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?

Datun Yeh absolutely, from my experience most ace people feel the same way, they don't want to go into a relationship trying to trick the other person or having to hide who they are. Also if you really care about the other person you don't want them to be unhappy or uncomfortable, or to feel there's something wrong with them.

There are some ace people in open relationships, because their partners need the sexual side of a relationship as well, if everyone is on the same page and happy then more power to them (I don't think I could do it though).

I have a friend who is "pretty ace" and is in a relationship with someone who is sexual, they talk a lot about boundaries and limits and are both happy with how the relationship is going currently, but friend was very open right from the start.

My Male fiancé is demisexual though he doesn’t use the label. Reading about it did help him immeasurably because he’d spent his whole life not conforming to the sexuality the males around him seemed to display. I agree, however, that I think that because society is so porn saturated, anyone who doesn’t follow that is considered abnormal and hence the label comes in. For me and my fiancé, it was just nice for him to not feel so weird or alone in his sexual response (or lack thereof).
For my fiancé, he has zero sexual attraction to a woman (he is heterosexual) until he has a deep emotional connection. He isn’t interested in looking at naked women or porn (also for moral reasons, but that’s an addition) and he doesn’t understand sexual arousal over a stranger. He’s not had celebrity crushes. When he was younger he used to make the appropriate “noises” in Male conversations to not stand out as odd but nonetheless he gained a reputation for being “straight laced” because he never volunteered attraction towards women, cat-called etc. As he got older, some in his group started going to strip clubs abd he always made excuses not to go because it made him very uncomfortable, the notion of drooling over someone without an emotional connection.

We met online, and it wasn’t until months into getting to know each other that he would participate in any sexual conversation with me (and even then it was clinical and factual, not dirty talk). Since we developed an emotional connection, his sexual attraction to me developed. His desire for sex is highly linked with his need to emotionally connect. His “highlight” for getting off sexually (to be crude) is me telling him I love him during sex.

So, while I can see why people say that many girls choose to hold off on sex until there is an emotional connection, with true demisexuals, it’s not about choosing - there is literally NO sexual desire until the emotional is created.

This was pretty hard for me to understand, and sometimes still is, in our objectification culture. My partner doesn’t check out other women (though on an intellectual level he can understand if a woman is presenting herself as the “ideal” to fit with our culture), and I’ve mostly had partners who are assholes who drool over other women. So we’ve had some issues with my unwillingness to believe him.

Sexuality is an interesting topic.

writers thank you, you definitely explained it better than I did :)

there is no such thing as a lady penis, however much the likes of Riley Dennis want to prop up rape culture by guilt-tripping lesbians into having sex with them.

VICE are currently promoting a video in which Riley Dennis gives young lesbians sex tips - including, according to Dennis, about "how to go down on girls."

It suddenly hit me that as far as Dennis is concerned that probably means teaching young lesbians to suck dick. And that made me want to vomit.

Empress possibly... although Riley is in a relationship with a ciswoman (that is how she identifies) so also, maybe not. Have you watched the video?

I can't even find it, not on Vice or on RJDs channel on yt :/

Which ever way Riley J Dennis is positing it, it's wrong.

I'd bet my right arm it is about how to go down on transwomens' penises. But if it's how to go down on girls, where the fuck does he get off teaching lesbians?

I'd also be willing to bet, since I'm convinced it's about penises (although I can't find the video), that it will be all about how to make a transwomen feel better about her penis.

I have watched a few of RD's videos, not that one though. Always comes across as very me me me, extremely self centred and rather delusional. There is one video in particular in which RD gives lesbians who are rape victims a "temporary pass" to work through their issues before they have to live up to the obligation RD places on all lesbians to work on their transphobia. That bit always makes me extremely angry.

I personally suspect Riley's girlfriend is in fact bisexual even if that's not how she would choose to describe herself. If she likes penises, that pretty much makes her het or bi. (But we're back with the humpty-dumpty "language means what I say it means" nonsense. Just because someone self defines as category whatever does not in fact mean that they, and they alone get to define the words that go with that category. Language is a social phenomenon: socially agreed meanings matter, otherwise we can't talk to each other).

From around the age of four, I knew I felt slightly different. I knew I liked to have the stereotypical boys’ toys and clothes but equally I knew that I liked princess dresses, tiaras and makeup

So like every other fucking child in the fucking world you liked a range of toys that were nothing to do with your genitals?

What a load of tosh this all is. The lunatics have taken over the asylum.

morning probably a lot lol although the current 17 year olds are already part of the various communities, the 7 year olds less so obviously. I worked with 7 year olds though, they're very intelligent and inclusive. You will also get children of parents with different sexual and gender identities, and their experiences will be important in the discussions.

I'm thinking back to one of my earliest memories in the late 1960s, with a couple of my parents' openly gay (and delightfully camp) friends playing Alice in Wonderland with me using the kitchen table and chairs and a few blanket to improvise a rabbit hole!

Honestly, every single generation thinks they invented both sex and liberal politics (I think it was Churchill who once quipped "Anyone who isn't a socialist at the age of twenty hasn't got a heart. Anyone who isn't a conservative at the age of forty hasn't got a brain" - though I guess that makes me brainless ). And every generation finds itself (if lucky enough to make it as far as middle/old age) suddenly painted as the fuddy-duddy out of touch small-c conservative ones.

Back in my youth there were plenty of people having lots of sex with lots of people, but actually most people weren't, most people were forming emotional relationships and then deciding whether to have sex with them or not. Much like the popular impression that all university students all got drunk every night and didn't get out of bed until Countdown came on, when in fact most students went to lectures every day and went to bed sober every night.

the 7 year olds less so obviously. I worked with 7 year olds though, they're very intelligent and inclusive Most of them also believe in Santa and the tooth fairy, so I wouldn't hold much store by them being inclusive. 😄

I'm just so happy I was starting sex in the 90s. Magazines were all about female pleasure, one night stands were fine, things now considered "vanilla" were adventurous (like women on top ), men were so pleased to encounter a vagina they didnt care if it came accompanied with a bush. There was a bit of "slut shaming" but not much. Mostly it was just a lot of fun.
It all seems a bit intense and navel-gazey now......

I also wouldn't put you in a group, because it's not anyone else's place to decide how people should identify

If anyone can identify as anything then the groups have no meaning. If I said "I'm a communist but I believe in private property" or "I'm an ararchist but I believe we should have more state security surveillance". The thing with categorisations is that they have to mean something or there's no point in them.

In relation to oppression, no-one gets beaten up for not holding hands with their partner in the street. No young people get disowned by their families for telling their parents they only want to have sex with their opposite sex partner after they have formed a deep emotional connection with them.

I've really enjoyed reading through this thread. I wanted to post earlier but had to head out, hopefully my comments are a worthwhile contribution still.

I agree with loops, that people have always existed with preferences and orientations outside of heterosexuality - but the current wave of categorisation is entirely linked to today's framework of (post-structuralist) queer theory. But that doesn't mean that because there has always been variation to human sexuality and experience that the current categorisation and subcategorisation is therefore valid, because people that subscribe to these definitions are "valid" in themselves. In my academic discipline, queer theory is not the 'way of knowing' - I might position my work against it, but it's not the lens that I view my research through.

I think that this is essentially an epistemological debate. I see a problem at the moment with many young people (albeit I am 28 myself), obtaining their understanding about themselves from thought catalog, tumblr and Riley J Dennis. I think these sources are important to the discussion and understanding as young people have always assembled under peer-led categories. Of course people can identify, have preferences, describe their orientation in whichever way they want, but with the move for these identities to become protected classes through collective experience of oppression is ridiculous.

How is requiring romantic attraction before sexual expression or a lack of sexual orientation a material reality that legislation can define? Sexual orientation is protected under the Equality Act, albeit legislation that is difficult to enforce and almost always retrospectively applied. Apart from common courtesy to my fellow humans, can legally requiring respect and validation be granted to groups that are defined in isolation through one a particular type of scholarship? I am a feminist and approach my academic research through a feminist lens - but I engage with non-feminist scholarship (the vast majority), non-feminist colleagues, my Mum isn't a feminist, my government isn't feminist. Feminist theory is a way to analyse my material reality as an adult female in society - not the other way round, which is how queer identity seems to operate.

A few years ago I read about a British woman and her child/ren granted asylum in Sweden because of a UK court order regarding residency/contact. I can't find any link now though so maybe I dreamed it.

I promise none of us are 'straight'

No of course not. How totally awful that would be. How boring.

I sooo cannot wait to see what the Generation born 2000- 2010 will have to teach loops generation about sexuality. It's going to be fucking hilarious

Me neither!

No young people get disowned by their families for telling their parents they only want to have sex with their opposite sex partner

Although I do recall my son aged around 15 telling me it was going to be a terrible disappointment to me but he wasn't gay (it was a joke obviously- it was just that our friends did include a disproportionately large number of charming, successful, and lovely gay men)

Lass my mother was a bit disappointed that none of her four children turned out to be gay. She was quite keen to be absolutely fine with it. And that was at the dawn of time for goodness sake.

Of course people can identify, have preferences, describe their orientation in whichever way they want, but with the move for these identities to become protected classes through collective experience of oppression is ridiculous.

Yes, exactly.

How is requiring romantic attraction before sexual expression or a lack of sexual orientation a material reality that legislation can define?

That's why this way of looking at the world, although occasionally amusing, is so problematic. No one should be abused for who they are or how they choose to present themselves to the world. But discrimination in legal terms is much harder to codify. And doing so may affect other people who are more needful of legal protection, like when trans needs are prioritised over women's.

eresh being straight isn't boring? It's just not something I am, I also have a lot of friends who aren't straight, and a lot who are, if they're boring it's cause they're boring not because they're straight or not.

Tumblr didn't make me asexual, it just introduced me to a word to describe my experience. Tumblr is also not the same for everyone, your experience on the site is hugely dependent on what you choose to engage with, and that could be self-ID stuff, queer stuff, fandom stuff, cats. There are even gender-critical people, and gate-keeping LGB people on there lol so this idea that Tumblr is perpetuating harmful ideologies or whatever is completely nonsensical, it's actually a fairly open minded place (too open minded sometimes)

this idea that Tumblr is perpetuating harmful ideologies or whatever is completely nonsensical, it's actually a fairly open minded place (too open minded sometimes)

I think you just disproved your argument within the same sentence.

How is it nonsensical that Tumblr is perpetuating harmful ideologies then? I don't expect you to agree with me what constitutes a harmful ideology.

But discrimination in legal terms is much harder to codify. And doing so may affect other people who are more needful of legal protection, like when trans needs are prioritised over women's.

I think the current tension in the so called radfem vs. transwoman debate (ugh ugh ugh), is that intersectionality has positioned everyone who is oppressed under patriarchy to fight amongst themselves for provision, which has created the oppression hierarchy. A hierarchy has also emerged in the ways that people are protected and categorised - innate feelings and fundamental essence/identity for transpeople over biology for women as a sex class.

Loops, I don't think for an instance that tumblr made you asexual - I said variation, preference and orientation has always existed outside of heterosexuality. I am gender critical, I would be concerned if someone who had a similar outlook to me only gathered their source of gender critical theory was from a social media platform that any one can contribute to.

I have been in academic settings where students have used these sources as establishing "truth" and fact. I have been at feminist discussions where "trans women are women" has been shouted over the speaker. What are the sources for that claim? Look on twitter to see the discussion being shut down because SCIENCE. I haven't seen any credible "science" sources - i've seen thought pieces on the aforementioned places that position gender theory and thin philosophy as biology - that's when it becomes a harmful ideology.