LGB Alliance to plan helpline with Lottery funding

They don't want the 'T out', they want the right to organise alone without TQ+ politics telling them that they have to stop being homosexual because it doesn't suit TQ+ politics.

It's you who is framing the wish to leave and organise alone as an unacceptable act of aggression against TQ+ people. It's you who is framing homosexual people protesting this oppression, suppression and harassment/attempts at conversion therapy BY TQ+ politics as an unacceptable act of aggression against TQ+ politics.

There's a word for this 'you can never leave or be independent of control without punishment' thinking. It's banned on MN, which is another bizarre fig leaf over an unpleasant but obvious reality, but this is a key feature of what it involves. By their deeds shall you know them.

Starlee:
"... their mind/soul/psyche, whatever you call the essence that makes them 'them' ..."

One of the most useful functions the internet serves is to remind us of the unthinking ignorance and associated prejudices of so many of our fellow citizens.

This poster Starlee, for instance, probably thinks such talk of 'the essence that makes them 'them'' is uncontrovertible and universally accepted. Not the least smidgeon of knowledge of the difficulties inherent in such talk. No thought of Aristotle, Aquinas, Hume ... no inkling that other metaphysical traditions (Buddhist? ...) might take a different stance ... no knowledge, even, of Ryle, say, or other more contemporary thinkers closer to home.

And why should there be? It seems so obvious this is how things are. Hey, Starlee?

All you straight-up Cartesians (look it up, Starlee!); some of us think you are wrong. But, really, we do not need to argue the case. All that is important is that we do not allow such ignorance and associated prejudice influence over our institutions -- schools, laws, health services etc.

We do not allow believers in the Angel Moroni to determine what we teach our kids and so on. (Unless, maybe, we live in Utah.) We allow believers in Transubstantiation to practice their rites freely, while denying their right as a group to proselytise our children or influence our foreign policy. And so on.

Same for believers in independent 'essences' of people like Starlee and all the rest. (Or it should be.) We have good reason to believe them to be flat-out wrong: but, well, let a hundred flowers bloom, fill yer boots, Starlees. Just stop with the demands that the rest of society fall in with your nonsense.

Starlee and co: try to consider other points of view; read David Hume, Gilbert Ryle, Derek Parfit ...; think!

And, whether or not, just stop with your demands to medicalise children on the basis of your nonsensical metaphysics. Just stop. Enough is enough.

@Artichokeleaves "You can witter all you like about LGB people wanting a separate voice to the TQ+ controlled groups because of their own interests being 'divisive' - you're actually wittering about 'don't let them get away'. You have no care or interest in LGB people you merely want them to stay in their box and continue to usefully serve TQ+ interests. And saying 'no, I won't do as you say and will not indoctrinate kids with this political ideology' is not 'hate'. You really have no idea what actual 'hate' is if you can use it this flippantly. Many of the people who want out of the LGBT+ never ending acronym that is TQ+ political and controlled? They do. They were there."

Stop telling me what I "actually" mean, you are so wrong. I am Bi, have many friends and family members who are LGB and care very much for them all.
You seem to think that because I also support trans people I must be against LGB? How bigoted is that?
It's is entirely possible to support all, to be inclusive, which the LGBA most certainly isn't, I have seen the most appalling transphobia on their social media, real hate and that's not being flippant! I have yet to see any homophobic content from Stonewall and other LGBTQ+ groups, they have always been and remain fully inclusive.
I don't deny some want the T out, but there's many more who want them included, LGBTQ+ has enormous global support, there's no point you denying that. They were also 'there', I was there, from 1970 onwards, and my opinion is as valid as anyone's.

If kids who "believe they are trans" inadvertently call the LGBA without realising that they specifically oppose and exclude trans people they will be faced with someone telling them they're "more likely to grow up lesbian or gay than be trans" (they have stated that many times), not at all helpful for a confused youngster who need UN-biased advice.

Where is your actual evidence for your claims @Starlee, that they will oppose and exclude trans people if they receive such phone calls?

Though - going by past behaviour of TRA's, no doubt they will be clogging up the phone lines, trolling the LGBA and preventing LGBA from providing a service to those that actually needed it, so LGBA will be forced to install some safeguards against these trolls.

@NotKevinTurvey "No, anorexia is a form of body dysmorphia, just like gender dysphoria is. They are analogous conditions.
Telling a trans identifying male that they are really a woman is the same as telling someone with anorexia that they are really obese."

No, body dysmorphia (a mental illness) and gender dysphoria (NOT a mental illness) are two different things.
Dysphoria vs Dysmorphia: The Difference Between Gender and Body www.talkspace.com/blog/body-dysphoria-vs-dysmorphia/

So true.

I just had flashbacks to 25 years ago - my (now) ex-friend proudly boasted to me about how her nephew (who was in First Year of School), was so much smarter than my daughter ( who was also in First Year of School).

My friend failed to acknowledge her nephew was 2 years older than my daughter - so of course her nephew would appear smarter than my daughter - he was 6 years old, my daughter was only 4 years old.

Plus - her nephew had already finished his first year of schooling - but was repeating the first year (because he struggled with reading and other things) so even though he'd already experienced 1 year of schooling and my daughter had not, my ex-friend believed her nephew was smarter - and she believed in boasting about that to me.
(First Year of School in Australia)

My friend did suffer from some cognitive dissonance over many things - hence she became my ex-friend.

I am not at all opposed to a helpline for LGB youth, I've never said I am.
But any helpline worth their salt would be happy to signpost a person to a more relevant helpline for the specific help they need.

If kids who "believe they are trans" inadvertently call the LGBA without realising that they specifically oppose and exclude trans people they will be faced with someone telling them they're "more likely to grow up lesbian or gay than be trans" (they have stated that many times), not at all helpful for a confused youngster who need UN-biased advice.

More hyperbole again.

Please provide the evidence that LGB Alliance 'specifically oppose and exclude trans people'.

Please provide the evidence that LGB Alliance would not signpost a caller to a more relevant helpline for the specific help they need.

Please provide the script that LGB Alliance will use that will tell any vulnerable young person that they are "more likely to grow up lesbian or gay than be trans".

Your posts continue to highlight only your deep prejudice. You continue to not be able to provide evidence.

In fact, why don't you go and ask LGB Alliance, respectfully of course, what they plan to do. They will respond to respectful requests for information from what I have seen on twitter and listening to their representatives speak.

Why not clear all this up and go and ask them directly rather than this persecution that you have continued for page after page after page that is based on your supposition because you have produced no evidence to back up your claims at all.

When a transwoman attended the LGBA conference last year she was treated appallingly with a man screaming in her face that she shouldn't be there.

Do you mean the transitioned male who insisted on using the female single sex toilets despite it being clearly marked 'single sex' for female use?

Do you mean the man who is on the spectrum who had an issue with a transitioned male using those facilities despite that clear marking?

Did any one treat that transitioned male appallingly during any other time at the conference?

"Should a pro-choice org go to a conference hosted by a Government seeking to restrict access to abortion?"

I'd say it was essential for them to attend.

What's your alternative? Put your fingers in your ears and hope it will all turn out ok?

When a transwoman attended the LGBA conference last year she was treated appallingly with a man screaming in her face that she shouldn't be there.

"Should a pro-choice org go to a conference hosted by a Government seeking to restrict access to abortion?"

I'd say it was essential for them to attend.

What's your alternative? Put your fingers in your ears and hope it will all turn out ok?

I am not at all opposed to a helpline for LGB youth, I've never said I am.
But any helpline worth their salt would be happy to signpost a person to a more relevant helpline for the specific help they need.
If kids who "believe they are trans" inadvertently call the LGBA without realising that they specifically oppose and exclude trans people they will be faced with someone telling them they're "more likely to grow up lesbian or gay than be trans" (they have stated that many times), not at all helpful for a confused youngster who need UN-biased advice.

Using your analogy, the endometriosis helpline would be happy to re-direct prostate cancer sufferers to the relevant helpline straight away instead of trying to convince them they might actually have endometriosis instead.

doesn't think people against gay marriage are homophobes.

Didn't we cover this on another thread earache where you were informed that Stonewall published guidance to reject the bill initially that was going through Parliament?

Maybe it was a different poster.

Do you also understand how parliament passes legislation? And that there will be some organisations and MPs will have reservations about a bill and how well it suits the purpose for which it is intended. They will vote down that bill, not because they do not support the concept, but because they do not think it fit for purpose in how it is worded.

I can see though that a person who takes a purely reactive view on information and does not engage and evaluate with the substance of that information might continue with such a polarised view.

The absolutist - either 100% for the concept and therefore any legislation should be passed even if it has loop holes are is poorly worded and if anyone disagrees for ANY reason, they are evil, vile haters.

And yes... I am surprised to have seen that phrase levelled at LGB Alliance given Stonewall's history.... Maybe hearache should go to the pub and meet some people who can 'educate' them.

I should have added there: there is a long history of 'normalising' surgery being carried out on children at the decision of adults, because to make them look more like everyone else was thought to be the right thing to do. The adults those children became talk about the pain, the side effects, the long term damage, and about an adult view or stereotypical ideas being enacted on them that they now very much resent. As a society we've been here many times before.

So in a small minority of people, there is a “mismatch” between their mind (I’m going to ignore reference to a ‘soul’ since there is no objective evidence such a thing exists) and their body. This mismatch causes discomfort, distress, a desire to change the body to match the mind’s image of how it should be and, if this change is prevented, we’re led to believe the distress can cause suicidal ideation.

Since disabled people have been dragged into this as a point, I'll add here:

I don't believe I'm in the 'wrong' body and someone put me in a disintegrating one because of some mistake, and someone else should have been in this one. If you believe in some divine force placing separate and eternal souls in bodies then ok, but if they're divine how are they making these mistakes?

I have a grotty body. I fight with it every day. I get frustrated and angry with it, in my head I am able bodied and there is a constant clash between what I want to do and the reality of what my body does, but my mental health depends on coping with it and accepting it and working with it rather than rejecting it. My hcps and support community all focus on the mental health need of acceptance and understanding and finding peace within that, because otherwise, yes, suicidal ideation is not uncommon.

If someone could offer me surgery tomorrow that would give me an entirely 'normal' body that functioned in a healthy way? Yes of course I'd want it. If someone could offer me surgery that would merely make me 'look' like other people and present a facsimile but had endless side effects? Well now it's getting complicated, isn't it?

And many disabled people have fought for years against 'normalising' surgery that merely help them to look and be positioned like everyone else, because they are who they are and there should not be a 'norm' that they are compelled to get to rather than being able to accept themselves and be accepted in the way that they are. Like homosexual people for decades: we are proud of our history and differences, and ask for equality of opportunity and access.

I certainly don't expect people to change all their language based around their capacity to walk, for example. Or to expect that they don't walk in front of me and all use wheelchairs because it's distressing to me that they can walk and I can't, and to be confronted with 'cis' able bodied people when I'm identifying as able bodied from a wheelchair. I don't expect people to be entirely focused on me at all times and to centre me in every situation, and I'm capable of coping with charities and activities and groups that work for example with Autism or cancer or heart disease, without feeling immediately threatened and wanting to shut them down because they're not including me.

But this is what the TQ+ political position is.

people against gay marriage are homophobes.

loads of gay people were opposed to gay marriage, feeling that it was ‘heteronormative’

you don’t know much about your community do you?

Yes I do believe some people are born in the wrong body. But that's not the same as telling children their body is wrong - their mind/soul/psyche, whatever you call the essence that makes them 'them' is right, their bodies are right, they just don't match up with each other.

I need to dig down into this more deeply.

So in a small minority of people, there is a “mismatch” between their mind (I’m going to ignore reference to a ‘soul’ since there is no objective evidence such a thing exists) and their body. This mismatch causes discomfort, distress, a desire to change the body to match the mind’s image of how it should be and, if this change is prevented, we’re led to believe the distress can cause suicidal ideation.

In any other scenario where such a mismatch exists, this would be considered a mental illness and treated with therapy to improve one’s self-image in line with objective reality. Why is that not the case here?

If the method of alleviating this distress is not therapy but is lifelong medication and surgery, what is the diagnostic criteria to be considered trans? Given the existence of post-surgical detransitioners and the evidence that a significant majority of gender-questioning children will reconcile with their birth sex if supported through puberty with watchful waiting, how are doctors identifying which children are definitely trans and which are not? Because to prescribe such life-altering treatment, including the potential removal of a child’s future fertility, without a very high degree of certainty that the child will not desist, would be barbaric, abhorrent and absolutely antithetical to the Hippocratic Oath. So can you please explain, or give me a link to, the very clear diagnostic criteria including the predictive tools required to avoid doing harm to those who would grow up to be content in their birth sex bodies?

I don't think proportionality is a thing for posters who can only engage with polarised thinking and indulge in the cognitive dissonance we have seen.

Size, age of organisation etc... those realities don't seem to register. Only the hatred that they are keen to target the organisation with.

Also basic common sense:

when any group, any at all, tell you not to listen to the other side of their arguments and views, to avoid hearing them, to help them silence anyone who may present them?

if you haven't got alarm bells clanging and red flags popping up in your mind you are really very worryingly naiive.

Equally: Should women's rights org go to a conference hosted by a Government seeking to remove and redefine those rights in a way that smashes women's equality, access and legal protections to the benefit of male people?

This is actually happening, and yes. For God's sake yes. They've fought and fought for a voice at that table, to get their side of the story in there, to make people stop just for a second and realise who is being trampled underfoot by a carefully controlled narrative that only mentions the upsides for TQ+ people and hides the impact on others.

If they put their noses in the air and said they're not talking to anti-women groups, or going near anti-women organisations because they morally have cooties and yuck - their voices won't be heard at all and there go any chance of them being heard.

This is basic common sense to adults, surely?

And the privilege revealed by being able to say 'we're not coming to the conference' and expecting it to have impact? It's obvious. A group without power (like women's rights organisations, and the LGBA) aren't wanted and aren't missed, and have no power to make everyone go 'oh no!' and pander when they threaten to take their ball home.

I do wonder whether the public funding will be pulled back. Their arts funding was stopped once the Arts Council did some research into who they are.

"The London Community Foundation (LCF) announced its decision to support the LGB Alliance was under investigation, and the grant suspended, after it [became] “aware that the charitable status of the organisation is being questioned”."

www.artsprofessional.co.uk/news/lgb-alliance-grant-suspended-after-outcry

I suspect the lottery funding will go the same way.

Yes.... interesting isn't it, that a group who cannot countenance having another group offer alternative services, can then hostilely interfere with the funding that that organisation receives while an investigation is underway.

Almost like a recipe for destroying the first real competition the sector has seen....

Should a pro-choice org go to a conference hosted by a Government seeking to restrict access to abortion?

yes.

How bizarre to see this come up again. Just to repeat it again for this specific example.

Yes, it is important that organisations, particularly those who are campaign organisations, follow other organisations on social media, engage respectfully with other organisations that they disagree with.

On one hand they deplore organisations for being in 'echo chambers' while on the other hypocritically say that organisations should not be engaging with people or organisations who disagree with them.

How the fuck do some posters think the world works?

LGBA was only formed September 2019, so is still a baby and yet to take off.
Stonewall was founded in 1989

Equally, compare the established set up, reach, huge amounts of funding including public funding, all the links to national and international organisations, and then compare that to a fledgeling group which has largely had to fight every step to do even the simplest thing or get any funds at all because Stonewall et al keep doing everything they can to prevent them.

But again, it's only factual reality. Much nicer to just go with a lot of made up spin and select the facts that support the story.

Ok, let's flip this.

Can any poster who has been posting incredibly prejudiced posts here about LGB Alliance, list things that Stonewall achieved in the first three years of existence?

I am keen to see what they achieved in those first years.

Please post links to evidence your claims.

Yes because the current Government has made trans hostility a policy - e.g. not banning conversion therapy for trans people.

When I read this, I suspect that this poster has taken a superficial view that has been regurgitated from somewhere else on the internet and not actually engaged with the realities of how this legislation has been enacted in other countries and its failings.

The cognitive distortions that keep appearing on this thread is very enlightening when you recognise the pattern. The catastrophising, the polarisation, is all there for readers who may not have been exposed to these tactics before. They are very commonly deployed on MN by posters who have outsourced their critical thinking to 'self-identified' thought leaders and influencers.

I don't read this thinking that this poster has an in-depth view formed from extensive reading on that topic at all.