender critical” second wave feminists were black. Being critical of gender is a position derived from Marxism, where for Marxist feminists gender is the ideological system that props up sex oppression.

Far right? You’re really badly misinformed and you’d be well served to actually listen to what GC / second wave feminism is all about. Sounds pretty patronising to dismiss what people are telling you they believe. Where’s all the “people are who they say they are” when it’s you wanting to stereotype and misinform…?

When you think of all the GNC Lesbians who have been key in identifying the conflict of rights issue and getting it to a wider audience, it seems pretty ludicrous to say that GC feminists enforce gender stereotypes!

Julie Bindel? Kathleen Stock? Sheila Jeffreys? Julia Long? Anne Ruzylo? Linda Bellos? Allison Bailey? Rhona Hotchkiss? Bev Jackson? Kate Harris?

Not exactly rightwing tradwives, are they? 😂

Indeed @Whaeanui , very true , seems odd a new poster would choose the two most ardent topics then post inflammatory content and then complain about bullying! .
And fyi @PlanetLuna , your post was deleted because it was technically a personal attack on me !
I didn't find it offensive or report it , either mn took it down or someone else reported it.
When I said I didn't think it broke talk guidelines, does not mean I condone or agreed with it!

@onegirlandherdog but this is the biggest pile of arrant bollocks about “GC” beliefs, I’m afraid. (I’m actually embarrassed for you - in reality they’re the exact opposite of this.) Sounds like it would be good for you to listen to the women on here, and maybe read some second wave feminism?

You said earlier upthread that you’re in your fifties and found LGBTQ+ spaces very accepting. If that’s true, you know perfectly well that T was only added to LGB in the 90s, and Q was a slur until very recently, so there certainly weren’t “LGBTQ+” spaces until well after the Millennium. And, I don’t know where you live, but as a bi/lesbian woman in her 40s who used to live and work in SoHo in the 90s and early 2000s, I was rarely accepted in any gay male venue and I was also not particularly accepted in L venues — most so-called “LGB” spaces were actually very intolerant of bisexuals. There were only a few “inclusive” bars even in SoHo which you could drink in (as a visibly non-butch woman) without getting ostracised.

And it was routine for tourists to shout “queers” at you in the street if you were with anyone who looked like they might be a bit gay (one reason why I don’t like the label “queer” - heard it too often in that context). So even way back when, gay spaces were not always great for women tbh. I’m surprised you didn’t encounter this. Where were you going?

@EmotionalSupportHyena Julie Bindel was hanging out with the Heritage Foundation and Kathleen Stock was praising anti - abortion campaigners on twitter!! JK Rowling praised Matt Walsh - a fascist who openly discusses the fertility of teenage girls - in front of her millions of twitter followers. I can tell which people are the feminists and it isn't this lot.

No feminist exists who isn't critical of gender surely?

How annoying: autocarrot corrects Soho to SoHo on my phone. Bloody Americanisms everywhere!

🙄

Feminists are not having a go anyone who doesn't fit the gender binary

In general they would praise anyone who rejects the gender binary or any other form of gender

The more people who reject gender binary the better

What they do insist is that sex is binary and sometimes sex matter

Can you be specific about these claims, forgive my cynicism. What constitutes "hanging out" with the Heritage Foundation? What exactly did Kathleen Stock say to whom? What was JKRs specific praising of Matt Walsh?

The reason far right groups overlap with GC groups is because a key part of fascist ideology is about policing gender and denying bodily autonomy to women - trans or cisgender - and basically anyone else who doesn't fit a strict, readily identifiable gender binary. Which is exactly what GC people are also doing.

@onegirlandherdog In what way do you think feminists are "policing gender and denying bodily autonomy to women"? That's the opposite of feminism.

And what makes you think that feminists want everyone to fit a "readily identifiable gender binary"?

How can you read anything on here and think this is what we are arguing for?

OMG, agin and agin, GC is Right Wing adjacent? It was only a couple of days ago that GC was apparently Communist adjacent. Make your fucking mind up.

@Whaeanui
You are completely off base with this personal attack. It is uncalled for.

My request to MN was in no way an insult or personal attack on anyway.

You don’t have to like my op or agree with it. But you are choosing to go out of your way to be personally insulting because I’ve espoused a non-GC pov with which you disagree.

Yes I am capable of saying a lot more and very colourfully but I’d prefer not to engage with you further on this and won’t.

Are you really trying to say that Julie Bindel is gender conforming? 😂😂😂

and do you have a source for your claims about Bindel and the heritage foundation? Because I think you are getting your left wing lesbians a bit muddled up here (you mean WoLF?)

And same for Stock, which anti abortionists and what exactly did she say?

As for Walsh, the man’s a knob and not remotely feminist but the ‘Does a chicken have a gender identity, does a chicken cry?’ clip was pure genius.

You seem to be unthinkingly
mapping American politics onto the UK, btw. There is an American feminist on the thread already who has pointed out that Brits rarely understand the specifics of US culture, law, politics and religion in relation to the trans encroachment on womens sex based rights accurately. I suspect you are one of them?