AIBU in thinking the special talk guidelines are out of date?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

To illustrate my point as to the seeming lack of symmetry that I question whether is sexist discrimination that seems to be surrounding language usage where ‘castration’ has been deemed by a poster as ‘derogatory’, I just read this.

It is really horrific reading about Japanese women, sex slaves for US servicemen, being pumped with silicon to increase their breast size.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4865102-a-history-of-breast-implants-warning-disturbing-content?reply=128180776

So is ‘breast augmentation’ now derogatory using the same logic as ‘castration’?

Or has the word ‘castration’ been chosen to be said to be ‘derogatory’ to silence people accurately describing a medical procedure because those who elect to have the procedure want to remove the word from common language for their own purposes. Namely to have it not discussed at all and hiding the fact it is part of the treatment plan and is being done to children.

Hence my persisting with questioning the use of the word ‘derogatory’ on this thread. I suspect it was done as a shaming tactic originally, but I am very happy to be corrected. If that poster chooses to explain in further depth (not you bonfire to be clear)

Being able to use actual biological reality, medical terminology, names of recognised psychological and sexual issues ( I can’t think of the word I mean there and hope issues won’t be taken as derogatory)

The issue of sexual function, and the removal of that sexual function was a key eye opener for me and it’s a stark example of the determination of TRAs to hide and suppress language.

When a child is puberty blocked at Tanner stage 2 and goes on to cross sex hormones, they will have zero sexual function as adults. They will not be able to orgasm. But we weren’t allowed to talk about it and I had posts removed a few years ago for stating these children will be sexually dysfunctional. There have been accusations from TRAs that say to talk about this makes us creepy, because we are “fixated” on children’s sex lives. Of course we are not, we are concerned about their sex lives when they become adults. But the inability to talk about the realities of this treatment in stark terms describing that impact on future sexual function means there are still people who cannot grasp the concept of what is being done in this particular area. Even gender doctors have convinced themselves these children will grow up to have normal sex lives. Even when Marci Bowers is telling everyone it’s a problem, one of their own!

Children are being committed to a lifetime of sexual dysfunction, anorgasmia, pain, and a lack of sexual awakening. It has to be clearly stated as such.

But we weren’t allowed to talk about it and I had posts removed a few years ago for stating these children will be sexually dysfunctional. There have been accusations from TRAs that say to talk about this makes us creepy, because we are “fixated” on children’s sex lives. Of course we are not, we are concerned about their sex lives when they become adults. But the inability to talk about the realities of this treatment in stark terms describing that impact on future sexual function means there are still people who cannot grasp the concept of what is being done in this particular area.

Some trans activists even say that making this point is "aphobic" (ie othering to asexuals) or some such nonsense.

And I do point out that there does seem to be sexism around the use of castration. Yet none around other surgical operations for women. Many of which have been forced on women who didn’t have any say in the matter.

Why is it supported by people that ‘castration’ be considered derogatory? Just sounds like an extension of the negative sexist discrimination by extremist activists that always seem to ignore the brutal side effects to the female body from the treatments being pushed as being not debatable for transition. Male people’s needs prioritised above female people’s needs.

A child having their puberty blocked with hormones will be sterile and be unable to orgasm and have no sex drive?

Is that correct? Will some retain fertility? Will some have a sex drive? Will some have sexual function?

These are hard questions to ask partly because it sounds so brutal. I don't want it to be true.

Yep. This is the subject closest to my heart and the clarity with which you've described it here is so important.

As I general point, I don't think clarity and respectful debate are mutually exclusive. Also, I think it's easy for someone's good intentions to be misunderstood due to either too many words or too much bluntness - I believe there are examples of both here. Personally, I struggle more to give the benefit of the doubt when someone is blunt where it doesn't look like it's necessary (in fact I'm still struggling with one example higher up this thread - not directed at me and nothing to do with the word castration).

And thanks @Helleofabore , all good 👍

From my own experience, being new to this whole mega-wide topic is utterly mental and overwhelming at times. I remember feeling very lost on several occasions and also struggling to find my "voice" at the beginning of my posting journey.

Some posters on this board in the past have beeezily declared that those children can be happily ‘asexual’ and that activists were busy making that a very acceptable sexual orientation. While ignoring that this was an outcome for children and those children had no true understanding of sexuality at the time they are making these decisions, so therefore this was being done ‘to children’ and not a natural decision.

And that children were potentially collateral for adults needs in this way- by forcing affirming only treatments it fed the adult need based on ‘passing’ and that having more and more children who were trans supported adult historical ‘accounts’ etc.

For clarity:
*I believe there are examples of both here in this thread.

Not in @NotBadConsidering 's comment.

A child having their puberty blocked with hormones will be sterile and be unable to orgasm and have no sex drive?

If blocked early in puberty, yes. This is their reality.

Is that correct? Will some retain fertility? Will some have a sex drive? Will some have sexual function?

Fertility will only be possible if their bodies had reached that level of maturation before the blockers were instigated. Fertility and sexual function will only return if treatment is short-lived. Which it doesn’t seem to be.

The term "castration" is routinely used in literature about prostate cancer treatment. It may not be much-used in a patient-facing context, but it's not derogatory. Mostly it is chemical rather than physical orchiectomy.

The surgery is often confused with penectomy.

Me neither. The reality is that we don't know - as children are being experimented on.
If you'd told me 10 years ago that healthy children & young people would be encouraged to have their bodies surgically modified, including by castration and double mastectomies, to give up their future fertility & likely their future sexual feelings, I would have dismissed you as a fantasist. The fact that this now happens regularly is because the reality was blurred by inaccurate language.
And the fact that everywhere, not just on here, people have to tiptoe through all this using euphemisms has not just hidden the appalling reality of what has happened to children, but actively enabled it.

Which it doesn’t seem to be.

Just to add to this as general info for anyone reading@NotBadConsidering's comment:

From the GIDS' own data, 98% of children who take puberty blockers will go on to take cross sex hormones. This means that their puberty is stopped (brain development is also impacted in a way that is "unknown" according to the NHS). Synthetic hormones can't and won't achieve what the natural hormones would have done.

As I said I am not academic, and easily get lost trying to follow the thread of a post. That’s my problem not everybody’s but I suspect I’m not alone.

@Somanyquestionstoaskaboutthis, I just wanted to say that I am supposedly an academic, and I find many of the posts pretty challenging! I read many two or three times. Usually it has been been worth the effort. It all seeps in and I can honestly say as an old-school second-wave feminist that my consciousness has never felt so raised - while my brain feel simultaneously exhausted with it all.

Yeah…. Even posting on this thread I have had to delete and rewrite sections which then become disconnected and mangled. Because I am on my phone and it has a tiny screen and my vision is not great after a short while.

Adding to that, I now try to remember the posters on threads now too so that when I do get lost I have some back history of their posts to help sort out in my mind what they might be getting at. It really is exhausting and I think that it is due to the constant pretzeling of language.

Thank you AutumnCrow. I do find I need to read many posts several times over, and it is exhausting. It’s good to know that is the same for others. Add in the lack of tone in written text, and the small screen problems as Hellofabore mentions, general tiredness etc it is probably not surprising it can feel heavy work too low through sometimes.

Hellofabore yes I have found it really helpful to note who is saying what, and that often leads me to reread because I’ll realise that what I think was being said doesn’t follow that posters usual views and then realise I had misunderstood.

Horrific as it is to read, the above conversation about sexual function, in straightforward facts, is refreshing to be able to see.

@Helleofabore apologies for the misspellings of your name

I have no idea already what the end of my first paragraph was supposed to be saying, oh for an edit button.

In summary, I understood it as "say what you like (including facts about biology and biological sex) but consider the impact of your words on others who don't share your views"

How ridiculous is it to be told to mind our accurate, factual language in order to pander to the feelings of a subset of men, who deliberately choose to come to this tiny corner of the internet and actively search for things to be offended by in order to report in an attempt to silence women.

We should not have to skirt around biological facts and coddle the tiny % of people who may get upset by those facts.

It IS coercive control. It IS gaslighting.

Making the transwidows use the language demanded and dictated by their abusers, is just continuing the abuse.

Thanks NotBad.

So it is accurate to say that most children being given puberty blockers will be sterilised and lose sexual function.

My “seems to be” was actually more me musing on the late-initiated PBs. If a 15 year old is started on PBs then goes onto cross sex hormones for just 6-12 months before deciding it’s a mistake, their fertility and sexual function may well return to normal. But the longer a male is on oestrogen the more likely his testes will turn sclerotic and eventually will be rendered useless even if oestrogen is stopped.

Similarly a female who reached menstruation before testosterone was started will likely resume periods and fertility if testosterone is stopped (we know women can get pregnant) but the longer testosterone is given the greater degree of vaginal atrophy and difficulty with penetrative sex as a result.

Slightly tangential, but still within the broader topic of the thread (the delivery and impact of language), I tried out some styles of delivery on Twitter. I was inspired by this thread to see what would happen. For context, I have never had a Twitter account until a few days ago and I have only joined in order to follow what's happening now that Andrew Neil has started to amplify the voices, within the media, of those that have gone before him - specifically on the harms to children.

I entered a "debate" with a well-known transwoman who is on TV with reasonable regularity. Suffice to say, it didn't take many posts back and forth between us for me to get blocked by this person and "shut down" as a bigot. In parallel another very angry TRA joined in. Funnily enough it ended the same way. In both threads of the conversation, my reasonable (yet admittedly slightly digging*) tone contrasted with the responses. In both cases, my words were twisted and given a different meaning and/or circumvented with completely irrelevant info. I'm not going to bother continuing the conversation but it was certainly an interesting experience. I'll save my energy for helping to stop children being harmed. This is a personal cause and will also indirectly help my daughter (she's the whole reason I entered this underground world on MN - there are plenty of threads on this so I won't restate it here). Whether Twitter is an important tool for me to use in this quest, I don't know. But a practice round on a key topic (in this case women's rowing and the new announcement yesterday), in parallel with this thread, was helpful.

*I wanted engagement with my comments so I had to give a "hook" to achieve this.

Ah OK, yes. Also very important. There's so much to the whole topic.
I'm trying to be careful not to derail the thread (I imagine you are too) but, just as with the word castration, it's a useful working example on the importance of (respectful) clarity.

Indeed pussyhat.

Add to that that there are some posters who then seek to shame women for using their direct language because they feel it is not conducive to compromise. I remember one thread where that happened and the ‘compromise’ being suggested was the exact thing that most of us regulars have been doing for years. And some of you other regulars for many more years than others.

Yet there was a group of posters telling women to moderate their language to a male who was posting. What was the outcome? Well, you might be surprised that the male poster declared that while they were very conscious that women felt distress at their presence in toilets and often chose unisex when they could, there was never any intention to stop using female single sex spaces if that was all that was available. No surprises there.

Yet, women were denigrated for stating their boundaries to this poster. And then told that they should be open to compromise. Not compromise by giving up single sex spaces, mind you… just compromise by not being so direct and having conversations with policy makers. As if we fucking haven’t been doing that and getting results already. But no… stating boundaries directly and pointing out bluntly that males breach those boundaries was considered mean.

So to me, too often language policing comes along with ‘I am not like ‘those’ women, from people who are actually just like ‘us’ women but don’t want to be seen that way’. And that is everything to do with the person’s own prejudices about women who prefer direct speech.

As I general point, I don't think clarity and respectful debate are mutually exclusive. Also, I think it's easy for someone's good intentions to be misunderstood due to either too many words or too much bluntness - I believe there are examples of both here.

I agree that clarity and respectful debate are not mutually exclusive. However, clarity is key waffling and tiptoeing around does not clarity make and it is one of the reasons we are in this mess because language and descriptions have been so mangled and obfuscated.

Personally, I struggle more to give the benefit of the doubt when someone is blunt where it doesn't look like it's necessary (in fact I'm still struggling with one example higher up this thread - not directed at me and nothing to do with the word castration).

What do you mean by this: Personally, I struggle more to give the benefit of the doubt when someone is blunt where it doesn't look like it's necessary

Give the benefit of the doubt - what doubt and to whom? What do you class as unnecessary?

You know we have more than enough MRAs and TRAs policing our speech - what we say and how we say it - without you joining in. Like another poster on this Board you seem very keen to tone police this debate and tell us that people will stop listening if we speak with clarity. I completely disagree with you I think the reason people have not realised just how bad this ideology is and how far it has gone is because people have tied themselves in knots, obfuscated and mangled the language so much that people don't understand what is going on and therefore switch off.

Beware of tone policing others posts as you may well find that they will do the same to yours.