James Kirkup James Kirkup

If Mumsnet can stand up for free speech, why can’t MPs?

OK, I admit I’m a bit of a Mumsnet groupie, but this needs to be said: Justine Roberts is great. Roberts is the founder of Mumsnet who has this week come out fighting for free speech and sensible political discussion, both of which are at risk in the debate about gender laws. Why Mumsnet? Because a website previously best known for chat about childcare, biscuits and something called a penis beaker has developed an important role in an important political debate.

As I and others have noted before, it can be hard to talk about the politics and policy of gender and sex if you aren’t prepared to simply repeat, without question, a certain orthodoxy (some tenets of the faith: “transwomen are women”; self-defined gender trumps biological sex; some women have penises.) Because when you question that orthodoxy, some people call you names and maybe even threaten to do bad things to you. Especially if you’re a woman. Hence lots of women who do indeed question that orthodoxy find it hard or frightening to raise their concerns openly. Instead, they talk via Mumsnet, where the “Feminist Chat” forum is heaving with women (and yes, some men) discussing reform of the Gender Recognition Act, single-sex exemptions in the Equality Act, the safeguarding policy of Guiding UK and other issues that arise when you let men take the right to be treated as women on the grounds that they say they feel like they’re female. I’ve learned an awful lot by following such conversations.

The prominence of that forum has been growing in recent months and some people don’t seem to like that. Recent weeks have seen a visible increase in new users appearing in discussion threads and saying things that appear intended to goad users into saying harsh things about transgender people. Such comments are then adduced as proof that Mumsnet is a place where hate-speech against the trans community is not just tolerated but encouraged.

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