Do we have it anywhere on record that Stonewall does/does not support people to express their sexuality as exclusively homosexual?

I know the sense of community and friendship has been so, so important for them amongst all the difficulties they have experienced in other areas of their lives and to think that people want to take that away from them, is frankly, horrifying

No one wants to take community and friendship away…im guessing this hasnt been said either

Also personality engineers (who do not exist) to retro-fit the personality that would have developed had the person been treated from the day they were born the way our culture treats female-bodied people

I was thinking of this when Cherie Blair interviewed Mary Anne Sieghart about the latter's book. MAS claims that that when people transition, they start to be treated as the acquired sex and cites 2 academics who transitioned in opposite directions as 'proof' of this.

Sieghart explains not only that there is an authority gap that has serious consequences, but that closing it is good for everyone, men included. In a fascinating chapter about the experiences of trans men and women she illustrates a world hardwired to benefit men. Men reported losing authority once they transitioned, and women gained it.

www.theguardian.com/books/2021/jul/16/the-authority-gap-by-mary-ann-sieghart-review-why-men-are-still-on-top

www.penguin.co.uk/books/112/1120787/the-authority-gap/9780857527561.html

Does anyone think Oger, Bunce, Janiv/Simpson, Ivy, Levine, White, Hayton et al (going for a range here) have lost their initial privilege or added to it? Thinking of the trans men in Canada who encountering substantial problems - Kimberley, Newgent; considering the detransitioners interviewed by Boyce, plus Bell, Watson etc.

I should do Sieghart the courtesy of reading the account rather than accept the barebones of the account she gave in the interview but it opposes everything that I've known or heard/read about over a number of years. And it completely overlooked the need for personality/socialisation engineers.

I'm just reading all of these posts thinking, thank god I am in such well-established lesbian communities that have a long history of making those welcome who self-ID as lesbians. Thankfully we have such a strong understanding on this point that as far as I can see we're not vulnerable to any insidious attempts to change the nature of how and who we meet.

We have a small number of trans lesbians present, a couple in relationships with other lesbians, and they bring a great deal to our groups and they get a lot out of them too. I know the sense of community and friendship has been so, so important for them amongst all the difficulties they have experienced in other areas of their lives and to think that people want to take that away from them, is frankly, horrifying.

No, I am not the one throwing around assertions stating they are representative of the ‘vast majority’. But you are.

Why? And if it is purely anecdotal you need to be very clear about that.

If you have evidence of another nature, post it.

But why on earth should anyone believe your assertions?

That it has is no reflection of the entire trans community

Has anyone said it is?

I may have missed it, its a big thread

Would anyone posting here want to date or have sex with someone who didn't desire them? Of course not!

Well, women tend not to have sex with people who don’t want to have sex with them, yes. Men, on the other hand, quite frequently do seem to want to have sex with those who don’t want to.

This thread is about the leading charity for supporting homosexuals, Stonewall, not actually supporting male or female homosexuals be open and unapologetic about our sexual orientation.

I don't know if the fact that those who support Stonewall in this dereliction of mission are now suggesting fanciful philosophical thought experiments about male people being able to genetically change into female people in a few hundred years time is more laughable or downright offensive.

"I'm not homophobic. But how about you have a think about men being women one day in a magic sci-fi way, eh?"

Instead, I'm stuck here trying to get someone to tell me how a male can become a woman, perhaps at some unspecified time in the future by virtue of an imaginary chromosome-changing machine.

😂

Sorry Arabella. It's so ridiculous it's funny!

There seems to a conscious wide eyed naivety about the co-ersion which lesbians are experiencing to 'consider' transwomen as sexual partners.

I mean, there's this report - www.gettheloutuk.com/blog/category/research/lesbians-at-ground-zero.html

There's the personal accounts by lesbians on this site.

There's a whole website which I'm sure has been referenced on this thread already (unfortunately can't remember the name) which gathers together the experiences which lesbians have come under extreme pressure.

We've seen many TRA accounts on Twitter outright stating that lesbians are transphobes if they don't agree to date transwomen.

But it never happens, right?

What do you think actually happens in exchanges? Are you imagining some sort of scenario where a trans lesbian walks up to another lesbian and demands sex? This is so bizarre. Why would you think that would happen?
You're dead fucking right about it being 'so bizarre '. As to why we think it might happen, well... Lesbians being called transphobic for categorical rejection of 'ladydick' has a lot to do with that. Are you denying that has happened?

This bizarre need that many women have to coddle the feelings and egos of entitled males who can't bear to hear the word no from women. Not just about this, other things too. Weapons grade internalised misogyny.

I know. And they call themselves feminists while doing it!!

So again, how have you got the authority to speak for the ‘vast’ majority of transwomen?

Thanks, Talking and Floral and others for excellent posts.

I'm so tired and over stating basic, simple biological facts. This is ridiculous. It's 2021. We have things to get on with. Women need to tackle the fact that rape is 'practically legal', we need to do something about FGM, about domestic violence, about female representation, about women's health, about all the bloody issues I've been fighting to try to change since I was a teenager.

Instead, I'm stuck here trying to get someone to tell me how a male can become a woman, perhaps at some unspecified time in the future by virtue of an imaginary chromosome-changing machine.

So sexual orientation is different from other characteristics, but I would say the same approach is reasonable. So if a straight man was approached by a gay man I think they can easily say 'Sorry mate, I'm not interested', rather than saying 'Sorry mate, you've got a dick and balls and that's a real turn off for me', or if a straight woman was approached by a gay woman, she could say 'Sorry, I'm not interested' rather than shouting out 'God, no, I'm straight, your vulva is really unappealing to me". They are acting according to their orientations without going out of their way to say something that might be hurtful to others.

Anyone would think there has been a take over or something. I'm in these circles all the time - I know literally hundreds of lesbians! There is no need to batten up the hatches against some imaginary onslaught of male genitalia.

Trans lesbians have no interest at all in dating or having sex with someone that is not attracted to them - why is that so difficult to understand?

Would anyone posting here want to date or have sex with someone who didn't desire them? Of course not!

You don't really have to shout it out loud that you would never consider dating them or as sexual partners - believe me, they know and they're trying to avoid you too!

What do you think actually happens in exchanges? Are you imagining some sort of scenario where a trans lesbian walks up to another lesbian and demands sex? This is so bizarre. Why would you think that would happen?

Trans lesbians are operating in the same way as other lesbians, other gay men, straight men and straight women when it comes to dating. They're using the apps to see if there is an initial, mutual interest, they're meeting up and seeing if something more might develop. Or they're in larger social groups interacting and enjoying friendships and seeing if there are potential romantic interests. They know, just like everyone else, that anyone can be knocked back by any person for any reason, and there is no entitlement.

And sometimes, just like gay men and women and straight women and men they meet someone with whom they have a mutual attraction, and everyone is happy and there's been no bellicose show down about genitalia because there have either been early polite knock backs or there have been mature adult conversations.

There are lesbians that are happily dating trans lesbians, yes.

Excellent post, Talking, thank you. Eloquent as ever.

Bilinda must know all this, and yet chooses to prioritise the feelings of a minority of biologically male people over the feelings and welfare of biologically female people. It’s that simple. Males first. The first sex, the sex that matters.

This bizarre need that many women have to coddle the feelings and egos of entitled males who can't bear to hear the word no from women. Not just about this, other things too. Weapons grade internalised misogyny.

Being a woman is really not a special club that males are missing out on and must be facilitated to access.

1. When (and if) that happens we can consider if and how we need to change society to reflect that. One of the things we would need to consider is whether simply flipping the body sex of a fully developed personality gives you a person interchangeable with someone who was that sex from birth, and if not, does it matter.

1. Destroying female-sex legal and social rights, provisions and opportunities now because something might be possible in hundreds of years is morally and intellectually bankrupt. Here and now, we are alive, men (the sex) cannot turn into women (the sex), and it's legitimate and moral that the laws and rights we have here and now acknowledge that reality.

1. It would be a bloody poor show by the human race* if in hundreds of years we've been able to develop sex-flipping technology but we still have to worry about sexism. So I would hope by that time it's a mute point because the reason we need female-specific rights and protections have gone away for everything other than the simple physical differences which your flippee would clearly share.

• although also bloody likely given there seems far more enthusiasm for edge research into transplanting wombs in male bodies for emotional reasons than making the simple social and economic changes that will improve quality of life for millions of people in the bodies they already have.

There are people dying from genetic disorders.

yes.

I find it crass in the extreme that trans activists frequently claim that it will soon be possible to change people's chromosomes and that we would develop this technology thanks to people wanting to change sex.

You have absolutely no idea of the suffering in the world out there, do you? If it were remotely possible, we would be doing it. There are people dying from genetic disorders.

Regarding hormones, take for example the recent discussion about hormone levels in transwomen athletes.

The allowed (reduced) testosterone hormone level in transwomen athletes is way, way above what is normal in women. If women took levels of testosterone at the reduced levels which transwomen athletes are allowed, they would 1). be very ill and 2). be disqualified for doping. East German athletes in the past tried to increase testosterone levels in order to get better results but have suffered widely publicised health issues and in some cases, early deaths by doing so.

Quite often TRA's will look at certain conditions such as PCOS in which testosterone levels are higher in females and use it as a 'gotcha' for males who have reduced their testosterone levels. I have PCOS and have higher levels of testosterone than the female 'norm' but it is still within female limits. I am a woman with a female endocrine disorder. A transwoman would be unlikely to be able to reduce their testosterone levels down to 'female norms' and would probably be quite ill if they tried to do so. The changes in hormone levels may make some minor physical changes (in the same way that my higher levels of testosterone give me hirsutism) but do not change the unchangeable male or female aspects of their body (skeletal structure, lung capacity, blood levels, etc etc).

I believe there is something, maybe we can't fully explain it yet, that makes them so uncomfortable as the gender they were assigned and only find relief and happiness when they transition, that it's beyond choice, it's who they are. Of course they suddenly don't develop ovaries, but it's enough for me - as a woman - to allow them into the woman-club.

I know it’s been commented on already but I found this so stark from Bilinda earlier on.

Really crystal clear. Bilinda cannot be in any doubt that there are also a great many women who experience great distress and unhappiness at the fact of some biologically male people being enabled to access “women only” spaces and services. That a considerable number also experience genuine fear and trauma because of this.

And indeed, that women and girls have already been sexually assaulted and otherwise targeted by predatory males in women’s toilets/changing rooms as a direct result of the moves to allow males to self identify as women, or to make more of these spaces mixed sex (“gender neutral”).

Bilinda must know all this, and yet chooses to prioritise the feelings of a minority of biologically male people over the feelings and welfare of biologically female people. It’s that simple. Males first. The first sex, the sex that matters.

Crystal clear.

And womanhood is not a “club”, with all the associations of privilege and exclusivity that that word contains. It is not a hallowed place that female people cruelly turn male people away from, mocking them for their deficiencies and exulting in their own superiority, much as TRAs would have you believe that narrative.

It is simply a state of material reality - an often brutal reality, a reality shot through with powerlessness and vulnerability, as the women of Afghanistan know only too well in these terrifying days; loaded down with an almost unbearable history of oppression and second class status; and fraught with the ever-present threat of sexual violence from the opposite sex. And also the often joyful - but still painful and dangerous - reality of being those who grow new human beings in our bodies and deliver them into the world. And the impact of that on our lives, whether we want to be mothers or not, whether we are mothers or not, is something that cannot be overstated.

It’s a reality we all share, and that no male person does. It’s the reality of being female, in a world that centres males. It’s not a club. There are no guest passes. No golden tickets. No secret password, or handshake, to get in. Just material reality that dictates whether you are or aren’t.