The Guardian... Blind Date 23 November

[Backinthecloset123]

I post this aware that I might get a warning.

However!

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/nov/23/blind-date-jen-anna-glasses-fog-up

The woman, a lesbian, Anna (and the Guardian readership) did not reveal that Jen is a trans woman.

The whole thing is gaslighting.
And I may be deleted for that sentence.
There is a good thread on Twitter which I'll link.

It doesn’t make sense that the only way they could feature a trans person would be by tricking them.
As I've said, I think if the Guardian had disclosed to both parties in advance of their meeting then they would have been very keen to say so in their response.

I'm bowing out now. I still think The Guardian's behaviour deserves scrutiny but I also want to respect Anna's request.

I believe they think there are half a dozen of us working very hard at sockpuppeting.

Projection being an interesting thing this makes me wonder how many sockpuppets some of the most, um, enthusiastic hate followers of this forum have.

Here, there is only a problem if Anna doesn’t want to date trans people and was unhappy about being set up on a date with Jen.

No - the massive, massive problem here is that there is no evidence anywhere that the Guardian gave Anna a choice. They made a decision not to set up a same-sex date in circumstances where any women applying for a same-sex date would expect a same-sex date. That is a deeply shitty thing for the Guardian to do.

If Anna happens to be fine with the outcome, great. That doesn't negate the problem of the Guardian doing this in the first place.

yes, if I was arranging a blind date for a woman who described herself as gay, I would not make a date for her with a male.

the fact that the Guardian did is deeply homophobic, regardless of how the woman in question defines the word 'gay'

aw. ProTrans has been banned? I won't get to make my joke about when is AmateurTrans arriving any more

Archery how do you know that Anna didn’t indicate on the form you undoubtedly have to fill in that she was open to dating trans people? There is no evidence either way of what happened or that anyone was tricked. People on twitter are now saying that Anna was sexually assaulted by Jen. It’s seriously not a good look.

Reality I'll tell you what, you show me the form where the Guardian (the Guardian!) explicitly asks "if you are same-sex-attracted, are you open to dating trans people who are the opposite sex to you", and I will agree entirely that you are in the right.

I think it was more insidious on the part of The Guardian. They weren't looking for public plaudits and praise for their wokeness because they didn't mention Jen was trans anywhere.

It seems more like a 'we'll slip this under the radar' but then will be able say in the future 'hah! no-one noticed and nothing went wrong' so hence any other views are phobic nonsense.

Whatever Anna really thought about her date, it's interesting that she has

a) spoken publicly about this now, as predicted
b) done it in a way that repeats some old favourites of the TWAW script: gender critical people have "harmful opinions", it's "intrusive" to speculate whether a trans person had genital surgery or not (because of course we still live in the Victorian age), and the LGBT community is one happy family

I would have been incredibly surprised if she had done anything else.

Reality, even if the Guardian dating form was as elaborate as you suggest it might have been, the Guardian did not record or disclose Jen's trans status. I don't think that a discussion about whether they should have done is inadmissible.

day no they wouldn’t need to disclose it if she said she was eg pansexual would they? Because then someone trans would fall into the potential dating pool and there is no need to ‘warn’ anyone beforehand.

I haven’t seen the form but I would be surprised if it didn’t ask what your dating preferences were beyond gay, straight, bi. Who knows? All I can see is that this is not a good look and some of the comments on twitter are cringeworthy and making anyone GC look bad.

Are we, here, meant to be able to control what people say on Twitter? I dunno how we'd do that.

I think the Guardian presenting an opposite-sex date as a same-sex date is the problem here.

And of course, it now introduces an ongoing situation where only bi or pan women - even if they identify as lesbians - will risk applying to Soul Mates, because nobody who is exclusively same-sex-attracted will want to risk being placed in that position. And so now only bi or pan women will appear in that column, some of them going on opposite-sex dates with transwomen. And everybody is happy, and there's not a problem, right?

And thus the erasure of lesbians continues apace.

I have no doubt that had The Guardian discussed with Anna before the date that her blind date was a transwoman, this would have formed the core of the response to people saying "WTF?"

But if you read what's been said, instead there's been a lot of beating around the bush after the event to give us this impression, but The Guardian has been unable to state this explicitly.

And the focus of my discomfort is the way Jen has behaved afterwards, which is probably because I'm not a lesbian and haven't been subjected to the specific forms of male bullshit associated with that but I have been subjected to the petulant rage and desire for retribution that can happen when a woman rejects a male.

Which was sort of my point above - there is no collective GC position here, everyone is coming at things from their own angle based on their own experiences, which means that we won't always agree. It doesn't seem productive to me to try and impose a "no, this is the angle we're officially taking" policy on GC women - we're not a political party, there's no whip, it's impractical as well as imo undesirable.

Reality, I don't think you understand what I mean. In order to match people correctly, i.e. according to their stated sexual orientation and dating preference, the Guardian would have to record whether someone was trans or not, wouldn't they? This they did not do. The Guardian would know that for some lesbians it would not be OK to date a transwoman, while for others it would. People feel strongly about this on both sides, so the most respectful thing to do would be to make enquiries and not assumptions. I think that what many posters here are objecting to is that the Guardian made the assumption that all lesbians are fine with this.

I agree that some of the comments on twitter are overblown but I also think that the whole episode tells us something important about the current dating scene and what people are and aren't allowed to do. Dating always follows conventions, and these change over time. That's why the Guardian blind date has the strange question about table manners. It's a social ritual. That the ritual now includes the idea that biological sex is not important when it comes to something that might result in sexual activity is quite a departure, in my opinion. Personally, I find the whole idea dates cringeworthy and reminiscent of the 1950s anyway ... no idea why a 'progressive' newspaper even has this section ...

Where's LGB Alliance on this? I'm tempted to email the guardian, why don't they think people are entitled to a sexuality?!

I wouldn't be surprised if there is imminently a wokest of the woke date wheeled out, where birds sing and flowers bloom and all is right with the trans agenda because they literally are men/women dating other men/women, just like they said.

The G need to do something to atone for this messup with the TRA crew.

For some reason I'm reminded of The Guardian's antics in 2004:

www.libdemvoice.org/timely-reminder-when-the-guardians-attempt-to-influence-us-politics-backfired-spectacularly-50185.html

Seems Anna isn't happy with Lara for ways she said, she is pissed of at people "attacking a person I spent a lovely evening with" and using it to further "an ideology I find abhorrent" or something like that

i want to bang my head against a wall about all this because none of this happens in a vacuum

however should respect Anna's wishes re situation

Hopefully the publicity means that if people are applying, they'll be very clear on their preferences regardless of the boxes on The Guardian form.

I'd forgotten about that incident where the Guardian attempted to smug Americans out of voting for Bush. Didn't really think that one through, did they?

Cologne was my breaking point with them but really, they've been a bit too convinced of their own moral authority for a long time.

Datun I think it's particularly unfair that Anna now has to face speculation about her sexuality from strangers online. Let's not do this to other women.

Going on a blind date organised by the guardian means your sexuality will, of course, be discussed. It's the whole point. Will they, won't they?

But Anna and her preferences, whether she was set up, whether she's deliberately part of a bigger set up, etc, isn't really relevant. It's not about individuals.

Lesbianism doesn't involve men.

This is about the Guardian’s conduct.

It only became a story when one datee publicly shamed the other for opting out of a second date and the Guardian confirmed they hadn’t disclosed sex/gender beforehand.

If the G had said “of course both parties knew - what kind of match-maker wouldn’t tell them!” - End of story. They did not.

They would have disclosed this to a straight man. That’s the issue - their conduct.

If I went on a Guardian blind date with a dude (I’m straight) who then tweeted his displeasure about me - I’d expect comments online.

If I then posted online supporting and affirming him (“lovely evening,” “happy with the match”) and calling those criticising him “abhorrent?”

I know it’s hard to imagine but think about it, people - read:

1. Jen’s tweets shaming a young woman;
2. the response, which praises Jen.

Imagine that is you, aged 23.

You would really want the whole discussion to end.

Remember she cannot respond to those unpleasant earlier TRA comments, they would rain abuse on her.

But she can respond to women so out of respect for her, I’ll leave it there.