Stonewall change definition of transphobia - questioning gender identity ok now

[fromorbit]

Huge climb down. Looks like those pesky terf women were right all along AGAIN.

Saying that trans women are men is no longer "transphobic" according to Stonewall.

Dennis give good analysis and provides text:
1/ The gender borg have every right to be furious with @stonewalluk for sneakily ditching their belief in gender identity in their new definition of transphobia. Political transvestitism holds that men in dresses have soul-like female gender identities - Stonewall now denies this
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1885735444836388921.html

The reverse weasel move is an attempt to find a safe place to claim lost ground, but opens them up to attack from TA fanatics as well as looking more absurd to normal people. They staked everything on hating women and gay people and now want to retreat when it is unpopular.

Thank you for finding that definition, useless though it is😄

I'd hate love to be a fly on the wall during first dates - is this romantic? is it contact or interaction? is it asexual? is it platonic? or not platonic but not sexual either? Is that the time? Must dash...

Is that to say that "gender affirming care experts" are now suddenly experts in supporting people to detransition? Or am I misunderstanding this?

Re "romantic attraction".

One would need a special new version of 'The Rules', no?

Candlelit dinners, walks in the park/on the beach, icky cards with verses in, roses, jewellery from Pandora/Etsy, yes.

Detailed instructions on touching.

I presume anything overtly sexual is right out.

'Romantic attraction' reminds me of those fanfics that depict gay male relationships but are obviously written by straight women.

'Tim has had a crush on Brian for six months but has been too shy to do anything about it'

If a gay man had written it, he'd have thought six hours was more realistic.

I'm thinking of those 'school-girl crush'/hazy floaty slightly eroticised images of young girls.
You know, the kind of silly girlish romantic attraction to members of your own sex that you grow out of. Or not.

More ridiculous nonsense from Stonewall is not a surprise however I am staggered that they [still] think themselves to be the authority on definitions that have the potential to affect so many lives. The arrogance of Stonewall is off the scale.

Everything has to be a sexuality now, doesn't it? The whole aro/ace/demisexual thing always seemed to me to be a way of taking all the nuances of personal relationships, categorising them, and giving them a flag and parade.

I remember when Daria was on TV - this would have been the very early days of online fandoms - and lots of fans shipped Daria and Jane. Had MTV done a show about a lesbian couple in high school 25-plus years ago then it really would have been brave. Nowadays I wonder if it would be harder for them to show two girls with a really close platonic friendship.

Then again, I'm not sure today they could show a lesbian relationship, as opposed to a 'queer' relationship where at least one of the girls thinks she's a boy.

@onlytherain That's how I understood it too. Now that detransition is becoming too big to ignore, these groups seem to be trying to include detransitioners under their wing, so they are in fact still part of the rainbow community.

And then in a few years' time when the shit is really hitting the fan, they can claim they were pivotal in fighting for the rights of detransitioners- in much the same way that we hear about TW having been pivotal in fighting for gay rights back in the day.

Oh dear I'm struggling to understand the headline change here. Could someone explain it on a sentence please? So very tired right now!

I have been feeling the same.

Catching up on the latest comments I think it's that Stonewall has:

1. conceded that not everyone believes that we all have a gender identity
2. doubled down on its repurposing of the following words:

a) woman means anyone who says they are a woman, irrespective of their sex. Ditto for man.
b) gay and lesbian mean someone who is attracted to someone else with the same gender identity, irrespective of their sex

So in other words, they accept that people can disagree with them but they are going to continue to enforce the compelled language anyway.

I guess it's all going to depend on who wants to listen to them - it puts them more on par with a self-appointed preacher on a microphone in the streets telling passers-by how god will save them. Hopefully lawyers will recognise this parallel and will stop bending their interpretation of the law to match a belief that not everyone holds.

They could always go back to campaigning for gay rights

Romance! you left out romance, BonfireLady!

For some reason, BoeotianNightmare, Stonewall now defines homosexuality as
a romantic and/or sexual orientation towards someone of the same gender
[not sex, NB]
instead of the previous 'sexual orientation'

So far no-one has a clue why. Or what exactly a 'romantic orientation' is.
Watch out for a new version of the Progress flag, with the addition of a heart and a bunch of red roses😄

They can't sully themselves with helping gay people!

There is an aromantic pride flag, as below.

So a romantic (pride) flag would be... Stripes in the opposite colours on the colour wheel? Anyone want a go?

They do like a circle definition 😂 Ab out as helpful as a woman is anyone who says he's a woman.

Did you know some people who call themselves asexual do have and enjoy sex, but only with people they’re attracted to or have a connection with?

That's actually quite sad. And uncomfortable. Implies that the society around them expects them to have sex with whoever, regardless of how they feel about it. They seem to believe that"No. I'm not interested" is not enough, but that they have to excuse themselves with a label. Where does it come from? Why should people be expected to be sexually available?

So are lesbians not wanting ‘girl dick’ no longer akin to racists now?

Hard to keep up with the rapid backtracking and descent back into common sense.

I'm starting to have some sympathy for the old conservatives who used to complain about LGB activists taking historical or literary examples of people with close platonic same-sex friendships and reinterpreting them all as homosexual relationships. Which was sometimes and maybe often true, but kind of implied that people can't be close friends without wanting to shag each other.

Stonewall's 'romantic attraction' seems to be a similar thing. If I try to parse how this might apply in real life, it would probably be something like 'I don't actually want to go to bed with Liz, but I'd quite like to have a girlfriend type relationship with her'. So deriving from the ace stuff even if they aren't foregrounding that any more.

So... there are really close platonic friendships, and there are sexless marriages, and those things have existed forever without adding up to a sexual orientation. Would it be very cynical of me to think Stonewall are trying to sneakily inflate the number of people falling under the rainbow umbrella?

Well according to the SW definition I’m considered Demi sexual and come under the ACE spectrum which makes me part of the rainbow alphabet brigade rather than what I’d always considered myself a straight women who wasn’t into casual sex - who knew I’ve been one of the special ones all along?

Do I get an awareness week?

Romance! you left out romance, BonfireLady!

I did... it was hurting my head too much so I ignored it 😂 but.....

So... there are really close platonic friendships, and there are sexless marriages, and those things have existed forever without adding up to a sexual orientation. Would it be very cynical of me to think Stonewall are trying to sneakily inflate the number of people falling under the rainbow umbrella?

Boom. This has to be it ⬆️⬆️

It's like non-binary all over again, in that we can all see a little bit of ourselves in what's described, ergo it must be all be true and only those that are bigoted and stuck in their dinosaur ways can't see it.

It still means that the "we need to educate ourselves" fits neatly in place because at a casual glance, it feels like knowledge that's just out of reach but accessible if you open your mind. This is basic Thetan level one stuff, if you will (the analogy being that to progress further you need to clear out the blocks in your mind to unlock the true you), accessible to all who currently do believe or who want to believe that we have a gendered soul. Obviously people are welcome to believe it - I just don't happen to do so, and I certainly don't want it in law, education, healthcare etc.

So, if I like to date women- wine, dine, share a film and a box of chocolates- but shag men, what am I?

Come on, what flag do I get?

God, I’ve been doing it all wrong. No wonder life has been dissatisfying.

I’ve been trying to combine romance and sex because I didn’t realise there was a flag for me…

Stonewall have a new chief executive, Simon Blake, who is very media savvy and well connected. (I have worked for same organisation as him in the past.)

I wouldn't be surprised if he ends up in politics.

Is Romantic Attraction the new all road lead to Rome? 🇮🇹

I am a big fan of the Roman Republic. The Empire was also good but prefer the Republic. Does that make me a Romansexual or Romangender? Pronouns SP/QR