Flags removed ahead of Pride event = hate crime?

[Windy23]

Not sure how to feel about this. I don't agree with someone taking the flags down but is it really a hate crime?

BBC News - Hate crime probe after Arran Pride flags removed
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgq3ekyjeveo

Well let's see what the police and procurator fiscal decide is the prosecutable offence and then the appropriate court will hold a trial.

It's not condoning homophobia to point out that there are probably better things the police could be focusing their limited resources on.

I'd find this point more convincing if worse behaviour towards gender critical feminists wasn't merely condoned by, but actively encouraged by and sometimes even carried out by the police.

Oh suggestions loves it here really! He gets to pompously lecture us with no one to stop him

but then as suggestions believes two men with cocks fucking are lesbians if they identify as women it’s not as if suggestions gets taken particularly seriously

Again, this would be a great point if the police actually investigated all crimes.

In reality, people are victims of theft and criminal damage of property worth much more than rainbow flags and the police don't bother to investigate or even call back.

Last week there was a thread on AIBU by a poster whose friend had stayed overnight in her house and deliberately damaged £300 worth of jewellery in an act of petty revenge because she thought they were both interested in the same bloke.

Most people said that even reporting it to the police would be a ridiculous thing to do because the police have much better things to do than investigate incidents like that and it would be a waste of police time and resources. Even those who said the OP should report it were in agreement that nothing would happen and at most she would get a crime reference number.

Yet this makes the news?

Because Mumsnet FWR is engaged in encouraging a culture shift of creeping homophobia, which I and my friends are directly impacted by, and people need to highlight this and show it for what it is.

Posters on this thread have minimised and defended removal of Pride flags that are used to show acceptance and welcome for gay people. They know full well that this is frightening, intimidating and hostile to young gay people in particular. And they are defending and minimising it.

Neither is this a one off. Mumsnet Feminism and Women's Rights has proven to be a welcome space for homophobia of this sort, there are many threads with similar attitudes.

This has the result of encouraging the normalisation of prejudice and unsafe environments for gay people, where we have to hide ourselves as we are being told our visibility is not acceptable and will be met with harm.

Homophobic attitudes and environments lead to increased hate crimes against gay people. It's just that simple.

Can I clarify - from reading the thread it seems that you are:

• born male
• identify now as trans / woman

is that correct?

I am confused if so how you have a voice in lesbian movements anywhere as surely by definition and as we saw recently, supported in law… lesbians are born female, identify as female but are sexually attracted to other women.

No. I am a female born lesbian.

Anyone can go find my first posts from years ago if they have any doubt on that, as I joined to get advice on a F-F breakup I was going through and didn't find this transphobic space until a lot later.

Absolutely nobody is condoning any of that.

You, however, seem to actively delight in creating the same environment of hostility and intimidation for gender critical feminists.

We haven't had the police investigating the removal of our flags from our events by persons unknown. We have been banned from wearing our colours, questioned by the police for putting up stickers and owning feminist books, and physically assaulted at our own events without the police doing a damn thing about it.

We have had to "hide ourselves" for fear that if we say out loud that women don't have penises it could be career ending for us.

Crimes against us aren't even considered hate crimes.

Where is your outrage about that?

Homophobic attitudes and environments lead to increased hate crimes against gay people. It's just that simple.

The biggest driver of homophobia is the 'trans' cult, it's an ideology that demands men who identify as women, who are sexually attracted to women, be accepted by women who are only attracted to women as a lesbian . That's just the same as saying a women is only a lesbian because 'she hasn't met the right man yet', for someone who claims to be fighting homophobia you should be able to recognise the homophobia that's inherent in the 'trans' ideology.
Why don't you?
Especially as you consider yourself to be a lesbian????

Have you ever had a sexual relationship with a trans woman?

Again, if it’s upsetting you so much, why are you on here? I don’t go on trans Reddit as I know the misogyny and homophobia as well as the palpable hate towards women would upset me and affect my wellbeing. It just comes across as you coming onto a board to scold and berate people who refuse to agree with your opinions. That may not be your intention, but that is what it looks like to a relatively new member of these boards.

Don't be ridiculous.

Are you saying that homophobia never existed before the 'trans cult', as you put it? I can assure you it absolutely did, in much stronger and pervasive forms.

Mainstream awareness and acceptance of trans issues correlates with increasingly positive attitudes to gay people as well.

We know exactly who is fuelling hostility towards us, and it's not trans people.

Well who is it then? Spit it out. Because it's not gender critical feminists either.

Personally I think that what Nancy Kelley said about lesbians was pretty hateful.

Thank you for your concern for my mental health, but actually you'll be relieved to know if is pretty robust 😄 I think it would be worse if I stayed silent.

People who perpetrate hate crimes against certain races make the same defence. It doesn't work.

I’m so glad. I mean, I did wonder why someone would go onto a site they hate to berate people but as you are sure your mental health is robust, then my worries are allayed. I’m glad you’re not one of those people who can’t bear people having different opinions so has to invade their spaces to scold and harrass them. 😉

Do they? Can you give an example?

Yes it did and the whole of the 'trans' cult are resurrecting it, when Lesbian's are told that they are 'transphobic' for not accepting men in their dating pool, it's turning back the clock to the days when they were told they just haven't met the right man yet. Forcing women who are only sexually attracted to other women to let men into their spaces because the man 'identifies' as a women is highly homophobic.
You may identify as a lesbian, but if you accept men as lesbians then you've bumped yourself out of L and into B, you are the homophobe within your own movement.

No. I am a female born lesbian.

But according to the ideology you support, males who think of themselves as always been a woman describe themselves as female born, and in your ideology males can be lesbians.

So your assertion of what you are is meaningless by your own definitions and only accurate if you use those that acknowledge a person’s sex. These are your homophobic rules, not ours.

I am a female born lesbian

You’re a lesbian.

We don’t talk about canine dogs so no need for superfluous words. A lesbian is a woman. Was born female and will always be female. It’s very simple.

There shall always be at least one thread to call FWR posters baddies, it's like rule zero of the board.

Well yeah, when there's a thread dedicated to minimising and defending acts of homophobia don't be too surprised about about that.

Every time you post on a thread you add homophobia @suggestionsplease1 with your insistence on men being lesbians. There wouldn’t be any homophobia here if people didn’t push that ideology.

Sorry - my fault - I was clarifying whether that poster was born female and claiming to be a lesbian (ie a lesbian) or born male, claiming to be a woman and a lesbian (ie not a lesbian!)