Has there been an influx of TRAs to Mumsnet recently?

[ByTheRiverside]

I'm a long time reader. Only recently started to participate.

I very rarely saw any TRAs on here over the years. But in the past few weeks, I've noticed a lot of them coming here.

You can generally tell by the absolute shite coming out of their mouths, such as being avid apologists for sex offenders.

What's their deal with coming here? Are they saying that their 'womanhood' is reliant on us conforming to their belief, so they're trying to get us to agree with them? If that's so, then welcome!!! You're going to have to get used to reality real quick if you stick around.

Has anyone else noticed this, or just me?

I genuinely don't understand why one side of the argument wants to keep this board an echo chamber. So much for free speech.

There are no brownie points for 'winning' the FWR board on Mumsnet. It achieves precisely nothing except confirming for you your own prejudices.

Embarrassed epiphany sums it up perfectly. I thought by being verbose I'd sound super intelligent, but the moment where he stared at me before requesting I cut out the fluff was absolutely awful. Turned out I did have a good point, so I made it, but many of the TRAs on here have failed to do so, and just go full Butler.

I learned that lesson at 18, they seem not to have done.

Edit: that's for @AStonedRose whose post I forgot to quote.

Considering the many, many TRAs who have come here and been debated with over the years, I cannot fathom where your idea that anyone wants this board to be an echo chamber comes from 🙃

Nobody wants an echo chamber, just reasonable debate, and answers to some age old questions that have never been answered, such as 'what does living as a woman mean, without reference to hair, make up and spinny skirts'. And 'why does not buying into stereotypes of maleness mean you must be female'.

If someone could answer those questions, it'd be great, and a good starting point for a debate. Never happens though.

Yep. And, StonedRose, I honestly think a lot of the frustration with visitors here isn’t that they’re debating us, but the quality of argument they offer. A huge proportion come with overt or implicit insult and not much else. A similarly large number are Me, me, me! when the board wants to address a wider conflict of rights. And few to none, really, are able to engage honestly with our arguments. They’re ignored, misrepresented, condemned and dismissed, without reason or evidence. And it’s obvious to us that that’s what’s happening!

You speak of confirming our own prejudices, but a lot of posters here actually want the chance to engage more meaningfully on this issue, because we want to be heard by a society that, until very recently, has ignored and silenced us. Being heard means having our arguments acknowledged then countered. In getting neither, it does risk confirming our impression that “the other side” (in the ideological sense) is built on unicorn dust.

Ah - cross-post with Mur.

Nope. They just accuse us of “prejudice” whilst patting themselves on the back for being oh so “progressive”.

I've never seen what is so progressive about entrenching sexist stereotypes. Sexism at work nearly broke my mother and hence my family when I was a teenager, and I'm damned if I'll put up with it from some keyboard warriors who fancy wearing a skirt and removing women's rights from trailblazers like her.

And this whole movement is sexism with bells on, with a side salad of colonisation.

Wear whatever you like, no one cares, but you cannot change sex and should stay out of spaces reserved for the opposite sex. It's quite simple really.

We don't want an echo chamber. But we are so tired of ridiculous points that are trotted out over and over, such as "transwomen are no danger to women; the danger is from 'cis' men", or "you have a unisex toilet in your home (that you share with your family), why don't you want to share one with strange men." We are happy to debate, but that rarely happens - we ask questions and don't get answered.

Exactly

This might be a good point to mention the Be Kind 2.0 thread, if you haven't seen it yet:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5536989-be-kind-20-and-the-persuasive-tra?page=10&reply=153000905

Just a collation of recent TRA tactics, most of which tend to pivot on a "why can't you just be kind and helpful, we're having such a hard time right now, women should help sort this out " - after more than a decade of No Debate, Terfs should be decapitated, Karens, and no LGB without the T, suddenly their road is coming to an end and they want us to fix it for them!

There's more than a little bit of emotional blackmail mixed in with all the tactics, but I'm sure we all see through it by now.

Your side has zero decent arguments, so it’s hardly surprising TRAs don’t often engage in good faith, they’d have their arse handed to them quicker than you can say “women’s rights are human rights”.

And they won’t get answered by that poster either. I haven’t seen them answered in the 11 years I’ve been discussing this issue on social media but I am always open to being surprised.

I seem to remember a couple of transwomen, sorry, I've forgotten the names, who did come on and debate reasonably and it was interesting. But I'm pretty sure it was only two which was why they stand out.

And then the TRAs totally ignore Seethlaw, for obvious reasons. Even the alleged parent of a transman, who you'd think would be interested in that point of view.

It's the school holidays. It's also Pride Month, and there's been an observable lack of enthusiasm for all things trans this go around. More and more gay people are speaking up to drop the TQ. The TRAs are losing and they view us as being to blame

Yes, well, I have my doubts about the "parent." Anyone can claim to be anyone on here. Every post is 85% emotional blackmail/handwringing and 15% activist hyperbole. I suppose I should feel sorry for them, because they may not have anyone else to talk to, but I'm fresh out of sympathy now. This is what happens when you decide to arrange your entire life around non-reality.

Indeed.

I'm.sure it suits you to believe that. I am absolutely the parent of a trans guy, annoyed at the ignorance I often see here, reporting the violent results of transphobia on my family. Can't think why you wouldn't want me to be real.

"Arrange your life around non-reality" is quite amusing from someone who dedicates so much time to obsessing about a minority.

I'm a carer who dips in and out of here. Find it too depressing to stay long.

Think I rest my case about all the paranoia and conspiracy theories.

The fact is that you have not made out a case to rest.

Helen Joyce describes the last bastion of this trans belief system will be parents,

I'm.sure it suits you to believe that. I am absolutely the parent of a trans guy, annoyed at the ignorance I often see here, reporting the violent results of transphobia on my family.
I really don't care either way. I don't see ignorance here, on the contrary, there are a lot of well-read, intelligent, well-rounded people, who have done their research. What I read from you is a lot of hyperbole and not much in the way of facts. I really don't see how anything anyone writes here could possibly cause "violent results of transphobia" on your family. That's more of that hyperbole I mentioned.

Can't think why you wouldn't want me to be real.
I really don't need you to be real, that's fine. Be real, be not real, whichever suits you best. I don't care.

"Arrange your life around non-reality" is quite amusing from someone who dedicates so much time to obsessing about a minority.
I'm very concerned about women's rights. That's my only reason for being on this forum. Men are not a minority, as you've been told before.

I'm a carer who dips in and out of here. Find it too depressing to stay long.
Ok. You must be very tired. Perhaps you should limit your exposure to these threads if you find it too depressing.

Think I rest my case about all the paranoia and conspiracy theories.
Please do. The constant rehash of hyperbole and activist language is getting pretty dull. Thanks.

It's not paranoia if they really are after your spaces...

It’s not an echo chamber. There are lots of different points of view on how to best defend women’s rights and fight the scourge of trans rights activism that has threatened us.

IMO the TWs, the TRAs and TransParents are often useful on this board. Yes it’s tedious rehashing arguments and it feels like playing chess with pigeons but new comers to the issue won’t read back over all threads so I appreciate them providing an opportunity to make those arguments again for the new lurkers.

Those newcomers also get to see the aggression and lack of coherent arguments by the TRAs and the uncontrolled emotional blackmail by some of the trans parents. The latter is particularly useful on a parenting site like this because we’re all reminded good parenting means not giving into children's every demand as we read their cries of ‘you must all go along with my child’s delusion or you’ll make them sad’

"Nobody wants an echo chamber, just reasonable debate"

And yet MN is, and nobody does.

If you expected something more from the Usual Suspects of MN, you're in the wrong place.

This board has the reputation it does for a reason.