Introduction or how did Mumsnet end up being radfem 4chan
CW – The post contains transphobia
The Mumsnet Feminist Chat board is the Mos Eisley of feminism. Except rather than a hive of scum and villainy it’s a hive of transphobia and hatred. In many cases, it is the antithesis of feminism. A place where pearls are clutched on a regular basis, science is ignored and the occasional screams of “we’re being silenced” can be heard.
But it wasn’t always this way. Go back to 2013 and there are threads about sexist workplace stereotypes, everyday sexism, gender roles and all manner of things that any feminist would like to discuss. At the time of writing the top 10 threads are about trans people, trans hate groups, and harassment threads regarding trans allies.
This Vice article from May 2016 was written by an ex-member of Mumsnet staff who documents prevalent transphobia from over two years ago. A quick Google of “Mumsnet transphobia” brings up not only press articles but also threads from Mumsnet users dismayed at the Feminist Chat board and the ever-present transphobia. A culture that became so inherent Mumsnet had to add an additional set of guidelines to the existing rules regarding any discussion of trans issues.
Except these new rules are very rarely followed and any debate is quickly shut down by talking about food puns, recipes and generally derailing threads until they get locked. Such as this one
Boycotts are us
The transphobia has also chased away charities. In August this year, well-respected children’s charity The NSPCC cancelled a live discussion about new policies after the thread was flooded by questions relating to trans people. All those feminists and mums, more concerned with what a trans person has between their legs than the safeguarding of children. Unless they are safeguarding against made up, discredited, debunked issues like ROGD, trans people peacefully going to the loo in a locked cubical or just trans people in general.
Not content with destroying Mumsnet’s credibility with The NSPCC they have also decided to boycott a popular, yearly telethon in the UK; Children in Need. Children in Need’s crime? Using its funds to support a trans children’s charity that promotes acceptance, affirmation and provides training to teachers, social workers ect.
But the boycotting hasn’t stopped there; any business that supports trans rights, uses gender-neutral language or commits the ultimate sin of confusing sex and gender is a target. They recently boycotted Ocado, targetting its Trustpilot score until the reviews were removed from breaking the site guidelines. Ocado’s crime? Getting mixed up in the removal of a transphobic billboard in Liverpool which they crowdfunded. At this juncture, it’s important to note why the billboard was transphobic. If anyone not actively involved in the discussion of trans people saw it they wouldn’t give it a second thought, but to trans people, it’s a message of “you’re not welcome”. While Mumsnet users were posting about it just being a dictionary definition, it is the intent behind it. The intent, in this case, was to create fear.
In any power structure, it is not the oppressors who get to decide what is or isn’t threatening or abusive. Only the oppressed can do that. Cis people do not get to choose what is or isn’t transphobia, much in the same way white people do not get to dictate what is or isn’t racist.
The Great British Debate Off
But this is all in the premise of “debate”, except what they are debating is the human rights of a protected group of people under UK law. And a debate in an echo chamber where dissenting voices are banned, deleted, chased away is no debate at all. The mantra of “I’m not transphobic but…” is repeated constantly. While they show very little working knowledge of UK law. If you want to know more about the recent GRA consultation in the UK and the context of this then I suggest this piece from feminist news network News Mavens.
Any cries for debate are rendered null and void though as they’ve explicitly said that the end goal of their hate campaign is the repeal of the entire GRA law and change the Equality Act. I’m not transphobic but I want to remove the legal rights of trans people. Either way, they are hypocrites and liars. The GRA consultation also resulted in some unusual allies, far removed the usual faces of Germain Greer and Graham Lineham. Allies like MP David Davies, an MP who has voted against LGBT rights, voted to repeal the Human Rights Act and other such right-wing nonsense. David Davies gets some love here because when several of the trans hate groups set up a meeting in the House of Commons, he was the only MP to turn up. Talking about robbing Peter to pay Paul, they’d be happy to have a man in charge who opposes and has actively worked against many of the things feminists have campaigned for just because he said he didn’t support self ID.
Strange bedfellows indeed.
During the GRA there was also two threads (here and here) detailing all of the actual feminism they were ignoring to focus on their transphobia, everything from austerity and Universal Credit to Brexit. All of these huge issues that they have chosen to throw to the sidelines so they can repeatedly bash and abuse a minority.
All of this doesn’t take place in a vacuum though. The mainstream British media has been fueling transphobia for years. Every Sunday without fail there’s another opinion piece about the awfulness of trans people. But on Mumsnet, you will see the repeated cry of “we’re being silenced”. Which is an interesting point; if I used my social media to post racist tirades and that got back to my employer I would lose my job. It shouldn’t be any different for transphobes.
The guise of a debate is thin at best; the idea of the loss of women’s spaces, men pretending to be trans to gain access to women’s spaces or the erasure of women is a dangerous fiction as discussed previously in the News Mavens articles. Using debate does not cover you when you are exposed as transphobic and transphobia is a hate crime and trans people are a protected class. if you’d like a more complex look at the UK media and the rise of transphobia check out this article in Gay Star News.
Transphobia has no place in feminism. It never has done and never will do. If all you are fighting for is what affects you while ignoring everything else then hand back your placards, burn your Naomi Wolf books and accept that maybe you’re more like Katie Hopkins than you think.
Mumsnet Watch 
Good God, it’s even worse than I thought, I was much more aware of the rampant homophobia.
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I just don’t get why it’s transphobic to question a biological male whose transitioned to a woman competing in a cycle race for women and winning. Of course it’s blatantly unfair. Why someone should deserve to lose their job for wanting to comment on that is beyond me.
Isn’t the whole point of having men’s and women’s sports to recognise their differing biology. You don’t erase that by just self declaring you are the opposite gender.
I think this is why there is such generic hostility and do much discussion. The trans arguments just go against common sense.
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Ok, let’s break this down.
Rachel McKinnon was well within the rules imposed by her sports governing body. When trans women start HRT and T blockers then have less testosterone than a cis woman. All of the studies done on this show that any physical advantage is wiped out after a year. Trans people have to jump through hoops to compete with regular blood work, physical checks. They don’t just turn up one day and decide they can compete. It’s not that easy.
Openly harassing people, abusing them on social media is cause for if not job loss then strong words from an employer? Why? Because A. trans people are a protected minority under UK law and B. Most companies have strict social media and diversity policies and these policies are being broken. If you wouldn’t be openly racist, Islamophobic, ableist then don’t be transphobic.
And you’ve literally done what the article suggests; said Why is it transphobic too and then listed a whole load of transphobia.
Maybe to you, the “trans arguments” make no sense but these are people, just trying to access health care and live their lives and this hostility towards them affects that. Could you read at least one newspaper article a week about why you are a rapist/sex offender/violent man?
Trans people are still people, that are worthy of their human rights and respect and all Mumsnet does is strip that away and treat them like dirt.
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Yup, I think the problem is that women are also a minority rights group, and feminists (who have fought stringently for women’s rights and for structures that improve women’s safety and access to a fairer share of resources and decent treatment) are understandably suspicious of anything that they believe might undermine the feminist project.
My understanding of trans issues is fairly weak, and I’m not an all interested in sport, but I did a quick google. It’s quickly apparent, whether transsexuals have an innate advantage in sports is a pretty contested issue with lots of technical discussion about testosterone levels, and there’s lots of media coverage and debate. I’m really struggling to see how simply sharing one of those articles could be considered transphobic. Surely if it were transphobic, the target should be prosecuting the media outlet for a hate crime, not bullying individual women who read it.
I’m guessing however, it was a legitimate article, and it was perfectly legal. The problem arises because trans-activisits (is that the correct term) seem to condemn anyone who might have a question or criticism as transphobic, and people have become literally frightened to speak. Not cool at all 😦
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No, I agree. There’s nothing wrong with asking questions and improving your knowledge on a subject. Education is a weapon against ignorance. And sharing one of those articles is not in itself transphobic if done in good faith.
Feminism though benefits greatly from the inclusion of trans women as many of the goals are aligned, things like agency, bodily autonomy ect are conversations that all women should be having.
“trans-activists” are, for the most part, trans people, their friends/families or members of the wider LGBT community who just want to live their lives without the constant tirade of misinformation and bigotry. Imagine being constantly told that you are wrong, broken, a monster, a sexual predator when all you want is to go to work, raise a family, and not be scared to out in public.
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“I’m really struggling to see how simply sharing one of those articles could be considered transphobic. Surely if it were transphobic, the target should be prosecuting the media outlet for a hate crime, not bullying individual women who read it.”
The other thing about mumsnet’s feminism board is that you have to consider each thread in the context of the dynamics of the board as a whole. Feminism Chat has been active since 2010. At this moment 364 pages of threads have been generated. 144 of those pages contain threads that were created or active since January this year. At the beginning of the year a significant portion of threads were trans themed and these threads tended to contain the most posts, and the board has only grown more obsessed with the topic since then. You have to go quite a ways back to find a page of threads that isn’t 90-95% to do with trans people.
This looks even weirder when you compare it to the rest on the site. On the LGBT themed boards you only have to go back 1 or 2 pages to find threads from 2017 and earlier. There aren’t any trans threads in the 1 and a fraction page of threads from 2018 on the politics board. There are, I think, about 2 in the half dozen pages of threads from this year in the currents affairs and news forum. You can count the number of trans threads in all their fairly high traffic education forums combined from this year on fingers. You get the idea.
Threads often pop up on the AIBU (Am I Being Unreasonable) board, MNs general chat space, but don’t dominate. The most recent of these is titled “[AIBU] To believe there is no such thing as a female penis?” and contains at this moment around 500 posts to the theme of the genitals of trans women are icky, trans women are men and never be women, trans women are rapists, and the medical treatments available for trans people are gross and horrible. No trans people have posted in it yet as far as I can tell. https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3419858-To-believe-there-is-no-such-thing-as-a-female-penis?pg=1&messages=25
But back to feminism chat.
This focus on trans issues would be understandable in a feminist forum created by trans people for trans people, and honestly, I would probably condemn it as myopic even in this instance, but in a forum whose user-base is almost entirely cisgender women that focus would be profoundly unsettling even if the content of the threads were entirely positive. Trans folk as an intellectual fetish.
However, the viewpoint that dominates the threads in mumsnet’s feminism board does not hold trans people in high regard. The subject of this interview describes it very well: https://www.transadvocate.com/is-sadism-popular-with-terfs-a-chat-with-an-ex-gendercrit_n_18568.htm . And so mumsnet’s feminism forum moves from merely creepy to indefensibly vile.
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