June 7, 2021 - 4:52pm
The decision by the Charity Commission to register the LGB Alliance as a charity outraged its detractors. The main complaint against the LGB Alliance is that it is concerned exclusively with the LGB, without the T.
But that furore paled in comparison to the news over the weekend that Twitter has awarded the LGB Alliance with a blue tick. The tick means that Twitter has verified the account as genuine, so users can be confident it is run by the actual LGB Alliance and not by some spotty 15-year-old in his bedroom.
But those ticks also confer credibility — authority even — and so they are coveted. There was apoplexy. Most of it came from anonymous accounts, but some came from people with verified accounts and significant followings.
One such person was Jack Turban, a verified account with over 30,000 followers. A doctor and a fellow in child and adolescent psychiatry at Stanford University, Turban tweeted the following:
https://twitter.com/jack_turban/status/1401373236806381571
Even though Turban’s tweet was completely false (the ‘T’ is not ‘missing’ because the group hates trans people, nor does it ‘exist to oppose civil rights’), it was shared over 1000 times within 24 hours.
Then out of the woodwork stumbled John Nicolson. Nicolson is the SNP MP Ochil and South Perthshire and an outspoken critic of the LGB Alliance, which he has described as “nasty” and “sinister“. Last night he jumped onto Turban’s Tweet and compared the group to the BNP, which he has since deleted (screenshot below).
Notice the blue tick — Twitter has verified his account too. This is a member of parliament likening an LGB charity — formed by Lesbian women with long and distinguished campaigning records — with a far-Right organisation.
How does he imagine that this outrageous analogy will possibly help trans people like me? Numerous organisations focus purely on the T, so why can’t LGB people have the same for lesbians, gays and bisexuals?
So-called “trans allies” like Nicolson can walk away when it suits him; we can’t. To make comparisons like these will only serve to further inflame the raging debate around our rights and risks alienating yet more people. It needs to stop, and stop now.
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SubscribeIf the majority hated minorities as much as minorities hate each other, there’d be no minorities at all.
Yes, but who cares? These people are genuinely crazy. Clean out of their minds bat s**t crazy.
Hyper warp drive and over the event horizon nuts.
Their entire existence is reduced to screaming, every five seconds
“OMG everyone, the bad man said a bad thing. OMG!”
Had you ever thought of saying what you think <G.
ps I upvoted you
I never understood how the ‘T’ barged its way into the acronym in the first place. Lesbians’, gays’ and bisexuals’ campaigns and so on had a commonality – legal equality of sexuality. Trans-ness is something else altogether.
It makes two of us.
Careful, that could become a thing – being two people at the same time.
I would not be remotely surprised if, at some time in the next 5 years, someone announces themselves to be male and female on some alternating basis, and if a celebrity who scoffs at this on Twitter then gets cancelled.
I am 100% certain that this is already a thing. I think it’s called “two-spirit”…
I think they have it in Canada . Who would have thought that a freezing cold country that you associate with sensible things like The Mounties would go so weird?
It started when we elected a brain dead Ken doll as Prime Minister.
Or “gender fluid”; I think that’s basically what it means…one day they might identify as male (and insist on male pronouns), the next as female, etc.
What bugs me the most – and this must be the English teacher in me – is those who give their pronouns as something like “She/They.” What the hell? She and they are both subject pronouns. What about object pronouns? Possessives?
It’s already happened. Google Pippa Bunce.
It is already a thing: Stonewall’s guidance for employers seeking their Champion status say they should include at least one example specific to gender fluid people, and offer the example of providing multiple passcards with different forms of gender expression so they can be a different gender each day.
Google Pippa Bunce
Can there be a more quintessentially British name than “Pippa Bunce”?
Justin Webb had a bad time interviewing someone from Stonewall. He just asked whether they were in favour of trans women going into spaces such as refuges. Instead of answering stonewall man said he should ask a trans person. Everyone on twitter weighed in against Webb-so even the trying to be woke can be unwoked. It seems that that actually Stonewall is ok with someone with male parts calling themselves women going into places where bio-women go to escape dangerous bio-men.Allowing trans women into women’s prisons worked out well didn’t it? What about a new not for profit group called PWS (PEOPLE WITH SENSE) sorting some of this mess out?
My point – made above – entirely.
it came in when the ‘T’ meant gay men using drag and cultural femininity to express their sexuality.
That’s been superseded more recently by mainly straight men claiming the very identity and essence of women, and being brought into the fold of gay sexuality – even to the extent of erasing same-sex attraction and lesbians in particular.
Many LGBT organisations have now redefined the ‘sex’ in ‘sexuality’ as gender….which kind of denies the entire enterprise.
Seems that the Black Cap in Camden closed in 2015 .Is that perhaps a sign drag acts are no longer part of gay culture ? I hadn’t been since the 1980s but was fun place
Remember when you would judge people on their actions?
Seems such a long time ago jow
Like a spoilt child that’s given everything he wants the Trans community will never be satisfied. I’m gay and I keep my sexual/gender/personal/attractions/preferences to myself, rather like most self respecting straight people do. However, and with the greatest of respect, why should I be lumped in (and vice versa) with the Trans community; where’s our connection I just don’t get it?
Thanks for a cool headed comment about a subject that has become unnecessarily inflamed by unwanted “bandwagoneers”.
Thank you for writing this.
Come off it Jock (or John ) the SNP is just the BNP with the E and W missing
Ok, I don’t get it …
S(cottish) NationalParty plus England and Wales is Bnp.
There are lots of US people on here .Are you perhaps one or was it just an obscure and pointless comment I made ? John quoted in article is an SNP member of Parliament
Nicolson used to work for the BBC where he evidently hid his true nature , because every interview he has since given as a politician he comes over to me ( obviously not his constituents ) as extremely unpleasant .As you say bit freudian slip on his part as SNP is itself very nationalistic
Thank you Debbie, once again I agree with every single sensible word you wrote.
Do you think if we just ignore them they’ll all go away? I’m sick of hearing about trannies.
We can’t use the term ‘trannies’. You must used the proper name which is ‘Transit’.
Well, I am old fashioned – I prefer the term transistor radio.
Well, I actually prefer to use ‘wireless’, but when I do people quite reasonably accuse me of affectation.
As in sick Gloria
Nicolson has a nerve – a man who believes that women with their petty concerns and right are disproprotionately more likely to be ‘bigoted’ than men. It would be more valid to liken him to the BNP
The inclusion of the “T” was at a time when it stood for either ‘transsexual’ or (more often) ‘transvestite’: it was a time when ‘trans’ was associated with gay men using drag to express their sexuality and hence it was natural to attach it to LGB.
More recently it has become associated with straight men who identify as women. And with that identity rather than sexuality. Hence the concern of some LGB that the ‘T’ should be detached for now – and hence the concerns (so readily dismissed by men like Nicolson) of many feminists.
Two of the major left-right issues here are a) the misogynistic abuse meted out by too many Trans Rights Activists to women with ‘reasonable concerns’; and b) the ever-growing list of violent sex offenders who now identify as women in order to get near to women.
On both of those issues Nicolson and the other male cheerleaders for misogyny have positioned themselves firmly on the general ideological side of the far-right.
Apparently some ‘Terfs’ are now referring to trans activists as ‘Wimps’ . Women impersonating male perverts (or some say persons not perverts )
I think you need a hyphen – women-impersonating male persons/pervs. Soz, the editor in me never sleeps….
Ok W-imps ! It’s the perverts doing the impersonating after all
Nothing against genuine gay transvestite acts which are usually great
These people need to grow a set, stop acting like big girls blouses and man up 😉
Think you’ve covered everything there. The trouble with what might be politically called not the left wing is they let themselves down when they start judging other people. Wheras left-wing like to portray themselves as kind & caring towards whoever the new letter of the alphabet person is ie they consider themselves progressive., I notice commentators , especially on American sites, complaining about other’s sexuality or women having abortions etc. It makes them look very censorious & weakens the liberal attitude. Adults can do what they want with other adults ( so obviously not children , animals or vulnerable adults)-however the state shouldn’t have to finance or in any way facilitate their life-style.
Trann¡es vs Terfs, The Sequel™. From the director of Alien vs Predator.
Let them eat one another, to paraphrase dear Marie.
Two bald men fighting over a comb. Couldn’t care less.
Except that the TERFs are 50% of the population (i.e. women).
I keep telling my wife that I might become Nancy, the plus side for her would be I might shave twice a week rather than just once, when the itching gets too much for me. I have said she should become Sid so we can be Sid and Nancy (showing my age – for those not so old check out the Sex Pistols from the 70s). However she would prefer to stay as she is an become a lesbian.
Our DNA makes us what we are, who we are seems to be a matter of personal preference so why not.
The SNP attracts nasty people like Nicholson for some strange reason!
Why? Because like the BNP, albeit on very different issues, a group that regards same-sex erotic attraction as being about the object of desire being of the same biological sex as the one desiring, rather than the same self-declared or subjectively-felt “gender” as the one desiring stands in opposition to the received opinions of the turn-of-the-21st-century left’s bien pensants.
Indeed, insisting on the importance in human relations of actual biological sex is now so beyond the pale in some circles that call themselves “left” these days that in their eyes it constitutes a kind of sexual far-rightism.
Dear Debbie,
My Question
I always find the articles you write for UnHerd pleasingly dripping with moderation and common-sense.
I’m hoping then that you can educate me on a question of Trans-rights that has always puzzled me, though it rarely if ever arises when I read your material.
I see it this way: eliminating discrimination against lesbians and gays has always been premised on the assertion — which I fully accept — that their sexual orientation is not a lifestyle choice. (I daresay there are also other very good reasons to eliminate such discrimination.) When it comes to the phenomenon of Trans’, the situation is nowhere near as clear-cut it seems to me.
Whilst the feelings experienced by people that have such a strong desire to trans’ might not be something they choose, there is an element of choice involved in identifying as Trans’ and then actually trans’ing. There are also elements of absence of consent that arise when the motives of some Trans’-identifiers (if I can call them that) are found to be unacceptably too far towards the desire for self-gratification rather than a completely understandable yearning for simple happiness and unconditional acceptance in society. (The case of Karen White is an example.) Lawful gay and lesbian sexual behaviour is on the other hand always consensual.
So my question is: what (if it’s possible to say) rights that they don’t already enjoy do Trans’ people want, exactly? Does it really just come down to toilet use?
And Now a Proposal
You and many others are doubtless not going to like what I say next. I have a severe disability. I also want discrimination against disabled people to be eliminated. But no matter the legal context of disability, the waning of prejudices towards disability, the gradual adaptation of the built and social environment removing barriers to my ability to act independently, it is not likely that it will during my lifetime be possible to bring about physical and social adaptation that could banish all forms of restriction to my independence of action. Of course I could (choose to) demand that strictures are legally imposed that will make it possible for me to have complete freedom of action (physically impossible in my case), but by doing so I would really start to impose my needs on others to an excessive degree and, in doing so, trample on their rights. I accept such restrictions on my freedom of action; I review this acceptance occasionally to see if it is still appropriate or whether it is appropriate to expect and demand further change.
So I suggest that the desire and choice to trans’ might be more appropriately dealt with in society by its being treated as a form of disability. Trans’ people could then use the accessible toilets which are designed, amongst other things, to make it easier for disabled people, parents with infants/toddlers* etc to toilet.
Why not? Extreme Trans’** would rather be treated exactly the same as cis’ rather than being treated as exceptional even though it could be argued that they largely are (exceptional) being probably well below 1% of the adult population***. Society in general is now far more accepting of disability than formerly; why not allow such acceptance to be extended to those amongst us who are Trans’ without the immediate need for such acceptance automatically and ever to be impugned as just not enough?
*child carers are not, of course, permanently disabled, but they are in a phase of life during which they are restricted to some extent in their freedom of independent action.
**I would be willing to bet that most extreme Trans’-activists don’t give much thought to the discrimination still experienced by disabled people. (I don’t think I am lapsing into “what-about-ery” here.) If they were to accept their condition as a form of disability and add their voices to advocate for removal of discrimination against disabled people, disabled people would gain a competent ally and their cause might attract more sympathy.
***https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/trans-adults-united-states/