What do you think about the rainbow flag?

I must admit however, it pleases me greatly that my homophobic neighbours who think I’m the devil incarnate have a gay pride flag (the actual gay pride 🏳️‍🌈 one with six colours) hanging outside their front door right now.

As a lesbian, I find it weirdly performative if straight people or normal bars have a rainbow flag.

First, it makes me think, “am I not allowed to be safe somewhere without a flag then?” Secondly, everyone knows the flag isn’t for lesbians anymore. Or gays. Or bisexuals.

Personally, if a ‘normal’ pub is decked out in gay paraphernalia it weirds me out. To gay people, being gay is just a part of your life. 100% appreciate there not being homophobia, but I also don’t need a bunch of straight, self-proclaiming ‘allies’ shouting about how much they love and accept me (alongside transpeople) for woke points.

I’m much keener on seeing the rainbow flag as an NHS symbol than an alphabet soup signal. And that’s speaking as a lesbian.

LemonPudding I still have items stickered with my Greenpeace rainbows from the 1970s. And a rainbow jumper or two.

Didn’t come to mean LGBTand Uncle Tom Cobbley and all til much later. So yes, it’s a symbol for hope that many have used.

*as until fairly recently

Mother Nature surely?

The Rainbow will always mean Green Peace to me.

Or “peace” generally. Especially in some countries like Italy, the rainbow flag was very widely used with that connotation.

As a gay man, I don’t necessarily feel alienated by seeing a rainbow flag stuck to the window of a shop, say - as you till fairly re entry, it just meant the place is gay and lesbian-friendly and I’d hope the owners are just using it in that positive way.

But now that I know what I do about the TRA movement, any indication of “wokeness” is a total no-no for me, and I’d now be very hesitant about going to such establishments. One sign would be the use of the other new “diverse” Pride flags.

As this Cosmo article explains, the gender diversity has even made its way into the new Lesbian flag... www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/love-sex/relationships/a30254147/lesbian-flag/

If anyone has copyright on a rainbow, isn't it Noah?

The Rainbow will always mean Green Peace to me.

Their boat The Rainbow Warrior was blown up by French secret service agents.

Green Peace adopted the rainbow long before the LGB community. No one can have copyright on a rainbow. That's just daft. But if anyone does - it's Green Peace, surely.

It has become symbolic of a tyranny of the unreal and imagined, over the real and measurable

This. I'm loving the outrage from the 'queer community' about the NHS appropriating 'their' rainbow. The irony that most of the appropriation protests seem to be from people who aren't actually gay, but who have inserted themselves into what was the gay rights movement, seems to have passed them by.

BBC article (only quoting men) on the display of rainbows to support the NHS
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52724818

Sample quote: “What will our rainbow flag be if wider society sees it as something different?"

ie what people have been saying on this thread too.

It has become symbolic of a tyranny of the unreal and imagined, over the real and measurable.

Yes.

As I said before, straight males i.e. the current group of transwomen, are front and centre of what the rainbow flag currently represents, so I don’t see why other straight people can’t comment on it [shrug]

Quite.

The rainbow flag has now come to signify acceptance or belief in a particular ideology. To the point that the believer can no longer even identify it as an ideology.

That ideology rests on a belief that sex is not real, and that the only real measure of a person is their 'gender identity'. That not everyone has a gender identity is not recognised - because this ideology necessitates that everyone must now define themselves by some invisible 'gender identity'.

This ideology privileges trans people over women; and furthermore denies their very real existence as a specific and exclusive group with their own specific needs and requirements.

It has become symbolic of a tyranny of the unreal and imagined, over the real and measurable.

But i know some people care more for a transwoman than a raped woman or a Muslim woman

Absolutely! I've been astounded in recent times by the number of people who care little about the condition of women and girls...and who have real little grasp of the very real lived experiences.

That people can actively campaign for women to lose their rights to single sex spaces which are required for their comfort, dignity, privacy and safety.

There is a difference between excluding of transpeople which would be wrong and not normally seen on these boards...and wanting transpeople to Either be included with the rest of their sex or have separated resources for transpeople if they feel that's a better solution for them than sex separated facilities.

Automatically assuming people mean exclude is unfair and untruthful,

If you force women to accept transwomen you will be including transwomen and excluding some women , because that's why we have sex separated stuff in the first place

But i know some people care more for a transwoman than a raped woman or a Muslim woman

Women have earned the right to organise and protect their own interests. Trans people need to fight for similar for themselves. that does not involve colonising the spaces of another group.

I just don't feign innocence and pretend I can't see what's wrong with a definition that actively excludes trans women

Are actual women included in the definition of 'trans woman' then? If not, isn't that exclusionary too?

Exclusive does not necessarily imply hatred or leaving some out in the cold - it implies the discrete properties or characteristics of a group. all members of that group share a certain set of exclusive characteristics. In this case, being biological females.

Trans women are, by nature, excluded from this group - as women are from being 'trans'. Trans suggests a state in between one thing and another. a middle/in between/not fully defined state.

We're just going to have to disagree as not all women want to exclude trans women

That is up to the individual...but when it comes to public services, spaces and sports, single sex provision exists for a reason.

There would be no need to keep crying "exclusion" if you campaigned for third spaces - rather than attempting to colonise the spaces of other protected groups.

As I said before, straight males i.e. the current group of transwomen, are front and centre of what the rainbow flag currently represents, so I don’t see why other straight people can’t comment on it [shrug]

And certainly not when 'everyone' is co-opted into wearing it on a lanyard or similar, or when it is flown as a flag above a town hall, or similar

The rainbow flag is now inseparable from unicorns and glitter. It has been co-opted - by the TRA movement, and by pure commercialism,

I had a young gay man explain to me last week what the 'real' issues were for women - whereas the TRA agenda, according to he, issue was just a 'non issue'. And a "bigoted" one at that.

*My personal favourite is the poster who was cross the rainbow flag didn't centre children and the elderly. Closely followed by the recent poster claiming her GP wearing a rainbow lanyard = GP likely to push the contraceptive pill on her8

It is interesting that the rainbow flag has now come to be associated with a certain predictable set of values..and one of those is 'abortion on demand'; often men trying to show how much they are understanding and sympathetic to women.....that and 'period poverty'. It has all be come so predictable.

Meanwhile, back in the everyday reality of women and girls......women often are not infrequently coerced into abortions they might otherwise not choose, because the male person responsible for the pregnancy wants nothing to do do with it........

Being female can also be about celebrating fertility, pregnancy and childbirth and the general female condition that goes with that.
Not saying i don't support abortion rights ( I do!), but the rainbow flag has now come to be part of a movement which seeks to eradicate the differences between men and women. differences which are very real and based on the fact of the female body: its strengths, potentials and its vulnerabilities.

Even Wotcha agrees that women are women, and men are not women!

Yes, but Wotcha (and others) thinks it's irrelevant and that the word 'woman' should describe anyone who believes they have internal feelings of femininity and womanness. And presumably all those adult human females who don't have those internal feelings of femininity and womanness that Wotcha claims to, but I'm not sure these days when apparently indefinable feelings are how we're basing definitions.

Although obviously women on FWR aren't allowed to identify as trans, despite fitting definitions put forward by Stonewall. So, y'know, they do know what women are if they need to exclude us.

So what the Rainbow symbolism, via flags, badges, lanyards etc says to me is that it's a political message that is absolutely anti-women.

Me too. And I am lesbian. Not ‘LGBTQIAA++’. Lesbian. This is apparently where the alphabet soup is going and there’s nothing pro-women or pro-LGB about it.