Thread by @TwisterFilm

1./ Someone asked me today if I was marking #IDAHOBIT2021. Seriously!? Here's why this daft sounding day against homophobia, transphobia and who knows what else phobia is a useless backslapping exercise and a perfect example of the trap the LGBTQ+ movement has locked itself in.

2./ Remember when gay people used to be quite good at this marketing game? Now we're associated with an international day that has the general public sniggering and guffawing since it conjures up nothing more than a certain movie filmed in New Zealand.👇

3./ Ironically, like the title of that trailer IDAHOBIT has gone on an Unexpected Journey of its own. Dreamed up by Lesbian & Gay groups in 2004, May 17th was chosen because that was the day in 1990 when @WHO dropped HOMOSEXUALITY from its list of diseases. Remember the H word?

4./ If it had stayed like that I'd be lighting candles all over. But in 2009 (stop me if this sounds familiar) transphobia was added. In those days trans meant transsexuals, a tiny minority, but of course, it wasn't long before that became an ever-expanding trans umbrella.👇

5./ Now, transphobia covers discrimination against a smorgasbord of niche identities, never forgetting the VERY oppressed asexuals; who have invented their own umbrella within an umbrella for lots of versions of "grey asexuals"; discussed here in what isn't a spoof. Apparently.👇

6./ You'll look in vain for references to the 1990 @WHO triumph in today's po-faced tributes to #IDAHOBIT2021 by the likes of @stonewalluk. New Zealand tho gets a starring role, not as a film location but as a refuge from UK transphobia for exactly one transwoman. Seriously.👇

7./ They fail to mention that while that transwoman's experience in the UK does seem awful it was only one reason cited for her being allowed to stay in New Zealand. She was mentally fragile, all her family now lived there and she was also the sole carer for her elderly mum.👇

8./ You can read the tribunal decision here. One complex case with little evidence hardly seems a reason to make the UK one of your top 5 reasons "we need an IDAHOBIT". Chelmsford really isn't like Chechyna. Suggesting it is, is counter-productive.👇👇
assets.documentcloud.org/documents/4106…

9./ No politician in a country where gay people are under attack will believe the UK is a hot bed of hate crime. But now they're being told that after 50 years of advance we are. How could they possibly take advocates of the same sort of change for them seriously?

10./ @stonewalluk is effectively saying even if Poland or Ghana adopted all the laws and the cultural values of the UK, one of the most open and tolerant societies on the planet, they'd still be getting it in the neck from activists declaring them bigots. Why would they bother?

11./ Did you spot the reference to "articles in the media by anti-trans hate groups"? Who CAN they mean? Our press doesn't carry articles by hate groups. They DO carry articles by @ForwomenScot, @fairplaywomen, and @ALLIANCELGB who have been accused, WRONGLY, of being anti-trans.

12./ So the instruction to homophobic regimes would appear to be, "you must also stop feminists or LGB charities being able to publish articles that defend women or LGB people, even in a free press." Confused? I bet they are. Welcome to the world of #IDAHOBIT.

13./ Wouldn't a more convincing, rational approach be to argue that, while far from perfect, we've shown in the UK how giving people their rights allows them to be productive, happy members of society? "You too could unlock the creativity of more of your citizens if you do that".

14./ Unfortunately this approach, the one that got us our rights in the first place, would be completely at odds with the gnarled loathing of our own liberal, democratic society that drives so many of today's woke organisations and the bullying activists who've captured them.

15./ Take religion. Just a decade ago gays quite rightly didn't insist churches MUST hold gay marriages. Now only 10 years later the confused campaign to ban so-called "conversion therapy" bleats about 'hate prayer' and demands the 'pernicious power of prayer be dealt with'. Uh?

16./ How can we ever hope to help lesbians and gays -and yes trans people too- in countries where pastors and imams have oversize influence if we now do here what they've always claimed we would and start dictating how they can pray in their places of worship? 👇

17./ There are many places from Jamaica to Morocco where religion is centre stage in a way we may not like but where slowly and surely we might assist their gay communities being better protected. Launching a culture war against religion here seems a funny way to do that.

18./ Nowhere in the world symbolises how pointless, self-serving and now counter-productive the entire charade of #IDAHOBIT2021 has become than the nation of Iran ...where a few weeks ago a lad called Alireza Monfared was, it seems, beheaded by family members for being gay.👇

19./ Alireza's story is all the more important because his homeland embodies the limitations of the new umbrella approach to gay rights of most LGBTQ+ organisations. Being gay carries a death sentence in Iran. It's a very different story for trans people. economist.com/middle-east-an…

20./ No one is saying trans peeps have it easy in Iran. Who does? Not women. But here's the thing: the homophobic mullahs long ago concluded transgender was fine by them. And there's now huge pressure on gay men to get "gender reassignment" surgery. dw.com/en/iran-how-tr…

21./ The sad truth is promotion of trans rights in Iran has come at the express cost of gay rights. It's in part to avoid being pressured into operations and castration that gays like Alireza and his boyfriend (who is in a refugee camp in Turkey) try so hard to escape from Iran.

22./ We won't be able to tackle homophobia across the world where lesbians and gays continue to be tortured and bullied if we follow the agenda promoted by IDAHOBIT which refuses to face a problem like Iran's clash of rights honestly.

23./ As for the LGBTQ+ lobby's newfound obsession with niche identities and all things non-binary, this may be great fun for Western kids but it makes it harder to win simple, crucially important rights for gays in countries that now dismiss us as part of a bizarro kaboodle.

24./ If people want to promote non-binary rights then cool (though I've yet to hear a convincing explanation of the term) but it's a confusing luxury for a gay movement that wants to help stop young gays being killed for that most binary of reasons: sleeping with their own sex.

25./ Every year more fuss is made about #IDAHOBIT. Celebs queue, corporations fly flags, suits intone banalities. It's a smoke screen to cover the retreat into narcissism of the gay movement. But their entitled virtue signalling comes at a cost. Rest in Peace Alireza Monfared.👇