Can I ask gay people what they think about the current trans laws/proposed laws

[thanksjaneshusbandatcaresouth]

Fwiw I am a straight woman. Have been on here since 2008 but only in the last month or so on this board. Would probably be described as a liberal feminist.

Anyway, I’m just interested. Feel free to answer or not!

In case it’s relevant, my starting point would be that this would be a bad thing for gay men and women.

I think it's more often young people who do, as it's important to them to make sense of their identities.
The person I know who was bullied the worst for this was 15 at the time.

Also, lesbian feminists sometimes talk about the feminist significance of being a lesbian. At that point, it's relevant.

To me, saying 'I'm a lesbian' is the same as saying 'I'm attracted to adult human females' so I should not have to elaborate that no I don't actually consider adult human males to be part of my potential dating pool. However, things are changing rapidly.

Thanks, Super.

I’ve been thinking about how I could go stealth-terf at work, and help push back a bit where possible. It’s tricky at work though because, much as I want to have women’s (particularly lesbian’s in the current climate) backs, I’m aware that even tentative noises might not be welcomed for one reason or another, and getting the language wrong would be even worse...

There's ways to be positive rather than criticising trans activist ideas.

Just talking about what can be done to support lesbians who experience hate crimes, or how brilliant x or y lesbian author or playwright or footballer is etc is something.

Pointing out how male-dominated LGBT org's are can be an interesting one. They certainly are in Scotland, anyway.

I don’t think I can manage literature, theatre or sport without sounding it properly clunky

But you’re right, a positive approach is the way to go. I’ll give it some thought.

It sounding

I could NEVER have decided before puberty if I was gay or not, and no child should have to.

I've never seen it put like this before. This is exactly what's going on and it's horrifying.

I wish the trans agenda was focused on the positivity of being a transwoman

This is what frustrates me so much - the message back when LGB rights were being fought for was 'it gets better' - 3 words that acknowledged that it might be shit now, but full of hope for the future - it was positive.

Trans rights - they skip straight to suicide stats, there's no positive message for people to reach for, no striving for self-confidence and internal peace - just demands and threats.

And it's LGB youth in the firing line again - but now the organisations that once would have told them 'it gets better' have been corrupted and they're not there to support any more, but to brow-beat.

SuperLoudPoppingAction:

Seems tied into 'queer' becoming a label adopted by trendy folk in heterosexual relationships who are polyamorous/into kinky sex/have asymmetrical haircuts etc

Yeah, I tend to avoid dating any men who identify as "queer" rather than "gay" I'd say the gay community has been pretty much split among queer/gay lines now.

Queers: Far left leaning, may have a pretentious sexual orientation and scientifically dubious gender identity/pronounds, pushes the trans madness above anything else, very hostile against straight "cis" people/"hetero-normative" society and even ordinary gay and lesbians at times. May attend Refugees Welcome marches and similar left wing causes. Writes for "Pink News"

Gay: Has friends who are both gay and straight, doesn't care who people are attracted... more interested in people's character than whatever they identify as. Sceptical about trans children issues, gender neutral bathrooms, preferred pronouns and all the rest of it but no problem if an adult wants to have a sex change. May be sceptical about the support of Islam from the left and how bringing in men from deeply homophobic countries might affect gay people's safety in the long term. Comments on "Pink News" articles.

The "gay" community may be more conservative in nature, but most of us would've been left leaning in our youth but became disillusioned by the modern left for many reasons. There's a feeling they used us when they needed to but have abandoned us now we're no longer their "trendy" cause. I suppose it's similar to how some women on here are feeling now, regarding the trans stuff.

In my experience lesbians are a lot more likely to identify on the "queer" side than gay men. I'm not sure why, but it's something I've noticed when I've attended events with the word queer in the name.

I think it is because women are socialised not to have boundaries.
I was shocked the first time I heard a lesbian woman say she was queer. She said 'I used to identify as a lesbian but now I say queer because it's more inclusive.'
I think she was in her thirties so not young and impressionable.

She really seemed to think it signalled her concern for eg transmen or bi women who might wish to date her, but might have sad feelings if she used a nasty word like 'lesbian'.

I'm a weird mix of conservative in some respects (I obsess about my pension, I don't like PDAs, I think it's nice to thank the bus driver, I like things to be thought through instead of adopted in a rush of enthusiasm) and liberal in others (would definitely be in support of housing refugees and am often in discussion with people from middle-eastern refugee and migrant communities about gay rights, which is generally well-received, think we should be highly taxed).

I wonder if, as lesbians are generally more isolated and less represented in sceney contexts, and we're maybe fewer in number than gay men, we have to go through the motions of the queer politics in order to have some space in the world.

I can't lie - my face is too loud - so I'm a bit stuck and tend to socialise with older lesbians (who were on Lesbian Line, who organised Todmorden Disco, who were at Greenham etc).

What do you make of the fact that the same countries that execute gays & lesbians & treat women like slaves (Iran & Pakistan) fully support transgender ideology? What do you make of Christian Conservative parents who prefer having a trans daughter to having a gay son? Makes you think. Pakistan is about to push through a gender self ID bill much like the one being discussed in Britain, but being gay is illegal.

quite
and pleased to see we have some gay men on mumsnet after all!
(is your name an Archers ref?)

I think the yoygakarta principles will end up being forced through in countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh, pushed by well-meaning NGOs, and then adopted here as a 'oh gosh even the far-away people know more than us' way.
yogyakartaprinciples.org/introduction/
I do not have a gender identity. I don't believe my same-sex attraction is because I find femininity attractive. These principles privilege gender identity to the exclusion of a homosexual identity, I think.
Dodgy a.f I think.

Middle-eastern and south Asian countries have their own traditions of third gender or gender non-conformity but they don't involve telling women they have to define themselves around trans males being the same as them.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mukhannathun
mutarijjalun is the female equivalent.

I'm a 60 yr old lesbian. A lesbian is defined as a woman who is sexually attracted to her own SEX. It has nothing to do with gender and everything to do with natural female biology including, breasts, shape, smell. I'm not attracted to male biology. If I was I wouldn't wear the label 'lesbian'.