A cabinet split has opened up on civil service rainbow lanyards as it emerges that guidance agreed across government will not actually ban officials from wearing them.
Esther McVey, who was appointed to attend Rishi Sunak’s cabinet as a minister without portfolio, said on Monday that staff would be disciplined for any messaging on lanyards to hold security passes, describing it as “political activism in a visible way”.
But official guidance due to be issued on Tuesday makes no mention of lanyards and the policy was not raised with other government ministers, The Times understands.
On Tuesday morning Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, distanced himself from McVey’s criticism of rainbow lanyards, telling Times Radio: “Personally, I don’t mind people expressing their views on these things. What lanyard somebody wears doesn’t particularly concern me.” He said he was “more interested in the jobs that the civil service do” than in what they wore.
It's all a bit odd. I went to a meeting down in Oz many years ago and wore the lanyard from that for decades at work - nobody even noticed, it was the security pass on the end that mattered (and I could keep that in my shirt pocket when outside work so it wasn't obvious where I worked from either pass or lanyard). A generic rainbow lanyard is positively useful in that respect, unless one works somwhere which is so high security that colour coding is important - in which case it's irrelevant to ban rainbow lanyards.
What if people some people start wearing star of David lanyards, and others wearing Palestinian flag lanyards?
Or, God forbid, TERF lanyards?
Couldn't that make things a bit tetchy at work?
Come on, you can invent trickier scenarios than that:
What about if I wear a lanyard with mini-swastikas printed all down it? Or what about if I wear a tie with naked glamour mag models on them?
Can't we just apply a bit of common sense? Remind me again, who are the rainbow lanyards offending?
What's the reason for wearing a rainbow lanyard?
It's at least pointless virtue signalling
I don't have a Rainbow Lanyard (mine is from Diabetes UK) but do have a rainbow flag badge for it, which I wear alongside a number of others. It was officially issued by my Trust as part of a campaign to encourage inclusion of marginalised groups in mainstream health care.
I wouldn't wear political badges (such as the LD bird) but the rainbow flag is not political.
I'm not sure - I feel like the rainbow is a bit like the poppy, it's non-political for those that wear it because they think their position is completely uncontroversial and opposed only by extremists. But both are, like a lot of little things a political statement.
I tend to agree. If I came across someone wearing one I would note it but almost certainly not comment and I would be just a little more wary about certain topics. Is that ideal in a professional you are dealing with? I would say not but I wouldn't be upset about it, just cautious.
I can't imagine noticing let alone caring what someone's lanyard might or might not be signalling.
Someone with a BNP lanyard at he bar strikes up conversation about the weather and you just crack on as usual? Oh to be so broadminded
I would actually try and steer the conversation to more political topics, I've always been interested in trying the understand the rationale for holding a position that I find irrational.
A cabinet split has opened up on civil service rainbow lanyards as it emerges that guidance agreed across government will not actually ban officials from wearing them.
Esther McVey, who was appointed to attend Rishi Sunak’s cabinet as a minister without portfolio, said on Monday that staff would be disciplined for any messaging on lanyards to hold security passes, describing it as “political activism in a visible way”.
But official guidance due to be issued on Tuesday makes no mention of lanyards and the policy was not raised with other government ministers, The Times understands.
On Tuesday morning Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, distanced himself from McVey’s criticism of rainbow lanyards, telling Times Radio: “Personally, I don’t mind people expressing their views on these things. What lanyard somebody wears doesn’t particularly concern me.” He said he was “more interested in the jobs that the civil service do” than in what they wore.
It's all a bit odd. I went to a meeting down in Oz many years ago and wore the lanyard from that for decades at work - nobody even noticed, it was the security pass on the end that mattered (and I could keep that in my shirt pocket when outside work so it wasn't obvious where I worked from either pass or lanyard). A generic rainbow lanyard is positively useful in that respect, unless one works somwhere which is so high security that colour coding is important - in which case it's irrelevant to ban rainbow lanyards.
What if people some people start wearing star of David lanyards, and others wearing Palestinian flag lanyards?
Or, God forbid, TERF lanyards?
Couldn't that make things a bit tetchy at work?
Come on, you can invent trickier scenarios than that:
What about if I wear a lanyard with mini-swastikas printed all down it? Or what about if I wear a tie with naked glamour mag models on them?
Can't we just apply a bit of common sense? Remind me again, who are the rainbow lanyards offending?
What's the reason for wearing a rainbow lanyard?
It's at least pointless virtue signalling
I don't have a Rainbow Lanyard (mine is from Diabetes UK) but do have a rainbow flag badge for it, which I wear alongside a number of others. It was officially issued by my Trust as part of a campaign to encourage inclusion of marginalised groups in mainstream health care.
I wouldn't wear political badges (such as the LD bird) but the rainbow flag is not political.
I'm not sure - I feel like the rainbow is a bit like the poppy, it's non-political for those that wear it because they think their position is completely uncontroversial and opposed only by extremists. But both are, like a lot of little things a political statement.
I tend to agree. If I came across someone wearing one I would note it but almost certainly not comment and I would be just a little more wary about certain topics. Is that ideal in a professional you are dealing with? I would say not but I wouldn't be upset about it, just cautious.
I can't imagine noticing let alone caring what someone's lanyard might or might not be signalling.
To me it would be signalling they work for a corporate which has a desire to be seen as woke.
And so the definition of woke continues to spread and metastasise, so that any corporate even acknowledging the diversity of its own employee base gets the dreaded moniker. Until the word loses all meaning. Like the way Americans bandy about "socialist" and "fascist".
But even if it is “virtue signalling” to wear a rainbow lanyard - why is that a problem? The virtue they are signalling is that they support LGBTQ+ people - a minority group that has typically been oppressed legally and socially. Making it clear that you support people being openly LGBTQ+ is surely a virtue we want to signal, no?
If ‘we’ is ‘people who wear the lanyards’ then obviously. Not sure society as a whole think of it as a virtue that needs to be signalled
Does this apply to any other demographic, Landon? Do I get to be black if I like Motown and fancy myself in cornrows? What if I claim the authentic me has always been black and that you're being racist to me? Would that be OK, or would you find it ludicrous and deeply offensive?
Stonewall are back in front of an Employment Tribunal today for trying to get a black lesbian barrister fired.
To be fair, constant derailing without ever participating in the flow of conversation doesn't really seem much like debate to me.
Which is exactly Rowling’s complaint, that those of differing viewpoints to her own don’t want to actually debate with her, they want her to shut up and go away.
JKR doesn't debate anyone when anyone tries to engage with her tweets so for her to complain that people don't want to debate her seems dishonest.
See this thread:
You’ve asked me several questions on this thread and accused me of avoiding answering, so here goes….
Which is not a 'debate'; it's a position platform.
" I do not, however, believe that surgeries and cross-sex hormones literally turn a person into the opposite sex, nor do I believe in the idea that each of us has a nebulous ‘gender identity’ that may or might not match our sexed bodies. "
Which is where, having known a few trans people, I think she's *very* wrong.
You are as entitled to your belief as Rowling is to hers.
The issue has been the TRA absolutist position and the consequences that would have for women’s rights, and sports, to take two examples.
I don't think there's anyone here and very very few on Twitter that have what you call a "TRA absolutist position"
For example, trans women in women's jails. Do you hold an absolutist position that all trans women should be in male prisons? My position is more nuanced, a male rapist who suddenly decides to "turn trans" shouldn't be allowed to go to a female prison, a 60 year old transwoman who's had a GRC for 20 years in prison for non-payment of their tv licence should be able to serve time in a female prison. I don't know where the line should be drawn but it's somewhere between those two positions.
Yes - “people” should be assessed as “individuals” - everyone is different - and “motivation” is clearly an important factor in assessing where people should be incarcerated.
On sports, on the other hand, I think “blanket” solutions are appropriate. You compete in the sex you went through puberty in. Mediocre male athletes are taking women’s prizes. And when offered the chance to “compete as themselves”
I'm in a similar position in sports. There are some sports where men and women have always competed as equals like equestrian sports so there's no issue about transmen or transwomen in competition. Then there's chess and I'm not convinced that transgender players would have any advantage in competitive play. Darts I'm not convinced of either, but there could be an advantage, needs more research. But yes, in most sports, muscle mass and height does make a big difference. You can artificially reduce muscle mass but height (and wingspan in swimming) you can't change so it's right to restrict trans women from most professional and high level sports.
I don't think that consideration applies to non-elite sport. Do I think trans women should be banned from their local Park Run, the local five-a-side football league or even the London Marathon? I think that would be draconian. Recreational sport is enjoyable and good for a person's fitness and mental wellbeing, I don't see any reason to disallow a trans person the opportunity to engage in a whole social activity like that.
Would it be fair for a team of TransWomen to compete on a female 5 a side league? We’d have to ask the teams of real women they play against I suppose, but I wouldn’t have throughly they’d be thrilled about it
As for park run, the controversy is trans women’s times being included in the female category. I doubt anyone has a problem with them taking part in park run
Would it be fair for a team of 6ft 7 men to compete against a team of 5ft men in a basketball game? Sports is inherently unfair. I think there is a reasonable discussion to be had about what "fairness in sports" means and if gender based segregation is helpful in dealing with it. If the argument is, for example, that the social expectation of women as the "weaker sex" has led to reduced participation in sports by women, then I agree, that's a problem and should be tackled - with investment and teaching against the notion of gender based stereotypes like that. But that doesn't demand gender segregated sports - we could look at weight classes or (as the above example with basketball) height classes, or other shared characteristics that likely impact performance more than gender.
And all this stuff about the "obvious advantage of people who have gone through male puberty" is questionable - and I have shared some of the research that questions that assumption. If transwomen are at such an advantage - why are all the examples of transwomen overperforming their peers in relatively unimportant sporting competitions?
How many weight classes do you propose? How long wold the Olympics last? Do you think women boxers should compete against men in the same weight classes? If a female boxer of the same weight boxed against a male boxer of the same weight it would end this debate.
You make a lot of these assertions and when you finally post the evidence it doesn't support them. Like when you said that tennis became segregated when women started beating men. When all the "evidence" you posted did was show that women played the sport.
Sex segregated sports WORKS for most people. There is no need to change it. It helps no-one and would harm a significant number.
I’ve shared the studies on the effects of HRT on transwomen and their physical capabilities.
I don’t know how many weight classes there should be - it’s an entirely arbitrary system. I’m not a specialist in sporting categorisation. I just don’t think that gender is the biggest factor in performance differential in most sports.
I wonder what the 100 metres world record is for men under 5 feet 8 inches.
Trayvon Bromeell 9.76
Interesting, thanks. I thought it wouldn't be as fast as that.
I've become interested in cats lately and enjoy observing the ones in our neighbourhood. Interestingly, and I wouldn't have thought to mention this on here if it weren't for this question arising, there is one particular grey one that's very fast, it really can move when it wants to, it's a speedy gonzalez of a cat, yet it has relatively short legs.
A cabinet split has opened up on civil service rainbow lanyards as it emerges that guidance agreed across government will not actually ban officials from wearing them.
Esther McVey, who was appointed to attend Rishi Sunak’s cabinet as a minister without portfolio, said on Monday that staff would be disciplined for any messaging on lanyards to hold security passes, describing it as “political activism in a visible way”.
But official guidance due to be issued on Tuesday makes no mention of lanyards and the policy was not raised with other government ministers, The Times understands.
On Tuesday morning Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, distanced himself from McVey’s criticism of rainbow lanyards, telling Times Radio: “Personally, I don’t mind people expressing their views on these things. What lanyard somebody wears doesn’t particularly concern me.” He said he was “more interested in the jobs that the civil service do” than in what they wore.
It's all a bit odd. I went to a meeting down in Oz many years ago and wore the lanyard from that for decades at work - nobody even noticed, it was the security pass on the end that mattered (and I could keep that in my shirt pocket when outside work so it wasn't obvious where I worked from either pass or lanyard). A generic rainbow lanyard is positively useful in that respect, unless one works somwhere which is so high security that colour coding is important - in which case it's irrelevant to ban rainbow lanyards.
What if people some people start wearing star of David lanyards, and others wearing Palestinian flag lanyards?
Or, God forbid, TERF lanyards?
Couldn't that make things a bit tetchy at work?
Come on, you can invent trickier scenarios than that:
What about if I wear a lanyard with mini-swastikas printed all down it? Or what about if I wear a tie with naked glamour mag models on them?
Can't we just apply a bit of common sense? Remind me again, who are the rainbow lanyards offending?
What's the reason for wearing a rainbow lanyard?
It's at least pointless virtue signalling
I don't have a Rainbow Lanyard (mine is from Diabetes UK) but do have a rainbow flag badge for it, which I wear alongside a number of others. It was officially issued by my Trust as part of a campaign to encourage inclusion of marginalised groups in mainstream health care.
I wouldn't wear political badges (such as the LD bird) but the rainbow flag is not political.
I'm not sure - I feel like the rainbow is a bit like the poppy, it's non-political for those that wear it because they think their position is completely uncontroversial and opposed only by extremists. But both are, like a lot of little things a political statement.
I tend to agree. If I came across someone wearing one I would note it but almost certainly not comment and I would be just a little more wary about certain topics. Is that ideal in a professional you are dealing with? I would say not but I wouldn't be upset about it, just cautious.
I can't imagine noticing let alone caring what someone's lanyard might or might not be signalling.
Someone with a BNP lanyard at he bar strikes up conversation about the weather and you just crack on as usual? Oh to be so broadminded
I've chatted happily with many people wearing a BNP lanyard!
Must say that I have enjoyed reading the government response to the court in NI. Apparently the giver think they can simply disapply the ruling of the NI High Court with regards to NI Law. Their answer to “won’t asylum seekers just go to NI to escape the Rwanda scheme” is that they will apply the Rwanda scheme across the whole UK. Despite it being illegal to do so in NI.
When was the last time we had a government so full of impotent wazzocks? Unable to comprehend how the law works, unwilling to obey the law, unknowing of practicalities.
A cabinet split has opened up on civil service rainbow lanyards as it emerges that guidance agreed across government will not actually ban officials from wearing them.
Esther McVey, who was appointed to attend Rishi Sunak’s cabinet as a minister without portfolio, said on Monday that staff would be disciplined for any messaging on lanyards to hold security passes, describing it as “political activism in a visible way”.
But official guidance due to be issued on Tuesday makes no mention of lanyards and the policy was not raised with other government ministers, The Times understands.
On Tuesday morning Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, distanced himself from McVey’s criticism of rainbow lanyards, telling Times Radio: “Personally, I don’t mind people expressing their views on these things. What lanyard somebody wears doesn’t particularly concern me.” He said he was “more interested in the jobs that the civil service do” than in what they wore.
It's all a bit odd. I went to a meeting down in Oz many years ago and wore the lanyard from that for decades at work - nobody even noticed, it was the security pass on the end that mattered (and I could keep that in my shirt pocket when outside work so it wasn't obvious where I worked from either pass or lanyard). A generic rainbow lanyard is positively useful in that respect, unless one works somwhere which is so high security that colour coding is important - in which case it's irrelevant to ban rainbow lanyards.
What if people some people start wearing star of David lanyards, and others wearing Palestinian flag lanyards?
Or, God forbid, TERF lanyards?
Couldn't that make things a bit tetchy at work?
Come on, you can invent trickier scenarios than that:
What about if I wear a lanyard with mini-swastikas printed all down it? Or what about if I wear a tie with naked glamour mag models on them?
Can't we just apply a bit of common sense? Remind me again, who are the rainbow lanyards offending?
What's the reason for wearing a rainbow lanyard?
It's at least pointless virtue signalling
I don't have a Rainbow Lanyard (mine is from Diabetes UK) but do have a rainbow flag badge for it, which I wear alongside a number of others. It was officially issued by my Trust as part of a campaign to encourage inclusion of marginalised groups in mainstream health care.
I wouldn't wear political badges (such as the LD bird) but the rainbow flag is not political.
I'm not sure - I feel like the rainbow is a bit like the poppy, it's non-political for those that wear it because they think their position is completely uncontroversial and opposed only by extremists. But both are, like a lot of little things a political statement.
I tend to agree. If I came across someone wearing one I would note it but almost certainly not comment and I would be just a little more wary about certain topics. Is that ideal in a professional you are dealing with? I would say not but I wouldn't be upset about it, just cautious.
I can't imagine noticing let alone caring what someone's lanyard might or might not be signalling.
To me it would be signalling they work for a corporate which has a desire to be seen as woke.
And so the definition of woke continues to spread and metastasise, so that any corporate even acknowledging the diversity of its own employee base gets the dreaded moniker. Until the word loses all meaning. Like the way Americans bandy about "socialist" and "fascist".
But even if it is “virtue signalling” to wear a rainbow lanyard - why is that a problem? The virtue they are signalling is that they support LGBTQ+ people - a minority group that has typically been oppressed legally and socially. Making it clear that you support people being openly LGBTQ+ is surely a virtue we want to signal, no?
If ‘we’ is ‘people who wear the lanyards’ then obviously. Not sure society as a whole think of it as a virtue that needs to be signalled
Well then we surely need to signal it more, because it should be considered the norm to be fine with openly LGBTQ+ people, no?
A cabinet split has opened up on civil service rainbow lanyards as it emerges that guidance agreed across government will not actually ban officials from wearing them.
Esther McVey, who was appointed to attend Rishi Sunak’s cabinet as a minister without portfolio, said on Monday that staff would be disciplined for any messaging on lanyards to hold security passes, describing it as “political activism in a visible way”.
But official guidance due to be issued on Tuesday makes no mention of lanyards and the policy was not raised with other government ministers, The Times understands.
On Tuesday morning Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, distanced himself from McVey’s criticism of rainbow lanyards, telling Times Radio: “Personally, I don’t mind people expressing their views on these things. What lanyard somebody wears doesn’t particularly concern me.” He said he was “more interested in the jobs that the civil service do” than in what they wore.
It's all a bit odd. I went to a meeting down in Oz many years ago and wore the lanyard from that for decades at work - nobody even noticed, it was the security pass on the end that mattered (and I could keep that in my shirt pocket when outside work so it wasn't obvious where I worked from either pass or lanyard). A generic rainbow lanyard is positively useful in that respect, unless one works somwhere which is so high security that colour coding is important - in which case it's irrelevant to ban rainbow lanyards.
What if people some people start wearing star of David lanyards, and others wearing Palestinian flag lanyards?
Or, God forbid, TERF lanyards?
Couldn't that make things a bit tetchy at work?
Come on, you can invent trickier scenarios than that:
What about if I wear a lanyard with mini-swastikas printed all down it? Or what about if I wear a tie with naked glamour mag models on them?
Can't we just apply a bit of common sense? Remind me again, who are the rainbow lanyards offending?
What's the reason for wearing a rainbow lanyard?
It's at least pointless virtue signalling
I don't have a Rainbow Lanyard (mine is from Diabetes UK) but do have a rainbow flag badge for it, which I wear alongside a number of others. It was officially issued by my Trust as part of a campaign to encourage inclusion of marginalised groups in mainstream health care.
I wouldn't wear political badges (such as the LD bird) but the rainbow flag is not political.
I'm not sure - I feel like the rainbow is a bit like the poppy, it's non-political for those that wear it because they think their position is completely uncontroversial and opposed only by extremists. But both are, like a lot of little things a political statement.
I tend to agree. If I came across someone wearing one I would note it but almost certainly not comment and I would be just a little more wary about certain topics. Is that ideal in a professional you are dealing with? I would say not but I wouldn't be upset about it, just cautious.
I can't imagine noticing let alone caring what someone's lanyard might or might not be signalling.
Someone with a BNP lanyard at he bar strikes up conversation about the weather and you just crack on as usual? Oh to be so broadminded
I would actually try and steer the conversation to more political topics, I've always been interested in trying the understand the rationale for holding a position that I find irrational.
Do you think that conversation would end pleasantly?
There is a problem with fraudulent agencies - but that isn't down to the universities.
I posted yesterday about my experience at Bedford on a master course. Half we there only to gain access to the UK to work. But from the Uni perspective the students have to turn up to classes, and swipe in. So its able to say with a straight face that all x students on the course are engaged and attending classes, and hence the government can believe this is true. And yet they don't have to pass the exams, or listen in lectures etc.
I thought for a moment you were talking about Oxford, before I went back to the start and checked the bit before '-ford'. On reflection, I'm still not sure.
Does this apply to any other demographic, Landon? Do I get to be black if I like Motown and fancy myself in cornrows? What if I claim the authentic me has always been black and that you're being racist to me? Would that be OK, or would you find it ludicrous and deeply offensive?
Stonewall are back in front of an Employment Tribunal today for trying to get a black lesbian barrister fired.
To be fair, constant derailing without ever participating in the flow of conversation doesn't really seem much like debate to me.
Which is exactly Rowling’s complaint, that those of differing viewpoints to her own don’t want to actually debate with her, they want her to shut up and go away.
JKR doesn't debate anyone when anyone tries to engage with her tweets so for her to complain that people don't want to debate her seems dishonest.
See this thread:
You’ve asked me several questions on this thread and accused me of avoiding answering, so here goes….
Which is not a 'debate'; it's a position platform.
" I do not, however, believe that surgeries and cross-sex hormones literally turn a person into the opposite sex, nor do I believe in the idea that each of us has a nebulous ‘gender identity’ that may or might not match our sexed bodies. "
Which is where, having known a few trans people, I think she's *very* wrong.
You are as entitled to your belief as Rowling is to hers.
The issue has been the TRA absolutist position and the consequences that would have for women’s rights, and sports, to take two examples.
There is no conflict between the rights of women and the ability for trans people to live their life in peace. Transwomen have, for example, had access to single sex spaces all my life (and probably all of your life) using only self ID and it has not been a systemic issue. There may be the odd case of an issue here and there, as there is over any large enough number of human interactions, but there is no evidence of ciswomen being systemically harmed by the inclusion of transwomen in their spaces.
That's completely missing the point, whether deliberately or not.
It's not about trans-people living their life in peace and the rights of women. It's about (amongst other things but this one, I'd suggest, is prime), the ability of abusers to benefit from rights granted to trans-people so as to enable them to abuse.
Simply asserting something and closing your eyes and mind to the possibility of an alternative is no way to set policy. Reality will intrude. See the Post Office for details.
So let's talk about how to reduce abusive behaviour and abuse perpetrated by cismen (the group most likely to commit abuse against ciswomen). Lots of otherwise benign things can be abused by abusers (take single fathers taking their young daughter into the men's loos when she is young - something my dad had to do with my sister after my mum died until she was like 6ish and felt able to go into the women's loos alone). If we want single sex loos should all single parents be banned from taking their kids not of the same gender into a public toilet when they're young because it could, instead, be a predator pretending to be a single parent? No, that's ridiculous. Instead someone would typically rely on the behaviour of the child in that situation - do they look comfortable with the person, are they reacting normally, etc. etc. - and challenge it if it seemed atypical. In a situation where transwomen are sharing spaces with ciswomen if someone turns up and seems to be acting in the manner of an abuser or is a concern - you deal with that as an individual issue. You don't need to take a blanket position of no transwomen in those spaces.
Some spaces are so sensitive - women's refuges, for example - that you *do* need to make it clear that it is single-sex, absolutely, irrespective of a person's preferred gender identity. But in general, treating people as individuals is the sensible thing.
That said, I still don't think you're taking the risks seriously.
Do you have any credible evidence that allowing transwomen into single sex spaces allows abusers free rein to do more abuse? Especially considering that self ID has been the norm in the UK basically forever and is the norm in many other countries - we should have a wealth of data on the issue?
And I don’t think you take the othering of transpeople and the current moral panic surround them seriously. But if you don’t think I’m a sincere actor, what’s the point in discussing further?
When you say that "self ID has been the norm in the UK basically forever" do you think that traditionally, someone who didn't 'pass' would have had no problem walking into a female changing room?
I don’t know - I think it probably depending on how they didn’t “pass”. But I think policing “passing” is bad because - as I’ve discussed here before - there are many more ciswomen who don’t “pass” (despite being cis) then transwomen (in numbers, if not percentage wise). Butch cislesbians, ciswomen with short hair cuts, ciswomen who aren’t traditionally attractive; all of these ciswomen are at the risk of not “passing” if policing increases (and we have seen examples of this). Hell - one of my great aunts (post menopausal) had a small beard she never bothered to shave - in the current environment would she “pass”?
In the past I assume most people would just leave people be as long as they weren’t causing a problem; it’s only now that there is this moral panic that people are policing the issue.
I have some personal experience with this, and my impression is that this sort of "policing" has become quite depressingly common in the past few years.
The govt trying to reverse the spread of gender-neutral toilets will make things even worse, of course.
A cabinet split has opened up on civil service rainbow lanyards as it emerges that guidance agreed across government will not actually ban officials from wearing them.
Esther McVey, who was appointed to attend Rishi Sunak’s cabinet as a minister without portfolio, said on Monday that staff would be disciplined for any messaging on lanyards to hold security passes, describing it as “political activism in a visible way”.
But official guidance due to be issued on Tuesday makes no mention of lanyards and the policy was not raised with other government ministers, The Times understands.
On Tuesday morning Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, distanced himself from McVey’s criticism of rainbow lanyards, telling Times Radio: “Personally, I don’t mind people expressing their views on these things. What lanyard somebody wears doesn’t particularly concern me.” He said he was “more interested in the jobs that the civil service do” than in what they wore.
It's all a bit odd. I went to a meeting down in Oz many years ago and wore the lanyard from that for decades at work - nobody even noticed, it was the security pass on the end that mattered (and I could keep that in my shirt pocket when outside work so it wasn't obvious where I worked from either pass or lanyard). A generic rainbow lanyard is positively useful in that respect, unless one works somwhere which is so high security that colour coding is important - in which case it's irrelevant to ban rainbow lanyards.
What if people some people start wearing star of David lanyards, and others wearing Palestinian flag lanyards?
Or, God forbid, TERF lanyards?
Couldn't that make things a bit tetchy at work?
Come on, you can invent trickier scenarios than that:
What about if I wear a lanyard with mini-swastikas printed all down it? Or what about if I wear a tie with naked glamour mag models on them?
Can't we just apply a bit of common sense? Remind me again, who are the rainbow lanyards offending?
What's the reason for wearing a rainbow lanyard?
It's at least pointless virtue signalling
I don't have a Rainbow Lanyard (mine is from Diabetes UK) but do have a rainbow flag badge for it, which I wear alongside a number of others. It was officially issued by my Trust as part of a campaign to encourage inclusion of marginalised groups in mainstream health care.
I wouldn't wear political badges (such as the LD bird) but the rainbow flag is not political.
I'm not sure - I feel like the rainbow is a bit like the poppy, it's non-political for those that wear it because they think their position is completely uncontroversial and opposed only by extremists. But both are, like a lot of little things a political statement.
I tend to agree. If I came across someone wearing one I would note it but almost certainly not comment and I would be just a little more wary about certain topics. Is that ideal in a professional you are dealing with? I would say not but I wouldn't be upset about it, just cautious.
I can't imagine noticing let alone caring what someone's lanyard might or might not be signalling.
To me it would be signalling they work for a corporate which has a desire to be seen as woke commited to equality, diversity and inclusion.
All very worthy aims imo.
I bet the Post Office issues such lanyards. Plus I'm sure the NHS Trusts under investigation for gross malpractice. It is an empty gesture and doesn't actually mean anything in practice.
A cabinet split has opened up on civil service rainbow lanyards as it emerges that guidance agreed across government will not actually ban officials from wearing them.
Esther McVey, who was appointed to attend Rishi Sunak’s cabinet as a minister without portfolio, said on Monday that staff would be disciplined for any messaging on lanyards to hold security passes, describing it as “political activism in a visible way”.
But official guidance due to be issued on Tuesday makes no mention of lanyards and the policy was not raised with other government ministers, The Times understands.
On Tuesday morning Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, distanced himself from McVey’s criticism of rainbow lanyards, telling Times Radio: “Personally, I don’t mind people expressing their views on these things. What lanyard somebody wears doesn’t particularly concern me.” He said he was “more interested in the jobs that the civil service do” than in what they wore.
It's all a bit odd. I went to a meeting down in Oz many years ago and wore the lanyard from that for decades at work - nobody even noticed, it was the security pass on the end that mattered (and I could keep that in my shirt pocket when outside work so it wasn't obvious where I worked from either pass or lanyard). A generic rainbow lanyard is positively useful in that respect, unless one works somwhere which is so high security that colour coding is important - in which case it's irrelevant to ban rainbow lanyards.
What if people some people start wearing star of David lanyards, and others wearing Palestinian flag lanyards?
Or, God forbid, TERF lanyards?
Couldn't that make things a bit tetchy at work?
Come on, you can invent trickier scenarios than that:
What about if I wear a lanyard with mini-swastikas printed all down it? Or what about if I wear a tie with naked glamour mag models on them?
Can't we just apply a bit of common sense? Remind me again, who are the rainbow lanyards offending?
What's the reason for wearing a rainbow lanyard?
It's at least pointless virtue signalling
I don't have a Rainbow Lanyard (mine is from Diabetes UK) but do have a rainbow flag badge for it, which I wear alongside a number of others. It was officially issued by my Trust as part of a campaign to encourage inclusion of marginalised groups in mainstream health care.
I wouldn't wear political badges (such as the LD bird) but the rainbow flag is not political.
I'm not sure - I feel like the rainbow is a bit like the poppy, it's non-political for those that wear it because they think their position is completely uncontroversial and opposed only by extremists. But both are, like a lot of little things a political statement.
I tend to agree. If I came across someone wearing one I would note it but almost certainly not comment and I would be just a little more wary about certain topics. Is that ideal in a professional you are dealing with? I would say not but I wouldn't be upset about it, just cautious.
I can't imagine noticing let alone caring what someone's lanyard might or might not be signalling.
Someone with a BNP lanyard at he bar strikes up conversation about the weather and you just crack on as usual? Oh to be so broadminded
I've chatted happily with many people wearing a BNP lanyard!
You mean even those originally from Exane?? Surely not.
A cabinet split has opened up on civil service rainbow lanyards as it emerges that guidance agreed across government will not actually ban officials from wearing them.
Esther McVey, who was appointed to attend Rishi Sunak’s cabinet as a minister without portfolio, said on Monday that staff would be disciplined for any messaging on lanyards to hold security passes, describing it as “political activism in a visible way”.
But official guidance due to be issued on Tuesday makes no mention of lanyards and the policy was not raised with other government ministers, The Times understands.
On Tuesday morning Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, distanced himself from McVey’s criticism of rainbow lanyards, telling Times Radio: “Personally, I don’t mind people expressing their views on these things. What lanyard somebody wears doesn’t particularly concern me.” He said he was “more interested in the jobs that the civil service do” than in what they wore.
It's all a bit odd. I went to a meeting down in Oz many years ago and wore the lanyard from that for decades at work - nobody even noticed, it was the security pass on the end that mattered (and I could keep that in my shirt pocket when outside work so it wasn't obvious where I worked from either pass or lanyard). A generic rainbow lanyard is positively useful in that respect, unless one works somwhere which is so high security that colour coding is important - in which case it's irrelevant to ban rainbow lanyards.
What if people some people start wearing star of David lanyards, and others wearing Palestinian flag lanyards?
Or, God forbid, TERF lanyards?
Couldn't that make things a bit tetchy at work?
Come on, you can invent trickier scenarios than that:
What about if I wear a lanyard with mini-swastikas printed all down it? Or what about if I wear a tie with naked glamour mag models on them?
Can't we just apply a bit of common sense? Remind me again, who are the rainbow lanyards offending?
What's the reason for wearing a rainbow lanyard?
It's at least pointless virtue signalling
I don't have a Rainbow Lanyard (mine is from Diabetes UK) but do have a rainbow flag badge for it, which I wear alongside a number of others. It was officially issued by my Trust as part of a campaign to encourage inclusion of marginalised groups in mainstream health care.
I wouldn't wear political badges (such as the LD bird) but the rainbow flag is not political.
I'm not sure - I feel like the rainbow is a bit like the poppy, it's non-political for those that wear it because they think their position is completely uncontroversial and opposed only by extremists. But both are, like a lot of little things a political statement.
I tend to agree. If I came across someone wearing one I would note it but almost certainly not comment and I would be just a little more wary about certain topics. Is that ideal in a professional you are dealing with? I would say not but I wouldn't be upset about it, just cautious.
I can't imagine noticing let alone caring what someone's lanyard might or might not be signalling.
To me it would be signalling they work for a corporate which has a desire to be seen as woke.
And so the definition of woke continues to spread and metastasise, so that any corporate even acknowledging the diversity of its own employee base gets the dreaded moniker. Until the word loses all meaning. Like the way Americans bandy about "socialist" and "fascist".
But even if it is “virtue signalling” to wear a rainbow lanyard - why is that a problem? The virtue they are signalling is that they support LGBTQ+ people - a minority group that has typically been oppressed legally and socially. Making it clear that you support people being openly LGBTQ+ is surely a virtue we want to signal, no?
If ‘we’ is ‘people who wear the lanyards’ then obviously. Not sure society as a whole think of it as a virtue that needs to be signalled
Well then we surely need to signal it more, because it should be considered the norm to be fine with openly LGBTQ+ people, no?
Not really, no. I think it tends to get on a lot of people’s nerves, who otherwise don’t give it much thought
Does this apply to any other demographic, Landon? Do I get to be black if I like Motown and fancy myself in cornrows? What if I claim the authentic me has always been black and that you're being racist to me? Would that be OK, or would you find it ludicrous and deeply offensive?
Stonewall are back in front of an Employment Tribunal today for trying to get a black lesbian barrister fired.
To be fair, constant derailing without ever participating in the flow of conversation doesn't really seem much like debate to me.
Which is exactly Rowling’s complaint, that those of differing viewpoints to her own don’t want to actually debate with her, they want her to shut up and go away.
JKR doesn't debate anyone when anyone tries to engage with her tweets so for her to complain that people don't want to debate her seems dishonest.
See this thread:
You’ve asked me several questions on this thread and accused me of avoiding answering, so here goes….
Which is not a 'debate'; it's a position platform.
" I do not, however, believe that surgeries and cross-sex hormones literally turn a person into the opposite sex, nor do I believe in the idea that each of us has a nebulous ‘gender identity’ that may or might not match our sexed bodies. "
Which is where, having known a few trans people, I think she's *very* wrong.
You are as entitled to your belief as Rowling is to hers.
The issue has been the TRA absolutist position and the consequences that would have for women’s rights, and sports, to take two examples.
There is no conflict between the rights of women and the ability for trans people to live their life in peace. Transwomen have, for example, had access to single sex spaces all my life (and probably all of your life) using only self ID and it has not been a systemic issue. There may be the odd case of an issue here and there, as there is over any large enough number of human interactions, but there is no evidence of ciswomen being systemically harmed by the inclusion of transwomen in their spaces.
That's completely missing the point, whether deliberately or not.
It's not about trans-people living their life in peace and the rights of women. It's about (amongst other things but this one, I'd suggest, is prime), the ability of abusers to benefit from rights granted to trans-people so as to enable them to abuse.
Simply asserting something and closing your eyes and mind to the possibility of an alternative is no way to set policy. Reality will intrude. See the Post Office for details.
So let's talk about how to reduce abusive behaviour and abuse perpetrated by cismen (the group most likely to commit abuse against ciswomen). Lots of otherwise benign things can be abused by abusers (take single fathers taking their young daughter into the men's loos when she is young - something my dad had to do with my sister after my mum died until she was like 6ish and felt able to go into the women's loos alone). If we want single sex loos should all single parents be banned from taking their kids not of the same gender into a public toilet when they're young because it could, instead, be a predator pretending to be a single parent? No, that's ridiculous. Instead someone would typically rely on the behaviour of the child in that situation - do they look comfortable with the person, are they reacting normally, etc. etc. - and challenge it if it seemed atypical. In a situation where transwomen are sharing spaces with ciswomen if someone turns up and seems to be acting in the manner of an abuser or is a concern - you deal with that as an individual issue. You don't need to take a blanket position of no transwomen in those spaces.
Some spaces are so sensitive - women's refuges, for example - that you *do* need to make it clear that it is single-sex, absolutely, irrespective of a person's preferred gender identity. But in general, treating people as individuals is the sensible thing.
That said, I still don't think you're taking the risks seriously.
Do you have any credible evidence that allowing transwomen into single sex spaces allows abusers free rein to do more abuse? Especially considering that self ID has been the norm in the UK basically forever and is the norm in many other countries - we should have a wealth of data on the issue?
And I don’t think you take the othering of transpeople and the current moral panic surround them seriously. But if you don’t think I’m a sincere actor, what’s the point in discussing further?
When you say that "self ID has been the norm in the UK basically forever" do you think that traditionally, someone who didn't 'pass' would have had no problem walking into a female changing room?
I don’t know - I think it probably depending on how they didn’t “pass”. But I think policing “passing” is bad because - as I’ve discussed here before - there are many more ciswomen who don’t “pass” (despite being cis) then transwomen (in numbers, if not percentage wise). Butch cislesbians, ciswomen with short hair cuts, ciswomen who aren’t traditionally attractive; all of these ciswomen are at the risk of not “passing” if policing increases (and we have seen examples of this). Hell - one of my great aunts (post menopausal) had a small beard she never bothered to shave - in the current environment would she “pass”?
In the past I assume most people would just leave people be as long as they weren’t causing a problem; it’s only now that there is this moral panic that people are policing the issue.
IOW, 'trans people are fine, if they're invisible'.
I mean - that’s not what I was trying to say. I think the desire to make sure trans people do “pass” is a demand for them to be invisible. Which is another reason why policing “passing” is bad. I think for most people it’s easy to imagine a masculine ciswoman who maybe wouldn’t “pass” and a feminine transwoman who would. We should be able to accept a world where both those people are clearly women.
You are not really a sincere actor in this debate. Your constant use of strawmen/strawpeople and misrepresenting of evidence makes that clear. The issue is not that allowing transwomen into all single sex spaces makes abuse more likely. A lot of the issue is that some of these spaces contain a number of traumatised women for whom the presence of male physiognomy is potentially triggering. That's not transwomen's fault but it is a fact. Your response to this is to shout "transphobia" and to tell women to stop being silly. Which is why you are not a serious person.
Does this apply to any other demographic, Landon? Do I get to be black if I like Motown and fancy myself in cornrows? What if I claim the authentic me has always been black and that you're being racist to me? Would that be OK, or would you find it ludicrous and deeply offensive?
Stonewall are back in front of an Employment Tribunal today for trying to get a black lesbian barrister fired.
To be fair, constant derailing without ever participating in the flow of conversation doesn't really seem much like debate to me.
Which is exactly Rowling’s complaint, that those of differing viewpoints to her own don’t want to actually debate with her, they want her to shut up and go away.
JKR doesn't debate anyone when anyone tries to engage with her tweets so for her to complain that people don't want to debate her seems dishonest.
See this thread:
You’ve asked me several questions on this thread and accused me of avoiding answering, so here goes….
Which is not a 'debate'; it's a position platform.
" I do not, however, believe that surgeries and cross-sex hormones literally turn a person into the opposite sex, nor do I believe in the idea that each of us has a nebulous ‘gender identity’ that may or might not match our sexed bodies. "
Which is where, having known a few trans people, I think she's *very* wrong.
You are as entitled to your belief as Rowling is to hers.
The issue has been the TRA absolutist position and the consequences that would have for women’s rights, and sports, to take two examples.
There is no conflict between the rights of women and the ability for trans people to live their life in peace. Transwomen have, for example, had access to single sex spaces all my life (and probably all of your life) using only self ID and it has not been a systemic issue. There may be the odd case of an issue here and there, as there is over any large enough number of human interactions, but there is no evidence of ciswomen being systemically harmed by the inclusion of transwomen in their spaces.
That's completely missing the point, whether deliberately or not.
It's not about trans-people living their life in peace and the rights of women. It's about (amongst other things but this one, I'd suggest, is prime), the ability of abusers to benefit from rights granted to trans-people so as to enable them to abuse.
Simply asserting something and closing your eyes and mind to the possibility of an alternative is no way to set policy. Reality will intrude. See the Post Office for details.
So let's talk about how to reduce abusive behaviour and abuse perpetrated by cismen (the group most likely to commit abuse against ciswomen). Lots of otherwise benign things can be abused by abusers (take single fathers taking their young daughter into the men's loos when she is young - something my dad had to do with my sister after my mum died until she was like 6ish and felt able to go into the women's loos alone). If we want single sex loos should all single parents be banned from taking their kids not of the same gender into a public toilet when they're young because it could, instead, be a predator pretending to be a single parent? No, that's ridiculous. Instead someone would typically rely on the behaviour of the child in that situation - do they look comfortable with the person, are they reacting normally, etc. etc. - and challenge it if it seemed atypical. In a situation where transwomen are sharing spaces with ciswomen if someone turns up and seems to be acting in the manner of an abuser or is a concern - you deal with that as an individual issue. You don't need to take a blanket position of no transwomen in those spaces.
Some spaces are so sensitive - women's refuges, for example - that you *do* need to make it clear that it is single-sex, absolutely, irrespective of a person's preferred gender identity. But in general, treating people as individuals is the sensible thing.
That said, I still don't think you're taking the risks seriously.
Do you have any credible evidence that allowing transwomen into single sex spaces allows abusers free rein to do more abuse? Especially considering that self ID has been the norm in the UK basically forever and is the norm in many other countries - we should have a wealth of data on the issue?
And I don’t think you take the othering of transpeople and the current moral panic surround them seriously. But if you don’t think I’m a sincere actor, what’s the point in discussing further?
When you say that "self ID has been the norm in the UK basically forever" do you think that traditionally, someone who didn't 'pass' would have had no problem walking into a female changing room?
I don’t know - I think it probably depending on how they didn’t “pass”. But I think policing “passing” is bad because - as I’ve discussed here before - there are many more ciswomen who don’t “pass” (despite being cis) then transwomen (in numbers, if not percentage wise). Butch cislesbians, ciswomen with short hair cuts, ciswomen who aren’t traditionally attractive; all of these ciswomen are at the risk of not “passing” if policing increases (and we have seen examples of this). Hell - one of my great aunts (post menopausal) had a small beard she never bothered to shave - in the current environment would she “pass”?
In the past I assume most people would just leave people be as long as they weren’t causing a problem; it’s only now that there is this moral panic that people are policing the issue.
IOW, 'trans people are fine, if they're invisible'.
I mean - that’s not what I was trying to say. I think the desire to make sure trans people do “pass” is a demand for them to be invisible. Which is another reason why policing “passing” is bad. I think for most people it’s easy to imagine a masculine ciswoman who maybe wouldn’t “pass” and a feminine transwoman who would. We should be able to accept a world where both those people are clearly women.
I was (slightly ungenerously) paraphrasing williamglenn, not you.
Does this apply to any other demographic, Landon? Do I get to be black if I like Motown and fancy myself in cornrows? What if I claim the authentic me has always been black and that you're being racist to me? Would that be OK, or would you find it ludicrous and deeply offensive?
Stonewall are back in front of an Employment Tribunal today for trying to get a black lesbian barrister fired.
To be fair, constant derailing without ever participating in the flow of conversation doesn't really seem much like debate to me.
Which is exactly Rowling’s complaint, that those of differing viewpoints to her own don’t want to actually debate with her, they want her to shut up and go away.
JKR doesn't debate anyone when anyone tries to engage with her tweets so for her to complain that people don't want to debate her seems dishonest.
See this thread:
You’ve asked me several questions on this thread and accused me of avoiding answering, so here goes….
Which is not a 'debate'; it's a position platform.
" I do not, however, believe that surgeries and cross-sex hormones literally turn a person into the opposite sex, nor do I believe in the idea that each of us has a nebulous ‘gender identity’ that may or might not match our sexed bodies. "
Which is where, having known a few trans people, I think she's *very* wrong.
You are as entitled to your belief as Rowling is to hers.
The issue has been the TRA absolutist position and the consequences that would have for women’s rights, and sports, to take two examples.
There is no conflict between the rights of women and the ability for trans people to live their life in peace. Transwomen have, for example, had access to single sex spaces all my life (and probably all of your life) using only self ID and it has not been a systemic issue. There may be the odd case of an issue here and there, as there is over any large enough number of human interactions, but there is no evidence of ciswomen being systemically harmed by the inclusion of transwomen in their spaces.
That's completely missing the point, whether deliberately or not.
It's not about trans-people living their life in peace and the rights of women. It's about (amongst other things but this one, I'd suggest, is prime), the ability of abusers to benefit from rights granted to trans-people so as to enable them to abuse.
Simply asserting something and closing your eyes and mind to the possibility of an alternative is no way to set policy. Reality will intrude. See the Post Office for details.
So let's talk about how to reduce abusive behaviour and abuse perpetrated by cismen (the group most likely to commit abuse against ciswomen). Lots of otherwise benign things can be abused by abusers (take single fathers taking their young daughter into the men's loos when she is young - something my dad had to do with my sister after my mum died until she was like 6ish and felt able to go into the women's loos alone). If we want single sex loos should all single parents be banned from taking their kids not of the same gender into a public toilet when they're young because it could, instead, be a predator pretending to be a single parent? No, that's ridiculous. Instead someone would typically rely on the behaviour of the child in that situation - do they look comfortable with the person, are they reacting normally, etc. etc. - and challenge it if it seemed atypical. In a situation where transwomen are sharing spaces with ciswomen if someone turns up and seems to be acting in the manner of an abuser or is a concern - you deal with that as an individual issue. You don't need to take a blanket position of no transwomen in those spaces.
Some spaces are so sensitive - women's refuges, for example - that you *do* need to make it clear that it is single-sex, absolutely, irrespective of a person's preferred gender identity. But in general, treating people as individuals is the sensible thing.
That said, I still don't think you're taking the risks seriously.
Do you have any credible evidence that allowing transwomen into single sex spaces allows abusers free rein to do more abuse? Especially considering that self ID has been the norm in the UK basically forever and is the norm in many other countries - we should have a wealth of data on the issue?
And I don’t think you take the othering of transpeople and the current moral panic surround them seriously. But if you don’t think I’m a sincere actor, what’s the point in discussing further?
When you say that "self ID has been the norm in the UK basically forever" do you think that traditionally, someone who didn't 'pass' would have had no problem walking into a female changing room?
I don’t know - I think it probably depending on how they didn’t “pass”. But I think policing “passing” is bad because - as I’ve discussed here before - there are many more ciswomen who don’t “pass” (despite being cis) then transwomen (in numbers, if not percentage wise). Butch cislesbians, ciswomen with short hair cuts, ciswomen who aren’t traditionally attractive; all of these ciswomen are at the risk of not “passing” if policing increases (and we have seen examples of this). Hell - one of my great aunts (post menopausal) had a small beard she never bothered to shave - in the current environment would she “pass”?
In the past I assume most people would just leave people be as long as they weren’t causing a problem; it’s only now that there is this moral panic that people are policing the issue.
IOW, 'trans people are fine, if they're invisible'.
I mean - that’s not what I was trying to say. I think the desire to make sure trans people do “pass” is a demand for them to be invisible. Which is another reason why policing “passing” is bad. I think for most people it’s easy to imagine a masculine ciswoman who maybe wouldn’t “pass” and a feminine transwoman who would. We should be able to accept a world where both those people are clearly women.
Your examples don't stand up to much scrutiny. Butch lesbians, women with short hair and women who aren't "traditionally attractive" are still identifiably female.
Pretty to look at though they are (and I have posted some images these past few weeks), pictures posted now on PB are FUCKING HUGE on the page, are distracting, and take some scrolling past, no matter the aesthetic value.
Could you fuckers please keep posting snaps of some mountain/charming foreign town/lager and chips down to a bare minimum.
A limit of one photo post per day per poster would do the job.
Do we get to save them up ?
Hey, this is a (moderately) right of centre blog - I demand the right to sell my allocation to the biggest mug highest bidder.
Does this apply to any other demographic, Landon? Do I get to be black if I like Motown and fancy myself in cornrows? What if I claim the authentic me has always been black and that you're being racist to me? Would that be OK, or would you find it ludicrous and deeply offensive?
Stonewall are back in front of an Employment Tribunal today for trying to get a black lesbian barrister fired.
To be fair, constant derailing without ever participating in the flow of conversation doesn't really seem much like debate to me.
Which is exactly Rowling’s complaint, that those of differing viewpoints to her own don’t want to actually debate with her, they want her to shut up and go away.
JKR doesn't debate anyone when anyone tries to engage with her tweets so for her to complain that people don't want to debate her seems dishonest.
See this thread:
You’ve asked me several questions on this thread and accused me of avoiding answering, so here goes….
Which is not a 'debate'; it's a position platform.
" I do not, however, believe that surgeries and cross-sex hormones literally turn a person into the opposite sex, nor do I believe in the idea that each of us has a nebulous ‘gender identity’ that may or might not match our sexed bodies. "
Which is where, having known a few trans people, I think she's *very* wrong.
You are as entitled to your belief as Rowling is to hers.
The issue has been the TRA absolutist position and the consequences that would have for women’s rights, and sports, to take two examples.
There is no conflict between the rights of women and the ability for trans people to live their life in peace. Transwomen have, for example, had access to single sex spaces all my life (and probably all of your life) using only self ID and it has not been a systemic issue. There may be the odd case of an issue here and there, as there is over any large enough number of human interactions, but there is no evidence of ciswomen being systemically harmed by the inclusion of transwomen in their spaces.
That's completely missing the point, whether deliberately or not.
It's not about trans-people living their life in peace and the rights of women. It's about (amongst other things but this one, I'd suggest, is prime), the ability of abusers to benefit from rights granted to trans-people so as to enable them to abuse.
Simply asserting something and closing your eyes and mind to the possibility of an alternative is no way to set policy. Reality will intrude. See the Post Office for details.
So let's talk about how to reduce abusive behaviour and abuse perpetrated by cismen (the group most likely to commit abuse against ciswomen). Lots of otherwise benign things can be abused by abusers (take single fathers taking their young daughter into the men's loos when she is young - something my dad had to do with my sister after my mum died until she was like 6ish and felt able to go into the women's loos alone). If we want single sex loos should all single parents be banned from taking their kids not of the same gender into a public toilet when they're young because it could, instead, be a predator pretending to be a single parent? No, that's ridiculous. Instead someone would typically rely on the behaviour of the child in that situation - do they look comfortable with the person, are they reacting normally, etc. etc. - and challenge it if it seemed atypical. In a situation where transwomen are sharing spaces with ciswomen if someone turns up and seems to be acting in the manner of an abuser or is a concern - you deal with that as an individual issue. You don't need to take a blanket position of no transwomen in those spaces.
Some spaces are so sensitive - women's refuges, for example - that you *do* need to make it clear that it is single-sex, absolutely, irrespective of a person's preferred gender identity. But in general, treating people as individuals is the sensible thing.
That said, I still don't think you're taking the risks seriously.
Do you have any credible evidence that allowing transwomen into single sex spaces allows abusers free rein to do more abuse? Especially considering that self ID has been the norm in the UK basically forever and is the norm in many other countries - we should have a wealth of data on the issue?
And I don’t think you take the othering of transpeople and the current moral panic surround them seriously. But if you don’t think I’m a sincere actor, what’s the point in discussing further?
When you say that "self ID has been the norm in the UK basically forever" do you think that traditionally, someone who didn't 'pass' would have had no problem walking into a female changing room?
I don’t know - I think it probably depending on how they didn’t “pass”. But I think policing “passing” is bad because - as I’ve discussed here before - there are many more ciswomen who don’t “pass” (despite being cis) then transwomen (in numbers, if not percentage wise). Butch cislesbians, ciswomen with short hair cuts, ciswomen who aren’t traditionally attractive; all of these ciswomen are at the risk of not “passing” if policing increases (and we have seen examples of this). Hell - one of my great aunts (post menopausal) had a small beard she never bothered to shave - in the current environment would she “pass”?
In the past I assume most people would just leave people be as long as they weren’t causing a problem; it’s only now that there is this moral panic that people are policing the issue.
IOW, 'trans people are fine, if they're invisible'.
I mean - that’s not what I was trying to say. I think the desire to make sure trans people do “pass” is a demand for them to be invisible. Which is another reason why policing “passing” is bad. I think for most people it’s easy to imagine a masculine ciswoman who maybe wouldn’t “pass” and a feminine transwoman who would. We should be able to accept a world where both those people are clearly women.
You are not really a sincere actor in this debate. Your constant use of strawmen/strawpeople and misrepresenting of evidence makes that clear. The issue is not that allowing transwomen into all single sex spaces makes abuse more likely. A lot of the issue is that some of these spaces contain a number of traumatised women for whom the presence of male physiognomy is potentially triggering. That's not transwomen's fault but it is a fact. Your response to this is to shout "transphobia" and to tell women to stop being silly. Which is why you are not a serious person.
That is literally the argument people here are making - that allowing transwomen in single sex spaces mean cismen will pretend to be trans to abuse ciswomen - and that’s a reason to have single sex spaces.
Your position is that “male physiognomy is potentially triggering” - which I would accept as broadly true. How do we help tackle that? Is banning transwomen from women’s shelters a good response to that? Again - some transwomen “pass” and some ciswomen don’t - what should we do in a situation where a ciswoman in a shelter is triggered by the presence of another ciswoman she believes is a transwoman due to “male physiognomy”? Is policing “passing” the best way to tackle this problem, or is getting rid of gendered expectations of what women “should” look like and giving women, cis and trans, the support they need when in shelters to feel safe a better use of resources?
Maria Caulfield one of the Health Ministers has got herself into an interesting elephant trap.
She's trying to create a wedge issue around 15-Minute Cities like Mark Harper has been doing, by pretending (on regional TV) that the idea is that you get charged for going more than 15 minutes from your home by car, is about social control, and then repeatedly doubling down when challenged, and that that is the policy of her local (Green / Lib Dem controlled) Lewes Council in its Local Plan (it wasn't).
Unfortunate that she did just before Penny Mordaunt released Government commissioned advice about how politicians need to avoid conspiracy theories that documents exactly that as being one of them - often linked with guff about WEF, world-control by Jews and so on.
I wonder what the 100 metres world record is for men under 5 feet 8 inches.
Trayvon Bromeell 9.76
Interesting, thanks. I thought it wouldn't be as fast as that.
I've become interested in cats lately and enjoy observing the ones in our neighbourhood. Interestingly, and I wouldn't have thought to mention this on here if it weren't for this question arising, there is one particular grey one that's very fast, it really can move when it wants to, it's a speedy gonzalez of a cat, yet it has relatively short legs.
The way cats run is considerably different to humans, and the way their speed is generated is more related to the flexibility of their back, rather than the length of their legs.
Does this apply to any other demographic, Landon? Do I get to be black if I like Motown and fancy myself in cornrows? What if I claim the authentic me has always been black and that you're being racist to me? Would that be OK, or would you find it ludicrous and deeply offensive?
Stonewall are back in front of an Employment Tribunal today for trying to get a black lesbian barrister fired.
To be fair, constant derailing without ever participating in the flow of conversation doesn't really seem much like debate to me.
Which is exactly Rowling’s complaint, that those of differing viewpoints to her own don’t want to actually debate with her, they want her to shut up and go away.
JKR doesn't debate anyone when anyone tries to engage with her tweets so for her to complain that people don't want to debate her seems dishonest.
See this thread:
You’ve asked me several questions on this thread and accused me of avoiding answering, so here goes….
Which is not a 'debate'; it's a position platform.
" I do not, however, believe that surgeries and cross-sex hormones literally turn a person into the opposite sex, nor do I believe in the idea that each of us has a nebulous ‘gender identity’ that may or might not match our sexed bodies. "
Which is where, having known a few trans people, I think she's *very* wrong.
You are as entitled to your belief as Rowling is to hers.
The issue has been the TRA absolutist position and the consequences that would have for women’s rights, and sports, to take two examples.
There is no conflict between the rights of women and the ability for trans people to live their life in peace. Transwomen have, for example, had access to single sex spaces all my life (and probably all of your life) using only self ID and it has not been a systemic issue. There may be the odd case of an issue here and there, as there is over any large enough number of human interactions, but there is no evidence of ciswomen being systemically harmed by the inclusion of transwomen in their spaces.
That's completely missing the point, whether deliberately or not.
It's not about trans-people living their life in peace and the rights of women. It's about (amongst other things but this one, I'd suggest, is prime), the ability of abusers to benefit from rights granted to trans-people so as to enable them to abuse.
Simply asserting something and closing your eyes and mind to the possibility of an alternative is no way to set policy. Reality will intrude. See the Post Office for details.
So let's talk about how to reduce abusive behaviour and abuse perpetrated by cismen (the group most likely to commit abuse against ciswomen). Lots of otherwise benign things can be abused by abusers (take single fathers taking their young daughter into the men's loos when she is young - something my dad had to do with my sister after my mum died until she was like 6ish and felt able to go into the women's loos alone). If we want single sex loos should all single parents be banned from taking their kids not of the same gender into a public toilet when they're young because it could, instead, be a predator pretending to be a single parent? No, that's ridiculous. Instead someone would typically rely on the behaviour of the child in that situation - do they look comfortable with the person, are they reacting normally, etc. etc. - and challenge it if it seemed atypical. In a situation where transwomen are sharing spaces with ciswomen if someone turns up and seems to be acting in the manner of an abuser or is a concern - you deal with that as an individual issue. You don't need to take a blanket position of no transwomen in those spaces.
Some spaces are so sensitive - women's refuges, for example - that you *do* need to make it clear that it is single-sex, absolutely, irrespective of a person's preferred gender identity. But in general, treating people as individuals is the sensible thing.
That said, I still don't think you're taking the risks seriously.
Do you have any credible evidence that allowing transwomen into single sex spaces allows abusers free rein to do more abuse? Especially considering that self ID has been the norm in the UK basically forever and is the norm in many other countries - we should have a wealth of data on the issue?
And I don’t think you take the othering of transpeople and the current moral panic surround them seriously. But if you don’t think I’m a sincere actor, what’s the point in discussing further?
When you say that "self ID has been the norm in the UK basically forever" do you think that traditionally, someone who didn't 'pass' would have had no problem walking into a female changing room?
I don’t know - I think it probably depending on how they didn’t “pass”. But I think policing “passing” is bad because - as I’ve discussed here before - there are many more ciswomen who don’t “pass” (despite being cis) then transwomen (in numbers, if not percentage wise). Butch cislesbians, ciswomen with short hair cuts, ciswomen who aren’t traditionally attractive; all of these ciswomen are at the risk of not “passing” if policing increases (and we have seen examples of this). Hell - one of my great aunts (post menopausal) had a small beard she never bothered to shave - in the current environment would she “pass”?
In the past I assume most people would just leave people be as long as they weren’t causing a problem; it’s only now that there is this moral panic that people are policing the issue.
IOW, 'trans people are fine, if they're invisible'.
I mean - that’s not what I was trying to say. I think the desire to make sure trans people do “pass” is a demand for them to be invisible. Which is another reason why policing “passing” is bad. I think for most people it’s easy to imagine a masculine ciswoman who maybe wouldn’t “pass” and a feminine transwoman who would. We should be able to accept a world where both those people are clearly women.
You are not really a sincere actor in this debate. Your constant use of strawmen/strawpeople and misrepresenting of evidence makes that clear. The issue is not that allowing transwomen into all single sex spaces makes abuse more likely. A lot of the issue is that some of these spaces contain a number of traumatised women for whom the presence of male physiognomy is potentially triggering. That's not transwomen's fault but it is a fact. Your response to this is to shout "transphobia" and to tell women to stop being silly. Which is why you are not a serious person.
Sounds like a signal to the rest of the world not to buy US EVs.
How do you work that one out?
Assuming its to protect the US auto industry, suggests that US consumers would pay up to double for a Chinese EV than a US EV if there were no tariffs.
The Chinese government is attempting with EVs to do what they did with solar - subsidy to kill foreign competition until the whole supply chain shifts to China, locking in an advantage.
Why should every one put their hands over their eyes and pretend?
If the West (and rest of the world) rightly want China to cut back on emissions then isn't investment and subsidies in solar and EVs what they should be doing?
Yes. Feels like the problem is more that we haven't been matching the investment and subsidy.
Though I'm sure China could find domestic demand for its solar PV production if it was motivated by a desire to stop burning coal. So there's that.
Thinking about this a bit more. The problem is a mismatch in subsidies. In Britain the purchase has been subsidised, while in China it was the production.
The point of all the above is that we assume China's new industries policy is bad because the Chinese government is bad. That's a logical error.
China presents a hard problem precisely because it is an authoritarian government which has been quite economically smart. We need to learn what we can their economic successes, despite that.
Does this apply to any other demographic, Landon? Do I get to be black if I like Motown and fancy myself in cornrows? What if I claim the authentic me has always been black and that you're being racist to me? Would that be OK, or would you find it ludicrous and deeply offensive?
Stonewall are back in front of an Employment Tribunal today for trying to get a black lesbian barrister fired.
To be fair, constant derailing without ever participating in the flow of conversation doesn't really seem much like debate to me.
Which is exactly Rowling’s complaint, that those of differing viewpoints to her own don’t want to actually debate with her, they want her to shut up and go away.
JKR doesn't debate anyone when anyone tries to engage with her tweets so for her to complain that people don't want to debate her seems dishonest.
See this thread:
You’ve asked me several questions on this thread and accused me of avoiding answering, so here goes….
Which is not a 'debate'; it's a position platform.
" I do not, however, believe that surgeries and cross-sex hormones literally turn a person into the opposite sex, nor do I believe in the idea that each of us has a nebulous ‘gender identity’ that may or might not match our sexed bodies. "
Which is where, having known a few trans people, I think she's *very* wrong.
You are as entitled to your belief as Rowling is to hers.
The issue has been the TRA absolutist position and the consequences that would have for women’s rights, and sports, to take two examples.
There is no conflict between the rights of women and the ability for trans people to live their life in peace. Transwomen have, for example, had access to single sex spaces all my life (and probably all of your life) using only self ID and it has not been a systemic issue. There may be the odd case of an issue here and there, as there is over any large enough number of human interactions, but there is no evidence of ciswomen being systemically harmed by the inclusion of transwomen in their spaces.
That's completely missing the point, whether deliberately or not.
It's not about trans-people living their life in peace and the rights of women. It's about (amongst other things but this one, I'd suggest, is prime), the ability of abusers to benefit from rights granted to trans-people so as to enable them to abuse.
Simply asserting something and closing your eyes and mind to the possibility of an alternative is no way to set policy. Reality will intrude. See the Post Office for details.
So let's talk about how to reduce abusive behaviour and abuse perpetrated by cismen (the group most likely to commit abuse against ciswomen). Lots of otherwise benign things can be abused by abusers (take single fathers taking their young daughter into the men's loos when she is young - something my dad had to do with my sister after my mum died until she was like 6ish and felt able to go into the women's loos alone). If we want single sex loos should all single parents be banned from taking their kids not of the same gender into a public toilet when they're young because it could, instead, be a predator pretending to be a single parent? No, that's ridiculous. Instead someone would typically rely on the behaviour of the child in that situation - do they look comfortable with the person, are they reacting normally, etc. etc. - and challenge it if it seemed atypical. In a situation where transwomen are sharing spaces with ciswomen if someone turns up and seems to be acting in the manner of an abuser or is a concern - you deal with that as an individual issue. You don't need to take a blanket position of no transwomen in those spaces.
Some spaces are so sensitive - women's refuges, for example - that you *do* need to make it clear that it is single-sex, absolutely, irrespective of a person's preferred gender identity. But in general, treating people as individuals is the sensible thing.
That said, I still don't think you're taking the risks seriously.
Do you have any credible evidence that allowing transwomen into single sex spaces allows abusers free rein to do more abuse? Especially considering that self ID has been the norm in the UK basically forever and is the norm in many other countries - we should have a wealth of data on the issue?
And I don’t think you take the othering of transpeople and the current moral panic surround them seriously. But if you don’t think I’m a sincere actor, what’s the point in discussing further?
When you say that "self ID has been the norm in the UK basically forever" do you think that traditionally, someone who didn't 'pass' would have had no problem walking into a female changing room?
I don’t know - I think it probably depending on how they didn’t “pass”. But I think policing “passing” is bad because - as I’ve discussed here before - there are many more ciswomen who don’t “pass” (despite being cis) then transwomen (in numbers, if not percentage wise). Butch cislesbians, ciswomen with short hair cuts, ciswomen who aren’t traditionally attractive; all of these ciswomen are at the risk of not “passing” if policing increases (and we have seen examples of this). Hell - one of my great aunts (post menopausal) had a small beard she never bothered to shave - in the current environment would she “pass”?
In the past I assume most people would just leave people be as long as they weren’t causing a problem; it’s only now that there is this moral panic that people are policing the issue.
IOW, 'trans people are fine, if they're invisible'.
I mean - that’s not what I was trying to say. I think the desire to make sure trans people do “pass” is a demand for them to be invisible. Which is another reason why policing “passing” is bad. I think for most people it’s easy to imagine a masculine ciswoman who maybe wouldn’t “pass” and a feminine transwoman who would. We should be able to accept a world where both those people are clearly women.
I was (slightly ungenerously) paraphrasing williamglenn, not you.
Unironically the answer is yes. If Bruce Jenner had made a point of using female locker rooms, it would have been a problem.
I’m surprised people find it boring; it’s an attempt in the last decade or so to challenge one of the indisputable facts of all time. Even if people genuinely find the debate around that boring, l the attempts to shut it down seem strange to me. Lots of things are discussed on here that I find boring, but would not dream of trying to tell people, or infer, they should stop discussing it.
A cabinet split has opened up on civil service rainbow lanyards as it emerges that guidance agreed across government will not actually ban officials from wearing them.
Esther McVey, who was appointed to attend Rishi Sunak’s cabinet as a minister without portfolio, said on Monday that staff would be disciplined for any messaging on lanyards to hold security passes, describing it as “political activism in a visible way”.
But official guidance due to be issued on Tuesday makes no mention of lanyards and the policy was not raised with other government ministers, The Times understands.
On Tuesday morning Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, distanced himself from McVey’s criticism of rainbow lanyards, telling Times Radio: “Personally, I don’t mind people expressing their views on these things. What lanyard somebody wears doesn’t particularly concern me.” He said he was “more interested in the jobs that the civil service do” than in what they wore.
It's all a bit odd. I went to a meeting down in Oz many years ago and wore the lanyard from that for decades at work - nobody even noticed, it was the security pass on the end that mattered (and I could keep that in my shirt pocket when outside work so it wasn't obvious where I worked from either pass or lanyard). A generic rainbow lanyard is positively useful in that respect, unless one works somwhere which is so high security that colour coding is important - in which case it's irrelevant to ban rainbow lanyards.
What if people some people start wearing star of David lanyards, and others wearing Palestinian flag lanyards?
Or, God forbid, TERF lanyards?
Couldn't that make things a bit tetchy at work?
Come on, you can invent trickier scenarios than that:
What about if I wear a lanyard with mini-swastikas printed all down it? Or what about if I wear a tie with naked glamour mag models on them?
Can't we just apply a bit of common sense? Remind me again, who are the rainbow lanyards offending?
What's the reason for wearing a rainbow lanyard?
It's at least pointless virtue signalling
I don't have a Rainbow Lanyard (mine is from Diabetes UK) but do have a rainbow flag badge for it, which I wear alongside a number of others. It was officially issued by my Trust as part of a campaign to encourage inclusion of marginalised groups in mainstream health care.
I wouldn't wear political badges (such as the LD bird) but the rainbow flag is not political.
I'm not sure - I feel like the rainbow is a bit like the poppy, it's non-political for those that wear it because they think their position is completely uncontroversial and opposed only by extremists. But both are, like a lot of little things a political statement.
I tend to agree. If I came across someone wearing one I would note it but almost certainly not comment and I would be just a little more wary about certain topics. Is that ideal in a professional you are dealing with? I would say not but I wouldn't be upset about it, just cautious.
I can't imagine noticing let alone caring what someone's lanyard might or might not be signalling.
To me it would be signalling they work for a corporate which has a desire to be seen as woke.
And so the definition of woke continues to spread and metastasise, so that any corporate even acknowledging the diversity of its own employee base gets the dreaded moniker. Until the word loses all meaning. Like the way Americans bandy about "socialist" and "fascist".
But even if it is “virtue signalling” to wear a rainbow lanyard - why is that a problem? The virtue they are signalling is that they support LGBTQ+ people - a minority group that has typically been oppressed legally and socially. Making it clear that you support people being openly LGBTQ+ is surely a virtue we want to signal, no?
If ‘we’ is ‘people who wear the lanyards’ then obviously. Not sure society as a whole think of it as a virtue that needs to be signalled
Well then we surely need to signal it more, because it should be considered the norm to be fine with openly LGBTQ+ people, no?
Not really, no. I think it tends to get on a lot of people’s nerves, who otherwise don’t give it much thought
Well, lucky them. As a man who has had “faggot” shouted at me for holding a partner’s hand, - I do give it a lot of thought and tend to feel a somewhat increased sense of relaxation and safety in intimidating spaces (like a hospital or government office) when someone has a small rainbow pin or lanyard. And I tend to care about the increased normalisation of LGBTQ+ people in public life and spaces.
Pretty to look at though they are (and I have posted some images these past few weeks), pictures posted now on PB are FUCKING HUGE on the page, are distracting, and take some scrolling past, no matter the aesthetic value.
Could you fuckers please keep posting snaps of some mountain/charming foreign town/lager and chips down to a bare minimum.
A limit of one photo post per day per poster would do the job.
Do we get to save them up ?
Hey, this is a (moderately) right of centre blog - I demand the right to sell my allocation to the biggest mug highest bidder.
Alternatively, the state PB moderators could seize the means of production. Although only if TSE promises not to then bombard us with pictures of his latest shoes
A cabinet split has opened up on civil service rainbow lanyards as it emerges that guidance agreed across government will not actually ban officials from wearing them.
Esther McVey, who was appointed to attend Rishi Sunak’s cabinet as a minister without portfolio, said on Monday that staff would be disciplined for any messaging on lanyards to hold security passes, describing it as “political activism in a visible way”.
But official guidance due to be issued on Tuesday makes no mention of lanyards and the policy was not raised with other government ministers, The Times understands.
On Tuesday morning Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, distanced himself from McVey’s criticism of rainbow lanyards, telling Times Radio: “Personally, I don’t mind people expressing their views on these things. What lanyard somebody wears doesn’t particularly concern me.” He said he was “more interested in the jobs that the civil service do” than in what they wore.
It's all a bit odd. I went to a meeting down in Oz many years ago and wore the lanyard from that for decades at work - nobody even noticed, it was the security pass on the end that mattered (and I could keep that in my shirt pocket when outside work so it wasn't obvious where I worked from either pass or lanyard). A generic rainbow lanyard is positively useful in that respect, unless one works somwhere which is so high security that colour coding is important - in which case it's irrelevant to ban rainbow lanyards.
What if people some people start wearing star of David lanyards, and others wearing Palestinian flag lanyards?
Or, God forbid, TERF lanyards?
Couldn't that make things a bit tetchy at work?
Come on, you can invent trickier scenarios than that:
What about if I wear a lanyard with mini-swastikas printed all down it? Or what about if I wear a tie with naked glamour mag models on them?
Can't we just apply a bit of common sense? Remind me again, who are the rainbow lanyards offending?
What's the reason for wearing a rainbow lanyard?
It's at least pointless virtue signalling
I don't have a Rainbow Lanyard (mine is from Diabetes UK) but do have a rainbow flag badge for it, which I wear alongside a number of others. It was officially issued by my Trust as part of a campaign to encourage inclusion of marginalised groups in mainstream health care.
I wouldn't wear political badges (such as the LD bird) but the rainbow flag is not political.
I'm not sure - I feel like the rainbow is a bit like the poppy, it's non-political for those that wear it because they think their position is completely uncontroversial and opposed only by extremists. But both are, like a lot of little things a political statement.
I tend to agree. If I came across someone wearing one I would note it but almost certainly not comment and I would be just a little more wary about certain topics. Is that ideal in a professional you are dealing with? I would say not but I wouldn't be upset about it, just cautious.
I can't imagine noticing let alone caring what someone's lanyard might or might not be signalling.
To me it would be signalling they work for a corporate which has a desire to be seen as woke.
And so the definition of woke continues to spread and metastasise, so that any corporate even acknowledging the diversity of its own employee base gets the dreaded moniker. Until the word loses all meaning. Like the way Americans bandy about "socialist" and "fascist".
But even if it is “virtue signalling” to wear a rainbow lanyard - why is that a problem? The virtue they are signalling is that they support LGBTQ+ people - a minority group that has typically been oppressed legally and socially. Making it clear that you support people being openly LGBTQ+ is surely a virtue we want to signal, no?
If ‘we’ is ‘people who wear the lanyards’ then obviously. Not sure society as a whole think of it as a virtue that needs to be signalled
Well then we surely need to signal it more, because it should be considered the norm to be fine with openly LGBTQ+ people, no?
Not really, no. I think it tends to get on a lot of people’s nerves, who otherwise don’t give it much thought
Well, lucky them. As a man who has had “faggot” shouted at me for holding a partner’s hand, - I do give it a lot of thought and tend to feel a somewhat increased sense of relaxation and safety in intimidating spaces (like a hospital or government office) when someone has a small rainbow pin or lanyard. And I tend to care about the increased normalisation of LGBTQ+ people in public life and spaces.
Good for you, but that doesn’t mean everyone should
A cabinet split has opened up on civil service rainbow lanyards as it emerges that guidance agreed across government will not actually ban officials from wearing them.
Esther McVey, who was appointed to attend Rishi Sunak’s cabinet as a minister without portfolio, said on Monday that staff would be disciplined for any messaging on lanyards to hold security passes, describing it as “political activism in a visible way”.
But official guidance due to be issued on Tuesday makes no mention of lanyards and the policy was not raised with other government ministers, The Times understands.
On Tuesday morning Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, distanced himself from McVey’s criticism of rainbow lanyards, telling Times Radio: “Personally, I don’t mind people expressing their views on these things. What lanyard somebody wears doesn’t particularly concern me.” He said he was “more interested in the jobs that the civil service do” than in what they wore.
It's all a bit odd. I went to a meeting down in Oz many years ago and wore the lanyard from that for decades at work - nobody even noticed, it was the security pass on the end that mattered (and I could keep that in my shirt pocket when outside work so it wasn't obvious where I worked from either pass or lanyard). A generic rainbow lanyard is positively useful in that respect, unless one works somwhere which is so high security that colour coding is important - in which case it's irrelevant to ban rainbow lanyards.
What if people some people start wearing star of David lanyards, and others wearing Palestinian flag lanyards?
Or, God forbid, TERF lanyards?
Couldn't that make things a bit tetchy at work?
Come on, you can invent trickier scenarios than that:
What about if I wear a lanyard with mini-swastikas printed all down it? Or what about if I wear a tie with naked glamour mag models on them?
Can't we just apply a bit of common sense? Remind me again, who are the rainbow lanyards offending?
What's the reason for wearing a rainbow lanyard?
It's at least pointless virtue signalling
I don't have a Rainbow Lanyard (mine is from Diabetes UK) but do have a rainbow flag badge for it, which I wear alongside a number of others. It was officially issued by my Trust as part of a campaign to encourage inclusion of marginalised groups in mainstream health care.
I wouldn't wear political badges (such as the LD bird) but the rainbow flag is not political.
I'm not sure - I feel like the rainbow is a bit like the poppy, it's non-political for those that wear it because they think their position is completely uncontroversial and opposed only by extremists. But both are, like a lot of little things a political statement.
I tend to agree. If I came across someone wearing one I would note it but almost certainly not comment and I would be just a little more wary about certain topics. Is that ideal in a professional you are dealing with? I would say not but I wouldn't be upset about it, just cautious.
I can't imagine noticing let alone caring what someone's lanyard might or might not be signalling.
Someone with a BNP lanyard at he bar strikes up conversation about the weather and you just crack on as usual? Oh to be so broadminded
I would actually try and steer the conversation to more political topics, I've always been interested in trying the understand the rationale for holding a position that I find irrational.
Do you think that conversation would end pleasantly?
Yes, I'm capable of having a civil conversation with someone with views I consider odd and 99% of other people can do the same.
Maria Caulfield one of the Health Ministers has got herself into an interesting elephant trap.
She's trying to create a wedge issue around 15-Minute Cities like Mark Harper has been doing, by pretending (on regional TV) that the idea is that you get charged for going more than 15 minutes from your home by car, is about social control, and then repeatedly doubling down when challenged, and that that is the policy of her local (Green / Lib Dem controlled) Lewes Council in its Local Plan (it wasn't).
Unfortunate that she did just before Penny Mordaunt released Government commissioned advice about how politicians need to avoid conspiracy theories that documents exactly that as being one of them - often linked with guff about WEF, world-control by Jews and so on.
A cabinet split has opened up on civil service rainbow lanyards as it emerges that guidance agreed across government will not actually ban officials from wearing them.
Esther McVey, who was appointed to attend Rishi Sunak’s cabinet as a minister without portfolio, said on Monday that staff would be disciplined for any messaging on lanyards to hold security passes, describing it as “political activism in a visible way”.
But official guidance due to be issued on Tuesday makes no mention of lanyards and the policy was not raised with other government ministers, The Times understands.
On Tuesday morning Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, distanced himself from McVey’s criticism of rainbow lanyards, telling Times Radio: “Personally, I don’t mind people expressing their views on these things. What lanyard somebody wears doesn’t particularly concern me.” He said he was “more interested in the jobs that the civil service do” than in what they wore.
It's all a bit odd. I went to a meeting down in Oz many years ago and wore the lanyard from that for decades at work - nobody even noticed, it was the security pass on the end that mattered (and I could keep that in my shirt pocket when outside work so it wasn't obvious where I worked from either pass or lanyard). A generic rainbow lanyard is positively useful in that respect, unless one works somwhere which is so high security that colour coding is important - in which case it's irrelevant to ban rainbow lanyards.
What if people some people start wearing star of David lanyards, and others wearing Palestinian flag lanyards?
Or, God forbid, TERF lanyards?
Couldn't that make things a bit tetchy at work?
Come on, you can invent trickier scenarios than that:
What about if I wear a lanyard with mini-swastikas printed all down it? Or what about if I wear a tie with naked glamour mag models on them?
Can't we just apply a bit of common sense? Remind me again, who are the rainbow lanyards offending?
What's the reason for wearing a rainbow lanyard?
It's at least pointless virtue signalling
I don't have a Rainbow Lanyard (mine is from Diabetes UK) but do have a rainbow flag badge for it, which I wear alongside a number of others. It was officially issued by my Trust as part of a campaign to encourage inclusion of marginalised groups in mainstream health care.
I wouldn't wear political badges (such as the LD bird) but the rainbow flag is not political.
I'm not sure - I feel like the rainbow is a bit like the poppy, it's non-political for those that wear it because they think their position is completely uncontroversial and opposed only by extremists. But both are, like a lot of little things a political statement.
I tend to agree. If I came across someone wearing one I would note it but almost certainly not comment and I would be just a little more wary about certain topics. Is that ideal in a professional you are dealing with? I would say not but I wouldn't be upset about it, just cautious.
I can't imagine noticing let alone caring what someone's lanyard might or might not be signalling.
Someone with a BNP lanyard at he bar strikes up conversation about the weather and you just crack on as usual? Oh to be so broadminded
I regularly meet people with BNP lanyards due to my work.
Had some cracking conversations with them about work and other things.
Maria Caulfield one of the Health Ministers has got herself into an interesting elephant trap.
She's trying to create a wedge issue around 15-Minute Cities like Mark Harper has been doing, by pretending (on regional TV) that the idea is that you get charged for going more than 15 minutes from your home by car, is about social control, and then repeatedly doubling down when challenged, and that that is the policy of her local (Green / Lib Dem controlled) Lewes Council in its Local Plan (it wasn't).
Unfortunate that she did just before Penny Mordaunt released Government commissioned advice about how politicians need to avoid conspiracy theories that documents exactly that as being one of them - often linked with guff about WEF, world-control by Jews and so on.
A cabinet split has opened up on civil service rainbow lanyards as it emerges that guidance agreed across government will not actually ban officials from wearing them.
Esther McVey, who was appointed to attend Rishi Sunak’s cabinet as a minister without portfolio, said on Monday that staff would be disciplined for any messaging on lanyards to hold security passes, describing it as “political activism in a visible way”.
But official guidance due to be issued on Tuesday makes no mention of lanyards and the policy was not raised with other government ministers, The Times understands.
On Tuesday morning Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, distanced himself from McVey’s criticism of rainbow lanyards, telling Times Radio: “Personally, I don’t mind people expressing their views on these things. What lanyard somebody wears doesn’t particularly concern me.” He said he was “more interested in the jobs that the civil service do” than in what they wore.
It's all a bit odd. I went to a meeting down in Oz many years ago and wore the lanyard from that for decades at work - nobody even noticed, it was the security pass on the end that mattered (and I could keep that in my shirt pocket when outside work so it wasn't obvious where I worked from either pass or lanyard). A generic rainbow lanyard is positively useful in that respect, unless one works somwhere which is so high security that colour coding is important - in which case it's irrelevant to ban rainbow lanyards.
What if people some people start wearing star of David lanyards, and others wearing Palestinian flag lanyards?
Or, God forbid, TERF lanyards?
Couldn't that make things a bit tetchy at work?
Come on, you can invent trickier scenarios than that:
What about if I wear a lanyard with mini-swastikas printed all down it? Or what about if I wear a tie with naked glamour mag models on them?
Can't we just apply a bit of common sense? Remind me again, who are the rainbow lanyards offending?
What's the reason for wearing a rainbow lanyard?
It's at least pointless virtue signalling
I don't have a Rainbow Lanyard (mine is from Diabetes UK) but do have a rainbow flag badge for it, which I wear alongside a number of others. It was officially issued by my Trust as part of a campaign to encourage inclusion of marginalised groups in mainstream health care.
I wouldn't wear political badges (such as the LD bird) but the rainbow flag is not political.
I'm not sure - I feel like the rainbow is a bit like the poppy, it's non-political for those that wear it because they think their position is completely uncontroversial and opposed only by extremists. But both are, like a lot of little things a political statement.
I tend to agree. If I came across someone wearing one I would note it but almost certainly not comment and I would be just a little more wary about certain topics. Is that ideal in a professional you are dealing with? I would say not but I wouldn't be upset about it, just cautious.
I can't imagine noticing let alone caring what someone's lanyard might or might not be signalling.
To me it would be signalling they work for a corporate which has a desire to be seen as woke.
And so the definition of woke continues to spread and metastasise, so that any corporate even acknowledging the diversity of its own employee base gets the dreaded moniker. Until the word loses all meaning. Like the way Americans bandy about "socialist" and "fascist".
But even if it is “virtue signalling” to wear a rainbow lanyard - why is that a problem? The virtue they are signalling is that they support LGBTQ+ people - a minority group that has typically been oppressed legally and socially. Making it clear that you support people being openly LGBTQ+ is surely a virtue we want to signal, no?
If ‘we’ is ‘people who wear the lanyards’ then obviously. Not sure society as a whole think of it as a virtue that needs to be signalled
Well then we surely need to signal it more, because it should be considered the norm to be fine with openly LGBTQ+ people, no?
Not really, no. I think it tends to get on a lot of people’s nerves, who otherwise don’t give it much thought
Well, lucky them. As a man who has had “faggot” shouted at me for holding a partner’s hand, - I do give it a lot of thought and tend to feel a somewhat increased sense of relaxation and safety in intimidating spaces (like a hospital or government office) when someone has a small rainbow pin or lanyard. And I tend to care about the increased normalisation of LGBTQ+ people in public life and spaces.
Returning to our discussion from yesterday, is Michael Portillo an LGBTQ+ person or a cis het person? Was he one and now the other?
I’m surprised people find it boring; it’s an attempt in the last decade or so to challenge one of the indisputable facts of all time. Even if people genuinely find the debate around that boring, l the attempts to shut it down seem strange to me. Lots of things are discussed on here that I find boring, but would not dream of trying to tell people, or infer, they should stop discussing it.
It’s boring, like Leon’s AI bollocks, and it’s making the site boring.
Does this apply to any other demographic, Landon? Do I get to be black if I like Motown and fancy myself in cornrows? What if I claim the authentic me has always been black and that you're being racist to me? Would that be OK, or would you find it ludicrous and deeply offensive?
Stonewall are back in front of an Employment Tribunal today for trying to get a black lesbian barrister fired.
To be fair, constant derailing without ever participating in the flow of conversation doesn't really seem much like debate to me.
Which is exactly Rowling’s complaint, that those of differing viewpoints to her own don’t want to actually debate with her, they want her to shut up and go away.
JKR doesn't debate anyone when anyone tries to engage with her tweets so for her to complain that people don't want to debate her seems dishonest.
See this thread:
You’ve asked me several questions on this thread and accused me of avoiding answering, so here goes….
Which is not a 'debate'; it's a position platform.
" I do not, however, believe that surgeries and cross-sex hormones literally turn a person into the opposite sex, nor do I believe in the idea that each of us has a nebulous ‘gender identity’ that may or might not match our sexed bodies. "
Which is where, having known a few trans people, I think she's *very* wrong.
You are as entitled to your belief as Rowling is to hers.
The issue has been the TRA absolutist position and the consequences that would have for women’s rights, and sports, to take two examples.
There is no conflict between the rights of women and the ability for trans people to live their life in peace. Transwomen have, for example, had access to single sex spaces all my life (and probably all of your life) using only self ID and it has not been a systemic issue. There may be the odd case of an issue here and there, as there is over any large enough number of human interactions, but there is no evidence of ciswomen being systemically harmed by the inclusion of transwomen in their spaces.
That's completely missing the point, whether deliberately or not.
It's not about trans-people living their life in peace and the rights of women. It's about (amongst other things but this one, I'd suggest, is prime), the ability of abusers to benefit from rights granted to trans-people so as to enable them to abuse.
Simply asserting something and closing your eyes and mind to the possibility of an alternative is no way to set policy. Reality will intrude. See the Post Office for details.
So let's talk about how to reduce abusive behaviour and abuse perpetrated by cismen (the group most likely to commit abuse against ciswomen). Lots of otherwise benign things can be abused by abusers (take single fathers taking their young daughter into the men's loos when she is young - something my dad had to do with my sister after my mum died until she was like 6ish and felt able to go into the women's loos alone). If we want single sex loos should all single parents be banned from taking their kids not of the same gender into a public toilet when they're young because it could, instead, be a predator pretending to be a single parent? No, that's ridiculous. Instead someone would typically rely on the behaviour of the child in that situation - do they look comfortable with the person, are they reacting normally, etc. etc. - and challenge it if it seemed atypical. In a situation where transwomen are sharing spaces with ciswomen if someone turns up and seems to be acting in the manner of an abuser or is a concern - you deal with that as an individual issue. You don't need to take a blanket position of no transwomen in those spaces.
Some spaces are so sensitive - women's refuges, for example - that you *do* need to make it clear that it is single-sex, absolutely, irrespective of a person's preferred gender identity. But in general, treating people as individuals is the sensible thing.
That said, I still don't think you're taking the risks seriously.
Do you have any credible evidence that allowing transwomen into single sex spaces allows abusers free rein to do more abuse? Especially considering that self ID has been the norm in the UK basically forever and is the norm in many other countries - we should have a wealth of data on the issue?
And I don’t think you take the othering of transpeople and the current moral panic surround them seriously. But if you don’t think I’m a sincere actor, what’s the point in discussing further?
When you say that "self ID has been the norm in the UK basically forever" do you think that traditionally, someone who didn't 'pass' would have had no problem walking into a female changing room?
I don’t know - I think it probably depending on how they didn’t “pass”. But I think policing “passing” is bad because - as I’ve discussed here before - there are many more ciswomen who don’t “pass” (despite being cis) then transwomen (in numbers, if not percentage wise). Butch cislesbians, ciswomen with short hair cuts, ciswomen who aren’t traditionally attractive; all of these ciswomen are at the risk of not “passing” if policing increases (and we have seen examples of this). Hell - one of my great aunts (post menopausal) had a small beard she never bothered to shave - in the current environment would she “pass”?
In the past I assume most people would just leave people be as long as they weren’t causing a problem; it’s only now that there is this moral panic that people are policing the issue.
IOW, 'trans people are fine, if they're invisible'.
I mean - that’s not what I was trying to say. I think the desire to make sure trans people do “pass” is a demand for them to be invisible. Which is another reason why policing “passing” is bad. I think for most people it’s easy to imagine a masculine ciswoman who maybe wouldn’t “pass” and a feminine transwoman who would. We should be able to accept a world where both those people are clearly women.
Your examples don't stand up to much scrutiny. Butch lesbians, women with short hair and women who aren't "traditionally attractive" are still identifiably female.
A cabinet split has opened up on civil service rainbow lanyards as it emerges that guidance agreed across government will not actually ban officials from wearing them.
Esther McVey, who was appointed to attend Rishi Sunak’s cabinet as a minister without portfolio, said on Monday that staff would be disciplined for any messaging on lanyards to hold security passes, describing it as “political activism in a visible way”.
But official guidance due to be issued on Tuesday makes no mention of lanyards and the policy was not raised with other government ministers, The Times understands.
On Tuesday morning Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, distanced himself from McVey’s criticism of rainbow lanyards, telling Times Radio: “Personally, I don’t mind people expressing their views on these things. What lanyard somebody wears doesn’t particularly concern me.” He said he was “more interested in the jobs that the civil service do” than in what they wore.
It's all a bit odd. I went to a meeting down in Oz many years ago and wore the lanyard from that for decades at work - nobody even noticed, it was the security pass on the end that mattered (and I could keep that in my shirt pocket when outside work so it wasn't obvious where I worked from either pass or lanyard). A generic rainbow lanyard is positively useful in that respect, unless one works somwhere which is so high security that colour coding is important - in which case it's irrelevant to ban rainbow lanyards.
What if people some people start wearing star of David lanyards, and others wearing Palestinian flag lanyards?
Or, God forbid, TERF lanyards?
Couldn't that make things a bit tetchy at work?
Come on, you can invent trickier scenarios than that:
What about if I wear a lanyard with mini-swastikas printed all down it? Or what about if I wear a tie with naked glamour mag models on them?
Can't we just apply a bit of common sense? Remind me again, who are the rainbow lanyards offending?
What's the reason for wearing a rainbow lanyard?
It's at least pointless virtue signalling
I don't have a Rainbow Lanyard (mine is from Diabetes UK) but do have a rainbow flag badge for it, which I wear alongside a number of others. It was officially issued by my Trust as part of a campaign to encourage inclusion of marginalised groups in mainstream health care.
I wouldn't wear political badges (such as the LD bird) but the rainbow flag is not political.
I'm not sure - I feel like the rainbow is a bit like the poppy, it's non-political for those that wear it because they think their position is completely uncontroversial and opposed only by extremists. But both are, like a lot of little things a political statement.
I tend to agree. If I came across someone wearing one I would note it but almost certainly not comment and I would be just a little more wary about certain topics. Is that ideal in a professional you are dealing with? I would say not but I wouldn't be upset about it, just cautious.
I can't imagine noticing let alone caring what someone's lanyard might or might not be signalling.
To me it would be signalling they work for a corporate which has a desire to be seen as woke.
And so the definition of woke continues to spread and metastasise, so that any corporate even acknowledging the diversity of its own employee base gets the dreaded moniker. Until the word loses all meaning. Like the way Americans bandy about "socialist" and "fascist".
But even if it is “virtue signalling” to wear a rainbow lanyard - why is that a problem? The virtue they are signalling is that they support LGBTQ+ people - a minority group that has typically been oppressed legally and socially. Making it clear that you support people being openly LGBTQ+ is surely a virtue we want to signal, no?
If ‘we’ is ‘people who wear the lanyards’ then obviously. Not sure society as a whole think of it as a virtue that needs to be signalled
Well then we surely need to signal it more, because it should be considered the norm to be fine with openly LGBTQ+ people, no?
Not really, no. I think it tends to get on a lot of people’s nerves, who otherwise don’t give it much thought
Well, lucky them. As a man who has had “faggot” shouted at me for holding a partner’s hand, - I do give it a lot of thought and tend to feel a somewhat increased sense of relaxation and safety in intimidating spaces (like a hospital or government office) when someone has a small rainbow pin or lanyard. And I tend to care about the increased normalisation of LGBTQ+ people in public life and spaces.
Good for you, but that doesn’t mean everyone should
Is anyone saying people must wear these landyards? No. So what’s the problem?
A cabinet split has opened up on civil service rainbow lanyards as it emerges that guidance agreed across government will not actually ban officials from wearing them.
Esther McVey, who was appointed to attend Rishi Sunak’s cabinet as a minister without portfolio, said on Monday that staff would be disciplined for any messaging on lanyards to hold security passes, describing it as “political activism in a visible way”.
But official guidance due to be issued on Tuesday makes no mention of lanyards and the policy was not raised with other government ministers, The Times understands.
On Tuesday morning Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, distanced himself from McVey’s criticism of rainbow lanyards, telling Times Radio: “Personally, I don’t mind people expressing their views on these things. What lanyard somebody wears doesn’t particularly concern me.” He said he was “more interested in the jobs that the civil service do” than in what they wore.
It's all a bit odd. I went to a meeting down in Oz many years ago and wore the lanyard from that for decades at work - nobody even noticed, it was the security pass on the end that mattered (and I could keep that in my shirt pocket when outside work so it wasn't obvious where I worked from either pass or lanyard). A generic rainbow lanyard is positively useful in that respect, unless one works somwhere which is so high security that colour coding is important - in which case it's irrelevant to ban rainbow lanyards.
What if people some people start wearing star of David lanyards, and others wearing Palestinian flag lanyards?
Or, God forbid, TERF lanyards?
Couldn't that make things a bit tetchy at work?
Come on, you can invent trickier scenarios than that:
What about if I wear a lanyard with mini-swastikas printed all down it? Or what about if I wear a tie with naked glamour mag models on them?
Can't we just apply a bit of common sense? Remind me again, who are the rainbow lanyards offending?
What's the reason for wearing a rainbow lanyard?
It's at least pointless virtue signalling
I don't have a Rainbow Lanyard (mine is from Diabetes UK) but do have a rainbow flag badge for it, which I wear alongside a number of others. It was officially issued by my Trust as part of a campaign to encourage inclusion of marginalised groups in mainstream health care.
I wouldn't wear political badges (such as the LD bird) but the rainbow flag is not political.
I'm not sure - I feel like the rainbow is a bit like the poppy, it's non-political for those that wear it because they think their position is completely uncontroversial and opposed only by extremists. But both are, like a lot of little things a political statement.
I tend to agree. If I came across someone wearing one I would note it but almost certainly not comment and I would be just a little more wary about certain topics. Is that ideal in a professional you are dealing with? I would say not but I wouldn't be upset about it, just cautious.
I can't imagine noticing let alone caring what someone's lanyard might or might not be signalling.
Someone with a BNP lanyard at he bar strikes up conversation about the weather and you just crack on as usual? Oh to be so broadminded
I regularly meet people with BNP lanyards due to my work.
Had some cracking conversations with them about work and other things.
A cabinet split has opened up on civil service rainbow lanyards as it emerges that guidance agreed across government will not actually ban officials from wearing them.
Esther McVey, who was appointed to attend Rishi Sunak’s cabinet as a minister without portfolio, said on Monday that staff would be disciplined for any messaging on lanyards to hold security passes, describing it as “political activism in a visible way”.
But official guidance due to be issued on Tuesday makes no mention of lanyards and the policy was not raised with other government ministers, The Times understands.
On Tuesday morning Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, distanced himself from McVey’s criticism of rainbow lanyards, telling Times Radio: “Personally, I don’t mind people expressing their views on these things. What lanyard somebody wears doesn’t particularly concern me.” He said he was “more interested in the jobs that the civil service do” than in what they wore.
It's all a bit odd. I went to a meeting down in Oz many years ago and wore the lanyard from that for decades at work - nobody even noticed, it was the security pass on the end that mattered (and I could keep that in my shirt pocket when outside work so it wasn't obvious where I worked from either pass or lanyard). A generic rainbow lanyard is positively useful in that respect, unless one works somwhere which is so high security that colour coding is important - in which case it's irrelevant to ban rainbow lanyards.
What if people some people start wearing star of David lanyards, and others wearing Palestinian flag lanyards?
Or, God forbid, TERF lanyards?
Couldn't that make things a bit tetchy at work?
Come on, you can invent trickier scenarios than that:
What about if I wear a lanyard with mini-swastikas printed all down it? Or what about if I wear a tie with naked glamour mag models on them?
Can't we just apply a bit of common sense? Remind me again, who are the rainbow lanyards offending?
What's the reason for wearing a rainbow lanyard?
It's at least pointless virtue signalling
I don't have a Rainbow Lanyard (mine is from Diabetes UK) but do have a rainbow flag badge for it, which I wear alongside a number of others. It was officially issued by my Trust as part of a campaign to encourage inclusion of marginalised groups in mainstream health care.
I wouldn't wear political badges (such as the LD bird) but the rainbow flag is not political.
I'm not sure - I feel like the rainbow is a bit like the poppy, it's non-political for those that wear it because they think their position is completely uncontroversial and opposed only by extremists. But both are, like a lot of little things a political statement.
I tend to agree. If I came across someone wearing one I would note it but almost certainly not comment and I would be just a little more wary about certain topics. Is that ideal in a professional you are dealing with? I would say not but I wouldn't be upset about it, just cautious.
I can't imagine noticing let alone caring what someone's lanyard might or might not be signalling.
Someone with a BNP lanyard at he bar strikes up conversation about the weather and you just crack on as usual? Oh to be so broadminded
I've chatted happily with many people wearing a BNP lanyard!
You mean even those originally from Exane?? Surely not.
The guys namechecked in that Prodigy song? What's wrong with them?
Come play my game, I'll test ya Psychosomatic, addict, insane Come play my game Inhale, inhale, you're the victim Come play my game Exane, Exane, Exane
A cabinet split has opened up on civil service rainbow lanyards as it emerges that guidance agreed across government will not actually ban officials from wearing them.
Esther McVey, who was appointed to attend Rishi Sunak’s cabinet as a minister without portfolio, said on Monday that staff would be disciplined for any messaging on lanyards to hold security passes, describing it as “political activism in a visible way”.
But official guidance due to be issued on Tuesday makes no mention of lanyards and the policy was not raised with other government ministers, The Times understands.
On Tuesday morning Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, distanced himself from McVey’s criticism of rainbow lanyards, telling Times Radio: “Personally, I don’t mind people expressing their views on these things. What lanyard somebody wears doesn’t particularly concern me.” He said he was “more interested in the jobs that the civil service do” than in what they wore.
It's all a bit odd. I went to a meeting down in Oz many years ago and wore the lanyard from that for decades at work - nobody even noticed, it was the security pass on the end that mattered (and I could keep that in my shirt pocket when outside work so it wasn't obvious where I worked from either pass or lanyard). A generic rainbow lanyard is positively useful in that respect, unless one works somwhere which is so high security that colour coding is important - in which case it's irrelevant to ban rainbow lanyards.
What if people some people start wearing star of David lanyards, and others wearing Palestinian flag lanyards?
Or, God forbid, TERF lanyards?
Couldn't that make things a bit tetchy at work?
Come on, you can invent trickier scenarios than that:
What about if I wear a lanyard with mini-swastikas printed all down it? Or what about if I wear a tie with naked glamour mag models on them?
Can't we just apply a bit of common sense? Remind me again, who are the rainbow lanyards offending?
What's the reason for wearing a rainbow lanyard?
It's at least pointless virtue signalling
I don't have a Rainbow Lanyard (mine is from Diabetes UK) but do have a rainbow flag badge for it, which I wear alongside a number of others. It was officially issued by my Trust as part of a campaign to encourage inclusion of marginalised groups in mainstream health care.
I wouldn't wear political badges (such as the LD bird) but the rainbow flag is not political.
I'm not sure - I feel like the rainbow is a bit like the poppy, it's non-political for those that wear it because they think their position is completely uncontroversial and opposed only by extremists. But both are, like a lot of little things a political statement.
I tend to agree. If I came across someone wearing one I would note it but almost certainly not comment and I would be just a little more wary about certain topics. Is that ideal in a professional you are dealing with? I would say not but I wouldn't be upset about it, just cautious.
I can't imagine noticing let alone caring what someone's lanyard might or might not be signalling.
Someone with a BNP lanyard at he bar strikes up conversation about the weather and you just crack on as usual? Oh to be so broadminded
I've chatted happily with many people wearing a BNP lanyard!
The political party not the bank!
Ah OK. I probably wouldn't notice their lanyard, I'm not super observant. I guess it might be an interesting conversation. Like do they still want to deport my family? What precisely is it about my wife and children do they find so objectionable? In some ways it might be quite interesting to understand their mindset, although most likely they would turn out just to be your standard issue pig ignorant boring bigot.
I’m surprised people find it boring; it’s an attempt in the last decade or so to challenge one of the indisputable facts of all time. Even if people genuinely find the debate around that boring, l the attempts to shut it down seem strange to me. Lots of things are discussed on here that I find boring, but would not dream of trying to tell people, or infer, they should stop discussing it.
If Leon can be banned for constantly derailing threads with AI, a moratorium on trans stuff here seems reasonable. Plenty of us would like to move on from the debate and discuss other things. But people with a bee in their bonnet keep on steering the conversation back to trans stuff, posting content that goes beyond 'debate' and into hatred and intolerance - which needs to be challenged.
There are literally hundreds of online forums where people can debate the ins and outs of what it means to be a woman, it's gotten to the point where PB is unusable because EVERY thread is a trans thread. Just like EVERY thread was an AI thread before Leon got told to put a sock in it.
I think JosiasJessop has it best in a comment downthread I can't applaud enough - "As someone who has seen trans people bullied and/or belittled, both in public and work, I am understandably concerned that trans people are treated with dignity and respect. I also want women treated with dignity and respect. And men. And children. *Everyone* deserves dignity and respect."
Perhaps everyone could agree on that, and move on to other matters?
A cabinet split has opened up on civil service rainbow lanyards as it emerges that guidance agreed across government will not actually ban officials from wearing them.
Esther McVey, who was appointed to attend Rishi Sunak’s cabinet as a minister without portfolio, said on Monday that staff would be disciplined for any messaging on lanyards to hold security passes, describing it as “political activism in a visible way”.
But official guidance due to be issued on Tuesday makes no mention of lanyards and the policy was not raised with other government ministers, The Times understands.
On Tuesday morning Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, distanced himself from McVey’s criticism of rainbow lanyards, telling Times Radio: “Personally, I don’t mind people expressing their views on these things. What lanyard somebody wears doesn’t particularly concern me.” He said he was “more interested in the jobs that the civil service do” than in what they wore.
It's all a bit odd. I went to a meeting down in Oz many years ago and wore the lanyard from that for decades at work - nobody even noticed, it was the security pass on the end that mattered (and I could keep that in my shirt pocket when outside work so it wasn't obvious where I worked from either pass or lanyard). A generic rainbow lanyard is positively useful in that respect, unless one works somwhere which is so high security that colour coding is important - in which case it's irrelevant to ban rainbow lanyards.
What if people some people start wearing star of David lanyards, and others wearing Palestinian flag lanyards?
Or, God forbid, TERF lanyards?
Couldn't that make things a bit tetchy at work?
Come on, you can invent trickier scenarios than that:
What about if I wear a lanyard with mini-swastikas printed all down it? Or what about if I wear a tie with naked glamour mag models on them?
Can't we just apply a bit of common sense? Remind me again, who are the rainbow lanyards offending?
What's the reason for wearing a rainbow lanyard?
It's at least pointless virtue signalling
I don't have a Rainbow Lanyard (mine is from Diabetes UK) but do have a rainbow flag badge for it, which I wear alongside a number of others. It was officially issued by my Trust as part of a campaign to encourage inclusion of marginalised groups in mainstream health care.
I wouldn't wear political badges (such as the LD bird) but the rainbow flag is not political.
I'm not sure - I feel like the rainbow is a bit like the poppy, it's non-political for those that wear it because they think their position is completely uncontroversial and opposed only by extremists. But both are, like a lot of little things a political statement.
I tend to agree. If I came across someone wearing one I would note it but almost certainly not comment and I would be just a little more wary about certain topics. Is that ideal in a professional you are dealing with? I would say not but I wouldn't be upset about it, just cautious.
I can't imagine noticing let alone caring what someone's lanyard might or might not be signalling.
To me it would be signalling they work for a corporate which has a desire to be seen as woke.
And so the definition of woke continues to spread and metastasise, so that any corporate even acknowledging the diversity of its own employee base gets the dreaded moniker. Until the word loses all meaning. Like the way Americans bandy about "socialist" and "fascist".
But even if it is “virtue signalling” to wear a rainbow lanyard - why is that a problem? The virtue they are signalling is that they support LGBTQ+ people - a minority group that has typically been oppressed legally and socially. Making it clear that you support people being openly LGBTQ+ is surely a virtue we want to signal, no?
If ‘we’ is ‘people who wear the lanyards’ then obviously. Not sure society as a whole think of it as a virtue that needs to be signalled
Well then we surely need to signal it more, because it should be considered the norm to be fine with openly LGBTQ+ people, no?
Not really, no. I think it tends to get on a lot of people’s nerves, who otherwise don’t give it much thought
Well, lucky them. As a man who has had “faggot” shouted at me for holding a partner’s hand, - I do give it a lot of thought and tend to feel a somewhat increased sense of relaxation and safety in intimidating spaces (like a hospital or government office) when someone has a small rainbow pin or lanyard. And I tend to care about the increased normalisation of LGBTQ+ people in public life and spaces.
Returning to our discussion from yesterday, is Michael Portillo an LGBTQ+ person or a cis het person? Was he one and now the other?
Why are you asking 148grss, surely you would need to ask Michael Portillo.
For example, I consider myself cis het male and I tick those boxes. But I have been romantically attracted to three men in my life and had sex with one of them. Sexual orientation is probably a spectrum rather then discontinuous buckets. I'm sure that you've been attracted to someone who's "not your type", it doesn't necessarily change your label.
A cabinet split has opened up on civil service rainbow lanyards as it emerges that guidance agreed across government will not actually ban officials from wearing them.
Esther McVey, who was appointed to attend Rishi Sunak’s cabinet as a minister without portfolio, said on Monday that staff would be disciplined for any messaging on lanyards to hold security passes, describing it as “political activism in a visible way”.
But official guidance due to be issued on Tuesday makes no mention of lanyards and the policy was not raised with other government ministers, The Times understands.
On Tuesday morning Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, distanced himself from McVey’s criticism of rainbow lanyards, telling Times Radio: “Personally, I don’t mind people expressing their views on these things. What lanyard somebody wears doesn’t particularly concern me.” He said he was “more interested in the jobs that the civil service do” than in what they wore.
It's all a bit odd. I went to a meeting down in Oz many years ago and wore the lanyard from that for decades at work - nobody even noticed, it was the security pass on the end that mattered (and I could keep that in my shirt pocket when outside work so it wasn't obvious where I worked from either pass or lanyard). A generic rainbow lanyard is positively useful in that respect, unless one works somwhere which is so high security that colour coding is important - in which case it's irrelevant to ban rainbow lanyards.
What if people some people start wearing star of David lanyards, and others wearing Palestinian flag lanyards?
Or, God forbid, TERF lanyards?
Couldn't that make things a bit tetchy at work?
Come on, you can invent trickier scenarios than that:
What about if I wear a lanyard with mini-swastikas printed all down it? Or what about if I wear a tie with naked glamour mag models on them?
Can't we just apply a bit of common sense? Remind me again, who are the rainbow lanyards offending?
What's the reason for wearing a rainbow lanyard?
It's at least pointless virtue signalling
I don't have a Rainbow Lanyard (mine is from Diabetes UK) but do have a rainbow flag badge for it, which I wear alongside a number of others. It was officially issued by my Trust as part of a campaign to encourage inclusion of marginalised groups in mainstream health care.
I wouldn't wear political badges (such as the LD bird) but the rainbow flag is not political.
I'm not sure - I feel like the rainbow is a bit like the poppy, it's non-political for those that wear it because they think their position is completely uncontroversial and opposed only by extremists. But both are, like a lot of little things a political statement.
I tend to agree. If I came across someone wearing one I would note it but almost certainly not comment and I would be just a little more wary about certain topics. Is that ideal in a professional you are dealing with? I would say not but I wouldn't be upset about it, just cautious.
I can't imagine noticing let alone caring what someone's lanyard might or might not be signalling.
Someone with a BNP lanyard at he bar strikes up conversation about the weather and you just crack on as usual? Oh to be so broadminded
I regularly meet people with BNP lanyards due to my work.
Had some cracking conversations with them about work and other things.
(narrator. This joke depends on the reader knowing that Banque Nationale de Paris and the British National Party are different organisations despite having the same acronym)
Okay. Question relating to the next UK general election.
Which seat will see the first Labour gain declared on the night, and what will different margins of victory say about the likely final result?
Too hard for me, but much more interesting.
Also interesting:
Biden’s EV tariffs Kwarteng’s interview on “Leading” Today’s very poor productivity numbers. What we should read into Sunak’s speech if anything. Caulfield’s conspiracy-mongering.
I’m surprised people find it boring; it’s an attempt in the last decade or so to challenge one of the indisputable facts of all time. Even if people genuinely find the debate around that boring, l the attempts to shut it down seem strange to me. Lots of things are discussed on here that I find boring, but would not dream of trying to tell people, or infer, they should stop discussing it.
It’s boring, like Leon’s AI bollocks, and it’s making the site boring.
I agree - and would rather not discuss it here. But I also don’t want to let the opinions of people arguing for more policing of trans people and gender norms to go unchallenged in the middle of a moral panic that is seeing increased violence against LGBTQ+ people. This rhetoric has a material impact in the world.
A cabinet split has opened up on civil service rainbow lanyards as it emerges that guidance agreed across government will not actually ban officials from wearing them.
Esther McVey, who was appointed to attend Rishi Sunak’s cabinet as a minister without portfolio, said on Monday that staff would be disciplined for any messaging on lanyards to hold security passes, describing it as “political activism in a visible way”.
But official guidance due to be issued on Tuesday makes no mention of lanyards and the policy was not raised with other government ministers, The Times understands.
On Tuesday morning Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, distanced himself from McVey’s criticism of rainbow lanyards, telling Times Radio: “Personally, I don’t mind people expressing their views on these things. What lanyard somebody wears doesn’t particularly concern me.” He said he was “more interested in the jobs that the civil service do” than in what they wore.
It's all a bit odd. I went to a meeting down in Oz many years ago and wore the lanyard from that for decades at work - nobody even noticed, it was the security pass on the end that mattered (and I could keep that in my shirt pocket when outside work so it wasn't obvious where I worked from either pass or lanyard). A generic rainbow lanyard is positively useful in that respect, unless one works somwhere which is so high security that colour coding is important - in which case it's irrelevant to ban rainbow lanyards.
What if people some people start wearing star of David lanyards, and others wearing Palestinian flag lanyards?
Or, God forbid, TERF lanyards?
Couldn't that make things a bit tetchy at work?
Come on, you can invent trickier scenarios than that:
What about if I wear a lanyard with mini-swastikas printed all down it? Or what about if I wear a tie with naked glamour mag models on them?
Can't we just apply a bit of common sense? Remind me again, who are the rainbow lanyards offending?
What's the reason for wearing a rainbow lanyard?
It's at least pointless virtue signalling
I don't have a Rainbow Lanyard (mine is from Diabetes UK) but do have a rainbow flag badge for it, which I wear alongside a number of others. It was officially issued by my Trust as part of a campaign to encourage inclusion of marginalised groups in mainstream health care.
I wouldn't wear political badges (such as the LD bird) but the rainbow flag is not political.
I'm not sure - I feel like the rainbow is a bit like the poppy, it's non-political for those that wear it because they think their position is completely uncontroversial and opposed only by extremists. But both are, like a lot of little things a political statement.
I tend to agree. If I came across someone wearing one I would note it but almost certainly not comment and I would be just a little more wary about certain topics. Is that ideal in a professional you are dealing with? I would say not but I wouldn't be upset about it, just cautious.
I can't imagine noticing let alone caring what someone's lanyard might or might not be signalling.
To me it would be signalling they work for a corporate which has a desire to be seen as woke.
And so the definition of woke continues to spread and metastasise, so that any corporate even acknowledging the diversity of its own employee base gets the dreaded moniker. Until the word loses all meaning. Like the way Americans bandy about "socialist" and "fascist".
But even if it is “virtue signalling” to wear a rainbow lanyard - why is that a problem? The virtue they are signalling is that they support LGBTQ+ people - a minority group that has typically been oppressed legally and socially. Making it clear that you support people being openly LGBTQ+ is surely a virtue we want to signal, no?
If ‘we’ is ‘people who wear the lanyards’ then obviously. Not sure society as a whole think of it as a virtue that needs to be signalled
Well then we surely need to signal it more, because it should be considered the norm to be fine with openly LGBTQ+ people, no?
Not really, no. I think it tends to get on a lot of people’s nerves, who otherwise don’t give it much thought
Well, lucky them. As a man who has had “faggot” shouted at me for holding a partner’s hand, - I do give it a lot of thought and tend to feel a somewhat increased sense of relaxation and safety in intimidating spaces (like a hospital or government office) when someone has a small rainbow pin or lanyard. And I tend to care about the increased normalisation of LGBTQ+ people in public life and spaces.
Returning to our discussion from yesterday, is Michael Portillo an LGBTQ+ person or a cis het person? Was he one and now the other?
Why are you asking 148grss, surely you would need to ask Michael Portillo.
For example, I consider myself cis het male and I tick those boxes. But I have been romantically attracted to three men in my life and had sex with one of them. Sexual orientation is probably a spectrum rather then discontinuous buckets. I'm sure that you've been attracted to someone who's "not your type", it doesn't necessarily change your label.
I'm asking 148grss because he is the one who is defining a category of "LGBTQ+ people" as opposed to cis het people.
Okay. Question relating to the next UK general election.
Which seat will see the first Labour gain declared on the night, and what will different margins of victory say about the likely final result?
I'll go Workington and if the tory vote goes under 30% they'll be in big trouble. They'll have just about held Basildon, Broxbourne by this point and the studios will be 'pointing to a 97 type result'
A cabinet split has opened up on civil service rainbow lanyards as it emerges that guidance agreed across government will not actually ban officials from wearing them.
Esther McVey, who was appointed to attend Rishi Sunak’s cabinet as a minister without portfolio, said on Monday that staff would be disciplined for any messaging on lanyards to hold security passes, describing it as “political activism in a visible way”.
But official guidance due to be issued on Tuesday makes no mention of lanyards and the policy was not raised with other government ministers, The Times understands.
On Tuesday morning Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, distanced himself from McVey’s criticism of rainbow lanyards, telling Times Radio: “Personally, I don’t mind people expressing their views on these things. What lanyard somebody wears doesn’t particularly concern me.” He said he was “more interested in the jobs that the civil service do” than in what they wore.
It's all a bit odd. I went to a meeting down in Oz many years ago and wore the lanyard from that for decades at work - nobody even noticed, it was the security pass on the end that mattered (and I could keep that in my shirt pocket when outside work so it wasn't obvious where I worked from either pass or lanyard). A generic rainbow lanyard is positively useful in that respect, unless one works somwhere which is so high security that colour coding is important - in which case it's irrelevant to ban rainbow lanyards.
What if people some people start wearing star of David lanyards, and others wearing Palestinian flag lanyards?
Or, God forbid, TERF lanyards?
Couldn't that make things a bit tetchy at work?
Come on, you can invent trickier scenarios than that:
What about if I wear a lanyard with mini-swastikas printed all down it? Or what about if I wear a tie with naked glamour mag models on them?
Can't we just apply a bit of common sense? Remind me again, who are the rainbow lanyards offending?
What's the reason for wearing a rainbow lanyard?
It's at least pointless virtue signalling
I don't have a Rainbow Lanyard (mine is from Diabetes UK) but do have a rainbow flag badge for it, which I wear alongside a number of others. It was officially issued by my Trust as part of a campaign to encourage inclusion of marginalised groups in mainstream health care.
I wouldn't wear political badges (such as the LD bird) but the rainbow flag is not political.
I'm not sure - I feel like the rainbow is a bit like the poppy, it's non-political for those that wear it because they think their position is completely uncontroversial and opposed only by extremists. But both are, like a lot of little things a political statement.
I tend to agree. If I came across someone wearing one I would note it but almost certainly not comment and I would be just a little more wary about certain topics. Is that ideal in a professional you are dealing with? I would say not but I wouldn't be upset about it, just cautious.
I can't imagine noticing let alone caring what someone's lanyard might or might not be signalling.
Someone with a BNP lanyard at he bar strikes up conversation about the weather and you just crack on as usual? Oh to be so broadminded
I regularly meet people with BNP lanyards due to my work.
Had some cracking conversations with them about work and other things.
A cabinet split has opened up on civil service rainbow lanyards as it emerges that guidance agreed across government will not actually ban officials from wearing them.
Esther McVey, who was appointed to attend Rishi Sunak’s cabinet as a minister without portfolio, said on Monday that staff would be disciplined for any messaging on lanyards to hold security passes, describing it as “political activism in a visible way”.
But official guidance due to be issued on Tuesday makes no mention of lanyards and the policy was not raised with other government ministers, The Times understands.
On Tuesday morning Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, distanced himself from McVey’s criticism of rainbow lanyards, telling Times Radio: “Personally, I don’t mind people expressing their views on these things. What lanyard somebody wears doesn’t particularly concern me.” He said he was “more interested in the jobs that the civil service do” than in what they wore.
It's all a bit odd. I went to a meeting down in Oz many years ago and wore the lanyard from that for decades at work - nobody even noticed, it was the security pass on the end that mattered (and I could keep that in my shirt pocket when outside work so it wasn't obvious where I worked from either pass or lanyard). A generic rainbow lanyard is positively useful in that respect, unless one works somwhere which is so high security that colour coding is important - in which case it's irrelevant to ban rainbow lanyards.
What if people some people start wearing star of David lanyards, and others wearing Palestinian flag lanyards?
Or, God forbid, TERF lanyards?
Couldn't that make things a bit tetchy at work?
Come on, you can invent trickier scenarios than that:
What about if I wear a lanyard with mini-swastikas printed all down it? Or what about if I wear a tie with naked glamour mag models on them?
Can't we just apply a bit of common sense? Remind me again, who are the rainbow lanyards offending?
What's the reason for wearing a rainbow lanyard?
It's at least pointless virtue signalling
I don't have a Rainbow Lanyard (mine is from Diabetes UK) but do have a rainbow flag badge for it, which I wear alongside a number of others. It was officially issued by my Trust as part of a campaign to encourage inclusion of marginalised groups in mainstream health care.
I wouldn't wear political badges (such as the LD bird) but the rainbow flag is not political.
I'm not sure - I feel like the rainbow is a bit like the poppy, it's non-political for those that wear it because they think their position is completely uncontroversial and opposed only by extremists. But both are, like a lot of little things a political statement.
I tend to agree. If I came across someone wearing one I would note it but almost certainly not comment and I would be just a little more wary about certain topics. Is that ideal in a professional you are dealing with? I would say not but I wouldn't be upset about it, just cautious.
I can't imagine noticing let alone caring what someone's lanyard might or might not be signalling.
To me it would be signalling they work for a corporate which has a desire to be seen as woke.
And so the definition of woke continues to spread and metastasise, so that any corporate even acknowledging the diversity of its own employee base gets the dreaded moniker. Until the word loses all meaning. Like the way Americans bandy about "socialist" and "fascist".
But even if it is “virtue signalling” to wear a rainbow lanyard - why is that a problem? The virtue they are signalling is that they support LGBTQ+ people - a minority group that has typically been oppressed legally and socially. Making it clear that you support people being openly LGBTQ+ is surely a virtue we want to signal, no?
If ‘we’ is ‘people who wear the lanyards’ then obviously. Not sure society as a whole think of it as a virtue that needs to be signalled
Well then we surely need to signal it more, because it should be considered the norm to be fine with openly LGBTQ+ people, no?
Not really, no. I think it tends to get on a lot of people’s nerves, who otherwise don’t give it much thought
Well, lucky them. As a man who has had “faggot” shouted at me for holding a partner’s hand, - I do give it a lot of thought and tend to feel a somewhat increased sense of relaxation and safety in intimidating spaces (like a hospital or government office) when someone has a small rainbow pin or lanyard. And I tend to care about the increased normalisation of LGBTQ+ people in public life and spaces.
Returning to our discussion from yesterday, is Michael Portillo an LGBTQ+ person or a cis het person? Was he one and now the other?
And like I said yesterday - I have no idea what that has to do with anything. He says he is a straight man who has had sexual experiences with members of the same sex. Fine - many straight people do that. Many gay people have sex with people of the opposite sex - it doesn’t make them less gay. I don’t understand the point you’re trying to make with this line of thought.
I’m surprised people find it boring; it’s an attempt in the last decade or so to challenge one of the indisputable facts of all time. Even if people genuinely find the debate around that boring, l the attempts to shut it down seem strange to me. Lots of things are discussed on here that I find boring, but would not dream of trying to tell people, or infer, they should stop discussing it.
It’s boring, like Leon’s AI bollocks, and it’s making the site boring.
You may find it boring, but I'm fascinated by the notion that Leon's bollocks are intelligent
Okay. Question relating to the next UK general election.
Which seat will see the first Labour gain declared on the night, and what will different margins of victory say about the likely final result?
Too hard for me, but much more interesting.
Also interesting:
Biden’s EV tariffs Kwarteng’s interview on “Leading” Today’s very poor productivity numbers. What we should read into Sunak’s speech if anything. Caulfield’s conspiracy-mongering.
Blyth Valley was the earliest-declaring (23:33) Conservative seat at the last election, with a majority of only 712 over Labour, so that would be a good shout - but I forgot about the boundary changes, which complicates things.
Now I need to find notional results for the new boundaries.
A cabinet split has opened up on civil service rainbow lanyards as it emerges that guidance agreed across government will not actually ban officials from wearing them.
Esther McVey, who was appointed to attend Rishi Sunak’s cabinet as a minister without portfolio, said on Monday that staff would be disciplined for any messaging on lanyards to hold security passes, describing it as “political activism in a visible way”.
But official guidance due to be issued on Tuesday makes no mention of lanyards and the policy was not raised with other government ministers, The Times understands.
On Tuesday morning Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, distanced himself from McVey’s criticism of rainbow lanyards, telling Times Radio: “Personally, I don’t mind people expressing their views on these things. What lanyard somebody wears doesn’t particularly concern me.” He said he was “more interested in the jobs that the civil service do” than in what they wore.
It's all a bit odd. I went to a meeting down in Oz many years ago and wore the lanyard from that for decades at work - nobody even noticed, it was the security pass on the end that mattered (and I could keep that in my shirt pocket when outside work so it wasn't obvious where I worked from either pass or lanyard). A generic rainbow lanyard is positively useful in that respect, unless one works somwhere which is so high security that colour coding is important - in which case it's irrelevant to ban rainbow lanyards.
What if people some people start wearing star of David lanyards, and others wearing Palestinian flag lanyards?
Or, God forbid, TERF lanyards?
Couldn't that make things a bit tetchy at work?
Come on, you can invent trickier scenarios than that:
What about if I wear a lanyard with mini-swastikas printed all down it? Or what about if I wear a tie with naked glamour mag models on them?
Can't we just apply a bit of common sense? Remind me again, who are the rainbow lanyards offending?
What's the reason for wearing a rainbow lanyard?
It's at least pointless virtue signalling
I don't have a Rainbow Lanyard (mine is from Diabetes UK) but do have a rainbow flag badge for it, which I wear alongside a number of others. It was officially issued by my Trust as part of a campaign to encourage inclusion of marginalised groups in mainstream health care.
I wouldn't wear political badges (such as the LD bird) but the rainbow flag is not political.
I'm not sure - I feel like the rainbow is a bit like the poppy, it's non-political for those that wear it because they think their position is completely uncontroversial and opposed only by extremists. But both are, like a lot of little things a political statement.
I tend to agree. If I came across someone wearing one I would note it but almost certainly not comment and I would be just a little more wary about certain topics. Is that ideal in a professional you are dealing with? I would say not but I wouldn't be upset about it, just cautious.
I can't imagine noticing let alone caring what someone's lanyard might or might not be signalling.
Someone with a BNP lanyard at he bar strikes up conversation about the weather and you just crack on as usual? Oh to be so broadminded
I regularly meet people with BNP lanyards due to my work.
Had some cracking conversations with them about work and other things.
(narrator. This joke depends on the reader knowing that Banque Nationale de Paris and the British National Party are different organisations despite having the same acronym)
Okay. Question relating to the next UK general election.
Which seat will see the first Labour gain declared on the night, and what will different margins of victory say about the likely final result?
Whichever was the first Tory gain last time must be in with a shout. If the swing back to Labour exceeds the swing to the Tories last time, then Starmer should be heading for No. 10.
A cabinet split has opened up on civil service rainbow lanyards as it emerges that guidance agreed across government will not actually ban officials from wearing them.
Esther McVey, who was appointed to attend Rishi Sunak’s cabinet as a minister without portfolio, said on Monday that staff would be disciplined for any messaging on lanyards to hold security passes, describing it as “political activism in a visible way”.
But official guidance due to be issued on Tuesday makes no mention of lanyards and the policy was not raised with other government ministers, The Times understands.
On Tuesday morning Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, distanced himself from McVey’s criticism of rainbow lanyards, telling Times Radio: “Personally, I don’t mind people expressing their views on these things. What lanyard somebody wears doesn’t particularly concern me.” He said he was “more interested in the jobs that the civil service do” than in what they wore.
It's all a bit odd. I went to a meeting down in Oz many years ago and wore the lanyard from that for decades at work - nobody even noticed, it was the security pass on the end that mattered (and I could keep that in my shirt pocket when outside work so it wasn't obvious where I worked from either pass or lanyard). A generic rainbow lanyard is positively useful in that respect, unless one works somwhere which is so high security that colour coding is important - in which case it's irrelevant to ban rainbow lanyards.
What if people some people start wearing star of David lanyards, and others wearing Palestinian flag lanyards?
Or, God forbid, TERF lanyards?
Couldn't that make things a bit tetchy at work?
Come on, you can invent trickier scenarios than that:
What about if I wear a lanyard with mini-swastikas printed all down it? Or what about if I wear a tie with naked glamour mag models on them?
Can't we just apply a bit of common sense? Remind me again, who are the rainbow lanyards offending?
What's the reason for wearing a rainbow lanyard?
It's at least pointless virtue signalling
I don't have a Rainbow Lanyard (mine is from Diabetes UK) but do have a rainbow flag badge for it, which I wear alongside a number of others. It was officially issued by my Trust as part of a campaign to encourage inclusion of marginalised groups in mainstream health care.
I wouldn't wear political badges (such as the LD bird) but the rainbow flag is not political.
I'm not sure - I feel like the rainbow is a bit like the poppy, it's non-political for those that wear it because they think their position is completely uncontroversial and opposed only by extremists. But both are, like a lot of little things a political statement.
I tend to agree. If I came across someone wearing one I would note it but almost certainly not comment and I would be just a little more wary about certain topics. Is that ideal in a professional you are dealing with? I would say not but I wouldn't be upset about it, just cautious.
I can't imagine noticing let alone caring what someone's lanyard might or might not be signalling.
To me it would be signalling they work for a corporate which has a desire to be seen as woke.
And so the definition of woke continues to spread and metastasise, so that any corporate even acknowledging the diversity of its own employee base gets the dreaded moniker. Until the word loses all meaning. Like the way Americans bandy about "socialist" and "fascist".
But even if it is “virtue signalling” to wear a rainbow lanyard - why is that a problem? The virtue they are signalling is that they support LGBTQ+ people - a minority group that has typically been oppressed legally and socially. Making it clear that you support people being openly LGBTQ+ is surely a virtue we want to signal, no?
If ‘we’ is ‘people who wear the lanyards’ then obviously. Not sure society as a whole think of it as a virtue that needs to be signalled
Well then we surely need to signal it more, because it should be considered the norm to be fine with openly LGBTQ+ people, no?
Not really, no. I think it tends to get on a lot of people’s nerves, who otherwise don’t give it much thought
Well, lucky them. As a man who has had “faggot” shouted at me for holding a partner’s hand, - I do give it a lot of thought and tend to feel a somewhat increased sense of relaxation and safety in intimidating spaces (like a hospital or government office) when someone has a small rainbow pin or lanyard. And I tend to care about the increased normalisation of LGBTQ+ people in public life and spaces.
Returning to our discussion from yesterday, is Michael Portillo an LGBTQ+ person or a cis het person? Was he one and now the other?
Why are you asking 148grss, surely you would need to ask Michael Portillo.
For example, I consider myself cis het male and I tick those boxes. But I have been romantically attracted to three men in my life and had sex with one of them. Sexual orientation is probably a spectrum rather then discontinuous buckets. I'm sure that you've been attracted to someone who's "not your type", it doesn't necessarily change your label.
I'm asking 148grss because he is the one who is defining a category of "LGBTQ+ people" as opposed to cis het people.
I mean historically it’s cisheteronormative society that has defined the category of LGBTQ+ people as “opposed” to cishet people. We can still see this in the way some people - like far right politicians and the Catholic church - try to characterise LGBTQ+ people as anti-family and so on. It doesn’t mean every cishet person is against LGBTQ+ people, it just means that the category of cishet has historically in society been considered “normal” and LGBTQ+ as “deviant” - and therefore a target of oppression from authority.
Okay. Question relating to the next UK general election.
Which seat will see the first Labour gain declared on the night, and what will different margins of victory say about the likely final result?
Too hard for me, but much more interesting.
Also interesting:
Biden’s EV tariffs Kwarteng’s interview on “Leading” Today’s very poor productivity numbers. What we should read into Sunak’s speech if anything. Caulfield’s conspiracy-mongering.
Blyth Valley was the earliest-declaring (23:33) Conservative seat at the last election, with a majority of only 712 over Labour, so that would be a good shout - but I forgot about the boundary changes, which complicates things.
Now I need to find notional results for the new boundaries.
It's been absorbed by Cramlington and Killingworth, notionally a Labour seat
A cabinet split has opened up on civil service rainbow lanyards as it emerges that guidance agreed across government will not actually ban officials from wearing them.
Esther McVey, who was appointed to attend Rishi Sunak’s cabinet as a minister without portfolio, said on Monday that staff would be disciplined for any messaging on lanyards to hold security passes, describing it as “political activism in a visible way”.
But official guidance due to be issued on Tuesday makes no mention of lanyards and the policy was not raised with other government ministers, The Times understands.
On Tuesday morning Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, distanced himself from McVey’s criticism of rainbow lanyards, telling Times Radio: “Personally, I don’t mind people expressing their views on these things. What lanyard somebody wears doesn’t particularly concern me.” He said he was “more interested in the jobs that the civil service do” than in what they wore.
It's all a bit odd. I went to a meeting down in Oz many years ago and wore the lanyard from that for decades at work - nobody even noticed, it was the security pass on the end that mattered (and I could keep that in my shirt pocket when outside work so it wasn't obvious where I worked from either pass or lanyard). A generic rainbow lanyard is positively useful in that respect, unless one works somwhere which is so high security that colour coding is important - in which case it's irrelevant to ban rainbow lanyards.
What if people some people start wearing star of David lanyards, and others wearing Palestinian flag lanyards?
Or, God forbid, TERF lanyards?
Couldn't that make things a bit tetchy at work?
Come on, you can invent trickier scenarios than that:
What about if I wear a lanyard with mini-swastikas printed all down it? Or what about if I wear a tie with naked glamour mag models on them?
Can't we just apply a bit of common sense? Remind me again, who are the rainbow lanyards offending?
What's the reason for wearing a rainbow lanyard?
It's at least pointless virtue signalling
I don't have a Rainbow Lanyard (mine is from Diabetes UK) but do have a rainbow flag badge for it, which I wear alongside a number of others. It was officially issued by my Trust as part of a campaign to encourage inclusion of marginalised groups in mainstream health care.
I wouldn't wear political badges (such as the LD bird) but the rainbow flag is not political.
I'm not sure - I feel like the rainbow is a bit like the poppy, it's non-political for those that wear it because they think their position is completely uncontroversial and opposed only by extremists. But both are, like a lot of little things a political statement.
I tend to agree. If I came across someone wearing one I would note it but almost certainly not comment and I would be just a little more wary about certain topics. Is that ideal in a professional you are dealing with? I would say not but I wouldn't be upset about it, just cautious.
I can't imagine noticing let alone caring what someone's lanyard might or might not be signalling.
To me it would be signalling they work for a corporate which has a desire to be seen as woke.
And so the definition of woke continues to spread and metastasise, so that any corporate even acknowledging the diversity of its own employee base gets the dreaded moniker. Until the word loses all meaning. Like the way Americans bandy about "socialist" and "fascist".
But even if it is “virtue signalling” to wear a rainbow lanyard - why is that a problem? The virtue they are signalling is that they support LGBTQ+ people - a minority group that has typically been oppressed legally and socially. Making it clear that you support people being openly LGBTQ+ is surely a virtue we want to signal, no?
If ‘we’ is ‘people who wear the lanyards’ then obviously. Not sure society as a whole think of it as a virtue that needs to be signalled
Well then we surely need to signal it more, because it should be considered the norm to be fine with openly LGBTQ+ people, no?
Not really, no. I think it tends to get on a lot of people’s nerves, who otherwise don’t give it much thought
Well, lucky them. As a man who has had “faggot” shouted at me for holding a partner’s hand, - I do give it a lot of thought and tend to feel a somewhat increased sense of relaxation and safety in intimidating spaces (like a hospital or government office) when someone has a small rainbow pin or lanyard. And I tend to care about the increased normalisation of LGBTQ+ people in public life and spaces.
Good for you, but that doesn’t mean everyone should
Is anyone saying people must wear these landyards? No. So what’s the problem?
I you’re saying ‘we’, as in everyone, should be in favour of LGBQT etc, and I’m saying ‘not really’
Okay. Question relating to the next UK general election.
Which seat will see the first Labour gain declared on the night, and what will different margins of victory say about the likely final result?
Too hard for me, but much more interesting.
Also interesting:
Biden’s EV tariffs Kwarteng’s interview on “Leading” Today’s very poor productivity numbers. What we should read into Sunak’s speech if anything. Caulfield’s conspiracy-mongering.
I am not an expert on finance. Can anyone tell me if 'productivity' is calculated the same worldwide (so the figure from Columbia is equivalent to the one from France, the UK etc?)
Okay. Question relating to the next UK general election.
Which seat will see the first Labour gain declared on the night, and what will different margins of victory say about the likely final result?
Swindon South. New boundaries, so probably needs Labour to be ahead by a few thousand to be sure of being the largest party and probably by a bit more to be assured of a majority.
A cabinet split has opened up on civil service rainbow lanyards as it emerges that guidance agreed across government will not actually ban officials from wearing them.
Esther McVey, who was appointed to attend Rishi Sunak’s cabinet as a minister without portfolio, said on Monday that staff would be disciplined for any messaging on lanyards to hold security passes, describing it as “political activism in a visible way”.
But official guidance due to be issued on Tuesday makes no mention of lanyards and the policy was not raised with other government ministers, The Times understands.
On Tuesday morning Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, distanced himself from McVey’s criticism of rainbow lanyards, telling Times Radio: “Personally, I don’t mind people expressing their views on these things. What lanyard somebody wears doesn’t particularly concern me.” He said he was “more interested in the jobs that the civil service do” than in what they wore.
It's all a bit odd. I went to a meeting down in Oz many years ago and wore the lanyard from that for decades at work - nobody even noticed, it was the security pass on the end that mattered (and I could keep that in my shirt pocket when outside work so it wasn't obvious where I worked from either pass or lanyard). A generic rainbow lanyard is positively useful in that respect, unless one works somwhere which is so high security that colour coding is important - in which case it's irrelevant to ban rainbow lanyards.
What if people some people start wearing star of David lanyards, and others wearing Palestinian flag lanyards?
Or, God forbid, TERF lanyards?
Couldn't that make things a bit tetchy at work?
Come on, you can invent trickier scenarios than that:
What about if I wear a lanyard with mini-swastikas printed all down it? Or what about if I wear a tie with naked glamour mag models on them?
Can't we just apply a bit of common sense? Remind me again, who are the rainbow lanyards offending?
What's the reason for wearing a rainbow lanyard?
It's at least pointless virtue signalling
I don't have a Rainbow Lanyard (mine is from Diabetes UK) but do have a rainbow flag badge for it, which I wear alongside a number of others. It was officially issued by my Trust as part of a campaign to encourage inclusion of marginalised groups in mainstream health care.
I wouldn't wear political badges (such as the LD bird) but the rainbow flag is not political.
I'm not sure - I feel like the rainbow is a bit like the poppy, it's non-political for those that wear it because they think their position is completely uncontroversial and opposed only by extremists. But both are, like a lot of little things a political statement.
I tend to agree. If I came across someone wearing one I would note it but almost certainly not comment and I would be just a little more wary about certain topics. Is that ideal in a professional you are dealing with? I would say not but I wouldn't be upset about it, just cautious.
I can't imagine noticing let alone caring what someone's lanyard might or might not be signalling.
To me it would be signalling they work for a corporate which has a desire to be seen as woke.
And so the definition of woke continues to spread and metastasise, so that any corporate even acknowledging the diversity of its own employee base gets the dreaded moniker. Until the word loses all meaning. Like the way Americans bandy about "socialist" and "fascist".
But even if it is “virtue signalling” to wear a rainbow lanyard - why is that a problem? The virtue they are signalling is that they support LGBTQ+ people - a minority group that has typically been oppressed legally and socially. Making it clear that you support people being openly LGBTQ+ is surely a virtue we want to signal, no?
If ‘we’ is ‘people who wear the lanyards’ then obviously. Not sure society as a whole think of it as a virtue that needs to be signalled
Well then we surely need to signal it more, because it should be considered the norm to be fine with openly LGBTQ+ people, no?
Not really, no. I think it tends to get on a lot of people’s nerves, who otherwise don’t give it much thought
Well, lucky them. As a man who has had “faggot” shouted at me for holding a partner’s hand, - I do give it a lot of thought and tend to feel a somewhat increased sense of relaxation and safety in intimidating spaces (like a hospital or government office) when someone has a small rainbow pin or lanyard. And I tend to care about the increased normalisation of LGBTQ+ people in public life and spaces.
Returning to our discussion from yesterday, is Michael Portillo an LGBTQ+ person or a cis het person? Was he one and now the other?
Why are you asking 148grss, surely you would need to ask Michael Portillo.
For example, I consider myself cis het male and I tick those boxes. But I have been romantically attracted to three men in my life and had sex with one of them. Sexual orientation is probably a spectrum rather then discontinuous buckets. I'm sure that you've been attracted to someone who's "not your type", it doesn't necessarily change your label.
I'm asking 148grss because he is the one who is defining a category of "LGBTQ+ people" as opposed to cis het people.
I mean historically it’s cisheteronormative society that has defined the category of LGBTQ+ people as “opposed” to cishet people. We can still see this in the way some people - like far right politicians and the Catholic church - try to characterise LGBTQ+ people as anti-family and so on. It doesn’t mean every cishet person is against LGBTQ+ people, it just means that the category of cishet has historically in society been considered “normal” and LGBTQ+ as “deviant” - and therefore a target of oppression from authority.
You're not being clear about whether you think there is such a thing as an "LGBTQ+ person" or just a person who might or might not engage in LGBTQ+ activities at some point in their life.
A cabinet split has opened up on civil service rainbow lanyards as it emerges that guidance agreed across government will not actually ban officials from wearing them.
Esther McVey, who was appointed to attend Rishi Sunak’s cabinet as a minister without portfolio, said on Monday that staff would be disciplined for any messaging on lanyards to hold security passes, describing it as “political activism in a visible way”.
But official guidance due to be issued on Tuesday makes no mention of lanyards and the policy was not raised with other government ministers, The Times understands.
On Tuesday morning Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, distanced himself from McVey’s criticism of rainbow lanyards, telling Times Radio: “Personally, I don’t mind people expressing their views on these things. What lanyard somebody wears doesn’t particularly concern me.” He said he was “more interested in the jobs that the civil service do” than in what they wore.
It's all a bit odd. I went to a meeting down in Oz many years ago and wore the lanyard from that for decades at work - nobody even noticed, it was the security pass on the end that mattered (and I could keep that in my shirt pocket when outside work so it wasn't obvious where I worked from either pass or lanyard). A generic rainbow lanyard is positively useful in that respect, unless one works somwhere which is so high security that colour coding is important - in which case it's irrelevant to ban rainbow lanyards.
What if people some people start wearing star of David lanyards, and others wearing Palestinian flag lanyards?
Or, God forbid, TERF lanyards?
Couldn't that make things a bit tetchy at work?
Come on, you can invent trickier scenarios than that:
What about if I wear a lanyard with mini-swastikas printed all down it? Or what about if I wear a tie with naked glamour mag models on them?
Can't we just apply a bit of common sense? Remind me again, who are the rainbow lanyards offending?
What's the reason for wearing a rainbow lanyard?
It's at least pointless virtue signalling
I don't have a Rainbow Lanyard (mine is from Diabetes UK) but do have a rainbow flag badge for it, which I wear alongside a number of others. It was officially issued by my Trust as part of a campaign to encourage inclusion of marginalised groups in mainstream health care.
I wouldn't wear political badges (such as the LD bird) but the rainbow flag is not political.
I'm not sure - I feel like the rainbow is a bit like the poppy, it's non-political for those that wear it because they think their position is completely uncontroversial and opposed only by extremists. But both are, like a lot of little things a political statement.
I tend to agree. If I came across someone wearing one I would note it but almost certainly not comment and I would be just a little more wary about certain topics. Is that ideal in a professional you are dealing with? I would say not but I wouldn't be upset about it, just cautious.
I can't imagine noticing let alone caring what someone's lanyard might or might not be signalling.
Someone with a BNP lanyard at he bar strikes up conversation about the weather and you just crack on as usual? Oh to be so broadminded
I regularly meet people with BNP lanyards due to my work.
Had some cracking conversations with them about work and other things.
Not sure those guys are what isam meant. But you enjoyed conversations with bankers ?
A cabinet split has opened up on civil service rainbow lanyards as it emerges that guidance agreed across government will not actually ban officials from wearing them.
Esther McVey, who was appointed to attend Rishi Sunak’s cabinet as a minister without portfolio, said on Monday that staff would be disciplined for any messaging on lanyards to hold security passes, describing it as “political activism in a visible way”.
But official guidance due to be issued on Tuesday makes no mention of lanyards and the policy was not raised with other government ministers, The Times understands.
On Tuesday morning Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, distanced himself from McVey’s criticism of rainbow lanyards, telling Times Radio: “Personally, I don’t mind people expressing their views on these things. What lanyard somebody wears doesn’t particularly concern me.” He said he was “more interested in the jobs that the civil service do” than in what they wore.
It's all a bit odd. I went to a meeting down in Oz many years ago and wore the lanyard from that for decades at work - nobody even noticed, it was the security pass on the end that mattered (and I could keep that in my shirt pocket when outside work so it wasn't obvious where I worked from either pass or lanyard). A generic rainbow lanyard is positively useful in that respect, unless one works somwhere which is so high security that colour coding is important - in which case it's irrelevant to ban rainbow lanyards.
What if people some people start wearing star of David lanyards, and others wearing Palestinian flag lanyards?
Or, God forbid, TERF lanyards?
Couldn't that make things a bit tetchy at work?
Come on, you can invent trickier scenarios than that:
What about if I wear a lanyard with mini-swastikas printed all down it? Or what about if I wear a tie with naked glamour mag models on them?
Can't we just apply a bit of common sense? Remind me again, who are the rainbow lanyards offending?
What's the reason for wearing a rainbow lanyard?
It's at least pointless virtue signalling
I don't have a Rainbow Lanyard (mine is from Diabetes UK) but do have a rainbow flag badge for it, which I wear alongside a number of others. It was officially issued by my Trust as part of a campaign to encourage inclusion of marginalised groups in mainstream health care.
I wouldn't wear political badges (such as the LD bird) but the rainbow flag is not political.
I'm not sure - I feel like the rainbow is a bit like the poppy, it's non-political for those that wear it because they think their position is completely uncontroversial and opposed only by extremists. But both are, like a lot of little things a political statement.
I tend to agree. If I came across someone wearing one I would note it but almost certainly not comment and I would be just a little more wary about certain topics. Is that ideal in a professional you are dealing with? I would say not but I wouldn't be upset about it, just cautious.
I can't imagine noticing let alone caring what someone's lanyard might or might not be signalling.
To me it would be signalling they work for a corporate which has a desire to be seen as woke.
And so the definition of woke continues to spread and metastasise, so that any corporate even acknowledging the diversity of its own employee base gets the dreaded moniker. Until the word loses all meaning. Like the way Americans bandy about "socialist" and "fascist".
But even if it is “virtue signalling” to wear a rainbow lanyard - why is that a problem? The virtue they are signalling is that they support LGBTQ+ people - a minority group that has typically been oppressed legally and socially. Making it clear that you support people being openly LGBTQ+ is surely a virtue we want to signal, no?
If ‘we’ is ‘people who wear the lanyards’ then obviously. Not sure society as a whole think of it as a virtue that needs to be signalled
Well then we surely need to signal it more, because it should be considered the norm to be fine with openly LGBTQ+ people, no?
Not really, no. I think it tends to get on a lot of people’s nerves, who otherwise don’t give it much thought
Well, lucky them. As a man who has had “faggot” shouted at me for holding a partner’s hand, - I do give it a lot of thought and tend to feel a somewhat increased sense of relaxation and safety in intimidating spaces (like a hospital or government office) when someone has a small rainbow pin or lanyard. And I tend to care about the increased normalisation of LGBTQ+ people in public life and spaces.
Good for you, but that doesn’t mean everyone should
Is anyone saying people must wear these landyards? No. So what’s the problem?
I you’re saying ‘we’, as in everyone, should be in favour of LGBQT etc, and I’m saying ‘not really’
Oh - so you’re saying it’s okay to dislike or hate LGBTQ+ people just because they are LGBTQ+? Well, yeah, I obviously disagree
A cabinet split has opened up on civil service rainbow lanyards as it emerges that guidance agreed across government will not actually ban officials from wearing them.
Esther McVey, who was appointed to attend Rishi Sunak’s cabinet as a minister without portfolio, said on Monday that staff would be disciplined for any messaging on lanyards to hold security passes, describing it as “political activism in a visible way”.
But official guidance due to be issued on Tuesday makes no mention of lanyards and the policy was not raised with other government ministers, The Times understands.
On Tuesday morning Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, distanced himself from McVey’s criticism of rainbow lanyards, telling Times Radio: “Personally, I don’t mind people expressing their views on these things. What lanyard somebody wears doesn’t particularly concern me.” He said he was “more interested in the jobs that the civil service do” than in what they wore.
It's all a bit odd. I went to a meeting down in Oz many years ago and wore the lanyard from that for decades at work - nobody even noticed, it was the security pass on the end that mattered (and I could keep that in my shirt pocket when outside work so it wasn't obvious where I worked from either pass or lanyard). A generic rainbow lanyard is positively useful in that respect, unless one works somwhere which is so high security that colour coding is important - in which case it's irrelevant to ban rainbow lanyards.
What if people some people start wearing star of David lanyards, and others wearing Palestinian flag lanyards?
Or, God forbid, TERF lanyards?
Couldn't that make things a bit tetchy at work?
Come on, you can invent trickier scenarios than that:
What about if I wear a lanyard with mini-swastikas printed all down it? Or what about if I wear a tie with naked glamour mag models on them?
Can't we just apply a bit of common sense? Remind me again, who are the rainbow lanyards offending?
What's the reason for wearing a rainbow lanyard?
It's at least pointless virtue signalling
I don't have a Rainbow Lanyard (mine is from Diabetes UK) but do have a rainbow flag badge for it, which I wear alongside a number of others. It was officially issued by my Trust as part of a campaign to encourage inclusion of marginalised groups in mainstream health care.
I wouldn't wear political badges (such as the LD bird) but the rainbow flag is not political.
I'm not sure - I feel like the rainbow is a bit like the poppy, it's non-political for those that wear it because they think their position is completely uncontroversial and opposed only by extremists. But both are, like a lot of little things a political statement.
I tend to agree. If I came across someone wearing one I would note it but almost certainly not comment and I would be just a little more wary about certain topics. Is that ideal in a professional you are dealing with? I would say not but I wouldn't be upset about it, just cautious.
I can't imagine noticing let alone caring what someone's lanyard might or might not be signalling.
To me it would be signalling they work for a corporate which has a desire to be seen as woke.
And so the definition of woke continues to spread and metastasise, so that any corporate even acknowledging the diversity of its own employee base gets the dreaded moniker. Until the word loses all meaning. Like the way Americans bandy about "socialist" and "fascist".
But even if it is “virtue signalling” to wear a rainbow lanyard - why is that a problem? The virtue they are signalling is that they support LGBTQ+ people - a minority group that has typically been oppressed legally and socially. Making it clear that you support people being openly LGBTQ+ is surely a virtue we want to signal, no?
If ‘we’ is ‘people who wear the lanyards’ then obviously. Not sure society as a whole think of it as a virtue that needs to be signalled
Well then we surely need to signal it more, because it should be considered the norm to be fine with openly LGBTQ+ people, no?
Not really, no. I think it tends to get on a lot of people’s nerves, who otherwise don’t give it much thought
Well, lucky them. As a man who has had “faggot” shouted at me for holding a partner’s hand, - I do give it a lot of thought and tend to feel a somewhat increased sense of relaxation and safety in intimidating spaces (like a hospital or government office) when someone has a small rainbow pin or lanyard. And I tend to care about the increased normalisation of LGBTQ+ people in public life and spaces.
Returning to our discussion from yesterday, is Michael Portillo an LGBTQ+ person or a cis het person? Was he one and now the other?
And like I said yesterday - I have no idea what that has to do with anything. He says he is a straight man who has had sexual experiences with members of the same sex. Fine - many straight people do that. Many gay people have sex with people of the opposite sex - it doesn’t make them less gay. I don’t understand the point you’re trying to make with this line of thought.
So if a straight man has a multi-year gay relationship, it doesn't make them any less straight?
I’m surprised people find it boring; it’s an attempt in the last decade or so to challenge one of the indisputable facts of all time. Even if people genuinely find the debate around that boring, l the attempts to shut it down seem strange to me. Lots of things are discussed on here that I find boring, but would not dream of trying to tell people, or infer, they should stop discussing it.
It’s boring, like Leon’s AI bollocks, and it’s making the site boring.
I find people talking incessantly about food & holidays quite boring, but they donate quite a lot of threads, and who am I to tell people they shouldn’t?
A cabinet split has opened up on civil service rainbow lanyards as it emerges that guidance agreed across government will not actually ban officials from wearing them.
Esther McVey, who was appointed to attend Rishi Sunak’s cabinet as a minister without portfolio, said on Monday that staff would be disciplined for any messaging on lanyards to hold security passes, describing it as “political activism in a visible way”.
But official guidance due to be issued on Tuesday makes no mention of lanyards and the policy was not raised with other government ministers, The Times understands.
On Tuesday morning Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, distanced himself from McVey’s criticism of rainbow lanyards, telling Times Radio: “Personally, I don’t mind people expressing their views on these things. What lanyard somebody wears doesn’t particularly concern me.” He said he was “more interested in the jobs that the civil service do” than in what they wore.
It's all a bit odd. I went to a meeting down in Oz many years ago and wore the lanyard from that for decades at work - nobody even noticed, it was the security pass on the end that mattered (and I could keep that in my shirt pocket when outside work so it wasn't obvious where I worked from either pass or lanyard). A generic rainbow lanyard is positively useful in that respect, unless one works somwhere which is so high security that colour coding is important - in which case it's irrelevant to ban rainbow lanyards.
What if people some people start wearing star of David lanyards, and others wearing Palestinian flag lanyards?
Or, God forbid, TERF lanyards?
Couldn't that make things a bit tetchy at work?
Come on, you can invent trickier scenarios than that:
What about if I wear a lanyard with mini-swastikas printed all down it? Or what about if I wear a tie with naked glamour mag models on them?
Can't we just apply a bit of common sense? Remind me again, who are the rainbow lanyards offending?
What's the reason for wearing a rainbow lanyard?
It's at least pointless virtue signalling
I don't have a Rainbow Lanyard (mine is from Diabetes UK) but do have a rainbow flag badge for it, which I wear alongside a number of others. It was officially issued by my Trust as part of a campaign to encourage inclusion of marginalised groups in mainstream health care.
I wouldn't wear political badges (such as the LD bird) but the rainbow flag is not political.
I'm not sure - I feel like the rainbow is a bit like the poppy, it's non-political for those that wear it because they think their position is completely uncontroversial and opposed only by extremists. But both are, like a lot of little things a political statement.
I tend to agree. If I came across someone wearing one I would note it but almost certainly not comment and I would be just a little more wary about certain topics. Is that ideal in a professional you are dealing with? I would say not but I wouldn't be upset about it, just cautious.
I can't imagine noticing let alone caring what someone's lanyard might or might not be signalling.
Someone with a BNP lanyard at he bar strikes up conversation about the weather and you just crack on as usual? Oh to be so broadminded
I've chatted happily with many people wearing a BNP lanyard!
I’m surprised people find it boring; it’s an attempt in the last decade or so to challenge one of the indisputable facts of all time. Even if people genuinely find the debate around that boring, l the attempts to shut it down seem strange to me. Lots of things are discussed on here that I find boring, but would not dream of trying to tell people, or infer, they should stop discussing it.
I tend to agree with much of what you say here, but I guess it's rather like religion. Lots of people believe in it. Many don't. I find people going on about something that is unscientific boring and want to say, 'yebbut, science, biology'. But it makes no difference, they don't change their view. So the least boring thing is just to avoid the subject, otherwise someone pops up with 'yebbut, you need religion otherwise we will all be immoral' or 'all religions are fundamentally peaceful', and then it really gets annoying. (And you still can't change any minds).
Okay. Question relating to the next UK general election.
Which seat will see the first Labour gain declared on the night, and what will different margins of victory say about the likely final result?
Maybe Bury North. A traditionally early-ish declarer and a tight marginal. Labour need to take it handsomely if they have any hope of forming a government.
Okay. Question relating to the next UK general election.
Which seat will see the first Labour gain declared on the night, and what will different margins of victory say about the likely final result?
At this point I would go with Darlington. Labour need a 5.0% swing so should fall. I have a feeling that Darlington will have a smaller swing to Labour than the national average - the town's benefited more than most from leveling-up and the Tory MP seems sane. For that reason a 10% swing in Darlington would show Labour on course for a 100 seat majority.
A cabinet split has opened up on civil service rainbow lanyards as it emerges that guidance agreed across government will not actually ban officials from wearing them.
Esther McVey, who was appointed to attend Rishi Sunak’s cabinet as a minister without portfolio, said on Monday that staff would be disciplined for any messaging on lanyards to hold security passes, describing it as “political activism in a visible way”.
But official guidance due to be issued on Tuesday makes no mention of lanyards and the policy was not raised with other government ministers, The Times understands.
On Tuesday morning Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, distanced himself from McVey’s criticism of rainbow lanyards, telling Times Radio: “Personally, I don’t mind people expressing their views on these things. What lanyard somebody wears doesn’t particularly concern me.” He said he was “more interested in the jobs that the civil service do” than in what they wore.
It's all a bit odd. I went to a meeting down in Oz many years ago and wore the lanyard from that for decades at work - nobody even noticed, it was the security pass on the end that mattered (and I could keep that in my shirt pocket when outside work so it wasn't obvious where I worked from either pass or lanyard). A generic rainbow lanyard is positively useful in that respect, unless one works somwhere which is so high security that colour coding is important - in which case it's irrelevant to ban rainbow lanyards.
What if people some people start wearing star of David lanyards, and others wearing Palestinian flag lanyards?
Or, God forbid, TERF lanyards?
Couldn't that make things a bit tetchy at work?
Come on, you can invent trickier scenarios than that:
What about if I wear a lanyard with mini-swastikas printed all down it? Or what about if I wear a tie with naked glamour mag models on them?
Can't we just apply a bit of common sense? Remind me again, who are the rainbow lanyards offending?
What's the reason for wearing a rainbow lanyard?
It's at least pointless virtue signalling
I don't have a Rainbow Lanyard (mine is from Diabetes UK) but do have a rainbow flag badge for it, which I wear alongside a number of others. It was officially issued by my Trust as part of a campaign to encourage inclusion of marginalised groups in mainstream health care.
I wouldn't wear political badges (such as the LD bird) but the rainbow flag is not political.
I'm not sure - I feel like the rainbow is a bit like the poppy, it's non-political for those that wear it because they think their position is completely uncontroversial and opposed only by extremists. But both are, like a lot of little things a political statement.
I tend to agree. If I came across someone wearing one I would note it but almost certainly not comment and I would be just a little more wary about certain topics. Is that ideal in a professional you are dealing with? I would say not but I wouldn't be upset about it, just cautious.
I can't imagine noticing let alone caring what someone's lanyard might or might not be signalling.
To me it would be signalling they work for a corporate which has a desire to be seen as woke.
And so the definition of woke continues to spread and metastasise, so that any corporate even acknowledging the diversity of its own employee base gets the dreaded moniker. Until the word loses all meaning. Like the way Americans bandy about "socialist" and "fascist".
But even if it is “virtue signalling” to wear a rainbow lanyard - why is that a problem? The virtue they are signalling is that they support LGBTQ+ people - a minority group that has typically been oppressed legally and socially. Making it clear that you support people being openly LGBTQ+ is surely a virtue we want to signal, no?
If ‘we’ is ‘people who wear the lanyards’ then obviously. Not sure society as a whole think of it as a virtue that needs to be signalled
Well then we surely need to signal it more, because it should be considered the norm to be fine with openly LGBTQ+ people, no?
Not really, no. I think it tends to get on a lot of people’s nerves, who otherwise don’t give it much thought
Well, lucky them. As a man who has had “faggot” shouted at me for holding a partner’s hand, - I do give it a lot of thought and tend to feel a somewhat increased sense of relaxation and safety in intimidating spaces (like a hospital or government office) when someone has a small rainbow pin or lanyard. And I tend to care about the increased normalisation of LGBTQ+ people in public life and spaces.
Returning to our discussion from yesterday, is Michael Portillo an LGBTQ+ person or a cis het person? Was he one and now the other?
Why are you asking 148grss, surely you would need to ask Michael Portillo.
For example, I consider myself cis het male and I tick those boxes. But I have been romantically attracted to three men in my life and had sex with one of them. Sexual orientation is probably a spectrum rather then discontinuous buckets. I'm sure that you've been attracted to someone who's "not your type", it doesn't necessarily change your label.
Is there any characteristic of humanity that is truly binary and not a spectrum, even if that spectrum is highly weighted at one or both ends? In ye olden days, it was simple: men and women were well-defined, as were their roles, and the spectrum either had to hide or were ignored. Like, say, homosexuals.
Even in biology: amazingly, 1 in 500-1000 babies are born with six fingers on one hand. A friend of mine apparently has three nipples. 1-2% of people are intersex (depending on how that is defined). etc, etc.
In the last few decades, these differences - the spectrum - have become more accepted. My female redheaded German friend with three nipples will not be burnt at a stake (well, regarded, at least) as a witch. Gay people are ignored as unremarkable - IMV the best result.
I see little in this discussion that trans people (*) are not just another part of a mental/physical spectrum. They've always existed, and always will.
(*) 'Trans' itself is a spectrum term, from transvestite to transsexual.
A cabinet split has opened up on civil service rainbow lanyards as it emerges that guidance agreed across government will not actually ban officials from wearing them.
Esther McVey, who was appointed to attend Rishi Sunak’s cabinet as a minister without portfolio, said on Monday that staff would be disciplined for any messaging on lanyards to hold security passes, describing it as “political activism in a visible way”.
But official guidance due to be issued on Tuesday makes no mention of lanyards and the policy was not raised with other government ministers, The Times understands.
On Tuesday morning Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, distanced himself from McVey’s criticism of rainbow lanyards, telling Times Radio: “Personally, I don’t mind people expressing their views on these things. What lanyard somebody wears doesn’t particularly concern me.” He said he was “more interested in the jobs that the civil service do” than in what they wore.
It's all a bit odd. I went to a meeting down in Oz many years ago and wore the lanyard from that for decades at work - nobody even noticed, it was the security pass on the end that mattered (and I could keep that in my shirt pocket when outside work so it wasn't obvious where I worked from either pass or lanyard). A generic rainbow lanyard is positively useful in that respect, unless one works somwhere which is so high security that colour coding is important - in which case it's irrelevant to ban rainbow lanyards.
What if people some people start wearing star of David lanyards, and others wearing Palestinian flag lanyards?
Or, God forbid, TERF lanyards?
Couldn't that make things a bit tetchy at work?
Come on, you can invent trickier scenarios than that:
What about if I wear a lanyard with mini-swastikas printed all down it? Or what about if I wear a tie with naked glamour mag models on them?
Can't we just apply a bit of common sense? Remind me again, who are the rainbow lanyards offending?
What's the reason for wearing a rainbow lanyard?
It's at least pointless virtue signalling
I don't have a Rainbow Lanyard (mine is from Diabetes UK) but do have a rainbow flag badge for it, which I wear alongside a number of others. It was officially issued by my Trust as part of a campaign to encourage inclusion of marginalised groups in mainstream health care.
I wouldn't wear political badges (such as the LD bird) but the rainbow flag is not political.
I'm not sure - I feel like the rainbow is a bit like the poppy, it's non-political for those that wear it because they think their position is completely uncontroversial and opposed only by extremists. But both are, like a lot of little things a political statement.
I tend to agree. If I came across someone wearing one I would note it but almost certainly not comment and I would be just a little more wary about certain topics. Is that ideal in a professional you are dealing with? I would say not but I wouldn't be upset about it, just cautious.
I can't imagine noticing let alone caring what someone's lanyard might or might not be signalling.
To me it would be signalling they work for a corporate which has a desire to be seen as woke.
And so the definition of woke continues to spread and metastasise, so that any corporate even acknowledging the diversity of its own employee base gets the dreaded moniker. Until the word loses all meaning. Like the way Americans bandy about "socialist" and "fascist".
But even if it is “virtue signalling” to wear a rainbow lanyard - why is that a problem? The virtue they are signalling is that they support LGBTQ+ people - a minority group that has typically been oppressed legally and socially. Making it clear that you support people being openly LGBTQ+ is surely a virtue we want to signal, no?
If ‘we’ is ‘people who wear the lanyards’ then obviously. Not sure society as a whole think of it as a virtue that needs to be signalled
Well then we surely need to signal it more, because it should be considered the norm to be fine with openly LGBTQ+ people, no?
Not really, no. I think it tends to get on a lot of people’s nerves, who otherwise don’t give it much thought
Well, lucky them. As a man who has had “faggot” shouted at me for holding a partner’s hand, - I do give it a lot of thought and tend to feel a somewhat increased sense of relaxation and safety in intimidating spaces (like a hospital or government office) when someone has a small rainbow pin or lanyard. And I tend to care about the increased normalisation of LGBTQ+ people in public life and spaces.
Returning to our discussion from yesterday, is Michael Portillo an LGBTQ+ person or a cis het person? Was he one and now the other?
Why are you asking 148grss, surely you would need to ask Michael Portillo.
For example, I consider myself cis het male and I tick those boxes. But I have been romantically attracted to three men in my life and had sex with one of them. Sexual orientation is probably a spectrum rather then discontinuous buckets. I'm sure that you've been attracted to someone who's "not your type", it doesn't necessarily change your label.
I'm asking 148grss because he is the one who is defining a category of "LGBTQ+ people" as opposed to cis het people.
I mean historically it’s cisheteronormative society that has defined the category of LGBTQ+ people as “opposed” to cishet people. We can still see this in the way some people - like far right politicians and the Catholic church - try to characterise LGBTQ+ people as anti-family and so on. It doesn’t mean every cishet person is against LGBTQ+ people, it just means that the category of cishet has historically in society been considered “normal” and LGBTQ+ as “deviant” - and therefore a target of oppression from authority.
You're not being clear about whether you think there is such a thing as an "LGBTQ+ person" or just a person who might or might not engage in LGBTQ+ activities at some point in their life.
A cabinet split has opened up on civil service rainbow lanyards as it emerges that guidance agreed across government will not actually ban officials from wearing them.
Esther McVey, who was appointed to attend Rishi Sunak’s cabinet as a minister without portfolio, said on Monday that staff would be disciplined for any messaging on lanyards to hold security passes, describing it as “political activism in a visible way”.
But official guidance due to be issued on Tuesday makes no mention of lanyards and the policy was not raised with other government ministers, The Times understands.
On Tuesday morning Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, distanced himself from McVey’s criticism of rainbow lanyards, telling Times Radio: “Personally, I don’t mind people expressing their views on these things. What lanyard somebody wears doesn’t particularly concern me.” He said he was “more interested in the jobs that the civil service do” than in what they wore.
It's all a bit odd. I went to a meeting down in Oz many years ago and wore the lanyard from that for decades at work - nobody even noticed, it was the security pass on the end that mattered (and I could keep that in my shirt pocket when outside work so it wasn't obvious where I worked from either pass or lanyard). A generic rainbow lanyard is positively useful in that respect, unless one works somwhere which is so high security that colour coding is important - in which case it's irrelevant to ban rainbow lanyards.
What if people some people start wearing star of David lanyards, and others wearing Palestinian flag lanyards?
Or, God forbid, TERF lanyards?
Couldn't that make things a bit tetchy at work?
Come on, you can invent trickier scenarios than that:
What about if I wear a lanyard with mini-swastikas printed all down it? Or what about if I wear a tie with naked glamour mag models on them?
Can't we just apply a bit of common sense? Remind me again, who are the rainbow lanyards offending?
What's the reason for wearing a rainbow lanyard?
It's at least pointless virtue signalling
I don't have a Rainbow Lanyard (mine is from Diabetes UK) but do have a rainbow flag badge for it, which I wear alongside a number of others. It was officially issued by my Trust as part of a campaign to encourage inclusion of marginalised groups in mainstream health care.
I wouldn't wear political badges (such as the LD bird) but the rainbow flag is not political.
I'm not sure - I feel like the rainbow is a bit like the poppy, it's non-political for those that wear it because they think their position is completely uncontroversial and opposed only by extremists. But both are, like a lot of little things a political statement.
I tend to agree. If I came across someone wearing one I would note it but almost certainly not comment and I would be just a little more wary about certain topics. Is that ideal in a professional you are dealing with? I would say not but I wouldn't be upset about it, just cautious.
I can't imagine noticing let alone caring what someone's lanyard might or might not be signalling.
To me it would be signalling they work for a corporate which has a desire to be seen as woke.
And so the definition of woke continues to spread and metastasise, so that any corporate even acknowledging the diversity of its own employee base gets the dreaded moniker. Until the word loses all meaning. Like the way Americans bandy about "socialist" and "fascist".
But even if it is “virtue signalling” to wear a rainbow lanyard - why is that a problem? The virtue they are signalling is that they support LGBTQ+ people - a minority group that has typically been oppressed legally and socially. Making it clear that you support people being openly LGBTQ+ is surely a virtue we want to signal, no?
If ‘we’ is ‘people who wear the lanyards’ then obviously. Not sure society as a whole think of it as a virtue that needs to be signalled
Well then we surely need to signal it more, because it should be considered the norm to be fine with openly LGBTQ+ people, no?
Not really, no. I think it tends to get on a lot of people’s nerves, who otherwise don’t give it much thought
Well, lucky them. As a man who has had “faggot” shouted at me for holding a partner’s hand, - I do give it a lot of thought and tend to feel a somewhat increased sense of relaxation and safety in intimidating spaces (like a hospital or government office) when someone has a small rainbow pin or lanyard. And I tend to care about the increased normalisation of LGBTQ+ people in public life and spaces.
Returning to our discussion from yesterday, is Michael Portillo an LGBTQ+ person or a cis het person? Was he one and now the other?
And like I said yesterday - I have no idea what that has to do with anything. He says he is a straight man who has had sexual experiences with members of the same sex. Fine - many straight people do that. Many gay people have sex with people of the opposite sex - it doesn’t make them less gay. I don’t understand the point you’re trying to make with this line of thought.
So if a straight man has a multi-year gay relationship, it doesn't make them any less straight?
A cabinet split has opened up on civil service rainbow lanyards as it emerges that guidance agreed across government will not actually ban officials from wearing them.
Esther McVey, who was appointed to attend Rishi Sunak’s cabinet as a minister without portfolio, said on Monday that staff would be disciplined for any messaging on lanyards to hold security passes, describing it as “political activism in a visible way”.
But official guidance due to be issued on Tuesday makes no mention of lanyards and the policy was not raised with other government ministers, The Times understands.
On Tuesday morning Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, distanced himself from McVey’s criticism of rainbow lanyards, telling Times Radio: “Personally, I don’t mind people expressing their views on these things. What lanyard somebody wears doesn’t particularly concern me.” He said he was “more interested in the jobs that the civil service do” than in what they wore.
It's all a bit odd. I went to a meeting down in Oz many years ago and wore the lanyard from that for decades at work - nobody even noticed, it was the security pass on the end that mattered (and I could keep that in my shirt pocket when outside work so it wasn't obvious where I worked from either pass or lanyard). A generic rainbow lanyard is positively useful in that respect, unless one works somwhere which is so high security that colour coding is important - in which case it's irrelevant to ban rainbow lanyards.
What if people some people start wearing star of David lanyards, and others wearing Palestinian flag lanyards?
Or, God forbid, TERF lanyards?
Couldn't that make things a bit tetchy at work?
Come on, you can invent trickier scenarios than that:
What about if I wear a lanyard with mini-swastikas printed all down it? Or what about if I wear a tie with naked glamour mag models on them?
Can't we just apply a bit of common sense? Remind me again, who are the rainbow lanyards offending?
What's the reason for wearing a rainbow lanyard?
It's at least pointless virtue signalling
I don't have a Rainbow Lanyard (mine is from Diabetes UK) but do have a rainbow flag badge for it, which I wear alongside a number of others. It was officially issued by my Trust as part of a campaign to encourage inclusion of marginalised groups in mainstream health care.
I wouldn't wear political badges (such as the LD bird) but the rainbow flag is not political.
I'm not sure - I feel like the rainbow is a bit like the poppy, it's non-political for those that wear it because they think their position is completely uncontroversial and opposed only by extremists. But both are, like a lot of little things a political statement.
I tend to agree. If I came across someone wearing one I would note it but almost certainly not comment and I would be just a little more wary about certain topics. Is that ideal in a professional you are dealing with? I would say not but I wouldn't be upset about it, just cautious.
I can't imagine noticing let alone caring what someone's lanyard might or might not be signalling.
To me it would be signalling they work for a corporate which has a desire to be seen as woke.
And so the definition of woke continues to spread and metastasise, so that any corporate even acknowledging the diversity of its own employee base gets the dreaded moniker. Until the word loses all meaning. Like the way Americans bandy about "socialist" and "fascist".
But even if it is “virtue signalling” to wear a rainbow lanyard - why is that a problem? The virtue they are signalling is that they support LGBTQ+ people - a minority group that has typically been oppressed legally and socially. Making it clear that you support people being openly LGBTQ+ is surely a virtue we want to signal, no?
If ‘we’ is ‘people who wear the lanyards’ then obviously. Not sure society as a whole think of it as a virtue that needs to be signalled
Well then we surely need to signal it more, because it should be considered the norm to be fine with openly LGBTQ+ people, no?
Not really, no. I think it tends to get on a lot of people’s nerves, who otherwise don’t give it much thought
Well, lucky them. As a man who has had “faggot” shouted at me for holding a partner’s hand, - I do give it a lot of thought and tend to feel a somewhat increased sense of relaxation and safety in intimidating spaces (like a hospital or government office) when someone has a small rainbow pin or lanyard. And I tend to care about the increased normalisation of LGBTQ+ people in public life and spaces.
Returning to our discussion from yesterday, is Michael Portillo an LGBTQ+ person or a cis het person? Was he one and now the other?
And like I said yesterday - I have no idea what that has to do with anything. He says he is a straight man who has had sexual experiences with members of the same sex. Fine - many straight people do that. Many gay people have sex with people of the opposite sex - it doesn’t make them less gay. I don’t understand the point you’re trying to make with this line of thought.
So if a straight man has a multi-year gay relationship, it doesn't make them any less straight?
What so keen to catechise folk about sex ?
Ask @148grss. He is the one banging on about "LGBTQ+ people" as opposed to just people.
Okay. Question relating to the next UK general election.
Which seat will see the first Labour gain declared on the night, and what will different margins of victory say about the likely final result?
Swindon South. New boundaries, so probably needs Labour to be ahead by a few thousand to be sure of being the largest party and probably by a bit more to be assured of a majority.
Swindon South is 52 40 on new boundaries so any gain by more than 10% suggests majority is on, 20% ahead for Lansdlide/97 I reckon
Maria Caulfield one of the Health Ministers has got herself into an interesting elephant trap.
She's trying to create a wedge issue around 15-Minute Cities like Mark Harper has been doing, by pretending (on regional TV) that the idea is that you get charged for going more than 15 minutes from your home by car, is about social control, and then repeatedly doubling down when challenged, and that that is the policy of her local (Green / Lib Dem controlled) Lewes Council in its Local Plan (it wasn't).
Unfortunate that she did just before Penny Mordaunt released Government commissioned advice about how politicians need to avoid conspiracy theories that documents exactly that as being one of them - often linked with guff about WEF, world-control by Jews and so on.
A cabinet split has opened up on civil service rainbow lanyards as it emerges that guidance agreed across government will not actually ban officials from wearing them.
Esther McVey, who was appointed to attend Rishi Sunak’s cabinet as a minister without portfolio, said on Monday that staff would be disciplined for any messaging on lanyards to hold security passes, describing it as “political activism in a visible way”.
But official guidance due to be issued on Tuesday makes no mention of lanyards and the policy was not raised with other government ministers, The Times understands.
On Tuesday morning Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, distanced himself from McVey’s criticism of rainbow lanyards, telling Times Radio: “Personally, I don’t mind people expressing their views on these things. What lanyard somebody wears doesn’t particularly concern me.” He said he was “more interested in the jobs that the civil service do” than in what they wore.
It's all a bit odd. I went to a meeting down in Oz many years ago and wore the lanyard from that for decades at work - nobody even noticed, it was the security pass on the end that mattered (and I could keep that in my shirt pocket when outside work so it wasn't obvious where I worked from either pass or lanyard). A generic rainbow lanyard is positively useful in that respect, unless one works somwhere which is so high security that colour coding is important - in which case it's irrelevant to ban rainbow lanyards.
What if people some people start wearing star of David lanyards, and others wearing Palestinian flag lanyards?
Or, God forbid, TERF lanyards?
Couldn't that make things a bit tetchy at work?
Come on, you can invent trickier scenarios than that:
What about if I wear a lanyard with mini-swastikas printed all down it? Or what about if I wear a tie with naked glamour mag models on them?
Can't we just apply a bit of common sense? Remind me again, who are the rainbow lanyards offending?
What's the reason for wearing a rainbow lanyard?
It's at least pointless virtue signalling
I don't have a Rainbow Lanyard (mine is from Diabetes UK) but do have a rainbow flag badge for it, which I wear alongside a number of others. It was officially issued by my Trust as part of a campaign to encourage inclusion of marginalised groups in mainstream health care.
I wouldn't wear political badges (such as the LD bird) but the rainbow flag is not political.
I'm not sure - I feel like the rainbow is a bit like the poppy, it's non-political for those that wear it because they think their position is completely uncontroversial and opposed only by extremists. But both are, like a lot of little things a political statement.
I tend to agree. If I came across someone wearing one I would note it but almost certainly not comment and I would be just a little more wary about certain topics. Is that ideal in a professional you are dealing with? I would say not but I wouldn't be upset about it, just cautious.
I can't imagine noticing let alone caring what someone's lanyard might or might not be signalling.
To me it would be signalling they work for a corporate which has a desire to be seen as woke.
And so the definition of woke continues to spread and metastasise, so that any corporate even acknowledging the diversity of its own employee base gets the dreaded moniker. Until the word loses all meaning. Like the way Americans bandy about "socialist" and "fascist".
But even if it is “virtue signalling” to wear a rainbow lanyard - why is that a problem? The virtue they are signalling is that they support LGBTQ+ people - a minority group that has typically been oppressed legally and socially. Making it clear that you support people being openly LGBTQ+ is surely a virtue we want to signal, no?
If ‘we’ is ‘people who wear the lanyards’ then obviously. Not sure society as a whole think of it as a virtue that needs to be signalled
Well then we surely need to signal it more, because it should be considered the norm to be fine with openly LGBTQ+ people, no?
Not really, no. I think it tends to get on a lot of people’s nerves, who otherwise don’t give it much thought
Well, lucky them. As a man who has had “faggot” shouted at me for holding a partner’s hand, - I do give it a lot of thought and tend to feel a somewhat increased sense of relaxation and safety in intimidating spaces (like a hospital or government office) when someone has a small rainbow pin or lanyard. And I tend to care about the increased normalisation of LGBTQ+ people in public life and spaces.
Returning to our discussion from yesterday, is Michael Portillo an LGBTQ+ person or a cis het person? Was he one and now the other?
Why are you asking 148grss, surely you would need to ask Michael Portillo.
For example, I consider myself cis het male and I tick those boxes. But I have been romantically attracted to three men in my life and had sex with one of them. Sexual orientation is probably a spectrum rather then discontinuous buckets. I'm sure that you've been attracted to someone who's "not your type", it doesn't necessarily change your label.
I'm asking 148grss because he is the one who is defining a category of "LGBTQ+ people" as opposed to cis het people.
I mean historically it’s cisheteronormative society that has defined the category of LGBTQ+ people as “opposed” to cishet people. We can still see this in the way some people - like far right politicians and the Catholic church - try to characterise LGBTQ+ people as anti-family and so on. It doesn’t mean every cishet person is against LGBTQ+ people, it just means that the category of cishet has historically in society been considered “normal” and LGBTQ+ as “deviant” - and therefore a target of oppression from authority.
You're not being clear about whether you think there is such a thing as an "LGBTQ+ person" or just a person who might or might not engage in LGBTQ+ activities at some point in their life.
I think these terms and their meanings are social constructs - labels we give to people and behaviours. There are periods in time where same sex sexual acts were more permissible, for example, but those people wouldn’t have considered themselves gay. Something being a social construct doesn’t in any way mean people don’t have attraction to different people based on their gender or gender presentation - but the history or culture of a time and person will effect how people identify.
The degree to which the transsexual "debate" (which appears to me to be about 95% warmed-over left-over anti-gay rhetoric from circa 1990) has obsessed obsessive PBer, is perhaps reflected in zero mention (I think) of THIS breaking news flash:
New York Daily News (via Seattle Times) - Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s charity foundation declared delinquent
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s Archewell Foundation has been forced to suspend operations at least temporarily after failing to file timely tax returns and other documents and being declared “delinquent” by California authorities.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, who founded the charity after stepping back from their royal duties in Britain in 2020, has been “listed as delinquent with the Registry of Charities and Fundraisers for failing to submit required annual report(s) and/or renewal fees,” People [Magazine] reported, citing the office of California Attorney General Rob Bonta. . . .
As of May 1, the foundation’s fundraising ability had been curtailed. . . .
Required documents and a check were in fact submitted but got lost in the mail, a source claimed to People. Foundation officials did not learn about the issue until the delinquency notice arrived. A new check has been mailed and the issue will be resolved within a week, the foundation stated.
The foundation has been posting updates from Harry and Meghan’s trip to Nigeria that is still underway.
Their work has been praised, including in New York City, where in December 2022 they received the Ripple of Hope Award for their racial justice work from Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, a nonprofit.
SSI - Sounds like a paperwork problem to me, but reckon that anti-Meganites will have a more critical critique.
Anyone around in '97 will remember that stifling mood of repression which years of Tory government had given us.......
Though the polls showed Labour would win the Tories were so wily and we'd been let down so many times no one dared believe it. The Tories had hammered gays with section 28 supported apartheid to the shame of all of us ......had bludgeoned the poor with the poll tax........... but still we didn't believe it would happen.......
Now feels the same. They're battering trans kicking out at immigrants beating up on anyone less fortunate than themselves and anyone who might pass as 'other'.
In short they're as ghastly as they were in '97. In fact they're worse! I heard Jenrick earlier and wanted to open the window and vomit.........
I think Eagle and JohnO have got it wrong. My guess is sub 90.
Okay. Question relating to the next UK general election.
Which seat will see the first Labour gain declared on the night, and what will different margins of victory say about the likely final result?
Maybe Bury North. A traditionally early-ish declarer and a tight marginal. Labour need to take it handsomely if they have any hope of forming a government.
I'm sure there's a joke somewhere about Ramsbottom, but I'm too sheepish to come up with one.
Does this apply to any other demographic, Landon? Do I get to be black if I like Motown and fancy myself in cornrows? What if I claim the authentic me has always been black and that you're being racist to me? Would that be OK, or would you find it ludicrous and deeply offensive?
Stonewall are back in front of an Employment Tribunal today for trying to get a black lesbian barrister fired.
To be fair, constant derailing without ever participating in the flow of conversation doesn't really seem much like debate to me.
Which is exactly Rowling’s complaint, that those of differing viewpoints to her own don’t want to actually debate with her, they want her to shut up and go away.
JKR doesn't debate anyone when anyone tries to engage with her tweets so for her to complain that people don't want to debate her seems dishonest.
See this thread:
You’ve asked me several questions on this thread and accused me of avoiding answering, so here goes….
Which is not a 'debate'; it's a position platform.
" I do not, however, believe that surgeries and cross-sex hormones literally turn a person into the opposite sex, nor do I believe in the idea that each of us has a nebulous ‘gender identity’ that may or might not match our sexed bodies. "
Which is where, having known a few trans people, I think she's *very* wrong.
You are as entitled to your belief as Rowling is to hers.
The issue has been the TRA absolutist position and the consequences that would have for women’s rights, and sports, to take two examples.
There is no conflict between the rights of women and the ability for trans people to live their life in peace. Transwomen have, for example, had access to single sex spaces all my life (and probably all of your life) using only self ID and it has not been a systemic issue. There may be the odd case of an issue here and there, as there is over any large enough number of human interactions, but there is no evidence of ciswomen being systemically harmed by the inclusion of transwomen in their spaces.
That's completely missing the point, whether deliberately or not.
It's not about trans-people living their life in peace and the rights of women. It's about (amongst other things but this one, I'd suggest, is prime), the ability of abusers to benefit from rights granted to trans-people so as to enable them to abuse.
Simply asserting something and closing your eyes and mind to the possibility of an alternative is no way to set policy. Reality will intrude. See the Post Office for details.
So let's talk about how to reduce abusive behaviour and abuse perpetrated by cismen (the group most likely to commit abuse against ciswomen). Lots of otherwise benign things can be abused by abusers (take single fathers taking their young daughter into the men's loos when she is young - something my dad had to do with my sister after my mum died until she was like 6ish and felt able to go into the women's loos alone). If we want single sex loos should all single parents be banned from taking their kids not of the same gender into a public toilet when they're young because it could, instead, be a predator pretending to be a single parent? No, that's ridiculous. Instead someone would typically rely on the behaviour of the child in that situation - do they look comfortable with the person, are they reacting normally, etc. etc. - and challenge it if it seemed atypical. In a situation where transwomen are sharing spaces with ciswomen if someone turns up and seems to be acting in the manner of an abuser or is a concern - you deal with that as an individual issue. You don't need to take a blanket position of no transwomen in those spaces.
Some spaces are so sensitive - women's refuges, for example - that you *do* need to make it clear that it is single-sex, absolutely, irrespective of a person's preferred gender identity. But in general, treating people as individuals is the sensible thing.
That said, I still don't think you're taking the risks seriously.
Do you have any credible evidence that allowing transwomen into single sex spaces allows abusers free rein to do more abuse? Especially considering that self ID has been the norm in the UK basically forever and is the norm in many other countries - we should have a wealth of data on the issue?
And I don’t think you take the othering of transpeople and the current moral panic surround them seriously. But if you don’t think I’m a sincere actor, what’s the point in discussing further?
When you say that "self ID has been the norm in the UK basically forever" do you think that traditionally, someone who didn't 'pass' would have had no problem walking into a female changing room?
I don’t know - I think it probably depending on how they didn’t “pass”. But I think policing “passing” is bad because - as I’ve discussed here before - there are many more ciswomen who don’t “pass” (despite being cis) then transwomen (in numbers, if not percentage wise). Butch cislesbians, ciswomen with short hair cuts, ciswomen who aren’t traditionally attractive; all of these ciswomen are at the risk of not “passing” if policing increases (and we have seen examples of this). Hell - one of my great aunts (post menopausal) had a small beard she never bothered to shave - in the current environment would she “pass”?
In the past I assume most people would just leave people be as long as they weren’t causing a problem; it’s only now that there is this moral panic that people are policing the issue.
IOW, 'trans people are fine, if they're invisible'.
I mean - that’s not what I was trying to say. I think the desire to make sure trans people do “pass” is a demand for them to be invisible. Which is another reason why policing “passing” is bad. I think for most people it’s easy to imagine a masculine ciswoman who maybe wouldn’t “pass” and a feminine transwoman who would. We should be able to accept a world where both those people are clearly women.
You are not really a sincere actor in this debate. Your constant use of strawmen/strawpeople and misrepresenting of evidence makes that clear. The issue is not that allowing transwomen into all single sex spaces makes abuse more likely. A lot of the issue is that some of these spaces contain a number of traumatised women for whom the presence of male physiognomy is potentially triggering. That's not transwomen's fault but it is a fact. Your response to this is to shout "transphobia" and to tell women to stop being silly. Which is why you are not a serious person.
That is literally the argument people here are making - that allowing transwomen in single sex spaces mean cismen will pretend to be trans to abuse ciswomen - and that’s a reason to have single sex spaces.
Your position is that “male physiognomy is potentially triggering” - which I would accept as broadly true. How do we help tackle that? Is banning transwomen from women’s shelters a good response to that? Again - some transwomen “pass” and some ciswomen don’t - what should we do in a situation where a ciswoman in a shelter is triggered by the presence of another ciswoman she believes is a transwoman due to “male physiognomy”? Is policing “passing” the best way to tackle this problem, or is getting rid of gendered expectations of what women “should” look like and giving women, cis and trans, the support they need when in shelters to feel safe a better use of resources?
I want an apology for the statement in your first paragraph. That is not what I said. And you know it. You always do this. That is why you are a deeply unserious person.
"Is banning transwomen from women’s shelters a good response to that? ". Yes. It is the simplest and most humane response. The overwhelming majority of users of such facilities are females. I totally accept it is harsh on transwomen but the need of females is greater in this case. It is one of a small number of exception that need to be maintained.
I'll be blunt about this. If someone is raped with a penis then they may feel uncomfortable being around people with penises. No amount of "getting rid of gendered expectations" will change that. It won't change until rape is completely eradicated - which I hope happens soon but not with any great expectation. And when it happens we won't need, or at least will have a lessened need, for women's shelters anyway.
And yes, I know sexual assault does not require a penis, but the potential harm that penetration by a penis can cause is greater than through penetration from any other part of the body.
A cabinet split has opened up on civil service rainbow lanyards as it emerges that guidance agreed across government will not actually ban officials from wearing them.
Esther McVey, who was appointed to attend Rishi Sunak’s cabinet as a minister without portfolio, said on Monday that staff would be disciplined for any messaging on lanyards to hold security passes, describing it as “political activism in a visible way”.
But official guidance due to be issued on Tuesday makes no mention of lanyards and the policy was not raised with other government ministers, The Times understands.
On Tuesday morning Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, distanced himself from McVey’s criticism of rainbow lanyards, telling Times Radio: “Personally, I don’t mind people expressing their views on these things. What lanyard somebody wears doesn’t particularly concern me.” He said he was “more interested in the jobs that the civil service do” than in what they wore.
It's all a bit odd. I went to a meeting down in Oz many years ago and wore the lanyard from that for decades at work - nobody even noticed, it was the security pass on the end that mattered (and I could keep that in my shirt pocket when outside work so it wasn't obvious where I worked from either pass or lanyard). A generic rainbow lanyard is positively useful in that respect, unless one works somwhere which is so high security that colour coding is important - in which case it's irrelevant to ban rainbow lanyards.
What if people some people start wearing star of David lanyards, and others wearing Palestinian flag lanyards?
Or, God forbid, TERF lanyards?
Couldn't that make things a bit tetchy at work?
Come on, you can invent trickier scenarios than that:
What about if I wear a lanyard with mini-swastikas printed all down it? Or what about if I wear a tie with naked glamour mag models on them?
Can't we just apply a bit of common sense? Remind me again, who are the rainbow lanyards offending?
What's the reason for wearing a rainbow lanyard?
It's at least pointless virtue signalling
I don't have a Rainbow Lanyard (mine is from Diabetes UK) but do have a rainbow flag badge for it, which I wear alongside a number of others. It was officially issued by my Trust as part of a campaign to encourage inclusion of marginalised groups in mainstream health care.
I wouldn't wear political badges (such as the LD bird) but the rainbow flag is not political.
I'm not sure - I feel like the rainbow is a bit like the poppy, it's non-political for those that wear it because they think their position is completely uncontroversial and opposed only by extremists. But both are, like a lot of little things a political statement.
I tend to agree. If I came across someone wearing one I would note it but almost certainly not comment and I would be just a little more wary about certain topics. Is that ideal in a professional you are dealing with? I would say not but I wouldn't be upset about it, just cautious.
I can't imagine noticing let alone caring what someone's lanyard might or might not be signalling.
To me it would be signalling they work for a corporate which has a desire to be seen as woke.
And so the definition of woke continues to spread and metastasise, so that any corporate even acknowledging the diversity of its own employee base gets the dreaded moniker. Until the word loses all meaning. Like the way Americans bandy about "socialist" and "fascist".
But even if it is “virtue signalling” to wear a rainbow lanyard - why is that a problem? The virtue they are signalling is that they support LGBTQ+ people - a minority group that has typically been oppressed legally and socially. Making it clear that you support people being openly LGBTQ+ is surely a virtue we want to signal, no?
If ‘we’ is ‘people who wear the lanyards’ then obviously. Not sure society as a whole think of it as a virtue that needs to be signalled
Well then we surely need to signal it more, because it should be considered the norm to be fine with openly LGBTQ+ people, no?
Not really, no. I think it tends to get on a lot of people’s nerves, who otherwise don’t give it much thought
Well, lucky them. As a man who has had “faggot” shouted at me for holding a partner’s hand, - I do give it a lot of thought and tend to feel a somewhat increased sense of relaxation and safety in intimidating spaces (like a hospital or government office) when someone has a small rainbow pin or lanyard. And I tend to care about the increased normalisation of LGBTQ+ people in public life and spaces.
Returning to our discussion from yesterday, is Michael Portillo an LGBTQ+ person or a cis het person? Was he one and now the other?
Why are you asking 148grss, surely you would need to ask Michael Portillo.
For example, I consider myself cis het male and I tick those boxes. But I have been romantically attracted to three men in my life and had sex with one of them. Sexual orientation is probably a spectrum rather then discontinuous buckets. I'm sure that you've been attracted to someone who's "not your type", it doesn't necessarily change your label.
I'm asking 148grss because he is the one who is defining a category of "LGBTQ+ people" as opposed to cis het people.
I mean historically it’s cisheteronormative society that has defined the category of LGBTQ+ people as “opposed” to cishet people. We can still see this in the way some people - like far right politicians and the Catholic church - try to characterise LGBTQ+ people as anti-family and so on. It doesn’t mean every cishet person is against LGBTQ+ people, it just means that the category of cishet has historically in society been considered “normal” and LGBTQ+ as “deviant” - and therefore a target of oppression from authority.
You're not being clear about whether you think there is such a thing as an "LGBTQ+ person" or just a person who might or might not engage in LGBTQ+ activities at some point in their life.
I think these terms and their meanings are social constructs - labels we give to people and behaviours. There are periods in time where same sex sexual acts were more permissible, for example, but those people wouldn’t have considered themselves gay. Something being a social construct doesn’t in any way mean people don’t have attraction to different people based on their gender or gender presentation - but the history or culture of a time and person will effect how people identify.
So in an ideal world there would be no LGBTQ+ people because people would be free to express themselves without gender or sexual norms?
A cabinet split has opened up on civil service rainbow lanyards as it emerges that guidance agreed across government will not actually ban officials from wearing them.
Esther McVey, who was appointed to attend Rishi Sunak’s cabinet as a minister without portfolio, said on Monday that staff would be disciplined for any messaging on lanyards to hold security passes, describing it as “political activism in a visible way”.
But official guidance due to be issued on Tuesday makes no mention of lanyards and the policy was not raised with other government ministers, The Times understands.
On Tuesday morning Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, distanced himself from McVey’s criticism of rainbow lanyards, telling Times Radio: “Personally, I don’t mind people expressing their views on these things. What lanyard somebody wears doesn’t particularly concern me.” He said he was “more interested in the jobs that the civil service do” than in what they wore.
It's all a bit odd. I went to a meeting down in Oz many years ago and wore the lanyard from that for decades at work - nobody even noticed, it was the security pass on the end that mattered (and I could keep that in my shirt pocket when outside work so it wasn't obvious where I worked from either pass or lanyard). A generic rainbow lanyard is positively useful in that respect, unless one works somwhere which is so high security that colour coding is important - in which case it's irrelevant to ban rainbow lanyards.
What if people some people start wearing star of David lanyards, and others wearing Palestinian flag lanyards?
Or, God forbid, TERF lanyards?
Couldn't that make things a bit tetchy at work?
Come on, you can invent trickier scenarios than that:
What about if I wear a lanyard with mini-swastikas printed all down it? Or what about if I wear a tie with naked glamour mag models on them?
Can't we just apply a bit of common sense? Remind me again, who are the rainbow lanyards offending?
What's the reason for wearing a rainbow lanyard?
It's at least pointless virtue signalling
I don't have a Rainbow Lanyard (mine is from Diabetes UK) but do have a rainbow flag badge for it, which I wear alongside a number of others. It was officially issued by my Trust as part of a campaign to encourage inclusion of marginalised groups in mainstream health care.
I wouldn't wear political badges (such as the LD bird) but the rainbow flag is not political.
I'm not sure - I feel like the rainbow is a bit like the poppy, it's non-political for those that wear it because they think their position is completely uncontroversial and opposed only by extremists. But both are, like a lot of little things a political statement.
I tend to agree. If I came across someone wearing one I would note it but almost certainly not comment and I would be just a little more wary about certain topics. Is that ideal in a professional you are dealing with? I would say not but I wouldn't be upset about it, just cautious.
I can't imagine noticing let alone caring what someone's lanyard might or might not be signalling.
To me it would be signalling they work for a corporate which has a desire to be seen as woke.
And so the definition of woke continues to spread and metastasise, so that any corporate even acknowledging the diversity of its own employee base gets the dreaded moniker. Until the word loses all meaning. Like the way Americans bandy about "socialist" and "fascist".
But even if it is “virtue signalling” to wear a rainbow lanyard - why is that a problem? The virtue they are signalling is that they support LGBTQ+ people - a minority group that has typically been oppressed legally and socially. Making it clear that you support people being openly LGBTQ+ is surely a virtue we want to signal, no?
If ‘we’ is ‘people who wear the lanyards’ then obviously. Not sure society as a whole think of it as a virtue that needs to be signalled
Well then we surely need to signal it more, because it should be considered the norm to be fine with openly LGBTQ+ people, no?
Not really, no. I think it tends to get on a lot of people’s nerves, who otherwise don’t give it much thought
Well, lucky them. As a man who has had “faggot” shouted at me for holding a partner’s hand, - I do give it a lot of thought and tend to feel a somewhat increased sense of relaxation and safety in intimidating spaces (like a hospital or government office) when someone has a small rainbow pin or lanyard. And I tend to care about the increased normalisation of LGBTQ+ people in public life and spaces.
Returning to our discussion from yesterday, is Michael Portillo an LGBTQ+ person or a cis het person? Was he one and now the other?
Why are you asking 148grss, surely you would need to ask Michael Portillo.
For example, I consider myself cis het male and I tick those boxes. But I have been romantically attracted to three men in my life and had sex with one of them. Sexual orientation is probably a spectrum rather then discontinuous buckets. I'm sure that you've been attracted to someone who's "not your type", it doesn't necessarily change your label.
I'm asking 148grss because he is the one who is defining a category of "LGBTQ+ people" as opposed to cis het people.
I mean historically it’s cisheteronormative society that has defined the category of LGBTQ+ people as “opposed” to cishet people. We can still see this in the way some people - like far right politicians and the Catholic church - try to characterise LGBTQ+ people as anti-family and so on. It doesn’t mean every cishet person is against LGBTQ+ people, it just means that the category of cishet has historically in society been considered “normal” and LGBTQ+ as “deviant” - and therefore a target of oppression from authority.
You're not being clear about whether you think there is such a thing as an "LGBTQ+ person" or just a person who might or might not engage in LGBTQ+ activities at some point in their life.
Gore Vidal insisted until the day he died that there was no such thing as homosexual people, there were only homosexual activities.
A cabinet split has opened up on civil service rainbow lanyards as it emerges that guidance agreed across government will not actually ban officials from wearing them.
Esther McVey, who was appointed to attend Rishi Sunak’s cabinet as a minister without portfolio, said on Monday that staff would be disciplined for any messaging on lanyards to hold security passes, describing it as “political activism in a visible way”.
But official guidance due to be issued on Tuesday makes no mention of lanyards and the policy was not raised with other government ministers, The Times understands.
On Tuesday morning Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, distanced himself from McVey’s criticism of rainbow lanyards, telling Times Radio: “Personally, I don’t mind people expressing their views on these things. What lanyard somebody wears doesn’t particularly concern me.” He said he was “more interested in the jobs that the civil service do” than in what they wore.
It's all a bit odd. I went to a meeting down in Oz many years ago and wore the lanyard from that for decades at work - nobody even noticed, it was the security pass on the end that mattered (and I could keep that in my shirt pocket when outside work so it wasn't obvious where I worked from either pass or lanyard). A generic rainbow lanyard is positively useful in that respect, unless one works somwhere which is so high security that colour coding is important - in which case it's irrelevant to ban rainbow lanyards.
What if people some people start wearing star of David lanyards, and others wearing Palestinian flag lanyards?
Or, God forbid, TERF lanyards?
Couldn't that make things a bit tetchy at work?
Come on, you can invent trickier scenarios than that:
What about if I wear a lanyard with mini-swastikas printed all down it? Or what about if I wear a tie with naked glamour mag models on them?
Can't we just apply a bit of common sense? Remind me again, who are the rainbow lanyards offending?
What's the reason for wearing a rainbow lanyard?
It's at least pointless virtue signalling
I don't have a Rainbow Lanyard (mine is from Diabetes UK) but do have a rainbow flag badge for it, which I wear alongside a number of others. It was officially issued by my Trust as part of a campaign to encourage inclusion of marginalised groups in mainstream health care.
I wouldn't wear political badges (such as the LD bird) but the rainbow flag is not political.
I'm not sure - I feel like the rainbow is a bit like the poppy, it's non-political for those that wear it because they think their position is completely uncontroversial and opposed only by extremists. But both are, like a lot of little things a political statement.
I tend to agree. If I came across someone wearing one I would note it but almost certainly not comment and I would be just a little more wary about certain topics. Is that ideal in a professional you are dealing with? I would say not but I wouldn't be upset about it, just cautious.
I can't imagine noticing let alone caring what someone's lanyard might or might not be signalling.
Someone with a BNP lanyard at he bar strikes up conversation about the weather and you just crack on as usual? Oh to be so broadminded
I regularly meet people with BNP lanyards due to my work.
Had some cracking conversations with them about work and other things.
Not sure those guys are what isam meant. But you enjoyed conversations with bankers ?
My life these days is spent with bankers and educating them therein.
A cabinet split has opened up on civil service rainbow lanyards as it emerges that guidance agreed across government will not actually ban officials from wearing them.
Esther McVey, who was appointed to attend Rishi Sunak’s cabinet as a minister without portfolio, said on Monday that staff would be disciplined for any messaging on lanyards to hold security passes, describing it as “political activism in a visible way”.
But official guidance due to be issued on Tuesday makes no mention of lanyards and the policy was not raised with other government ministers, The Times understands.
On Tuesday morning Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, distanced himself from McVey’s criticism of rainbow lanyards, telling Times Radio: “Personally, I don’t mind people expressing their views on these things. What lanyard somebody wears doesn’t particularly concern me.” He said he was “more interested in the jobs that the civil service do” than in what they wore.
It's all a bit odd. I went to a meeting down in Oz many years ago and wore the lanyard from that for decades at work - nobody even noticed, it was the security pass on the end that mattered (and I could keep that in my shirt pocket when outside work so it wasn't obvious where I worked from either pass or lanyard). A generic rainbow lanyard is positively useful in that respect, unless one works somwhere which is so high security that colour coding is important - in which case it's irrelevant to ban rainbow lanyards.
What if people some people start wearing star of David lanyards, and others wearing Palestinian flag lanyards?
Or, God forbid, TERF lanyards?
Couldn't that make things a bit tetchy at work?
Come on, you can invent trickier scenarios than that:
What about if I wear a lanyard with mini-swastikas printed all down it? Or what about if I wear a tie with naked glamour mag models on them?
Can't we just apply a bit of common sense? Remind me again, who are the rainbow lanyards offending?
What's the reason for wearing a rainbow lanyard?
It's at least pointless virtue signalling
I don't have a Rainbow Lanyard (mine is from Diabetes UK) but do have a rainbow flag badge for it, which I wear alongside a number of others. It was officially issued by my Trust as part of a campaign to encourage inclusion of marginalised groups in mainstream health care.
I wouldn't wear political badges (such as the LD bird) but the rainbow flag is not political.
I'm not sure - I feel like the rainbow is a bit like the poppy, it's non-political for those that wear it because they think their position is completely uncontroversial and opposed only by extremists. But both are, like a lot of little things a political statement.
I tend to agree. If I came across someone wearing one I would note it but almost certainly not comment and I would be just a little more wary about certain topics. Is that ideal in a professional you are dealing with? I would say not but I wouldn't be upset about it, just cautious.
I can't imagine noticing let alone caring what someone's lanyard might or might not be signalling.
To me it would be signalling they work for a corporate which has a desire to be seen as woke.
And so the definition of woke continues to spread and metastasise, so that any corporate even acknowledging the diversity of its own employee base gets the dreaded moniker. Until the word loses all meaning. Like the way Americans bandy about "socialist" and "fascist".
But even if it is “virtue signalling” to wear a rainbow lanyard - why is that a problem? The virtue they are signalling is that they support LGBTQ+ people - a minority group that has typically been oppressed legally and socially. Making it clear that you support people being openly LGBTQ+ is surely a virtue we want to signal, no?
If ‘we’ is ‘people who wear the lanyards’ then obviously. Not sure society as a whole think of it as a virtue that needs to be signalled
Well then we surely need to signal it more, because it should be considered the norm to be fine with openly LGBTQ+ people, no?
Not really, no. I think it tends to get on a lot of people’s nerves, who otherwise don’t give it much thought
Well, lucky them. As a man who has had “faggot” shouted at me for holding a partner’s hand, - I do give it a lot of thought and tend to feel a somewhat increased sense of relaxation and safety in intimidating spaces (like a hospital or government office) when someone has a small rainbow pin or lanyard. And I tend to care about the increased normalisation of LGBTQ+ people in public life and spaces.
Returning to our discussion from yesterday, is Michael Portillo an LGBTQ+ person or a cis het person? Was he one and now the other?
And like I said yesterday - I have no idea what that has to do with anything. He says he is a straight man who has had sexual experiences with members of the same sex. Fine - many straight people do that. Many gay people have sex with people of the opposite sex - it doesn’t make them less gay. I don’t understand the point you’re trying to make with this line of thought.
So if a straight man has a multi-year gay relationship, it doesn't make them any less straight?
What so keen to catechise folk about sex ?
Ask @148grss. He is the one banging on about "LGBTQ+ people" as opposed to just people.
I am pretty sure he isn't the only one banging on about them, tbh.
Why are Western governments so spinelessly weak against China? This is outrageous behaviour by Beijing, effectively kidnapping Australian citizens from Australia.
A cabinet split has opened up on civil service rainbow lanyards as it emerges that guidance agreed across government will not actually ban officials from wearing them.
Esther McVey, who was appointed to attend Rishi Sunak’s cabinet as a minister without portfolio, said on Monday that staff would be disciplined for any messaging on lanyards to hold security passes, describing it as “political activism in a visible way”.
But official guidance due to be issued on Tuesday makes no mention of lanyards and the policy was not raised with other government ministers, The Times understands.
On Tuesday morning Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, distanced himself from McVey’s criticism of rainbow lanyards, telling Times Radio: “Personally, I don’t mind people expressing their views on these things. What lanyard somebody wears doesn’t particularly concern me.” He said he was “more interested in the jobs that the civil service do” than in what they wore.
It's all a bit odd. I went to a meeting down in Oz many years ago and wore the lanyard from that for decades at work - nobody even noticed, it was the security pass on the end that mattered (and I could keep that in my shirt pocket when outside work so it wasn't obvious where I worked from either pass or lanyard). A generic rainbow lanyard is positively useful in that respect, unless one works somwhere which is so high security that colour coding is important - in which case it's irrelevant to ban rainbow lanyards.
What if people some people start wearing star of David lanyards, and others wearing Palestinian flag lanyards?
Or, God forbid, TERF lanyards?
Couldn't that make things a bit tetchy at work?
Come on, you can invent trickier scenarios than that:
What about if I wear a lanyard with mini-swastikas printed all down it? Or what about if I wear a tie with naked glamour mag models on them?
Can't we just apply a bit of common sense? Remind me again, who are the rainbow lanyards offending?
What's the reason for wearing a rainbow lanyard?
It's at least pointless virtue signalling
I don't have a Rainbow Lanyard (mine is from Diabetes UK) but do have a rainbow flag badge for it, which I wear alongside a number of others. It was officially issued by my Trust as part of a campaign to encourage inclusion of marginalised groups in mainstream health care.
I wouldn't wear political badges (such as the LD bird) but the rainbow flag is not political.
I'm not sure - I feel like the rainbow is a bit like the poppy, it's non-political for those that wear it because they think their position is completely uncontroversial and opposed only by extremists. But both are, like a lot of little things a political statement.
I tend to agree. If I came across someone wearing one I would note it but almost certainly not comment and I would be just a little more wary about certain topics. Is that ideal in a professional you are dealing with? I would say not but I wouldn't be upset about it, just cautious.
I can't imagine noticing let alone caring what someone's lanyard might or might not be signalling.
To me it would be signalling they work for a corporate which has a desire to be seen as woke.
And so the definition of woke continues to spread and metastasise, so that any corporate even acknowledging the diversity of its own employee base gets the dreaded moniker. Until the word loses all meaning. Like the way Americans bandy about "socialist" and "fascist".
But even if it is “virtue signalling” to wear a rainbow lanyard - why is that a problem? The virtue they are signalling is that they support LGBTQ+ people - a minority group that has typically been oppressed legally and socially. Making it clear that you support people being openly LGBTQ+ is surely a virtue we want to signal, no?
If ‘we’ is ‘people who wear the lanyards’ then obviously. Not sure society as a whole think of it as a virtue that needs to be signalled
Well then we surely need to signal it more, because it should be considered the norm to be fine with openly LGBTQ+ people, no?
Not really, no. I think it tends to get on a lot of people’s nerves, who otherwise don’t give it much thought
Well, lucky them. As a man who has had “faggot” shouted at me for holding a partner’s hand, - I do give it a lot of thought and tend to feel a somewhat increased sense of relaxation and safety in intimidating spaces (like a hospital or government office) when someone has a small rainbow pin or lanyard. And I tend to care about the increased normalisation of LGBTQ+ people in public life and spaces.
Returning to our discussion from yesterday, is Michael Portillo an LGBTQ+ person or a cis het person? Was he one and now the other?
Why are you asking 148grss, surely you would need to ask Michael Portillo.
For example, I consider myself cis het male and I tick those boxes. But I have been romantically attracted to three men in my life and had sex with one of them. Sexual orientation is probably a spectrum rather then discontinuous buckets. I'm sure that you've been attracted to someone who's "not your type", it doesn't necessarily change your label.
Is there any characteristic of humanity that is truly binary and not a spectrum, even if that spectrum is highly weighted at one or both ends? In ye olden days, it was simple: men and women were well-defined, as were their roles, and the spectrum either had to hide or were ignored. Like, say, homosexuals.
Even in biology: amazingly, 1 in 500-1000 babies are born with six fingers on one hand. A friend of mine apparently has three nipples. 1-2% of people are intersex (depending on how that is defined). etc, etc.
In the last few decades, these differences - the spectrum - have become more accepted. My female redheaded German friend with three nipples will not be burnt at a stake (well, regarded, at least) as a witch. Gay people are ignored as unremarkable - IMV the best result.
I see little in this discussion that trans people (*) are not just another part of a mental/physical spectrum. They've always existed, and always will.
(*) 'Trans' itself is a spectrum term, from transvestite to transsexual.
Your intersex numbers are pretty misleading, I think.
Most biologists define sex by gametes. See this piece by Professor Richard Dawkins.
Sex is a true binary. It all started with the evolution of anisogamy – sexual reproduction where the gametes are of two discontinuous sizes: macrogametes or eggs, and microgametes or sperm. The difference is huge. You could pack 15,000 sperm into one human egg. When two individuals jointly invest in a baby, and one invests 15,000 times as much as the other, you might say that she (see how pronouns creep in unannounced) has made a greater commitment to the partnership.
Okay. Question relating to the next UK general election.
Which seat will see the first Labour gain declared on the night, and what will different margins of victory say about the likely final result?
I'll go Workington and if the tory vote goes under 30% they'll be in big trouble. They'll have just about held Basildon, Broxbourne by this point and the studios will be 'pointing to a 97 type result'
There's a new Whitehaven & Workington seat which looks quite compact and it's a normal Tory seat, with a majority of 2,144, and only just over 3,000 votes for everyone else.
I think that's a good pick. Workington declared at about 01:30 last time.
A cabinet split has opened up on civil service rainbow lanyards as it emerges that guidance agreed across government will not actually ban officials from wearing them.
Esther McVey, who was appointed to attend Rishi Sunak’s cabinet as a minister without portfolio, said on Monday that staff would be disciplined for any messaging on lanyards to hold security passes, describing it as “political activism in a visible way”.
But official guidance due to be issued on Tuesday makes no mention of lanyards and the policy was not raised with other government ministers, The Times understands.
On Tuesday morning Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, distanced himself from McVey’s criticism of rainbow lanyards, telling Times Radio: “Personally, I don’t mind people expressing their views on these things. What lanyard somebody wears doesn’t particularly concern me.” He said he was “more interested in the jobs that the civil service do” than in what they wore.
It's all a bit odd. I went to a meeting down in Oz many years ago and wore the lanyard from that for decades at work - nobody even noticed, it was the security pass on the end that mattered (and I could keep that in my shirt pocket when outside work so it wasn't obvious where I worked from either pass or lanyard). A generic rainbow lanyard is positively useful in that respect, unless one works somwhere which is so high security that colour coding is important - in which case it's irrelevant to ban rainbow lanyards.
What if people some people start wearing star of David lanyards, and others wearing Palestinian flag lanyards?
Or, God forbid, TERF lanyards?
Couldn't that make things a bit tetchy at work?
Come on, you can invent trickier scenarios than that:
What about if I wear a lanyard with mini-swastikas printed all down it? Or what about if I wear a tie with naked glamour mag models on them?
Can't we just apply a bit of common sense? Remind me again, who are the rainbow lanyards offending?
What's the reason for wearing a rainbow lanyard?
It's at least pointless virtue signalling
I don't have a Rainbow Lanyard (mine is from Diabetes UK) but do have a rainbow flag badge for it, which I wear alongside a number of others. It was officially issued by my Trust as part of a campaign to encourage inclusion of marginalised groups in mainstream health care.
I wouldn't wear political badges (such as the LD bird) but the rainbow flag is not political.
I'm not sure - I feel like the rainbow is a bit like the poppy, it's non-political for those that wear it because they think their position is completely uncontroversial and opposed only by extremists. But both are, like a lot of little things a political statement.
I tend to agree. If I came across someone wearing one I would note it but almost certainly not comment and I would be just a little more wary about certain topics. Is that ideal in a professional you are dealing with? I would say not but I wouldn't be upset about it, just cautious.
I can't imagine noticing let alone caring what someone's lanyard might or might not be signalling.
To me it would be signalling they work for a corporate which has a desire to be seen as woke.
And so the definition of woke continues to spread and metastasise, so that any corporate even acknowledging the diversity of its own employee base gets the dreaded moniker. Until the word loses all meaning. Like the way Americans bandy about "socialist" and "fascist".
But even if it is “virtue signalling” to wear a rainbow lanyard - why is that a problem? The virtue they are signalling is that they support LGBTQ+ people - a minority group that has typically been oppressed legally and socially. Making it clear that you support people being openly LGBTQ+ is surely a virtue we want to signal, no?
If ‘we’ is ‘people who wear the lanyards’ then obviously. Not sure society as a whole think of it as a virtue that needs to be signalled
Well then we surely need to signal it more, because it should be considered the norm to be fine with openly LGBTQ+ people, no?
Not really, no. I think it tends to get on a lot of people’s nerves, who otherwise don’t give it much thought
Well, lucky them. As a man who has had “faggot” shouted at me for holding a partner’s hand, - I do give it a lot of thought and tend to feel a somewhat increased sense of relaxation and safety in intimidating spaces (like a hospital or government office) when someone has a small rainbow pin or lanyard. And I tend to care about the increased normalisation of LGBTQ+ people in public life and spaces.
Returning to our discussion from yesterday, is Michael Portillo an LGBTQ+ person or a cis het person? Was he one and now the other?
Why are you asking 148grss, surely you would need to ask Michael Portillo.
For example, I consider myself cis het male and I tick those boxes. But I have been romantically attracted to three men in my life and had sex with one of them. Sexual orientation is probably a spectrum rather then discontinuous buckets. I'm sure that you've been attracted to someone who's "not your type", it doesn't necessarily change your label.
I'm asking 148grss because he is the one who is defining a category of "LGBTQ+ people" as opposed to cis het people.
I mean historically it’s cisheteronormative society that has defined the category of LGBTQ+ people as “opposed” to cishet people. We can still see this in the way some people - like far right politicians and the Catholic church - try to characterise LGBTQ+ people as anti-family and so on. It doesn’t mean every cishet person is against LGBTQ+ people, it just means that the category of cishet has historically in society been considered “normal” and LGBTQ+ as “deviant” - and therefore a target of oppression from authority.
You're not being clear about whether you think there is such a thing as an "LGBTQ+ person" or just a person who might or might not engage in LGBTQ+ activities at some point in their life.
I think these terms and their meanings are social constructs - labels we give to people and behaviours. There are periods in time where same sex sexual acts were more permissible, for example, but those people wouldn’t have considered themselves gay. Something being a social construct doesn’t in any way mean people don’t have attraction to different people based on their gender or gender presentation - but the history or culture of a time and person will effect how people identify.
So in an ideal world there would be no LGBTQ+ people because people would be free to express themselves without gender or sexual norms?
It's fantastic that technology has now advanced so far we can gene splice Paxman and the Revd. Ian Paisley.
I’m surprised people find it boring; it’s an attempt in the last decade or so to challenge one of the indisputable facts of all time. Even if people genuinely find the debate around that boring, l the attempts to shut it down seem strange to me. Lots of things are discussed on here that I find boring, but would not dream of trying to tell people, or infer, they should stop discussing it.
It’s boring, like Leon’s AI bollocks, and it’s making the site boring.
I agree - and would rather not discuss it here. But I also don’t want to let the opinions of people arguing for more policing of trans people and gender norms to go unchallenged in the middle of a moral panic that is seeing increased violence against LGBTQ+ people. This rhetoric has a material impact in the world.
Is this one of those someone on the internet is wrong moments.
A cabinet split has opened up on civil service rainbow lanyards as it emerges that guidance agreed across government will not actually ban officials from wearing them.
Esther McVey, who was appointed to attend Rishi Sunak’s cabinet as a minister without portfolio, said on Monday that staff would be disciplined for any messaging on lanyards to hold security passes, describing it as “political activism in a visible way”.
But official guidance due to be issued on Tuesday makes no mention of lanyards and the policy was not raised with other government ministers, The Times understands.
On Tuesday morning Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, distanced himself from McVey’s criticism of rainbow lanyards, telling Times Radio: “Personally, I don’t mind people expressing their views on these things. What lanyard somebody wears doesn’t particularly concern me.” He said he was “more interested in the jobs that the civil service do” than in what they wore.
It's all a bit odd. I went to a meeting down in Oz many years ago and wore the lanyard from that for decades at work - nobody even noticed, it was the security pass on the end that mattered (and I could keep that in my shirt pocket when outside work so it wasn't obvious where I worked from either pass or lanyard). A generic rainbow lanyard is positively useful in that respect, unless one works somwhere which is so high security that colour coding is important - in which case it's irrelevant to ban rainbow lanyards.
What if people some people start wearing star of David lanyards, and others wearing Palestinian flag lanyards?
Or, God forbid, TERF lanyards?
Couldn't that make things a bit tetchy at work?
Come on, you can invent trickier scenarios than that:
What about if I wear a lanyard with mini-swastikas printed all down it? Or what about if I wear a tie with naked glamour mag models on them?
Can't we just apply a bit of common sense? Remind me again, who are the rainbow lanyards offending?
What's the reason for wearing a rainbow lanyard?
It's at least pointless virtue signalling
I don't have a Rainbow Lanyard (mine is from Diabetes UK) but do have a rainbow flag badge for it, which I wear alongside a number of others. It was officially issued by my Trust as part of a campaign to encourage inclusion of marginalised groups in mainstream health care.
I wouldn't wear political badges (such as the LD bird) but the rainbow flag is not political.
I'm not sure - I feel like the rainbow is a bit like the poppy, it's non-political for those that wear it because they think their position is completely uncontroversial and opposed only by extremists. But both are, like a lot of little things a political statement.
I tend to agree. If I came across someone wearing one I would note it but almost certainly not comment and I would be just a little more wary about certain topics. Is that ideal in a professional you are dealing with? I would say not but I wouldn't be upset about it, just cautious.
I can't imagine noticing let alone caring what someone's lanyard might or might not be signalling.
To me it would be signalling they work for a corporate which has a desire to be seen as woke.
And so the definition of woke continues to spread and metastasise, so that any corporate even acknowledging the diversity of its own employee base gets the dreaded moniker. Until the word loses all meaning. Like the way Americans bandy about "socialist" and "fascist".
But even if it is “virtue signalling” to wear a rainbow lanyard - why is that a problem? The virtue they are signalling is that they support LGBTQ+ people - a minority group that has typically been oppressed legally and socially. Making it clear that you support people being openly LGBTQ+ is surely a virtue we want to signal, no?
If ‘we’ is ‘people who wear the lanyards’ then obviously. Not sure society as a whole think of it as a virtue that needs to be signalled
Well then we surely need to signal it more, because it should be considered the norm to be fine with openly LGBTQ+ people, no?
Not really, no. I think it tends to get on a lot of people’s nerves, who otherwise don’t give it much thought
Well, lucky them. As a man who has had “faggot” shouted at me for holding a partner’s hand, - I do give it a lot of thought and tend to feel a somewhat increased sense of relaxation and safety in intimidating spaces (like a hospital or government office) when someone has a small rainbow pin or lanyard. And I tend to care about the increased normalisation of LGBTQ+ people in public life and spaces.
Returning to our discussion from yesterday, is Michael Portillo an LGBTQ+ person or a cis het person? Was he one and now the other?
And like I said yesterday - I have no idea what that has to do with anything. He says he is a straight man who has had sexual experiences with members of the same sex. Fine - many straight people do that. Many gay people have sex with people of the opposite sex - it doesn’t make them less gay. I don’t understand the point you’re trying to make with this line of thought.
So if a straight man has a multi-year gay relationship, it doesn't make them any less straight?
What so keen to catechise folk about sex ?
Ask @148grss. He is the one banging on about "LGBTQ+ people" as opposed to just people.
I am pretty sure he isn't the only one banging on about them, tbh.
If he admits that the category of "LGBTQ+ people" depends on a cisheteronormative view of the world then I'll drop the subject.
A cabinet split has opened up on civil service rainbow lanyards as it emerges that guidance agreed across government will not actually ban officials from wearing them.
Esther McVey, who was appointed to attend Rishi Sunak’s cabinet as a minister without portfolio, said on Monday that staff would be disciplined for any messaging on lanyards to hold security passes, describing it as “political activism in a visible way”.
But official guidance due to be issued on Tuesday makes no mention of lanyards and the policy was not raised with other government ministers, The Times understands.
On Tuesday morning Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, distanced himself from McVey’s criticism of rainbow lanyards, telling Times Radio: “Personally, I don’t mind people expressing their views on these things. What lanyard somebody wears doesn’t particularly concern me.” He said he was “more interested in the jobs that the civil service do” than in what they wore.
It's all a bit odd. I went to a meeting down in Oz many years ago and wore the lanyard from that for decades at work - nobody even noticed, it was the security pass on the end that mattered (and I could keep that in my shirt pocket when outside work so it wasn't obvious where I worked from either pass or lanyard). A generic rainbow lanyard is positively useful in that respect, unless one works somwhere which is so high security that colour coding is important - in which case it's irrelevant to ban rainbow lanyards.
What if people some people start wearing star of David lanyards, and others wearing Palestinian flag lanyards?
Or, God forbid, TERF lanyards?
Couldn't that make things a bit tetchy at work?
Come on, you can invent trickier scenarios than that:
What about if I wear a lanyard with mini-swastikas printed all down it? Or what about if I wear a tie with naked glamour mag models on them?
Can't we just apply a bit of common sense? Remind me again, who are the rainbow lanyards offending?
What's the reason for wearing a rainbow lanyard?
It's at least pointless virtue signalling
I don't have a Rainbow Lanyard (mine is from Diabetes UK) but do have a rainbow flag badge for it, which I wear alongside a number of others. It was officially issued by my Trust as part of a campaign to encourage inclusion of marginalised groups in mainstream health care.
I wouldn't wear political badges (such as the LD bird) but the rainbow flag is not political.
I'm not sure - I feel like the rainbow is a bit like the poppy, it's non-political for those that wear it because they think their position is completely uncontroversial and opposed only by extremists. But both are, like a lot of little things a political statement.
I tend to agree. If I came across someone wearing one I would note it but almost certainly not comment and I would be just a little more wary about certain topics. Is that ideal in a professional you are dealing with? I would say not but I wouldn't be upset about it, just cautious.
I can't imagine noticing let alone caring what someone's lanyard might or might not be signalling.
To me it would be signalling they work for a corporate which has a desire to be seen as woke.
And so the definition of woke continues to spread and metastasise, so that any corporate even acknowledging the diversity of its own employee base gets the dreaded moniker. Until the word loses all meaning. Like the way Americans bandy about "socialist" and "fascist".
But even if it is “virtue signalling” to wear a rainbow lanyard - why is that a problem? The virtue they are signalling is that they support LGBTQ+ people - a minority group that has typically been oppressed legally and socially. Making it clear that you support people being openly LGBTQ+ is surely a virtue we want to signal, no?
If ‘we’ is ‘people who wear the lanyards’ then obviously. Not sure society as a whole think of it as a virtue that needs to be signalled
Well then we surely need to signal it more, because it should be considered the norm to be fine with openly LGBTQ+ people, no?
Not really, no. I think it tends to get on a lot of people’s nerves, who otherwise don’t give it much thought
Well, lucky them. As a man who has had “faggot” shouted at me for holding a partner’s hand, - I do give it a lot of thought and tend to feel a somewhat increased sense of relaxation and safety in intimidating spaces (like a hospital or government office) when someone has a small rainbow pin or lanyard. And I tend to care about the increased normalisation of LGBTQ+ people in public life and spaces.
Returning to our discussion from yesterday, is Michael Portillo an LGBTQ+ person or a cis het person? Was he one and now the other?
And like I said yesterday - I have no idea what that has to do with anything. He says he is a straight man who has had sexual experiences with members of the same sex. Fine - many straight people do that. Many gay people have sex with people of the opposite sex - it doesn’t make them less gay. I don’t understand the point you’re trying to make with this line of thought.
So if a straight man has a multi-year gay relationship, it doesn't make them any less straight?
What so keen to catechise folk about sex ?
Ask @148grss. He is the one banging on about "LGBTQ+ people" as opposed to just people.
Oh, okay. Well - I would say these are useful political categories to understand why oppression happens and to discuss it. LGBTQ+ people are and have been historically oppressed because of a societal belief that we are “deviant” - so it is useful to be able to identify ourselves and organise against that oppression. Similarly for women, disabled people, black people, etc. These are not objective unchanging terms - they are labels that evolved over time based on societal norms and policing. The “one drop rule” doesn’t mean anything objectively - but for a while it meant a lot to a lot of people in how they were treated in their society, for example.
A cabinet split has opened up on civil service rainbow lanyards as it emerges that guidance agreed across government will not actually ban officials from wearing them.
Esther McVey, who was appointed to attend Rishi Sunak’s cabinet as a minister without portfolio, said on Monday that staff would be disciplined for any messaging on lanyards to hold security passes, describing it as “political activism in a visible way”.
But official guidance due to be issued on Tuesday makes no mention of lanyards and the policy was not raised with other government ministers, The Times understands.
On Tuesday morning Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, distanced himself from McVey’s criticism of rainbow lanyards, telling Times Radio: “Personally, I don’t mind people expressing their views on these things. What lanyard somebody wears doesn’t particularly concern me.” He said he was “more interested in the jobs that the civil service do” than in what they wore.
It's all a bit odd. I went to a meeting down in Oz many years ago and wore the lanyard from that for decades at work - nobody even noticed, it was the security pass on the end that mattered (and I could keep that in my shirt pocket when outside work so it wasn't obvious where I worked from either pass or lanyard). A generic rainbow lanyard is positively useful in that respect, unless one works somwhere which is so high security that colour coding is important - in which case it's irrelevant to ban rainbow lanyards.
What if people some people start wearing star of David lanyards, and others wearing Palestinian flag lanyards?
Or, God forbid, TERF lanyards?
Couldn't that make things a bit tetchy at work?
Come on, you can invent trickier scenarios than that:
What about if I wear a lanyard with mini-swastikas printed all down it? Or what about if I wear a tie with naked glamour mag models on them?
Can't we just apply a bit of common sense? Remind me again, who are the rainbow lanyards offending?
What's the reason for wearing a rainbow lanyard?
It's at least pointless virtue signalling
I don't have a Rainbow Lanyard (mine is from Diabetes UK) but do have a rainbow flag badge for it, which I wear alongside a number of others. It was officially issued by my Trust as part of a campaign to encourage inclusion of marginalised groups in mainstream health care.
I wouldn't wear political badges (such as the LD bird) but the rainbow flag is not political.
I'm not sure - I feel like the rainbow is a bit like the poppy, it's non-political for those that wear it because they think their position is completely uncontroversial and opposed only by extremists. But both are, like a lot of little things a political statement.
I tend to agree. If I came across someone wearing one I would note it but almost certainly not comment and I would be just a little more wary about certain topics. Is that ideal in a professional you are dealing with? I would say not but I wouldn't be upset about it, just cautious.
I can't imagine noticing let alone caring what someone's lanyard might or might not be signalling.
To me it would be signalling they work for a corporate which has a desire to be seen as woke.
And so the definition of woke continues to spread and metastasise, so that any corporate even acknowledging the diversity of its own employee base gets the dreaded moniker. Until the word loses all meaning. Like the way Americans bandy about "socialist" and "fascist".
But even if it is “virtue signalling” to wear a rainbow lanyard - why is that a problem? The virtue they are signalling is that they support LGBTQ+ people - a minority group that has typically been oppressed legally and socially. Making it clear that you support people being openly LGBTQ+ is surely a virtue we want to signal, no?
If ‘we’ is ‘people who wear the lanyards’ then obviously. Not sure society as a whole think of it as a virtue that needs to be signalled
Well then we surely need to signal it more, because it should be considered the norm to be fine with openly LGBTQ+ people, no?
Not really, no. I think it tends to get on a lot of people’s nerves, who otherwise don’t give it much thought
Well, lucky them. As a man who has had “faggot” shouted at me for holding a partner’s hand, - I do give it a lot of thought and tend to feel a somewhat increased sense of relaxation and safety in intimidating spaces (like a hospital or government office) when someone has a small rainbow pin or lanyard. And I tend to care about the increased normalisation of LGBTQ+ people in public life and spaces.
Good for you, but that doesn’t mean everyone should
Is anyone saying people must wear these landyards? No. So what’s the problem?
I you’re saying ‘we’, as in everyone, should be in favour of LGBQT etc, and I’m saying ‘not really’
Oh - so you’re saying it’s okay to dislike or hate LGBTQ+ people just because they are LGBTQ+? Well, yeah, I obviously disagree
No, I’m saying not everyone thinks that “ Making it clear that you support people being openly LGBTQ+ is surely a virtue we want to signal”
A cabinet split has opened up on civil service rainbow lanyards as it emerges that guidance agreed across government will not actually ban officials from wearing them.
Esther McVey, who was appointed to attend Rishi Sunak’s cabinet as a minister without portfolio, said on Monday that staff would be disciplined for any messaging on lanyards to hold security passes, describing it as “political activism in a visible way”.
But official guidance due to be issued on Tuesday makes no mention of lanyards and the policy was not raised with other government ministers, The Times understands.
On Tuesday morning Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, distanced himself from McVey’s criticism of rainbow lanyards, telling Times Radio: “Personally, I don’t mind people expressing their views on these things. What lanyard somebody wears doesn’t particularly concern me.” He said he was “more interested in the jobs that the civil service do” than in what they wore.
It's all a bit odd. I went to a meeting down in Oz many years ago and wore the lanyard from that for decades at work - nobody even noticed, it was the security pass on the end that mattered (and I could keep that in my shirt pocket when outside work so it wasn't obvious where I worked from either pass or lanyard). A generic rainbow lanyard is positively useful in that respect, unless one works somwhere which is so high security that colour coding is important - in which case it's irrelevant to ban rainbow lanyards.
What if people some people start wearing star of David lanyards, and others wearing Palestinian flag lanyards?
Or, God forbid, TERF lanyards?
Couldn't that make things a bit tetchy at work?
Come on, you can invent trickier scenarios than that:
What about if I wear a lanyard with mini-swastikas printed all down it? Or what about if I wear a tie with naked glamour mag models on them?
Can't we just apply a bit of common sense? Remind me again, who are the rainbow lanyards offending?
What's the reason for wearing a rainbow lanyard?
It's at least pointless virtue signalling
I don't have a Rainbow Lanyard (mine is from Diabetes UK) but do have a rainbow flag badge for it, which I wear alongside a number of others. It was officially issued by my Trust as part of a campaign to encourage inclusion of marginalised groups in mainstream health care.
I wouldn't wear political badges (such as the LD bird) but the rainbow flag is not political.
I'm not sure - I feel like the rainbow is a bit like the poppy, it's non-political for those that wear it because they think their position is completely uncontroversial and opposed only by extremists. But both are, like a lot of little things a political statement.
I tend to agree. If I came across someone wearing one I would note it but almost certainly not comment and I would be just a little more wary about certain topics. Is that ideal in a professional you are dealing with? I would say not but I wouldn't be upset about it, just cautious.
I can't imagine noticing let alone caring what someone's lanyard might or might not be signalling.
To me it would be signalling they work for a corporate which has a desire to be seen as woke.
And so the definition of woke continues to spread and metastasise, so that any corporate even acknowledging the diversity of its own employee base gets the dreaded moniker. Until the word loses all meaning. Like the way Americans bandy about "socialist" and "fascist".
But even if it is “virtue signalling” to wear a rainbow lanyard - why is that a problem? The virtue they are signalling is that they support LGBTQ+ people - a minority group that has typically been oppressed legally and socially. Making it clear that you support people being openly LGBTQ+ is surely a virtue we want to signal, no?
If ‘we’ is ‘people who wear the lanyards’ then obviously. Not sure society as a whole think of it as a virtue that needs to be signalled
Well then we surely need to signal it more, because it should be considered the norm to be fine with openly LGBTQ+ people, no?
Not really, no. I think it tends to get on a lot of people’s nerves, who otherwise don’t give it much thought
Well, lucky them. As a man who has had “faggot” shouted at me for holding a partner’s hand, - I do give it a lot of thought and tend to feel a somewhat increased sense of relaxation and safety in intimidating spaces (like a hospital or government office) when someone has a small rainbow pin or lanyard. And I tend to care about the increased normalisation of LGBTQ+ people in public life and spaces.
Returning to our discussion from yesterday, is Michael Portillo an LGBTQ+ person or a cis het person? Was he one and now the other?
Why are you asking 148grss, surely you would need to ask Michael Portillo.
For example, I consider myself cis het male and I tick those boxes. But I have been romantically attracted to three men in my life and had sex with one of them. Sexual orientation is probably a spectrum rather then discontinuous buckets. I'm sure that you've been attracted to someone who's "not your type", it doesn't necessarily change your label.
I'm asking 148grss because he is the one who is defining a category of "LGBTQ+ people" as opposed to cis het people.
I mean historically it’s cisheteronormative society that has defined the category of LGBTQ+ people as “opposed” to cishet people. We can still see this in the way some people - like far right politicians and the Catholic church - try to characterise LGBTQ+ people as anti-family and so on. It doesn’t mean every cishet person is against LGBTQ+ people, it just means that the category of cishet has historically in society been considered “normal” and LGBTQ+ as “deviant” - and therefore a target of oppression from authority.
You're not being clear about whether you think there is such a thing as an "LGBTQ+ person" or just a person who might or might not engage in LGBTQ+ activities at some point in their life.
I think these terms and their meanings are social constructs - labels we give to people and behaviours. There are periods in time where same sex sexual acts were more permissible, for example, but those people wouldn’t have considered themselves gay. Something being a social construct doesn’t in any way mean people don’t have attraction to different people based on their gender or gender presentation - but the history or culture of a time and person will effect how people identify.
So in an ideal world there would be no LGBTQ+ people because people would be free to express themselves without gender or sexual norms?
That would be the position of gender / sexuality abolitionists - yeah. I would tend towards that position.
More memory lapses. ..Emails dating back to 2015 are continuing to be shown to the inquiry We've heard Davies insist a number of times that he "doesn't recall" when responding to questions put to him by Blake. Blake has asked him the following questions: Did you remember reading the Deloitte review? Did you speak with Chief Information Officer Lesle Sewell about the Deloitte report? Did you have a conversation with her about the report? "I can't recall" is the only response Blake is able to get out of Davies on those matters...
The selective non-recall by the majority of PO witnesses, which applies especially to embarrassing questions, suggest a (hitherto unknown to medical science) disease of infective amnesia.
At the same time their recall seems categorically perfect in other respects.
..Blake then displays an email from Paula Vennells, in which she wrote that she wanted a reason to explain why remote access "is not possible". Couldn't it be that Vennells was trying to find an answer that fit in with the narrative that remote access was impossible? Blake asks. "That is categorically not true," Davies fires back, sparking murmurs in the room...
A cabinet split has opened up on civil service rainbow lanyards as it emerges that guidance agreed across government will not actually ban officials from wearing them.
Esther McVey, who was appointed to attend Rishi Sunak’s cabinet as a minister without portfolio, said on Monday that staff would be disciplined for any messaging on lanyards to hold security passes, describing it as “political activism in a visible way”.
But official guidance due to be issued on Tuesday makes no mention of lanyards and the policy was not raised with other government ministers, The Times understands.
On Tuesday morning Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, distanced himself from McVey’s criticism of rainbow lanyards, telling Times Radio: “Personally, I don’t mind people expressing their views on these things. What lanyard somebody wears doesn’t particularly concern me.” He said he was “more interested in the jobs that the civil service do” than in what they wore.
It's all a bit odd. I went to a meeting down in Oz many years ago and wore the lanyard from that for decades at work - nobody even noticed, it was the security pass on the end that mattered (and I could keep that in my shirt pocket when outside work so it wasn't obvious where I worked from either pass or lanyard). A generic rainbow lanyard is positively useful in that respect, unless one works somwhere which is so high security that colour coding is important - in which case it's irrelevant to ban rainbow lanyards.
What if people some people start wearing star of David lanyards, and others wearing Palestinian flag lanyards?
Or, God forbid, TERF lanyards?
Couldn't that make things a bit tetchy at work?
Come on, you can invent trickier scenarios than that:
What about if I wear a lanyard with mini-swastikas printed all down it? Or what about if I wear a tie with naked glamour mag models on them?
Can't we just apply a bit of common sense? Remind me again, who are the rainbow lanyards offending?
What's the reason for wearing a rainbow lanyard?
It's at least pointless virtue signalling
I don't have a Rainbow Lanyard (mine is from Diabetes UK) but do have a rainbow flag badge for it, which I wear alongside a number of others. It was officially issued by my Trust as part of a campaign to encourage inclusion of marginalised groups in mainstream health care.
I wouldn't wear political badges (such as the LD bird) but the rainbow flag is not political.
I'm not sure - I feel like the rainbow is a bit like the poppy, it's non-political for those that wear it because they think their position is completely uncontroversial and opposed only by extremists. But both are, like a lot of little things a political statement.
I tend to agree. If I came across someone wearing one I would note it but almost certainly not comment and I would be just a little more wary about certain topics. Is that ideal in a professional you are dealing with? I would say not but I wouldn't be upset about it, just cautious.
I can't imagine noticing let alone caring what someone's lanyard might or might not be signalling.
To me it would be signalling they work for a corporate which has a desire to be seen as woke.
And so the definition of woke continues to spread and metastasise, so that any corporate even acknowledging the diversity of its own employee base gets the dreaded moniker. Until the word loses all meaning. Like the way Americans bandy about "socialist" and "fascist".
But even if it is “virtue signalling” to wear a rainbow lanyard - why is that a problem? The virtue they are signalling is that they support LGBTQ+ people - a minority group that has typically been oppressed legally and socially. Making it clear that you support people being openly LGBTQ+ is surely a virtue we want to signal, no?
If ‘we’ is ‘people who wear the lanyards’ then obviously. Not sure society as a whole think of it as a virtue that needs to be signalled
Well then we surely need to signal it more, because it should be considered the norm to be fine with openly LGBTQ+ people, no?
Not really, no. I think it tends to get on a lot of people’s nerves, who otherwise don’t give it much thought
Well, lucky them. As a man who has had “faggot” shouted at me for holding a partner’s hand, - I do give it a lot of thought and tend to feel a somewhat increased sense of relaxation and safety in intimidating spaces (like a hospital or government office) when someone has a small rainbow pin or lanyard. And I tend to care about the increased normalisation of LGBTQ+ people in public life and spaces.
Returning to our discussion from yesterday, is Michael Portillo an LGBTQ+ person or a cis het person? Was he one and now the other?
Why are you asking 148grss, surely you would need to ask Michael Portillo.
For example, I consider myself cis het male and I tick those boxes. But I have been romantically attracted to three men in my life and had sex with one of them. Sexual orientation is probably a spectrum rather then discontinuous buckets. I'm sure that you've been attracted to someone who's "not your type", it doesn't necessarily change your label.
I'm asking 148grss because he is the one who is defining a category of "LGBTQ+ people" as opposed to cis het people.
I mean historically it’s cisheteronormative society that has defined the category of LGBTQ+ people as “opposed” to cishet people. We can still see this in the way some people - like far right politicians and the Catholic church - try to characterise LGBTQ+ people as anti-family and so on. It doesn’t mean every cishet person is against LGBTQ+ people, it just means that the category of cishet has historically in society been considered “normal” and LGBTQ+ as “deviant” - and therefore a target of oppression from authority.
You're not being clear about whether you think there is such a thing as an "LGBTQ+ person" or just a person who might or might not engage in LGBTQ+ activities at some point in their life.
I think these terms and their meanings are social constructs - labels we give to people and behaviours. There are periods in time where same sex sexual acts were more permissible, for example, but those people wouldn’t have considered themselves gay. Something being a social construct doesn’t in any way mean people don’t have attraction to different people based on their gender or gender presentation - but the history or culture of a time and person will effect how people identify.
So in an ideal world there would be no LGBTQ+ people because people would be free to express themselves without gender or sexual norms?
That would be the position of gender / sexuality abolitionists - yeah. I would tend towards that position.
Then why do you use divisive rhetoric pitting "LGBTQ+ people" against "cis het people"?
Does this apply to any other demographic, Landon? Do I get to be black if I like Motown and fancy myself in cornrows? What if I claim the authentic me has always been black and that you're being racist to me? Would that be OK, or would you find it ludicrous and deeply offensive?
Stonewall are back in front of an Employment Tribunal today for trying to get a black lesbian barrister fired.
To be fair, constant derailing without ever participating in the flow of conversation doesn't really seem much like debate to me.
Which is exactly Rowling’s complaint, that those of differing viewpoints to her own don’t want to actually debate with her, they want her to shut up and go away.
JKR doesn't debate anyone when anyone tries to engage with her tweets so for her to complain that people don't want to debate her seems dishonest.
See this thread:
You’ve asked me several questions on this thread and accused me of avoiding answering, so here goes….
Which is not a 'debate'; it's a position platform.
" I do not, however, believe that surgeries and cross-sex hormones literally turn a person into the opposite sex, nor do I believe in the idea that each of us has a nebulous ‘gender identity’ that may or might not match our sexed bodies. "
Which is where, having known a few trans people, I think she's *very* wrong.
You are as entitled to your belief as Rowling is to hers.
The issue has been the TRA absolutist position and the consequences that would have for women’s rights, and sports, to take two examples.
There is no conflict between the rights of women and the ability for trans people to live their life in peace. Transwomen have, for example, had access to single sex spaces all my life (and probably all of your life) using only self ID and it has not been a systemic issue. There may be the odd case of an issue here and there, as there is over any large enough number of human interactions, but there is no evidence of ciswomen being systemically harmed by the inclusion of transwomen in their spaces.
That's completely missing the point, whether deliberately or not.
It's not about trans-people living their life in peace and the rights of women. It's about (amongst other things but this one, I'd suggest, is prime), the ability of abusers to benefit from rights granted to trans-people so as to enable them to abuse.
Simply asserting something and closing your eyes and mind to the possibility of an alternative is no way to set policy. Reality will intrude. See the Post Office for details.
So let's talk about how to reduce abusive behaviour and abuse perpetrated by cismen (the group most likely to commit abuse against ciswomen). Lots of otherwise benign things can be abused by abusers (take single fathers taking their young daughter into the men's loos when she is young - something my dad had to do with my sister after my mum died until she was like 6ish and felt able to go into the women's loos alone). If we want single sex loos should all single parents be banned from taking their kids not of the same gender into a public toilet when they're young because it could, instead, be a predator pretending to be a single parent? No, that's ridiculous. Instead someone would typically rely on the behaviour of the child in that situation - do they look comfortable with the person, are they reacting normally, etc. etc. - and challenge it if it seemed atypical. In a situation where transwomen are sharing spaces with ciswomen if someone turns up and seems to be acting in the manner of an abuser or is a concern - you deal with that as an individual issue. You don't need to take a blanket position of no transwomen in those spaces.
Some spaces are so sensitive - women's refuges, for example - that you *do* need to make it clear that it is single-sex, absolutely, irrespective of a person's preferred gender identity. But in general, treating people as individuals is the sensible thing.
That said, I still don't think you're taking the risks seriously.
Do you have any credible evidence that allowing transwomen into single sex spaces allows abusers free rein to do more abuse? Especially considering that self ID has been the norm in the UK basically forever and is the norm in many other countries - we should have a wealth of data on the issue?
And I don’t think you take the othering of transpeople and the current moral panic surround them seriously. But if you don’t think I’m a sincere actor, what’s the point in discussing further?
When you say that "self ID has been the norm in the UK basically forever" do you think that traditionally, someone who didn't 'pass' would have had no problem walking into a female changing room?
I don’t know - I think it probably depending on how they didn’t “pass”. But I think policing “passing” is bad because - as I’ve discussed here before - there are many more ciswomen who don’t “pass” (despite being cis) then transwomen (in numbers, if not percentage wise). Butch cislesbians, ciswomen with short hair cuts, ciswomen who aren’t traditionally attractive; all of these ciswomen are at the risk of not “passing” if policing increases (and we have seen examples of this). Hell - one of my great aunts (post menopausal) had a small beard she never bothered to shave - in the current environment would she “pass”?
In the past I assume most people would just leave people be as long as they weren’t causing a problem; it’s only now that there is this moral panic that people are policing the issue.
IOW, 'trans people are fine, if they're invisible'.
I mean - that’s not what I was trying to say. I think the desire to make sure trans people do “pass” is a demand for them to be invisible. Which is another reason why policing “passing” is bad. I think for most people it’s easy to imagine a masculine ciswoman who maybe wouldn’t “pass” and a feminine transwoman who would. We should be able to accept a world where both those people are clearly women.
You are not really a sincere actor in this debate. Your constant use of strawmen/strawpeople and misrepresenting of evidence makes that clear. The issue is not that allowing transwomen into all single sex spaces makes abuse more likely. A lot of the issue is that some of these spaces contain a number of traumatised women for whom the presence of male physiognomy is potentially triggering. That's not transwomen's fault but it is a fact. Your response to this is to shout "transphobia" and to tell women to stop being silly. Which is why you are not a serious person.
That is literally the argument people here are making - that allowing transwomen in single sex spaces mean cismen will pretend to be trans to abuse ciswomen - and that’s a reason to have single sex spaces.
Your position is that “male physiognomy is potentially triggering” - which I would accept as broadly true. How do we help tackle that? Is banning transwomen from women’s shelters a good response to that? Again - some transwomen “pass” and some ciswomen don’t - what should we do in a situation where a ciswoman in a shelter is triggered by the presence of another ciswoman she believes is a transwoman due to “male physiognomy”? Is policing “passing” the best way to tackle this problem, or is getting rid of gendered expectations of what women “should” look like and giving women, cis and trans, the support they need when in shelters to feel safe a better use of resources?
I want an apology for the statement in your first paragraph. That is not what I said. And you know it. You always do this. That is why you are a deeply unserious person.
"Is banning transwomen from women’s shelters a good response to that? ". Yes. It is the simplest and most humane response. The overwhelming majority of users of such facilities are females. I totally accept it is harsh on transwomen but the need of females is greater in this case. It is one of a small number of exception that need to be maintained.
I'll be blunt about this. If someone is raped with a penis then they may feel uncomfortable being around people with penises. No amount of "getting rid of gendered expectations" will change that. It won't change until rape is completely eradicated - which I hope happens soon but not with any great expectation. And when it happens we won't need, or at least will have a lessened need, for women's shelters anyway.
And yes, I know sexual assault does not require a penis, but the potential harm that penetration by a penis can cause is greater than through penetration from any other part of the body.
I owe you no such apology - you are not the only person engaging with these posts and I did not say you were making that argument; I literally said “people on this thread are making that argument” i.e not you, who I am responding to.
How does a ciswoman raped by a person with a penis know if another woman in their shelter has a penis? They won’t. So they are only reacting to gendered expectations - not to the phantom penis.
Comments
And the form to report the hate crimes the purchaser would commit against themselves while wearing it.
I don’t know how many weight classes there should be - it’s an entirely arbitrary system. I’m not a specialist in sporting categorisation. I just don’t think that gender is the biggest factor in performance differential in most sports.
When was the last time we had a government so full of impotent wazzocks? Unable to comprehend how the law works, unwilling to obey the law, unknowing of practicalities.
The govt trying to reverse the spread of gender-neutral toilets will make things even worse, of course.
biggest mughighest bidder.Your position is that “male physiognomy is potentially triggering” - which I would accept as broadly true. How do we help tackle that? Is banning transwomen from women’s shelters a good response to that? Again - some transwomen “pass” and some ciswomen don’t - what should we do in a situation where a ciswoman in a shelter is triggered by the presence of another ciswoman she believes is a transwoman due to “male physiognomy”? Is policing “passing” the best way to tackle this problem, or is getting rid of gendered expectations of what women “should” look like and giving women, cis and trans, the support they need when in shelters to feel safe a better use of resources?
She's trying to create a wedge issue around 15-Minute Cities like Mark Harper has been doing, by pretending (on regional TV) that the idea is that you get charged for going more than 15 minutes from your home by car, is about social control, and then repeatedly doubling down when challenged, and that that is the policy of her local (Green / Lib Dem controlled) Lewes Council in its Local Plan (it wasn't).
Here, from 16:50 on here:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001z2p6/politics-south-east-05052024
Unfortunate that she did just before Penny Mordaunt released Government commissioned advice about how politicians need to avoid conspiracy theories that documents exactly that as being one of them - often linked with guff about WEF, world-control by Jews and so on.
Ooops.
https://antisemitism.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Conspiracy-Theory-Guide.pdf
LOL
That's a logical error.
China presents a hard problem precisely because it is an authoritarian government which has been quite economically smart.
We need to learn what we can their economic successes, despite that.
Had some cracking conversations with them about work and other things.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/may/13/uk-minister-maria-caulfield-faces-calls-to-refer-herself-to-ethics-adviser-over-false-15-minute-city-claims
I think we are at the point were embedded photos are no longer permitted.
https://www.vox.com/2016/5/18/11690234/women-bathrooms-harassment
https://www.refinery29.com/en-gb/bathroom-transphobia-butch-women
https://www.advocate.com/news/2022/11/01/cis-woman-mistaken-transgender-records-being-berated-bathroom
https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/when-republicans-target-trans-girls-cisgender-girls-suffer-too-n1264951
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/14/canada-man-anti-trans-lgbtq-hate-school-sports-ban
When you cast the net widely - you pick up other targets as well. Ciswomen and cisgirls are policed when this becomes the norm too.
Come play my game, I'll test ya
Psychosomatic, addict, insane
Come play my game
Inhale, inhale, you're the victim
Come play my game
Exane, Exane, Exane
Which seat will see the first Labour gain declared on the night, and what will different margins of victory say about the likely final result?
There are literally hundreds of online forums where people can debate the ins and outs of what it means to be a woman, it's gotten to the point where PB is unusable because EVERY thread is a trans thread. Just like EVERY thread was an AI thread before Leon got told to put a sock in it.
I think JosiasJessop has it best in a comment downthread I can't applaud enough - "As someone who has seen trans people bullied and/or belittled, both in public and work, I am understandably concerned that trans people are treated with dignity and respect. I also want women treated with dignity and respect. And men. And children. *Everyone* deserves dignity and respect."
Perhaps everyone could agree on that, and move on to other matters?
For example, I consider myself cis het male and I tick those boxes. But I have been romantically attracted to three men in my life and had sex with one of them. Sexual orientation is probably a spectrum rather then discontinuous buckets. I'm sure that you've been attracted to someone who's "not your type", it doesn't necessarily change your label.
Also interesting:
Biden’s EV tariffs
Kwarteng’s interview on “Leading”
Today’s very poor productivity numbers.
What we should read into Sunak’s speech if anything.
Caulfield’s conspiracy-mongering.
They'll have just about held Basildon, Broxbourne by this point and the studios will be 'pointing to a 97 type result'
Now I need to find notional results for the new boundaries.
BNP Paribas = From the land of Nazi collaborators
They aren't entirely different.
But you enjoyed conversations with bankers ?
Even in biology: amazingly, 1 in 500-1000 babies are born with six fingers on one hand. A friend of mine apparently has three nipples. 1-2% of people are intersex (depending on how that is defined). etc, etc.
In the last few decades, these differences - the spectrum - have become more accepted. My female redheaded German friend with three nipples will not be burnt at a stake (well, regarded, at least) as a witch. Gay people are ignored as unremarkable - IMV the best result.
I see little in this discussion that trans people (*) are not just another part of a mental/physical spectrum. They've always existed, and always will.
(*) 'Trans' itself is a spectrum term, from transvestite to transsexual.
THE DRAKE
BRACE
New York Daily News (via Seattle Times) - Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s charity foundation declared delinquent
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s Archewell Foundation has been forced to suspend operations at least temporarily after failing to file timely tax returns and other documents and being declared “delinquent” by California authorities.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, who founded the charity after stepping back from their royal duties in Britain in 2020, has been “listed as delinquent with the Registry of Charities and Fundraisers for failing to submit required annual report(s) and/or renewal fees,” People [Magazine] reported, citing the office of California Attorney General Rob Bonta. . . .
As of May 1, the foundation’s fundraising ability had been curtailed. . . .
Required documents and a check were in fact submitted but got lost in the mail, a source claimed to People. Foundation officials did not learn about the issue until the delinquency notice arrived. A new check has been mailed and the issue will be resolved within a week, the foundation stated.
The foundation has been posting updates from Harry and Meghan’s trip to Nigeria that is still underway.
Their work has been praised, including in New York City, where in December 2022 they received the Ripple of Hope Award for their racial justice work from Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, a nonprofit.
SSI - Sounds like a paperwork problem to me, but reckon that anti-Meganites will have a more critical critique.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/crgyyedx4lzt
Though the polls showed Labour would win the Tories were so wily and we'd been let down so many times no one dared believe it. The Tories had hammered gays with section 28 supported apartheid to the shame of all of us ......had bludgeoned the poor with the poll tax........... but still we didn't believe it would happen.......
Now feels the same. They're battering trans kicking out at immigrants beating up on anyone less fortunate than themselves and anyone who might pass as 'other'.
In short they're as ghastly as they were in '97. In fact they're worse! I heard Jenrick earlier and wanted to open the window and vomit.........
I think Eagle and JohnO have got it wrong. My guess is sub 90.
"Is banning transwomen from women’s shelters a good response to that? ". Yes. It is the simplest and most humane response. The overwhelming majority of users of such facilities are females. I totally accept it is harsh on transwomen but the need of females is greater in this case. It is one of a small number of exception that need to be maintained.
I'll be blunt about this. If someone is raped with a penis then they may feel uncomfortable being around people with penises. No amount of "getting rid of gendered expectations" will change that. It won't change until rape is completely eradicated - which I hope happens soon but not with any great expectation. And when it happens we won't need, or at least will have a lessened need, for women's shelters anyway.
And yes, I know sexual assault does not require a penis, but the potential harm that penetration by a penis can cause is greater than through penetration from any other part of the body.
Most biologists define sex by gametes. See this piece by Professor Richard Dawkins.
Sex is a true binary. It all started with the evolution of anisogamy – sexual reproduction where the gametes are of two discontinuous sizes: macrogametes or eggs, and microgametes or sperm. The difference is huge. You could pack 15,000 sperm into one human egg. When two individuals jointly invest in a baby, and one invests 15,000 times as much as the other, you might say that she (see how pronouns creep in unannounced) has made a greater commitment to the partnership.
https://www.newstatesman.com/ideas/2023/07/biological-sex-binary-debate-richard-dawkins
I think that's a good pick. Workington declared at about 01:30 last time.
NEW THREAD
..Emails dating back to 2015 are continuing to be shown to the inquiry
We've heard Davies insist a number of times that he "doesn't recall" when responding to questions put to him by Blake.
Blake has asked him the following questions: Did you remember reading the Deloitte review? Did you speak with Chief Information Officer Lesle Sewell about the Deloitte report? Did you have a conversation with her about the report?
"I can't recall" is the only response Blake is able to get out of Davies on those matters...
The selective non-recall by the majority of PO witnesses, which applies especially to embarrassing questions, suggest a (hitherto unknown to medical science) disease of infective amnesia.
At the same time their recall seems categorically perfect in other respects.
..Blake then displays an email from Paula Vennells, in which she wrote that she wanted a reason to explain why remote access "is not possible".
Couldn't it be that Vennells was trying to find an answer that fit in with the narrative that remote access was impossible? Blake asks.
"That is categorically not true," Davies fires back, sparking murmurs in the room...
How does a ciswoman raped by a person with a penis know if another woman in their shelter has a penis? They won’t. So they are only reacting to gendered expectations - not to the phantom penis.