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!)

You’ve missed out J.K. Rowling fans, who can be subdivided into transphobes who like Strike and transphobes who refuse to stop rereading Harry Potter.

Actual footage from inside the Forensic Linguistics department at Ashton University

investigate that the potential intensification of linguistic transphobia on Mumsnet may lead to further marginalisation of transgender people offline

Right back at the start of this thread I wanted to raise this aspect, but the thread took on a much more in depth (both alarming and interesting) direction.

So if the point of the "research" is that because mumsnet is transphobic, based on scrapped online postings, where do they get the IRL information that shows either way the power of mumsnet posts?

Do they have access to quotes or comments from IRL where someone has said mumsnet has made me more marninalised.

(Also, a bit sloppy to talk about mumsnet as a whole, rather than say FWR. I suggest other MN talk forums send in their complaints, or that FWR writes in to claim that we are the only true source of "transphobia" ie radical feminist gender critical politics. Would hate to think we are the same as "chat"!)

KJL - I'm tempted to add:

Transphobic people are known by the way that they breathe in an in and out way.

Does anyone else recall the trainer who objected to the way people were meticulously using pronouns because somehow, even beyond Layla Moran's ability to see gendered souls, the trainer could 'tell what someone was thinking, even if the words and intonation were right'?

In homage to both, I offer:

Transphobic people who have the wrong sort of aura.
Transphobic people who give off thought waves that can be picked up by indigo sensitive special people who can detect scepticism despite words and actions.

Thanks! Good catch!

I bet JK is one subject they/them would love to identify as a Mumsnetter via ‘Author Attribution’. JK’s vast volume of known-author text would potentially make her very vulnerable to AI ‘unmasking’.

It's when we discover that for years she's pretended to be Jenny, a mother to triplets, two boys and a girl, who lives on a farm in Norfolk with her half listening husband who owns a penis breaker and occasionally stops tourists from getting their posh abandoned, thought it was a car park mate, car from out of the wheat field.

It’s a broad church to be sure.

Transphobic parents who don't think that becoming their true self at age 16 is worth risking their children's chance of living a long healthy energetic life with painlessly functioning genitalia and working reproductive systems.

Or at age 10. Or 6.

It's like that E. M. Forster line "Will it really profit us so much if we save our souls and lose the whole world?"

What about a mumsnet cryptographic tool
that is needed to decipher the posts in this forum?

They are clearly not serious about crimes against humanity at Aston. If they were, they would be trying to unmask the Weetabix hot milk extremists on MN.

Nice double bluff there Beetle. It’s you isn’t it? You are JKR. 😮

Transphobes who have crushes (in no particular order) on all or any of: JKR, Joyce, Phillimore, Cass, Appleby, Bell, Stock, Bailey, Phoenix, Forstater, KJK and oh so many more… This is important because their/our beliefs might be being skewed by their/our admiration 😁. (Ref: the need to examine one's own beliefs prior to researching a subject objectively)

Boring old (not necessarily ‘old’ IYKWIM) transphobic adult human females and adult human males.

‘Trans’ transphobes (for the sake of completeness since there have been some)

If it is you @Boiledbeetle , I'll edit my post about crushes on JKR et al to being Boiledbeetle et al, but you've got to be quick because of me being timed-out.

to be added to the list…

biology teachers who teach biological reality

people with experience of strokes/ epilepsy/ heart attacks/ hypos/ brain injuries etc which necessitate non gender neutral, ie single sex, public toilets for safety

women who need female only spaces due to past trauma

girls who need female only spaces to prevent future trauma

medical professionals who need to base their patients’ medical needs on reality and evidence

What Eden probably planned to do was to pretend that a correlation between increased use of a particular set of words in FWR and IRL hate crimes and non-crime hate incidents (NCHIs) proves causation. Hint: it doesn't because there are so many other confounding factors, such as:

• media coverage of incidents like Wii Spa and Isla Bryson making people more wary of males in female spaces generally, which may lead to an uptick in NCHI reports as TWs get challenged more,
• increase in willingness amongst certain demographics to report relatively minor incidents to the police,
• Twitter and Reddit changing both their ToS and accessibility to non-members, changing where people can say gender critical things and driving users to MN as a haven of relatively free speech,
• likewise the launch of Spinster and Ovarit to counter Reddit and Twitter ToS changes, giving us places to go other than here,
• and court cases like Miller v Royal College of Policing changing the goalposts of how the police handle NCHI reports during the study period.

We're in "a fairy dies every time you say 'I don't believe in fairies'" territory if anyone tries to prove a causal link between IRL marginalisation of any group and what FWR posters say.

I'm only prepared to be JKR if I can have her bank balance as well!

Luckily you didn't need to edit!

The very worst transphobes would be the ones that bought the Hogwarts Legacy game even though they were told not to.

"investigate that the potential intensification of linguistic transphobia on Mumsnet may lead to further marginalisation of transgender people offline"

I am fascinated with how this is going to work!

I know there are people who would love for Mumsnet to be shut down [looking at you Dr Harrop 👀]

It's a point - how was Eden proposing to measure any offline effects, or lack thereof?

In terms of Mumsnet lexicon, let us not forget:

Mexican house thief
Builders weeping in the bushes whilst you hand out bicycles
Small Korean ladies in the garden
fruit shoots
Greggd

Transphobics with a GCSE in Biology.

Have had 'poo knife 🔪' yet?

Also parking dilemma diagrams?

Perhaps like this?

https://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations

I forgot one;

Middle aged men who were fine with the idea of TWAW until their awkward OH pointed out that this would mean their TW friend being entitled to get changed/naked in the same swimming pool changing room/communal showers as their 11 year old daughter and realising that actually, they really, really didn't like the sound of that at all.