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!)

Ooo I hope we're all in the acknowledgements 😂.

Research is always influenced by a researcher's inherent biases - that's why good researcher's examine their own feelings and thoughts as part of the research. I sincerely doubt that this will be the case here.

A PhD student shouldn't get away with bias of any kind; supervisors should nip that in the bud. And while the talk synopsis just gives a summary, a PhD will have to define "transphobia" and other terms pretty rigorously or it's a fail.

(I have a PhD in linguistics, but it's from so long ago that GI wasn't even an twinkle in anybody's eye, so what do I know?)

Really hope Eden has to define ‘woman’

Haha yes!

cooo-eeh to the beard stroking them reading all these posts and putting it into a spreadsheet. I'm sending my apologies now as I use Eventbrite to go and listen to ageing musos talk about sex, drugs and rock n roll. So - they have a forum here, come on down and ask us what you really want to know.

You can reproduce Mumsnet posts without copyright permission as long as you reference back to Mumsnet.

HOWEVER there is a limit to how much of the finished product will be referenced posts. I had to reach agreement with mnhq as to how much I could reference in the Under the Duvet of Darkness books, which is why, especially in the first one I had to contact each poster individually and get their copyright permission and then mnhq OK'd the remainder as just being referenced to mumsnet.

I would love to know which professors at Aston university are supervising this research...

On hate crimes on mumsnet?

Also it doesn't say much about Aston university ethics committee

Right, signed up. Looking forward to seeing you all in the chat on the day!

I wonder if uts possible to secure funding for a PhD into PhDs that are based on reading stuff off the Internet?

Perhaps they were born in 2008.

www.aston.ac.uk/bss/social-sciences-and-humanities/students-and-alumni/eden-palmer

Here she is!

@Someonescatmum
I was just checking this out myself 🤣

I still can’t do the bigly letters and neither can my other 5 sock puppets

<daily Mail sad face>

Sorry not read the full thread but … good grief!

I’d love to know who their supervisors are and who is funding this.

I hope also that Eden doesn't equate the number of different usernames as being the number of people given that a lot of posters seem to change usernames on a weekly basis. And then there's posters like me, I'm usually Boiled but at the last count I had about 60 other usernames I've used on here.

They is not going to know if it's 600 or 6 different people they is writing about!

Edited to correct my she's for they's

How do we let @MNHQ know about this research? So they are aware? Even if this is in the public domain, if you were expected to go through all these steps surely this same researcher should too?

I am surprised Aston University has allowed a PhD student talk to be in the format of a publicly accessible online event, given this is on a highly polarised and contentious issue, and even more highly topical at present because of the Cass Review.

This is a PhD student in their first year - started September 23 going by their LinkedIn profile. I'd be surprised if they had gone through ethical review yet, let alone had the time to conduct any meaningful analysis. I don’t think that their supervisors should have let them be put in this position. I wouldn’t expect a PhD student just over 6 months in to their research to be speaking at an open event. End of first year at a friendly academic conference, maybe....

I do actually feel sorry for her, thinking about it further.

She's not very old or experienced and Aston should not be allowing her to be put in this position. Researcher harm during research is a real thing.

Clearly she's doing a biased piece of work that will lead to more obvious wrong conclusions... but its in the public realm now with the very group she is studying signing up to see her.

I "reported" the OP on this thread and added a bit of text to explain. You could also post on the "site stuff" board.

Well I think we should all hereby assert our moral rights.

Report your post using the report button under it and in the free text tell them they may wish to investigate the research being carried out that's mentioned in the thread opening post

Event tickets "going fast" according to Eventbrite. Wonder why that might be!

@Someonescatmum agree.

This is a failure of supervision issue more than anything else. We are talking about a student at the end of the day.

I was assuming they'd just decided to do it by themselves; filled with enthusiasm for their topic and having had no consultation with Aston.

But the event says it's hybrid; being hosted on campus with a MST link for those who want to attend online. Surely, it must be being endorsed then....