Realised why I struggle with LGBTQIA+ discussions

Makes total sense to me 😊

Everything right of LGB is straight people. Unless they happen to be gay, lesbian or bisexual as well as whatever alphabet soup they identify as.

Anyone telling you that you are not supporting them unless you engage in sexualised cultures and activities you are not comfortable with and don't want to, is not expressing any part of them to do with being LGBT+

They are expressing a part of them that wants to push your boundaries and exert control. You find that in non LGBT+ people just as much: it has nothing to do with identity or sexuality. Do what the relationships board would advise.

I'm a straight woman and I went to a drag show club in the noughties , when I was in my twenties. I appreciated the local-based comedy but the jokes were still quite misogynistic. Secondly, a man coming onstage, dolled up to the nines in big hair, big makeup and small clothes, didn't fit easily with my feminist principles of not judging women solely by their appearance and not forcing women into restrictive beauty standards.

I didn't enjoy it and it made me quite uneasy. I understand its not for me but it was definitely about me!

Please, in your mind at least, separate LGB from the TQ+. Lesbian and gay people are same-sex attracted. TQ+ denies the validity of sex and wants everything replaced with gender. TQ+ is essentially homophobic and yet it's been welded to the LGB by Stonewall. So for a start don't imagine for a second that LGB and TQ+ are happily partnered and the same kind of thing. They're not. The LGB are increasingly trying to saw through the chains that bind us to the gender lunatics.

Lots of people hate drag including a lot of lesbians and a fair few day men of my acquaintance. They find it insulting and misogynistic and fetishistic. How come it's okay for a man to put on woman-face, but if as a white person I put on black-face I'd be hounded till the end of my days? It's okay to hate drag.

Lots of LGB people, and possibly some TQ+ people, hate the fetishistic, hyper-sexualised nature of Pride and other gay stuff. Loads of LGB people no longer go to Pride because it's commercial and it trades on exhibitionism and voyerism, which is not how most LGB people behave. It's okay to hate Pride.

The kind of people who run LGB and TQ+ networks are the kind of gender-sozzled idiots who think pronouns and Pride matter. They don't. Find a quiet, rational older lesbian among your colleagues and talk to her about it.

As an older lesbian, once we had legal marriage, the same rights and protections as straight people, we didn't need Pride anymore.
We're the same as everyone else, normal, and I like it that way!
It's the queer crowd and all those who want to live a lifestyle divergent from the norm who've taken over Pride.
Frankly it gives us lesbians a bad name..I don't want to be associated with them.

No you are completely valid in thinking Pride and drag is too sexualised. I am bisexual and used to go to Pride as a teen, (like 15-20 years ago now), but I stopped going when it became less about actual pride and more about having your kinks on display. About 2 weekends ago we had Pride in my city and it just did not look the same as when I was a teen. It has changed.

And drag shows are sexualised, I think many drag artists would agree that kids do not belong there at all. But since drag has become much more mainstream now, people are using this as an excuse to expose kids to drag when they are way too young for it (thinking about how parents take kids along to those big drag conventions they have nowadays, or drag story time hour).

Welcome to the one of many entrances to the Rabbit Hole of Rainbows!

You will be accompanied on your journey by some strange and confusing companions.
Elder lesbians, wine mums, none-wine mums, some dads, a boat load of disenfranchised lefties, conservatives (mostly small c) a handful of old style transsexuals, the odd fringe figure figure from the far right, and quite recently, hoards of gay men, plus a growing number of detrans (formerly trans) people.

At some point the rabbit hole will lead to the Portal Of Radicalisation (that’s an in joke, it’ll probably make sense when you get there).

Loads of people have problems with 'LGBTQIA+' because it doesn't exist as an entity does it? It's a whole lot of forced teaming, promoted by a bunch of people who refuse to understand consent and safeguarding.

LGB = Lesbian, gay and bisexual. SEXUAL ORIENTATION. What Stonewall and Pride used to be for back in the day - equality of civil union and inheritance for same-sex couples, and asking for greater social tolerance.

T = used to be 'transsexual'. Now means 'transgender': GENDER IDENTITY. DIFFERENT FROM SEXUAL ORIENTATION.

Q = a word with fluid, changing, appropriated and re-appropriated meanings.

I = 'Intersex'. Medically the term 'DSD' is preferred and DSD people and organisations have asked to be kept right out of it. People with DSD have a biological sex.

A = as this refers to someone's private life I'm really not interested, unless they're breaching safeguarding and/or breaking the law.

Of course you don’t need to go to meetings/ outings that are taking place outside working hours, no matter who or what they are purporting to support. You don’t have to explain yourself or give reasons if you don’t want to, you have a previous engagement, every time.

I wonder of the people organising the work events to raise awareness of LGB issues are also preparing work events to support womens rights, menopause awareness et etc. I bet my bottom dollar they aren’t, even though your work place probably has more women than trans people in it.

By the way, no one is stopping trans people living as they want to, many trans people , particularly transwomen, have lived as they want to for many years, it is only recently that they have decided that for them to live as they want means women should be expected to passively lose our rights to single sex spaces in prisons, hospitals and refuges, our privacy and dignity in public spaces, our right to fair sporting opportunities and to the language that celebrates our sex.

Pride events vary massively from place to place. But I don’t think you have it wrong, there are many, many LGB people (especially women) who won’t go near a Pride event these days. I’m a lesbian and I wouldn’t go near a Pride event or drag night for exactly the reasons you mention: I’m not comfortable with the hyper-sexualised aspects. That’s not discrimination.