In support of Amy Dyess

I'm sure this all happened. Oh yes.

Amy has been hugely xenophobic towards British women and quite frankly has no idea what she's talking about half of time.

Her grasp on UK politics and culture is pretty woeful - she doesn't seem to understand that it differs hugely from the US and nowhere in the UK is overrun with fundamentalist Christians funding everything. It's not really a big thing here.

From what I've seen on twitter over the last few years I would categorise Amy as someone with a number of vulnerabilities who is susceptible to love bombing. Her current love affair with TRA's won't necessarily last either.

Amy Dyess is in Pink News now claiming that gender critical feminism is a cult that she's escaped.

I've noticed a lot of intense propaganda calling GC feminism a cult, just over the last few days.

AllNaturalWoman I'm sorry if you're feeling bad.

I had to say something though as Amy's creating this out of nothing.

The reality is, this was a gender critical protest, not a lesbian-only-action. You can see on the GTLO flyers given out that day, and which were circulating online, it says "we are a group of lesbians AND ALLIES" (although, to be fair, most of them were lesbians).

Charlie was invited and held a banner saying "Gender ideology harms lesbians" with her 19 year old lesbian detrans friend, Thomasin in support of lesbians.

At no point did she speak for lesbians, or take a platform a lesbian may have done otherwise.

Amy has fabricated the narrative that Charlie was talking for lesbians and that she herself is a hero, standing up for lesbians with integrity, while being pretty nasty to a bunch of women in the process. But it's just bullshit. Only in Amy's head was it meant to be a lesbian-only protest.

She's creating drama over an issue that didn't even exist. She's said she's distancing herself from GC activism, so why is she commenting on it - other than for self serving reasons e.g. to get attention?

the majority of children with gender dysphoria will desist if they go through their normal puberty and that a large majority of them will turn out to be lesbian or gay (which suggests to me that some kind of genetic and/or early socialisation effect is involved)

Many girls reject the female sex role when they are young and are nicknamed “tom boys”, they usually stop when they are teens and start dating boys, as to be “feminine” is more attractive to boys. Of course there is a lot of societal pressure on girls to date boys, and to fit in with their peers, and a lot of pressure on girls to adhere to feminine beauty practices when they are in their teens, so it is not surprising many start to conform more at that age. If a young woman continues to refuse to conform the female sex role, she will likely be called names or feel like she is different from the other girls, this will have an impact on how she views herself and how she makes sense of things. Of course not all lesbians were “tom boys” when small, some have always been been more “feminine”, though grow up to be no less lesbian.

Moreover, any child that does not adhere to sex role stereotypes are often called names that imply they are gay or lesbian by their peers, family and/or others in their environment. This will have an impact on how they view themselves and how they interpret their experiences, feelings etc. Now sex role non conforming behaviour is often seen not as a sign of being gay/lesbian, but as a sign of being trans, so of course a young person growing up in such an environment is likely to conclude they are trans, rather than gay/lesbian.

Being lesbian is to be exclusively attracted to women and not to be attracted to men.

I am not a political lesbian. I just don’t believe in “born this way” never have. I used to be bothered about whether political lesbians were exclusively attracted to women and whether they were attracted to men, I am not so bothered anymore. I have spoken to a few, they my not have the same experiences as those of us who are not political lesbians, but then many women don’t have the exact same experiences. As long as we talk to them about our concerns things can be resolved, at least in my experience, but then I am not one who subscribes to “born this way”. I eventually came to the conclusion that it doesn’t matter at the end of the day, as long as they are supporting lesbians, and are showing young lesbians they don’t need to change their bodies to love women, and are helping us enforce our boundaries to say no to men, that is all that matters to me.

I never feel like my experiences quite fit so I can’t really join in.

I think women sharing their experiences with each other in private groups can be a good thing, as long as it is done with mutual respect and empathy.

Charlie was invited to the march and I don't think that Amy should get to police this or be so aggressive and relentless in her comments. There is no point in this and we are all losers in this discussion.
I have no doubt that Amy is under incredibly high levels of stress and this is the way it has manifested itself, but it would be better if she could find another outlet rather than making those statements against Charlie and Julie.

Amy is now blocking many of the Tweeps who responded with comments she didn't like, which is very much the case of 'do as I say, not as I do'. I would always support feminist fighters like Amy and will continue to do so, but there really is no need for any of this shit. If she's feeing stressed, then I hope that she recovers soon and best wishes to her too.

OP and Balancing solidarity to you both. I understand what you have both expressed (I think) and support you 💚💜

I think this whole thing must be exhausting for lesbians. You’ve got a right to feel how you feel.

So many women repress their feelings and date men because that is what they are told to do and what they think is normal. They might not have the courage to come out until later in their life. Are we calling them bi as well just because they at some point in their lives had a relationship or even marriage with a woman? Being in relationships with men is not always the same as being sexually attracted to them.

Absolutely, women who are only attracted to women are lesbians, regardless of how long it took them to accept their sexuality. Although I haven't been in that situation myself, I know lesbians who have tried to force themselves to be attracted to men, including marrying them, and that is a very different experience from being a bi woman who dated men because she was attracted to them.

Technically though, political lesbians are women who choose not to have relationships with men and usually do not have relationships with women. I don’t think someone like Julie Bindel can really be described as a political lesbian, but Amy’s definition of the term is a lot wider than its traditional is. Julie says she decided to be a lesbian as a teenager and she has been in a relationship with her female partner for more than 30 years. Are her experiences really hugely different to those of ‘true lesbians’? Also, deciding not to date men is not the same as actually being attracted to men. So many women repress their feelings and date men because that is what they are told to do and what they think is normal. They might not have the courage to come out until later in their life. Are we calling them bi as well just because they at some point in their lives had a relationship or even marriage with a woman? Being in relationships with men is not always the same as being sexually attracted to them.

I wonder if men are held to this same test of ‘purity’. Elton John was married to a woman fgs. Are we saying he is not proper gay and should be classed as bi? Men who leave their female partners for men seem to be unilaterally accepted as gay from that point on. Women who have been in a same-sex relationship for many years however are told that they are not a real lesbian because they once dated a boy at the age of 17 and therefore cannot comprehend what life is like for real lesbians.

There are gay women across the world living in heterosexual marriages. It is a crime to be a lesbian in many countries. Some personalities are more easily swayed than others by social norms. Those who are naturally rebellious and confident may be unable to comprehend why someone felt unable to come out until later in life. They may feel that they would have been unable to suppress their sexuality and that this points to them being a ‘real’ as opposed to political lesbian. But I think it’s far more complex than that. Some people by nature will put the opinions of others ahead of their own feelings. I feel that Amy’s strict dividing lines exclude many lesbians by dismissing their experiences and saying that they have a choice to have relationships with men.

Lesbians should be able to reject males as a group as partners, without having to claim we were born with some kind of internal essence, or biological difference that makes us repulsed by men and attracted to women.

All women should be able to reject males at any time for any reason but the word lesbian still means something and that meaning doesn’t include being attracted to men. Being lesbian is to be exclusively attracted to women and not to be attracted to men. Febfems (female-exclusive bisexual females – who seem to make up the majority of political lesbians these days) of course have every right to reject men but they don’t have the same experiences as women who are only attracted to other women and we do need to have the language to describe our own group and our own experiences.

Febfem political lesbians seem to be a dominant group in radical feminism and, while being a bisexual woman in a same-sex relationship does give you some of the same experiences as being a lesbian, there are differences and, although I initially thought we would have a lot of common ground, the more I’ve heard them talk about what being a lesbian is to them and about their experiences of being a lesbian, the more I’ve realised what a big difference it is.

That’s not to say that I don’t value the contribution of political lesbians on the trans issue and I think to a degree we can all (including straight and bi women) work together on this.

I do actually wonder about the political lesbian take on the trans debate though, for example, on the transing of young lesbians. This stems from stats which suggest that the majority of children with gender dysphoria will desist if they go through their normal puberty and that a large majority of them will turn out to be lesbian or gay (which suggests to me that some kind of genetic and/or early socialisation effect is involved) – but political lesbians believe that all women are potential lesbians, that there is no such thing as being naturally gay/lesbian and being a lesbian is just a choice you make when you are an adult – yet they still seem to agree that lesbians are being transed, even when those children/young people haven’t chosen to identify as lesbians???

When I’ve heard the experiences of young lesbians who’ve been affected by queer/trans ideology, despite the differences in what it is like growing up lesbian now compared to when I was that age, I do see similarities. There are certain things they’ll say (e.g. relating to internalised homophobia) where I’ll think that’s exactly how I felt – although the options (ie identifying as a heterosexual transman) are different now. I also think some of the young people in the trans movement are trying to break free of the gender box they have been put in and older feminists are also trying to break down those gender roles but we are shouting at cross purposes, using language differently so we can’t actually communicate and find those points of agreement.

I then started to think more about lesbians and political lesbians (although I think that is less of a generational thing as I know young-ish political lesbians and plenty of older regular lesbians) and whether we can find a way to communicate around the language barrier (specifically that we are using the word lesbian to mean two different things – one a natural attraction and one on ideologically-motivated behaviour) but I’m still not sure that’s possible. I do think we are two groups who are probably genuinely quite different (although of course we are all women so will always have some common ground) - and I haven’t actually found a way to talk to young women who are currently in the trans movement so I don’t know if I’d have more success in bridging the gap here!

When I finally found feminist groups which shared my views on the trans issue I was so happy. At that time, the issue wasn’t really being discussed in my LGBT circles (that has changed now) and I felt alone. I was happy to be able to talk to women who shared my views (including straight women who were all very accepting of lesbians and made me feel welcome) but I also wanted to get more involved in the feminist movement generally and I was particularly pleased to see that there seemed to be lots of lesbians involved.

The trans issue has particularly impacted on me and my community and it – and the attitude of (particularly gay) men - has made me reflect on a lot of things that have happened in my life, my experiences with both gay and straight men and my connections to women, which were all impacted by my sexuality, and how to move forward individually and in relation to the LGB community. I hoped that I would be able to connect with other lesbians who had had similar experiences and also learn and develop from women who were like me but who had more experience in feminist activism. However, the more involved I got, the more I realised that lesbian meant something else in feminism and that I just couldn’t relate to them and didn’t belong in lesbian feminist circles.

I’m not really sure if I’ve got a concluding point here because I don’t really know where to go from here. I do want to continue to be involved in feminism but I guess it isn’t going to be what I hoped it would be and, while I am involved in groups where women discuss their experiences (not quite consciousness-raising groups but I suppose similar in some ways), I never feel like my experiences quite fit so I can’t really join in. At the moment, I’ve got one foot in the radfem camp and one in the LGBT community and am just trying to find my balance.

The whole thing about so called gold star lesbians v political lesbians is bullshit, and was around even in the 80s when I was deep in the scene.
I would like to add, that in that era of a vibrant community, albeit uniformed with dungarees, men's clothing, cropped hair, and outright challenges to lesbians wearing makeup etc, there was a very obvious issue.

That issue was that a significant number of lesbians left the scene to partner with men.
Often those who had proclaimed their lesbianism the loudest.

I never thought badly of them, but some did, calling them traitors.
For some, lesbianism was innate. Others, looking back, were dealing with sexual abuse, the male gaze, gender non conformity etc etc.
I think it did us no favours to be in denial of this. It certainly did those women no favours being in denial. It reminds me of the young transmen of today.

Not sure where I'm going with this re Dyess and Bindell but.

@AmyDyess
Aug 26

PSA: I’m against false “feminism” that aligns with the right wing and silences lesbians. That’s not legitimate, so I’m distancing myself. I’m going more left. It’s what’s best for lesbians

Yeah right.

AllNaturalWoman - you are being incredibly reasonable and measured in your arguments. I think the problem is you are defending someone who has been the complete opposite. Her comment to Julie Bindel was quite unnecessary, and seemed to me just to be creating dissent and disagreement for the sake of it. Those of us who are gc feminists are all on the same side, but we're fighting against a very powerful, very wealthy and very determined lobby, so it would really would make sense if we could put aside our differences as much as possible.

I don't want to change your mind Allnaturalwoman, I posted for the benefit of silent readers. When I'm having problems with someone in activism, I have gone searched them online in the past. I think warning women in the movement about abusive/narcissistic individuals is important & an act of sisterhood. It's easier to say nothing & not risk offending others/getting mud slung back at you. Activism does attract these characters & I've personally seen the havoc they wreak & projects they sink/almost sink. Just my experience with the person being discussed obvs, which women are welcome to take or leave.

Don't feel bad, OP. I don't know anything about her, but she's obviously quite a forceful personality and so there will inevitably be people who are strongly for her or against her. (See also Posie, among others.) She must be used to it.

I'm not sure if there are rules for threads labelled 'support'! Maybe someone else can enlighten us.

My own view on all this is that we do need people like Charlie on our side. She is proof of our argument that many young women are being encouraged to believe themselves to be trans when they're really not.

someone calling lesbians terfs a year ago is now a hero and representing them

Something that's annoying me in all
This is that Thomasin is a GNC lesbian who was so confused by lack of GNC lesbian representation in her teen years that she was sucked into the tra crap online. She sewed that awesome banner too.

Charlie and Thomasin are in the same northern GC group and decided to go to the March together.

Charlie wrote that thread as she now realises how important the get the l out movement is. She was under the tra woke cult last year as so many people are.

Actually, the more I read what Amy has written I don't fully understand it; when you are growing up you do explore lots of different parts of your sexuality and identity. These days more so than ever which is where it gets hijacked by the trans ideology.

Which is what we are all protesting.

so much of what we think is natural instinct is actually socially constructed.

I think it’s dumb to exclude lesbians just because at some point in their lives they dated men. Identities can change over the course of a lifetime.

I agree Pota2. I think socialisation and what we have been exposed to in our lives and the society in which we live, as well as our personal experiences, impacts greatly on how our likes/dislikes develop, and how we come to understand ourselves. There are some of us who don’t believe our lesbianism was a conscious choice, or due to being “born this way”, and instead believe our experiences shaped us, as they do for most other things. However, there are some lesbians who think if you don’t believe in “born this way” then you cannot be a “real” lesbian, it is ridiculous and has been going on for some time, many want to silence anyone who disagrees with them. I have seen it going on for many, many years. They seem to believe that rejecting the “born this way” narrative is somehow saying that lesbians don’t exist, or lesbianism is not legitimate, it is nonsense imo.

Lesbians should be able to reject males as a group as partners, without having to claim we were born with some kind of internal essence, or biological difference that makes us repulsed by men and attracted to women. I (and a number other lesbians) don’t believe it is true, and we shouldn’t be forced to pretend we do, in order to say no to men as a group, or to be considered real lesbians. Amy no doubt would consider me to be not the right kind of lesbian or an imposter, because I don’t subscribe to “born this way”, of course Amy can believe and say whatever she wants, others also should have the right to disagree with her.

Personally, as the wrong kind of lesbian I would welcome any woman, of whatever sexuality, on a protest, if she was willing to stand up and say that lesbians have a right to reject males as a group as partners, and who says trans activism harms lesbians. It takes tremendous guts to do that and I applaud any woman who does. Whether individual women think their sexuality is innate, a choice, or part of development, should not be the issue. The issue should be that females who reject males as partners, and instead partner with females: lesbians, should be supported to say no to males as a group. This could also go some way to help lesbians feel they do not have to trans in order to date other females. I think the more women who support that the better. To be honest I would go further, and say I think a march/protest with all women (regardless of their sexuality), who agree that lesbians should be able to reject men as partners and that trans ideology harms lesbians, would be very valuable.

OP, I think you just want everyone to agree with you. There aren't any rules about who can and can't designate a thread a support thread for the simple reason that every thread follows its own course, often travelling quite far away from the topic intended by the original poster. That's how it goes on an internet forum - you just can't dictate to people what they can and can't write. And a lot of people clearly disagree with you about Amy Dyess.

Apologies! Correction - Charlie didn't call anyone a TERF. She said, last year, that GTLO were a "small hateful minority of L".

She drew attention to this post to show how much her thinking has changed. She wasn't an active TRA, she was a young woman caught up in the cult.

Rosa has a weird online relationship with Cursed E, I think, who is indeed an internet troll. He's vile.

I'm sorry to have assumed you knew that.

I suppose Rosa interacting with him may give him an undeserved air of credibility.

Cursed E doxxed a load of feminists last summer I think it was. He's also just a vile troll. Kiwi Farms have stuff on him I've heard, if you're at all interested. I have no idea why Rosa even gives him the time of day.

I don't know anything about him supposedly reforming. I've missed this one, but even if he has the analogy doesn't stand.

Charlie wasn't an active TRA. She was a young women caught up gender ideology, who made, as far as I know, just one tweet responding to the GTLO London protest and calling the women TERFs. She brought attention to that tweet herself, in a thread aimed at others in the trans cult, to show how her thinking has changed over the last year.

Cursed E has been absolutely vile to more women than I can remember, and I can't see any justification for it. There's no comparison between them.