Thread 2: A corpus-assisted discourse analysis of linguistic transphobia on Mumsnet

[VitoCorleoneOfMNMafia]

At fewer than 20 posts left, time for part two.

Thread 1: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5057460-a-corpus-assisted-discourse-analysis-of-linguistic-transphobia-on-mumsnet

Site Stuff thread that tipped off MNHQ: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/site_stuff/5057903-mumsnet-corpus

Bagpuss University sounds lovely. A PhD in the study of old found things.

There's a footnote to explain that on the page. No idea if it's accurate or not.

Yes, I’m surprised there hasn’t been any kind of statement - even a bland, “non-statement whilst we work on the actual statement” type statement.

(Must remember not to use the word “statement” anywhere else lest I be identified!)

I'll admit The Wonder Woman thermal socks were a present from someone. Now can I have my crocs back you've had them on for half an hour now. It's my turn!

Cud sumbwone rite a templit fur a sibject data axess reequest pls? Am but a himble labb rat. I finks this wud b gud for asking to Aston Younee and lotsa peeps cud send it!

Pls can hav merkin fur me beddin pls

To be fair, as various PPS have highlighted, we've had some prime examples of 'non-linguistic anti-MN rhetoric' from Nicci MacLeod if I've understood the change of TwiX banner, additional words, removal of university affiliation correctly…

quoting to amplify

I would also add Alice Mineyko, Aston University’s statutory data protection officer.

https://www.aston.ac.uk/about/statutes-ordinances-regulations/publication-scheme/data-protection

Statement, statement, statement.

There, that should confuse them

the Aston University Research Integrity Office at [email protected]

Speak for yourself I'm very interested in linguistics. For example, back in the days when men were men and women were women and small green (oh never never mind) and no-one had heard of gender identity, feminists were very aware of the influence of gendered language on perception. We used to argue that for example "he" could not be assumed to include women. We also argued for gender neutral language for which we got a lot of pushback, such as the horribleness of the passive tense.

I was part of a group for women in computing. We discussed an article about silly mistakes by computer users which somehow gave an impression women made more sily mistakes than men though the number of stories and page space given were about evens. It was true that women's mistakes came first and last which highlights them, but that didn't really account for the strength of the effect. So (bore that I am) I counted he/him/his and she/her/hers.

And guess what. For the same number of stories there were three times as many female pronouns as male. Better still, the passive tense which we kept being told was far too clumsy to use intead of "he" to include women, was readily used to avoid saying "he made a silly mistake".

It wasn't conscious but it was effective. We already knew that pronouns mattered long before "pronouns are rohypnol". That's why people are so keen on having their cross-gender pronouns respected in the first place - say "she", see a woman; say "he", see a man. People who think they can use wrong-sex pronouns and not be affected are kidding themselves.

Alas no. For it is a very special merkin.

You can however have the six months of cat fluff that's probably under the bed in the spare room.

Cat fur giz me neetmares - v kind offer thx tho

My hair is fairly long and has been known to bring the vacuum cleaner's brush to a standstill.

I could collect and post that for you but…wrong sort of length?

https://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DFU583/fully-funded-phd-with-the-aston-institute-of-forensic-linguistics

Looks like it’s possible/probable that EP’s PhD is fully funded by Aston (3 places offered for 2023 start, linked ad shows applications just closed for 2 places 2024 start).
EP did they/thems MA at AIFL via distance learning and then relocated to Birmingham for the PhD. Presuming that the MA was a 48 week course EP must’ve have finished the MA and gone straight into the PhD, so is currently just two terms into the PhD?

I’m surprised EP wanted to study somewhere that has such a binary understanding of gender!

In other news, the AILD page has been updated to remove the link to the now-cancelled presentation but no mention of the cancelled event, just quietly replaced with the next event scheduled.

Sunds betr thn this shite Aztin Younee giz me. Pls send 2 forenzic linguine dept at Aztin Yunee, GCLabRat c/o Eden. Much thnx. Hav snt cute pcture ov me in rtn.

I took this from the report in Huck:

While these individuals believe that there is some organised legion of trans activists working against them to eradicate women’s rights and spaces, the opposite seems increasingly true – Mumsnet is now, in my view, home to the anti-trans lobby.

How they get away with printing such evidently incorrect rubbish is a mystery, isn't it? Along the lines of "Follow the science!" when claiming that transw don't have insurmountable physiological advantages, when competing against women in sports.

And now I come to think about it, it would be interesting to trace how they/them has shifted from an attempt at a gender-neutral pronoun that can be used to mean either a man or a woman, to a gender identity that means someone is neither a man nor a woman.

The organised transactivists have given speeches and written books about their successes! We didn’t just manifest Stephen Whittle and Christine Burns via collective imagination.

Damn right MN is home to the pushback to trans encroachment into sex based rights.

Well, one of many homes, but one with plenty of soft furnishings.

Quite. Are they suggesting Stonewall (who had campaigning to remove single sex spaces on their web page), LBGT Youth, GLAAD, Press for Change, WPATH, Transmedia Watch, even Athena Swan, don’t exist?

Remind which politician it was who in a committee objected to the idea of there being trans lobby groups despite such groups being listed on the register of lobbyists?

I know, it's bonkers, isn't it?

My lunchtime idea is that any settlement which Mumsnet reaches with Aston should include as one of its provisions that the Doxxing Sandboxes have to come and answer questions on here about their work. (Considered including Nicci Transflag on there but then thought again...)

Yeah, you're not going to see me go after a PhD student at a low ranking university any time soon. Do you have any idea how stressful it is to be a PhD student? If she has done something illegal it's on her supervisor and ethic committee's heads. That's what those roles are for.

On the face of it, it's not a bad idea for a project (leaving aside the exceution, legal issues and the very clumsy wording). Think about it for five seconds. We get accused of being transphobic all the time on this website. There has never been evidence. Great, so, here is the evidence. We know we're not transphobic. So what do you think will happen? Either the evidence that the student finds will be very poor, or it won't be there at all and the project will fail. This gives us real, tangible, backed up ways of saying the claims are false.

I've always been interested in whether someone could do a study to show that MN helps women in domestic abuse situations to escape. I would be sad indeed to see this result in some weird rule whereby we can't use messages on this forum for data. It's online, it's public, it's fair game. Yeah, they need to not use our usernames and anonymyse it all, but it is in the public domain and in theory a very interesting collection of sources to use in a study. Where else is there such a large collection of diverse women's voices? If we want our voices to be heard and trickle down into what the universities produce, there are worse ways.