Thread by @simonjedge

Can we talk about the use of the phrase 'LGBT' or 'LGBT+' when we're talking about the historical persecution of gay men and/or lesbians?

The other day, the director-general of MI5 issued an apology for his organisation's historical treatment of 'the LGBT community'
mi5.gov.uk/news/mi5-issue…

The full statement explained that 'being gay was a barrier to employment at MI5 until the 1990s, despite homosexuality being decriminalised in 1967'. (I think in this case 'gay' means 'homosexual' – I may be wrong, but I believe lesbians were barred too.)

The people who *weren't* barred were asexuals, intersex people and heterosexuals who think they're too interesting to be straight, but that didn't stop the head of MI6 morphing the whole thing into an 'LGBT+' ban

https://twitter.com/ChiefMI6/status/1362733197449170953?s=20

Which was then meekly reported by the BBC's @FrankRGardner who, as a very senior journalist and a grown-up, really ought to know better
bbc.co.uk/news/uk-561323…

NB the headline in the previous tweet says 'LGBT' but Gardner's broadcast bulletins all said 'LGBT+', which was as nonsensical in this context as it was for the Green Party to talk about 'LGBTQIAA+ venues', which they were trying to do when I worked for them five years ago.

This is a minefield for people who aren't 'members of the LGBT+ community'. They no doubt feel they're damned if they do, damned if they don't when trying to talk about this stuff. I don't blame them at all. I blame our so-called community leaders who rubber-stamp this crap

Take Peter Tatchell, a man who boasts that he has been campaigning since 1967 for 'LGBT equality' – even though nobody used that abbreviation 54 years ago. Back in 1983 Peter was happy to call it plain old gay rights

The other day he was complaining about the Pope sitting down with a Shi'ite leader in Iraq who once "issued a death fatwa against LGBTs".

https://twitter.com/PeterTatchell/status/1368616193444155401?s=20

Actually it was a death fatwa against GAY MEN and LESBIANS. (For what it's worth, the one against gay men seems to have been quietly lifted, but not the one on lesbians.)
advocate.com/news/2006/05/1…

As Peter surely knows, the Shi'ite clergy have got nothing against being trans. In the Shi'ite fundamentalist republic of Iran, homosexuality is punished by death but trans identity is recognised by law and reassignment is subsidised by the state.
qz.com/889548/everyon…

Yes, for decades, the gay-butchering Islamic Republic of Iran was the most trans-friendly country in the world. Paradox, or entirely logical? You decide... But perhaps you can see why the LGBT establishment prefers to blur the boundaries between the LGB and the T.

And this weekend Ezzie Izzard has clambered aboard the same history-erasing bandwagon, claiming that he'd have been murdered in Nazi Germany because the Nazis hated LGBTs. Actually the Nazis rounded up GAY MEN.
history.com/news/pink-tria…

As a mark of how insane all of this is, try a thought experiment. Take the term BAME and insert it in some news stories. 'Idi Amin expelled the BAMEs from Uganda in the 1970s'? Nope, that's ridiculous. 'The slave trade transported BAME people from Africa to America'? Also no.

Try it with apartheid South Africa. Again, of course not – not least because racial segregation distinguished between different parts of the BAME umbrella ('bantus' and 'coloureds' treated differently), just as Iran distinguishes between different parts of the LGBTWTF+ umbrella.

This shouldn't be complicated or difficult, but it has been made near-impossible for outsiders to negotiate because well-remunerated 'LGBT' leaders – £100k+ to run Stonewall, followed by life membership of the British legislature – have a massive vested interest in the confusion

For them, the future is in the T, because it comes with shedloads of funding from companies with a stake in medicalising kids for life

https://twitter.com/Transgendertrd/status/1373004592850567170?s=20

But they owe their well-funded positions and status entirely to the successful struggle for lesbian and gay equality, which is why they can't be seen to jettison the LGB stuff completely.

This matters more than ever now that they're deliberately blurring the boundaries between LGB and T to insist on a ban on conversion therapy. The biggest conversion threat that lesbian and gay teenagers face comes from dangerous adults telling them they're in the wrong body

The vast majority of journalists and legislators haven't begun to understand the distinction, so it's up to LGB grown-ups – those of us who don't get a fat pay-cheque from the diversity industry – to call bullshit wherever we see it. Thanks for your attention.