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.

Is there a New Romantic flag for fans of Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet and other 80s groups?

If there is it should be edged with lace.

I don't know wtf they're saying now. But it will be more mindfuckery nonsense which supports men encroaching on women's spaces and rights. I doubt very much they're listening to people outside their fanbase.

Yes, it seems as though the expected default is (to put it in old-fashioned terms) Lust without Love, and that feeling something for your sexual partner as a person is an optional extra that has to be spelled out rather than assumed. A very transactional view of sexual relations.

A red flag from me, myplace - after all that romancing, you go off and shag some bloke??🙄
😉

Quite a male outlook that, traditionally I think.

I googled this flag [I know, I know, that's 3.5 minutes of my life I'll never get back!] and found out that it was designed in 2014 by somebody called Cameron Whimsy.

'The main color, green, was chosen as it is the opposite of red, which is most commonly associated with romantic love. The two shades of green represent the aromantic spectrum, white represents platonic love and friendship, and grey and black represent the different parts of the sexuality spectrum.'
Aromantic flag - Wikipedia

That doesn't make a lot of sense: 'two shades of green represent the aromantic spectrum' means what? But don't panic, Whimsy explains it further:

Whimsy described the meaning of the stripes in further detail:
green-light green - the aro-spectrum (and aromanticism itself represented by green because green belongs to us now hell yeah). this covers every identity under the aro umbrella - demi, grey, lith/akoi, wtf/quoiro, cupio etc. EVERYTHING. even ones that don’t have names yet.

white - basically the ‘platonic’ stripe - friendship/platonic and aesthetic attraction/queerplatonic relationships/family, the importance and validity of all non-romantic relationships and feelings and non-romantic forms of love etc. etc. etc. etc.

black-grey - the sexuality spectrum - acknowledging aro-aces, aromantic allosexuals, and everything in between because we are a diverse lot.[4]

So 'green belongs to us now hell yeah' ?- try saying that out loud in Dublin on March 17th😉

https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/love-sex/relationships/a23304501/aromantic/

😑🫣 How will the human race survive?

"“I may be cupioromantic, which means desiring a romantic relationship even though you don’t feel romantic attraction."

I'm going to stop quoting stuff now. It's like shooting fish in a barrel🙄
(That's just a figure of speech, BTW in case there are any ichthyoromantics reading this..)

"“I may be cupioromantic, which means desiring a romantic relationship even though you don’t feel romantic attraction."

I misread that as 'cuprioromantic' and thought it was something to do with copper - most confused.

But no, it's 'cupio' related to 'cupere', to desire (hence 'cupidity' and of course 'Cupid').

Still think attracted to copper sounds interesting. After all, in legends dragons and dwarfs are very much attracted to gold.

I still found asexual on the list of terms just now.
I looked as I am the mother of an asexual daughter who is in her 20s and has known that she did not experience sexual attraction since her teens.

Do any of you making dismissive comments and jokes about asexuality actually know any asexual people or are you just making assumptions to fit with your views and have a go at Stonewall? I am going to guess the latter.

(I am a fairly regular poster on MN including occasionally on FWR, but I have posted about my DC in other contexts, so I am not using my regular name).

You may be onto something here. Copper is in the same column as gold and silver in the periodic table.

The Guardian will just do complete radio silence. Standard.

It's as though no-one will respect your boundaries - or as though you don't feel entitled to have any - unless you can justify them with a scientific-sounding label of some kind that implies they are baked in and therefore involuntary.

It's a similar dynamic to having to call yourself an actual boy in order to be a tomboy with short hair.

It would be interesting to know whether both sexes go in for this kind of self-labelling at the same rate, what labels they choose, and when they deploy them.

The jokes are about the fact that people who do not experience sexual attraction - which is nothing new - now have a label, a flag and all the other trappings, and they apparently think it is something special worth sharing with the world.
It's been 'Stonewalled', so to speak.

In answer to your question - yes I know a few people who have never had sexual relationships, and I wouldn't be surprised if every family had at least one unmarried aunt or uncle who, as one of my uncles used to say, 'was just never bothered with that kind of thing.' No big deal, that was just one aspect of how he lived his full and happy life.

I hope your daughter also lives a full and happy life without sexual attraction, like asexual people have throughout history - except those who have been forced into unwanted sexual relationships of course.

MarieDeGournay · Today 20:21

I think Mr. Whimsy ate 6 cans of Alphabetti Spaghetti soup, threw up on the rug and poked the results with a stick. It was most likely the magic mushrooms that caused the vomiting.

I can't ride a unicycle. Can I have a flag?

Well of course we all know that asexuality is real. Sexologists have been studying it for maybe 100 years, and anyway we can all observe that there's a small but significant proportion of the population who just aren't interested in sex or relationships. And there's nothing wrong with that!

I think what we find concerning or sometimes funny are other things that go under the ace umbrella.

The kids embracing the label as a shield when they're asked their sexual orientation, as if that's an appropriate question for kids of 11 or 12.

The dodgy adults going around saying "Hey kids! Just because you're asexual doesn't mean you can't have lots of sex!"

Stonewall and similar orgs, not content with making up infinite niche sexual identities, trying to turn the absence of sexual desire into a sexual orientation with its own flag and pride events, to increase their political clout.

I don't think anyone has a problem with actual asexual people. We've more of a problem with the Captain Oveur types who are all over ace identity.

@Nothardtounderstand, I have a friend like your DD. Not interested and has never been interested in romantic relationships or sex.

But she doesn't use the word 'asexual', she's just who she is. 🤷🏼‍♀️ I don't see the need to pathologise it, and it's not an 'identity'- just part of the rich tapestry of humanity. There are many more interesting things about my friend than the fact she isn't interested in sex.

It’s also not fair on people like Nothardtounderstand’s DD that people claim an “asexual identity” on the basis of only wanting or enjoying having sex with people they have a connection with. Apart from people who enjoy regular one night stands, this is pretty much everyone else in the entire human race. Claiming this as some form of identity is indicative of how a certain cohort of people need the validation of identity politics to feel like they have a place in the world, instead of being just boring old humans with different personalities like the rest of us. And organisations like Stonewall validate this way of thinking.

Labelling sexuality from a young age is scandalous.
It’s sexualising children. 12 yr olds shouldn’t be encouraged to spend time wondering who they want to have sex with. They don’t need a frikin’ label if they don’t want sex yet, love their friend more than anyone else, fancy a boy they see at the bus stop.

And yes, lots of ‘never dated’ people in DH’s family. Pretty sure they are all autistic as well. Bloody good no one came for them with flags, decades ago. Sadly I have a they niece. One of her mums would without doubt been transed as a teen, with a history of abuse etc. There’s no sign yet of hormones and surgery thank God.

Considering that a lot of young girls choose the aromantic label, is it an extremely cynical ploy by Stonewall to get their fingers in the mangle and introduce the idea that accepting everyone under the umbrella has having equally valid orientations is a good thing? IME children of the 10/11/12 kind of age are still in a simplistic 'everyone should be nice and there shouldn't be any wars' mindset.

That sounds like people who are gay or bi (or indeed straight) saying “I don’t like labels” or “I don’t like to be put in a box”. It’s fine, you don’t have to use any of those terms to describe yourself, and no one has to call themselves asexual. But what I don’t like is the suggestion that asexual people aren’t entitled to a term by which to describe themselves to the world.

But what I don’t like is the suggestion that asexual people aren’t entitled to a term by which to describe themselves to the world.

But is that the most important thing about them? And is the world interested?

Most people of my acquaintance want to know whether a person is a professional and reliable colleague, a good friend, honest, interesting to talk to, good company, that kind of thing.

Is being bisexual the most interesting or important thing about me? Hopefully not, but it’s still useful to have a word that briefly describes this aspect of myself to people. Maybe one day we won’t need these labels and everyone can just be a complex and unique individual. But it seems to me right now people are still quite keen to put others in an easily understood sexuality category