Sonia Sodha on MB and the cotton ceiling

[lanadelgrey]

Go Sonia. www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/may/29/if-lesbian-prefers-same-sex-dates-thats-not-bigotry-desire-personal-thing

Also:

I do wonder if this is literally the only event ever on the subject ... same link twice ...of all the events like this running across the USA ....

Have you read the rest of the thread yet, dear poster?

Can't believe the transphobia! So genital-focussed. So sad

Let me check - you are saying that being gay is 'genital focussed'?

And that to be gay is 'transphobic'? Confirm, please.

Some questions for Lass.

10a) if the only way to eradicate genital preference in a woman was through exploration of gender theory and re-framing of her perceptions of what it means to be a man or woman, would this be an appropriate response?
10b) if the only way to eradicate genital preference in a woman was through damaging her opportunities to access employment, housing, and social support networks as a response to non-compliance, would this be an appropriate response?10c) if the only way to eradicate genital preference in a woman was through re-education at a dedicated facility, would this be an appropriate response?10d) if the only way to eradicate genital preference in a woman was through aversion therapy — inducing, for example, intense self-loathing and worthlessness in response to undesirable feelings– would this be an appropriate response?10e) if the only way to eradicate genital preference in a woman was through electroshock therapy, would this be an appropriate response?10f) if the only way to eradicate genital preference in a woman was through internment followed by six months of brothel work followed by murder, would this be an appropriate response?
10g) if not, why not?

Unanswerable questions

oh guys it's sarcasm, bit like the video hey. Sunday night stress?

Thank you for the reassurance!

Given the similarity of rhetoric and ideas, I'm just wondering if there's a crossover of influence somewhere.

Barry Gardiner, July 2020: Every identity has its gatekeepers: those who determine who does and who does not belong. I am old enough to remember the human suffering caused by the race classification boards in apartheid South Africa. Gender identity too has its gatekeepers.

twitter.com/ripx4nutmeg/status/1442783056033628165?

Text from email to one of Gardiner's constituents:

www.peaktrans.org/labour-mp-compares-opposing-gender-ideology-to-apartheid/

I don’t understand why this is about lesbians (unless it’s men punching down, surely not!). Are straight blokes told to “learn to cope” with women with penises who like men? Are the straight woke bros learning to set aside their “genital fetishes” or are they too busy lecturing lesbians?

"Superstraight" was a big thing about a year ago - not "woke bros" but started by young, straight men.

A 16 yr old guy in the USA, fed up with being harassed about not wanting to date "women with penises", made a TikTok video saying that he identified as only wanting to date biological women-born-women (some such wording).

He reasoned that, since "straight" was being used to include men who were interested in dating anyone who identified as a woman, there needed to be an "identity" for people who were definitively heterosexual: "superstraight".

Obviously, his life was threatened, his mother's life was threatened and her business was targeted by the #bekind brigade.

4chan and Man At Bus Stop spread misinformation that "SS" for "superstraight" referenced "SS" as in Nazis and that the colours of the Superstraight flag were chosen to align with Pornhub.

"Superstraights" (mainly young men) were horrified when lesbians explained to them about the Cotton Ceiling. Then gays piped up about the Boxer Ceiling and they were horrified all over again.

Soon there was an alliance of young Superstraight, Superlesbians, Supergays and Superbi's, all virtually high-fiving each other as "hecking cute and valid!"

Mumsnet thread:
www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4184352-Superstraight

There were numerous "Superstraight", "Supergay", "SSLGB" etc. communities on reddit that were swiftly banned whenever they were discovered by reddit mods.

Clearing up common misunderstandings regarding the super movement
web.archive.org/web/20210322090737/archive.ph/web/20210322090737/archive.ph/D8vSw

As a SuperLesbian, thank you. Genuinely, thank you.
web.archive.org/web/20210308015629/www.reddit.com/r/SuperStraight/comments/lza5qk/as_a_superlesbian_thank_you_genuinely_thank_you/

"SuperStraight" Twitter accounts sprang up for countries all over the world. Obviously many were banned for wrong-think but others are still posting:

Twitter searches

twitter.com/search?q=%23superstraight&src=typed_query&f=top

twitter.com/search?q=superstraight&src=typed_query

twitter.com/search?q=superstraight&src=typed_query&f=user

There are still Superstraight, SSLGB, LGBSS, etc. groups on Discord, Facebook, Telegram, Signal, Slack and so on.

Search for "Superstraight" on any video platform and you will find a mix of Superstraight and anti-superstraight content, eg.

YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/hashtag/superstraight/

There has been some cross-over and collaboration with GC individuals and initiatives, eg. Hamza Watani collaborating with Plebity

"“Identity Politics is Being Pushed Because it Disrupts Class Analysis" - Hamza Watani"

If you are on Twitter and you see GC women with "Superstraight" in their handles, display names or bios - this is what it is all about 👍

I think that article is fantastic, except this line: It is really a conflict of rights between people who want gender identity to replace biological sex in society and people, particularly women, who believe sex is relevant.
it’s a disagreement of opinion between those groups, but the women who want the concept of biological sex to disappear are still biologically female and their rights are in conflict with the ideology they espouse.

I think this focus is because the majority of mtf transitioners began as heterosexuals, so after transitioning they are still attracted by women, but the validation of their gender identity as women requires that the women they date must be Lesbians and cannot be straight or bi as that wouldn't be validating.

The proportion of mtf transitioners who are gay is much smaller, but you are right that I haven't seen them talking about the boxer ceiling or having seminars on how to persuade straight men to have sex with them.

I agree.

What's more, in this particular sense of the cotton ceiling, it really is a conflict of rights between females who want to be allowed to be homosexual without harassment and prejudice, and people who want the right to force them into unwanted hetero sex.

Or even more simply: the conflict of rights between those who want to keep their knickers on and not have unwanted sex, and those who demand to force the knickers to be taken off and the gatekept resource accessed. That resource being someone else's body.

The polite, nice dressing up of language provides way too much of an acceptable fig leaf on something that is just bloody awful behaviour.

From www.thetimes.co.uk/article/57da0612-e1a4-11ec-8bdd-c253e043f5f0?shareToken=ff71ca3ca0901d49cd11a04fb5a270bc

Under cross-examination by Bailey’s barrister, Ben Cooper QC, McGahey defended the idea of overcoming the cotton ceiling, and suggested that “you can persuade a lesbian that she might want to . . . have sex with a trans woman in a way that was not coercive”.

McGahey compared the idea of encouraging male-bodied people to break through the cotton ceiling and have sex with lesbians with Nelson Mandela’s fight to end racial segregation in post-apartheid South Africa.

McGahey’s comments at the tribunal appear to echo those made last year by Nancy Kelley, the chief executive of Stonewall, who likened not wanting to date transgender people with racial and other prejudices.

Quite.

A board spokesman said that the regulator was reviewing its social media guidance and intended to conduct a public consultation about possible revisions in the next few months.

I wonder if the BSB is also going to consider the content of interviews in which somebody misrepresents the substance of a protected belief in preference to clarity about that of their own?

“you can persuade a lesbian that she might want to . . . have sex with a trans woman in a way that was not coercive”.

Who talks, has ever talked, about 'persuading' a woman to have sex?

Creeps, that's who.

'Persuasion' is coercion. There it is. Right there.

You have started from a female saying no. I don't want to. I don't consent.

And you've had zero respect for her no, for her consent, and have set out to try and manipulate her into doing what you want.

Which in this case is to permit someone sexual access to her body.

There is no way to make this utter horror 'nice' no matter how you dress it up, and this ridiculous quote shows, the speaker knew damn well this was an awful thing, they did not have the courage to openly state what they believe in, and they're desperately trying to sanitise it. Whether this is because they themselves can't face upto the reality of it, or they know and approve of the horror of the reality but have some lingering awareness of how others will view them, who knows. I don't really care. It's still an absolute horror and people with balanced, healthy ability to respect others and to cope with 'no' do not behave like this. It's unhinged. It's worse than unhinged.

'Persuasion' is coercion.

Yep, 100%.

If you hear a woman say 'no' and decide that means you now are going to disregard that no and start trying to put pressure on her or talk her into saying 'yes' you are coercing her.

By definition it's coercive.

I think part of the problem is that we do live in a culture where coercing women into sex is largely accepted as mundane, everyday reality.

Robin Thicke made a popular chart topping record that's about coercion. The streets are full of men who are happy to 'neg' a woman or use other 'techniques' to coerce her into bed. We're only just starting to make tiny inroads into mainstream consciousness that for a builder to harass or catcall or wolfwhistle a woman is not a compliment or 'fun', or harmless bantz; it can also be intimidating, damaging, humiliating and abusive.

It's just that TRAs are positing a rainbow coloured happy-clappy version of rape culture; underneath, the assumption that women should accept being 'persuaded' into sex is no more acceptable than any common or garden MRA aiming to shame, manipulate or pressurise a woman into sex.

I think that's the part that truly sickens me.

The dressing up of all this as so 'nice' and 'kind' and 'tolerant' and 'progressive'.

As if you can polish the turd of sexual coercion enough to make it a lovely thing for a new age.

Yes. At least most MRAs aren't trying to pretend they're 'feminists' while they abuse women.

An interesting riposte www.vice.com/en/article/g5vx8j/guardian-trans-journalists

Thanks for that @lanadelgrey I really needed a laugh tonight.
That's some list of demands. I just can't stop laughing at them calling the Guardian transphobic 😂

Why, in that article, is there a tweet from IW saying "plenty of straight and lesbian pests [on dating sites] - but no hysteria over them". The whole article is about "lesbian pests" - or does IW not include a specific type of lesbian in IW's definition of lesbians, there?

It's so obvious how even the most outspoken TRAs clearly don't believe what they say.

For many same-sex attracted lesbians, the right to say no to all males literally defines their sexuality.

I do wish Sonia had take the time to describe other types of lesbians apart from the ones who are same sex attracted.

The whole article feels like the author is walking a tightrope trying to say what she really thinks without giving the activists ammunition to dismiss her as a transphobe. We end up feeling grateful for crumbs. The line about lesbians really pissed me off.