Here's to the Mumsnet Terven - Roll of Honour

[TheHereticalOne]

I've only just made it to Mumsnet after the decision this morning and wanted to congratulate to the marvellous Mumsnet Terven.

This has been years in the making and every one of you has resisted, in her own small or large way, the relentless gaslighting, bullying and Kafkaesque bureaucracy that tried to bully you out of saying or believing what you knew to be true and just.

I've seen Magdelen Berns rightly name-checked on X but I wanted as well to take a moment to acknowledge and thank the wonderful, clear-sighted, stiff-spined women on here who have tirelessly and patiently contributed to these boards over many years. Some are on the tip of my tongue (below) but I wonder if people would share the usernames that have stuck with them over the years. It seems like a good moment to reflect.

I'll begin with two stand-outs for me: Datun, RandomMess, LangCleg:

You have been a light for me (and I'm sure many others) in dark times when I would otherwise have felt shipwrecked alone on an island of sanity. Your logic and clarity have been a bulwark against a sea of insanity that I sometimes thought would lead me into madness.

And thanks to Mumsnet who steered a tricky course, especially in the early days of this when we had to behave like the bloody French resistance to avoid being sued to oblivion. Moderation was frustrating and we didn't always agree about the parameters but you doggedly kept the lines of communication open between us all here and I am so grateful.

Thank you.

Giant gins all round.

Another vote of thanks for the women above - so many articulate and intelligent voices.

I have pictures in my head of most of you and love to read your thoughts.

I have special regard for TinselAngel for the kindness, compassion and steely practical determination she shows ❤️

Good point!

My eternal thanks to MN and this amazing group of women. I've said it more than once but I don't think any words can convey how much of an impact you've all had on me and my family. I continue to be in awe of the breadth of knowledge here and would find it hard to pinpoint individual names. What I also love is the wit and humour but also great compassion that kept me from going insane. I was part of the collective cry of 'yes' as the ruling was reading out yesterday. I punched the air proudly and once it was over the tears fell. I was watching quietly on my phone and my roar made dh jump lol.

💗💐🍷

It was showing engagement on Twitter regarding 'Laurel' Hubbard in the Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2021. And is part of the 'terf island' legend. It makes me proud every time I see it!

I wouldn't even know where to begin to mention individual poster's names - there are so many on here who leave me in awe of their knowledge, ability to really deeply analyse very in depth legal stuff/policy and to be able to anticipate what's coming next.

I will admit to fangirling a bit when Datun likes a post of mine though!

Justine had posted on this thread

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5316215-thank-you-mnhq?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=app_share

I have been on MN since 2010. But came to the FWR board quite late. First of all wondering why everyone was talking about or bother by Lia thomas and Laurel Hubbard. Boy did I have my eyes opened.

I then went from not talking about it at all to talking about it alot. To watching people like JKR and Glinner (and also Brendan O'Neill who is hot on the topic) with awe at their courage and nodding along. To attending the Helen Joyce Julie Bindel talk at Oxford to wearing my suffragette colours with pride.

As someone way before me said 'I came to MN for the baby advice. I stayed for the feminism'. Mumsnet has actually informed and radicalised me.

All of you. This board has been central to the resistance and we wouldn’t be here without it. Thank you more than I can say.

I can't possibly remember all the names, and I hope every reader of MN is jubilant, giddy, and most of all proud of what women have done in standing up for their rights. I think a decade down the line the women here, and women around the world, will look back upon these dark times and wonder how did society go so badly wrong. I think this does compare to the original suffragettes. Women have faced down intimidation and violence, a hostile press uninterested in hearing the viewpoint of women, pompous self inflated politicians accusing them of hoarding rights like dinosaur eggs, police intimidation, captured institutions hostile to women's rights, the moral evil of stonewall and mermaids, and massive pressure to shut the fuck up and go back to to being nice. This has been a fight with many elements in common with the original suffragette movement. Again women stood up for themselves and won while keeping good spirits. I am so proud of you all. You earned this victory.
I can't remember all names but some standouts for me.

FWS who got the result. What more proof could be needed that women won't wheesht?

JKR for putting her money where her mouth is and supporting so many women with legal assistance. The man and men who wronged and wrong JKR have no idea how much of a chapion for women's rights they have created. Every time they spit at her she grows more determined.

Magdalen "Of course you're scared Alex, they chop your cock off!" Burns who got me into all this in the first place. I hope you have the widest smile in heaven right now Magdalen. You won :)

Glinner who's given so much and never given up. Also made me laugh so many times in my life with his comedy. I hope he's having the last laugh today :)

Posie Parker. Love her or hate her, she's decided she has not intention of ever being intimdated into silence. Let women speak.

Some MN standouts for me-
Arabellascott
Boiledbeetle
RedToothbrush
MrsOvertonsWindow
Datun
Helleofabore
Teawamu ( not sure how it's spelled sorry )

And lastly I want to thanks all the "let them speak" fools who come to MN to stick it to the GC women again and again. They have proved that the gender borg never had a clue or a single logical argument that they could put forwards in good faith. The gender borg have been one of the greatest assests in their own downfall. And for that reason I would like to add the following MNers to the list of posters to be thanked. Please help me remember and fully credit each and every one of them.
Felix(forgotten his number)

Mumsnet isn’t just a discussion forum. It’s an important grass roots lobby group for the upholding of women’s always fragile and precarious rights.

It’s news to me from this thread that FWS branched out from this very site. Yesterday’s ruling shows how powerful a resource this is. For me personally, as a longstanding if sporadic poster, it’s been a last bastion of sanity in a topsy turvy world which seemed increasingly to exclude me. In my extremely captured place of employment I’d started to wonder if I was alone in my fears for women’s rights in an environment which was increasingly superseding sex with gender, and actively indoctrinating staff and others through dubious ‘training’ as to the undisputed truth of a completely unsubstantiated ideological worldview.

Thanks to all on this amazing board for helping me hold on to my sanity through a very trying time in women’s constant battle to uphold our rights. Every small degree of resistance matters.

Magdelen "Oo queeeerrring gendeeeerrrr" Berns 😁. What a woman.

And I second every other person you name.

Also Maya 'worthy of respect in a democratic society' Forstater and Helen Joyce (I've rarely heard anyone as consistently eloquent on her feet as the latter).

I think I was properly peaked by the Maya Forstater first instance judgment. I read a news article about it and immediately assumed it was the usual shoddy media law reporting and that the legal reasoning must have been misreported. So I went and read the judgment itself. It was actually worse and more bonkers than the article had suggested.

Then I remember the heart-stopping moment when I saw that JK Rowling had made a comment about the case. I fully braced myself for a fluffy 'Transwomen are women' type comment and remember giving myself a little pep talk before clicking the link about how I could still enjoy someone's writing without agreeing with them politically.

Wrong again.

So many pivotal moments in all of this over the years. So many powerhouse women (and men). What a piece of history.

Yours is another very familiar username to me!

Absolutely relate to the experience you describe.

To slightly butcher a quotation: I suppose they wanted us to feel cut off from everyone else. Because if it's just you alone you're not as much of a threat.

Agree with all of the above.

I first came over here a few years ago and thought "Why are these women still going on about transwomen? We knocked that on the head back in 1990s, they obviously aren't women and they got rights in the Equality Act 2010 so job done. FWR is some kind of mad timewarp") and I went away again for a long time. Yes I regret that now.

Came back later due to events here in Scotland and read about Sussex Rape Survivors and the hospital rape-that-never-happened and then I knew things had really gone tits-up... someone kindly explained why we couldn't decorate the word "woman" but I don't remember who. Since then I've done a little to help. Read and listened. Put a bit into crowdfunders. Dealt with family stuff that meant I couldn't do activism. Wrote a letter or two to MPs/MSPs.

And... I would also like to add the wise and knowledgeable BonfireLady.

Mumsnet getting a lot of shoutouts on Twitter when people from other counties ask how UK women managed to achieve yesterday's result.

💪

Yes of course bonfirelady

Also wanted to say thank you to all on FWR, I came here in 2020 (I think) when JKR was being trounced on MSM after her amazing essay/blog, I absolutely agreed with her and was very confused by all my usual 'go to' sources saying how wrong she was. This board very much saved my sanity, and opened my eyes. I am in awe of all the amazing dedicated articulate women here, thank you a thousand times for being so brilliant 💐💐💐💐💐💐

All the lady-men of Man Friday who got stuck in and put themselves out there to draw attention to absurdity with good humour.

I'm convinced ArabellaScott is really JKR herself, but unless she says as much we wont ever know, but either way Arabella is fab.

@weebarra waves hello. I've name changed but I recall that we work for the same employer with the former LGBT Youth CEO as our equalities lead. I can just imagine his face at this news he he he

Yes - I hope they're still going in some form or another as I always thought that was a simple, effective way to demonstrate the dishonesty, homophobia and misogyny inherent in the ideology.

I'm not going to name names, because I'd leave out some deeply cherished ones and I'd be cross with myself

So I'm going to focus on two things - intelligence and humour.
I can honestly say that I've never been in any forum where there has been such a thorough and rich mix of the two. Knowledge, insight, wisdom abound, alongside things so witty and sometimes surrealistically daft that I often laugh out loud.

To all you dear, witty, knowledgeable, wise, and occasionally gloriously silly women here - you are wonderful, and the/my world would be poorer and harder without you
xx [kisses AND chromosomes]
💚 💜 💚 💜

Plucky LilBrownDog for keeping things upbeat even when things have been grim.

I was radicalised instantly in 2015 when I came across a thread on the takeover of the Feminist Library by LibFems and TRAs who deemed that second wave feminism required rooting out. I think it was ArcheryAnnie who started that thread.

I'm also a lurker but I remember a GC poster called Somerville tried to identify as gender free but wanted to use she/her pronouns and also wanted to try for some DIE award at her work to much consternation to her employer

Hellebore
Erish
Wes
Keatings
WarriorNun
RedtoothBrush
lilBwowndog
hairiswinterfire (I think)
Datun
ROGDmum
RapidOnsetGenderCritic
Rowan
Michelleoftheresistance
Rufus
BoiledBeetle
Prion
A million more of you. Special mention in despatches for Hellebore and Erish for meticulous attention to detail and never giving up in when I have seen them be trolled mercilessly to the point they had hate threads about them on Reddit trying to shut them down.
The names we lost over the banning years are still here in spirit.

Bugger! Forget Arabella and AlisonDonut.