Wales going LGB+ woke

[Shedbuilder]

I love Wales. I lived there for too few years. Now I see the BBC is reporting that Mark Drakeford wants Wales to be the best place in the UK for LGB+ people:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-57986732

It's not entirely clear whether they're implementing their plan or consulting on it. It looks disastrous: they're planning to ban anything that could be described as conversion therapy. Just when Scandinavia, England and other progressive European countries start to open their eyes to the abuse of young people inherent in affirmation-only guidance, Wales intends to go full-tilt for affirmation-only. Anything to be more progressive than England. Like New Zealand and Canada: so in love with the idea of looking progressive that they're prepared to sacrifice women's rights on the altar of woke.

@Nefelibata33

Have I misunderstood something? Are you saying that you are in favour of conversion therapy? Which, in some cases, involves lesbian women being raped by men in the church? Just wondered. And what's the obsession with the T and the Q and the +? If you want to be accepted, why don't you try accepting others?

You are being disingenuous.

Useful thread from Lucy HunterBlackburn re the 'hate crime' warning on the consultation:

"Public servants should of course report clear cases of criminal offending witnessed while working to the police. But governments need to think very hard about implying that a response to a public consultation could constitute such an offence."

twitter.com/LucyHunterB/status/1420894321147092997

In case your question was genuine Nefelibata33, here's the Society for Evidence-based Gender Medicine explaining the implications of a 'conversion therapy' ban as proposed in the draft legislation.

The Danger of Conflating Ethical Psychotherapy with Conversion Therapy
segm.org/danger_of_conflation

[quote Olderbadger1]Useful thread from Lucy HunterBlackburn re the 'hate crime' warning on the consultation:

"Public servants should of course report clear cases of criminal offending witnessed while working to the police. But governments need to think very hard about implying that a response to a public consultation could constitute such an offence."

twitter.com/LucyHunterB/status/1420894321147092997[/quote]
Agreed.

When Mitch Kapor articulated the principle that "architecture is politics" at the founding of EFF, he was charging technologists with the moral duty to contemplate the kinds of social interactions their technological decisions would facilitate – and prohibit.

At question was nothing less than the character of the networked society. Would the vast, pluripotent, general purpose, interconnected network serve as a glorified video-on-demand service, the world's greatest pornography distribution system, a giant high-tech mall?

Or could it be a public square, and if so, who would have the loudest voices in that square, who would be excluded from it, who will set its rules, and how will they be enforced?

pluralistic.net/2021/07/03/beautiful

Our digital and consultation public square is very much beginning to resemble those pockets of cities that appear to be open but are, in fact, governed by a very different set of rules and might even have their own police force (e.g., City of London), or security that is not answerable to local agreements.

Who trusts these people who run consultations where they won't lay out definitions of 'hate speech' not to take it upon themselves to leak or doxx people who make contributions that annoy them? Or maybe there will even be a way to do this officially that will gain Stonewall loyalty points?

@Orf1abc

Does it never occur to those in power that a rise in attacks on LGB individuals may be because people are so generally pissed off with trans and gender ideology nonsense?

Imagine how bigoted you must be, to blame a minority group for the actions of ignorant thugs. That's a new low, even for this board.

Manipulative drivel. We always warned there would be a backlash thanks to the revolting threats and violence of trans activists. Did you think we were joking?

I completed the Welsh consultation document last night and I'm afraid I lost my temper with the whole thiing. They will not like my response!

@Orf1abc

Does it never occur to those in power that a rise in attacks on LGB individuals may be because people are so generally pissed off with trans and gender ideology nonsense?

Imagine how bigoted you must be, to blame a minority group for the actions of ignorant thugs. That's a new low, even for this board.

FYI, I'm a lesbian and I know that the actions of some very vocal and public transactivists have made life much more complicated for me and my lesbian friends.

My partner and I have had a neighbour whom we've lived beside without incident for years tell us that he's sick of 'your lot' making demands to access women's loos, take drag queens into libraries etc. By 'your lot' he clearly meant transactivists and gender idealogues. Because f***g Stonewall forcibly teamed the LGB and the TQ+ we are now all the same thing to a lot of ordinary folk.

Lesbians are at the bottom of the pile: looked down on by straight people, targeted for aggression by straight men and preyed on by autogynephilc transwomen. And you have the nerve to call me a bigot...

Merched Cymru position paper, (which is posted here) supports the need for further consideration in consulting and researching any unintended consequences of an all out ban.

A quote from Transgender Trend; "The addition of ‘gender identity’ to any policy on ‘gay conversion therapy’ leaves therapists with no option but to agree with a patient that they are really the opposite sex, foreclosing any possibility of exploration of feelings and meanings, or underlying issues/mental health problems that may have lead to a cross-sex identity, for fear of being accused of ‘conversion therapy.’ This puts children and young people particularly at risk of progressing to a medical transition with lifetime consequences they may later regret."

merchedcymru.wales/2021/05/12/consultation-on-conversion-therapy/

I'm gobsmacked after looking over the consultation document. It's full of wokespeak and little more than a compilation of the wishlists of a few organisations and edgy academics.

Where is the needs analysis and looking more deeply at the challenges LGB & T (not sure what the Q is meant to represent - it's still a slur to my generation) people face and how best to address them?

Surely, wherever you stand on trans issues, more research is needed to make sure resources are targeted and best meet the needs of the community. Maybe I'm naive, but I really did expect to see something about looking at the huge increase in young women wanting to identify out of womanhood. The review announced at a UK level doesn't seems to be happening. Why on earth can't it happen in Wales? The Action Plan seems to be concentrating on forcing social change, although I'm sceptical at how much of a dent it will make in actual ingrained homophobic or transphobic attitudes. Many teenagers struggling with what the implications of gender non-conformity might be, or with their sexuality, need access to better generic CAMHS and other support, not rainbows, sparkles and automatic affirmation. This is really worrying. How can a national government function if it is so gullible and so obviously just doing the bidding of a tiny clique of activists. So much for inclusion!

The same statement about hate speech appears on the consultation on the race equality action plan earlier this year. gov.wales/consultation-race-equality-action-plan-anti-racist-wales-html

I can't see it on any others. The age-friendly Wales consultation didn't have it, for example.

It's all dressed up in nice inclusive language and sounds very well meaning isn't it? (poor civil servants shouldn't have to wade through hate speech things they disagree with etc) But we obviously have no definition for what they consider to be hate speech in this context, and plenty of reason to be concerned that simple statements of fact might be treated as such. And no info on which 'authorities' they'll pass it to.

This seems doubly anti-democratic to me. Firstly in terms of a rather totalitarian threat over a person's responses to direct questions, which surely ought to be treated more like a private conversation. And secondly, suggesting upfront that only certain perspectives are acceptable is not an authentic consultation.

Old Crone, no one who is trans is being "converted" or gay or lesbian people. Some people are just the way they are, if you can't deal with it, you have a problem.

conversion therapy is a form of conversion therapy.

In some cases, lesbians are raped by decent, religious, law abiding, decent, God loving, decent, decent.... did I say decent people?

Are you a feminist? I am. Do you think bent religious types raping lesbians is cool?

Same goes for any kind of conversion therapy. I can't believe it's still legal, and it's 2021

I am being disingenuous. You're right. According to you. Fact is, you couldn't come up with a solid, intelligent reason why it's not OK. You just felt like accusing me of being disingenuous. That word sounds good, I'll accuse someone of it one day, yeah

Speaking as a lesbian who was raped by religious types among other things during conversion therapy, I think you should mind the way you express yourself, Nefelibata. I don't think you should be using trauma you clearly have no understanding of to discuss whether or not there is a culture of people believing their bodies or sexualities are wrong by the Trans movement. There's certainly a culture of the Q and the T shaming homosexual and bisexual people, so no, I would not support that.

And also echoing what Shed said upthread, which we've both mentioned on other threads.

Old Crone, no one who is trans is being "converted" or gay or lesbian people. Some people are just the way they are, if you can't deal with it, you have a problem.

When you say 'no one who is trans', what sort of person are you talking about? What is your definition of a person who 'is trans'?

@Nefelibata33

I am being disingenuous. You're right. According to you. Fact is, you couldn't come up with a solid, intelligent reason why it's not OK. You just felt like accusing me of being disingenuous. That word sounds good, I'll accuse someone of it one day, yeah

If the definition of "conversion therapy" is left vague, it can be expanded to include things like counselling, which will inevitably lead to affirmation-only policies. This will be really damaging for teenagers who need guidance.

You bringing rape into this is indeed disingenuous. Rape is already illegal, we don't need new laws to make something illegal when it is already illegal.

@IamNotDarling
You might appreciate this. A lot of very hacked off women are not taking well to that particular statement. Definitely a 'chilling' effect.

merchedcymru.wales/2021/07/31/will-the-welsh-government-listen-to-women/

@IamNotDarling

From the consultation document - “We will not tolerate hateful comments about a person’s sexual orientation, gender identity, race, religion or disability and any responses that contain hate speech will be passed to the authorities.”

I wonder how they’ll determine what is hate speech. Anyone living in Wales minded to do a request to see their policy on how they will determine what amounts to hateful speech?

I think what that means is that these things will be above any kind of criticism.

Great post Merched Cymru

I used to be proud of our government and particularly proud of our access to politicians and ministers in Wales. No longer. Women are consistently excluded from discussions about sex-based rights, unless they are the right sort of women with the right sort of evidence-free beliefs...

"With the drafting of the plan effectively outsourced to Stonewall Cymru and a commitment to gender self-ID in place, it’s likely to generate a strong response. The panel has been drawn exclusively from supporters of gender ideology. The chair has repeatedly used highly derogatory terms to refer to women she disagrees with on social media. There has been neither diversity of opinion nor debate in the formulation of this action plan."

It's so dispiriting - and frightening.