Whatout?
The dishonest reporting files:
Students at McGill University in Montreal Protest Anti-Trans Speaker
The speaker, Robert Wintemute, is a member of the anti-trans hate group LGB Alliance.
The students did more than “protest” and the speaker is not “anti-trans” and the LGB Alliance is not anti-trans and not a hate group. That’s a lot of lies for just the headline and subhead.
The story seems to have been written before the “protest” happened.
Lawyer Robert Wintemute is giving a speech at the university entitled “The Sex vs. Gender (Identity) Debate In the United Kingdom and the Divorce of LGB from T.” Wintemute is a member of the United Kingdom-based LGB Alliance, which claims to advocate for lesbian, gay and bisexual causes but which activists at McGill have pointed out is actually part of a “Christian right-supported campaign to ‘divide and conquer’ the LGBT community.”
Activists at McGill haven’t “pointed out,” which implies accuracy. They’ve said, or claimed, or lied.
There is no “LGBT community.” Beware of that word “community,” which all too often is a disguise for forced teaming. Lesbians and men who call themselves lesbians are not a “community.” Feminists and trans activists are not a “community.” People allergic to bullshit and trans activists are not a “community.”
LGB Alliance, which is listed on the website of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism as an extremist hate group, espouses anti-transgender views under the guise of being pro-gay and pro-women.
Oh well then there’s no more to be said. If this one group is listed on this one website, we know all there is to know.
This is the corner where all the crashes occur. That’s because “transgender views” are riddled with nonsense and wishful thinking and domineering assertion. We oppose the “views” not because we’re evil and akin to racists but because the views are bad and stupid. The “views” tell us that huge abusive men are women just as we are provided only that they say so. We have a problem with that. Lying about us isn’t going to make that problem go away.
Further, the group has actively worked against the interests of people it supposedly seeks to protect — it has endorsed conversion therapy for gay and lesbian people, for example…
Has it? First I’ve heard of it. Given the wild detours around the truth in this piece, I don’t believe it.
The group’s charitable status was challenged last year when LGBTQ advocates noted that it doesn’t actually work to help lesbian, gay or bisexual people.
Again. There are no “LGBTQ” advocates. The LG is not the same as the T or the Q, let alone both mashed together. The “advocates” in question are Mermaids, all T and no LG.
By granting LGB Alliance members a platform to share their transphobic views, McGill University is “actively contributing to the genocide of trans people across the world,” student organizers wrote in an open letter challenging Wintemute’s presence on campus.
And what a ludicrous thing to write it is, but Truthout presents it as meaningful and damning.
That’s how this whole conversation is conducted. It’s an embarrassment.
Not trying to spark an argument, because I like both of you, but Jerry Coyne has just written a piece about this.
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2023/01/12/mcgill-protestors-shut-down-a-talk-on-sex-versus-gender-as-a-transphobic-presentation/
The only part where I think he is wrong is where he accepts the CBC’s description of the LGB Alliance so that they as a group are actually in favour of gay conversion therapy. This is obviously not true. They are not in favour of using that term to people who are considering medical transition, and want to keep those two issues separate, for obvious reasons. They are totally in favour of a ban on gay conversion therapy, as am I.
Something that two minutes of fact-checking by the CBC would have established by reading the first two paragraphs on this page. https://lgballiance.org.uk/resources/
This is not a small point. The views of members of this organisation are the entire point of the story. If they are not hateful or unreasonable, then the ‘protests’ are a complete over-reaction, and serve only to stifle legitimate debate. If they are hateful, then the protests are at least understandable. I know which of those two it is, but clearly reasonable people like Jerry are confused because the CBC promotes only one side, and misrepresents the other.
Just another example of the media totally capitulating to this ideology, and failing in the most fundamental way possible for a media org. Presumably just so people wouldn’t tut at them on Twitter.
Was there ever a decision on the LGB Alliance status? When I google it, almost everything I find for the first page at least is all about Mermaids and the “transphobic” views of LGBA. The algorithm is definitely unbalanced in favor of the Mermaids point of view.
@iknklast There has not been a ruling on their charitable status yet. I think the hearing is concluded, but I am not even certain of that, there may be another set of hearings in the future. Based on how shambolic the Mermaids case was I am optimistic that sense will prevail.
@CB – this is where, I think, that the forced teaming by the T into a single “LGBTQ” community is very useful for conflating conversion therapy to “correct” homosexuality and talk therapy for trans-ID people. We know how awful the first is, so the association with it implies that the second is also dangerous and damaging. People who are not familiar with the issue assume it is all one big evil thing from the RWCC. So, if the LGBAlliance supports therapy to find the root of belief that one is trans, it is now reported as being pro-conversion therapy for at LGBTQ.
I am surprised that Coyne didn’t catch that. But he’s awful busy with the nature photos.
@iknklast and @CB The LGB Alliance was granted charitable status by the Charity Commission in 2021, with the Commission setting out its reasoning in a closely argued decision. This was challenged by Mermaids with the support of Joylon Maugham’s Good Law Project, and a Tribunal considered the question in September 2022 with further hearings in early November. A decision is expected soon.
A well-informed barrister friend who follows these issues seems reasonably confident that the Alliance will prevail, though it is in the nature of these cases that victory is rarely total. (Cf Allison Bailey’s case, where she won the key points against Garden Court Chambers, but not against Stonewall, thus enabling TRA’s to claim she had “lost”, which she hadn’t.)
@richard thanks for that, it is sort of where I thought things were, but without any of the details. The Forstater and Bailey cases were a mixed bag, Maya only won on appeal, and Allison could not get all of her claims upheld.
But is that not a legal sttrategy? Let’s make five claims, and we will probably get two or three. If we only make one claim it is either win or lose.
@mike Haubrich Yeah, when presented with a child who will probably just be a gay adult with no intervention then it makes sense for gay groups to say ‘OK, what’s wrong with that exactly, why are we sterilising this child?’ That’s not really a disagreement which can be easily managed in a single pressure group.
The LGB Alliance is entirely consistent with the gay rights groups of the 80s and 90s. In fact at least two of the LGBA founders were also founders of Stonewall. Bev Jackson and Kate Harris did not come out of retirement for no reason.
Jerry did correct the post after he read my comment, which I think is fine. I don’t think he understands the issue still, but he is a movement skeptic who has not entirely taken leave of his senses, so I would rather argue with him than shun him.
PZ Myers. Steven Novella David Gorsky and Rebecca Watson? Not so much. A shunning for them. Shun shun shun. let them live in their echo chambers and pretend that they are skeptical.
I dunno. Anti-trans is such a weird thing to call someone. It’d be like a Christian calling a vocal atheist anti-Christian. In a certain sense the atheist is most definitely anti-Christian, but in that sense everyone who disagrees with anything or anyone is anti-something. Are you a liberal? Then you’re anti-conservative. Are you a conservative? Then you’re anti-liberal. Theist; anti-atheist. Atheist; anti-theist. Heliocentrist; anti-geocentrist. Skeptic; anti-psychic. It goes on and on and on. In such a trivial sense, yes, anyone sane is “anti-trans”, but that’s not the sense that people who use the term mean to convey. They want others to get the impression that there are evil, murderous, genocidal forces arrayed against poor widdle twans peopol who just want to peeeee.
@nullius that is a good point. I work with a trans identified male, and I have done since 2007. They are a nice person, they are relatively convincing and not physically imposing. None of the women who I have also worked with for 15 years in some cases seem to have an issue with this person at work. I like them. I think we can integrate a few people like that into society,if we have to.
My sister’s ‘bridesmaid’ when she got married in 1999 was a trans-identifed male. we walked through the town centre to go to a pub (this was not a very formal wedding) and were interrupted when an idiot started shouting homophobic abuse at them. The groom and me saw him off. He then went and got some mates to come into the pub we were in. We fought them, we had to. The groom took a glass ashtray to the head, I took a black eye and a very sore neck the next day.
I have literally fought and bled to defend a ‘trans’ person, and if I had to I would do it again. I just won’t allow women to be placed at risk to satisfy their demands.
Also the bridesmaid pissed in the mens’ toilets in the progressive bar we ended up drinking in. Nobody gave a shit.