In more hopeful news – The Telegraph reports Stonewall have split over the trans-mania issue.
Europe’s biggest LGBT rights organisation has split after being accused of promoting a ‘trans agenda’ at the expense of gay and lesbian rights.
Stonewall is known for campaigning for the equality of lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people across Britain. The charity’s mission statement says that it aims ‘to create inclusive and accepting cultures’.
However, following a meeting on Tuesday night – and amid an ongoing row about trans inclusion – the charity has divided and forged a splinter group.
Announcing themselves as the LGB Alliance, the group, formed of ‘influential lesbians, gay men and bisexuals’ met in central London last night and forged the new organisation in a bid to ‘counteract the confusion between sex and gender which is now widespread in the public sector and elsewhere’.
Simon Fanshawe, who co-founded Stonewall in 1989, was among those speaking at the event last night in central London.
In a press release announcing the new group, which will be formally launched in January, the LGB Alliance said that its participants included former employees and supporters of the lobby group Stonewall, as well as doctors, psychiatrists, academics and lawyers with expertise in child safeguarding.
It added that all members had agreed a foundation statement which prioritised biological sex over gender theories which they regard as ‘pseudo-scientific and dangerous’.
Yesssss.
Bev Jackson, a co-founder of the Gay Liberation Front, said: ‘LGB people like us have been writing to Stonewall for over a year – trying to set up a dialogue with them. It’s about the fact that they have chosen to prioritise trans people and have almost abandoned their original mission: protecting people who are same-sex attracted.
‘Sadly, we do still need protection. Young lesbians in particular are suffering; experiencing huge social pressure to transition to male if they do not conform to traditional gender stereotypes.’
They organized a petition asking for a dialogue, signed by nearly 1o thousand people, but Stonewall looked fixedly in the other direction.
The members of the new Alliance agreed, as part of a 20-point position statement, that:homosexuality is same-sex (not same-gender) attraction; lesbians are biological women who are attracted to other biological women; sex is not ‘assigned’ at birth but observed and it is not transphobic for lesbians to have their own spaces and institutions which exclude male-bodied people.
Just as it’s not transphobic for women to have their own spaces and institutions which exclude male-bodied people.
Paul Twocock, Chief Executive, Stonewall said: ‘There is no truth to reports of Stonewall ‘splitting’, so please ignore the alarmist headlines. These stories don’t refer to any current Stonewall staff or trustees. There is no equality for lesbian, gay and bi people without equality for trans people. We’re all united in our mission to achieving acceptance without exception for all LGBT people.’
Sad about the name, but leaving that aside (stop sniggering you there in the back) – why is there no equality for lesbian, gay and bi people without equality for trans people? Equality meaning what, exactly? If it means “acceptance” then what does that mean?
We know what it means with respect to LGB people: that love and attraction to people of one’s own sex is not oooky or sinister and not a reason to persecute or shun people. But in the case of trans people it’s no longer enough to say not oooky or sinister and not a reason to persecute or shun, now the imperative is to say everyone is required to believe trans people’s claims to be the other sex, in all cases, no matter what, no matter how obviously opportunistic and cynical. That’s a different kind of thing. It’s more intrusive, more demanding, more inquisitorial, much more apt to get up in your face and start demanding what you really believe. It’s different. It’s different, and worse.
And that’s not “equality.” Equality doesn’t mean accepting all of people’s claims about themselves. If it did, people could for instance just claim to be not misogynist or racist, and that would be the end of it. Would that lead to equality for women and people of color? Like hell it would.
Comments
14 responses to “A split”
This is a good sign. Nobody gets hurt more by the transgender ideology than gays and lesbians.
What’s wrong with the name?
Yes, Ophelia, what precisely is wrong with the name “Paul Twocock”? It’s a fine name.
Oh, is that the name you mean? I thought it was LGB Alliance.
“That’s very different! Never mind!”
— Miss Emily Litella
The LGB Alliance announcement was good timing for me. This evening I submitted my annual member survey for the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The survey asked about AAAS support for LGTBQ, so I wrote this comment in their text box for my final thoughts. I cited today’s Telegraph, so it’s not just me saying this:
Well…’TQ rights’ are still undefined.
Lesbians, defined simply as biological women attracted to biological women, cannot be expected to pretend that biological males are intimate prospects upon mere declaration of ‘transhood.’
Logically, there ought to be an equal, or even greater, demand that biological men attracted to biological women are obliged to see self-defined trans women as possible partners. I don’t see this demand being made on any scale.
After those uncomfortable facts are faced, there probably are a body of ‘real’ transgender women, who can and should be able to partner with men or women. But we don’t seem to hear from them at this point. They don’t seem to have the barbed-wire-and-baseball-bat enthusiasm.
maddog, heh, sorry for unclarity. (I googled the name before saying anything about it because surely it’s made up? But no, it’s a real name. I can’t imagine what that guy’s school life must have been like.)
Dave @ 5 – *applause*
There’s still an issue here, as I see it. Suppose you are a “real” transgender woman, but a lesbian doesn’t want to partner with you? And maybe a heterosexual biological female won’t want to partner with you, especially if you’ve had surgery and are no longer possessing the male sexual structures. Should ‘real’ transgender women be able to partner with such men or women?
They should be able to choose whether they wish to partner with men or women, but they should not be able to expect that they will be able to partner with the sex of their choice. This gets back into the aspect of “how dare you be so bigoted that you insist your partner has to be the sort of partner you like” (not said quite that blatantly, of course, because that would give the game away).
That’s the same thing all of us deal with. There may be no one in the sex of our choice that wishes to partner with us. In that case, we can join the incels and whine, or we can deal with it, and recognize that we may not have a happy sex life. That second is hard, very hard, but I was there for a long time, and so what? It may require therapy. It may require special attention from loved ones. It definitely requires maturity. It cannot, or should not, be used as an excuse for violent behavior against those who are making their own choices.
I don’t care how nice you are, how attractive you are, how feminine or masculine you are, you have no right to expect that a preferred sex partner will prefer you.
And that right there is the key point when it comes to having sex with another person. Regardless of any and all trans debate, the transcendent point is that for sex to be consensual it has to be something both people want without being forced, manipulated or browbeaten into.
Helen Joyce has a great piece about the split here.
That’s a good article Artymorty. It deserves more attention. Joyce also has a good article in the same publication about the mediocre male athletes invading women’s sports.
https://standpointmag.co.uk/issues/september-october-2019/trans-trailblazers-leave-women-bruised/
This is about as unscientific as you can get.
inknlast, I can’t think of any problems with that experimental design. It’s the same way I proved I lost weight on my vacation.
lol