Tag Archives: LGBT+

NOT ‘safe to be me’: Tory betrayal of trans people triggers collapse of LGBT+ event

Two-fingered salute: Boris Johnson has voiced opposition to conversion therapy on multiple occasions, but actions speak louder than words and the gesture in the image above seems more indicative of his actual attitude to LGBT+ people

The UK’s Tory government has humiliatingly been forced to cancel an international conference of LGBT+ people in a row over its support for conversion therapy.

According to Wikipedia, “Conversion therapy is the pseudoscientific practice of attempting to change an individual’s sexual orientation from homosexual or bisexual to heterosexual or their gender identity from transgender to cisgender using psychological, physical, or spiritual interventions.

“There is no reliable evidence that such practices can alter sexual orientation or gender identity, and medical institutions warn that conversion therapy is ineffective and potentially harmful.”

The government had promised to outlaw conversion therapy in any form – but u-turned last week, saying any ban would only apply to attempts to alter a person’s sexuality, not attempts to try to change people’s gender identity.

So it seems the Tories are happy to expose trans people to potential harm.

It’s probably no wonder, then, that more than 100 LGBT+ organisations have responded by walking out of the Tories’ big, flagship, headline-grabbing international conference for, among all the other groups, trans people.

The killing blow was dealt to the event on Tuesday (April 5, 2022) when Iain Anderson, the Tory government’s first LGBT+ business champion, resigned. His unpaid role was specially-created for the lead-up to the conference, and was expected to last 18 months.

He would have been expected to showcase what UK businesses have done in reducing workplace discrimination and promoting quality for LGBT+ people at the conference – a tricky job in the light of the government’s new policy.

In a letter to prime minister Boris Johnson, who has allowed (demanded?) the u-turn to happen, he stated: “Trust and belief in the government’s overall commitment to LGBT+ rights has been damaged.

“I believe a comprehensive plan to support LGBT+ people to play their full part in our society is urgently needed.”

Johnson himself has previously called the practice of conversion therapy “repulsive and abhorrent” and had promised plans to outlaw it on a number of separate occasions. Has he been lying again?

A government spokesperson has responded with a statement that it would carry out “separate work” on the issue of transgender conversion therapy but it was keen for any legislation not to have “unintended consequences”, adding it was a “legally complex area”.

Oh yes – “unintended consequences”. We know that’s something that the government has always tried to avoid! (Hint: it never has.)

A Conservative MP, who did not want to be named, told the BBC: “Having failed to deliver for the LGBT community at home, we will now fail to deliver for LGBT communities around the world. What a record.”

Shadow Attorney General Emily Thornberry posted on Twitter: “For three years, I urged the Government to use the opportunity they had as co-chair of the (intergovernmental) Equal Rights Coalition to take a global lead on LGBTQ+ issues.

“For three years, they did nothing except talk up their ‘Safe To Be Me’ conference. And now where are we? What a sickening waste.”

Consortium, the umbrella body for LGBT+ voluntary and community organisations, said: “The implications of the international LGBT conference being cancelled are solely at the doorstep of Number 10.

“LGBT+ organisations were left with no choice but to withdraw any support in order to stand in solidarity and partnership with our trans communities.”

So there you have it. The Tories’ own prejudices have humiliated them. This is a terrific example of people power laying the mighty low. We may all learn from this.

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Rosie Duffield copies Luciana Berger: her Labour conference abuse claim is fake, too

Rosie Duffield: she reckons she can’t go to Labour’s conference because of threats from LGBT+ party members. Or possibly white male party members. Luciana Berger said she was intimidated by anti-Semitic party members a few years ago. She wasn’t – and Duffield has yet to divvy up any evidence for her own claims.

A Labour MP who broke genuine lockdown rules to meet her married lover has claimed she has been forced to pull out of the party conference because of threats to her safety that seem entirely imaginary.

Rosie Duffield told The Times that she had received online threats from “militant transgender activists”.

But where readers could have expected to see evidence to support her claim, all we got was this: “‘LGBT+ Labour now seem to hate my guts and I feared they’d have a massive go at me at conference,’ Duffield said.”

Ah! So there were no actual threats that she would be harmed if she attended conference at all, then?

“‘The people who threaten me I don’t think are actually likely to harm me.'”

Which people are these? We haven’t seen any evidence of any threats at all. And if they aren’t likely to harm her, why is she making such a fuss?

“‘They just say it often and very loudly.'”

Yes? Then The Times should have been able to show us evidence of this behaviour. And it didn’t.

In fact, This Writer has checked this story as it appears in 10 different newspapers, and none of them were able to show a single abusive tweet that Duffield had received, to support her claim.

And I’m not the only one.

Duffield tried to claim that this nonexistent abuse is a product of “misogyny” by “straight white men”.

She said, according to The Times: “It looks like, feels like, and smells like misogyny.”

Then how come the rest of us can’t see it, feel it, or get a whiff of it?

And if straight white men were responsible for the abuse, why had Duffield already blamed LGBT+ activists within the Labour Party?

Oh yes. That seems logical.

LGBT+ Labour itself has denied any involvement in abuse of the MP. According to the Huffington Post, a spokesperson said: “We have made clear our political disagreements with Rosie on policy affecting trans people, but political disagreement should never result in abuse or physical threats.

“LGBT+ Labour has never conducted itself in this way and would never encourage anyone else to. It is utterly unacceptable.

“Women in politics are subject to appalling levels of abuse and we are clear it has no place in our party or society.”

The HuffPost piece also falsely reported that former Labour MP Luciana Berger was given police protection at a previous party conference after months of anti-Semitic abuse. In fact, she was advised to have a police escort to and from the conference – and the only people who were ever found to have given her anti-Semitic abuse were far-right activists who had nothing to do with the Labour Party at all.

Nevertheless, Berger tried to blame then-leader Jeremy Corbyn for the anti-Semites who weren’t in the Labour Party, saying he was responsible for an influx of anti-Semites into the party that hadn’t actually happened. Indeed, anti-Semitism in the Labour Party fell under his leadership.

But considering Berger’s precedent, this seems a perfectly reasonable comment:

In fact, the similarity with Berger’s fakery is prominent:

Of course, Ms Duffield, who is apparently afraid of phantom misogynists accosting her within an event that will be, undoubtedly, patrolled very thoroughly by security guards, had absolutely no problem with breaking lockdown rules and avoiding the police in order to have an affair:

It’s interesting that the same people who supported Berger are popping up to support Duffield, showing stunning ignorance of their own hypocrisy. Jess Phillips, for example.

Any normal Labour leader would have reasonably expected to see evidence of abuse before commenting on the story – but not Keir Starmer:

Well, he couldn’t could he? If he had requested evidence, he would have been accused of hypocrisy because he has never shown any interest in seeing evidence to support anti-Semitism accusations.

It is, by now, a classic attack tactic: fabricate offensive behaviour, blame somebody you want to vilify, and get a story published by the papers. Remember Angela Eagle?

It is unsurprising that Duffield is being supported by people like Phillips who bought into Berger’s fakery in order to target innocent fellow party members; she has a shameful history of it herself.

The Labour MP for Canterbury marched in the ‘lynch’ mob with Ruth Smeeth and others to have Marc Wadsworth ejected from the Labour Party in the kangaroo court that was his hearing before the party’s National Constitutional Committee.

She campaigned for Chris Williamson to get the same treatment from his kangaroo court (NCC) hearing.

And she was caught trying to blame her own victims for abusing her in a classic DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender) trick, which This Writer called out in a previous article:

She has given an interview in The Times in which she claims that she is the victim of misogynistic abuse and death threats over her opinions about anti-Semitism, Brexit and – particularly – transphobia.

Metro give[s] an example that is pertinent to Duffield’s case:

“Let’s say an influential person is accused of transphobia. They issue a response in which they deny that they are transphobic – ‘I love trans people! I have many trans friends!’ – then attack their critics – ‘people saying I’m transphobic are just cruel, hateful people who want to cause division’. Finally, they Reverse Victim and Offender: ‘I’m receiving so much online abuse because I’m a woman and we live in a sexist society’.

“Now, as a critic, you’re stuck. If you continue to call that person out, you’re ‘cruel, hateful and want to cause division’. You’re being sexist. You’re piling on the online abuse.”

Isn’t that exactly what Duffield is trying to do?

Sadly the right-wing media have been all over this like a rash – and in their usual, casual disregard for fact-checking, none of them have actually bothered to seek corroboration of the claims they have blithely repeated.

And I can’t wait to see the creaking attempts to shoe-horn me into the role of abuser as a result of this article!

But unless and until Duffield can actually demonstrate evidence of LGBT+ Labour members and/or male members of the party threatening harm to her if she attends the party conference, I’ll stick to my evidenced opinion that Duffield is a liar.

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Coward Starmer sends nonentity Reeves to apologise for his visit to homophobic church because he’s not big enough to say sorry

Keir Starmer fails again: This Site uses this image to signify failure by the Labour Party’s right-wing leader. It’s getting so I don’t need any other images of him at all.

If anything demonstrates that Keir Starmer should not be the United Kingdom’s prime minister, it is this.

We’ve already got a PM who won’t take personal responsibility for his mistakes, stupidities and stated policies of oppression; we don’t need another.

Starmer recently not only visited a church whose priest expresses anti-LGBT+ views – he made a video about it. Here it is:

If he didn’t know about the views held by the congregation at this church, he should have done some research (or his researchers should have). That in itself would be bad enough.

Worse was the fact that he didn’t have the guts to come back and admit he was wrong in person. He’s a coward – or he’s so arrogant that he can’t own up to his mistakes personally. Neither is a good look for a prospective national leader.

Instead, we were offered this, and told to take it or leave it:

The response has been a universal chorus in favour of leaving it – and him – for glaringly obvious reasons, like the fact that he spent the length of his own video endorsing Jesus House. This means Reeves lied:

Oh yes – Starmer tweeted about it, but he absolutely wasn’t going to face the grilling he knew he would get if he actually faced the press.

And all this happened just weeks before the nation goes to the polls for the long-delayed local elections.

Starmer can congratulate himself on briefly securing – then throwing away – the homophobic vote.

Anyone who isn’t a bigot will now stay at home anyway, rather than vote for a party he leads.

 

Source: Keir Starmer apologises for visiting church where pastor opposed gay rights | The Independent

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Boris Johnson caught out over London Pride – if he becomes PM this could happen daily

Boris Johnson: Last time, he was berated for calling the French “turds”. Now his comments on London Pride have been undermined because he called gay men “tank-top wearing bum boys”.

The Indy100 crew probably thought this an amusing bit of fun but there’s a worrying undertone to it.

Boris Johnson, front-runner to be the next Conservative leader – and our next prime minister, tweeted his support for LGBT+ rights during London Pride weekend…

… to a hugely negative response:

https://twitter.com/napoleon1972/status/1147492627576688640

The problem is that this is not an isolated incident.

Mr Johnson has made his views known on many matters – and they were mostly views that could cause him serious embarrassment, were they to be brought back to light while he was serving a term as prime minister.

And you can bet that, if he becomes PM after July 23, that is exactly what will happen. And with a clown as prime minister, you can be sure the whole world will be laughing at us…

… Even people who are usually afraid of clowns.

Source: Boris Johnson tweeted for London Pride and the internet responded perfectly | indy100

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