Get the violins out - Stonewall is "in crisis"

I really like the rainbow as a symbol of diversity. The progress flag can fuck all the way off. An absolute tragedy of a thing.

This sounds odd, but my money would be on it getting its hooks into islam. It's difficult to imagine when we've grown used to seeing a militant version of islam everywhere – but if that's largely blown itself out now (eg Saudi appears to be liberalising fast), and the west is tipping hard rightwards, then by omnicause logic those two things (plus other rainbow causes) will somehow start converging.

No idea what that might look like—mass conversions and hybrid ghettoisation in our urban centres? emergence of a eunuch caste? large-scale migration towards the gulf?—and I can't imagine actual muslims consciously welcoming the idea, but Houellebecq's vision (in submission) of a complacent, licentious islam seemed compelling enough to me.

I think the rainbow 'became' - I don't think it was chosen by a committee or anything - the flag of the lesbian and gay community because it is a symbol of unity: all the colours are contained in it (except black and white because they are sort-of not-colours). It represents everyone, unlike national flags.
[Hence the annoyingness of the Progress flag, adding bits to something that already represented everyone].

Before that, it was widely used by the environmental movement.

I believe the trans flag is based on the baby blankets used in hospitals in the USA, which have blue and white stripes - gender neutral because for all the babies!

not seen a real rainbow @IwantToRetire? They don’t control the weather, you know! 😄 Real rainbows, fortunately, continue to be a reminder that the natural world is full of beauty.
#electromagneticradiationisaspectrum

The term "Rainbow nation" was coined by Archbishop Desmond Tutu for South Africa in 1994 - a nation of all colours with the end of apartheid, and a symbol of hope (an archbishop would be keenly aware of the Christian symbolism)

otoh, I remember rainbows being a popular symbol in the peace movement of the 80s
and during covid it was used in posters people made thanking the NHS

Stonewall don't own rainbows!

🤔 So fuck all to do with LGBTQZYZ then. What a load of flapdoodle.

I actually think the study of esoteric and occult concepts is much understudied in relation to many historical eras and is actually a very important strand in understanding the full picture - it’s always been around, in the west but has been kept hidden by Christianity.

I don't know about that, the Knights Hospitallers and especially the Templars made very heavy use of esoteric symbology and Christianity absolutely appropriated and tailored loads of pre Christian symbology to its own use, most obviously the cross/tree of life/death/resurrection. Other contemporaneous competitors to Christianity (eg Gnosticism) did too but Christianity did it best imho, the early funders and supporters of Christianity (many of whom were highly educated and financially independent women) had a great eye for design and aesthetic.

Back on topic....I think the trans colours were deliberately selected because they put us in mind of babies - the pink and the blue are the colours you see in pics of gender reveal parties. I think they were selected to create a picture of innocence but also to emphasise the idea of 'being born in the wrong body', that specious conceit without which there is no logic for medicalising children, which is, I believe, what the trans community is most turned on byinterested in.

https://register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/en/charity-search/-/charity-details/3992465/accounts-and-annual-returns

Their accounts are public.

Their first objective is interesting

1. to promote human rights (as set out in the universal declaration of human rights and subsequent united nations conventions and declarations) throughout the world by all or any of the following means o (a) monitoring abuses of human rights o (b) research into human rights abuses o (c) educating the public about human rights o (d) providing advice to government and others on human rights matters o (e) contributing to the sound administration of human rights law o (f) commenting on proposed human rights legislation o (g) raising awareness of human rights issues o (h) promoting public support for human rights o (i) promoting respect for human rights among individuals and corporations o (j) international advocacy of human rights o (k) eliminating infringements of human rights in furtherance of that object, but not otherwise, the trustees shall have power to engage in political activity provide that the trustees are satisfied that the proposed activities will further the purposes of the charity to an extent justified by the resources committed and the activity is not the dominant means by which the charity carries out its objects.

https://www.sftravel.com/article/brief-history-rainbow-flag The original design was eight colours with hot pink to represent sex.

The pink and blue appealing to families and kids makes more sense when you consider that some AGPs dress up as little girls. David Challenor and "Stefonknee" Wolscht spring to mind.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3356084/I-ve-gone-child-Husband-father-seven-52-leaves-wife-kids-live-transgender-SIX-YEAR-OLD-girl-named-Stefonknee.html and https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/stefonknee-wolschtt-transgender-father-leaves-family-in-toronto-to-start-new-life-as-a-sixyearold-girl-a6769051.html document the latter individual.

Of course the Dianic Wiccans were one of the first groups the TRAs came for, because of their insistence on being a woman only (old definition) group.

I think a lot of the esoteric groups are dominated by people rebelling against their conservative Christian upbringing, and that matters to them more than the actual thing they're supposed to believe in.

I have a theory, based on Wiccans I've known, that I can tell which of them are ex-Catholic and which are ex-Protestant. There are women from Catholic backgrounds who are really into the art and symbolism of ritual, and who you can imagine that if the Catholic Church ordained women, that would have been their vocation. And then there are the ex-evangelicals who are very anti-Christian and buy into a lot of the pseudohistory.

They've got quite a high proportion of trans and trans supporters, which is a bit weird to me because in theological terms they're a fertility religion based in the polarity of the sexes, but I suppose they have quite a 'be kind' ethos so reimagining sexual polarity as a spectrum of gendered souls would work for them.

I'm not close to the OTO, but based on the members I've met I can imagine them being more old school.

ask David Beckham about his views on sportswashing and Gay rights?

Also, can you imagine how well a call to boycott the World Cup if it's hosted in a homophobic country would go down? That would involve men en masse giving up something they value to take a stand, and we know that that's never going to happen in a patriarchy.

So much easier just to shit on women instead.

Del Boy took a beating on behalf of Rodney, who he was mistaken for. As you say, he wasn't honest with the world but he prioritised his family to the point of enduring physical battery to protect them.

We’re totally on the same page then ;-).

I actually think the study of esoteric and occult concepts is much understudied in relation to many historical eras and is actually a very important strand in understanding the full picture - it’s always been around, in the west but has been kept hidden by Christianity.

Interestingly, many of the various esoteric and occult communities today have quite a high membership of trans and trans supporters.

As you probably know Thelema and the OTO - Aleister Crowley’s “religion/philosophy” had a major issue a few years ago with the trans community when stating who could and could not be Priest and Priestess. Many people left. Mary Greer, who most famously wrote about the Women of the Golden Dawn- women who were pioneers of feminism, involved in suffrage and the germ of the Labour Party is a very staunch supporter of trans rights. I would say the two are pretty interlinked at this point.

I know it sounds like a side track but I think we need to be very aware of some of the uses of symbols in this community, given their very powerful effect on people’s subconscious - yes I agree the baby blue/baby pink is undoubtedly meant to trigger a “oh so innocent, looks very child like and unthreatening” subconscious response.

So if Stonewall does go down the toilet who could this ideology possibly latch onto next? I agree I can't see them having anywhere near the same success as a stand alone of which there are already a handful.

Put the fucking lotion in the basket!

Time to revisit this classic

Really clever parasites alter how their hosts behave to maximise the chance of the parasite surviving and reproducing. Cat tapeworms have a lifecycle that also involves mice. An infected mouse stops avoiding cat urine, maximising the chance of the cat eating the mouse. Phasmarhabditis californica make their hosts (gastropod land molluscs) bury themselves under the soil so that they don't get eaten by birds and hedgehogs.

The trans extremists who parasitised Stonewall did the same with their "no debate" and "most marginalised" rhetoric, and most of all with TWAW and "cis", the first of which allowed a straight man to claim to be a lesbian, and the second to position himself as more oppressed than actual lesbians.

symbolism often works on a subconscious level (there are various explanations why).

Yes, I've read my Jung & Campbell :-)

I agree with you about these choices often being made on a subconscious imperative.

The Nazis flipped the swastika around, and I sometimes wonder if there was a subconscious awareness that they were planning the opposite of peace and balance (well, they knew they were, so to that extent it wasn't subconscious). (The esoterica/arcana/occult side of Nazi philosophy isn't studied so much these days which is a dereliction of an important academic avenue, imho. It wasn't that important to Hitler but it was to the early founders of the movement and I think places important context on the philosophy underpinning some of their later actions.)

With the rainbow, I don't actually know who picked it for Pride. I do sometimes find myself wondering if it was a subconscious desire to minimise the core aspect of homosexuality (which is ultimately about sex), de-sex gay rights and therefore help make gay rights more palatable to 'normies'.

I do absolutely think that the trans colours - baby blue, light pink - were chosen to appeal to children and families.

It’s an age old method, the adoption of existing symbols and repurposing - symbolism often works on a subconscious level (there are various explanations why). The most well known example is the swastika or fylfot cross found across multiple cultures, often linked to peace and balance -of course it now carries different connotations - again, so much so it’s lost much of its original meanings, even when used for its original purposes it now brings controversy. Less well known examples include the Celtic cross, other equal arms crosses. The cross of humility, now largely associated with Satanism, the pentagram - for many years associated with Christ (the 5 wounds) now has more dark occult symbolism in people’s minds.

People don’t pick symbols accidentally-the religious significance of the rainbow will not have been accidental- although might have been subconscious

Anyone remember Riley Dennis explaining that if a woman was a bit traumatised then she had a little while to get over this (so generous) before she had to crack on with getting her body out for a man's use.

Yes - he helped peak me quickish, though I was near the peak from the beginning...

(Can we say peak now? Guess I'll find out. I don't think we used to be able to.)

Same for me. The rainbow flag used to be something warm & accepting & now it’s a homophobic threat.