Two men can be in a "lesbian" relationship - Equality Network Scotland

[IwantToRetire]

Trans activists have been accused of making an “offensive” claim that two men can form a lesbian couple.

Feminist campaigners hit out after Equality Network wrote to MSPs objecting to a proposed amendment to hate crime laws.

The move would add “sex” as a protected characteristic. The LGBTI group said they had “concerns” over the definition being clarified as “biological sex at birth” — to bring Scots Law into line with last year’s UK Supreme Court ruling.

Equality Network and its Scottish Trans project insisted there were no “powers” to “retrospectively change the definition of sexual orientation”.

They added it would be “different to the definition understood by most LGBTQ+ people” as well as what was considered when the Hate Crime Act and Public Order (Scotland) was passed in 2021.

But that stance was ridiculed in a reply from For Women Scotland, who won the landmark court case over the Equality Act 2010.

...

Full article https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/15983751/scots-trans-activists-slam-two-men-lesbian-claim/

(If any one has a link to the FWS letter could you post it. I couldn't find it.)

I'm not a lesbian but I find this claim to be utterly horrendous. A complete breach of the social contract and totally homophobic. Claims that the law shouldn't be "brought into line" are total nonsense as all FWS did was to confirm what the law had always been - ie not what stonewall and the equality network had been claiming. The people spewing all this rubbish should be ashamed of themselves. Bunch of hideous misogynists the lot of them!

Equality Network wasn't this the quango that was shown to be fronting for the SG, everything they say is what the SG want said but can't say it for fear of being sued again, and again.

“retrospectively change the definition of sexual orientation” where's the retrospection, female's who are sexually orientated towards females are lesbian's so anyone who is not a female (males) is not a lesbian and it's been that way 'since forever'.

Totally off-topic, but I really like the woman front left's suffragette colours tartan-style scarf!

Ministry of Tartan

https://theministryoftartan.co.uk/product-category/suffragette_tartan_range/

I like that you noticed that, posted about it and there wasn't a pile-on about bringing up frivolous things like scarves in a serious discussion.
Au contraire, one poster told you who sells them and another one gave you a link to their website.
And it doesn't detract one iota from the serious discussion.
I love that about this board💜💚

I speak with some authority, as a radical lesbian feminist with rather a lot of scarves...😁

Scarves, you say?

One day I will count how many I have and we can have a scarf-off.

Count me in to the scarf-off

This isn't what the Supreme Court Ruling explicitly states.

You Terf Islanders are twice blessed: your equality legislation included sex, and your highest court defined sex as biological sex.
And a third, or maybe just a subsection of the first blessing, is that equality laws always allowed for some single-sex exceptions in some circumstances.

The situation in Ireland is that our equality legislation refers to gender, not sex - obviously older legislation did in fact refer to 'sex' but that has somehow been magicked away and replaced with 'gender. There is no protected characteristic of 'sex'. Men can self-ID as women, and vice versa, so any residual references to 'women' include men. There is no legal definition of sex or gender, and I suppose until someone takes a FWS-style case to our High Court, sex will mean 'gender', and 'gender' will be whatever activists want it to be.

So keep hold of the word 'sex', it is even more powerful now that the UKSC has reaffirmed that it means biological sex.
It follows that people who are same-sex attracted are attracted to members of their own biological sex.
So male lesbians are a nonsense, in every possible way.

As a lesbian this is pretty damn offensive. As if they haven’t erased our identities enough! But what would it actually look like in practice? What would be an example of trans women being able to take advantage of this law?

Amazing news for raging fetishists.

"They added it would be “different to the definition understood by most LGBTQ+ people"

Amend to "They added it would be “different to the definition understood by the LGBTQ+ people that are allowed to consider themselves part of the LGBT community under stringent political rules set by a specific demographic".

I wonder if LGB Alliance has seen this.

Is there a branch in Scotland?

It is such an insult but also clearly an insult that the so called Equality Network still exists, is still funded, and is still the preferred partner for Scottish politicians.

There is nothing of the FWS web site and on X they dont directly say anything but just post a link to the news article.

And is it any wonder that so many politicians in Scotland have the extreme anti woman views they do have.

The not only think them and say them, but they have an "Equality" Network (which they fund) to confirm that what they think is right.

That men can be women, so if 2 men who say they are women then have a relationship then they are lesbian.

Queue an unending supply of literature on how affirming of being a lesbian it is to s a female d

🤮

I'm not a lesbian either, but, 'same-sex attracted', the clue's in the name, surely? The cynicism of these bastards who want to replace the word 'sex' with 'gender' knows no bounds. Homophobia and misogyny combined in one toxic package.

Back then, we thought he was joking.

'... if you're a transvestite, you're actually a male tomboy, that's where the sexuality is. Yeah, it's not drag queen, no; gay men have got that covered. This is male tomboy, and people do get that mixed up, they put transvestite there - no no no no! Little bit of a crowbar separation, thank you! And gay men, I think, would agree. It's male lesbian, that's really where it is, ok? Because... it's true! 'Cause most transvestites fancy girls, fancy women. So that's where it is.'

A male who claims he's a women and because he fancy's women, he claims he's a lesbian as well, is bad, very bad.
But a male who claim's he's a women and fancy's men who also claim they're women and therefore claim's to be lesbian's as well is so messed up it's beyond parody.

I don't know why they're so hung up on claiming these labels, when their actions render the words as meaningless as they are.

Organisations that are promoting this stupidity are misogynistic, homophobic, destructive, grifter organisations, and should not be paid from the public purse. As a member of the public I demand my money back, because I sure as hell don't want anything to do with batshithatery.

I see MNHQ have drawn a veil over my intended joke so will try again!

Queue an unending supply of literature on how affirming of being a lesbian it is to s+++ a female d+++

It'd be like Australia, where lesbians are legally obliged to include heterosexual men in their politics & organising, right down to whether or not you can hold a lesbian-only social event without having to accept straight lads there.

Links to FWS's letter (and Equality Network's) are at the bottom of this page:

forwomen.scot/17/10/2025/adding-sex-to-the-hate-crime-act/