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 🤯

... a series of tweets by trans athlete Veronica Ivy, then known as Rachel McKinnon, who wrote about hypothetical scenarios where trans people are rejected, and argued that "genital preferences" are transphobic.

I asked Veronica Ivy if she would speak to me but she did not want to.

I can't emphasise enough what a huge momentous turning point this is to see the BBC finally reporting what lesbians have been saying for 6 YEARS!!!

I was really pleased to read this article this morning.

I don't tend to post much on these boards but I do read - and I realise that yes it's been about 6 years since I've read on here about this being a problem.

I can barely believe my eyes. A long article on the BBC! My jaw is still on the floor about this article. It's not even just skimmed over, either - there is so much quite graphic detail. Can't believe I'm reading the words 'penis' and 'vagina' on a front page (of app) news story (I'm old)

www.reddit.com/r/Cringetopia/comments/qfnaa5/weird_als_daughter_has_something_to_say/

this link might be useful for the people who think that women's testimonies are insufficient evidence that this happens. I do not endorse the comments, the point of the link is the transwoman's video.

I think the Superstraight people collected a lot of cotton ceiling testimonies too?

Great to see this but it's very late coming and I fear a lot of damage has been done, and continues to be done, to young lesbians.

I'm putting this here in case there's someone saving links or in need of some proof, but the website Autostraddle is/was a 'lesbian' website for young women which actively pushed the lesbians sleeping with TW narrative. If I remember correctly they published an article several years ago about how to give a transwoman a blowjob. Can't find it now but there seems plenty of iffy stuff there.

Trigger warning!!--- the website gives me the ick ++ you've been warned++

www.autostraddle.com/so-you-can-fuck-us-whats-next-going-beyond-sex-with-trans-women-265262/

Wow, the BBC are frantically playing catch up here, aren’t they! Let’s hope they have finally realised they were backing the wrong horse all along.

Absolutely blows my mind that Stonewall, a supposedly LGBT charity, is arguing that not wanting to date a specific demographic is bigoted. Surely they can see that by that logic gay men are awful bigots for not dating women? Isn't that exactly what they used to campaign against? Are they now campaigning for L&G people to "just try" being straight?

I remember when I first heard about the cotton ceiling and being sickened by it, but at least reassured it wasn't mainstream, but if stonewall support it? Ffs.

@NecessaryScene

Another possible follow-up is explaining why the BBC felt the need to edit these words:

Another reported a trans woman physically forcing her to have sex after they went on a date.

"[They] threatened to out me as a terf and risk my job if I refused to sleep with [them]," she wrote. "I was too young to argue and had been brainwashed by queer theory so [they were] a 'woman' even if every fibre of my being was screaming throughout so I agreed to go home with [them]. [They] used physical force when I changed my mind upon seeing [their] penis and raped me."

That struck me as inappropriate too. Censoring the words of a rape victim in aid of political correctness? There was no need whatsoever, because this was a direct quote from a written statement and a victim disclosing what happened to her. In both of those circumstances, it is customary not to edit the words, but if the journalist perceives the quoted words to be inflammatory, there is usually a disclaimer.

I do appreciate the article, I thank the writer for tackling the issue and raising awareness but that was a poor decision. (It may not have been the writer who edited that, but at this point we don't know.)

Cotton ceiling workshop "was led by a trans writer and artist who later went to work for Stonewall (the organisation has asked the BBC not to name her because of safeguarding concerns)."

This is the same person who opened the door to 30-40 year old male abusers into an LGBT youth group to abuse teenage females. If you can stomach the heartbreaking details (and language used by the victim) you watch it here

Unbelievable, but wonderful, that the BBC are finally covering topics like this.

And just in case they change their minds

archive.md/xIRen

What's the best way to get feedback to the BBC, thanking them for running this?

Facebook whistleblower stuff about the affect of social media on teenagers and anorexia and not connect it with the elephant in the room with many families they know.

I know we're overwhelmed with events and we discuss what we can discuss but I was a little surprised that the threads on the FB algorithms and the documented indifference to the harms to young people (most girls) etc. didn't get more traction here. Probably just not the right time.

Extraordinary to see this on the BBC.

The article links to trans 'luminary'* Roz Kaveney's blog posts on the cotton ceiling where RK replies in the comments back in 2012:

"Also, to revert to your previous comment, if you think trans people who don't disclose their [biological sex] history to partners are guilty of rape, why do you defend cis people who refuse to recognize trans identity as authentic and have sex with trans people while disrespecting their sense of their own identity? Surely, if you are going to start flinging accusations of rape around they should apply at least equally to lesbians who sleep with trans men while not making it clear that they don't regard this as indicating their own bisexuality, but refuse to acknowledge their partner's truth. (But then, you don't seem to have any problem whatever with patronizing people.)

rozk.livejournal.com/445853.html.

• they certainly shed some light on what is going on 😱

As a slight aside, Veronica Ivy's random name change (does anyone have any idea what that was about?) really pisses me off. It makes it sound like trans woman Veronica Ivy was formerly known as Rachel McKinnon before transitioning, which makes it even more confusing for those who haven't been battle hardened in the gender wars.

One response I saw on Twitter equated the article to the "The Truth" in headline in the Sun about Hillsborough and queried whether the police should be brought in as the article was an incitement to violence

Conversion therapy of lesbians also invaded lesbian spaces such as the lesbian dating app HER where lesbians are kicked off for their sexual orientation and lesbian DIVA magazine now turned 'LGBTQI+' magazine

@doublemonkey: Autostraddle have been a lost cause for a while now. It’s really frustrating hearing people say the cotton ceiling is a transphobic myth when one of THE biggest lesbian websites is filled with articles like this: www.autostraddle.com/this-is-an-essay-about-penises/

Yep, it’s a long form essay about penis and why lesbians should give it a chance! And lesbian dating is also atrocious at the moment: a huge number of the profiles are males. It’s great to see this covered in the bbc because I can now share this with naysayers who believe this never happens.

Also shocked to see Ally Fogg rolling his eyes and “doubting” that a lesbian was pressurised into a threesome with a male. I thought we were supposed to believe women?

@mammajustkilledagnat

A rather delicate Scottish actor is having a mantrum about this article.

It's all about respecting peoples lived experience, until it comes to actual women and in particular lesbians, their lived experience is worth nothing to these people.

Delicate actor should sit down, shut up and let women talk. He might just learn something

@Pemmican

What's the best way to get feedback to the BBC, thanking them for running this?

I wouldn't get carried away with the gratitude, Pemmican, I looked back at the original article the writer notes as having brought this issue to her notice in the first place. She references 3 instances of women, presumably lesbians, sexually assaulting women by deception (passing themselves off as males), but no examples of transwomen assaulting women/lesbians, or indeed any reference to this issue at all. The inference that lesbians are more likely to be rapists than transwomen I found unbelievably and staggeringly offensive.

@Pemmican

What's the best way to get feedback to the BBC, thanking them for running this?

www.bbc.co.uk/contact/comments-feedback/#/Your%20comment

Surely they can see that by that logic gay men are awful bigots for not dating women? Isn't that exactly what they used to campaign against?

It is. Exactly.

So it turns out, even though TWAW some of them carry right on behaving like men who force unwilling females to have sex.

Talk about shooting themselves in the (foot?)

@Beowulfa

"Ashamed and embarrassed, she decided not to tell anyone."- young lesbian drunkenly coerced into sex with a transwoman.

All those who've dutifully chanted TWAW are indirectly responsible for this disgusting state of affairs.

Penny Mordaunt MP chanted it from the despatch box earlier this year, trying to pretend it was government policy - which it isn't. She's mates with the delicate Scots actor.

She was then demoted (again) in a reshuffle.

Tim Davie the DG of the BBC has been in post now for just over a year. Looks like he's finally turning things around. Interestingly he's a former Tory MP. More of a Liz Truss type than a Penny Mordaunt I would say in terms of understanding material reality and the law.

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.

That may be true, but the way to consider it is by thinking and maybe discussing, not experimentally sleeping with people you're not attracted to, just to see if it changes your mind. It's okay to reach the conclusion that yes, my preferences have been shaped by a whole pile of social conditioning from the day I was born, but I can live with that. I am not going to sleep with people I'm not attracted to. I don't get to sleep with all the people I am attracted to, for a variety of different reasons. It's okay to say no for any reason. Sex should only ever happen when it's mutually desired. No one is actually entitled to have sex, whatever men think.

@WinterTrees

As a slight aside, Veronica Ivy's random name change (does anyone have any idea what that was about?) really pisses me off. It makes it sound like trans woman Veronica Ivy was formerly known as Rachel McKinnon before transitioning, which makes it even more confusing for those who haven't been battle hardened in the gender wars.

I've been told that the world's first transgender track cycling champion changed name again, because it was a source of irritation that people kept using the surname McKinnon over the first name Rachel. So the cyclist formerly known as McKinnon decided to pick a new surname that also doubled as a first name more commonly associated with female people.