Gay man 'bullied' off Manchester Pride for wearing LGB Alliance hat and t-shirt

I'm a little boggled that 'I've never met a someone who has been assaulted/it doesn't happen much' is seriously being peddled as an argument why LGB people shouldn't be allowed to have a charity for them.

Lucky for me that I know decent men, gay and otherwise, who are capable of empathy.

I don't know what the divide is, but no lesbian I know IRL agrees that this is in any way a priority. I accept that you feel differently and you are entitled to do that.

@JustPassingThrough3
Not at gay pride, apparently…

But a small hardcore of people who do believe this does not mean that it's part of any official push to "redefine" gay, or that it is anywhere near representative of what the majority of LGBT people think. It's sort of shadow-boxing: fighting and getting angry over something that a minute number of people actually say.

Lots of people working very hard today to push the narrative that no no no, it's ok, it's not really happening because it's only a very small number of people and it isn't enough to mind about and it's only paranoia and being silly....

Who benefits from suppressing information sharing and LGB people's responses to this I wonder?

Why is the effort focused on minimising and hushing and discrediting rather than openly agreeing this is totally unacceptable, being part of the TQ community that stands up against it and says loudly no, not in our name, we accept and welcome the rights of LGB people to be same sex attracted and to live their own way alongside us, and we stand with them in resisting this inappropriate, discriminatory behaviour?

I don't know what the divide is, but no lesbian I know IRL agrees that this is in any way a priority

That's funny, because I've met many who do. Perhaps the answer is that our personal friends and acquaintances are a filter bubble?

If someone, a small group of people, came up to you in the street and shouted at you, snatched your hat off your head, how would you describe it?

@JustPassingThrough3
Could you kindly clarify for me how the man at Manchester Pride was "assaulted"?

Of course. He had an item of clothing stolen from him, by way of snatching a hat from his head, and was mobbed by a crowd to the point where he needed a police escort. Now, I realise it may not be on the same level to you as misgendering, because we all know that is LITERAL VIOLENCE, but it does remain an assault. Do you think if you were wearing apparel that indicated you were gay and a mob of people crowded around you, shouting at you, before snatching clothing from your body isn’t assault? It wouldn’t cross your mind to think you may have been targeted because you are gay? Your threshold for tolerance is lower than mine, if so.

[quote PurgatoryOfPotholes]Here's a great thread analysing the situation from a legally qualified gay man on twitter.

thread

🧵1/ Let us be clear. If you're condoning what happened at Manchester Pride this is what you're endorsing. Alexander had his hat stolen from his head. That's the crime of robbery. He was hounded by a mob, that's various public order offences.

2/ He was denied the right to participate in gay political activity because he supports a registered Charity the Commission responsible said categorically is not a "hate group". So you're supporting breaching his human rights to freedom of thought and expression.

3/ Because he's a gay man going to gay pride you're also targeting a person on the basis of their same sex attraction which is a protected characteristic by s.12 of the Equality Act 2010.

4/ Because you're targeting this gay man because he believes something he's entitled to (because democracies don't have state mandated beliefs) you're also harassing him for the s.9 protected characteristic of belief.

5/ More generally, you're now part of a mob. It's an online mob and it's doing digital queer bashing. You've likely been radicalised by "no debate" so now you simply can't function happily with democratic norms.

6/ What you're supporting is something that has (rightly) utterly horrified people outside the gender debate. You're supporting a brave man just trying to exercise freedom of speech being terrified by a mob. This is how tyrannies start.

7/ They start with people like you sweeping serious crimes and breaches of human rights aside "for the greater good". People are watching this and we've had enough of this petty dictatorship.

8/ #HatsAgainstHate - Alexander's hat was stolen - show your support for @ALLIANCELGB, use this appalling event to strengthen the only charity that actually supports same sex attracted people.

From: twitter.com/Jebadoo2/status/1431955263632941065?s=19[/quote]
I see there is a discussion going on over whether there was an assault, so I'll quote this again.

Unless telekinesis is a thing, hands must have been placed on Alexander to remove that hat.

So you wear a t shirt and hat proclaiming 'Trans lives matter' and a crowd jeers at you, intimidates you, steals your hat, and that's not transphobic then? Merely a political disagreement? Good to know.

Yes, I somehow don't think that would be the consensus.

Or faced up to the reality that if lesbians want an exclusively lesbian group, they have to do it secretly.

I urge you to look at their website, then, where the only six campaigns they list are all to do with trans issues and sex/gender issues ("transing the gay away", Allison Bailey being accused of transphobia, opposing GRA reform, opposing gender self-id in the census, engaging with EHRC on gender vs sex, opposing aspects of Scottish hate crime legislation to do with sex vs gender).

Obviously those campaigns are to do with the direct threat and impact upon LGB rights. Yes, they're all coming from and created by the same direction, but those campaigns are actually about the LGB need. That homosexual kids are at risk of being encouraged or pressured to transition because of homophobia, a gay woman being accused of homophobia, GRA reform which holds significant threat to sex based rights particularly affecting females and LGB people whose rights and needs are in fact sex based, etc etc.

This is like coming on FWR and complaining everyone here is obsessed with trans people when no, it's about womens rights and the fact that gender ideology and policy is currently multiply attacking and affecting those rights on multiple fronts. It's disingenuous to say the least to try and hush LGB people and females from standing up to it on the grounds that it's unkind to the political lobby doing it.

We're back to 'please don't upset me by wincing or saying stop it while I'm kicking you'.

He was wearing the logo of an organisation whose approach and focus people expressed their disagreement with (in an admittedly over-aggressive way). That is political disagreement, not homophobia.

So you wear a t shirt and hat proclaiming 'Trans lives matter' and a crowd jeers at you, intimidates you, steals your hat, and that's not transphobic then? Merely a political disagreement? Good to know.

But a small hardcore of people who do believe this does not mean that it's part of any official push to "redefine" gay, or that it is anywhere near representative of what the majority of LGBT people think. It's sort of shadow-boxing: fighting and getting angry over something that a minute number of people actually say.

It's very easy dismiss from an ivory tower, isn't it? You've not used a lesbian dating app and been inundated with male 'lesbians' or tried to find a local lesbian group for anything and been offered a 'trans-support' group instead when you asked. Or been asked your pronouns because as a butch lesbian woman it's assumed you think you are actually male, which is homophobia as old as the hills.

I asked how reducing gender clinic and counselling waiting times (i.e. what trans activists want)

Nobody disagrees with reducing waiting lists.

Trans Activists campaign for legal recognition of gender identity and the removal of any service or regulation that distinguishes on the basis of sex rather than gender.

I am saying that their "prioritising looking after lesbians" isn't in improving access to healthcare, reducing homophobia in society, or doing anything that substantively improves their lives (or my life as a gay man) – it is simply focusing on trans issues. That is inherently controversial at the moment.

As you have said, you are a gay man, in a discussion over a lesbian-founded organisation, with mostly women, many of us lesbian or bisexual ourselves, or the mother of a lesbian daughter. Your perspective on what "looking after lesbians" should look like is going to be very different to what any of us think it looks like.

We think women being sexually coerced is a massive problem, and fighting against that will substantively improve lesbian lives, and we have rather a lot of "lived experience" why.

[quote plodalong12]@JustPassingThrough3
If you disagree with Stonewall, it doesn't mean you have to agree with LGB Alliance

But it seems if you agree with the LGB Alliance, you are at risk of being assaulted at gay pride, even if you are gay. Do gay people get attacked for supporting Stonewall by anyone other than homophobes?[/quote]
Could you kindly clarify for me how the man at Manchester Pride was "assaulted"?

I am saying that their "prioritising looking after lesbians" isn't in improving access to healthcare, reducing homophobia in society, or doing anything that substantively improves their lives (or my life as a gay man) – it is simply focusing on trans issues. That is inherently controversial at the moment.

Lesbians have been at the coal face of this 'controversy' and until the LGBA was formed they were pretty much screaming into a void about the detrimental effect they felt that trans males who identify as lesbian were having on their community and spaces.

Not every lesbian feels like this of course but a significant number do and we have heart wrenching posts going back years on this very forum from lesbian women trying to get people to listen to their distress.

Being inclusive might not be a very big deal for a lot of gay men because the power dynamic between males and females largely goes one way. Surely it's not impossible to understand though the concerns lesbian woman have and how uncomfortable they have been made to feel in spaces that should be a sanctuary for them.

[quote FloralBunting]Who has removed this right? Is it illegal to be same-sex attracted? Is it even mainstream within LGBT circles that one can't be same-sex attracted? It certainly isn't in mine. And not a single trans person I know thinks that it's transphobic or wrong to be same-sex attracted. Where has this view come from?

Are you serious? In a large field of evidence, lets just pick the most recent public example - Lil Nas X said he was definitely gay becauise he liked dick and got a slew of abuse for saying he was being transphobic. I mean, good for you if you've never come across any of the discourse talked about in this article, but it's happening.

lesbianandgaynews.com/2021/08/kay-knight-the-shaming-of-homosexuals-for-having-sex/[/quote]
But a small hardcore of people who do believe this does not mean that it's part of any official push to "redefine" gay, or that it is anywhere near representative of what the majority of LGBT people think. It's sort of shadow-boxing: fighting and getting angry over something that a minute number of people actually say.

@JustPassingThrough3
If you disagree with Stonewall, it doesn't mean you have to agree with LGB Alliance

But it seems if you agree with the LGB Alliance, you are at risk of being assaulted at gay pride, even if you are gay. Do gay people get attacked for supporting Stonewall by anyone other than homophobes?

Who has removed this right? Is it illegal to be same-sex attracted? Is it even mainstream within LGBT circles that one can't be same-sex attracted? It certainly isn't in mine. And not a single trans person I know thinks that it's transphobic or wrong to be same-sex attracted. Where has this view come from?

Playing the faux innocence card, I see.

I didn't say the right had been removed, LGBA are campaigning to ensure it isn't removed.

I'm not going to waste my time with someone who is pretending that the TRA agenda is not a wholesale assault on the rights of women, lesbians and gay men. There is evidence in bucket loads, you claiming you have never seen or heard it is disingenuous at best and an outright lie at worst.

I'm sorry but that is just absurd. He was shouted at for supporting an organisation whose views and campaigns and focus people disagree with – not because he was gay. It was not homophobia, unless the definition has radically changed since I was last called a slur in the street.

Give over. He was targeted as a man who is same sex attracted for supporting an organisation that supports same sex attraction. Much of the trans rhetoric is that being same sex attracted rather than gender is transphobic. Hence the hatred towards the LGBA. So either you've been living under a rock, or you support that narrative. I don't care which one it is. But you do not have the right to dismiss the clear homophobia directed at another person. Maybe you should listen to his account of it, before deciding that you're going to speak for him.