A corpus-assisted discourse analysis of linguistic transphobia on Mumsnet

[IwantToRetire]

By Aston Institute for Forensic Linguistics

It has been suggested that the forum-style parenting website Mumsnet is a hub for ‘gender-critical’ feminism, which directly opposes transgender rights, to be practised with little moderation (Livingston, 2018). This presentation reports on the initial stages of a project aiming to investigate that the potential intensification of linguistic transphobia on Mumsnet may lead to further marginalisation of transgender people offline (Powys Maurice, 2021). Though studies of non-linguistic transphobic rhetoric on Mumsnet (e.g., Pedersen, 2022; Mackenzie, 2019), and discourse analyses of other radical online communities (e.g., Krendel, 2020) have both occurred, this project is the first to analyse linguistic transphobia on Mumsnet. It also contributes to existing literature surrounding UK-based ‘gender-critical’ feminism; linguistic transphobia; and radical online community discourses.

The presentation explores the rise of potentially ‘gender-critical’ linguistic transphobia on Mumsnet over time through the corpus linguistic (CL) analysis of the ‘Feminism: Sex & Gender Discussions’ board, using three corpora comprising a fifteen-year timeframe: 2008-2013; 2013-2018; and 2018-2023. As the project is still ongoing, preliminary findings will be presented, namely a comparative overview of trends yielded in frequency analyses. Overall, this presentation provides insights into the growing commonality of potentially ‘gender-critical’ feminist rhetoric on Mumsnet and its effect on increasing transphobic discourse on the site.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/a-corpus-assisted-discourse-analysis-of-linguistic-transphobia-on-mumsnet-tickets-880795271367?aff=ebdssbdestsearch

(I had just finished my favourite tea time treat of catching up on FWR and was going to get back to the grindstone when this popped up on my feed. So have come back as it is too good not to be shared. Enjoy!)

Was there a date when the MN dataset was archived?

Well then all the more reason to use logic, debate and lots of peer reviewed evidence to back up statements here

Bring them on!

If they are looking at idiolect then the tool could, in theory, be used to link an individual across multiple sites. Multiple nicknames on a single site too. In the context of TRA and the real life doxxing which has occurred in the past, this is not a resource which ideologically motivated researchers should be trusted with.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiolect

The data sets contain over 60 million post (sca. 3 billion word tokens) contributed to online discussion boards by over one million registered members

Well I hope they've adjusted for the 50 different user names I think I've used over about 13 years.

I consider myself to do exactly that 😀
i mean, when i read Pedersen’s paper (posted on the Site Stuff thread by ArabellaScott) I felt somewhat patronised that she made a research point out of the fact that MN users had more than superficial knowledge about the history of the suffrage campaign and individual campaigners. Why on earth would we not?

[edited to add: it is ‘lived experience’ shared by women to support other posters and to cope themselves, shared in good faith I am more concerned about here]

Exactly!

Also, although I'm concerned about the ability to dox as Betty says , at the same time a paper such as this illustrates exactly what we've been describing wrt very biased ideological discourse in universities impacting children and safeguarding.

2021, according to the link on Internet archive.

The whole premise of the research is flawed and sails quite close, I'd think, to the new 'extremism' definition.

They start from a highly unethical point that women on here are 'transphobic' and that somehow that rather chilling 'justice' (undefined though I suspect ducking stools or scold's bridles might feature) needs to be achieved. Clearly they think 'justice' should meted out by these "academics" with no judge or jury involved in any of the definitions they use.

That's piss poor research apart from anything else. What's the definition of 'transphobia' they're using? Naming reality?

I know Sarah Phillimore is on here - I'd love her opinion on whether we could take these academics to court for illegally using our data and defaming us all. I'd crowdfund for that. As a PP said this is a place where women get real help - and the chilling effect on free speech for women is problematic in a supposed democracy.

More broadly - why the hell do we have academics trying to set themselves up as thought police? The Jo Phoenix trial exposed things that make me really reconsider sending my children to university if that's the quality of mind they're receiving teaching from. It's highly disturbing. I think this model of growth and commercialisation of the academic sector has failed. We need to return to proper academics doing proper academic research with more accountability and oversight.

I do vaguely remember some years ago a discussion on MN about data being used for academic research. I think it was around opinions on breastfeeding. I'll see if i can find it.

So when this thread started, I just thought this was about a young person working on an ill judged piece of work.

Now I know it is about womens data being harvested, for reasons detrimental to them. With data protection protections, such as the right to be forgotten not being upheld.

Why womens data? Why not reddit or a cycling chat site.

When this thread started, I jokingly posted about writing an essay on Mills and Boons books during my university days. But, this was really memorable because I came across the concept for the first time that women only activities were subversive. Some men resented women for reading these books. These women were essentially entering 'women only spaces'.

Almost 25 years later, women only spaces are still under attack. The harvesting of our data shows this.

My question to these researchers, is why mumsnet? Why womens data?

These academics also work with police, apparently. The supervisor is an expert witness.

One of the chaps who archived Mumsnet seems to work largely on trying to cross reference and identify people across different platforms.

https://research.aston.ac.uk/en/publications/overview-of-the-authorship-verification-task-at-pan-2022

One thing people underestimate about mn posters is that women do actually know stuff and can get stuff changed

The ‘mum’ part probably throws them off

Actually it’s probably that we’re women.

Here is the thread
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/site_stuff/3351160-Heads-up-some-academic-research-taking-place

If you go to the last few posts by the OP, there are a few outcomes discussed...

@RealFeminist

That the supervisor works with the police as an expert witness isn't in itself a cause for concern. There are valid applications - I can't remember the exact details but there was a case a while back where I think a man murdered his girlfriend and sent texts from her phone pretending to be her. The expert who analysed the girls messages was able to analyse subtle changes in language that occurred after the man took over the phone. It affected his alibi/story.

Of course - if the academics are taking it on themselves to define what a hate crime is/what language constitutes hate then that is a whole other issue.

And yeah, the fact that it also connects with trying to identify people across platforms is really concerning! Especially connected with the cheerful way they just took all the data from MN and don't seem to think asking permission for research matters.

The PhD goes up to 2023 and the journal article about FolD says that ‘DataDonors’ can add to their data at any time, so I’m guessing the Polish blokes used it in their mass dataset paper, then uploaded it to FoLD after they published.

Then they’ve either carried on scraping, in order to keep it current, or they’ve scraped again for PhD student…

https://research.aston.ac.uk/en/persons/piotr-pezik
https://research.aston.ac.uk/en/persons/krzysztof-kredens

The large dataset (of unnamed origin) projects they worked on together were published 2019.

The FoLD was launched in 2021 and it looks like their data was an early submission to the depository.

Yes, I am very aware that I use the same phrases and maybe repeat anecdotes under different names. And so I am a little careful, while trying not to be paranoid. In truth I don't have energy or organisation focus to maintain totally separate personas. And neither do most people, I'm sure.

Some women are here for a long time, we share a lot of information about ourselves. So the anonymisation here is pretty light. Which makes us good for research studies in identifying likely groups or individuals from "anonymous" information. In research always wants to start with something easy.

And because we aren't doing anything illegal or immoral then researchers might think we're less of a problem ethically too.

But some of the information shared here is very sensitive and personal information about women (some vulnerable) and children. Well, I put a lot of trust in MNHQ to maintain my privacy and not allow my data to be misused by others. Aston University might think they can be casual about it but I don't suppose they'll think that for much longer.

Because women are not REAL people like men so its fine to do some studies on our data because we dont actually count

And maybe if they study MN they will find out why their pesky household appliances aka women are faulty and having too many opinions and being too vocal so that they can stop that from happening

Researchers reading and referring to MN is one thing.

Researchers casting the whole site and all the women on it as 'transphobic' and perpetrators of hate crimes, scraping all the data and storing it to then analyse and try to match with other output online is quite another.

Event is still up, tickets are free and while Eventbrite stores your email address you can fill in any name for the guest list that is passed onto the event organiser.

This little stat window popped up this AM. I’m guessing this means that 60+ percent of registrants are Mumsnetters 😂

My question to these researchers, is why mumsnet? Why womens data?

Misogyny, hatred of women and particularly mothers. Obviously.

There are so many different ethical problems here!

I do think that Aston's security/privacy categories are wrong. The fact that data is anonymised - well they are doing research in de-anonymising data FFS. Anonymity is not black and white - the ease of de-anonymisation / identification should at least be taken into account.

And so should the sensitivity of the content, topics of discussions and the vulnerability of the people who are posting and being discussed.

Yes to PPs saying that the cross referencing user names is dodgy and could put women at risk. There are women on here trying to escape domestic violence who have extremely determined and resourceful men trying to find them.

There are women on here who could lose their jobs for being sex realists: Jo Phoenix, Allison Bailey, Maya Forstater, Rachel Meade, Roz A, Denise Fahmy, Sonia Appleby, etc I could go on obviously. How many women need to have their jobs and lives destroyed from being slurred as 'transphobic' for reasonable child safeguarding or women's rights concerns? It's been ruled in a court of law that this constitutes harassment in Jo P's trial - specifically in academia and yet this "research" smearing thousands of women as 'transphobic' on NO EVIDENCE is still ongoing? Beggars belief.

I'm up for a legal challenge.

Any analysis of MN posts would really need to be by someone experienced in the language, rules, history and culture of MN.

For example - a thread was started by a self- identified trans woman (possibly an AMA). A naive researcher may treat the questions asked as being "questions you would ask a TW".

However, those of us who are au fait with Talk guidelines might well have been posting as if they assumed the person was not genuine, but was not able to directly say this in their posts.

Really obvious stuff like that - it should be explicitly described in the study how they will take that into account.

Things like use of the word "guise" that have a brief history.

I don't have any faith that this will happen - if all posts are taken at face value the study will be meaningless.