Be an ally to lesbians: stop using LGBTQ+

I am also a bit bemused by this idea of a rainbow lanyard being 'reassuring'.

Pregnancy isn't a dignified time in the best of situations.

I was quite fat in my childbearing years & got told quite a bit that I was doing self + offspring no favours. I also smoked when I was first pregnant & had been out on the piss regularly before realising I was pregnant. Tut tut.

Then there's all the women who don't have a partner/father of the baby to produce, for all manner of reasons.

I really don't think that 'I'm a lesbian so my partner/wife is a woman. I conceived via donor & I do/do not have the information you're asking for about the donor's blood group (or whatever)' is going to freak out a HCP in this day & age.

Maybe we should get all HCPs to wear lanyards saying 'I solemnly promise not to be a judgmental arse about any of my patients'? Or, y'know, we could just make that an expectation anyway?

MotR, the phrase being groped for is probably "making the letters LGBTQ+ a badge of ignorance and shame", which is indeed in the OP. Not quite the same thing, mind.

SapphosRock, why the confusion? The words "It's by donor" are presumably comprehensible to a midwife, and not impossible for you to say?

And if you are so ashamed of it that you could not say it to a midwife, what on earth were you doing having a baby using AID? Tsk. I think it may be your convictions that are confused, to say the least.

(For the record, I am a straight woman and a founder member of the GLF UK, with straight and lesbian and gay and bi and trans and thoroughly muddled friends, and straight and lesbian and gay and bi and trans acquaintances whom I dislike, and I used to be happy to wear a rainbow lanyard until they were hijacked to be a symbol used by people who threaten women with battery and rape.)

Said what in the OP?

What exactly am I supposed to be looking at?

Right Michelle, so you're saying if you don't personally like something then nobody should benefit from it?

That's a bit disingenuous isn't it?

I'm not saying I just personally happen to dislike rainbows (and tacky umbrellas and anything sung by Kermit the Frog) but that for some lesbians this symbol has become something sinister and threatening, and those females have a real point.

Because of the ideology the political group behind the rainbow have chosen to endow it with.

You seem to be saying because the overall purpose of the rainbow is generally good (if you're not female or a lesbian) females should suck up the harm and exclusion to them for the greater good to males? I hear that argument a great deal.

My answer is still that I'm not a support human.

Michelleoftheresistance you should ask the OP. She wrote it in the OP.

*signalling. Stupid phone.

If LGB&T were separate then the signally would be much clearer, which would be better for all.

Right Michelle, so you're saying if you don't personally like something then nobody should benefit from it?

Asking allies not to wear them and to make LGBT a badge of shame and ignorance

You keep saying this phrase.

I've asked you already once what you mean by it. If you're wearing a symbol of female oppression, then yes, you probably should realise it's not that nice a thing for females to see and yes, you should probably be a bit embarrassed you're wearing it.

There's several lesbians on this thread saying they find a rainbow lanyard a threatening political/quasi religious symbol, as it is made and circulated by the same political lobby that does not agree with homosexual women being homosexual, and supports things like throat punching and exclusion and baseball bats with barbed wire for females who displease them.

So no, the rainbows really don't help everyone. The views and misogynist behaviour of that political lobby have kind of stamped something much darker and nastier over the overt nice purpose of them.

Much of the ideology works in this same way: lovely on the surface with lots of mention of inclusion and love and tolerance, so if you give it a quick glance your heart is warmed and you think how nice. And then you catch a glimpse of what lies beneath that veneer and if you're female, you find this inclusion, love and tolerance certainly doesn't mean you, and the more you explore... well lets say, if you're the biological group being erased, it doesn't get any nicer for you.

Shedbuilder that's your interpretation and that's fine. The rainbow lanyard has personally helped me as a lesbian in healthcare settings. I see the wearer as an ally.

Asking allies not to wear them and to make LGBT a badge of shame and ignorance is the exact opposite of what they are intended for.

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime this is exactly my point.

It just so happens my wife and I are both rhesus negative. Our sperm donor is rhesus positive. At the booking apt the midwife asked for my partner's blood type, assuming my partner was the father of my child.

I realise it would have been very dangerous had i not felt comfortable to disclose we had used a sperm donor with a different blood type to my partner. I wouldn't have had the anti d injections. My baby could have got really sick.

A rainbow lanyard is a clear signal that's it's okay to disclose being in a lesbian relationship. I've been out and proud a long time and It still feels awkward saying I'm a lesbian in healthcare settings. The rainbows really help.

"Throughout my pregnancy I had many confusing conversations with midwives about my partner's blood type (obviously not relevant)."

Please can everybody here who may be going to have a baby note that this is inaccurate? Women and babies can die if this is taken as being the truth. It by God IS a relevant question for a midwife/maternity doctor to want an answer to.

Blood type and factors are determined by genetics. A baby may have the blood type and Rh factor of either parent, or a combination of both parents. The most common type of blood type incompatibility is Rh disease (also known as Rh incompatibility). The Rh factor is a protein on the covering of red blood cells. If the Rh factor protein is present, the person is Rh positive. If the Rh factor protein isn’t present, the person is Rh negative. When the mother’s Rh factor is negative and the baby’s is positive, it can cause the mother’s immune system to make Rh antibodies that attack the baby’s red blood cells as foreign. Other maternal antibodies that may develop and cause complications include anti-Kell, anti-E, anti-jka and anti-fya.

So it is worth them checking. If the answer is "not known" they will need to be ready to take action to deal with what may be a very real problem. (And if you refuse to answer, for whatever reason, they will have to do a blood-test, which they prefer not to do if it is not necessary because it is a waste of time and resources.)

I suspect those lesbians on the thread who wish to retain the explicit connection between LGB and TQ+ etc. are coming from the perspective of political alliances, and the idea that as a lobbying block, these disparate groups in the burgeoning alphabet have more in common than not, and can achieve more by being one group than by being separate.

I suspect this is the disconnect, because those of us who disagree no longer accept that it is useful to remain a single grouping, particularly as the 'diversity' is both diluting the effectiveness of much campaigning, and some letters are quite simply, drowning out others, or even demanding things with are at odds with the rights of the other letters.

I don't think we will reach an agreement, especially as Sappho and Elsie seem quite determined to characterize this as specific animosity towards individual trans people, instead of an acknowledgement that the LGB and the QT+ need different things, regardless of opinions about validity.

'The LGB Alliance is a hategroup. Pass it on' appears to be the slogan.

I'm not sure why but LGB Alliance appears to be trending in the US (with predictable shouts of transphobia).

Gibbons I think most lurkers to this conversation are doing just that

I really hate the misuse of the word bullying. I have previously had to point out to an employee that if you deliberately join a conversation, knowing the majority disagree with you, and the majority of people continue to question and disagree with you it’s not bullying; it is having different opinions.

Please do not try and make yourself a victim as this undermines people who are genuinely bullied.

I feel the same about rainbow lanyards as I do about other symbols of religion. Avoid all but the most banal conversation and get out asap.

But that would mean accepting that some people dissent and dissent affronts their overblown sense of righteousness. It's just not allowed. Forced teaming, with the emphasis on force.

I only use and refer to LGB. T,Q,+ are made up and dangerous.