[RD] LGBTQ news

[NinjaCow64]

That bill is definitely straddling the compelled speech prohibition of the First Amendment.

I am near certain that this bill is making the rounds through the court system right now.

 

[Yeekim]

Yeah, this was pointed out by Manfred Belheim a while back. That said, I fail to see the relevance of pointing out "at least" the bill mandates something that, in your own words, is only "marginally less horrible".

Just an observation I did not realize had been made already.

 

[Bugfatty300]

Homeowner told by home owners association to remove pride flag.

Homeowner finds a loophole.

View attachment 599004

https://www.wearegreenbay.com/news/...pride-flag-find-creative-way-to-show-support/

Now that's some good ol' American free market bootstrap innovation right there! All these cancel culture "victims" need to take note.

 

[Farm Boy]

Home owners associations seem almost entirely run by scum for scum.

 

[Rashiminos]

They're always scum by some definition.

 

[Farm Boy]

Sure, but the lack of redeeming features here is unusual.

 

[EgonSpengler]

As a ciswoman, I find it offensive that we demand transwomen "start transitioning" before being recognized as women. I find the very idea that she has to "pass" appalling. Women come in all shapes and sizes across the spectrum, and the idea that you've got to meet some kind of attractiveness expectation is deeply rooted in misogyny.

Ciswomen can be over 6 feet tall. We can have short hair. We can have body hair. We can even have facial hair. We can have deep or raspy voices. We can have calloused skin. We don't all look pretty, but that doesn't make us any less of women.

You shouldn't be required to do anything to be accepted for who you are.

I'm glad you brought this up. It's something that's been itching at the back of my brain, too, as I read about efforts to control transgender women. In addition to the overall smog of intolerance of queer people, it also seems like an(other) effort to control and define what being a woman is and isn't.

I'm thinking about a couple of celebrities that I like, Cristiane "Cyborg" Justino and Nicole Maines (photos below). Justino is cisgender and Maines is transgender. On the topic of sports, I guess Republicans would have me believe that Maines shouldn't be allowed to compete with Justino, because she's too masculine? And, yes, Justino has weathered all of the predictable comments about her body, her voice, whether she's straight or gay, etc, like the trolls are reading from a script.

Spoiler :

 

[Berzerker]

Maines dont look like the fighting type

 

[Samson]

"TERF" is a protected belief under the UK Equalities Act:

The Claimant holds gender-critical beliefs, which include the belief that sex is immutable and not to be conflated with gender identity. Some of her colleagues at work complained that they found her comments offensive, and, following an investigation, her visiting fellowship was not renewed.​

The Tribunal held that the belief, being absolutist in nature and whereby the Claimant would “refer to a person by the sex she considers appropriate even if it violates their dignity and/or creates an intimidating, hostile, degrading or offensive environment”, was one that was “not worthy of respect in a democratic society”.
The Claimant appealed.
Held, allowing the appeal, that the Tribunal had erred in its application of Grainger V. A philosophical belief would only be excluded for failing to satisfy Grainger V if it was the kind of belief the expression of which would be akin to Nazism or totalitarianism and thereby liable to be excluded from the protection of rights under Articles 9 and 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) by virtue of Article 17 thereof. The Claimant’s gender-critical beliefs, which were widely shared, and which did not seek to destroy the rights of trans persons, clearly did not fall into that category. The Claimant’s belief, whilst offensive to some, and UKEAT/0105/20/JOJ notwithstanding its potential to result in the harassment of trans persons in some circumstances, fell within the protection under Article 9(1), ECHR and therefore within s.10, EqA.
​

Case Beeb

 

[Gorbles]

But the Honourable Mr Justice Choudhury said her "gender-critical beliefs" did fall under the Equalities Act as they "did not seek to destroy the rights of trans persons".

lol, you couldn't make this up. "beliefs that invalidate the existence of trans people (and others) do not seek to destroy the rights of trans people".

To summarise for people who want a short version, "gender critical" (when it isn't just a renaming of "I have transphobic beliefs but don't want to publicly admit it") is an opposition to (and attempted refutation of) modern advancements in understanding gender as a separate thing to (biological) sex

On the surface of it, this seems reasonable (if flawed), but in reality what it means is that gender critical adherents reject people who identify with a different gender than the one traditionally equated with their biological sex (pre-transition, if any). It also completely ignores the wealth of variation in biological sex, and the actual science at play (r.e. chromosomal variance). It's not only offensive, but it's literally anti-science.

That said, given the prevalence of transphobic opinion in UK society, including in law and other professions, I'm disappointed but not surprised to see this appeal land the way it did. It seems incredible that a belief that rejects a trans person's lived experience is somehow equivalent to not causing that person harm.

Ah well. The free speech crowd will be all over this, and the proof will be in Forstater (or others) continuing to misgender people and expecting no repercussions (as the judge of the appeal said they would not be able to). It's just another blow to trans folk in a country that's becoming increasingly hostile to them.

 

[Samson]

It's just another blow to trans folk in a country that's becoming increasingly hostile to them.

It seems to me that if the threshold for protected characteristics is if a belief does "not seek to destroy the rights of ... persons" then there are a whole lot of stances that could be protected: "Jews are space lizards, but they deserve the same rights as us human people".

 

[EgonSpengler]

Some nice news, for a change.

The Washington Post, 9 June 2021 - "A bakery lost a client when it made rainbow Pride cookies. So others bought every item in the shop."

When a small Southern bakery made rainbow-themed cookies to celebrate Pride Month, there was a swift backlash.

On June 2, Confections, a tiny store in Lufkin, Tex., shared a photo on its Facebook page of heart-shaped rainbow sugar cookies with the caption, “More LOVE. Less hate. Happy Pride to all our LGBTQ friends! All lovers of cookies and happiness are welcome here.”

Within an hour, the small business near the eastern edge of Texas lost dozens of followers on social media. Not long after, a peeved patron canceled an order she had placed for five dozen cookies.

She ended the post with a plea to Confections’ loyal customers: “If you love our cookies we will have an over abundance of them tomorrow.”

Little did she know, though, that her post would go viral on social media and that the line outside the tiny bakery would stretch for several blocks the following day.

Though the bakery opened at 10 a.m., a crowd had already assembled outside the front door by 8:30 the next morning.

“That line brought me to tears. All those people standing in the rain, waiting so patiently to buy a cookie,” Cooley said. “We just wanted to be inclusive, and it was so heartwarming to see how many people felt the same.”

Over the following few days, a steady stream of hundreds of customers arrived to show their support.

“The line just never ended. I had people buying cookies for the person behind them, buying cookies and handing them out to the kids outside. It was beautiful.” Dolder said. “They weren’t going to let this little bakery take a financial hit for showing love and acceptance for the gay community.”

I love it. Bludgeon the bigots with your wallet.

---

Maines dont look like the fighting type

And what, pray tell, does the "fighting type" look like? I think you've just proved @MaryKB's point.

I'm obviously just messing with you now, but here's a pic of one of the most dangerous unarmed fighters in the world.

Spoiler :

Mackenzie Dern:

 

[Farm Boy]

.Dangerous how? Dangerous sport(fights are a match), or dangerous dangerous(fights end in 2-5 moves with incapacitation)? Just curious. I usually get bored watching people punch each other in the face after about 5 minutes so I'm generally out of the loop on sport.

 

[Lemon Merchant]

Maines dont look like the fighting type

I don't look like the "fighting type" either, but I can seriously mess you up in about ten seconds. The last gay basher who came after me found that out in a hurry. Just because a woman can fight doesn't mean she has to look like a man, or look rough, butch, or anything else that might be a stereotype.

I find your comment extremely insensitive and misogynistic.

 

[Farm Boy]

People aren't used to assessing danger in real fights. They watch sports. Real fights are over almost immediately and somebody isn't going to be ok.

Then there's the American background noise where we let everyone, just about, carry pistols. So everyone is erratically dangerous in the real way.

 

[Lemon Merchant]

People aren't used to assessing danger in real fights. They watch sports. Real fights are over almost immediately and somebody isn't going to be ok.

That's true. It doesn't take long to make your point if you can make it.

 

[Farm Boy]

What's the amount of time in a draw to discharge situation? Takes a lot longer to get around to dying from it.

 

[Kyriakos]

I don't look like the "fighting type" either, but I can seriously mess you up in about ten seconds. The last gay basher who came after me found that out in a hurry. Just because a woman can fight doesn't mean she has to look like a man, or look rough, butch, or anything else that might be a stereotype.

I find your comment extremely insensitive and misogynistic.

I like that the other guy stayed in the car

I can't fight, at all. Sadly I was always too imperial to go to a martial arts school, though I had briefly considered it at school.

 

[Lemon Merchant]

It takes longer to block the first few punches or deflect a knife than it does to end the fight. I have never had to face a knife in the real world (thankfully), and I don't want to, but I would if I had to defend my life or that of someone else with me.

The unfortunate thing about knowing martial arts is that you can't strike first without legal repercussions, and you usually have to warn the attacker verbally. I have had very few RL "disagreements" of that sort, but sometimes you leave a gay club and you can expect to be harassed or attacked. The problem is that the bad guy has to take the first swing before you can beat him senseless.

 

[Lemon Merchant]

I like that the other guy stayed in the car

I did exactly that last year in a road rage incident. Lucky thing a cop and witnesses saw the guy punch me in the face first.