This year's pride month

[maybeuptight]

Just wondering if anyone thinks it might be different this year?

Last year it felt like you couldn't leave the house in June without encountering rainbow "Love is Love" posters, Tesco sold drag garden gnomes, and bacon lettuce tomato sandwiches turned into LGBT sandwiches in my local shop.

This year some local pride events have reported inadequate funding, and Stonewall have said they are in financial difficulties. But the Supreme Court ruling has also prompted lots of protests, so maybe people will feel motivated to get involved?

You STILL haven't addressed your biphobia.

You can't discriminate against lesbians for their views that lesbianism is based on sex. And that they are not sexually orientated to a certificate.

If you want to say that the purpose of pride is to promote transgenderism, which is anti-homosexuality, then you'll find no argument from me.

I think @PlanetJanette is skating dangerously close to Humpty Dumpty in Wonderland -

When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less

And suddenly men can be lesbians, despite the word meaning female same sex attraction. Neat trick.

If a lesbian is dating a transwoman, she’s in a heterosexual relationship by definition. Because heterosexual means different sexes and homosexual means the same sex.

It really isn’t complicated.

Transactivists always hide behind the opinion that no one has to have sex with someone they don't want to have sex with.

Whilst entirely true, it is sexual preference.

Lesbians not wanting to have sex with men who say they are women, is sexual orientation.

It's got fuck all to do with whether or not they just don't fancy them because of their personality, looks, past times, etc. It's because they're not sexually orientated towards them.

They could have so many things in common that would defy statistics, it wouldn't make the slightest bit of difference if they're not the right sex.

And it is a characteristic that is protected by law.

Pride is now for:

1. People who say they're the opposite sex
2. People who agree they need validation

No priority for gay people anymore!
Why not drop Pride and just call it Dysphoria March?

Because they won't get sponsorship for that.

Oh wait they already threw their toys out the pram because their sponsor decided to follow the law and now recognises that sex isn't a made up concept but actually real and now they can't have a march anyway.

I bet they couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery either because they'd be too busy arguing over whether a tap room was a real pub or just a bar that identifies as a pub.

One of the objectives of the parade being to insist that heterosexual males who call themselves lesbian are lesbian, and that the sexual orientation of lesbians is to include males.

This is lesbian erasure. This is homophobic.

Aja the Empress on X:

'This #PrideMonth I want to remind everyone that gay, lesbian, and bisexual people do not need medical intervention. We don’t need puberty blockers. We don’t need cross-sex hormones. We don’t need so-called “gender-affirming care.” We don’t need binders, surgery, or the rewriting of basic facts.

We don’t ask you to ignore what you can see and hear.
We don’t ask you to lie for us.

All we ask is to be treated like everyone else. Our sexuality is honestly the least interesting thing about us. We just want to get on with our lives without forcing people to say things they don’t believe, and without expecting the world to rearrange itself around us.

That’s very different from what we’re seeing now with the +TQ

The gender identity movement is demanding total conformity. It’s not just about how someone wants to live—it’s about making everyone else validate that choice, or else be called a bigot.
People are being sacked, silenced, or even arrested for stating basic biological facts. That’s not progress. That’s coercion.

We are not the same, and we never have been.

LGB people fought to be accepted as we are—not to force others to pretend. We never needed special language, medical intervention, or legal threats. We asked for fairness, privacy, and dignity—not for a new ideology to be imposed on everyone else.

Because being gay, lesbian, or bisexual doesn’t require anyone to lie.
It doesn’t require anyone to play along.
It just requires the world to let us live in peace.'

@PlanetJanette

Half of gay or lesbian adults say they have at least a fair amount in common with people who are bisexual (50%). A similar share (51%) say they have a lot in common with people who are straight.
Fewer (28%) say they have a lot in common with people who are transgender.
These figures are based on gay and lesbian adults who are not transgender.

« Thanks for posting that research showing 68% of gay and lesbian people feel a connection to the LGBTQ community. »

But the data doesn’t show that AT ALL . 28% of gay or lesbian adults say they ‘have a lot in common’ with people who are transgender. That means by simple mathematics, 62% ( nearly two thirds) do NOT feel they have ‘a lot’ in common with the 🏳️‍⚧️ People.

I know that your argument relies on a rather shaky grasp of biology, but key stage one subtraction ?

PlanetJanette decided to skip over the actual point I was making to focus on a different question. It’s not hard to see why.

I read something that one of the reasons companies liked pride so much is because it made them look ‘accessible’ on the cheap. Much cheaper than dealing with the problems and costs of disabled people.
With the new clarification on the law and the possible lawsuits/costs it’s actually not a cheap idea for them to be involved anymore.

I think that Pride is probably coming to a crossroads. It might be a few years yet before they need to choose a direction, but it will happen. And maybe would have had to happen even if it wasn't for all the gender stuff.

The issue as I see it is that what counts as Pride now is not actually about homosexual people as a whole. It's essentially a big summer sex themed party with a fair bit of kink thrown in, for people who are campy and share a lot of their political opinions.

There are rafs of homosexual people out there who don't much like camp, don't like drag, who are socially or politically conservative, and hate that their voices are being claimed as part of the Rainbow people.

Pride needs to become a more generalised summer festival or be reimginied in an image that captures a lot more of the gay community.

I mean yes - Pride absolutely does need to reorient itself away from big corporate sponsorship.

But the point is everyone trying to claim this is the fault of trans people driving sponsors away, rather than Pride choosing to sever ties, is nonsense.

You Know that this wasn’t a case of a sponsor pulling out because they’re scared of the backlash right? This was Pride rejecting Barclays not the other way around.

Oh that’s easy. I’m not biphobic. HTP.

Why are you so insistant that lesbians can date men rather than saying they are bisexual then?

Its homoSEXUAL not homoGENDERED.

So you’re rewriting the definition of lesbian from female homosexual to…. Anyone who fancies women. Righto. Do you realise how batshit that sounds? What other way is there to be a woman apart from being an adult human female? Can you answer without using sexist outdated stereotypes? No one else I’ve asked ever can. Maybe you’ll be the one to solve the puzzle. You don’t believe in that sexist nonsense called gender do you after all.

It’s not a consequence of the SC judgment. It’s just the EA 2010 combined with Forstater.

An organised Pride is almost certainly a service provider per EA 2010. Any protected-belief discrimination must be justified in order to be lawful.

I doubt exclusion of homosexual GCs simply for holding that belief (without threats or advocacy) could ever be lawful. With peaceful advocacy would be a more interesting case but I still think it would be found unlawful.

A reasonable parallel I think would be: can a large CofE-organised Christmas celebration open to the public and held in a public space exclude Catholics? (Or exclude Anglicans who oppose women priests, or support gay marriage, etc etc).

What’s your legal analysis of it?

So just to be clear, Barclays used to give Liverpool Pride free money.

Then, supreme court verdict, Barclays announce they will be obeying the law (you know, the one that recognises same sex attraction).

Because of this, Liverpool Pride says 'oh you're going to obey the law when says women and homosexual people exist? Then we don't want your money'. Then moans about not having any money and cancels Pride.

So Liverpool Pride is cancelled because Barclays said TWANW? Pride (formerly Gay Pride) is cancelled because Barclays won't break the law to make transpeople happy? And now all the (many) trans-inclusive LGB people have no Pride to go to?

I mean, how is that not the fault of the trans lobby?

Liverpool’s pride parade has been cancelled.

There are real lesbians who were banned from Pride because they refuse to accept trans women. Now you keep pretending that gay people who reject trans people and trans ideology simply don't exist.

Why are you denying LGB GC existance?

Haha!!

The reason they're severing ties is because Barclays disagree with them.

What happened first? They told Barclays we don't really want all your cash, or Barclays said, we don't agree with what you're doing??

Hardly anybody buys this bloody ideology. I'm amazed you're still pushing it, to be honest.

Disingenuous Janette.

I don't usually comment directly on the impact of TWAW on lesbian women because I am not one. There are plenty of marvelous lesbian women on FWR who do not me to speak for them.

However, since you have flat out called me a liar, this time I will.

Let's look at what I actually said, the full thing, shall we?

"To be fair, it is Janette who is saying female people who only fancy female people are not lesbians, just people who happen to only fancy a certain type of person."

Now, I think it's obvious that what I meant is that "Janette is saying female people who only fancy female are not by definition Lesbian because Janette does not believe that is what Lesbian means".

And at this point, I could take your approach and claim, Humpty-Dumpty-like, that what I meant, my lived reality, is the real and authorative meaning, and your meaning, your truth, is not to be respected.

But I'm better than that.

So I will apologise for my clumsy wording and clarify my point.

You accept as "Lesbian" people of either sex who both identify as people of Woman-gender and fancy people of Woman-gender. Yes, some of them happen to be female people who only fancy female people but that's not a given nor a defining factor. It is just kind of incidental, like there are lesbians who prefer talller partners or have brown eyes or come from Bristol.

So while you do allow that some lesbians may be female people who only fancy female people (and apologies again for my poor wording earlier unintentionally implying you did not), by your rules female people who only fancy female might also be: straight (female women who only fancy trans men, trans men who only fancy female women), gay (trans men who only fancy trans men) or bi (female people who fancy both trans men and female women, but not trans women or male man), or pan (fancy only female people regardless of their gender). It's not at all a given that they will be lesbian at all. There's only a weak connection, not a causal relationship. By your rules you certainly can't assume that a female person who only fancies female people is a lesbian, hence my original statement "Janette who is saying female people who only fancy female people are not lesbians, just people who happen to only fancy a certain type of person")

Now, after this verbose but hopefully clearer explanation, we finally get to the important question.

Does it really matter?

I think yes.

When you decide someone's sexuality is just a personal preference like fancying rich men or blonde women you make it politically and socially meaningless. You make it just a personal thing, meaningful to the indiviudal sure but not something that matters in any bigger way than that, not something other people should care about. And so you disconnect the people who have it from each other. You take the word Lesbian away and leave nothing in its place, and you change these women from a group with something meaningful in common who want that thing to be acknowledged and respected and visible into just a bunch of disparate people. Surely that is the opposite of what Pride once stood for?

You say you don't police people's sexuality but I think you do. You may not police whether it's reasonable for someone to say "we are the same" but you do police whether it's reasonable for someone to say "no we are not". And the right to say "no, I am not that" is just as important as the right to say "I am this". Maybe for women even more important since we are so often defined by others' narratives about us.

But you know what the worst thing about this is? I think you probably are one of these original meaning lesbians, a female person who only fancies female people. I think you know this to be true about yourself. But you have been lead to believe that it is not acceptable for you to acknowledge this is significant to you, not acceptable for you and women like you to have a name that is yours and yours alone, simply because it upsets some male people.

Sexuality is important. It is not just a preference. Or if it is, then so is the sexuality of everyone else and we should ditch all the labels, no L,G or B, and simply say that we all have our own individual preferences.

But what we can't do is keep the labels for some people's sexualities but not for others. Being understood to be a female person who knows she is only attracted to female people is meaningful and it is important to people and so it deserves a name in its own right and to be respected at Pride along with all the other sexualities even if that is upsetting to the male people who do not want to admit the sexuality exists.

Liverpool Pride cancelled this year due to funding issues. They've cut ties with their previous sponsor, Barclays.

What a relief! I've not attended for years now.

And that is because the big sponsors are no longer playing ball in the way that the organisers would like them to.