Cambridge Union debate - This House Believes modern LGBTQ+ activism fails its community

[ItsCoolForCats]

I'm starting this thread mainly so I can post this link because Maeve Halligan is a force to be reckoned with:

https://x.com/i/status/2055119527914938412

They lost the debate, which was to be expected given the state of universities on this issue, but Thea Sewell said they got a respectable number of votes. Hopefully they have planted some seeds in people's minds.

Other speakers were Buck Angel and Helen Webberley (for the other side).

Full debate is here https://www.youtube.com/live/wE0JY9d7f-w?si=4ZIVmcxyevo0DQvB

Another clip

https://x.com/i/status/2055142373626118516

Thank you for posting this - I’m very interested in watching.

It’s a very good sign that this debate even happened.

Buck Angel came all the way from the USA to speak, why?

International speakers seem quite common in these Oxford / Cambridge Union debate things.

I haven't watched it yet but I presume the thinking was that the Cambridge audience would be more open to the argument if it came from a trans-identified person like Buck. Someone like Mia Hughes or Helen Joyce could probably make clearer points, without having to muddle through the true trans cognitive dissonance. But then, the room would be prejudiced against them as "cis white women", and might not even listen.

It depends on the audience they're trying to reach.

I think lots of people get asked if they are prominent - Jordan Peterson was there a few years ago. I think Buck's youtube channel is pretty big now.

Maeve was a guest on Rachel Johnson’s radio show this evening on LBC. Made me stop what I was doing and listen. She’s extremely impressive. She said there were a lot of abstentions- more than usual. perhaps a sign that people are giving more thought rather than blindly following.

Maeve and Serena were very good.
How was the vote taken? Show of hands or private ballot?

Maeve Halligan is a powerhouse. Hope to see more from her soon.

Whilst lesbianism was only considered same sex attraction in the past, Maeve makes the categorical error (among many) that definitions are set in stone when they aren't given they are at the mercy of social usage. 'Transbianism'/same gender attraction becomes legitimised because of its existence & usage.

I appreciate some same sex attracted lesbians find this problematic particularly in terms of free association but conflicting rights doesn't delegitimise the existence of a phenomena. These (rights & existence) are two separate issues.

Silly little women. How dare they know their own minds about their sexuality?

I'll believe you when Stephen Fry and Owen Jones take up with women who declare themselves to be men.

Meaningless waffle

Transbianism'/same gender attraction becomes legitimised because of its existence & usage.

And if it's not used by the vast majority of people does that illegitimatise it.

A Lesbian is female who is only sexually attracted to other female's, there is no other meaning to the word. Cult speak is only meaningful to the cult members, outside the cult it's a load of made up bollocks that nobody recognises as having any meaning.

Definitions aren't a popularity contest. There are many words the majority of the population don't use or have never heard of. All that's required for new word legitimacy is circulation in culture. They have to be used and understood. Certainly in recent times trans lesbianism has been circulating in media & culture. Whether people dispute the validity of a phenomena is irrelevant to whether the word/definition that describes it stands because its usage based.

Part way through listening - really refreshing to hear this finally spoken about openly amongst the young who've been so relentlessly bullied out of their freedom of speech.

You have to laugh at the risible arguments that lesbianism now includes men. As ever, the displays of overwhelming narcissism and male power are very revealing..

“When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’

’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’

’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.”

It takes more that a group inventing a term to make it part of a shared language.
Jargon isn’t the same as mainstream usage, being used all over social and mainstream media doesn't make it mainstream usage. For a definition to shift, it has to be adopted by the vast majority of speakers not just circulated inside a closed ideological bubble.

For most people lesbian still means a female whose sexual orientation is exclusively toward other females. That definition is stable, widely understood, and consistently used across culture, law, and everyday speech.
Transbianism has a long way to go before it's accepted as common day language, although if men who claim to be women who fancy women want to use it, I'm all for it, because Lesbian is already taken.

It really hasn’t, not in the real world - maybe in a little online bubble somewhere.

The rest of the world knows that lesbians are same sex attracted women. This pernicious attempt to change the language to include men is a misogynistic and deliberate attempt to undermine same-sex rights imo. It’s a mere millimetre away from the 1970s ‘jokes’about revolting men tryin to ‘convert’ lesbians .

I have just listened to this debate, barring Webberley (need to calm myself for that). Maeve Halligan was astounding. What a speech and how powerful her delivery. Also her colleague who had set up the women’s group with her. I hope that she will be one of the fantastic public voices on women’s rights from this point onwards. Just brilliant, a real force.❤️

Slightly off topic I was fascinated by the debate format and setting all I kept thinking is of those debate practised politicians in the House of Commons many of whom probably attending these prestigious universities with their debating societies and facilities.

Forgive me if I am out of touch as I don’t have kids and well into my sixties, but wouldn’t it be wonderful if debating could be something that is mandatory to be offered in all schools from secondary age, clearly the ability to debate something is a skill that can lead to power, influencing change, and it is a shame that this seems just another privilege that can be bought by the few. Plus I know it’s pie in the sky when education is struggling for the most basic of resources. Anyway I found it fascinating all round.

Both the words 'trans' & 'lesbian' are broadly accepted words so its not a stretch for 'trans lesbian' to be broadly understood which many young people in the west have likely have seen used on social media not to mention the argument such that Maeve made about homosexual erasure not exactly being a fringe idea….a very common GC talking point.

Buck is a powerful speaker. A TiF( trans identifying female) who is prepared to explain the mental condition gender identity disorder and to point out the billions that pharma etc make out of the permanent medicalisation of - in particular- young people.

A translesbian is a man attracted to women who is claiming to be a woman. There was a really powerful intervention towards the end of the debate from a young lesbian starkly laying out that lesbian dating apps are full of these men and that if you complain you are the problem, treated as a bigot and slung off the app. Im still feeling queasy at the concept of the "cotton ceiling" which is the idea that lesbians who dont fancy men have to be re educated to break through the cotton ceiling and let them in their pants. Yuk. And ofcourse in Australia the federal court has just validated this nonsense in the case of Tickle v Giggle.

Can’t watch the video right now, what did Webberley say?

Of course 'transbian' isn't going to be legitimised. It's invariably said with air quotes and a can you believe it eye roll.

It's not legitimate as a concept because lesbians don't do dick.

It means a heterosexual man who wants women to validate him and therefore that woman has to be a lesbian. It's a self driven male power play that will never come to actual fruition, because men can't be lesbians.

Exactly, it’s a 70s end of the pier joke made real, “I may look like a man but actually I’m a lesbian inside”.

If she has control of the madness, she may have sounded rational.

But I honestly can't see many students taking well to the video of her folding up her knickers