To feel sympathy to the National Trust volunteers at Felbrigg Hall?

I imagine it is very busy, Tamzin. Maybe the NT were trying to drive footfall to Felbrigg by highlighting this aspect of its history.

Yes it is Sissinghurst. Probably outing myself here but I don't care.

'Some people here are talking about gay rights as a cause. When it is about simple equality.'

Again, same could be said about feminism, that's about equality. However I doubt many in the LGBT community would go along with being told they had to wear badges at work to support feminism.

you're not the only poster on the thread.

I'm the only one you were replying to in that post :)

That sounds an interesting property, Tamzin! I'm kind of bored with places that just allude to what a sex pest Whistler was, or have one of the many, many Beds that Cromwell slept in (seriously, the man never troubled his own pillows).

I'm a NT volunteer at a property that was once owned by a famous bisexual couple. Gay and bisexual visitors from all over the world flock here, and I love talking to them. One of my very best friends is gay and we often meet up here. I really love showing him and his husband round.

Of all of the properties in the NT portfolio it's ours that should probably have been the one to insist on rainbow badges. It didn't though, and I am very grateful to our general manager for that.

I've been musing about what I would do if I was asked to wear a rainbow badge and lanyard at my own NT property. I would probably agree, but I would be dead grumpy about it. I would feel exactly the same if they insisted that I should wear a badge supporting the local hospice, or the donkey sanctuary that I support.

Some people here are talking about gay rights as a cause. When it is about simple equality

It isn't though. The T part of LGBT is very loaded and is not a simple matter of equality. There are many people troubled by the inclusion of transactivism under the rainbow and who do not want to be associated with that aspect of the umbrella.
Many of them are gay, many of them are fully for gay equality. But lets not pretend its just a pretty rainbow with little meaning....

That is really dangerous thinking. It's not only a badge at all. And deciding peoples thoughts because they won't go along with what someone else has decided they have to support is seriously bad.

As I said, that's only one element of my thoughts on the matter, which are contradictory. And as I also said, I was wondering about people's motives, not reaching any conclusions, but I shall continue to wonder about the reasons people might have for wearing or not wearing a badge to commemorate diversity and what (if anything) that tells us about the national mood..

Do you think that their motives are any of your business? As long as they keep them to themselves?

Any event that makes the national news and that may (perhaps, arguably) be a measure of the times in which we live is my business. When it concerns an organisation I've been a member of for decades, especially so. It's not about individual volunteers.

But that's got nothing to do with cheap tatty badges and lanyards. The NT realised you shouldn't force people to wear them.

I don't wear a rainbow anything but my gay friends still hang out with me.

They might be welcoming, or they might not be.
Some people here are talking about gay rights as a cause. When it is about simple equality.

Nobody has said that the non-badge wearing volunteers wouldn't be welcoming to LGBT visitors. Daft thing to say.

Surely if the NT want to promote gay rights, it would be far more useful for them to have a few boards up at the property, talking about finding the hidden diaries and explaining attitudes in the recent past towards homosexuality.

Many younger people probably don't appreciate that until fairly recently it was a criminal act, so it's probably worth explaining it and may indeed be thought provoking for all visitors and perhaps volunteers as well.

They put them in a freedom trash can I believe...

Did people really burn bras? I thought that was a myth.

For myself it isn't the lanyard or the bade it is making a point and until the NT gets rid of the volunteers who aren't prepared to welcome everyone as equals then they are failing

But are you saying they should get rid of those who won't wear the badges, or not?

Sometimes when you are looking to challenge peoples views you do something that in itself is as meaningless as a lanyard but you have to look at what it represents. When some of us burnt our bras in the 60s and 70s our argument wasn't really with bras. It might seem pointless but young women now benefit from the sacrifice of our bras.

For myself it isn't the lanyard or the badge it is making a point and until the NT gets rid of the volunteers who aren't prepared to welcome everyone as equals then they are failing.

I don't know how many more times I have to say I don't give a shit about the badges

you're not the only poster on the thread.

Quite LRD. I'm not entirely sure why my point had to be dealt with so rudely, but as it was, I feel free to say that it's nonsense to see historical family portraits as "celebrating heterosexuality". The last thing such dynastic portraits were about is love or sexuality. The NTs approach on this is a reductive, insulting, ham fisted attempt to tick a diversity box and it demeans everyone involved.

Lots of houses celebrate, in one way or another, heterosexuality

They do, but rarely is this the most important aspect about occupants. Instead, we learn how they were also artists, writers, thinkers, soldiers, etc. and often it is this aspect that is highlighted, not the fact that they were straight.

boom, I get where you're coming from, about celebrating heterosexuality by talking about things like marriage, but ... I think that's wrong too.

I'm under no illusion, when I read about an eight year old boy being betrothed to a six year old girl in 1557, that what's being celebrated bears any resemblance to twenty-first-century 'heterosexuality'.

And any historical site organised with any tiny shred of professionalism will acknowledge that.

So why flatten out gay history into a monolith?

Well I'm just back from my local NT place so meh.

I'd love to see their visitor numbers a year from now.

This will make no difference to visitor figures.

But it isn't the only thing they talk about. There's plenty more history there.

Bet that message gets lost in amongst all this. There are going to be plenty who think "I want a nice day out, not to be harangued by the right-on brigade. I'll go somewhere else".
I'd love to see their visitor numbers a year from now.