First GC thread on MN: Women are being censored because they wish to discuss the politics of gender

[GallantKumquat]

According to @NancyBlackettt, this is the first GC thread on MN. It's such a fascinating look at the state of GC in 2013 that I thought it worth while creating a separate thread to discuss it given the one year anniversary of FWS.

Moore, Bindle, 'cis', TRA unhingedness, organisation capture, the endless comparisons on transphobia to racism, homophobia, misogyny, disability, etc. and inability to formulate why men should have access to women spaces as an argument in itself. It's all here. A remarkable read.

Women-are-being-censored-because-they-wish-to-discuss-the-politics-of-gender-I-say-NO-Who-wants-to-join-me

Some earlier threads:

(major controversy on deplatfroming)
www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/1485852-Conway-Hall-no-platforms-Rad-Fem-Event

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/dadsnet/1488483-Transsexuality-and-rejecting-gender-expectations-a-male-view

(Puzzling thought experiment)
www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/1516197-Would-I-be-unreasonable-to-do-either-of-these-things-To-tell-a-Sikh-man

Oh how interesting! Thank you for sharing. I've not rtft yet but in the first couple of pages it's quite striking how cordial the discussion is. Interesting point they are discussing about "what exactly is 'cis privilege' for a woman?". I'd be interested to know how many of the woman who on that thread are pro "trans rights" have now changed their stance. Someone on there does, rightly, forecast that there is no middle ground to be had.

Gosh in January 2013 I had just accepted a job offer to train as an accountant and was still working in a shop. I was not totally ignorant of trans people as there was a fetishistic guy at my school who often went on about it (and is now a "woman", plus a furry, because of course he is). I would have laughed, though, if someone had suggested that he was actually a woman and should be using female facilities. How naïve as that is now exactly what he does!

The names are a blast from the past.

I don't hide my pro women, sex realist opinions and facts from anyone. Family, work or public.

This is the lovely kind of discussion that is had nowadays. It's amazing what people will put their names and faces to but there we go!

It's the splintery rolling pin sexual assault threat screenshot...taking some time to upload.

'Online bots and paid for press/Online hate'

Every accusation is a confession as they say.

Just looked at the OP in the linked-to 2013 discussion and it is very eloquent. It would be great if we could focus on it, and resist the temptation to respond to just one poster on this (ie the current) thread.

Woman posts link to intelligent, informative debate. Man tells us to shut up.

Thanks OP, will take a look later with a brew and appropriate snackage.

Isn’t it amazing to see male people still advocating and suggesting sexual violence should be used to silence women 13 years on? And then pondering why women and girls will not attend rallies when those women and girls know that the negative impact on their lives could be significant.

Having seen the violence and intimidation of male people seeking to stop women meeting, I am all for male people showing just how much they delight in the knowledge that they has caused so much fear. When someone shows you who they are, female people tend to take notice.

So, yes aida, there are several reasons for women and girls to not attend rallies or speak up. Knowing that society supports men that post intimidatory and threatening content towards people they disagree with is only one aspect of it, but it is a significant one.

And it hasn’t diminished at all since those first threads.

You still don’t get it do you? The reason many women don’t speak out about their real feelings is because of aggressive, threatening men like you.

No, he does get it. It is why he does it.

The opening post on the thread Kumquat linked describes how male people silence women and girls. Beachcomber articulated so much that is still relevant today including making this distinction.

”Let me be very clear that this discussion is about transactivists and people who threaten others into silence. It is not about transpeople in general (some of whom have stated that they are afraid to get involved in the controversy).”

Sadly, while great gains have been made since 2013 in clarity around law, regulations and policies and what the general public belief and more brave women are speaking out, we are still facing so much of the same silencing tactics. Eg. Stroud brewery, counter protests at women’s rallies and meetings.

Gosh the difference between a female thread and a thread with a male interloper is stark, isn't it!

@GallantKumquat that's really interesting, thank you for posting the link. From a quick read through it (Im going to have a proper read later), there are many very prescient posts on there.

As someone who was peaked later than many on here (2020), I would like to thank those earlier peaked posters who saw what was coming and made sure the conversation continued. We owe you a debt.

Man talks all over women and tries to make it all about himself on a thread discussing censorship of women's speech.

A demonstration of the situation in real time.

https://x.com/wrnscotland/status/2043345400715698685?s=46

I believe it is misinformation being spread that Edinburgh had only 5 women attend.

But it is quite interesting to see how falsehoods are being used to shame and silence women still after 13 years.

I’d like to think beachcomber (and I hope you are still here beachcomber) would consider the rallies over the weekend were a sign that the pivotal moment she talked about has meant that so many of us contribute where and how we can.

Here is a post just this morning from a different user:

” "forced teaming" - go pick up a history book, or a brick, and please try and get it into your head.”

Plus ca change

It's from the current Bumper Book of TRA arguments because WWW put up a (lovely) photo of their four founders and the hard of thinking decided that that consituted the entire crowd, despite loads of photos showing the (great) turnout.

Whereas sad wee Tom from Cabaret of Hate had about three hangers on as he did his shite singalong.

And in London, the sign de jour appeared to be yet another example of the 'the only good terf is a dead terf'.

As I said, Beachcomber was prescient in that original OP. Men will always try to shut down women speaking.

I have found reading the discussion of cis very interesting. I've always felt like cis is a meaningless and unnecessary term but I'd never considered that its use implies "cis privilege" and how, for women, "cis privilege" is naturally one and the same with "female oppression". Mumsnetters...thank fuck for Mumsnet. A sole source of that reasonable debate for many many years.

And of course, the founders of For Women Scotland met on here! Thank fuck they did. We Scottish women would have been in an even worse situation now if it wasn't for them and the brilliant MBM.

I can't wait to read Justine's autobiography one day. I don't doubt she's had to resist immense pressure from TRAs.

Yeah. We probably haven’t had a good wide ranging discussion about the use of the word cis for a while. For many of us, we have been there and done that but it is very useful for see threads discussing it.

For a while some of us have been wondering how to capture the best and most insightful posts about individual topics such as why individual words and phrases don’t work. But it is hard to do without MN hosting threads and ensuring they remain archives and not threads where posting space is used up with derailing deliberately to wreck a thread. It is almost like they need a thread structure that allows replies to be put into ‘conversations’ that can be skipped over like in Reddit I guess.