BBC article about cotton ceiling

[GingerAndTheBiscuits]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-57853385 including Angela Wild, Rose of Dawn and Debbie Hayton. There’s no way this would have been published even just a few months ago 🤯

I think everything in that article is very carefully worded and thought out, particularly in light of the recent podcast.

Very careful to ensure that Stonewall get a full quote (and what a quote it is!) as well as hearing lesbians and LGBA. Screenshots from TRAs, careful to say who has been approached for comment on the issue.

This is it now from the BBC, there won't be any going back to the days where Stonewall rule the roost, every article from them now on this issue is going to be very obviously balanced and have views from all sides. And thank God!

I'm actually crying with relief, even as I'm expecting the other shoe to drop and the Beeb to pull the article.
The storm of protest is hideous to experience, but TRAs always do the best heavy lifting for us when others think our claims are too far fetched.

And, without putting too finer point on it, anyone 'feminist' who thinks this is a non issue and other things are more important can sit with the cold empty vacuum of their own moral integrity.

[quote whatwasIgoingtosay]I have sent feedback to the BBC thanking them for publishing this, etc. Please do the same, everyone. They reckon that one piece of feedback represents the views of about 100 others, so if we all write in it will be seen as massive vindication and encouragement. Here's the link again (and thanks to others who have posted it): www.bbc.co.uk/contact/comments-feedback/#/review[/quote]

Please do send feed back. I've already seen one tra who claims to work in sexual health send negative feedback.

Blood, please don't worry it's a minority I'm following very closely on twitter. But there are younger teachers and obviously providers of questionable teaching materials who agree with the likes of Ash Sarkar on this.

It's a very carefully written article - and I can't believe Nancy Kelley's statement. That's one that will haunt her, I think.

mobile.twitter.com/transscribe/status/1452967182837719041 It doesn't happen, it never happens, despite the Overcoming the Cotton Ceiling seminars, the abuse lesbians have spoken out about, all the tweets talking about how 'genital preferences' are transphobic and describing the violence they'd like to enact against 'cis lesbians' and those Riley J Dennis videos from a few years back that definitely don't exist.

Now, of course, this is not all trans women. Of course it isn't. But it is too many, and as the article says, it's often done by non-trans people, often straight men, as well. It's homophobic, misogynistic and downright cruel. But they won't reflect. They'll just deny.

And it matters a lot to everyone of us with same sex oriented family and friends and that feels like a very big number.

It should matter to all women.
I'm not gay, I have no close friends or family who are gay, but I was so pleased when I spotted this article on the BBC.
It's the start of something, isn't it. People recognising that the trans ideology doesn't trump everything else, that biological sex matters and ignoring that has consequences. Which is something that matters for all women's rights, and safeguarding children.

[quote Ereshkigalangcleg]Here's a thread of evidence I made starting in mid 2018, some of it has been taken down but not all

"Cotton Ceiling" evidence thread www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3294339-cotton-ceiling-evidence-thread[/quote]
The evidence has been sitting here for years, hasn't it? That's ... what ... 3 years.

@Flammkuchen

It’s now the most popular article on the BBC news app

It's No 7 on my phone.

@manatsu

mobile.twitter.com/transscribe/status/1452967182837719041 It doesn't happen, it never happens, despite the Overcoming the Cotton Ceiling seminars, the abuse lesbians have spoken out about, all the tweets talking about how 'genital preferences' are transphobic and describing the violence they'd like to enact against 'cis lesbians' and those Riley J Dennis videos from a few years back that definitely don't exist.

Now, of course, this is not all trans women. Of course it isn't. But it is too many, and as the article says, it's often done by non-trans people, often straight men, as well. It's homophobic, misogynistic and downright cruel. But they won't reflect. They'll just deny.

Planned Parenthood are a huge organisation. They ran a seminar on overcoming lesbian resistance. Is this a minority view within the 'community'?

I would be really interested to hear how many people who identify as LGBTQ think that 'genital preferences are transphobic'.

@GingerAndTheBiscuits

Stonewall: “Nobody should ever be pressured into dating, or pressured into dating people they aren't attracted to. But if you find that when dating, you are writing off entire groups of people, like people of colour, fat people, disabled people or trans people, then it's worth considering how societal prejudices may have shaped your attractions.“

This is conversion therapy by any other name isn’t it? “if you find that when dating, you are writing off entire groups of people, like men, or women, then it's worth considering how societal prejudices may have shaped your attractions.” So sexuality is nurture not nature and we can all be shaped out of it.

Yes it is. Pressurising people by whatever means, or attempting to change who they want to have sex with is rape, however it is dressed up. Unless we accept the innate womeness theory, being a lesbian, by definition, entails a genital preference.

@Tanith

"I see LOJ is going bonkers on Twitter again. Should someone take one for the team and ask him about how many transmen he's been in relationships with. Because his preference for dick is clearly transphobic."

Odd, isn't it?
I'm quite sure I saw LOJ saying he would not be attracted to a transman and it was homophobic to question him on this. Maybe I imagined that exchange, because it's completely at odds with what he's saying today.

Aint no hypocrite quite like LOJ.

mobile.twitter.com/grroary/status/1277265612721590273

<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150329070352/firewomon.wordpress.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/web/20150329070352/firewomon.wordpress.com/

One of the things that opened my eyes to this was reading about the Cotton Ceiling and seeing a comment saying (not an exact quote) that lesbians needed help to be able to cope with a penis in sex and thinking that needing to cope and an enjoyable sexual encounter did not sit well together and it sounded to me a lot like rape.

I want my daughter and her friends to have a chance of meeting other young FEMALE lesbians. It's a restricted dating pool as it is, given the ratio of lesbian to straight women.

Insisting that every dating app, every lesbian bar, every supposedly female-only event has to cater to males as well is just such crappy, inconsiderate, bad behaviour and disadvantages an already disadvantaged minority. Why on earth isn't Stonewall helping them out here rather than campaigning against lesbian-only events?

@WarriorN

Blood, please don't worry it's a minority I'm following very closely on twitter. But there are younger teachers and obviously providers of questionable teaching materials who agree with the likes of Ash Sarkar on this.

I’m on a Twitter time out.

But secondary schools have how many teachers. Even a minority could easily be there and influence kids.

I can’t imagine how anyone who does safeguarding training would still be able to support stonewall. The cognitive dissonance must be an ocean.

@Berthatydfil

One of the things that opened my eyes to this was reading about the Cotton Ceiling and seeing a comment saying (not an exact quote) that lesbians needed help to be able to cope with a penis in sex and thinking that needing to cope and an enjoyable sexual encounter did not sit well together and it sounded to me a lot like rape.

Absolutely agree with the post, but mostly... Best Name Ever! (From a Penarth girl...!)

Cotton ceiling is such a crass term. I've just been reading about it.

@MistandMud

I want my daughter and her friends to have a chance of meeting other young FEMALE lesbians. It's a restricted dating pool as it is, given the ratio of lesbian to straight women.

Insisting that every dating app, every lesbian bar, every supposedly female-only event has to cater to males as well is just such crappy, inconsiderate, bad behaviour and disadvantages an already disadvantaged minority. Why on earth isn't Stonewall helping them out here rather than campaigning against lesbian-only events?

Because lesbians were used to get gay & bisexual men rights. As women are always support humans.

Now stonewall have regulated them back to their rightful place as walking holes to fuck. Like the rest of us women.

Kelley's argument is a reword of Srinivasan's Right to Sex where she
problematises the nature of desire in a way that would banish any flicker of desire that you ever felt again if you scrutinised it in such a fashion.

@EmbarrassingHadrosaurus Srinivasan's latest in the London Review of Books is about human sex with animals. Queer theory really does seem to have taken her down the rabbit hole ... Err, no pun intended ...

@Flammkuchen

One point that is not highlighted enough about Stonewall is that they EMPLOY the person who ran the Cotton Ceiling workshops. They knew about the Cotton Ceiling workshops, and decided that this was a suitable employee.

At my SW employer I had ‘diversity training’ from that same person in January this year. I found that shocking/appalling and it was the moment that I woke up to what was going on.

I think this drives home that this attitude is a feature, not a bug. It's an integral part of Stonewall's beliefs - that homosexual orientation is prejudiced.

I can't believe I'm writing that and that we have been posting on here about it for years - it's still surprising to me.

@VladmirsPoutine

Cotton ceiling is such a crass term. I've just been reading about it.

The visuals of it are just horrific aren't they?

Everyone should read this article. I cried when I read the experience of "Chloe" . How have we ended up here? How can Stonewall think what they are saying is ok?!

Just catching up with this now, but some of the comments on social media are so depressing. It's ultimately an article where women are describing their experiences of being coerced into sex and so many responses are either to dismiss them, disbelieve them or blame them. It's like we're going backwards.

I've seen this bbc article denounced as transphobic but I'm actually unsure as whether this is because:

1. they agree with Stonewall that people should not have a sexual orientation based on physical sex or
2. it makes TW look bad because it's only a small number of TW who think this (in which case they should surely denounce it?)

I know gay men who are very very against Stonewall. I hope they now take this into their workplaces and tell their employers to stop promoting this misogynistic crap.