LGB Alliance to plan helpline with Lottery funding

[pombear]

Fantastic news.

I would link to their Twitter announcement, but in usual state of play, Twitter has marked it ' may not be appropriate for people under 18'. A helpline planned for 13 to 25 year olds, planned by a panel of experts in child protection, education, helpline delivery, fundraising and psychology.

Yep - shut them down (much better to have helplines planned by IT workers who took their child to Thailand...)

As LGB Alliance state there is no dedicated national service of its kind for young LGB people in the UK.

I'm sure the Lottery Fund will be getting a lot of feedback right now, given the outpouring of hyperbole against LGB Alliance right now on Twitter.

So they may appreciate feedback from those who may see this as a positive move too:

""We really value your feedback. If you have a comment or complaint about the services that we provide, or if there's something important you think we should know, we'd love to hear it. Please email us at [email protected]"

And as a disabled people I can tell you that of course we know our bodies are wrong, it's what being 'disabled' actually means: "a person who has a physical or mental impairment". Shock horror!

As a disabled people - you sure as hell cover all the bases don't you @Starlee?

Hearach15

"Should a pro-choice org go to a conference hosted by a Government seeking to restrict access to abortion?"

I'd say it was essential for them to attend.

What's your alternative? Put your fingers in your ears and hope it will all turn out ok?

who they believe are like "vegan cats"

You can keep mentioning this and we shall just keep pointing out that you have not produced anything coherent about what it is that LGB Alliance said and have simply continued with your 'vegan cats' narrative as if it is a marvellous gotcha.

All it shows is that John Nicolson took a screen grab of one tweet in a thread of tweets, and then actually twisted it to refer to a specific age group. One that the screengrab was not clear in targeting that screen grab.

Do you think a 4 year old child has any concept of abiding 'gender', that has not been shaped by an adults perspective?

Did you actually READ my post there earache?

I mean.... did you? Really?

Stonewall supports all LGBT people. So if the Government suddenly became pro-trans people but anti-gay it still would not attend. Because all the letters matter

Again, objective reality demonstrates that this is not true. Stonewall supports people who support their political position.

Homosexual people are absolutely not supported, Stonewall are actively homophobic and leading action to harass and forcibly drive homosexual people out of the support they set up.

These are facts. But I accept in your personal reality other things are happening and it's all lovely. Since I don't share your personal reality there isn't much point continuing to point out to you that what you are saying is in fact and reality just not real.

Do you apply any thinking to your posts? They all seem to be very 'shoot from the hip', and revolve around repeating points that don't actually seem to say what you think they say when you start to scrutinise the evidence or engage in any depth.

Is this how you process information that you gather?

Quite obviously not, @Helleofabore , that one is a bit blinkered in their reading and comprehension. They just keep repeating vegan cats, gay clubs and being against same sex marriage….. None of which mean what they steadfastly believe them to mean or provide evidence of.

So instead of being mature, attending the conference but registering their concerns, they they threw the LGB people coming to the conference under the bus because the T wasn’t getting what it wanted. So how can all the letters be equal. What are stonewall doing about all the threats of rape and murder to lesbians who refuse to accept TW in their dating pool. Are they saying the feelings of TW are more important than those of lesbians? In which case, how can all the letters be equal?

Just waiting for @Starlee to next claim they are intersex.

Afghan evacuation and marriage equality in NI all happened in the past two years. We can all (those of us who are not homophobes at least) be grateful to the role Stonewall played in these things.

LGB Alliance achievements in the past two years?

Calling for gay clubs to be shut down and 9k in scoping money for a hotline that will never happen.

Not comparable.

@Hearach15 You are right

LGBA was only formed September 2019, so is still a baby and yet to take off.
Stonewall was founded in 1989 - so I don't know why anyone would compare the achievements from the last 2 years of the 2 groups that are in 2 extremely different stages.

In regards to the gay clubs being shut down - was it gay clubs though? And, wasn't that due to monkepox? - ie to reduce the harm caused to those who were most at risk at the time? Can you please explain why that concern is wrong?

Yes because the current Government has made trans hostility a policy - e.g. not banning conversion therapy for trans people.

When I read this, I suspect that this poster has taken a superficial view that has been regurgitated from somewhere else on the internet and not actually engaged with the realities of how this legislation has been enacted in other countries and its failings.

The cognitive distortions that keep appearing on this thread is very enlightening when you recognise the pattern. The catastrophising, the polarisation, is all there for readers who may not have been exposed to these tactics before. They are very commonly deployed on MN by posters who have outsourced their critical thinking to 'self-identified' thought leaders and influencers.

I don't read this thinking that this poster has an in-depth view formed from extensive reading on that topic at all.

Ok, let's flip this.

Can any poster who has been posting incredibly prejudiced posts here about LGB Alliance, list things that Stonewall achieved in the first three years of existence?

I am keen to see what they achieved in those first years.

Please post links to evidence your claims.

LGBA was only formed September 2019, so is still a baby and yet to take off.
Stonewall was founded in 1989

Equally, compare the established set up, reach, huge amounts of funding including public funding, all the links to national and international organisations, and then compare that to a fledgeling group which has largely had to fight every step to do even the simplest thing or get any funds at all because Stonewall et al keep doing everything they can to prevent them.

But again, it's only factual reality. Much nicer to just go with a lot of made up spin and select the facts that support the story.

Should a pro-choice org go to a conference hosted by a Government seeking to restrict access to abortion?

yes.

How bizarre to see this come up again. Just to repeat it again for this specific example.

Yes, it is important that organisations, particularly those who are campaign organisations, follow other organisations on social media, engage respectfully with other organisations that they disagree with.

On one hand they deplore organisations for being in 'echo chambers' while on the other hypocritically say that organisations should not be engaging with people or organisations who disagree with them.

How the fuck do some posters think the world works?

I do wonder whether the public funding will be pulled back. Their arts funding was stopped once the Arts Council did some research into who they are.

"The London Community Foundation (LCF) announced its decision to support the LGB Alliance was under investigation, and the grant suspended, after it [became] “aware that the charitable status of the organisation is being questioned”."

www.artsprofessional.co.uk/news/lgb-alliance-grant-suspended-after-outcry

I suspect the lottery funding will go the same way.

Yes.... interesting isn't it, that a group who cannot countenance having another group offer alternative services, can then hostilely interfere with the funding that that organisation receives while an investigation is underway.

Almost like a recipe for destroying the first real competition the sector has seen....

Equally: Should women's rights org go to a conference hosted by a Government seeking to remove and redefine those rights in a way that smashes women's equality, access and legal protections to the benefit of male people?

This is actually happening, and yes. For God's sake yes. They've fought and fought for a voice at that table, to get their side of the story in there, to make people stop just for a second and realise who is being trampled underfoot by a carefully controlled narrative that only mentions the upsides for TQ+ people and hides the impact on others.

If they put their noses in the air and said they're not talking to anti-women groups, or going near anti-women organisations because they morally have cooties and yuck - their voices won't be heard at all and there go any chance of them being heard.

This is basic common sense to adults, surely?

And the privilege revealed by being able to say 'we're not coming to the conference' and expecting it to have impact? It's obvious. A group without power (like women's rights organisations, and the LGBA) aren't wanted and aren't missed, and have no power to make everyone go 'oh no!' and pander when they threaten to take their ball home.

Also basic common sense:

when any group, any at all, tell you not to listen to the other side of their arguments and views, to avoid hearing them, to help them silence anyone who may present them?

if you haven't got alarm bells clanging and red flags popping up in your mind you are really very worryingly naiive.

I don't think proportionality is a thing for posters who can only engage with polarised thinking and indulge in the cognitive dissonance we have seen.

Size, age of organisation etc... those realities don't seem to register. Only the hatred that they are keen to target the organisation with.

Yes I do believe some people are born in the wrong body. But that's not the same as telling children their body is wrong - their mind/soul/psyche, whatever you call the essence that makes them 'them' is right, their bodies are right, they just don't match up with each other.

I need to dig down into this more deeply.

So in a small minority of people, there is a “mismatch” between their mind (I’m going to ignore reference to a ‘soul’ since there is no objective evidence such a thing exists) and their body. This mismatch causes discomfort, distress, a desire to change the body to match the mind’s image of how it should be and, if this change is prevented, we’re led to believe the distress can cause suicidal ideation.

In any other scenario where such a mismatch exists, this would be considered a mental illness and treated with therapy to improve one’s self-image in line with objective reality. Why is that not the case here?

If the method of alleviating this distress is not therapy but is lifelong medication and surgery, what is the diagnostic criteria to be considered trans? Given the existence of post-surgical detransitioners and the evidence that a significant majority of gender-questioning children will reconcile with their birth sex if supported through puberty with watchful waiting, how are doctors identifying which children are definitely trans and which are not? Because to prescribe such life-altering treatment, including the potential removal of a child’s future fertility, without a very high degree of certainty that the child will not desist, would be barbaric, abhorrent and absolutely antithetical to the Hippocratic Oath. So can you please explain, or give me a link to, the very clear diagnostic criteria including the predictive tools required to avoid doing harm to those who would grow up to be content in their birth sex bodies?

people against gay marriage are homophobes.

loads of gay people were opposed to gay marriage, feeling that it was ‘heteronormative’

you don’t know much about your community do you?

So in a small minority of people, there is a “mismatch” between their mind (I’m going to ignore reference to a ‘soul’ since there is no objective evidence such a thing exists) and their body. This mismatch causes discomfort, distress, a desire to change the body to match the mind’s image of how it should be and, if this change is prevented, we’re led to believe the distress can cause suicidal ideation.

Since disabled people have been dragged into this as a point, I'll add here:

I don't believe I'm in the 'wrong' body and someone put me in a disintegrating one because of some mistake, and someone else should have been in this one. If you believe in some divine force placing separate and eternal souls in bodies then ok, but if they're divine how are they making these mistakes?

I have a grotty body. I fight with it every day. I get frustrated and angry with it, in my head I am able bodied and there is a constant clash between what I want to do and the reality of what my body does, but my mental health depends on coping with it and accepting it and working with it rather than rejecting it. My hcps and support community all focus on the mental health need of acceptance and understanding and finding peace within that, because otherwise, yes, suicidal ideation is not uncommon.

If someone could offer me surgery tomorrow that would give me an entirely 'normal' body that functioned in a healthy way? Yes of course I'd want it. If someone could offer me surgery that would merely make me 'look' like other people and present a facsimile but had endless side effects? Well now it's getting complicated, isn't it?

And many disabled people have fought for years against 'normalising' surgery that merely help them to look and be positioned like everyone else, because they are who they are and there should not be a 'norm' that they are compelled to get to rather than being able to accept themselves and be accepted in the way that they are. Like homosexual people for decades: we are proud of our history and differences, and ask for equality of opportunity and access.

I certainly don't expect people to change all their language based around their capacity to walk, for example. Or to expect that they don't walk in front of me and all use wheelchairs because it's distressing to me that they can walk and I can't, and to be confronted with 'cis' able bodied people when I'm identifying as able bodied from a wheelchair. I don't expect people to be entirely focused on me at all times and to centre me in every situation, and I'm capable of coping with charities and activities and groups that work for example with Autism or cancer or heart disease, without feeling immediately threatened and wanting to shut them down because they're not including me.

But this is what the TQ+ political position is.

I should have added there: there is a long history of 'normalising' surgery being carried out on children at the decision of adults, because to make them look more like everyone else was thought to be the right thing to do. The adults those children became talk about the pain, the side effects, the long term damage, and about an adult view or stereotypical ideas being enacted on them that they now very much resent. As a society we've been here many times before.

doesn't think people against gay marriage are homophobes.

Didn't we cover this on another thread earache where you were informed that Stonewall published guidance to reject the bill initially that was going through Parliament?

Maybe it was a different poster.

Do you also understand how parliament passes legislation? And that there will be some organisations and MPs will have reservations about a bill and how well it suits the purpose for which it is intended. They will vote down that bill, not because they do not support the concept, but because they do not think it fit for purpose in how it is worded.

I can see though that a person who takes a purely reactive view on information and does not engage and evaluate with the substance of that information might continue with such a polarised view.

The absolutist - either 100% for the concept and therefore any legislation should be passed even if it has loop holes are is poorly worded and if anyone disagrees for ANY reason, they are evil, vile haters.

And yes... I am surprised to have seen that phrase levelled at LGB Alliance given Stonewall's history.... Maybe hearache should go to the pub and meet some people who can 'educate' them.

I am not at all opposed to a helpline for LGB youth, I've never said I am.
But any helpline worth their salt would be happy to signpost a person to a more relevant helpline for the specific help they need.
If kids who "believe they are trans" inadvertently call the LGBA without realising that they specifically oppose and exclude trans people they will be faced with someone telling them they're "more likely to grow up lesbian or gay than be trans" (they have stated that many times), not at all helpful for a confused youngster who need UN-biased advice.

Using your analogy, the endometriosis helpline would be happy to re-direct prostate cancer sufferers to the relevant helpline straight away instead of trying to convince them they might actually have endometriosis instead.

"Should a pro-choice org go to a conference hosted by a Government seeking to restrict access to abortion?"

I'd say it was essential for them to attend.

What's your alternative? Put your fingers in your ears and hope it will all turn out ok?

"Should a pro-choice org go to a conference hosted by a Government seeking to restrict access to abortion?"

I'd say it was essential for them to attend.

What's your alternative? Put your fingers in your ears and hope it will all turn out ok?

When a transwoman attended the LGBA conference last year she was treated appallingly with a man screaming in her face that she shouldn't be there.