Facing extinction
Lesbians are facing “extinction” because of the “disproportionate” focus on transgenderism in schools, a controversial campaign group for gay rights has claimed.
The LGB Alliance, which has been branded a “trans hate group” by Pink News and other vocal critics, was set up in October 2019 amid concerns that Stonewall, the UK’s leading gay rights charity, had become too fixated on gender identity.
Its founders, Kate Harris and Bev Jackson, claim to have been “cancelled” for questioning gender identity theory and airing their concerns about the erosion of women’s rights in the face of the transgender movement.
Their detractors claim their refusal to include the ‘T’ in their LGB Alliance is transphobic…
But why should that be seen as transphobic? Why can’t there be a group that’s about lesbian, gay and bisexual people? Being trans is not the same thing; even if you think it’s closely related, you can’t think it’s just plain the same thing, so why does it have to be included every time anyone talks about lesbian and gay issues?
On Wednesday, Ofcom chief Melanie Dawes said it would be “entirely inappropriate” for the BBC to approach groups like the LGB Alliance to “balance” debates around trans issues after SNP MP John Nicolson, a homosexual, described them as “transphobic”.
Ok, I say Melanie Dawes and John Nicolson are transphobic; does that mean they have to be ignored and shunned too?
“If you do not accept that everyone has a gender identity then you are automatically labelled transphobic which means you can no longer discuss women’s lives and what’s happening to lesbians,” said Ms Jackson. “We are increasingly discovering that lesbians are no longer welcome in the LGBTQ+ world, which is astonishing.”
…
Ms Harris said: “We are both convinced, had we been growing up now, that we would have transitioned.”
Referring to her childhood as a tomboy, she added: “If I was in school today, I would be taken to one side and helped to come to terms with the fact that I was gender non-conforming. And how special would I feel? What child would turn down additional attention?”
Citing scientific studies which have found elevated rates of autism in transgender people, she said: “This is what drives us. We were recently talking to a teacher in a SEN [special educational needs] school who said there were 24 trans kids, one non binary, but no gays and lesbians.
“Is lesbianism going to become extinct? Yes. It’s deeply uncool. At school, in university, it is so uncommon, it is the bottom of the heap. Becoming trans is now considered the brave option.”
Well hey lesbians got maybe two weeks of being the brave option, so that’s enough, right?
Following accusations of being associated with “neo Nazis”, Ms Jackson said: “We have no connection whatsoever with any far right organisation, any religious right organisation”.
That came after its Just Giving and Go Fund Me pages were taken down following complaints by the SNP’s Mr Nicolson, who described the LGB Alliance as “a hate group which encourages the trolling of trans people and those who champion their rights”.
The MP for Ochil and South Perthshire is now campaigning for the organisation to be denied the charitable status it applied for in February.
He told the Telegraph The LGB Alliance had launched a “sinister campaign of abuse” against him, with supporters branding him a “paedophile” a “rape enabler” and a “misogynist” online after he questioned their motives.
But the Telegraph just got through saying he called them transphobic. He didn’t just innocently “question their motives,” he called them toxic names, names that get people systematically shunned and punished.
“No one is shutting it down,” he said. “It’s incredibly mouthy and loud and obstreperous and perfectly entitled to make the arguments it likes. What I object to is its demonising of trans people.
“I call the LGB Alliance sinister because it is. It’s milking the gullible for cash by claiming it is championing gay rights. Under no circumstances should they get charitable status. The Charity Commission should take one look at its abusive tweets.”
He seems like quite a bully.
‘It’s incredibly mouthy’–what an odd turn of phrase. It sounds like something an abusive man says about his female partner to justify hitting her.
David Futrelle has an amazingly stupid piece about this on WHTM where he pretends to equate the “extinction” of lesbians described by Kate Harris to the claims of ‘white genocide’ by white supremacists. And thereby, of course, to equate “transphobes” (he means us) with white supremacists.
Futrelle doesn’t believe his own writing. He’s not that stupid. I used to think he wasn’t that dishonest. I used to think he cared about the women abused by the people he tends to write about.
Just like PZ he’s reduced to superstitiously pecking the Skinner box for attention-treats. I no longer have even the tiniest crumb of respect left for either of them as writers or as people.
guest:
It really does sound like that, doesn’t it? It sounds exactly like that.
I wonder…
Is the right not to be sterilized as a child a gay right?
Several months ago We Hunted the Mammoth seems to have gone for a few months without a single post about terfs or transphobes (which is not to say one particular commenter didn’t bring it it up at random at least once or twice a post, and was often ignored), and I really thought he’d decided, as I suspect a lot of people have done and will do, to just pretend the whole thing never happened. But at least last time I looked (and you’ve confirmed it) he seems to have jumped into it again. I understand that some time ago someone contacted him directly about it, and he replied of course it’s not possible for a man to actually become a woman, that’s ridiculous–so I’m sure you’re right that he doesn’t actually believe any of this. I can’t really tell what he’s getting out of playing along so vocally though. I used to financially support his blog but have obviously long since stopped, and I know of several other people who also have. I can’t think the financial shortfall is made up by the TWAW people, since they’re usually broke, struggling, and posting gofundmes for cosmetic surgery and cute clothes. There is money in gender ideology, but as far as I can tell only from the big grantmakers, and I don’t think Futrelle is on that gravy train.
If anyone wants to see Dawes and Nicholson in action, they’re here: https://www.parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/5bf35281-2f79-4872-9ba7-6e368116e93d Dawes comes across as startlingly naïve, while Nicholson (from about 10:12) is insufferably conceited and pompous, like a stereotypical Tory of 30+ years ago. Hero of the hour is Damien Green from 10:29:40 who puts Dawes on the spot and indeed has her denying the implications of her love-in with Nicholson.
Which side would that be, again?
Homosexuality
1.)People are often sexually and/or romantically attracted to other people.
Gay men: males with same-sex attraction.
Lesbians: females with same-sex attraction.
Bisexuals: both same-sex attraction and opposite sex-attraction.
Transgenderism
1.) Everyone is born with an innate gender identity and this is what makes a person male, female, or neither. 2.) There is as yet no test for this but it’s subjective and definitive. 3.) Sex is a spectrum and assigned at birth 4.) the mind takes precedence over genitals, chromosomes, etc. 5.) A woman is anyone who knows they’re a woman; a man is anyone who knows they’re a man.
Trans Woman: a female who was assigned male at birth.
Trans Man: a male who was assigned female at birth.
Non-binary: someone assigned either male or female at birth who may be neither or both.
Yeah, the T isn’t exploiting the LGB for credibility or anything. They just slide right in there.
I used to follow WHTM regularly (their take downs of the sad, sad Incel Nazis continue to be funny), but I just can’t follow the gender essentialism.
Oy. I just read the WHTM post. Amazingly stupid is right.
His chain of reasoning for comparing the two:
He thought of it, you see. You can’t argue with that!
I wonder how many organisations there are in the world, or even in a single nation, that do not include the T. Is it transphobic for the Cancer Council to not bother? How about Diabetes Australia, or Hutt St. Centre? Probably not. Yet we see a tell if we switch from the Cancer Council to one that is more associated with the female sex, a breast cancer charity perhaps, only then do we see the TRA outrage machine swing into action. I’ve yet to see the same thing happen for a male related charity.
Apparently, people can have things to themselves, except the female ones.
Well that’s nice to know. So it’s all a storm in a teacup, then?
Ah, I see what he did there. Convince everybody to starve the organisation of funds until it either gives in and centres the T or shuts itself down. A bit like a besieging army doesn’t kill the enemy, they merely prevent them getting fresh supplies of food, water and medicines until they either surrender or die of starvation, dehydration or disease.
#5 guest
Was that exchange somewhere public and/or archived?
Not that I’m aware of–I read a comment by the person who contacted Futrelle on one of the many previous occasions where the topic’s come up, quite possibly as a comment to a blog post here.
The part I find deeply sad (and sadness is one of the many, many things that enrages me) is that the LGB Alliance is worried about (in particular) young lesbians who might be given bad advice and end up unhappy. That’s it. They’re not trying to maintain a quota of lesbians or to claim some sort of ownership over the bodies of (former) lesbians as Futrelle weirdly claims. They’re worried that influential organisations telling lesbians that they’re really men and that being a lesbian is shameful or, at best, boring might just end up being harmful to those lesbians.
This does not seem very much like wanting to ban immigration or inter-racial parenting because you want everyone in your country to be white. The concern is for an already marginalised group of women, not for a selfish, crazy ideology.
It’s not the sort of argument that’s productive to have on Twitter, though, so I’ve settled for asking Futrelle why he incorrectly and perhaps libellously called the LGB Alliance “transphobic”. I’ll try to remember to ask him every day until he answers or blocks me, I’ll let you know if anything happens.
It’s interesting that nobody is complaining how LGB Alliance and Pink News are actually straightphobic. I mean, won’t somebody think of the straight people! /s
@14 It’s a good point; I’ve read other people comment that the ‘cancelled’ people and groups are, at their most basic, expressing concern and care for people. There’s no grand ideology or overarching philosophical structure, for the most part (although Jane Clare Jones does write about some important philosophical implications of gender ideology)–it’s about making sure kids of all kinds can grow up free of abuse and harm, vulnerable women aren’t preyed on, denied access to services or driven out of the public sphere, and women who strive for positions, awards and prizes that have historically been difficult or impossible for them to achieve can earn the results of their talent, skill and effort. That’s fundamentally it. It’s just, as some older women have been writing, safeguarding–which seems to end up always being the responsibility of older women.
If you do get any response from Futrelle please share it–I’d at least like to see his justification for his online behaviour.
Richard @ 6 – thank you for that link. Very interesting to watch Nicolson say the BBC seeks “balance” (he makes the squiggle fingers around “balance”) on trans issues and that’s odd because they don’t seek “balance” on issues of racism by inviting racists to say black people should not be treated as equals. The sly shit. Nobody is saying trans people should not be treated as equals.
@guest:
No reply as yet, but David did like a comment that told me to:
When would I have the time to do all that?
Nice. I guess what I’m taking away from this brief exchange is that people who identify and criticise ‘bad thinking’ aren’t necessarily doing it out of any kind of compassion or support for those harmed by that bad thinking. Or, as I mentioned on this blog a while back, the enemy of my enemy isn’t my friend.