Digital Spy forums

[DoItAgainPlz]

For my sins, I've had an account on the Digital Spy forums for years - until this morning.

Last night I responded to a post about "evil gender criticals" and the "transphobic BBC" with the following:

People aren't attacking trans people. But single sex spaces are important to protect the dignity, privacy and safety of millions of women and girls.

Do you think a 12 year old girl should have the right to undress in a space free from males? Do you think medical information should be written clearly in a way that women who don't speak English as a first language can understand? Do you think sports should be segregated by sex? Do you think its right that children (who are likely gay) are led down a pathway of drugs and surgery with irreversible consequences which will follow them into adulthood?

These are important questions, and it's completely necessary to have these discussions.

I made every attempt to be respectful and civil. I don't think I said anything particularly egregious and I certainly bit my tongue.

This morning I woke up to an email telling me "You've been warned" and that I was permanently deleted for "hateful rhetoric". I believe my device has been banned from even accessing the site now, too. I had never received any sort of warning before this.

If they're going to ban me anyway, don't "warn me" in a threatening message. Just ban me. Or if you're going to "warn" me, give me a warning. Not a ban.

My post accrued quite a few likes when I last checked, and at least two messages quoted me expressing their support. They're gone now too.

Using my laptop I've seen the thread is nothing but a trans love in - not a single message dissenting the narrative. I thought it strange when I first commented, but now I know why. Disagree and we'll silence you.

Digitalspy's take on the transwoman in MAFS

https://www.digitalspy.com/tv/reality-tv/a45202095/mafs-uk-ella-trans-groom-nathanial/

Haven't been on DS, but the only reason I've ever been banned from any other website has been because I've voiced criticism over the transgender movement or spoken about the existence of detransitioners.

On one website I got an insta-ban (no warning etc) for being disappointed that Hogwart's Legacy wasn't being reviewed.

I know on other websites there are posters who deliberately bring up trans issues (usually around Harry Potter stuff) just to get fellow posters banned if they say anything in support of JKR.

My DP was recently given a warning and had his post removed on the Singletrack forum (mountain biking). In a topic on British Cyclings ruling on transwomen competitors he made the mistake of saying 'they are men'.
I'm proud to say he has left and cancelled his subscription after more than 20 years.

There's a huge amount of frothing over on the Strictly DS forum about Amanda Abington. I did notice that when posters pointed out facts then they got a fair amount of likes which is heartening.

The BBC once ran an anti-trans article which platformed Lily Cade. If you aren't familiar with her she had a website and wrote very long disturbing and violent content calling for the genocide of trans people.

The "anti-trans" article was "We're pressured into sex by some trans women".

The article was not transphobic, clearly upset a lot of activists with a lot of time on their hands (by writing a lengthy wikipedia entry on that single article), and unsurprisingly you're linking the article to "genocide".

And one of the sources used was Lily Cade who at the time had a website with violent and hateful diatribes towards trans people.

Interesting theory that the likeable Hayley softened us all up. She was lovely wasn’t she? Tiny, meek, gentle and sweet (and the actress who played her is, of course, a woman). Can anyone imagine Hayley Cropper donning a black mask and taking to the streets threatening to punch terfs and saying ‘suck my lady d*ck!’? No, because Hayley didn’t behave like an entitled, aggressive, bullying male.

content calling for the genocide of trans people.

This is what is used to describe people saying that sex and gender aren't the same. And to describe people saying that sex and gender are the same.

You'll note the actual content is never quoted directly.

https://www.newsweek.com/lily-cade-transphobic-rant-full-transcript-1645922

See it for yourself. NSFW and discretion advised.

No thanks, I've read that people that platform that person are transphobic, so I'm not going to give them a click.

Obviously it goes without saying newsweek are just reporting on what she has said and providing a transcript of her vile TERF diatribes. They aren't agreeing or condoning with her views.

So now the anti-trans article didn't contain any transphobia in it, but is transphobic because someone who said something non-transphobic in the article said something transphobic elsewhere?

Oh right, thanks for pointing that out. News organisations that report what someone says, of course, don't agree with that person's views on anything. It goes without saying!

I've learnt something today.

and here's me thinking in UK we were still allowed free speech!! I do know that we are barely allowed to talk about anything in scotland for fear of offending, even round a dinner table, a guest who is offended can notify police and we can be charged in a court of law!! the police dont have time to even investigate real crimes but time is definitely made for talk crimes!!

Sigh...at the risk of playing into yet another brainless derailment:

Lily Cabe isn't a radical feminist. She's not any kind of feminist afaiaa. She is a lesbian porn star who was put under immense pressure to have sex with transwomen.

Lily Cabe isn't gender critical either. The first any of us had heard of her was via this article. She's 'just' someone who has experienced the Cotton Ceiling phenomena.

Calling for the genocide of trans people is not 'terf rhetoric'. If it is, please provide examples of demonstrably gender critical people saying it. I am sure that we all condemn such rhetoric.

Scary times indeed!

When I was last on DS any gender-related thread was dominated by a very ponderous TW called JayceeDove (who I believe has also popped up on MN and Tattle over the years with the same astonishingly long-winded woe is me derailing disguised as 'trying to see both sides'), and a weird AGP with a nappy fetish called something like FairyPrincess. Presumably they're both still patrolling the boards.

Calling for the genocide of trans people is not 'terf rhetoric'.

A good ally would not claim that killing people is the same as excluding them from feminism, or whatever it even is they think a 'terf' is (clear use of language is not a priority for these people). The casual conflation of the two desensitizes people to the actual horror of threatening murder.

Oh yes I remember Jaycee!

This is the BBC article. It no longer includes any reference to Lily Cade. The distressing testinony of women pressured into sex remains.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-57853385

They delete and ban you because they can't counter any of your arguments and they know it.

They can ban the debate from taking place on their own niche corner of the internet but unfortunately for them they can't ban the debate from taking place out in the real world.

Many have tried but they are now failing to contain this subject and control the narrative. In real life fewer and fewer people agree with them and and more and more people feel able to say so.

I'm not in the UK but I had a frank discussion with one of my colleagues yesterday. It started off being a discussion about increasing numbers of women wearing the hijab and then my colleague said she thought it was strange that society was becoming more and more accepting of women wearing the hijab (this is France so I don't really agree with her on that point) but that gay and trans people still feel the need to hide their true selves. We then had a bit of a chat about gay people, and concluded privately that there are people in our workplace who we think are almost certainly gay and if that is true then it is a terrible shame that they don't feel able to be open about that, and I said I had been shocked at the number of people objecting to gay marriage given that who other people marry doesn't affect your life in any way.

Up until this point we were in full agreement.

I then bit the bullet and said I didn't feel the same way about trans people because I feel there is a genuine conflict of interests between what trans people want and the rights of other groups. I judged that it was too soon to get into a discussion about puberty blockers and mastectomies so I focused on women's rights and raised the issue of male inmates in women's prisons, rape crisis organisations in the UK, and sports.

On the rape crisis organisations I explained that in the case of the Survivors Network there are specific groups for trans people. She said, "I don't see the problem, if they have their own groups can't they attend those?" and I said, "You'd think so, wouldn't you, but no, their position and that of the organisations themselves is that they are women and should be allowed in all women's spaces, so there can't be a women's group which excludes them even if women really need one."

On the question of sports she said that there are always people with natural physical advantages over others and I said yes, but none as consequential as the differences between male and female athletes, which is why we have those categories in the first place.

It felt really good to have that conversation out in the open. A year ago I wouldn't have dared.

'"What we are seeing is a regression where once again young lesbians are being told 'How do you know you don't like dick if you haven't tried it?'" she said.
"We get told we should be looking beyond genitals and should accept that someone says they are a woman, and that's not what homosexuality is.'

So disturbing. No young women should be pressured into sex, and gaslighting lesbians is absolutey horrific.

Thank you NeighbourhoodWatch

It is something that I have seen in action. A group of friends (15 year olds) discussing how if a lesbian doesn't have sex with a male with a penis who has declared they are also a lesbian is transphobic. Strangely, every time I ask a trans supportive lesbian just what they are doing in their groups to ensure that this type of discussion does not happen, they never fucking answer. NOT ONCE. They just deny that it is happening.

How very strange that Bizza wants to distract from the discussion of the substance of the article?

How very strange that Bizza keeps trying to find people who are not recognised feminists who say abhorrent things about trans people as some kind of fucked up 'gotcha'? That any female that says something abhorrent about trans people seems to be the tool that Bizza uses to attempt to portray feminists as being people who wish to kill or cause injury to trans people.

So far, we have Cade who has been denounced on this board many times before and is not recognised as having any legitimacy as a voice in this discussion. And we have a woman in Ballarat who spoke at a streamed event that had about 5 people come and speak and when she said something abhorrent had the microphone taken off her. (I mean though, great work that woman in Ballarat who was the one who organised the event and allowed women to speak and then took back the microphone when that abhorrent view was expressed! More power to you!)

Meanwhile, I posted a small sample of prominent trans people who have stated abhorrent and misogynistic views about women and feminists and who have been published saying it. Not just 'self published' but some of them were published and editors allowed those views to be expressed. And nothing.... not a peep of acknowledgement.