Be an ally to lesbians: stop using LGBTQ+

[Shedbuilder]

I'm a lesbian and I mentally parted company with Stonewall and began opposing it and a lot of other LGB organisations when they added the T and then the Q and then all the other identity letters to the original LGB.

LGB people are united by same-sex attraction. TQ and whatever are linked by their insistence on identity — defining themselves by feelings or whatever. LGB people are united by their experience of homophobia. Transgenderism, and its attack on sex, is inherently homophobic. The two cannot and could never exist comfortably together. As soon as Stonewall added the T to their constituency, it began working against its core community.

Stonewall and other organisations have done this by force. Uncoupling the LGB from the TQ+ is one of the most important things anyone with a GC stance can do.

Please, let us work towards making the letters LGBTQ+ a badge of ignorance and shame, not something that employers should be plastering everywhere as proof of how progressive they are.

Well you’ve made an awful lot of assumptions about what I think based on me disagreeing that trans people need to be kicked out of LGBT and that you can’t say you like trans people and in the same breath say that them being trans is inherently homophobic.

Nowhere on here have I ever said sex doesn’t matter, in fact to the contrary, sex does matter, trans women are trans women and are not the same as biological women. You can check my previous posts if you doubt that. I don’t think all trans people think sex isn’t real, I don’t think all trans people think lesbians are transphobic for not wanting to have sex with a penis, and I don’t think all trans people think that male bodies belong in female spaces, hence, I have nothing inherently against trans people and I don’t want them removed from LGBT, and I don’t appreciate someone speaking for me and telling our allies that’s what they should do.

I have been reading along but now feel like I want to stick my head round the door & say OP I hear you & I support lesbian women. I am grateful to the #gettheLout campaign & friends for opening my eyes.

No one's proposing that transpeople are kicked anywhere, Elsie. No need to use such violent language. But given that you say that sex is real and matters and that transwomen aren't women, and all the other things we appear to agree on, how can you think that LGB and TQ+ belong together?

LGB is about same-sex attraction, it's really easy. Transgender is all about an ideology that no one seems able to pin down or define. It's full of people who don't appear to agree with each other. Its aims seem equally indefinable. Transgender people now have the same rights as every other citizen of this country. Us older LGB people are all too aware of the time when we were second class citizens.

T should never have been paired with LGB. Transgender ideology is inherently homophobic and can't be twinned comfortably with homosexual rights. It was a forced marriage to start with and it's broken down completely and now we need to divorce and go our separate ways.

them being trans is inherently homophobic.

Go back and re read.

Transgenderism - a political movement and ideology - is inherently homophobic because it discounts the reality of biological sex as any classification or marker. A woman is anyone who defines as one. Which means that a homosexual female is criticised as a genital fetishist or worse for not being inclusive with her body of biological males who identify as women. Females choosing sexual partners on the basis of biology (homoSEXuality with the clue in the name) is apparently transphobic. Which has to mean that to not be transphobic involves being homophobic and being against homosexual people discriminating their sexual partners based on recognised biological sex.

The politics. The ideology.

Which is separate to an individual person. I don't for example think everyone who voted conservative at the last election hates disabled people, but I could easily argue that conservatism is disablist. Do you see the difference?

based on me disagreeing that trans people need to be kicked out of LGBT

No one, anywhere, has said this.

The discussion is about LGB people no longer using all the letters because of the clash of ideology with homosexual people's rights, and the treatment of lesbians. And support of the LGB alliance which focuses on homosexual people's needs and rights which are under attack from T centred LGBT movements.

No one, anywhere, at any time, has said anything about 'kicking' any group out. Where did you get that interpretation from?

Nowhere on here have I ever said sex doesn’t matter, in fact to the contrary, sex does matter, trans women are trans women and are not the same as biological women. You can check my previous posts if you doubt that. I don’t think all trans people think sex isn’t real, I don’t think all trans people think lesbians are transphobic for not wanting to have sex with a penis, and I don’t think all trans people think that male bodies belong in female spaces, hence, I have nothing inherently against trans people and I don’t want them removed from LGBT, and I don’t appreciate someone speaking for me and telling our allies that’s what they should do.

Excellent post Elsie. I feel exactly the same.

I only use and refer to LGB. T,Q,+ are made up and dangerous.

Sappho, Elsie, how do you live with the cognitive dissonance without your heads exploding?

So many thoughtful questions asked of you and no attempt at answering them.

Surely, rather than have controversy raging around this subject it should actually suit T to separate from the LGB so that they can pursue their interests without opposition from within the Stonewall tent?

But that would mean accepting that some people dissent and dissent affronts their overblown sense of righteousness. It's just not allowed. Forced teaming, with the emphasis on force.

I feel the same about rainbow lanyards as I do about other symbols of religion. Avoid all but the most banal conversation and get out asap.

I really hate the misuse of the word bullying. I have previously had to point out to an employee that if you deliberately join a conversation, knowing the majority disagree with you, and the majority of people continue to question and disagree with you it’s not bullying; it is having different opinions.

Please do not try and make yourself a victim as this undermines people who are genuinely bullied.

Gibbons I think most lurkers to this conversation are doing just that

I'm not sure why but LGB Alliance appears to be trending in the US (with predictable shouts of transphobia).

'The LGB Alliance is a hategroup. Pass it on' appears to be the slogan.

I suspect those lesbians on the thread who wish to retain the explicit connection between LGB and TQ+ etc. are coming from the perspective of political alliances, and the idea that as a lobbying block, these disparate groups in the burgeoning alphabet have more in common than not, and can achieve more by being one group than by being separate.

I suspect this is the disconnect, because those of us who disagree no longer accept that it is useful to remain a single grouping, particularly as the 'diversity' is both diluting the effectiveness of much campaigning, and some letters are quite simply, drowning out others, or even demanding things with are at odds with the rights of the other letters.

I don't think we will reach an agreement, especially as Sappho and Elsie seem quite determined to characterize this as specific animosity towards individual trans people, instead of an acknowledgement that the LGB and the QT+ need different things, regardless of opinions about validity.

"Throughout my pregnancy I had many confusing conversations with midwives about my partner's blood type (obviously not relevant)."

Please can everybody here who may be going to have a baby note that this is inaccurate? Women and babies can die if this is taken as being the truth. It by God IS a relevant question for a midwife/maternity doctor to want an answer to.

Blood type and factors are determined by genetics. A baby may have the blood type and Rh factor of either parent, or a combination of both parents. The most common type of blood type incompatibility is Rh disease (also known as Rh incompatibility). The Rh factor is a protein on the covering of red blood cells. If the Rh factor protein is present, the person is Rh positive. If the Rh factor protein isn’t present, the person is Rh negative. When the mother’s Rh factor is negative and the baby’s is positive, it can cause the mother’s immune system to make Rh antibodies that attack the baby’s red blood cells as foreign. Other maternal antibodies that may develop and cause complications include anti-Kell, anti-E, anti-jka and anti-fya.

So it is worth them checking. If the answer is "not known" they will need to be ready to take action to deal with what may be a very real problem. (And if you refuse to answer, for whatever reason, they will have to do a blood-test, which they prefer not to do if it is not necessary because it is a waste of time and resources.)

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime this is exactly my point.

It just so happens my wife and I are both rhesus negative. Our sperm donor is rhesus positive. At the booking apt the midwife asked for my partner's blood type, assuming my partner was the father of my child.

I realise it would have been very dangerous had i not felt comfortable to disclose we had used a sperm donor with a different blood type to my partner. I wouldn't have had the anti d injections. My baby could have got really sick.

A rainbow lanyard is a clear signal that's it's okay to disclose being in a lesbian relationship. I've been out and proud a long time and It still feels awkward saying I'm a lesbian in healthcare settings. The rainbows really help.

I really don't think a rainbow lanyard indicates that people are cool with a woman being a lesbian. They may be but it doesn't guarantee anything.

Shedbuilder that's your interpretation and that's fine. The rainbow lanyard has personally helped me as a lesbian in healthcare settings. I see the wearer as an ally.

Asking allies not to wear them and to make LGBT a badge of shame and ignorance is the exact opposite of what they are intended for.

There's several lesbians on this thread saying they find a rainbow lanyard a threatening political/quasi religious symbol, as it is made and circulated by the same political lobby that does not agree with homosexual women being homosexual, and supports things like throat punching and exclusion and baseball bats with barbed wire for females who displease them.

So no, the rainbows really don't help everyone. The views and misogynist behaviour of that political lobby have kind of stamped something much darker and nastier over the overt nice purpose of them.

Much of the ideology works in this same way: lovely on the surface with lots of mention of inclusion and love and tolerance, so if you give it a quick glance your heart is warmed and you think how nice. And then you catch a glimpse of what lies beneath that veneer and if you're female, you find this inclusion, love and tolerance certainly doesn't mean you, and the more you explore... well lets say, if you're the biological group being erased, it doesn't get any nicer for you.

Asking allies not to wear them and to make LGBT a badge of shame and ignorance

You keep saying this phrase.

I've asked you already once what you mean by it. If you're wearing a symbol of female oppression, then yes, you probably should realise it's not that nice a thing for females to see and yes, you should probably be a bit embarrassed you're wearing it.

Right Michelle, so you're saying if you don't personally like something then nobody should benefit from it?

If LGB&T were separate then the signally would be much clearer, which would be better for all.

*signalling. Stupid phone.