What is a lesbian?

VioletSky

The equality act protects those beliefs and I respect the equality act

Using those beliefs to do harm or dictate to others however is not protected and may be challenged

But apparently the EA has changed recently. We have yet to see the detail of those changes, but what if, say, the Act has changed in a way that you now find discriminatory? Would you still respect it? Or do you have your own views, decided by your own moral compass, that stand regardless of shifts in legislation?

Not according to google Doodledog. "The Equality Act is up to date with all changes known to be in force on or before 21st August 2023".

I really can't be bothered with people telling me what I mean anymore

Funny isn't it how when threatened, or it is shown there are huge holes in their argument the people on this thread who claim to be feminists and standing up for women resort to personal attacks, or telling the rest of us (quite wrongly) what we have said or believe.
It shows I think that once you start discriminating you have to carry on doing so in order to support that discrimination.
You are all welcome to your beliefs just stop trying to impose them on other people.

As for the equality act the latest information (which I posted a link to earlier in this thread, but obviously some people were ot concerned enough to read ) comes from the Equality Commission in May 2022. It's a clearer explanation of single sex places and of what needs to be done to implement them. OKso technically it isn't a change in the law but it is a clearer and more accessible explanation.
There's also a helpline for those wishing to implement the law.
What a pity the organiser didn't just do a Google first
www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/advice-and-guidance/when-you-can-provide-separate-or-single-sex-service

Well, I am autistic and one of my many traits is that I will follow training, laws, guidance or legislation

It's just who I am

So far it hasn't gone against my morals and values and if it does, I don't know what happens

Glorianny

Funny isn't it how when threatened, or it is shown there are huge holes in their argument the people on this thread who claim to be feminists and standing up for women resort to personal attacks, or telling the rest of us (quite wrongly) what we have said or believe.
It shows I think that once you start discriminating you have to carry on doing so in order to support that discrimination.
You are all welcome to your beliefs just stop trying to impose them on other people.

As for the equality act the latest information (which I posted a link to earlier in this thread, but obviously some people were ot concerned enough to read ) comes from the Equality Commission in May 2022. It's a clearer explanation of single sex places and of what needs to be done to implement them. OKso technically it isn't a change in the law but it is a clearer and more accessible explanation.
There's also a helpline for those wishing to implement the law.
What a pity the organiser didn't just do a Google first
www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/advice-and-guidance/when-you-can-provide-separate-or-single-sex-service

Re your first paragraph, can you please point to an example of this, as it is impossible to tell whether posters agree with you or not when you post in such vague terms?

As for the second - again, the 'some people' makes it impossible to tell who you are having a go at (which, incidentally, does not sidestep any rules about personal comments) but if I may speak
for myself, I did read your link (Covid is very boring!) and could find no change in the law as you claimed had happened - if memory serves you even gave us a date when these changes apparently came into being. Now I understand way. If you would like to apologise for wasting the time of posters who were 'concerned enough to read' your link, as it didn't contain the information you said it would, I am sure that people will consider accepting your apology.

Also, can you link us to the images you mentioned upthread, please? I could find a sentence or so explaining (after the cancellation) that the reason the organiser had added that she didn't want transwomen there was because of previous incidents, but no images at all, and nothing to link imagery to the accusations of transphobia.

I wouldn't be so insistent if not for the fact that you persistently accuse others of misinformation, twisting words and generally telling lies on these threads, and the hypocrisy of that is getting impossible to bear.

By personal attacks Glorianny do you mean where someone's accused of claiming to speak for all lesbians and being accused of dictating to others what they should believe and forcing their beliefs onto others?

I haven't seen any evidence that those who disagree with your point of view feel threatened or any evidence that there are huge holes in their argument.

You "quite wrongly" suggested that Mollygo had said that people who trans gender are liars when she said nothing of the sort, and yet here you are accusing others of doing what you've done, with no examples.

No Glorianny that isn't a change in the law with regard to the EA technically or otherwise, it is as you now correctly say a clearer and more accessible explanation.

We don't need to be told we are welcome to our beliefs, we know we are and we don't need to be told to stop trying to impose those beliefs on others, because that is not what we are doing.

We are simply expressing our beliefs, opinions and factual information.

I hope people can get the gist of the above with all the typos - sorry!

Read and understood Doodledog.

Some lesbians in relationships with trans women would argue that they are still lesbians and have never dated a man or have made a choice to not date men in future

If you are telling them they can't be lesbians you still are trying to speak for lesbians by saying the demographic "lesbians" doesn't include them

Yet many lesbians see themselves and trans women in relationships with women as lesbians

I don't know why that doesn't make sense to you

I just find it easier in my head to replace the word ‘trans’ with the word ‘fake’.

Who has said that lesbians can't be lesbians if they are (a) women, and (b) fancy other women? Nobody.

Who has said that a transwoman who wants sex with women is not a lesbian but a straight man? Many people.

Who can tell the difference?

Doodledog

Glorianny

Funny isn't it how when threatened, or it is shown there are huge holes in their argument the people on this thread who claim to be feminists and standing up for women resort to personal attacks, or telling the rest of us (quite wrongly) what we have said or believe.
It shows I think that once you start discriminating you have to carry on doing so in order to support that discrimination.
You are all welcome to your beliefs just stop trying to impose them on other people.

As for the equality act the latest information (which I posted a link to earlier in this thread, but obviously some people were ot concerned enough to read ) comes from the Equality Commission in May 2022. It's a clearer explanation of single sex places and of what needs to be done to implement them. OKso technically it isn't a change in the law but it is a clearer and more accessible explanation.
There's also a helpline for those wishing to implement the law.
What a pity the organiser didn't just do a Google first
www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/advice-and-guidance/when-you-can-provide-separate-or-single-sex-service

Re your first paragraph, can you please point to an example of this, as it is impossible to tell whether posters agree with you or not when you post in such vague terms?

As for the second - again, the 'some people' makes it impossible to tell who you are having a go at (which, incidentally, does not sidestep any rules about personal comments) but if I may speak
for myself, I did read your link (Covid is very boring!) and could find no change in the law as you claimed had happened - if memory serves you even gave us a date when these changes apparently came into being. Now I understand way. If you would like to apologise for wasting the time of posters who were 'concerned enough to read' your link, as it didn't contain the information you said it would, I am sure that people will consider accepting your apology.

Also, can you link us to the images you mentioned upthread, please? I could find a sentence or so explaining (after the cancellation) that the reason the organiser had added that she didn't want transwomen there was because of previous incidents, but no images at all, and nothing to link imagery to the accusations of transphobia.

I wouldn't be so insistent if not for the fact that you persistently accuse others of misinformation, twisting words and generally telling lies on these threads, and the hypocrisy of that is getting impossible to bear.

Funny you have read the link Doodledog but failed to see the date at the bottom of the page- updated May 2022
I won't ask you to apologise for once again accusing me of something I haven't done. I suggest you read it again.

Images don't have to be visual. A graphic description will suffice. There are numerous posts on this thread reiterating the words used by the organiser. As in my opinion they are massively transphobic I will not repeat them anymore than I would repeat racist language.

Glorianny

Funny isn't it how when threatened, or it is shown there are huge holes in their argument the people on this thread who claim to be feminists (or even intersectional feminists) and standing up for women resort to personal attacks, or telling the rest of us (quite wrongly) what we have said or believe.

And once again, Glorianny’s words are exactly what is true about her posts.

Thank you Glorianny.

Re VS
Yet many lesbians see themselves and trans women in relationships with women as lesbians

And I’m sure you know hundreds of them VS, 😁 but in my admittedly limited (next to your vast) acquaintance, lesbians see TW as male and though happy to be friends, would not choose them to be sexual partners, their reason being because they prefer females.

Some (and I don’t claim to speak for all lesbians) feel it has taken a long time for lesbians and gays to have the right to a same sex relationship and now they (lesbians) are being challenged in that right by those wanting to introduce males claiming that they are also lesbian.
I have no idea what gay men feel so I can’t speak for any or all of them. The only gays I know, including a teacher where I work, have same sex relationships with males.

Lesbians who want an heterosexual relationship are welcome to call their partners whatever they want as long they don’t want to force their views on anyone else.
They and their partners would obviously not be going to lesbian speed dating events mentioned in the OP.

Yes, the link I posted also various updates, if you bothered to open it but nothing was updated in the way you said it had been. Which is the point. Your supposed update never happened. Ever. In fact, despite the numerous times you have told us that 'all women have to do' is say they would not attend an event to get it closed down, it never happened, did it? That is what I am getting at.

No need to ask me to apologise - for one thing I don't tell lies, and for another, if I am wrong I admit it - I don't wriggle and twist things to make me look better.

Images don't have to be visual? Well, that's a wriggle if ever I saw one . Are you now admitting that you never saw the things you claimed, and in fact the description by the organiser, which happened after she had closed the event, is all you had to go on? That she did not use the images in her cancellation, but simply described the incidents that led to her decision?

So. What have we learned?
*That it is perfectly legal for an event to be exclusively for lesbians, and always has been.

*That the event was closed when transwomen threatened to attend because the organiser had had bad experiences of what had happened when they had attended before.

*That there were no images depicting transwomen in latex with the fake genitalia you described earlier.

*That there have been no relevant changes to the EA, despite a date for such changes having been posted on this very thread.

*That the claim that you would have supported the organiser had she used the law to cancel the event is based on very spurious logic - are you withdrawing that now that we can all see that the law has not changed in any relevant way?

*That the description of the events that led to the closure were given afterwards - ie that the organiser did not use them as justification for an intent to close it, and nor did she use 'transphobic images' to back up her decision.

*That previous attendees had expressed concern about going if trainwomen were going to attend, and it was this that prompted the cancellation, not 'transphobia'.

That was meant to link to Glorianny's previous post.

But that's just it isn't it

You are so focused on your beliefs that you can't listen to the perspective of those who have different beliefs

It looks different from my perspective than it does yours because of the different foundations of belief

So there is no point trying to say your opinion is superior and you have the right to dictate who is a lesbian

Especially when LGBT and pride groups (,which I am a member of) are offended by your need to dictate your beliefs to others

Exactly how many threads do we see started by LGBT members here denouncing your beliefs to you and telling you what to think? One or two in over a year at best

Yet the record for your threads was 4 in 4 days

Who are you addressing, VS? It is very difficult for people to be sure when you post in such a vague manner.

doodledog I do not have any friends in the LGB alliance or who are trans exclusionary

Holding your circle against mine is a pointless exercise

How many attend pride compared to LGB alliance events? If it is numbers you want on your side, find out

I don't care, I am simply stating I know like or follow people who are lovely people who don't deserve any of this, not using it as some sort of personal army

Anyone it applies to doodledog

You can read and respond by choice, if I don't tag, that's less pressure

VS you’ve got the hang of writing self descriptive posts too.
To me it appears

You are so focused on your beliefs that you can't listen to the perspective of those who have different beliefs.

VioletSky

doodledog I do not have any friends in the LGB alliance or who are trans exclusionary

Holding your circle against mine is a pointless exercise

How many attend pride compared to LGB alliance events? If it is numbers you want on your side, find out

I don't care, I am simply stating I know like or follow people who are lovely people who don't deserve any of this, not using it as some sort of personal army

I don't have friends n the LGB Alliance either - not AFAIK, anyway.

I am not holding my circle against yours - I don't even know what that means.

Please don't tell me what to do? I have no interest in numbers for these things - I suspect that you are confusing me with someone else.

I have not said you are using anything as a personal army. Again, maybe you are confusing me with someone else - or maybe you are hallucinating.

I didn't come up with the word lesbian that refers to women who are emotionally and physically attracted to other women VS. So I am dictating nothing. That is the definition of a lesbian.

Lesbians are of course entitled to have relationships with who ever the please, and if they want to call a relationship with a trans woman a lesbian relationship, they can do so but that doesn't mean that it is. I honestly don't know why that doesn't make sense to you, whether or not you agree.

A good summary of what we have learned Doodledog.

I am listening

Quite respectfully

I don't make personal comments

I don't assign meaning to others

I don't word twist

And sometimes I agree on certain issues and even change my thoughts on them

So it is easy to tell

VioletSky

Anyone it applies to doodledog

You can read and respond by choice, if I don't tag, that's less pressure

Less pressure?

Not when someone uses the second person pronoun, which makes the post appear as though it is directly addressing one person. If the wrong person replies they can be asked 'why do you think this is about you?' It is far more honest to direct posts to the person they are actually addressing. The whole 'some people' thing is passive aggressive and tedious, as are supposedly general posts addressed to a nebulous 'you'.