Cambridge Union debate - This House Believes modern LGBTQ+ activism fails its community

It’s likely to be their chromosomes though - as a straight woman I can appreciate women as attractive objectively but I don’t personally find them attractive even if they tell me they’re men

Indeed. And just as seawater and tapwater are not interchangeable when it comes to drinking, lesbians in the original sense and the extra "lesbians" you added under the name are not interchangeable when it comes to sex.ual attraction.

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Err, I'm actually telling you where your actual attraction lies & tip: it isn't your gametes or chromosomes.

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LOL all you are doing here is telling us where your attraction lies!

Lots have words have unrelated sub groups like 'water'.

Gender is a set of variable socially-constructed stereotypes, varying over time, class and culture.

Biological sex is something factual and verifiable: a person is either a man or a woman - it's not complicated, it's not a spectrum, it's not a matter of opinion.

Being attracted to people of your own biological sex is something that applies to all lesbian and gay people. It's what makes us lesbian and gay.

If lesbians were attracted to people because of their gender, not their biological sex, that would make them something other than lesbian.
It would be like being attracted to a certain 'type' of person, but a type of person who could be of either sex.

Which is fine - but it's not being a lesbian.

I mean, it does though.

You taking the word "lesbian" and saying you want to use it to mean someting else doesn't undo the reality of what it used it mean. It just means you don't use the word to mean the same thing.

It's like if I decide the word "dog" also covers a few fish it's 100% true to say some dogs can breathe underwater. However, any creature to which the word dog previously applied is still going to drown if you throw it in the sea. The dogs and the fish are still totally separate groups with all the differences they always had. They don't suddenly become more the same just because you just threw a new name over the top.

So your statement only applies to the subset of "lesbians" you have added into the group when you changed what the word means. It doesn't change anything about the people in the original group. So honestly, it's kind of meaningless.

You've pulled one name over two groups but you've not really created one inclusive group at all. It is still just two subgroups with very different profiles that literally can't in be combined because the defining criteria are mutually exclusive.

In the same way that Zack Polanski’s hijacked the Green party ( he’s not interested in the Green agenda) the trans movement has tried to hijack women’s rights- use the language of gender equality etc . When really it’s an undercover operation to undermine women.

When you think about the comparison of Hulk Hogan with a vagina V Megan Fox with a penis it becomes obvious to me its sex traits rather than sex where attraction lies. And this bears out in research about attraction where particular features are sought like broad shoulders & height in males & wider hips in females.

Yes…
This “gender” malarkey is massively overused.
What does it mean?
Can’t we just use the word sex.
Genitalia/ biology/ hormones are immutable. Sex is immutable whether heterosexual or homosexual.
The whole “gender” theory stuff if just a way of manipulating language so women no longer have safe spaces or protected rights.

Do you think “trans lesbians” are about “same gender” attraction and actual lesbians about same sex attraction then?

Whatever "clever" tricks people who are slightly less clever than they think they are pull with language:

• the same people are still female and the same people are still male
• the same people are still same-sex attracted, and they are still attracted to the same sex they always were
• the same people are still opposite-sex attracted, and they are also still attracted to the same people they always were
• the sex that has had most of the economic, cultural and social power through human history will still have most of the econonmic, cultural and social power
• the sex that is more frequently sexually and domestically abused and exploited by the other will still be the most frequently sexually and domestically abused and exploited by the other

Because moving the words around just changes which people words point to. It changes nothing about the people themselves.

All it does is obscure that reaity, and make it that much harder for the sex that has less economic, cultural and social power and is more frequently sexually and domestically abused to make sense of what happens to them and why it happens, and to speak plainly to each other and to power to say This Is Wrong.

But hey, as long as some men (in the original meaning) get to call themselves lesbians, who cares, amirite?

If you can't engage with the substance of a point because of identity ….maybe your'e not thinking straight.

That's an opinion. Not a fact because it clearly doesn't apply to all.

But being a lesbian is a sexual identity, not a gender one - sex is a lot more relevant to being a lesbian than gender, believe me

If you have to go to Andrew Tate to support your position…. maybe you’re not thinking straight.

Very occasionally a broken clock strikes twice. As loathe as I am to quote Andrew Tate Tate he has a point.

https://youtube.com/shorts/xX4WExJcIj4?si=XmVb8taJuI61A1q4

Maeve Halligan was on fire 🔥.
She is an absolute legend.

Yes - unless we are in a world where only men ( however they identify) decide what words mean. 🙄

Nobody is attracted by gender, sexual arousal is a physical response not a social construal response.

Semantic gerrymandering matters because it is used to create an illusion of entitlement.

Same-sex-attracted women set up venues and dating apps for themselves. Because the word they use for themselves is "lesbian", these are called lesbian spaces.

Along come men who identify as women, and use the word "lesbian" to mean "people who identify as women who are attracted to people who identify as women". Then they say "hey, we are lesbians so we belong in the "lesbian" spaces".

At best, it's sloppy thinking. At worst, it's a deliberate trick. Linguistic sleight of hand.

Bolting together two words that mean opposite things produces a word which may be 'legitimised', but not the concept behind it.
The two elements of this failed neologism contradict each other.

This analysis fails because same gender attraction is the relevant point not sex.
Of course, that doesn't mean you have to agree but majority opinions however justified have no bearing on social usage.

EmilyinEverton
Definitions aren't a popularity contest. There are many words the majority of the population don't use or have never heard of. All that's required for new word legitimacy is circulation in culture. They have to be used and understood. Certainly in recent times trans lesbianism has been circulating in media & culture. Whether people dispute the validity of a phenomena is irrelevant to whether the word/definition that describes it stands because its usage based.

OK. Fine. If you say that the word 'translesbian' has been circulated in some areas of the media and culture, I'm sure you're right. If you google it, I'm sure there'll be lots of results. Some online dictionaries may even give definitions of it.

So yes, the word 'translesbian' exists. It is used in some very restricted milieux to describe a very small group of men who have adopted a complicated identity which involves appropriating terms relating to women's sexuality and sexual identities.

'All that's required for new word legitimacy is circulation in culture.
The word 'translesbian' is in circulation in some very niche areas, that's undeniable.
But is that really 'legitimisation'?

A translesbian is a man who claims to be a woman but who is still a man; a woman who is sexually attracted to a translesbian is a woman who is attracted to a man.

Bolting together two words that mean opposite things produces a word which may be 'legitimised', but not the concept behind it.
The two elements of this failed neologism contradict each other.

Apart from all that, I'm totally fed up with men appropriating women's identities, cultures and words, like 'lesbian'.