Late night surprise about reputation of FWR

[IwantToRetire]

I was on Site Stuff to report back on ongoing freezing and noticed another thread about whether Mumsnet should apologise about deleting threads about ongoing conflict in the Middle East.

And there were some comments about there being a border line between legitimate criticism of Israel's policies and anti semitism. And it is this last that get these threads deleted.

So was surprised to see some comment on this thread saying it was as bad as some threads on FWR, and those particularly at fault are thos with a GC view point.

(Funnily enough AI suggested a title for this thread along the lines of "Are FWR debates judged differently ..... " but now it has hidden its suggestion, just when I was going to use it.)

Oh its come back

"Are sex and gender debates on FWR judged by different standards?"

A weird trend here of accusing GC women of being men if they post anything nuanced or more left wing adjacent

isnt this just "it's complicated/you're all right wing" but phrased more politely?

there is no nuance - men can't become women and we've learned from years of bitter experience that any hint of "nuance" eg why can't you just use preferred pronouns who does it hurt? Results in said men using it as a wedge with which to come in to any and all women's spaces, places and programmes

When somebody started a thread which I think it's fair to say was a bit of a provocation [I'll expand on that if required] about half a dozen posts in I said something along the lines of - look, you are coming from a position of believing that humans can change sex, and transwomen are women; the basic belief on this board is that humans cannot change sex, so transwomen are men, and that about wraps it up for any further useful discussion.

It was a bit tongue-in-cheek but there was a lot of truth to it, and in fact that's how the discussion panned out: OP or similar kept asserting that it was transphobic to say that TWAM, other posters kept asserting that it's just a fact that TWAM - when you disagree on such a very basic point about sex and gender, it's unlikely that there's going to be a calm, reasoned, productive debate.

It appears that some threads are started with the sole intention of telling GC posters that they are hateful and transphobic. Any attempt at a real discussion is batted away, and facts and figures are ignored - not even challenged, either ignored or angrily treated as if verifiable facts are just another form of hate.

There have always been a few such threads, but they seem to be more numerous recently, even the thread titles stand out. Subtle they aren't!

Thank you for apologising. I realise now by using the word “misgendered” I’ve triggered some people. But I only meant ‘mis-sexed’, as in the habit posters have here of calling posters they don’t like male. That has happened to me multiple times.

Feminism and Women's Rights ( this board)

I want to Retire, you start threads on an almost daily baisis, and to my mind most of them seem intended to provoke. You don't really require a separate thread for every thought or little issue that crosses your mind.......most of the content can be discussed in the context of existing threads.

How exactly when many who have received those accusations are GC and left wing could they be accusing all members of the board of all being right wing? I wasn't talking about either example you used but typically you've jumped to twisting my post into nuance meaning being a TRA rather than for example GC women who won't support certain political parties or policies because while it promises effective action on PBs or GI the same party of policy harm's womens rights in other ways. Someone can articulate very clearly their position and why, and have a history on this board and still get a baseless accusations for "so you support harming children?!" Even if they're explicitly saying the opposite. I don't believe GC beliefs are inherently right wing at all, but I do find this forum can at times be hostile to mixed political opinions, so no I don't think everyone is right wing but thanks for perfectly demonstrating that anything left wing adjacent is jumped on with assumptions that the poster is a TRA or a man.

The FWR boards have always been robust, I think its because feminist discussion has to be. There's no one way to do feminism, and what is seen as the only logical solution, is going too far for others. This has always been the case from the right to vote, equal pay, abortion rights.

Its not a hive mind because I know I have different perspectives to others on here on a variety of issues. But what we need to be able to do is defend our opinion with experience and facts.

Not really knowing the board and having your first interaction as a OP is a ballsy move. Or saying that you know a lovely TW, therefore what's wrong with him and every TW using women's toilets, and not even thinking about the consequences, then claiming its an echo chambers if people point out the failures in the logic, is unreasonable.

Triggered? Hardly. However, rather than apologise for using confusing terminology, you decided to accuse posters of being “triggered”. Seems a bit hostile to me.

I am letting it go now i was not triggered either, just suspicious.

I think she is entitled to post as many threads as she likes, she has been posting things that she tink might be interesting for years.

And yes some of very provoking as in thought provoking. 🙄

I think it is generally considered to be more nuanced than that...

For those who stand on the gender critical side, clearly the first can not be true - a transwoman (i.e. born a man believes themselves to be a woman) can never be a vulnerable subset of women, because other than their self-selected title, there is no overlap between them and woman'

However, that doesn't mean there is no vulnerability, and equally does not mean that we should be so polarised as to assume that they are therefore all in a group of aggressive, misogynistic men with a sexual fetish... (men yes, but the other characteristics vary more).

Undoubtedly there will be those who are vulnerable / those who are aggressive / those who are misogynistic and those with a sexual fetish, but equally there will be those who may have a mental health concern, those who may have other issues (e.g. autism), and have been sucked into a world offering them something different, there may even be those who have been tracked into this world by others with their own beliefs (certainly seem to be some very questionable parent / child relationships in parts of this world).

So a whole spectrum of reasons sitting behind people's beliefs and the angle they come from in a discussion - by the very nature of those differing reasons, there is probably a skew to a few of them being the dominant characteristics of those who appear on sites like this - but there have been a few posters who have had a different source to their beliefs.

Ultimately, while it is important to fully refute inaccurate statements - and mumsnet has been an important central bastion of honesty / accuracy / truth-telling... it is also important to remember that all are individual humans, and while some come for nefarious purposes, equally a number will be in a tough place themselves, confused, feeling empty, searching for something... and one of the outstanding characteristics of mumsnet, and this section of the forum is the ability to stand on the honest truth, but to do so with compassion and kindness when necessary...

I can see why you might think that. My interpretation would be more that a relaxation of the moderation policy has made circumlocution about straightforward opinions less necessary. There really only seems to be strong condemnation of people who are actually objectively very nasty or harmful people.

I agree up to a point, akkakk.

If you had written this in 1996 not 2026, and if there were a whole lot of posters saying things about those awful men pretending to be women, you'd have a point.

But the problem - and it is also a problem for those potentially vulnerable transpeople you refer to - is that an entire social/political movement was built around the clearly erroneous idea that humans can change sex.

In a very short space of time, this movement, which has a tiny base in the population - maybe 250,000 out of a population of nearly 70m - has had an incredible and disproportionate influence on just about every aspect of life: the law, medicine, the arts, education, museums, the media, language - even individual speakers' everyday use of language, e.g. 'preferred pronouns'.

Flags, lanyards, days, months, painted trains ... future sociologists will have a field-day working out how a flawed concept, representing a tiny percentage of the population, took hold so forcefully.

One explanation can be found in the 'Denton's Document', which set out a plan of action for extending the reach of the transgender movement into all areas of society. Some of the recommendations are very clearly in use

• Piggybacking on other causes: Attach trans rights to broader equality, diversity, or anti-discrimination initiatives to normalise them.
• Strategic framing: Use language that resonates positively (e.g., “equality,” “human rights”) and avoid terms that may provoke opposition

Analysis of the Dentons Document: A How to Manual - Women Speak Tasmania

If the Denton's Document didn't exist and hadn't been safely archived, it would sound like a tinfoil hat conspiracy theory, wouldn't it: that the transgender rights movement was not a grass-roots movement, but a carefully thought-out strategy produced in 2019 by a law firm, and which clearly was put into practice, because we can detect its recommendations in how things have actually panned out.

Another explanation for the disproportionate influence of the transgender movement is that it is basically anti-women, anti-feminist.

I say 'basically' because the most basic assault on a group's rights is to appropriate their very name. If you insist on extending the definition of a group so it can include just about anybody, it removes the identity of that group, and effectively nullifies it. That's what the trans rights movement has done to women's rights.

So future sociologists may observe that the starling success of the trans movement was aided by the fact that it is anti-women, and therefore as useful -as a backlash against feminism as the manosphere is - different, obviously, but also undermining women.

That's what we are arguing against - not individual men who identify as women, the transvestites or transexuals of former years who were so few that they could be viewed neutrally, or sometimes with sympathy or even pity. It's a very successful social movement which has taken hold of key areas of society, and far from representing 'the most marginalised' as it claims, has achieved an incredible and disproportionate amount of visibility and influence.

There is a lot of compassion here towards individuals caught up in the trans juggernaut, especially if they are vulnerable for one reason or another.

Not so much kindness towards a movement which is so inimical to women's rights, and I think that's fair enough.

I didn't realise my post was so long! I apologise for going on and on and on.... if I ever have to 'describe yourself in six words or less' I promise I will not say 'succinct'😕

On the contrary Marie I thought it was rather succinct.

@MarieDeGournay

Couldn't agree more - I think that you sum up my post more accurately when you say:

There is a lot of compassion here towards individuals caught up in the trans juggernaut, especially if they are vulnerable for one reason or another.

Not so much kindness towards a movement which is so inimical to women's rights, and I think that's fair enough.

So - you are definitely more succinct than I was!

It is the key difference on the two 'sides'
The GC folks:

• factual
• non-emotive
• challenge the movement / concepts / untruths
• compassionate to those caught up in it...

The 'other side':

• aggressive
• bullying
• attack the people
• no ability to refute the argument...

The word nuance usually triggers me because most people who use the word here do not go on to explain what they mean by it, which is so bloody annoying. It’s an argument without offering one at all.

Obvs the poster referred to upthread did explain themselves so not including them in my grumblings.

I'm aware of that, as i've been posting for years. I'm also free to comment on the number and nature of the thread starters.

Why though just seems a personal to me.

Tsk a bit personal

When FWR started to discuss this topic, it was very theoretical. There wasn't any trans flags flying on libraries.

We talked about the threat to women, the danger to children, both boys and girls. Id say the most heated discussion were because lots of women did see it as a sexual motivated movement. Some women thought opposition was against sexual liberation, and didn't see it having any impact on children. Others could see how it was getting into the institutions and particularly schools.

Its a pity that these old threads are like swiss cheese, because they would show how as a board we've got to where we have. And why we have discussed sexual liberation, how laws have been manipulated and how children have been used, long before lots of FRW critics were aware of trans rights and in more depth than they could imagine.

One reason why the TWR threads can be so 'robust' is that they are full of women who have seen the same half-truths and dodgy conceptual leaps put forward as clinching arguments for the past decade +, have had more than enough of experience of being patronised, and are frustrated at having to go over the same ground over and over again.

We've seen women kicked off MN for wrongthink, we've subscribed to crowd-funders for women who have lost their jobs or been discriminated against for wrongthink. We've seen men take women's medals while denying that their male biology gives them extra strength, speed or power. We warned anyone who would listen about the risks posed by trans ideology to women in prisons, and to children. We got called extreme for pointing out that if you open a door in the wall of safeguarding, the perverts will find it and use it to their own advantage.

Some of us know young people who have been sucked into a questionable cult line of thinking and who have irreparably changed their bodies. We're sick of the lying catchphrases like 'we just want to pee', because we can cite the actual stats showing what % of trans women in prison are sex offenders.

We've been called terfs, bigots and Nazis. We've had men refuse to stop calling us 'cis' when told we find it insulting. We've seen the violence and aggression of the other side. We bitterly resent the amount of time, money and energy that we've had to spend on this fight, to just hold onto the rights we already had, just to be allowed to keep the word 'woman' - time, money and energy which could have been put to much better use.

So, no surprise that we're a bit fucked off and impatient, and can get a bit arsey with faux-naive posters who want to know why everyone FWR 'hates trans people' (but can never produce a quote), or who start lecturing the silly mummies about our antediluvian views.

<breathes>
Honest to God, I need a t-shirt with 'SO SICK OF THIS SHIT' emblazoned across the front.

Thank you for the explanation.
Wish OPs would spell out the full thing in first post then move to initials for the likes of me who arent au fait with them.

Please can you link me to some of it? I've managed to do it quite often without a problem, especially when disability creeps in under the heading of why can't the transgender just used the disabled loos.

Why should you be expected to be neutral about what they really mean if it adversely affects you? Isn't the phrase 'silence is violence' appropriate here?

My apologies, because I can't remember who said it on the Sandie Peggie thread, but it's become my motto. "You can't have my rights. I haven't finished with them yet.'

If people don't like a thread then close the window, and there it is, gone. You don't have to close it down unless you're afraid of it.