Pride month

So if you 'don't care' about a definition, how can you begin to understand how this affects women and girls rights?

Maybe you just never stopped to think about how men demanding women and girls call them 'she' hurts women and rape survivors. I say this kindly, it sounds like you've been brainwashed to believe that it doesn't hurt women and girls for men to DEMAND they call them women.

It gaslights women to deny their lived experiences, to deny what their eyes see, to call a male rapist a woman. That's why.

You've never thought about this deeply have you.

You really don't get it do you. And you won't even listen to us. You won't even read, comprehend, or listen to us. You deliberately haven't said if your trans friends are male-to-female or female-to-male, which makes a big difference.

Trans people are either male or female. This topic is NOT about 'trans people' per se. It is about MALE vs FEMALE. Evidence shows males (transwomen) have 6 times the rate of sexual offences than so-called 'cis' men. Transwomen are more dangerous than men.

I've tried to reason with you. But you refuse to listen and all you do is repeat mantras. We cannot reach a consensus until males stay out of female spaces. It's that simple. And you won't even answer questions around that. Women and girls are the most vulnerable and oppressed group. A man in a dress is not vulnerable or oppressed, and he needs to stay out of our spaces. And you won't even address that issue on here.

Thank you for clarifying.

You are ignoring what I said was stolen - “The right to be recognised as a distinct and discrete category.”

Lesbians are in the category “women” but they are also their own separate category too; “lesbians”. The GRA did not just destroy the category ‘women’ as referring just to women, it also destroyed the category ‘lesbians’ too.

That may well be what she meant, but it's not what she said. What she said was:

We had that right up to 2004 then it was stolen from us. Tbf it has been stolen from lesbian and gay men too.

'We' and 'us' referring to women, and then 'lesbians... too', as if discussing a group which is not encompassed by the 'we'/'us'.

I also don't think you can be any more sure than I am what another poster meant. If she wants to clarify her meaning, she can.

You mistook Sloejelly as saying that lesbians were separate from the category of women, but actually she was saying that:

• Women (all women, straight, bi, lesbian, asexual) lose out when gender overrides sex
• Lesbians (and gay men) lose out when gender overrides sex in another way (definition of who you're potentially attracted to), so additionally not instead of

I completely agree with this, but I'm not sure how it relates to the point I was making in the comment you quoted?

While you could argue that straight women are also affected by definitions of sexual orientation changing from sex to gender, in practice trans men generally aren't insisting that straight women see them as potential partners, and straight women don't tend to have spaces that they want to keep for straight women.

Once again, biological sex tells when it comes to certain behaviours.

Yes, but lesbian is a subcategory of woman- not all women are lesbians, but all lesbians are women (remember when that wasn't a controversial statement?). Therefore 'women' includes 'lesbians', so it makes no sense to say, "This applies to women, and lesbians too." Like saying, "This applies to fruit, and apples too."

I know it may seem like I'm being pedantic, but the reason I'm pointing it out is that there is a tendency within feminism to use 'women' to mean 'straight women', with 'lesbians' treated as a separate category.

Sloejelly was referring to the right to be recognised as same sex attracted rather than same gender.

I am talking about categories: ‘women’ and ‘lesbian’, they are not synonymous.

This made me lol. Very good

At least it’s only a day, I would have thought any International Men’s Day worth the name would have needed at least a weekend (and a sick day on Monday) to itself, to allow for the hangovers, the bike rides, the lunchtime drinking session, the attendance at a mass sporting event, the curry night, the hangovers…….

This is the equivalent of ‘all lives matter’

You realise lesbians are women, yes? If something has been taken from women, it hasn't been taken from lesbians 'too'.

Of course not, it is much more important for men to front campaigns and win prizes for IWD. You get Stonewall cookies for putting men up on IWD too.

Another right women don’t have (subject to FWR3):

The right to be recognised as a distinct and discrete category.

We had that right up to 2004 then it was stolen from us. Tbf it has been stolen from lesbian and gay men too.

How dare they! I didn't realise there was one, but it's not as celebrated as international women's day I suppose.

Just to say, there is International Mens Day. November 19 th, yes, it’s true ,they get a day and patriarchal advantage too. It just isn’t fair is it?

@Kidspartytroll I second everything you just said.

I'm butting into this conversation because there are people who are often forgotten or ignored: the close family of people who transition. I am talking about wives, partners, siblings, children and parents of transgender people. I happen to be a parent of a transgender son. You probably have no concept of how distressing it is when your son demands that you treat him as, in some unclear and undefined sense, a woman.

If I try to call my son "she", I am rejecting my son. He can reject himself, reject his "masculine" traits, reject his male body, and call himself "she". Now he thinks he's a woman. If he demands that I do the same, that is coercion if there is a threat of estrangement. I have no problem with him having "feminine" traits; so do I, and I know no-one who is not a mixture of feminine and masculine characteristics. He is not, however, my daughter. That would be illogical, and would deny his biological reality and his history as our son, our daughter's brother and so on.

And I do not accept any hierarchy of oppression which claims that all members of one group are more oppressed than any member of another group. Identity politics has taken concepts with some truth and elevated them to the whole truth. No wonder ageism, misogyny and antisemitism are rife among people who swallow these ideas whole. Nuanced, critical thinking recognises that trans people are often treated poorly but doesn't counter that by putting them on a pedestal.

tl:dr - Lesbian here, and I don't really like Pride month very much these days.

There's no straight pride or flags but that's okay, straight people have basically all the representation in day to day life. All the disney princesses have their disney prince (mostly), almost all romances in books, TV shows, films, everywhere, are straight. Straight people don't have to come out because it's the default expectation.

People say children shouldn't be exposed to the fact that gay/lesbian people exist - but straight romances, relationships and what these should look like are in children's stories and TV shows from birth. It's acceptable for Belle to fall in love with a not human beast who is essentially keeping her prisoner, but people lose their mind that Peppa Pig's mate has two mums.

No hate for Beauty and the Beast, it's just illustrative of the way society projects relationships.

People equate gay/lesbian representation to sex education but this is not the same. Just like it isn't for straight people and obviously, like everyone else, believe that sex education should be age-appropriate.

People (not saying you, but some people) will say to my DS who is friends with a girl - oh I wonder if they will end up together. They're 3!

Most people don't care about other people's sexuality these days, not as a grown up anyway, but it's hard as a child/teen growing up with very little representation in the mainstream media. And then having to tell people about it eventually.

Gay/lesbian people are more likely to have addiction/mental health/self harming issues generally because society is not kind to us growing up.

So no, there's no straight pride, but it's not the same experience growing up and gay/lesbian people have more to contend with in our formative years - from a sex/relationships perspective, obviously individuals have their own challenges and traumas growing up!

Sorry for the rant, and whilst I understand and agree pride month is just rainbow-washing, straight people who complain about not having their own pride is like men complaining about not having international mens day. Everyday is mens day! That's why women would rather be stuck in the woods with a bear than a real life man.

Having said all that, pride month has turned into a rainbow-washing meaningless show of inclusion, but no actual action to make their organisations more inclusive. If an organisation really cares about inclusion there's plenty of action they can take that doesn't involve a single rainbow that can make a big difference.

I was asking about legal rights. If you read the thread, you will see that my entire argument leading up to that question was that having equal legal rights does NOT mean a group (e.g. women, LGB people) no longer experiences discrimination, prejudice and violence as a result of being part of that group. I can assure you I'm not an MRA.