Comedian and writer Jen Ives has spoken out after coming under abuse again online. While attending a LGB Alliance conference in October last year, Jen was repeatedly called a "pervert" and was labelled as "mentally ill" by an attendee of the event.
A video of the incident, which Jen shared on Twitter, has amassed over one million views and has raised questions surrounding the nature of the charity's conferences and meet-ups. You can learn more about that here. The LGB Alliance, which says it is dedicated to lesbian, gay and bisexual individuals, has previously been at the forefront of a number of controversies and public scrutiny. Many prominent transgender activists and members of the LGBT+ community claim the LGB Alliance "disregards trans people" and aims to sideline the group from LGBT+ activism.
Since then Mumsnet, a huge platform dedicated to parents in the UK, has come under fire as evidence emerged of comments in a forum abusing the comedian. Since the video went viral, Jen has been subjected to a torrent of abuse online. The comments, which have since been reported and removed, continuously called Jen a "man".
One comment read: "Why was Jen, a male, entering and using a space clearly designated for females?"
Another read: "Show that video to most women who have no clue about this 'debate' and 99% of them will say, 'That's clearly a badly-dressed man'."
Various people have rallied in support of Jen, including broadcaster and presenter India Willoughby. "Anyone looking at that vid today of Jen Ives - a woman whether Mumsnet like it or not - being publicly degraded would be disgusted. But not Mumsnet users," she posted on Twitter. "[They] call Jen 'man' 'him' etc. That it wasn't too bad. Justine sees no prob with such comments. Hope Jen wins her case."
Jen, who's decided to take a break from social media after thousands of abusive messages were hurled at her online after the incident, told WalesOnline said that it's "interesting" that a forum dedicated to parents is being used in this way.
"You know, I really, really fear for any trans kids having them as a mother," she said. "Mumsnet has a reputation now for being a hub of transphobic bullying. I think it's disgusting. It's hard for me to say because I'm the person in the middle of all this. Nobody likes to be taken the p**s out of online and likes to be insulted. I think a lot of people actually find comfort in these small groups.
"I think it's important that people are held accountable for the things that they say on the internet. I've never been an anonymous person [online]. It's just cowardice, really. I'm trying to stay away from it for a little bit at the moment."
Justine Roberts, founder and CEO of Mumsnet, said: "The posts in question about Jen Ives broke our forum guidelines - we specifically do not allow deliberate misgendering - and as such were deleted as soon as they were brought to our attention, a few hours after they were posted.
"As a rule we do allow discussion around the intersection of rights based on sex and gender and the effect of this on children's health, sport, and female-only spaces as these issues are important to many of our users - but we will always delete transphobic posts, and ban anyone who repeatedly breaks our guidelines. Around 10% of Mumsnet's eight million users identify as LGBTQ+ and we have hosted LGBT Parents and LGBT Children forums since 2009."
