Lesbian's and the Trans debate

Beyond, what is a lesbian?

@Haidees

Maybe you should properly read the thread as opposed to skim reading it and then my posts might make more sense.

But, the more I become immersed in this debate (not just this thread) the more I find my perspective being silenced, my experience contradicted and my opinion dismissed. As a group of women who feel that is exactly what they are experiencing it seems a bit odd to say the least.

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'?

Wonder why you don't want this discussed? And are so keen that everyone just stops talking about it?

I'm not trying to shut anything down or prevent anything from being discussed. Apologies, I had assumed, as it was a discussion and therefore more than one point of view was allowed.

And, that's an interesting way of phrasing that. You are wondering why I don't want something discussed and accusing me of trying to shut a thread down? You are actually pondering on my motivation when I am simply disagreeing and putting my point of view across?

What exactly are you suggesting my hidden agenda is? Because you don't ask a question in that way unless you are suggesting I have one. Or maybe you think I shouldn't have a stake in this discussion?

If you've got a question for me, ask me. But don't expect me to rewrite my history and my experience to help other people make a point.

Behold I remember there being a lot of argument about how to be a lesbian - did we need to be separatist, was butch and femme heteronormative or was it classist to think so, how did the S&M lesbians fit, was political lesbianism acceptable. Lots of disagreement on how. No disagreement on what a lesbian is: a woman attracted to / in sexual relationships with other women. No transexual claimed to be actually female, let alone lesbian, transvestites left us alone. We knew damn well that men we're not and never could be lesbians regardless of how they imagined themselves - and got on with fighting about how we should be lesbians.

that stonewall and other alleged LGBT bodies now can't answer this question speaks that their priorities are invested in the sexual rights of men not the rights of lesbian women.

If a lesbian doesn't mean being a female having a sexual orientation to females, what does it mean

A lesbian friend said that she mourns the 'erasure' of lesbians because there is so much pressure to become transgender.

The other side of that is an AGP acquaintance frequently complains that lesbians don't want to have sex with her. Gee, I wonder why that is?

OP I am very grateful I came out as a lesbian at a time long before all this crap started. The lovely women's only cafe where I spent a lot of time as a young, gay teenager, feeling welcomed and safe to go in alone to have a coffee and read a book for an hour without being harassed or stared at, and where I was able to find out information to lesbian only meetings and events, has long since been commandeered by TIMs. The battle for it was ugly. Few women now use it. My equally lovely LGBT group and drop in room of 10 years ago is now a TIM centred and dominated space.

I find it beyond sad that lesbian groups and meetings are having to be held secretly and out of sight to avoid TIMs taking them over.

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'?

Wonder why you don't want this discussed? And are so keen that everyone just stops talking about it?

#notshuttingup

@Djuna Barnes

I grew up in the 80s when thatcher spoke on TV about how kids didn't have the right to be gay and legislation treated us all as predators, but I think it was an easier time to be a lesbian teenager than now. There were places we could go, gay and lesbian bars and bookshops we're a genuine refuge and people might not have liked us but at least other lesbians and gays had our backs.

I would love to know where you grew up. As a spotty little teenage lesbian myself in the early 80s and then a grown up one by the time the 90s (and all it's terrible music) came round, I had a shocker.

I mean, even if I put aside the school bullying, the workplace bullying, the othering and the very real (and once realised) threat of the sack if your boss found out, the scene itself wasn't a utopia of togetherness.

Who can forget the great Lesbian Strength March and the resulting riot of 1988?

The men called us 'fish' despite the fact most of us raised money and volunteered for the THT. The lesbian scene was split into several factions. Yeah, there were bookshops and bars but a lot of them still had boards over the windows for safety.

And no, straight people didn't like us but we didn't have any legislation to protect us, anyone on television who looked like us, anyone who would stand up for us and no one in the public eye who would admit to being one of us.

So no, we didn't have it better back then.

@Datum

Try asking Stonewall what the definition of lesbian is. They will refuse to say a woman who same-sex attracted.

One thing LGBT people love to do is have an argument. You should have seen some of the 80s lesbian faction rows.

I used to be a professional gay. One thing I can absolutely tell you from my experiences is that it is impossible to please everyone, extremely difficult to please a majority and the very best you can hope for is that you don't miff too many people and still provide some kind of useful service to at least some of your constituents.

So, as a lesbian, I don't really need to ask Stonewall what their definition of one is. They aren't the sex police, their definition is very broad and will include lots of people I don't want to sleep with. If we all agree that Stonewall should say same-sex and reduce it down to biology then are we including all the big, hairy transmen in that?

(They come under the heading of people I do not want to sleep with, together with anyone I'm related to, people from Luton and the ex who did the bad thing).

Stonewall are great, the do loads of anti bullying stuff, campaigning and give out chocolate at Pride but they're not the Sex Police. And they, like any other third sector organisation will only get it right about half the time.

Lang cunty wasn't meant as an insult exactly, more a term of mild irritation, I'm having a shit day and I apologise for taking it out on you.

Don't worry about it. Disagreement is fine. Keyboards lead to rudeness, we all know that and none better than me. Like I say, I failed female socialisation and am regularly blunt to the point of rudeness as I probably was to you. All's good. Let's carry on arguing!

DJ there's no online substitute for a real-life group of people. I'm not friends with very many TRAs. Twitter / Reddit / any other echo chamber is going to be deeply lesbophobic, also deeply misogynist and pretty all-round hateful. I don't think anybody will get a true characterisation of the competing forces of trans and feminist thought on lesbians other than by asking lesbians - and this lesbian's thoughts are that there's much to be cautious about, for all the reasons given by Djuna, but that the fear of lesbianism itself being transphobic is not one that I've seen in meatspace, only online, and only from those who are not actually trans themselves.

Lang cunty wasn't meant as an insult exactly, more a term of mild irritation, I'm having a shit day and I apologise for taking it out on you. Today's world isn't a lesbian-friendly environment but I'm not sure there's ever been such a thing.

I grew up in the 80s when thatcher spoke on TV about how kids didn't have the right to be gay and legislation treated us all as predators, but I think it was an easier time to be a lesbian teenager than now.

Me too. And, despite being het myself, spent a lot of time on the gay and lesbian scene. From what I observe, it was much better socially for lesbians then, despite Clause 28. We've moved forward on legal frameworks but backwards socially.

thanks for the kind words

lang I grew up in the 80s when thatcher spoke on TV about how kids didn't have the right to be gay and legislation treated us all as predators, but I think it was an easier time to be a lesbian teenager than now. There were places we could go, gay and lesbian bars and bookshops we're a genuine refuge and people might not have liked us but at least other lesbians and gays had our backs.

And don't use 'cunty' as an insult.

I don't mind being called cunty. I am cunty - in both respects. I failed female socialisation I'm afraid. So badly that the patriarchy didn't even bother asking me back for a resit.

I feel sorry for the tweens and teens just feeling their way through an early understanding of their same sex attraction and landing in lesbophobic spaces like Tumblr and DeviantArt. And for the baby lesbians off to university only to find they're told they're transphobic by queer heteros and the ladypeens.

I just cannot see how today's environment is lesbian friendly at all.

Exactly. Everything Djuna says. Thank you Djuna.

Djuna: I agree. When people say 'what about intersex' and you say 'intersex people have a sex, they're male or female' people are dumbfounded. They don't know.

"IT HAPPENS AND IF YOU DON'T BELIEVE ME GO ON TWITTER"

Or reddit

I understand that reddit is a thing

I wish people would start using the modern term Disorders of Sexual Development because it moves intersex away from a deep-rooted cultural idea of a hermaphrodite - something that has never existed. People with DSD have a sex, they are either male or female, but the expression of that sex is disordered which until genetic testing meant that people had to guess a bit. (well they didn't have to but the level of sex segregation of personality and behaviour is so high that the idea of leaving someone ambiguous horrifies people).