The UK is officially an intolerant hellhole for transwomen

[pisacake]

www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/12/british-transgender-woman-given-residency-in-safer-new-zealand

"The tribunal deemed it would be “unduly harsh” for the woman to be forced to return to the UK, where she suffered years of “persecution” due to her gender identity disorder. "

In pleading for the woman to be allowed to remain in New Zealand, her lawyer, Kar-yen Partington, presented 20 articles to the tribunal detailing transphobic hate crimes in the UK.

Recent data from the UK shows transphobic hate crimes against LGBTQ people have soared by nearly 80% in the last four years, with more than one in five LGBT people being the victim of a hate crime in last 12 months.

Just seriously curious if (actual) women have ever been granted asylum for being subject to harassment, which in some countries is very extreme. Or is this more trans privilege?

Yeh, I'm feeling pretty tired. I don't mind coming back tomorrow though, if I remember :)

I do have to acknowledge your patience and thoughtfulness Loops.

Even if i think it's ridiculous.

But i do wish you'd stop with all the gtatuitous "likes", "lols" and question marks. You sound as if Home and Away has had a defining influence on you.

then they are of course right

Not necessarily... Sure, they may have a different view or explanation, which you might want to give more credibility to than someone who is not those things, but they aren't automatically right.

I'm English, for example, and I might posit that English people are all terribly repressed about sex and only want to do very vanilla missionary sex. Lass is Scottish, and one of those pretty boys of her youth may have given her plenty of evidence that my assertion is bunkum. Just because she is Scottish doesn't mean that what she says is wrong because it disagrees with me, who is English and might therefore assume some privilege in talking about English people.

Assuming that someone else is "of course" right because of some characteristic is rather dangerous

PS - sorry for taking your name in vain, Lass

Butter sorry...that's just how I talk, and type, and I was always more of a Neighbours girl. I spend most of the tricky academic writing on my actual academic writing, but in my free time my brain needs a rest.

olennas they would be 'right' about their own experience, not right objectively about everyone. They'd be 'more right' about their experience than I would be though, especially if they identify differently to me.

it also feels like you're saying you're not sexy

are you saying that asexual people object to being thought of as not sexy?

You should have spent your youth watching Red Dwarf instead of dross that presents suburban life with racial and cultural homogeneity, and reinforces damaging sex role stereotypes.

Flora I mean, it's nice to look nice, and it's nice to be told you look nice. I don't really care if people are sexually attracted to me, their sexuality has nothing to do with mine.

Butter ugh I hated Red Dwarf (still do), I liked Star Gate, and Star Trek (still do). Is Neighbours that bad? I mean, I haven't watched it in years, but it was just a silly soap.

I was only referring to Red Dwarf because of my oblique reference above to Ace Rimmer.

Yes Neighbours is that bad. Do you even need to ask? It's a show for white people to feel relaxed and comfortable pretending Australia is a place full of white people.

PS - sorry for taking your name in vain, Lass

Not at all ! I'm thoroughly enjoying this thread.


Butter but isn't that the case with so much media, I just can't be that mad about every random tv show or movie, I'd never go out or enjoy anything. There's so little Queer representation too, or representation of neurodivergence, but again it's just too much to get upset about. It's exhausting.

Good lord, this has been a fascinatingly weird read. All these labels for human attraction and shagging or not shagging.

I did find the idea that these labels are a kind of withdrawing from the pornification of modern sex quite intriguing though.

Thanks for discussing loops. Like a lot if others I find it all very navel gazey as surely nobody cares who people love, live with ie shag so long as its legal and with consent.

but isn't that the case with so much media, I just can't be that mad about every random tv show or movie, I'd never go out or enjoy anything. There's so little Queer representation too, or representation of neurodivergence, but again it's just too much to get upset about. It's exhausting

Oh come on, you cant be serious. Of course Neighbours is that bad. Its not exhausting to not buy into it.

DJ I mean, sometimes I just watch stuff because it's silly or it makes me laugh, you don't have to care about everything all the time, that would actually be exhausting. I watch a lot of stuff that isn't really very good, or is #problematic, it's fine as long as you don't think that's how the world really works. Just relax.

Right, I've made it.
Read through the whole thread.

First of all, well done Loops you managed to stick in there and it was fun.

I do think that you're being ridiculous though, all the 'opression' you mentioned that asexual get are not opressions at all for asexuality and more irritations that happen when you don't subscribe to societies perceived norms (especially women).
Everyone seems so desperate to get you paired off and have a baby.
When you were discussing what you went through when you came out I was nodding my head because I had the EXACT same reaction when I said me and DH didn't want a baby. DH obviously doesn't get it as bad as me because I'm a woman and as a woman that's what my point in society is, and how I dare I stand there with my pointless empty womb and say that I wanted to deny society of its rightful fruit.
I would think that you probably do get passed on for promotions etc if you are single, I have lots of single friends say they've thought about wearing wedding rings to work because they don't feel like they are taken seriously, and from my experience when I started wearing a wedding ring the way I was treat did change.
This has bog all to do with assexuality though and is to do with the patriarchy and societies ideas of what a woman is for.

I literally can't believe that people are piggybacking the struggle of gay people with this shit!

You have been very reasonable Loops and I have so enjoyed reading your comments but I just can't agree with you.

My Mam is bisexual, she lived with a woman for my entire childhood, we got horrendous homophobic bullying, we had bricks through our window, spray paint on our door, gangs of kids coming into our garden and shouting through the letterbox, fireworks put through our windows, it was horrendous. Eventually the council had to move us.
Now my Mam is with a man and she gets no abuse whatsoever, she's still bisexual but she no longer faces the social stigma of being homosexual because that's not how society views her. Oppression isn't about feels it's about how society views you, you can't be oppressed in a vacuum.
I'm not saying bisexuals don't have their own battles and difficulties but a woman in a straight marraige can't claim to have all the day to day challenges of being in a homosexual relationship, it's just not true.
We can't just wear the coat of someone else's struggle because we feels like it.
I blame identity politics.

@SentimentalLentil - what happened to you and your mum is exactly why I get so pissed off with identity politics. Gay/bi people get actual real abuse when they're in a relationship.

I'm not in a relationship with anyone and haven't been for years but I don't get any abuse for it. It's never occurred to me that it might be damaging to my career to not have married and I was unaware that people weren't taking me seriously. I find that quite shocking.

I don't really care who people fuck or don't but this endless dissection and navel-gazing is unbearably tedious. And people who are in long-term heterosexual relationships 'coming out' as non-binary really boil my piss. They are co-opting other people's oppression and I can't believe they don't get called out on it.

I've been sexually assaulted several times and faced issues in furthering my career because I'm a woman - in the UK. Can I go elsewhere and claim asylum if some kind? FFS.

it's fine as long as you don't think that's how the world really works.

What if it is how the world really works?

Asexuality is not 'not having sex' it is not experiencing sexual attraction, asexual people can have libido and this can be low or high just like anyone else. You can want sex, without being sexually attracted to someone (or so I've heard lol I'm a don't-want-sex ace)

Errr, Wah? This is getting really rarified.

So, you can want sex, but not be attracted to anyone, and that isn't because you don't find anyone you've met attractive, but because you will never find anyone attractive?

and then you can be 'X romantic', so you find someone attractive, and you want to have sex, but you don't find anyone sexually attractive.

I mean, well, err, OK, but I really think you're tying yourself in knots and making life very difficult for yourself.

I mean, I have young kids, and don't have a lot of sex with dp. I've had both relationships and flings in the past (not one night stands, I do need to actually have some inkling of a person before I have sex - so that's... err. demi-sexual, hetero-romantic?) - frankly, this is all madness. Have as much or as little sex as you want. Have relationships, don't have relationships, have sex, don't have sex (take care if you do cos STD and pregnancy) - I don't really see the need to come out about it though - just live, why on earth dwell on it so much?

You sound as if Home and Away has had a defining influence on you.

Personally I was a Neighbours kid. Dinner after neighbours, while watching Star Trek:The Next Generation. Home and Away always clashed with something better on CBBC.

you don't have to care about everything all the time, that would actually be exhausting.

Hahahaha. Just dawned on me how amusingly contradictory this is.

I'm not sure sexual attraction is something that many women experience in same way that men do. I don't look at men in the street I think cor I want to rip your clothes off and lick you all over. Although I can admire them, in a way that is looks based. But it doesn't actually turn me on.

Obviously, there have been times where I want nothing more than sex with a particular person, and I get turned on thinking about it. But it's far less to do with the way they look. It's about the way they make me feel.

I feel the same Datun. I don't have a physical type. We should have a sexual orientation! Perhaps there is one!