The Change.org petition, which has been signed by a thousand people, calls for ‘T’ to be removed from ‘LGBT’. It claims to have been created by a group of gay, bisexual and lesbian women who want trans people to be “disassociated” with the term LGBT. The petition goes on to note the apparent “vilification and harassment of women and gay men/lesbian individuals who openly express disagreement with the trans ideology.”
It also notes comments made by feminist author Germaine Greer, who recently said trans women are “can’t be women”, and attacks the trans community and its allies for “re-writing gay and lesbian history,” after complaints that Roland Emmerich’s film ‘Stonewall’ erased gender non-conforming people of colour from its telling of the Stonewall riots.
The author writes: “Particularly frustrating was the fact that media outlets such as The Advocate, Out and Huff Post Gay Voices, who should have been the first to point out the fallacy of this notion, actually went along with the lie.”
They go on to claim that if laws like the recently defeated Houston ordinance to protect LGBT people were passed, cisgender men would pretend to be trans in order to infiltrate women’s bathrooms.
A counter-petition has been created, which has already been signed by almost 500 people. Titled ‘We stand with trans people – Reject ‘Drop the T”, the petition calls the original campaign “insulting, inaccurate and transphobic”.
The author of the new petition writes that “we want to make it clear that this narrow group of people do not speak for the LGBTQ+ community as a whole.”
It goes on: “Trans people do not infringe upon the rights of women, gay men and children. Neither do they seek to ‘re-assert and codify’ what ‘Drop the T’ refers to as ‘classic gender constructs’. Indeed, by seeking to deny trans people access to safe spaces, and by seeking to deny support for trans children, teenagers and others, ‘Drop the T’ is actually doing more to reinforce conventional constructs of masculinity and femininity. We urge you reject their petition and continue to work the rest of the LGBT+ umbrella to promote the well-being of all those within our community. ‘Drop the T’ does not speak in our name.”
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GO SIGN THE THING. The second thing, not the transphobic thing.
Also accidentally commented twice (though signed once) cause system was odd and didn’t show anything but meh.
The original petition is a disgrace. I’m not sure how much power it’d have but any power it’d have is too much. Lets upstage it.
fuck this bullshit. every single one of you needs to sign the counter-petition.
ACTION ALERT: Petition started to ‘keep the T’ in LGBT, following ‘drop the T’ backlash
ugh 