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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Edinburgh Pride [sad]

51 replies

ItsAllGoingToBeFine · 23/06/2019 08:37

threadreaderapp.com/thread/1142508165243817985.html

But what did chill me, and did stir some actual fear for hos I and the others might fare on Pride was the speeches given by MSPs 11/
from the top of the open top bus. In particular the words of Patrick Harvey, Green MSP, where he felt the need to apologise for the democratic workings of Parliament, and the decision taken this week to put the breaks on GRA reform u rill the full due consideration and 12/
further deliberation by a broad range of groups affected by these reforms and importantly the conflation of sex and gender that has infested our policy making.He said "I am sorry that this parliament very recently was used as a platform for transphobic hatred and bigotry"

...

I was dismayed to find out later that my sisters who joined the March were 18/
harassed by marchers behind them, had bells rung and whistles painfully blown in their ears and even had a missile thrown at them in the shape of a juice bottle, that fortunately missed them but unfortunately hit a tourist photographing the parade. They left the march 19/
of their own volition. Unwilling to make their selves a target for hate any longer, and fearing that the bells and whistles might turn into blows or worse.
It was obvious this would happen. The marchers had been well and truly whipped up into a righteous anger by our MSPs and 20/
others who spoke from that open-top bus at the pre march rally. The rally where Lesbians were intentionaly blocked in and made invisible. Where women were told they were bigots for standing up for Female Rights and expecting our politicians to do the same.

OP posts:
LordProfFekkoThePenguinPhD · 24/06/2019 08:47

I see primary are giving money to ILGA World charity (for LGBT etc etc). Pink news are incandescent. I’ve never heard of them.

gingerginger2 · 24/06/2019 09:44

Works the other way too though!

twitter.com/Jacqkelly/status/1142790029095448576

CharlieParley · 24/06/2019 10:07

gingerginger2

No, it most decidedly doesn't work the other way.

Because the Lesbians-are-female-homosexuals-group did not shout hate at anyone and that tweet is spreading a pernicious lie.

As you can see from the videos and hear from the other people who were actually there, trans rights activists screamed at them, shouted abuse at them, attempted to physically intimidate them, tried to rip up their posters and threw stuff at them.

This continued throughout the march, not just at the Scottish Parliament. While they carried their posters affirming their sexuality and sexual boundaries. When the shouting and abuse got intense, they sang Bella Ciao in response.

Not one of them hates trans people. They marched to defend their right to be exclusively same-sex attracted females.

And these despicable lies are always told about those who seek to defend women's sex-based rights. The same happened with Maria Maclachlan, with the For Women Scotland meeting in January and now.

Another accusation TRAs are circulating is that these brave women hit an 11 year old. Also a completely made up lie.

And there are lots of videos of these women. In not one of them are they shouting abuse at anyone. Because they wouldn't. They want to defend women's sex-based rights and they want to be visible as lesbians (the old-fashioned type).

gingerginger2 · 24/06/2019 10:15

Hey I wasn't there and so I'm not going to argue about this

The woman in question in this tweet though I know personally and wouldn't have thought she would lie.

Seems this debate is so intrenched and both sides absolutely think they are right. It's pretty fucking horrible to watch.

BernardBlacksWineIcelolly · 24/06/2019 10:22

What, it’s horrible watching lesbians say that they don’t sleep with men? Seems a bit delicate to me

TheInebriati · 24/06/2019 10:25

Its pretty fucking horrible watching MP's and activists whip up hate against a group of women and seeing people gleefully go along with it.

We've seen this before and it ever ends well.

gingerginger2 · 24/06/2019 10:46

Watching Patrick Harvie is horrible too

the whole thing is horrible

CharlieParley · 24/06/2019 11:03

Then we're at an impasse, gingerginger2 because I know all of these women and there is video evidence as well as eye witness accounts of their peaceful behaviour.

And I also agree it is pretty fucking horrible to watch women's rights being abolished and lesbians attacked for not doing dock, even if it lives under a dress.

There is no equivalence. There is no "both sides are equally bad" here. There is one side that

  • seeks to discuss how a law change might impact on their rights,
  • wishes to hold meetings and conferences to do so
  • and supports the right of the other side to hold meetings and conferences of their own
  • wants to see all vulnerable groups protected (including trans people - a statement made by every one of the women in that group) and
  • all people to have equal rights
  • while fully accepting that when rights conflict there needs to be a thorough, robust process that assesses which measures must be taken to balance conflicting rights and
-who ask that any and all such measures are only put into place after detailed analysis of how this will impact on all affected groups.

And there is the other side who

  • deny there is a conflict
  • demand no debate
  • reject the need for any impact assessment
  • seek to prevent the other side meeting to discuss their rights or hold conferences to discuss related issues

This side has a great many members who

  • call all who disagree with them homophobes, transphobes, right wing bigots, Nazis
  • publicly advocate violence against women's rights campaigners
  • act aggressively towards women's rights campaigners
  • threaten, blackmail and bully venues
  • harass meeting organisers, speakers and attendees, often organising boycotts or petitions to get women's rights campaigners fired, no-platformed, ostracised and ultimately silenced.

That's pretty fucking horrible to watch alright.

In the meantime, the number if incidents of violence against women and girls increases because single-sex set asides protecting them from male violence are being abolished in aid of transgender ideology and legislation. That's pretty fucking horrible to watch, too.

Every week I go shopping in a supermarket where a little girl was sexually assaulted. As a direct result of making it socially acceptable for males to use female-only toilets. Seeing that case unfold was truly pretty fucking horrible to watch. Especially for someone who really knows what this does to a young girl.

CharlieParley · 24/06/2019 11:05

Evidently, my autocorrect, much like my lesbian friends also does not like dick and changed it to dock.

gingerginger2 · 24/06/2019 11:13

I agree with much of what you say.

Why would this woman think that she'd been targeted? What were the group doing at the corner of the Scottish Parliment where she described? What was happening that she could of interpreted as "screaming abuse"?

ItsAllGoingToBeFine · 24/06/2019 11:32

What was happening that she could of interpreted as "screaming abuse

Saying lesbians are same sex attracted?
Saying lesbians don't have a penis?

Both of those are considered horribly transphobic.

OP posts:
CharlieParley · 24/06/2019 11:51

Did you actually read what she said in that Twitter thread?

She says she came across a group of "white, ostensibly middle-class cis women screaming hate at us"

So, for starters she was not personally attacked, targeted, erased, singled-out or subjected to "gender-based violence" which she sums the whole incident up as further down the thread.

Secondly, the group was there because we have been and are being contacted by countless young lesbians who are scared and upset because they are pressured by the LGBT community to accept males as sexual partners if those males identify as trans or non-binary.

If they object, they are ostracised, called vagina fetishists, bigots, transphobes and TERFs. They are harassed for their "prejudiced preferences" and told they could learn to cope with dick if they only tried.

Many young lesbians have no support groups they can turn to in this situation. And on top of this horrific homophobia dressed up in new clothes they also experience the old-fashioned type of homophobia, which seems not to have gotten that much better for young lesbians.

The group was there to signal to those young lesbians that they are allowed to say no to males, they are allowed to set their own sexual boundaries, to reject all males, no matter how they identify. And it worked because they were approached by quite a few young lesbians who came up to them to say thank you.

The group shouted things like "lesbians are female homosexuals" and probably "lesbians don't have penises" and other slogans in defence of the right of lesbians to assert their sexuality as exclusively same-sex attracted.

That your friend interprets this as hate and an attack and as she says in a later tweet "literal violence" and making the Pride march unsafe for males who identify as trans says more about her than the group.

Who actually faced real violence on that march, ie physical harassment such as having extremely loud bells and whistles blown directly into their ears (one of the women wears a visible hearing aid. Do you know how unacceptable that is to do that kind of stuff to her? They were also being shoved and jostled, run through, attempts were made to rip their posters out of their hands and they had stuff, including bottles thrown at them (and judging from the vicious abuse they got, they also had lots of what your friend considers as "literal violence").

And she is now contributing to that hatred against exclusively same-sex attracted females (aka lesbians) and further fanning the flames of hate because she is allowing her words to be interpreted as her having been personally abused by the group.

Of which exactly zero are cis btw, because none of them have ever accepted gender norms. And where the middle class bit comes from is anyone's guess. Members of that group are of all ages and circumstances. They include immigrants and disabled women and they come from all kinds of economic and educational backgrounds. So she's quite offensive in her assumptions, too.

GrumpyGran8 · 24/06/2019 11:53

Why would this woman think that she'd been targeted? It's worth noting that she lists herself as "guide dog owner" in her Twitter bio. So though she can hear, she was obviously relying on what her friends were telling her about the protesters' banners and behaviour.
Also, according to her later tweets she's middle-aged or older and with a "non-binary" partner, refers to herself as 'queer', so probably doesn't know many young lesbians or any GC women; most of her triends will be trans/queer. Her views will not be objective.

LordProfFekkoThePenguinPhD · 24/06/2019 11:54

People say what they are told to believe

CharlieParley · 24/06/2019 12:03

Oh and yes, the group were indeed white because ninety-fucking-six percent of the Scottish population is white. Including your friend.

CharlieParley · 24/06/2019 12:13

And I wasn't paraphrasing by the way. Your friend called a group of lesbians stating they are exclusively same-sex attracted as the group perpetuating gender-based violence. What is this if not a despicable, desperate disinformation campaign against a group of lesbians daring to say - at Pride of all places - that they don't do dick?

gingerginger2 · 24/06/2019 12:54

OK. So she wan't targeted directly. She just heard the group chanting various slogans?

and that is considered a hate attack because saying those things is considered transphobic?

gingerginger2 · 24/06/2019 13:00

btw the woman isn't a "friend" exactly. I know her personally through others. and I have always thought she was a good person.

BatShite · 24/06/2019 13:31

Pride these days seems to be all about straight men. Didn't take them long to take over a space that was not meant for them, did it..

ItsAllGoingToBeFine · 24/06/2019 13:45

OK. So she wan't targeted directly. She just heard the group chanting various slogans?

and that is considered a hate attack because saying those things is considered transphobic?

A couple of tweets from someone else who was there and heard the hate speech...

I'd say going to a trans-inclusive event and screaming about how "lesbians don't have dicks" (aka, if you have a dick, you aren't a lesbian. aka, if you have a dick, you aren't a woman - the dogwhistle is clear) is pretty bullying twitter.com/oarkley99/status/1143125308217929728?s=19

Jesus fucking Christ, dude. I'm saying that if you think someone is not a woman just because they have a penis, or you don't believe in trans women identifying as women, then you are a bigot. That is it. This isn't even a gender thing or an orientation thing. Just a human thing. twitter.com/oarkley99/status/1143126929693990912?s=19

OP posts:
CharlieParley · 24/06/2019 13:52

gingerginger2 noted. And I don't think this makes your acquaintance a bad person. I have come across a number of people who truly, honestly believe all the lies they've been told about those who campaign to uphold women's sex-based rights and who are truly scared for their lives as a consequence.

I am however astonished that a lesbian, well out of her teens and early twenties, would describe her fellow lesbians defining their sexuality as being an attraction solely and exclusively to the same sex as hateful, as violent and as making males feel unsafe.

But yes, asserting a same-sex attraction is now considered transphobic and neither Stonewall nor any of the other big LGBT organisations in this country now accept that lesbians and gays are same-sex attracted.

Their definition is that they are same-gender attracted. Which makes very little sense as a butch lesbian who is attracted to feminine-presenting lesbians and whose girlfriend is very feminine by this definition would not be a lesbian but straight.

gingerginger2 · 24/06/2019 13:52

OK I get it, thank you!

SunsetBeetch · 24/06/2019 13:53

God, TRAs are so bloody manipulative. But clearly, it works.

gingerginger2 · 24/06/2019 13:55

the weird thing is I recognise a woman in the photos holding one of the lesbian visibility banners too, who is also an acquaintance.

Both these acquaintances are lovely people, and I totally would have seen them getting on!

How horrible that they obviously wouldn't.

morningtoncrescent62 · 24/06/2019 16:31

Both these acquaintances are lovely people, and I totally would have seen them getting on! How horrible that they obviously wouldn't.

One of the horrible things about this mess is that it's divided people who actually have (or had) a lot in common. I've lost friends over it - I'm shocked and upset to find they're prepared to believe I've changed overnight into a transphobic bigot. and I imagine they're shocked and upset to find that according to their lights I'm not the social justice warrior they thought I was. The transgender ideology/dogma is so complete that once you've bought into it there's no position but hatred for anyone who hasn't. It's dividing leftie social justice-types and setting us at each other's throats but I can't see a way out of it. Definitely horrible at personal and political levels.

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