Lesbian's and the Trans debate

categorisation is not reduction. and you seem hung up on legal definitions, sure 'adulthood' as a state of biological maturity is recognised at different points in different systems, that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

I am female and a lesbian, these are not the only things I am, but in the cases where they are relevant those categories are important. saying I am these things doesn't limit me.

My feminist reading is simpler: sex is material and real, it describes a couple of important things: what role one might potentially play in reproducing, some aspects of physical strength that are relevant for e.g. sport. On top of that basis is build thousands of years of patriarchal culture that teaches us that sex is meaningful in other ways: that women are nurturing and men are decisive, that women are submissive and men assertive. this is gender, we taught that it's natural and springs from sex - and a lot of current transgender thinking is about explicitly making this 'natural' again, making it the determinant of sex/gender as a (purposely) confused idea. but it's not nature it's culture. the purpose of feminist is to strip away gender to liberate women.

As a lesbian woman the boundaries that can be established on material real categories are important: my protection as both a homosexual and a woman rely on them and my ability to meet, assemble and organise for pleasure or politics with other women / lesbians requires being able to hold those boundaries, base on the material not on some post-modern individual truth.

Here's a less scientific, more feminist take

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Comedy gold.

It looks like you are appropriating cancer and infant mortality to prove that men can be women. Can you confirm please?

Women are biological adult females

Biological adulthood isn't a concept with our species, it's not a specific point in all cultures.

Some cultures have the 13th birthday as the point of adulthood, some see it as the monarch, others sexual maturity, some marriage. In our own we're a bit fuzzy if it's the 18th or 21st birthday. So 'female' is a biological term but adulthood is a cultural term. And so is 'woman'.

Here's a less scientific, more feminist take:

"You're wrong, you're utterly wrong; you shame me with your wrongness. Of course there is more to us than biology, some gammets and a shot of hormones. Adult human female my arse, how dare you reduce my experience to that? How dare you say that my chromosomes are all I'm made of? Females might be born but women are made of every experience they ever have. Don't tell me that my gender is a force from without because no society would ever have shaped my gender; no patriarchy could have made this woman.

Tell the cancer patient that her biology is all, that those mutating cells are her essence, tell her she was born to die because physicality is her destiny. Tell the woman with one leg that she is only three quarters of a woman because that's how much flesh she is. Scream 'barren' in the face of the infertile woman because that's a biological fact. Don't tell me that menstruation shaped me more that's a lover's touch or a moment of insanity. Don't tell me that my female oppression defined me more than the light, beauty and love in my life. I lost a child, don't tell me that nature doesn't make mistakes."

Definition of female as biology and chromosomes is not reductive. It's liberating. Only when we realise we are still and ever a woman, however you present, whatever your sexuality, are we free of the stifling oppression of gender.

I perfectly understand that heterosexual men think sex isn't really sex unless it involves a penis. And heterosexual men make laws.

But the laws surrounding lesbianism and whether it can constitute adultery, doesn't change the definition of the word lesbian.

Unless we are basing sexual orientation on biological sex, sexual orientation because a meaningless, subjective definition at an individual level.

Something that equality law does not recognise, otherwise you will have no basis for homophobia.

In the same way that if you don't recognise biological sex, you can't identify sexism.

The whole point of changing definitions and blurring distinctions is to obscure sexism and homophobia.

the thing is it is black and white. Women are biological adult females. Men are biological adult males. Homosexuals are people with a sexual orientation towards their own sex. Lesbians are female homosexuals. The lesbian community has always had a fringe of bisexual women or heterosexual women tourists, but lesbian as a definition cannot ever include a biological male.

And as sexual orientation is a protected characteristic, these words do have meaning. Legally.

It's not as black and white as you're presenting it. The patricharcy disregards women's sexuality, that's why lesisbianism was never criminalised. Dictionary definitions described it as 'romantic or sexual attraction', they don't touch on the actual sex aspect because sex has a very narrow definition in law.

The common law definition of adultery requires a penis, so infidelity isn't grounds for a divorce and non consummation isn't grounds for an annulment.

I'll concede but lesbianism involves women but, as we've touch on before, I don't accept your definition of 'adult female'. Female is a biological term, relating to sex as a biological concept. I know myself to be more than some DNA and hormones. Your mileage may vary.

DjunaBarnes

I might mock the music but I'm genuinely grateful for the women who went before me. I can't tell you the gratitude I have toward the women who sat and listened to the bollox I was spouting at 16/17, gave consideration to it and opened my mind up to other ideas.

Those women taught me how to think, how to question and never to accept what the patriarchy handed to me. They had ideas about women's emancipation that were so outrageous to me, that I laughed at them. They accepted my laughter with good grace and educated me a bit more.

They taught me the value of vocalising my experience as a working class lesbian and the value of listening to the equally valid experience of others.

I totally accept that there are some young lesbians who are uncomfortable with aspect of the scene/movement/community, I think that they should be listened to and their experience honoured. I accept that the our scene/movement/community has changed radically. Personally, I've see radical changes before that haven't resulted in the total wiping out of lesbian identity. However, I haven't seen this total polarisation of views, with no one listening to anyone else and each side trying to out-scream the other, since the Sex Wars and they resulted in the death of second wave feminism.

I see that some women have genuine concerns about the changes we are facing and I've also seen unfettered bigotry. What I'm not seeing (on either side) is those with moderate views jumping on the bigotry at the extreme end of their own spectrum. That's a loss, it really stifles discussion.

This isn't the first time I've have a bunch of straight women tell me that I'm not the right kind of lesbian, I've also seen women told that they're not the right kind of working class women by middle classed women; not the right kind of black women by white women; not the right kind of disabled women by able bodied women. This is the first time that I've not seen anyone of their own group ask them to consider their position and moderate their language.

You know for me it’s not about anything but fucking men pushing us women around as usual.
We don’t “women” right we don’t “ lesbian” correctly.
They can all fuck off.

I’m not as sophisticated as you lot.

stillscreaming I have to say that as someone who in the 90s was very much on the queer end of lesbianism rather than the feminist end - it was precisely to get away from the folk music. Also I guess it's natural that young people think the thing that came before them is awful. I'm a little embarrassed about that now.

There's also the problem that if you don't have homosexuality as a sex based orientation, then neither is heterosexuality.

And as sexual orientation is a protected characteristic, these words do have meaning. Legally.

Exactly, Pratchet.

Really odd conversation, nobody here wants to police sexuality, it doesn't matter if you're bi or lesbian or het. But the words mean something. What's the point in being with men and saying you're lesbian? What's the point? It makes the words bisexual, heterosexual and homosexual completely meaningless. Homosexual people fought for decades to be acknowledged and shouldn't be erased in some rainbow of queer politics.

Florist why is it you're putting so much effort into shutting down this specific thread, minimising everything and basically shouting 'nothing to see here, move along'? I disagree that the purpose of the braggadocio is to shut down the thread. I expect that will be the result, but it is not necessarily the intent.

And the whole lesbian sex-wars thing etc, it was only ever an argument amongst ourselves (which was allowed) -- I'm sure that if push came to shove we'd have defended fellow dykes, even if we very strongly disapproved of their sexual antics or dress-sense, or whatever.

While we probably would have turned on anyone from the outside, I've got an ex who has a scar over her eye from being hit by a Women Against Violence Against Women placard, it did get physical. The ex wasn't even a proper leather dyke, she just liked the jacket.

The argument for S&M dykes not bring lesbians, which I'm stating, not giving any credence to, was that, as sexual oppressors of women, they were men and therefore not lesbians.

I've always suspected that lots of women didn't get into S&M from a genuine desire, just to escape the folk music and dogma.

Datun IIRC Magdalen Burns makes a great distinction between sexuality and sexual preference. To use myself as an example - I wouldn't date a transman because I'm straight and don't do vulvas. That's my sexuality. I wouldn't date a transwoman with a penis because I don't find men in dresses a turn on. That's my sexual preference. Nice distinction, I think.

Yes, it was a joke Haidees but one that I suspect most lesbians will get.

Also, "which type of lesbian"? I'm the chippy type who objects to being categorised like a bloody Buzzfeed quiz, if that helps.

In terms of the lesbian experience, I couldn't talk about because it's not my experience.

And I'm sure, there are all manner of different preferences within that sexual orientation.

And of course, sexual orientation isn't always necessarily reflected by who you actually sleep with. Given the prevalence of people who sleep with other people to whom they're not attracted.

But homosexuality is about same-sex attraction.

I don't have to be lesbian to understand the meaning of words and why the biological sex underpinning many of them is being blurred or erased.

If lesbians decide that attraction to a transmen means they're straight, I take issue with it.

Because a transman isn't a man.

That's kind of the whole point for me.

I can understand not being attracted to specific transmen, because they look too much like men, of course.

But they're not men. So, to me, it can't be on that basis.

That's not because I can understand the lesbian experience, it's because I understand that words have meaning.

Hey Datun, as in Sarah Datun? - I hear you're famous now as a national figure of hate. Bloomin terf's eh, expressing their democratic rights to free speech

*You're probably thinking of Sarah Ditum? Well known feminist. Datun has much more mundane meaning