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

Most people don't believe in 'ghosts' or believe in 'god' & there's no evidence of either existing & yet these words & their meaning are broadly accepted. Again the 'underlying reality' is irrelevant to how language works.

In terms shifting definitions, this is nothing new & expected because the human experience isn't stagnant. Talk about a denial of reality.

one thing the trans movement loves, is pretending that words can change reality. but redefining things, shifting definitions, has not changed the underlying reality. you are just getting lost in delusions and fantasies.

Thanks for clarifying. So that means that anyone can see how you are voting.
I wonder if that ever affects the results of a debate on a touchy subject, given what happens to people who Like the 'wrong' things on social media?

The Ayes walk out one door and Noes another and the Don't Knows walk out the middle door, with Tellers on each door. Then they all meet in the bar for the result and eat complementary chips (according to the man in the chair who introduces a new speaker with the words, ‘You have the ears of the House’).

Wow is “trans lesbian” the new “fetch” among the young ‘uns?

I think I will stick with lesbian as strictly defined as a biological woman sexually attracted to other biological women and, in my particular case, my wife.

I haven’t the time to parse all this navel gazing being a middle-aged TERF who is so over this nonsense. flounces away from game of semantic hop scotch to do something useful like bring up my kids to not be so self-absorbed

'Trans' may now be fairly broadly recognised but it has no fixed meaning or definition. It is is simply a term that signifies and implies a particular, fringe world view.

The OED, imho, has become much freer with the introduction of new words, so even fleeting ones get a look in. It will be interesting to see if transbianism becomes more than a cult offering. Even if it does, can't see the general population thinking it anything other than strictly for the hard of thinking.

I'm just glad that this ancient society is coming to it's senses. Perhaps we should have a 'this thread believes...'

Exactly.

Many young people have yet to encounter the world fully, once they become adults and enter the world of work, and leave behind the group of school friends that currently make up they're whole world, their attitude and lexicon's will change to suit their circumstances.

If they use words that just get blank looks, they start using words that people understand. 'Trans' lesbian will never catch on outside the subculture that thinks it's 'cool'. A word that was quite 'hip' at one time amongst the young and now has no common usage, because that's the thing with slang it is forever changing, unlike words that have been coined to refer to something that is unchanging. Like women and lesbian.

If there was any logic to the terminology, that's exactly what trans lesbian would mean. And a trans woman would be a woman who wants to be a man.

Both the words 'trans' & 'lesbian' are broadly accepted words so its not a stretch for 'trans lesbian' to be broadly understood

Not really. You could say that 'trans' and 'woman' are understood, so everyone knows what 'transwoman' means. But many people think a 'transwoman' is a woman who thinks she's a man, so these terms aren't universally well understood. There seems to be a deliberate obfuscation in the terminology.

It might be helpful to make clearer that 'trans' means 'the opposite of'. So a 'transwoman' is the opposite of a woman (a man).

How would this work with 'trans lesbian'? Is the opposite of a lesbian a heterosexual woman (opposite sexual orientation)? Or a heterosexual man (opposite sex)? Or maybe a lesbian who wants to be a man (so the trans refers to transgender)?

‘Trans’ and ‘lesbian’ are both broadly understood. Lesbian means a woman who is attracted to other women, trans is someone who adopts the stereotypes of the opposite sex. I can’t imagine I’m alone in assuming that a trans lesbian would be a female who is attracted to women and presents themselves as masculine and likes people to use male pronouns.

If she has control of the madness, she may have sounded rational.

But I honestly can't see many students taking well to the video of her folding up her knickers

Exactly, it’s a 70s end of the pier joke made real, “I may look like a man but actually I’m a lesbian inside”.

Of course 'transbian' isn't going to be legitimised. It's invariably said with air quotes and a can you believe it eye roll.

It's not legitimate as a concept because lesbians don't do dick.

It means a heterosexual man who wants women to validate him and therefore that woman has to be a lesbian. It's a self driven male power play that will never come to actual fruition, because men can't be lesbians.

Can’t watch the video right now, what did Webberley say?

A translesbian is a man attracted to women who is claiming to be a woman. There was a really powerful intervention towards the end of the debate from a young lesbian starkly laying out that lesbian dating apps are full of these men and that if you complain you are the problem, treated as a bigot and slung off the app. Im still feeling queasy at the concept of the "cotton ceiling" which is the idea that lesbians who dont fancy men have to be re educated to break through the cotton ceiling and let them in their pants. Yuk. And ofcourse in Australia the federal court has just validated this nonsense in the case of Tickle v Giggle.

Buck is a powerful speaker. A TiF( trans identifying female) who is prepared to explain the mental condition gender identity disorder and to point out the billions that pharma etc make out of the permanent medicalisation of - in particular- young people.

Both the words 'trans' & 'lesbian' are broadly accepted words so its not a stretch for 'trans lesbian' to be broadly understood which many young people in the west have likely have seen used on social media not to mention the argument such that Maeve made about homosexual erasure not exactly being a fringe idea….a very common GC talking point.

I have just listened to this debate, barring Webberley (need to calm myself for that). Maeve Halligan was astounding. What a speech and how powerful her delivery. Also her colleague who had set up the women’s group with her. I hope that she will be one of the fantastic public voices on women’s rights from this point onwards. Just brilliant, a real force.❤️

Slightly off topic I was fascinated by the debate format and setting all I kept thinking is of those debate practised politicians in the House of Commons many of whom probably attending these prestigious universities with their debating societies and facilities.

Forgive me if I am out of touch as I don’t have kids and well into my sixties, but wouldn’t it be wonderful if debating could be something that is mandatory to be offered in all schools from secondary age, clearly the ability to debate something is a skill that can lead to power, influencing change, and it is a shame that this seems just another privilege that can be bought by the few. Plus I know it’s pie in the sky when education is struggling for the most basic of resources. Anyway I found it fascinating all round.

It really hasn’t, not in the real world - maybe in a little online bubble somewhere.

The rest of the world knows that lesbians are same sex attracted women. This pernicious attempt to change the language to include men is a misogynistic and deliberate attempt to undermine same-sex rights imo. It’s a mere millimetre away from the 1970s ‘jokes’about revolting men tryin to ‘convert’ lesbians .

It takes more that a group inventing a term to make it part of a shared language.
Jargon isn’t the same as mainstream usage, being used all over social and mainstream media doesn't make it mainstream usage. For a definition to shift, it has to be adopted by the vast majority of speakers not just circulated inside a closed ideological bubble.

For most people lesbian still means a female whose sexual orientation is exclusively toward other females. That definition is stable, widely understood, and consistently used across culture, law, and everyday speech.
Transbianism has a long way to go before it's accepted as common day language, although if men who claim to be women who fancy women want to use it, I'm all for it, because Lesbian is already taken.

“When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’

’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’

’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.”

Part way through listening - really refreshing to hear this finally spoken about openly amongst the young who've been so relentlessly bullied out of their freedom of speech.

You have to laugh at the risible arguments that lesbianism now includes men. As ever, the displays of overwhelming narcissism and male power are very revealing..

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.