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.

Apologies what I meant is it might not be discussed with every mother but it will certainly be discussed where there is reason to. Although tbf I always ask lots of questions of medical practitioners as that’s just my nature, so for all I know I would have initiated the conversation myself.

*could have.

It’s also possible that I’m getting confused and thinking about my first pregnancy during which I was resident in Denmark. I have such a shit memory...

(Anyway this is getting waaay off on a tangent)

To get back to the discussion topic, if anyone does come across the comment relating to roller derby and male participants I described above, please do let me know where it is. It will have been in a recent thread, maybe the last couple of weeks. Thanks!

The mother is asked about blood types. If you're RhD negative and your baby turns out to be positive you need an anti D shot after the birth, so it's recorded on your notes.
Your partner's blood type however, is completely and utterly irrelevant.
No way was Sapphos asked that question. It's as meaningless in the mother's medical notes as her partner's car reg. number.

Ah ok now it makes sense! Thanks for that. I admit to skimming and commenting based on a complete misunderstanding!

Most of the lesbians I know are definitely not ok with being subsumed into the alphabet soup! Many of us resisted when Stonewall adopted the T etc. We believed our concerns would be diluted and or voices silenced. Little did we know how true that was and that we'd become the target for the vitriol of trans activists. Stonewall does not speak for me, or most of my friends.

The mother is asked about blood types. If you're RhD negative and your baby turns out to be positive you need an anti D shot after the birth, so it's recorded on your notes.

Most people are clueless as to their blood type though, so it’s part of the booking-in set of pregnancy blood tests.

I’ve had two children (and two blood transfusions) and have no idea what my blood type is (and my youngest child has had a years worth of fortnightly blood tests and about ten lots of cryoprecipitate and I have no idea what her blood type is either!)

Well, yes. The point is; the mother's is relevant and the partner's is not.

The sire's, if known, will give the likelihood of a problem (or not). The partner (whether wife, bidey-in or whatever else) has been known for the past many, many centuries to be possibly the sire of the baby but quite possibly not, so I really don't see his/her/their blood-group being something a medic would ask for -- if the partner is even known to the potential mother. What would be the point?

(I only knew my blood-group because it is unusual, and whenever I gave it in a hospital I was politely told that it would have to be tested again anyway. Hell, it was on my medical notes, which back in those days were paper not computer, and they still tested it again every time.)

I'm pretty sure my maternity booking form had a marital status box too. There was the option to tick civil partnership but as my wife and I are married I ticked married.

The conversation with the midwife went like this:

Midwife: do you know your blood type?

Me: Yes, I'm A negative

Midwife: Ah so you might need anti d injections. Do you know your partner's blood type?

Me: (thinking that's a strange question) yes. Also A negative

Midwife: oh right, if that's the case the baby will be rhesus negative so you won't need to have anti d

Me: (realising the misunderstanding) my partner isn't the baby's father, I'm in a same sex marriage so the baby was conceived using a sperm donor who is A positive.

Midwife: okay so you will definitely need the anti d.

Obviously I have no idea what would have happened if I hadn't cleared up the misunderstanding, but the rainbow lanyard the midwife was wearing made me feel more at ease.

So it was in fact just the one conversation that was perfectly straightforward, then.

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

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime I should have said 'my pregnancies' as this came up with my first pregnancy too. When giving birth to DD I was being examined and the midwife asked if my 'mum' (wife) wanted to wait outside. This stuff happens all the time in healthcare, as I'm sure any lesbian on the thread will confirm.

If you say so Sapphos.

You telling the midwife your donor was A positive should have had no bearing on whether or not you got anti-D injections or not. You may have not remembered the blood group correctly. You may have been given false information by the donor or donor company. It is never relied on, and you would have been tested and your baby tested regardless. It was a completely redundant question. I mean it’s even completely redundant to ask the pregnant woman her blood group because that’s going to be tested regardless because people are hopeless at remembering accurately and testing still needs to happen for numerous haematological reasons.

You’re either “misremembering” or you had the world’s most incompetent midwife. Luckily she was wearing a rainbow lanyard so you could feel comfortable pointing out how incompetent she was eh?

Cross post.

So did you have the same incompetent midwife both times or are you just unlucky enough to come across incompetent midwives both times?

I never said incompetent. She made assumptions. As did my previous midwife. As have countless other doctors, nurses and midwives over the years.

But her wearing a rainbow lanyard would have made it all ok. Or did; it's hard to be sure from your posts.

o.....kay.....

I’m saying it’s incompetent. It is incompetent to ask the question and make medical assumptions out of it. Because of that, midwives are taught that the blood group of a partner - donor or lesbian - is irrelevant and as such, there’s no need to ask it. And they don’t. Never seen it in my entire medical career, never seen it recorded anywhere, never happened with my own children, you’re the first person to ever say it’s happened, not once, but twice.

It’s medically incompetent to ask the question in the first place, or it didn’t happen. The assumptions about your relationship are irrelevant.

I am a lesbian and have quite an extensive circle of lesbian friends ranging in ages from late 20s to mid 50s - I don't know any that reject the other identities being added on to LGB, and certainly none that want to do away with the rainbow. The different IDs are the best bit about Pride, we all cheer each other on.

Is the tone of this thread what ‘being an ally to lesbians’ is going to feel like? Because if so you can keep it. Some of us have one view on this; others another. But don’t dare claim to speak for any of us or tell us what to do. Because the minute you do that you cease to be any kind of ally at all.

@Gormless I know right?1 Hello lesbian! We are your allies, and we will relentlessly hound you about your medical experiences and make you out to be liars!

If in order to be an ally of lesbians it is necessary to be unfailingly and completely believing of anything claimed by every lesbian at all times, then I doubt that many people are.

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime

If in order to be an ally of lesbians it is necessary to be unfailingly and completely believing of anything claimed by every lesbian at all times, then I doubt that many people are.

Well that's quite a jump, but hey.

It's not exactly winning the PR war to make claims about being allies to lesbians and then attacking them is it.

@Ninkanink
The thread you were looking for is www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3934160-Well-Ive-just-come-out-as-GC-on-Facebook
With the roller derby example you mentioned posted at Wed 10-Jun-20 09:44:00 on the thread.

Thank you very much! As I’d predicted I managed to get some of the details wrong but it still stands as a very good example of the sorts of problems this throw up for women, and by extension for lesbians.

Straight women have babies by donor too, and have babies who aren't their partners (surrogacy, infidelity, by rape, etc.) So midwives should be aware that there are other reasons for the partners blood type to be irrelevant to the baby. And that should be reflected in forms. However, I can see why in a busy job assumptions are sometimes made. Not saying it's right, just that I can see how it happens.

LGB alliance look really good. I feel like ideally there should be a group for LGB and a different group for T+ One based on sexuality and sex, the other based on gender. Historically there have not been issues and it looked like the issues facing all the communities of LGBT faced the same issues, but the issues have changed.

The minefield of hormones and surgical options, and the reinforcing of gender stereotypes, the erosion of woman and the bullying. The slurs on women. I don't know that much, but a lot of it seems intrinsically anti-homosexual. If you are a girl who likes girls then maybe you should have been born a boy? If you are still sure you are a girl who likes girls then you must accept TWAW and have sex with a penis anyway? Ffs. Just seems like classic Male on female violence. Nobody is allowed to just live without dick. Either you have to have your own or have sex with one.

Can we just stop making this all about the manhood? What about womanhood?