I run a LGBT Pride: AMA

[lgbtpride]

Long time lurker but have NC for this.

I run an LGBT Pride event. I want to deal with some of the nonsense theories that we welcome pedophiles or have banned lesbians.

Ask me anything. (Disclaimer: I won't answer anything specific that might out me.)

First, there is no evidence I've seen that this is happening.

You've never seen people dismiss women's concerns by repeating the words "trans women are women" as if it solves anything?

Sure.

I expect you’re aware that Nancy Kelley has said that rejecting someone because their genitalia are ‘not your thing’ is comparable to racism.

Is that your only response, nothing else and you call us prejudice. You don't want to talk about the real issues? Fair enough if your level is name calling then I don't wish to continue conversing with someone who thinks like a child. Sorry I take that back my 8 year old don't sound like you they articulate better and with more depth.

@SawX Thank you! 😘

@EmpressaurusOfCats Nancy was the CEO of Stonewall. She spoke for that organisation and not for mine.

Women who don't want to share spaces with male bodies aren't in any way a "minority".

*Female only spaces

Op - you still haven’t explained why you think women should respect trans only spaces but trans people don’t have to respect single sex women only spaces?

On the female spaces issue - even if you disagree with them, can you understand the reasons why many women do not want trans women to have access to services such as rape crisis centres?

Can you understand and empathise with how having someone who is visibly genetically male and statistically likely to have retained their penis would be triggering and frightening for them at an already awful time?

Do you view those feelings and the resulting pleas for such centres not to offer their services to trans women as transphobic?

I've seen plenty of evidence of it happening, I'm afraid.

And I worry about it. Genuinely, I do.

I've heard lesbians and gay men expressing their concern that being linked to not just trans people but more specifically to people with kinks and fetishes is jeopardising the acceptance that same sex attracted people have fought so hard for.

There's a rape survivor who sometimes posts on Mumsnet who is taking the Survivors' Network to court over their refusal to provide even one rape crisis group which was strictly female only. Before that happened to her she was very pro trans and may well have agreed that TWAW and all the rest of it, but now her eyes have been well and truly opened to the staggering unfairness and safeguarding risks inherent in forcing women to share their single sex spaces with members of the opposite sex.

There are too many examples to list here but I think there are very clear signs that people's attitudes towards trans people in particular are hardening (and this is backed up by all the recent polls on the subject), and since the T is apparently now indivisible from the LGB there is, I think, a legitimate worry that LGB people will also feel the effects of this.

Even just things as basic as most employers in the public and private sector turning everything rainbow coloured and holding pride events during pride month when they don't seem to give a shit about other, equally valid causes such as disability awareness, is starting to get up a lot of people's noses.

For me personally, I have always been and remain totally supportive and accepting of gay people, but in the last couple of years my instinctive reaction to seeing the pride flag is an eye roll. I don't think that's a good thing.

If you think that people who are getting very fed up with some of this stuff are a tiny minority that you don't need to worry about, I fear that you may be living in a bubble and need to actually listen to the people you disagree with and consider whether they may have a point.

As for your last point, I think it is really distasteful to compare this to people who want to bring back hanging, implying that there is a right side of history and a wrong side and you are on the right side.

I don't think that people who want to force women to share their spaces and sports with biological males, or encourage the transitioning of children too young to understand the consequences of what they are doing, are on the right side of history.

None of this, of course, has anything to do with gay people. But I feel that the lumping of all these different groups together with gay people is causing gay people quite a lot of reputational damage in the current climate.

@WaitingForMojo

Sex isn’t as binary as the TERF movement think. It really isn’t.

Do you really believe this though?

It literally is binary.

So op doesn't care at all about people like her who are young now. She's quite happy for them to be forced to be called a man because lesbians aren't allowed anymore.
Funnily enough her own extreme transphobia by saying she wouldn't sleep with a tw hasn't yet got her cancelled. Better not say that out loud at your pride, you would be ostracised immediately.

How can you see what is happening to detrans and still believe? It really is the c word.

How is 'trans' related to sexuality?

@MargotBamborough You are giving me anecdotal evidence. We will always hear the evidence we want to hear. There is no firm, sustained, empirical evidence of such an opinion shift. If there is, I have missed it and would welcome being pointed towards it.

The young lesbians and bi women who come to Pride would prove you wrong. Again and again and again.

What about the ones who don't come, because they don't feel welcome?

Sex is binary. Male or female.
Personality and sexuality are not binary and this is where the confusion occurs. Gender ideology can't distinguish between sex and gender. It is so homophobic it can't cope with gender non conformity and says anyone who acts masculine must be male, ignoring that if you have a vagina but like football and are an engineer you are just an individual with a personality who still has a vagina.

The worst part is they think they are accepting of non conformity when really they are the ones converting homosexual young people into acceptable straight people! And now all young men with long hair are called girls, like David Bowie and boy george never happened. 🙄

You are giving me anecdotal evidence. We will always hear the evidence we want to hear. There is no firm, sustained, empirical evidence of such an opinion shift.

Where is the firm, sustained, empirical evidence of sex not being binary?

There is no firm, sustained, empirical evidence of such an opinion shift.

The polling has changed. Attitudes have become less accepting over the years 2018-2022.

https://x.com/yougov/status/1549692153365991424?s=46&t=SPorwN-mokktL467rcZ57g

"Where does the British public stand on transgender rights in 2022?

The key finding from our third major study into trans attitudes is that support for trans access rights has eroded since 2018, a shift which has taken place across all social groups"

I don't think it's a change, more that people didn't understand the question. People think tw are females who want to be males so so yes of course use the ladies toilets, if they were clear tw have a penis almost everyone would say obviously no way.

@Ereshkigalangcleg Not surprising, given the hostile political and media reporting. But evidence of the impact of trans rights on the rest of the LGBT+ community?

Hard to organise an event for those who don't come. They could organise one themselves. I don't hold a monopoly on Pride in my area. There can be more than one.

Really interested in your thoughts on this OP as it's something I can't get my head around.

On the female spaces issue - even if you disagree with them, can you understand the reasons why many women do not want trans women to have access to services such as rape crisis centres?

Can you understand and empathise with how having someone who is visibly genetically male and statistically likely to have retained their penis would be triggering and frightening for them at an already awful time?

Do you view those feelings and the resulting pleas for such centres not to offer their services to trans women as transphobic?

On the female spaces issue - even if you disagree with them, can you understand the reasons why many women do not want trans women to have access to services such as rape crisis centres?

To be crystal clear, I'm talking about women's rape crisis centres. I of course think trans women who are victims of rape should have access to separate support services.