LGB Alliance calls for the disaggregation of LGBTQIA+, in all realms of public life, and we object in the strongest terms to its introduction in law.

[IwantToRetire]

Lord Hanson of Flint has announced that the government will accept an amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill to classify hate crimes targeting LGBT and disabled people as aggravated offences.

Here’s what the letter from Lord Hanson says:

In our manifesto we committed to “protect LGBT+ and disabled people by making all existing strands of hate crime an aggravated offence” …This new clause does just that. Indeed, it goes further and extends the ambit of the racially and religiously aggravated offences in sections 29 to 32 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 not just to cover hostility related to disability, sexual orientation or transgender identity but also hostility motivated by a person’s sex.”

A laudable aim it seems. But the casual use of the acronym LGBT+ conflates Sexual Orientation, a protected characteristic in the Equality Act 2010, with ‘transgender identity’, a concept which does not exist in the law.

It is right that transphobia, like homophobia, should be properly tackled by the police, but without even the loosest definition of what a transgender identity ‘is’, that simply isn’t possible.

It’s instructive to ask who advised the proposers of this amendment to replace the actual protected characteristic of Gender Reassignment with the nebulous notion of identity. Who benefits from this concept creep?

And to consider why has it been tacked onto LGB? It would be unthinkable to refer to DisabilityT+, or ReligionT+ but the open house of gay rights is expected to welcome all-comers, even if those new arrivals hold views which are antithetical to the homosexuality of its unwilling host.

This isn’t a new phenomenon. Lesbians and gay men have long had to deal with heterosexual cosplayers in our spaces. They are hostile to same-sex attraction and attack our community from within.

Statement continues at https://lgballiance.org.uk/gay-rights-are-not-for-everyone

Basically it’s the TRA cannot be arsed to do their own work and are parasites to other groups of people. As we see in them not bothering to campaign for their own spaces. They aren’t bothered about the ill effects this has on their hosts; and, indeed, that often seems to be the whole point.

I think many of those who were part of Stonewall because it was about those who are same sex attracted just sort o drifted away.

But for Stonewall, as a money spinner it sucessarly because under the rainbow umbrella just about anyone could belong.

And it created a whole new revenue stream of all those companies, schools etc., who just had to be made to take training to learn how to think in the new updated rainbow structure.

And not forgetting the media chose not to reflect that many were against it, and didn't report on this until years later. Even though some had quite high profiles. eg

• Simon Fanshawe: A co-founder of Stonewall in 1989, Fanshawe was a prominent critic of the decision to shift focus towards trans issues. He argued that the aims of same-sex attraction and transgender identity are different and that the charity should have supported a separate, independent lobby group for trans issues rather than adopting the agenda.
• Matthew Parris: One of the original 14 founders, Parris publicly criticised the organisation, stating it had become "cornered into an extremist stance" on trans rights and argued that Stonewall should have stuck to LGB rights, excluding the "T".
• Kate Harris: A key person involved in the organization's early years, she left "disillusioned" with the stand the organisation took on gender identity and self-identification.

AI generated, so sure others have been over looked.

Stonewall betrayed us.
I went from having a direct debit to Stonewall & occasionally volunteering from them to taking part in COME OUT OF STONEWALL marches & protests & getting involved with the LGB Alliance.

they must have calculated that most of the LGB wouldn't quibble about that too much.

While we talk about 'the lesbian and gay community' or 'the LGB movement' or whatever, it gives the impression that there was an 'electorate' that the bolting on of T to LGB could be put to and democratically voted on.

There were lots of small groups, local groups, special interest groups, but mostly just separate, and sometimes isolated and vulnerable men and women getting through everyday life, sometimes under hostile conditions as best as they could. 'Getting together as a community' was more likely to be about a few hours of escape and fun than discussing serious issues.

There was Stonewall of course, but even it was fairly remote from most lesbian and gay men and women's everyday lives.

So basically anything could have been added to LGB and we wouldn't have had a lot of say in it. Once a few key organisations, like Stonewall, were captured, the rest of the community were bystanders.

My own experience is that it 'snuck up' on me, I hadn't noticed until on returning to Ireland I tried to establish a bit of a lesbian network, and at the very first meeting was sat beside a man in a frock. A very obvious man in a frock, he wasn't even trying very hard. I stopped attending that group, but when I looked online for alternatives, 'trans friendly' seemed to be everywhere.

It took time and courage for groups like the LGB Alliance to coalesce.

I'm pretty dubious about 'communities' that are talked up in general, tbf. The gay community, the black community, etc (but never the white community; I suppose the whole point is that these communities are always minorities). I think it can be a pretty lazy shorthand.

Yes, that is so true. I particularly hate the ‘gay community’ applied historically by people who should know better, where individuals known to be gay, say artists, in reality had all sorts of friends and influence and were not living in any ‘gay community’ as such whatsoever.

As for black community, black people are as diverse anyone else for all that as a minority they face certain difficulties in common.

It took time and courage for groups like the LGB Alliance to coalesce.

That. There were plenty of groups, particularly lesbian groups, that closed or went underground as the only means of escaping male interlopers and control. Quite a few like the PP initially gave it a try and found that no, women's needs and voices weren't going to be allowed without the male/T politic control and shut down.

They're 'the community' too. Forced out of it, so the voice of the 'community' uses them for weight and power, but absolutely does not represent them.

I'm not even a lesbian but I take get exception to lesbians being forced to accept men as women. I have no time for women who 'identify' as lesbians who shill for this movement, and there are quite a few of them.

We need to start calling the handmaiden lesbians 'queer' lesbians, so as too distinguish them for women who know what sex they are and what sex they're attracted to, and know it ain't men.

I think it is important that Stonewall was never meant, or initially claimed to represent the "community".

It was a campaign group.

Most lesbians or gay men's groups were self organising.

The corruption was those who had done well for themselves by being part of Stonewall actively looking at ways to keep the group going, and therefore their salaries. ie Stonewall could have wound up. As happenes with many groups those who are employed by it, in pursuit of guaranteeing their salary are a large part of what is well known as "mission drift".

So whilst it is true many were alienated but many stayed. Or maybe, in fact the original supporters did all leave, and the new ever expanding group who now had the trophy of being part of an "oppressed group" were only too happy to pay up to maintain their status of "most oppressed" group.

And it could not have been a problem if the lazy media and politicians were only to be spoon fed rubbish.

You would have thought both of these groups would have prioritised verifying the validity of the fairy tales Stonewall started to make.

I had totally forgotten about the marches.

I agree that many lesbian (and women's) groups felt the impact of the whole identity is the same a biology mantra found it really hard.

But the reality is many lesbians had long ago giving up on Stonewall and others for being so relentlessy misogynistic.

Lesbians were never at the forefront of the agenda.

Here's a direct link to the message (via 3 points button and "share") :
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5422838-what-is-trans-and-why-does-it-justify-undoing-sex-in-law-society-culture-and-history?reply=147654786&utm_campaign=reply&utm_medium=share
Users can set a different number of messages set to display per page, so a link to a page will display a different page for different people. In this case, the strip was on page 3, not 6, for me.

Off to find my glasses and read it. Thanks!

Some of us go back to the Angela Mason days of Stonewall when lesbians were quite prominent in Stonewall.

It was the harnessing of the T that undid so much of that, once that male fetish was centred. Girls and women (at the time rarely if ever involved in sex change) became targets for these men who then used Stonewall and its presence in schools etc to relentlessly gaslight children.

Agree, but before the T become so prominent many "gay groups" that were in fact for both lesbians and gay men became hostile to women because of the increase in queer inspired fetishism.

It's one thing having a evening of almost old fashioned music hall "dames" providing entertainment, but quite another when social events became a place for men thinking it was okay for them to display their kink and worse.

ie dreary as it might sound but when nearly everyone of either sex was wearing jeans and t-shirts, which for lesbians who whether indirectly or consciously had been influenced by feminism and longed to get away from the butch femme convention of the Gateways.

(honestly its almost like the letter T now sets of alarm bells in my head, I hesitated before typing t-shirt )

I've been thinking about the 'arrival' of the SM [sadomachochism] trend? fad? campaign? into the lesbian and gay movement in.. not sure when - mid - late 1980s?

It was very forceful, very divisive and very dismissive of opponents - if you weren't into SM sex, you were 'anti sex' - an accusation which lesbian feminists of my acquaintance who were around in London at the time say is so absolutely wrong it's hilarious!

It also pushed against all sorts of boundaries by defending the use of imagery base on slavery, Nazis etc., and in what may have been postmodernist thinking? argued that leading your 'slave' someone around by a chain attached to a leather collar, or wearing SS uniforms, even in public, were not offensive if they were 'reframed' as part of consensual SM practice.

One of the main spokespeople for the SM movement in the USA was a woman called Pat Califia/ She published a book of SM lesbian erotica called Macho Sluts which was a response to the feminist campaign against pornography, and I think it's fair to say was against everything feminism, and in particular lesbian feminists, stood for at the time. But as I haven't read it, I'm open to correction on that last point.

I googled her recently to see what she was up to these days, and lo and behold she has 'transitioned' and is now a transman, forming an interesting link between the SM movement of the 1980s and the TRA movement of the 2020s

I put thanks, but in a way not thanks as dont want to be reminded.

And I know I say this a lot, but nobody should underestimate the power and influence of queer politics on 70s, 80s "liberation" politics.

is queer legitimised not just being anti establishment, challenging the norms, but adopting cultures and practices that because they were frowned on by the establishment should be adopted. Without for instances thinking that not just the establishment but ordinary people were not interested in or accepted as being acceptable.

on one level it was just childish, they told me not to do it, so I did.

But it also opened the door to all sorts of people who had very different motives to gain influence under the guise of challenging the norm.

That's also why what had been a minor occurance of gender dysphoria became the gateway to challenge biology, as though it were a social norm, and the use of the word gender was deliberately used to try and erase the word sex as it was based on a reality.

And what was sad was that some lesbians got caught up in a culture that was more prevelant among gay men.

Just saw this!

Older Liverpool Lesbians reflect on ‘then and now’ during LGBT+ history month
https://merseynewslive.co.uk/2026/02/25/older-liverpool-lesbians-reflect-on-then-and-now-during-lgbt-history-month/

Very interesting, thank you for the link.

The last contributor says she sticks up for transwomen because
' I’ve been called not a real woman so often in my life for being lesbian.'

Can't she spot the difference between a woman being told she's not a real woman, and a transwoman being told he's not a real woman?🙄

I noticed that and what seems to be the usual pattern that older women have a very different response and feel more than entitled but necessary to assert that being female is about biological sex.

And of sadly the young woman is all about being kind.

I'm probably being very unkind, but it struck more as someone who felt that the world hadn't treated her well, so was going to confirm her victimhood by siding with the poor oppressed sacred caste. You can feel better about yourself then.