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?"

I was completely surprised to see someone use a thread that is about something really serious to hijack it to comment on FWR.

Why on earth would you find it surprising that someone commented on the allegedly problematic tone of some posts in the Feminism: Sex and Gender topic in a thread about the problematic tone of some posts on Gaza, @IwantToRetire ??

That isn't "hijacking" the thread. It is a completely natural element of the conversation. Do you really have such a completely rigid set of rules about legitimate directions for threads to take?

Sometimes I think that the manner in which MNers access threads gives them a skewed idea of how the site as a whole operates. I guess there are people who go directly to the front page of the Feminism: Sex and Gender topic and engage very little with the rest of the site. That may create an impression of F:S&G being its own little world, and a sense of surprise when it rubs up closely against the rest of MN.

But others (me included) access MN via Active Conversations, often without paying very much attention to which topic a thread appears in. People who access MN in that way are likely to find it completely natural that conversations (on any thread, in any topic) should flow naturally, in the same way that they would IRL, where we don't sit at separate table to discuss distinct subjects.

And of course it is really natural, when discussing the toxic dynamics of discussions on the Middle East, to mention other topics where you believe a similar dynamic to be at play. We don't become immune from the toxic and polarising nature of online discussion just because we are feminists. We are all human after all.

I've been on MN almost 20 years now, and there have always been threads started in one part of the site about how posters there are being discussed in another part of the site. In the past, these were mostly just about different friendship cliques on MN, so it was easy to see how these threads were just the gossipy enjoyment of a kind of playground drama. I think that one of the reasons why the discussion of political issues online has become so toxic is that forum dynamics do tend to generate and reward that kind of drama. It was a laugh when MN knew not to take itself so seriously, but it can be unhelpful when people conceive of the forum as an important place to solve real and serious issues out there in the world.

(No idea why some people still call this topic FWR, btw. Doesn't really seem helpful.)

But that is the whole TRA argument. When they can’t even explain why women should give up their sex based legal rights apart from “it’ll make men happy” ,of course people are going go take the piss.

Here's what's actually going on OP.

People have been told that FWR is full of transphobic bigots and without scrutinising that, they believe it.

When they venture into the board, they then find the arguments hard to refute. They may even agree with a lot of them.

That causes cognitive dissonance.

To cope with that, they say things like 'other opinions aren't allowed' (despite that being clearly false) or start complaining about tone rather than what's actually being said (bananarama defence).

I've seen posters go through these exact steps multiple times. The script is always the same. The bottom line is that you fell for a lie to begin with and you're still working through the consequences of that. 🤷‍♀️

I see a great deal of asking supporters of gender ideology for their actual arguments or answers to these sort of questions:

How can someone “really” be the opposite sex to their body?

Why should we let any man self ID into women’s spaces?

How does surgery change someone’s sex?

How does taking large doses of hormones that your body is not designed to receive change your sex?

At what point in “transition” does sex change occur?

Why is “gender identity” a better way to organise society than sex (given that it is physical differences in size and strength and vulnerability that give rise to most instances of separate places for females away from males)?

What is the material difference between self-identifying your sex as opposed to your age or height or skin colour?

What about biological women's needs and preferences when it comes to single sex services?

Why is believing strongly that you are really the opposite sex not a psychiatric problem with many possible roots that might be better solved with a psychiatric solution?

As soon as we stray into the territory of hard questions and hard answers, we get called names, told to be kind, told to “educate” ourselves, told it’s only a few men, told about someone’s lovely friend who wouldn’t hurt a fly, and threatened with violence.

But we don’t get engagement on the hard questions that get to the core of the problem - that men who identify as women want to make it impossible for biological women to draw any line at all between us and them, between our needs and theirs.

And the other key problem which is children and particularly ND young people being led to believe that social/physical “transition” will solve their problems.

Cliches like “triggered”? You might want to take your own advice sometime.

Excellent explanation.

Um, no. Good try. Cliches are phrases usually.

And don’t forget FWR was split into two because the T allies didn’t like the traction, that was really strong at the time. Feminist chat was created believing it will make the critical participants dingle into non existence.

And even before the split they pushed out many excellent women with brain surgeon skills that will cut through crap as if was butter. Many learnt from them to see what the T ideology (not individuals) really is: a men’s right movement.

We all have know, in person or through media lovely people that are into the T movement one way or other, but those will usually not demand submission to the level the ideology does. I see a big difference.

I have stumbled across these boards/threads and am completely indifferent towards trans people. If someone wants to transition, whether it’s biologically possible doesn’t bother me in any way - unless they’re asking me to transition too. Which in 38 years of life hasn’t happened yet, but I concede there’s always time.

My experience on these boards is that you can’t express these views without being jumped on and told you must not care about women’s rights. I personally find the GC people on these threads far more aggressive than those who support trans rights. Perhaps it’s anecdotal, but it’s definitely been a recurring experience for me.

Because there are still people who argue for men’s right to enter women’s single sex spaces, sports and prisons?

damn right I'm aggressive on here ! Women have been abused, assaulted, harassed, threatened, been sacked, forced to endure witch hunts over expressing single views like women's sport should be for women, had their meetings surrounded by protestors banging on windows and screaming in their faces oh and one of our regular male TRA visitors has publicly posted on social media that we should be raped with a splintery rolling pin

but we're the aggressive ones and trans ppl are the lovely fluffy ones

yes of course we are 🙄

Oh well that totally disproves my point, silly me. Think it was the eye roll emoji that really highlighted how open to discussion you really are.

The point I was making, in the contect of Leftie's "I have yet to see anything hateful from the GC side" and your reply asking why debate continues, is that debate is not hate. Debate continues because we continue to consider opposing arguments.

I think I may have read sarcasm into your reply that you didn't intend. I realise after sleep that there's a way to interpret your comment other than having a subtext of "if you don't hate, there's no motive to argue".

What discussion, your stand is based on your own indifference, where do you go from there to turn it into a discussion. Your opinion has been expressed before, many times, and discussed many time, how many times does the an opinion such of yours have to be discussed.

The point you were making @IwantToRetire might be an interesting one but was not particularly clear to me from the op.

Were posters saying there’s ‘a border line between legitimate criticism of gender ideology and transphobia’ by those holding a GC view point? Or were posters saying that those with a GC view point are ‘at fault’ for viewing legitimate criticisms of Israel the GC point of view as being antisemitic anti-women and a ‘slight diversion of thought’ gets an aggressive response?

Either way, I’d guess that those posts had been made by someone making a bekind argument on these threads and didn’t like the response. There’s a good chance that they didn’t read or engage with the substance of the response either. Unfortunately, poster after bekind poster avoids the wider implications of saying yes to men identifying as women for access to single sex spaces.

I am sympathetic up to a point as I started from a position of calling Jan Morris ‘her’ and I might have saw nothing wrong with using preferred pronouns until I read JKRs 3000 word essay, found these threads, and started to understand that much more is going on in this space. Including how a majority of men saying they’re women retain their penis.

So that ‘up to a point’ stops on these threads (which originally made my brain hurt) when a poster refuses to read, answer questions, or think about the implications of saying any man is a woman irrespective of surgery. Not to mention the horrific abuse of children being put on medication and surgery.

As many times as yours I suppose. I have seen the gender critical argument proposed and debated more times than I could begin to count. I doubt anyone is unaware of the debate points on either side.

So by that logic there’s no room for debate about any subject, if it’s already been discussed? Or we can keep having the debates until everyone agrees with you?

It’s fine for you to say you don’t care, and trans people and their demands to have access to all female spaces and organisations don’t affect you. Live and let live etc.

But it is also fine for others to then ask you what you think this means for women who don’t want men in their toilets/prisons/changing rooms/menopause support groups/breast feeding groups/lesbian social groups/dating apps /sports/mentorship schemes/taking places reserved for females on boards and so on.

Because “supporting women’s rights” has to have some element of supporting the rights of all women, even ones who are in a different situation to you.

And it’s still ok to say you still aren’t bothered because it has not affected you personally. That’s a perfectly valid point of view. But, others will also probably conclude that you aren’t all that interested in women’s rights in general.

Of course you can express those views. Most on here would agree that adults who understand the consequences of their actions should be able to do what they want (within the realms of appropriately tested medicine).

The issue being whether this makes men think they should have access to women's spaces.

Its not difficult to distinguish between the two.

But what don't you agree with?

That women deserve single sex provision of their own?

That humans can't change sex?

What?

Of course it’s fine for them to ask, and I’d tell them if they asked politely, or with a genuine interest in my answer.

What annoys me most is the responses I usually get which negates my own status as a woman - as in “women don’t want x y and z” etc

I only ever purport to speak for myself.

There seems to be a couple of posters that are willing to debate you, so jump in, explain why your personal indifference is important in any way.

"supporting women’s rights" has to have some element of supporting the rights of all women

"Feminism is a political practice of fighting male supremacy on behalf of women as a class, including all the women you don't like, including all the women you don't want to be around, including all the women who use to be your best friends whom you don't want anything to do with any more. It doesn't matter who the individual women are." Andrea Dworkin

And don’t forget FWR was split into two because the T allies didn’t like the traction

FWR was split into two long before the trans issue was a source of fracture, @Empowermenomore , although the title/parameters of this part have changed since to respond to that fracture.

The reason for the split was similar to the complaints that are being made now: that there was a certain amount of 'robustness' that was putting some posters off participating, and a LOT of gatekeeping. The gatekeeping wasn't so much in terms of the views that were ok to express, but more in terms of posters saying things like Well, you clearly haven't read X, Y, Z works of feminist theory and you should really allow yourself to be educated by us long-standing and prolific posters who have read these works. I think that at one point the title 'Feminist theory' was mooted (or even implemented?) for this half of the split.

At the time, MN was smaller and namechanges were less frequent, so a lot of the issues were to do with the fact that there were a handful of very prominent posters who became a bit too proprietorial of the topic. Interestingly, there was exactly the same problem on the dog topic at the time, as I recall!!

A lot of the 'robustness' in this topic now is an understandable response to the seriousness of the problems being discussed, and the occasional presence of people who are genuinely trolling rather than simply expressing views that go against the consensus. But I think there is still room for some of the robustness to be occurring as a result of the forum dynamics that influence discussion in all topics, dressed up in weightier concerns. I cringe every time someone posts something along the lines of "You should read up on all that we wise posters have said in other threads in this topic before you comment."

I don’t believe humans can change biological sex. Where my opinion differs is that if someone believes they can, I don’t care. I don’t believe humans can become animals. If someone wants to believe they are therian, I don’t care about that either.

I want to be allowed to have the opinion that other people can live their life in a way that suits them, without being told I hate women and that I don’t believe in women’s rights.

People can absolutely disagree with me, and I am coming from a position that is based only on my own experience, of course. But my personal experience is that one of the only places where I don’t feel able to express my opinion without such a vitriolic response is in this area.

I vehemently disagree with many things in life, I wouldn’t personally insult someone or treat them like an idiot for not agreeing with me. Rational debate comes from the ability to listen and understand, not to continually spout generic responses despite the points posed.

I really only responded as someone said they’d never encountered aggression from GC sides, only TRA sides and I’ve definitely seen both. But even that has led to me being jumped on by GC people here. So it really does strike me that neither side are open to anyone holding views outside of their own.

But you're skirting the key question.

If men 'believe' they can change sex, then what? Should they have access to women's spaces and services?