New sports club at DC’s high school only open to LGBTQ+ pupils and their allies

[SirChenjins]

Are they legally allowed to exclude GC pupils? Or pupils who are not one of the special alphabet children?

This is a really great club - nothing like the school has offered before. Seems a shame to limit attendance based on sexuality/gender ideology rather than interest/ability.

We’re in Scotland if that makes a difference.

The more I think about it, the weirder it is. Having sports segregated on the basis of sex makes sense on the basis of sex differences, but even then I think efforts should be made to have both boys and girls teams so girls can play football safely etc.
But the idea that a particular sport is only available to children who've picked a particular sexual orientation or gender identity is really odd.

@BlueBlubbaWhale
Do you make the same fuss when there's a girls netball team but not a boys one? or a boys football club but no girls one?

Yes. They're kids and it's school. All the sports should at least be offered to all the kids. Two teams, mixed-sex teams with roughly equal numbers of players of either sex, tagging out and in... Whatever works.

@Catiette
Some of what you are saying occurred to me also, but remember this is the only club at school offering this sport. That is problem number one.

The views on here simply mean that a lot of gay boys and men do not play sport. There is no way most gay teenage boys would go anywhere near their local football or rugby team.

I totally take your point and I agree.

But I think that if we had a third category and it didn't shut the problem down, it would highlight the fact that they are bullies and not victims.

Just like if we had gender neutral toilets in addition to single sex ones, any trans woman continuing to use the women's toilets despite having a safe space provided just for them would clearly not be doing it because they just needed to pee.

Women believing they should have recourse to same sex spaces and people understanding that humans can’t change sex are not why gay men experience homophobia is sport.

I think there’s a big difference between my hypothetical “Christian group based around another common interest acting as an extra social lubricant” and @MalagaNights’ “Christian-only tennis clubs”. Honestly, I’d find both a bit strange, but the second a bit unsettling. Which suggests the distinction is partly semantic. Which is kind of what I was arguing - the word “allies” has become an issue.

If “schools shouldn't be segregating activities based on protected characteristics”, where are we in our argument for female-only sport? Or a Muslim prayer room? They’re more obviously justifiable, but if they’re in the same spectrum as my Christian group meeting for tennis lessons, then by condemning one, don’t we jeopardise the others?

I agree schools shouldn’t “discriminate”. There’s a difference between that and meeting partial needs (female tennis, prayer rooms), & allowing groups to coalesce around common interests & act freely (the - increasingly surreal the more I type it! - Christian tennis players).

The issue, to me, is when such a group makes a presumption of prejudice, encourages prejudice or tries to legitimise prejudice etc. “Allies” risks doing this, as would the implicit “No atheists allowed!” in your version of my (now, in my imagination, somehow, be-cassocked & racquet-wielding) group of predominantly Christian players.

@Snowypeaks, yes, I know - & I do find it strange & potentially problematic, yes. But I also think saying, “Cos this doesn’t exist (a club for other people to play the sport), then neither should that (the club in question)!” is a risky argument to make as we also argue for female-only provision. It’s leveraged against us re: eg. rape crisis centres in another form: “You exclude trans people therefore you shouldn’t exist.” And has, in part, contributed to the loss of a lot of female-only provision. I know we can see the more subtle distinctions between the cases (ok, we’d say they’re not even remotely subtle!) But some of the people we’re arguing against? Subtlety & nuance ain’t their strong suit…

For as long as there are people who are happy to use sneering terminology like 'special alphabet children' there will be a need and a benefit of spaces for those people who don't wish to be subject to it.

I agree with catiette on a lot of this, I have no problem with the club/team but I do have a problem with the ‘allies’ bit

allies also suggests that any random can rock up, ‘friends’ would just be friends of the children in the club

For as long as there are people who are happy to use sneering terminology like 'special alphabet children' there will be a need and a benefit of spaces for those people who don't wish to be subject to it
Exactly, well said

The L, G or B children are as likely to experience homophobic bullying in an LGBTQ group as they are anywhere else.

I’d have thought lesbian girls would be more likely to experience homophobic bullying in an LGBTQ club. In order to be supportive trans allies - and we all know that’s the priority - they’d have to be open to mixed sex relationships with the trans members.

Can we have spaces for those of us who don't want to be subjected to offensive and dehumanising terminology like TERF, cis women or bodies with vaginas, or is that different for some reason?

@suggestionsplease1 Let's also hope that these same spaces benefit the lesbians who don't want to be accused of transphobia by the male transgirls. Or the 11 year olds who might not understand what it means to be an ally of the LGBetcetc and inadvertently say something that is construed as GC and be accused of being a terf as a result.

Yes, don't worry, there have been some people panic-mongering and fuelling unfounded beliefs that all trans people are out to demand sex with lesbians - but it is just that - panic mongering, and there is a very high level of support from lesbians towards the trans community.

"New research by Just Like Us has found that lesbians are the most likely of the whole LGBTQ+ community to be supportive of trans people. Lesbians are the most likely to say they know a trans person (92%), and also the most likely to say they are “supportive” or “very supportive” of trans people (96%). That’s compared to 89% of LGBTQ+ people overall, and just 69% of non-LGBTQ+ people."

https://www.gaytimes.co.uk/originals/lesbians-are-not-anti-trans/

https://www.justlikeus.org/blog/2023/03/31/trans-day-of-visibility-ally-lesbian/

What does being supportive of trans people mean?

Unless that is explained, your survey is fairly meaningless.

there have been some people panic-mongering and fuelling unfounded beliefs that all trans people are out to demand sex with lesbians

All trans people? Nah. Too many? Definitely.

Agreed - some excellent posts by Catiette.

Also finding it interesting how, despite various posts referring to a thread running currently which regards females not being allowed to meet without males, that those posts and that thread generally are being studiously avoided by many posters on this thread. How odd.

Yes, don't worry, there have been some people panic-mongering and fuelling unfounded beliefs that all trans people are out to demand sex with lesbians - but it is just that - panic mongering, and there is a very high level of support from lesbians towards the trans community.

😂

Yes, some people identify as this not happening. They identify as the evidence not existing no matter how many times it's shown to them too. Huge piles of it and they just can't see it or hear it. Women's voices seem to have that effect on them.

The 'high level of support' from homosexual women thrilled to do men is an ever interesting claim, heard it so often. Those claiming it identify too not having ever heard or seen any of the very very obvious issues with this happy statement.

The alleged massive herds of lesbians in favour of all homosexual women doing men (or being raped, killed, excluded, threatened with barbed wire baseball bats, take a look at terfisaslur.com for a bit of an example, you may need counselling afterwards because you've probably never seen such a bunch of extreme disturbing psychopathy in one place) invariably:

• Are all the poster's mates
• Come from groups where all the non co operative actually homosexual women have been forced out or battered into at least saying earnestly and loudly the required statement of loyalty to the flag
• Have a really interesting definition of 'homosexual'
• Will tell you that a woman using the word 'female' or 'homosexual' about herself is a red flag for a non compliant sinner who is damned
• Believe that it is fine to use any label you like if you like the feelz of it regardless of actual reality of definition and if this damages other groups what the hell, it makes you happy
• Will tell you earnestly that they are absolutely not rapey and do not believe in coercive sex, and that women refusing to do a male person on the grounds of her reality not revolving around a male person's thoughts, and expecting a right of defining her own sexuality is a sexual racist who has a social duty and must learn to do penis, or get back in the closet out of sight of decent people.

As you were.

Incidentally,

if you started up a vegan group, and then insisted that veganism must be inclusive of carnivores, and that carnivores are vegans if they say so, and meat IS a vegan food (dodgy science here, clownfish), and vegan has evolved because words evolve in meaning (unless you're too old and stupid), and no one should be gatekeeping words, and if you weren't white/old/female/extreme right wing/martian/ you'd understand that you just have to think what you're told by your betters

And then you shamed and bullied all the vegan members into either eating meat to prove their compliance (obviously at this point there's a flag) or excluded them? Until you had only the carniverous and a few compliants left?

You too could argue that there is absolutely no issue and vegans LOVE eating meat.

Indeed.

There are multiple posters in this thread who are of the view that there is a need for a specific LGBTQ+ (and allies) sports club to provide a safe space for those students where they will not be subjected to homophobic or transphobic bullying or comments such as "special alphabet people". Fine. They need a safe space. Got it.

But why is it that the same people who need this safe space are so opposed to female rape survivors having their own safe space to discuss their experiences of being raped that they are emailing venues in Brighton asking them not to host such a group because it excludes trans women?

Why do LGBTQ+ students need their own safe sports but female rape survivors can't have their own safe rape crisis groups?

No, not meaningless; the narrative on Mumsnet FWR tends to frame lesbians and transwomen as having an adversarial relationships - this serves a certain political direction, but of course this is not the reality on the ground.

In this survey lesbians described themselves as 'supportive' or 'very supportive' of trans peoples at higher numbers than any other demographic - it is a comparative exercise to show actually, this falsely portrayed narrative is clearly incorrect, otherwise the figures for lesbians would be lower than all other demographics surveyed, and not, in fact, the highest.

@SirChenjins ’Well, what is it ‘

incant tell if you’re being deliberately obtuse or not.

You'll have to give me a bit more than 4 words there @Perhapsperhapsto

And Nancy Kelley of Stonewall never ever compared same-sex attraction to racism, and Julia Serano didn’t complain in a book about how horrible and uncooperative ‘cis lesbians’ were, and Veronica Ivy didn’t say we should ‘learn to cope’ with heterosexual sex, and nobody ever has said that lesbians who don’t view transwomen as women for ALL purposes are bigots. And nobody tried to stop Jenny’s women only lesbian speed dating group and no lesbian-only social groups have been driven underground for refusing to be mixed sex.

So that’s ok then.

If you exclude all the ones who'll give you the wrong answer, and then exclusively ask all the ones who'll say what you want, you can prove it beautifully :)