Pride: Some women no longer feel safe at what’s meant to be a celebration of all things LGBT

[IwantToRetire]

Last year, Oxfam was forced to apologise after posting an animation for Pride Month featuring a character who many said resembled JK Rowling, depicted with red eyes and wearing a badge bearing the word “Terf” – an acronym of “trans-exclusionary radical feminist” used as a slur against feminists deemed transphobic.

Such disputes may on the surface appear minor, but there are worries among those who were there in the early days of the Pride marches that they are a sign of a more dangerous malaise. They warn that transgender activism has sown bitter divisions within the LGBT community and is now threatening to derail the movement they helped to build.

the clash between lesbian and trans rights has become so pronounced that one group of women has felt compelled to set up a grassroots campaign called “Get the L Out”, to protest at Pride events.

In recent years its members have attended parades in cities across the UK, carrying banners bearing slogans such as “Lesbians don’t like penises” and “Transgenderism erases lesbians”.

Liane Timmermann, a member of “Get the L Out”, says: “Pride was previously a political movement for lesbians and gays and then it was totally hijacked by this gender-identity movement
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“Trans activists have got higher up on the Pride board and it’s just become shocking.

“Lesbians who are same-sex attracted are not welcome at Pride now.”
Timmermann adds that, initially, Pride organisers were uncertain how to handle the group.

Members of the lesbian rights group were gently asked to leave one London Pride event, she says, but were ultimately allowed to stay because it would cause more disruption to forcibly eject them.

Pride in London, which did not respond to questions from The Telegraph, said at the time, in 2018: “They demanded to march behind the rainbow flag, which marks the official start of our parade. We did not allow that as we did not want to legitimise them or their message.”

However, as time has gone on attitudes have hardened. In 2022, police stepped in to remove the campaigners from Cardiff Pride after they were judged to be stoking a “confrontation” with transgender attendees.

And this schism within the LGBT community over trans ideology is set to widen. On June 29, the day of London’s annual Pride march, Jenny Watson, a 32-year-old lesbian activist, will hold an alternative rally in the capital, because she believes that the main event no longer represents women like her.

Similar to the members of “Get the L Out”, she feels that it has become dominated by the transgender movement and a growing number of men in “hypersexualised” outfits.

“Pride used to be simple and fun,” says Watson, who went to her first march at 18.

“But it’s just turned into this sexualised circus with men in bondage gear or wearing ball gags and lots of women just don’t feel comfortable to be there.

Just a few paragraphs from a much longer article at https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/06/17/pride-trans-activists-lgbt-debate-divided/

So strange to find lesbians being given a voice in the Telegraph that Guardian would never allow!

Can also be read at https://archive.ph/o7XEg

But do you accept that maybe, just maybe, Pride events are not the squeaky clean family friendly events that you are trying to imply they are?

Personally I don't care what people wear at Pride, just advertise it appropriately as a 16+ age appropriate event.

I remember when the London Pride post-march festival was in Finsbury Park, the letters were still LGB and we were still fighting Section 28, being surprised at the number of non-LGB people there who seemed to have no idea what it was about.

Thinking about it now, that’s vastly preferable to non-LGB people being there because they’re TQIA etc.

Surely the issue is with “spicy straights” dominating the parade and changing it for their own narcissistic ends. The woman in that video doesn’t look like a respectful ally supporting the parade but someone who is going to draw attention and who agrees to interviews to speak about it.

Slightly off topic maybe but I accidentally ended up in the middle of pride in London last year with my 2 tween daughters.
4pm in central London, it was one of the most scary experiences I’ve ever had. Not even remotely family friendly, my children were nearly physically separated from me and crushed in an awful drunken crowd of men. They were so rude and unkind. I was pretty shook up.

Pride perpetuates certain stereotypes around homosexuality. A confused teenager is only question themselves more because they're not like what they see at Pride.

Don't think it's good for young teenage boys to go to Pride and then think that when they grow up they've got to wear bondage or drag.

Young teenage girls are made to think that if they're gay they shouldn't say no to a man self-identifying as female. That is heavily promoted by Pride.

And even worse, around gender.

Just been watching some clips ‘all age/family friendly’ pride from America (San Fran, Washington)

It’s all daytime and in the streets - oh my god its grim and just people strutting about naked/stabbing genitals/simulating sex, very sexualised costumes…

and of course it will try to come over here, as it tends to.

not for kids.

I was there at London Pride on Saturday. For context I used to go every year (not always London but wherever I lived at the time - have been in Cardiff, Liverpool, Manchester, Belfast) from late 90s to about 2014.

Not sure if the change has been gradual or sudden but it was different this year. No longer recognisable as the Pride I knew.

Used to be all adults, maybe some families for the parade. lesbians have always been a minority and dwindling year on year but definitely used to be represented. Grassroots lesbian organisations, that sort of thing.

Yes the cocks and leather would come out on Old Compton street after the main events and that's fine, the rest of us would just avoid those areas and let the guys get on with it like the consenting adults they are.

My impressions on Saturday: dull, insipid, helplessly watered down. All corporatised - no more grassroots orgs but all Tesco, HSBC, Barclays, plus extractive industies. NHS trusts had bouji expensive looking floats and banners so I'm glad my taxpayer money went there as opposed to more beds and shorter waiting times, lol.

The majority of attendees that I could see, after the gay guys, were young women with some sort of queer identity. Now I'm bi but my gaydar is good and I'd say a fair proportion of them were very shy awkward straight girls rather than budding babydykes. Lots of them seemed to be trying to present as male but in a very grungy deliberately ugly way. Shouted low self esteem. One girl I saw in the queue for the loos had a shirt with a big hand made slogan "Autistic & queer". Not sure what that's got to do with being gay.

Lots of people criticise Pride for the overt display of male gay sexaulaity but tbh I never had an issue with that as long as it was kept to Soho and after the main event. pride is a carnival after all and peope get drunk and frisky at carnivals. I'd much rather that than the insipid event I saw on Saturday which felt more like a social event for shy and anxious teens than a big proud gay and lesbian bash.

Just my opinion! I was there from 2pm to about 7pm and this is just one person's opinion based on what I personally saw.

"Not sure what that's got to do with being gay."

@CantDealwithChristmas that's the thing, it doesn't even pretend to be Gay Pride any more. Pride in London declares and advertises itself as "A home for every part of London’s LGBTQ+ community." It's Queer Pride now.

I don't think it's even that. It felt more like a student protest for Gaza/climate/student loans/global communism/insert other cause of the week, peopled by girls with social anxiety and cropped hair.

I also wondered whether they've lost funding since the collapse of the Trans grift because the music acts and performances were notably lower quality than they used to be. I headed to the Burlesque stage hoping to see amazonian drag queens doing edgy performance art for adults - which is what drag should be. What I saw was three women giving a barely acceptable amateur performance of Whitney Houston hits in fairly dowdy dresses. How is that burlesque or drag or gay???

According to its website, this year's Pride cost £1.7 million to produce.

As to funding, it says that "the organisation and event is funded by donations, fundraising and partnerships with organisations". Which explains all those corporate displays.

There's a list here of the acts - no idea whether they're any good.
https://www.mylondon.news/whats-on/whats-on-news/london-pride-2024-full-list-29436589

I thought handing over the start of the parade to a grifting narcissist straight woman not wearing very much who does not want to shag anyone masquerading as a repressed minority was basically just taking the piss out of everyone.

Haven't really heard about it much this year, definitely more low key in the media/social media than previous years.

I thought handing over the start of the parade to a grifting narcissist straight woman not wearing very much who does not want to shag anyone masquerading as a repressed minority was basically just taking the piss out of everyone.

FFS.

This is absolute nonsense.

'Mainly men in fetish gear' is absolute BS. Thousands of people march in London Pride, for example. I would say 90%+ of them are dressed as they would be on any day out in London - perhaps just with more colourful clothes or close branded with whatever organisation they are marching with.

'Mainly men in fetish gear' is just a flat out lie.

Are some people in fetish gear? Sure. That's been the case with pride for at least 20 years. But 'mainly men in fetish gear' = just plain dishonest.

And will erode any goodwill you might have had. Seeing a man like that,who would once have been arrested on sight, makes.me realise that this is a country in decline. Young girls conned into having mastectomies and then being used in advertisements is just sick, sick, sick. The fetishists who join the parade are sick too as well as the organisers who allow them.
LBA was smart to dissociate themselves from these elements.