AIBU in thinking the special talk guidelines are out of date?

[TinselAngel]

Post Forstater and in the current climate where the assault on women's rights is being discussed everywhere, AIBU to say the special FWR guidelines are no longer necessary?

MN no longer needs special rules to appease the activists who monitor the site, in order to maintain its ability to host the debate, when it is no longer the only site where the topic can be discussed.

I posted the something on the Trans Widows Escape Committee thread a couple of days ago, and it was deleted, it was my first ever deletion on that thread in 6 years. As an experiment I posted the same thing on Twitter and nobody batted an eyelid there.

Is it time we women of FWR, and in particular trans widows, were allowed to speak freely?

The rules are vague and really difficult for those with a communication disability. I have not been able to comment often because of that. Tone will always be off. That's part of the disability.

It's not acceptable that disabled people being allowed to communicate is not as important as the feelings of certain men.

i think that the strict guidelines have been fantastic for keeping the debate articulate and focused on the main strands. The guidelines have stopped this board in descending into petty insults and slurs which in the end would not have helped in getting sunlight onto the problems with trans ideology.
when I was ‘Be Kind’ I came across the Gender Critical arguments on here.

First I was surprised that there were no threats of violence or name calling, but that made it feel like a safe space for discussion.

Then the arguments which had to be very clear and use precise language were what turned me into a GC feminist.

Our monitors highlighted the idiocy of trans ideology.
the Gender Critical side on here is articulate,fact based and intelligent the trans ideology by contrast is word salad , feelings and threats.. the strict guidelines have helped in the debate

I believe that is what my father told me his operation was when he was treated for cancer 25 years ago. He told me he was being castrated as part of his treatment. I certainly did not feel it was a derogatory term he was using.

I agree

yep. That is the term that was still commonly used 25 years ago when my father had his operation.

"Castration implies something is being done against someone's will"

Perhaps the implication is based on your own views. A quick look on google suggests that it is still commonly used for medical procedures.

Good for your father in that case, but can you really not imagine that it could potentially be quite a negative word to use and therefore in debates about trans issues it could come across as derogatory in certain contexts?

Now that Barbie Kardashian is out of the womens prison in Limerick & held in the male estate, under high security. How can anyone say TWAW?

on a parenting forum where Mothers & parents discuss safeguarding Children, we must be able to call male people men….facts aren’t hateful.

I don't understand why other people's feelings should be our prime concern, over and above the use of easily understandable language.

This is how we ended up in "cervix havers" and "menstruators" territory.

That was a very interesting deletion moment...

I was just about to grab your comment @MissLucyEyelesbarrow and build on it.
I'm now pondering why it was deleted so that I don't fall foul of the rules myself with what I'm about to say.

I found your post very helpful in understanding what @Flickersy was saying. I agree that the word "castration" can have negative connotations, depending on how it's used. Equally, if someone is happy to use it to describe their own treatment for cancer then great. It's all going to depend on the context in which it is used, how that's said and how the tone/words are perceived. I think that's what you were saying @Flickersy ?

Personally I think it was unhelpful that your post was deleted @MissLucyEyelesbarrow as it knitted the conversation together for me. I should imagine there was a perceived judgement (against trans people who have had their testicles removed) in the words that you chose to use, but that's my best guess. I certainly didn't read it that way but perhaps it was ambiguous enough that it could have been read that way.

Can you not see that women here include those who are medically qualified, highly informed, and have first hand knowledge of males who have had this operation?

What qualifies your opinion to have any authority at all over the language women here use?

Absolutely. Making communication difficult for those with English as an additional language or a communication disability. But discrimination on the grounds of race or disability is apparently fine to protect some men's hurty feels.

Why should the words women use to describe their abusers - words that are in common medical parlance - be controlled or deleted because they are 'potentially' derogatory?

Again, this is your view formed from your own preconceptions and it does not reflect the medical usage of the word - current and historic. It is a 'negative' word because it means the removal of body parts which will be a bodily trauma and it may be unwanted for an assortment of reasons.

But it is not derogatory as you are attempting to portray it.

Nobody is going to activate my Inner Beryl and make me feel awkward about speaking plainly.

This is back in the territory of forcing rape victims to describe their abusers penis as HER penis, isnt' it?

Nope! No inner Beryls. Now that is derogatory!

Op if you feel up to it site stuff is where mnhq see it

Although the rest of mn can be fairly rabid on this stuff at times. But maybe it’s changing a bit

I'm interested in the views of women on this board.

Obviously I'm aware of how Site Stuff works.

Well that was unduly defensive

Er ok then

Maybe a bit. But I'm not sure that having to work out convoluted ways to describe straightforward reality is all that good for discussion.

I have found it instructive to find out what are the absolutely verboten subjects, though.

Tends to be, if people get very exercised at a certain word, it makes me curious. Why would that particular word provoke that reaction?

Often it can be misdirection, of course.

On this thread, we're getting pushed towards talking about 'castration', which is fine, it's a useful word to discuss.

But there is also the word 'cult'. That, too, can prompt reports. Which makes it hard to discuss, but is also instructive.

Personally, I think that while genderism has many aspects of cultish behaviour it's not actually a cult in the strict sense of the word. So it would be good to talk about that. Cultish behaviour is very common human behaviour, and it's not necessarily 'derogatory' to use the word 'cult'. It's just descriptive of some types of group behaviour.

Yes, exactly.

Sorry but could someone explain who Beryl is, please.

A deletion?! For goodness sake. That was a really useful post.