What do you think about the rainbow flag?

[DJLippy]

Does anyone else get a shudder when they see a rainbow flag outside a venue? Harry the Owl compared it to a Nazi flag and I'm inclined to agree.

I'm Bisexual so I should be thrilled to find all these inclusive spaces but I just feel a stab of anxiety and make a mental note to steer well clear. It's a real physiological reaction not something I can control.

A few years ago I used to love seeing the pride flag outside bars. I guess back then it actually meant something. Now I feel like it's actually a sign of exclusion - that anyone who doesn't believe that twaw is not safe there.

Also it does kind of imply that all the other venues are a threat to the LGBTQI++ people. I actually get a lot less grief being with a woman in a normie bar than I would in a gay bar. What's more its often just random cafes and shops which as far as I am aware have no gay history. Just feels like a cheap virtue signal by straight woke folk.

I'd be interested in hearing from people who are same sex attracted. Do you feel that the flag which used to represent your community been appropriated by male supremacists? Do you self exclude from spaces which fly the rainbow flag?

Sorry, Sappho, I missed where anyone said that your feelings and opinions aren’t valid. I also missed where you were respecting others’ opinions that you didn’t agree with, your posts have come across to me as arguing that other women’s experiences and feelings were wrong because they didn’t match your own. Probably because you used descriptors such as ‘ridiculous’ and ‘homophobic’ to describe others views. You’ve had a post deleted for accusing another poster of lying. Apologies for misunderstanding that you meant all this with respect.

Apology accepted Cwenthryth

What do you find difficult about being a lesbian or a bisexual woman?

I’m not going to help you continue to derail the thread. You can always start another one about women’s experiences of harrassment and discrimination due to their sexuality, this one is about experiences of and feelings around the hijacking of the rainbow flag.

Cwenthryth as a lesbian or a bisexual woman, what does the rainbow flag mean to you? How did it feature in your coming out journey?

I gave my response to the OP above - read the thread

I relayed the experiences of my same sex attracted teenage stepdaughter (that rainbows everywhere, especially in school, signify an empty promise, as she is subjected to lesbophobic bullying that the staff seem unable or unwilling to do anything about).
I don’t really care if someone thinks I should stay in my own lane, I’m not going to stop speaking about the shitty reality for young lesbians right now. Lots of my adult lesbian friends have been happily partnered for years and have no experience of what’s happening with young women right now. LGBT youth places are all staffed by young gay men or T people. If you aren’t sports inclined there are are hardly any young lesbians in the public eye. Shits hard and the ability to feel proud is getting harder and harder.
A young gay student at my DsD’s school has been moved to the girls class for PE and Games. Not because he identifies as a girl (and he doesn’t change with them) but because he is subjected to such ferocious bullying by the sporty boys.
My DsD couldn’t understand how upset that made me, she thought I should be pleased he was safer now. I thought the wretched little homophobic shits should be disciplined, expelled if necessary, don’t single the victim out for potential further ridicule for being the only boy playing netball for the next three years (and deny the girls the right to play on single sex teams but that’s a whole other issue).

Schools seem more concerned about uniform and hairstyle than keeping pupils safe right now. The teachers have rainbow lanyards and laces and run an LGBT after school club but anyone seen to attend gets bullied, so the kids who would benefit from the support don’t dare go.

No wonder DsD would rather be a straight boy than a lesbian. My heart hurts for her.

By the way? I find your completely redundant reference to the Nazi flag incredibly offensive Learn some history before tossing out fallacious and irrelevant comparisons

Err... @SapphosRock didn't compare, if you read the post again was referencing someone else who did.

Jaysus, Sappho, you're not the only lesbian on the thread, you're not the only one who has faced homophobia in different life situations, and your dismissing that others are upset by TRA bullies is absolutely hand wavey arrogance.

It's lovely that you find the rainbow to be everything it once was.

I don't. I find it vacuous and empty most of the time now, and if I see someone wearing it, I now have no idea if they would have the slightest clue about what being a lesbian means and I probably wouldn't feel all that comfortable with them.

You seem completely unable to accept that lesbians and bisexual women on the thread can genuinely have a different reaction to the flag than you, which is your problem, of course, but what's getting on my tits is your ongoing attitude that no one else on the thread has experienced homophobia. You're wrong. You're entitled to your delighted positive view of the rainbow, but no one else is compelled to share it if they don't see it the way you do.

Does anyone else get a shudder when they see a rainbow flag outside a venue? Harry the Owl compared it to a Nazi flag and I'm inclined to agree.

This bit - she was merely saying WTF? to

If anyone wants to explain the ‘transphobia’ in holding up placards that say things like ‘lesbian not queer’ then please do. I don’t see that at all.

Get the L out surveyed lesbian women and they had had some terrible experiences of coercion and ostracism directly due to wanting to assert same sex attraction, link to report

www.gettheloutuk.com/blog/category/research/lesbians-at-ground-zero.html

See also:

‘... our findings throw up several questions:
Who is on the wrong side of history when the GBT community operates a large-scale gaslighting of lesbians to accept the mantra that “trans women are women”; penises are deemed to be a female organ; and heterosexual intercourse is now redefined as a lesbian sexual practice?

Who is on the wrong side of history when the GBT community uncritically supports a population of transwomen who identify as lesbians to coerce lesbians into having sex with transwomen against their will?

Who is on the wrong side of history when lesbians’ sexual boundaries are disrespected and publicly demonised as hateful by the very charities whose purpose it is to defend them?

Who are the GBT organisations protecting by refusing to engage with lesbians’ very serious concerns?

Major gay, bisexual and trans organisations such as Stonewall and Pride in London should hang their heads in shame for ignoring our rights. They do not represent us.’

Quoted from blog:
www.gettheloutuk.com/blog/category/our-research.html

Well, yeah, I think Sappho was suggesting that Pride is so she can hold hand with her wife/partner and be happily, openly lesbian, as long as she doesn't mention what that means.

Because holding up a sign specifically saying what it means would be 'transphobic' because it would remind some men that they were never going to be acceptable sexual partners, and lesbians really should just be grateful they can hold hands in public. Asserting their rights beyond that is mean and unnecessary.

Which is an interesting stance to take if your other point on the thread is how much the rainbow flag is needed because of all the homophobia everywhere. Looks like another version of 'women, you've got all the rights you really need now, just nod and smile, there's a good girl, don't rock the boat.'

Being 'bullied' by strangers on Twitter for not wanted to sleep with trans women is so far down on our list of things to get upset about

Err speak for yourself. I think you’d find a lot of lesbians find this a big issue.

And NHS do pay for IVF for same sex couples. I have a lesbian married couple in my family and they both had IVF treatments.

I've started a separate thread about a fascinating perspective from Lachlan Stuart - it ends:

But we need to remember three important things about ourselves [as gay men]: the communities we built are licensed communities of purchasing power; those who seek to speak for us, to singularise us, have never sought permission; and we've ALWAYS shat on and excluded the lesbians.

No more.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3835697-Lachlan-Stuarts-perspective-on-social-change-relating-to-aids-epidemic-of-1980s

And NHS do pay for IVF for same sex couples. I have a lesbian married couple in my family and they both had IVF treatments.

Nope. Certainly not in Brighton and Hove and pretty much the whole of the UK. It's incredibly rare for same sex couples to get NHS funding for IVF in the UK.

Male factor infertility is funded pretty much everywhere. Usually 3 cycles.

All the women who claim to be outraged about the treatment of lesbians are oddly silent about this glaring inequality we face.

Each CCG in England can make its own local funding decision and these are not collected together and published by the NHS anywhere as far as I can tell, so it’s very hard to get a clear national picture of who gets funding for IVF and why. I don’t know about the other UK countries.
I can well believe that CCGs make all sorts of unequal and unfair and discriminatory decisions in their policies and so this could impact unfairly on lesbian couples. The whole postcode lottery is notorious though and has been for years, so not to minimise, quite the opposite but it will not be just lesbians affected.

There was that CCG recently which refused to pay for single women to have IVF because they thought it was bad for the child (I would have to look it up but that was the basic gist)
I don’t know why it is still left as a local decision making thing when that creates such unfairness.

Sorry I know it isn't rainbow flag related but yes I agree the postcode lottery for IVF is totally shit and I don't understand why some families are deemed worthy and some aren't.

I think the only way for lesbians to get IVF on the NHS is by proving they have had 12 failed IUI attempts at a licensed clinic. Seeing as each IUI will cost approx £2k including donor sperm then they will already be £24k down before they get 'free' IVF.

This is ten years out of date now. Would be interesting to see it done again:
www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2009/aug/06/fertility-problems-nhs
My suspicions are that more trusts would say yes to same sex couples, but less would be available overall.

They tried to scrap all NHS funded IVF in my area about 2 years ago, but after public outcry will now fund one cycle, as long as the woman undergoing treatments partner is also childless. I can see how that could be argued to discriminate against women in same sex relationships (both women would be entitled if they were partnered with men) but also how it can be argued as equal (all couples with one existing child are disqualified).

It doesn't bother me but then I don't hate trans people as much as most of Mumsnet does. I will say that asexuals have no place in the LGBT community though. If you're not trans, and you don't experience same sex attraction, you're not LGBT, and I wish to fuck that LGBTQIA wasn't a thing because it's always used in appropriate situations. There is not ONE country where asexuals are persecuted by the government, asexuals were not targeted in the Holocaust, I could go on.

Also, the red poppy was never changed to a rainbow poppy.

And as a Jew, comparing the rainbow flag to the swastika is just a teensy bit fucking offensive. You know what the Nazis did to LGBT people? Pink triangles, anyone?

Forgot to mention btw, I'm bisexual.

INAPPROPRIATE situations. G-d I wish this site had an edit button.

This thread is being discussed on Twitter twitter.com/vonny_bravo/status/1233736565475696640

None of them have actually read the fucking thread though, have they? Just a sentence from Lippy’s OP.

I don't hate trans people as much as most of Mumsnet does

No one hates trans people. We like women's and girl's rights.

Phil I think it’s really interesting that you don’t think asexual, intersex, queer-not-otherwise-specified people don’t belong in LGBT+, but T does belong with LGB? Why is that where you draw your line?

I think the only way for lesbians to get IVF on the NHS is by proving they have had 12 failed IUI attempts at a licensed clinic. Seeing as each IUI will cost approx £2k including donor sperm then they will already be £24k down before they get 'free' IVF

Again wrong.

The same sex couple in family just met the normal criteria.