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.

Is forgotten about that one. Bizarre fuckery.

Many, many thanks to everyone past and present. You will never know how much you have helped and supported me.

Apparently it's International Haiku Day today. As I like doing a haiku and this seems like a good place for it,

A tribute to FWS -

These women stood strong
Prevailing against it all
Never backing down

A joyous photo
Arms outstretched towards the sun
Exhilaration.

FWR has meant so much to me over a very long time, in all kinds of ways, and my ideas have changed and grown through so many discussions with such brilliant and articulate thinkers. I love to chat with them all, including but not limited to Datun, Redtoothbrush, Erishkagalangcleg, ArabellaScott, TempestTost, Floisme and so many more.

In the mid-2010s, when I was getting my head around the rising tide of trans stuff and trying to work through how I felt about it and its meaning for feminism, being able to discuss it here was a huge help, and very much not an echo chamber - people aired and worked through different angles and it helped me to make sense of it. Buffythereasonablefeminist was one of those who I valued a lot at that time.

Man, back in the early 2010s Dittany scared the fuck out of me. I was still in my libfem ‘can’t we all just get along phase’. Then a measured post by whenthered (a lawyer from Canada, I think) opened my eyes to real feminism, not the palatable version of feminism I had been espousing.

Unfortunately so many brilliant post were lost to people deregistering and having their posts deleted after the data breach.

It was a New Yorker article in 2014, What is a Woman, that led me to the trans debate and had me radicalised.

Someone upthread mentioned Posey Parker being the first in the FWR debates on trans but that isn’t true. She was loud and would not bend to MNHQ rules at the time and eventually got banned. That is when he activism went off to other platforms, she wouldn’t be silenced. There were other fighting the fight before Posey though.

I wonder if we would be here today, with this outcome, without having had FWR as a breeding for this activism, nowhere else online allowed the debate. It felt, at times, like we pulled MNHQ along with us, kicking and screaming. How many of us peaked because of Mumsnet?

She did. That was amazing but it was getting a bit too identifying and angry men were trying to find out who she was IIRC.

Barracker https://fairplayforwomen.com/pronouns/

For the hall of fame.

Yes, I remember Tru as well. Clearly showed the TRA agenda was not about support for transgender persons, but rather the destruction of women's rights.

Also wanted to add to the list Thebewilderness, AngryAttackKitten, CircleSquareCircle, and a poster with Hedgehog in her name. There were so many in the early days that I hope have just name changed. Can Lang come back now that this ruling has passed?

Thank you to all the amazing women listed on this thread, and all the others who haven't been listed yet, but support the FWR board.

I remember when we wanted Datun for PM! She'd still get my vote.

This. Let's not create hierarchies, eh? Let's celebrate everyone who's done something.

Yes, I remember seeing her videos and being horrified. I hope she is OK

Such an emotional day! I woke up feeling calm but exhilarated.
Seeing all these names makes me a bit teary.
I wish that LangCleg would get a friend to post on here that she’s ok- we miss her.

Pretty certain she commented under a very recent article. Unless someone has nicked her name.

Yes. I was really interested in that and wondered if others might do the same. Particularly those who are female but don't have any gender identity feelings.

I was on the list of names doxxed for wrongthink by that intern back in the day. I contributed to Man Friday threads and read everything going but didn’t post as much once we started getting strikes for speaking facts.

I fully appreciate how MN had to balance our freedom to post with their business being affected, but it just became so frustrating seeing all the swiss cheese threads with warnings and deletions left and right.

I didn’t dare to hope that we’d end up here, with real freedom to speak biological facts again.

Thanks to everyone already named and to all those who lurked and learned, giving me the courage and information to speak to friends and family about it all calmly and confidently. My teenage/YA kids are all GC and I credit myself with presenting a no nonsense approach to it when their friends, schools and social media were all showering them with the TWAW line.

I’ve connected with likeminded friends over it, maintained a polite and concerned stance with friends whose DC are captured, treading the line carefully while being able to give the other view of the treatments their DC think will save them. And all thanks to all of you.

Good to see so many posters uplifting each other.

Edited to say I initially read your post as a sarcastic response. Now I'm not so sure and not sure what to do. I'm a believer in letting it stand.

I don't like hierarchies. I trust the little people. I've seen what happens when some people become Head Girls.

I used to post as pattihews and half a dozen other names. This thread may perhaps give you an idea of how I came to distrust hierarchies and top girls:

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4662757-womens-place-uk-filia-event-the-elephant-ignored-yet-again

She did. Was it UnHerd?

@Datun She did? That’s great news.

AHM FIVE FOOT THREE

You're my people then!

I’d like to mention my beloved friend Helen, who posted on here occasionally, possibly as HelenHighWater or HierHelen - I never knew her MN name although we both knew one other IRL for years & years.

Helen campaigned RELENTLESSLY for single sex rights and made feminist jewellery to support a feminist film maker abroad (amongst other things). She was a talented animator and died in January after a brief but ultimately deadly encounter with metastatic cancer.

She would have been absolutely over the moon today. She never ever shut up about single sex rights and the rights of women and girls. I wish she had seen yesterday’s news. I’m half tempted to tell her grave. Silly, I know.

There's too many to mention, with each bringing something different to the GC table - I've learned so much from the many wise women on here and the learning continues. Thank you to you all.

The major lightbulb moment for me was when I realised this isn't about destroying the rights of men who wish to present as women, but the protection of women's rights. It seems so fucking obvious, and yet years of being told otherwise had been doubting myself.

Great list Eresh, I was just thinking about bowlofbabelfish and how much I learned from her...and Lang may be a titan of this fight but I will never, ever forgive her for introducing the abomination that is the notorious Weetabix Banana Horror to FWR...

Absolutely. I created this thread because my aging brain can only accommodate approx. 3 things at once and I wanted to bask in everyone's remembrance of well-known and less well-known posters, moments, milestones, moments of support people have experienced here.

It's already jogged my memory several times over re people and incidents, and it's been great to read about everyone's recollections of the hellish/hilarious journey.

...

I may still be a bit emosh and mawkish. Forgive me!