Womens liberation and lesbianism

I can't speak for Goosefoot, but it may be about new policies brought into schools under the auspices of 'anti-bullying', such as mixed sex toilets that actually infringe the rights of other students e.g. schoolgirls avoiding using the loo or experiencing period shame. Welsh LAs introducing mixed sex toilets to schools have said anti-bullying was their motivation. It's now standard practice for all new build schools in Wales. It has been widespread in the states too. It's then harder to challenge, because it's easy to claim that critics of anti-bullying policy are not being very nice.

The T dominates, and the L is left behind. You can't show anything other than slavish support to the T and the L,G,B Is marginalised- in school education and in general. I haven't noticed what you've experienced, but in my actual life/ the above stands wokely and proudly- T before and above all else.

Honey, this is a very pro-lesbian space - one of very few left online.

There is criticism of a lot of stuff around surrogacy for reasons mainly concerned with gay men and entitlement. Because mostly that's what is covered in the media.

That there is wider criticism of surrogacy is because... well, feminism. It's a field that involves huge exploitation.

I think there are a few things going on.

With the school/education example, part of it is that other interests have very delibratly hijacked those issues in order to promote their own agenda. Perhaps some of those people were involved all along, sometimes it seems that way. You see the same thing to some extent now with race issues right at the moment, but gender ideology has largely tried to push in on sexuality questions. So people are looking very carefully at that and in some cases rethinking certain ideas that seemed ok before - "love is love" is a good example of something many accepted when it seemed to be about same sex relationships, but now looks rather different.

But the other thing I am seeing is that many people who have inhabited the progressive left have, until now, been quite happy with the direction of that progression, and pretty dismissive of those who disagree about even some elements of that. Not caring, for example, if education packages in school explicitly were looking to challenge the beliefs and culture of some families. Now however they are suddenly realising they are not happy about educational institutions and other state bodies pushing ideas they disagree with on their kids, and see it as usurping the parental role. To have that experience, if you are in the least bit self-reflective, it will mean realising that what's good for the goose is good for the gander - it's difficult to say it's ok to have educational social engineering in one direction but not the other.

As far as reproductive technologies. I am afraid I am a bit impatient about this, but the question of whether various technologies are ethical or not has zero to do with whether or not they allow lesbians, or gay men, to have children. Most people here that post regularly at least understand the argument that surrogacy is seriously problematic - the fact that it might be the way for gay men to have kids is irrelevant, and to say it should be allowed because it allows that is at best irrational and quite possibly morally compromised. We see people say this openly all the time.

The logical problem is the same if you substitute lesbians and other types of reproductive tech. Either the technology is ethical, or it isn't. I find it really disingenuous to suggest that somehow it's anti-lesbian to raise questions about the technology, children's rights, etc.

ooops! www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3621239-Being-a-homosexual-female-in-a-community-of-queer-people-transbians-and-penis-inclusionary-lesbians

'I think my theory was that the discussion of trans issues might have attracted anti-gay and lesbian posters and people with conservative views on how children should be conceived/brought up in "traditional" families. And that was why it felt anti-lesbian.'

I'm sure this has happened to an extent- I've seen some posts about abortion and, well a host of topics that are a bit, what?

There aren't that many though which is good and safe to say those people aren't representative of the board generally and usually get short shrift.

When I've found myself getting upset on topics that are personally sensitive for me I think hold on. Go back. How many posters are actually saying this Vs how many posters on the thread. Are they enjoying putting the boot in. How are other posters reacting to them? And just because they're posting on X board doesn't mean they are X. Some boards attract trolls. Etc etc

And if it's really making you feel crap take a break from the board/ or from mn entirely. Reading and posting a lot on the more involved topics can really wear you down.

The threads that I've seen around that topic seem to me to focus on surrogacy.

They do stray off, of course. And sometimes you get posters being a bit random but they get picked up on it on the whole.

The whole topic of fertility is one where there are strong emotions at play, and you see that across all the boards on here. It is a really sensitive topic.

I've genuinely not seen much questioning the ethics etc of using donor sperm. The provision of semen is totally different to the process to get eggs for IVF and of course surrogacy is a whole different ball game.

On the stuff being taught in schools, most of the threads which are about the sex and sexuality side of the materials they've seen are about things like

Very male view of sex
Little focus if any on female pleasure
Poor info about female sexuality
Normalising of acts that are more, um, advanced for want of a better word (more relevant for het girls)
Reframing lesbian/ gay sexuality as a gender preference and that body configuration is not relevant

Etc etc

I can see that you're upset and I wonder if it's one of those things where if you see it once, twice. You start seeing posts in a different light/ noticing the ones that say X and not noticing really that it's a very minority view and loads of people say WTF are you on about. I know I have done this in the past on topics I feel strongly about.

One of my main concerns around the trans debate is imposing gender ideology on girls and young women who are likely Lesbians. The fact that that might lead them to consider themselves men and encourage them to end up on a pathway to lifelong medical care pains me. I also hate to see young women on social media routinely being encouraged to view people with penises as Lesbians. I worry about women's boundaries and I worry about young women being encouraged to embrace self loathing. I'm not gay, but relatives and close friends are and the lesbians in my circle also have concerns.

On the thread about surrogacy at the moment, which has strayed into other topics. It's mainly concerns about surrogacy full stop. And concern about the clinics and what they are up to.

I can't imagine why there would be feminist issues on using donor sperm. It doesn't harm the donor. There may be questions from the child later but this applies with single women who use this route or even if they're straight just take the old fashioned route as it were

I mean I can't speak for everyone obviously and I can see there's sensitivity but I've not really seen it.

If anything there's more concern for lesbians than anything else. With sexuality becoming a tick box whatever you want thing, and the worry that young lesbians are opting out of being girls, for reasons that I'm sure we're all aware of.

I like the 'contented lesbian' moniker.
As a lesbian parent I do think there are a number of unspoken issues about sperm donation and have at times been challenged by my wonderful children about my choices over this. This and the surrogacy discussions have made me consider difficult issues that I failed to consider deeply when I was younger and having babies. I'm all in favour of these being aired more widely. I don't see it as an attack. I'm happy that these discussion happen on a predominantly female and feminist board.

And I'll add: I've not seen any discussions about gay parenting so you'd need to show me threads or posts of the kind you're concerned about for me to know what you mean. It's almost entirely around the ethics of surrogacy.

You still seem to be thinking in terms of FWR being straight, OP. You're assuming there, a lot of regular posters are LGBT+.

It isn't responsible for female people to avoid discussing here the ethics and issues around conception, the rights of female people and of children, and the potential issues ahead for them if some of the current things being mooted towards surrogacy go through unchallenged. Surely that's a huge, huge part of women's liberation. I'm afraid that some people might find anything but unconditional positivity to be personally uncomfortable is not a good reason to abandon the vulnerable people in the wider picture. After all, it's not compulsory to come here and read such discussions unless you wish to.

Sorry, that got incoherent at the end, I was typing around distractions! I meant to add: It is important that my sensitivity around the subject and that the conversation may be uncomfortable in some ways from me does not mean I desire to shut that conversation down. I have mixed feelings because there are issues. These issues should be discussed, I should consider and think about things I may personally find uncomfortable because my not liking to think about something doesn't mean it's wrong.

I'm another lesbian who doesn't find this board hostile at all. There is a legitimate criticism of LGB groups like Stonewall who have been 'captured' by the T and now promote an anti lesbian / anti women line. There's a lot of (in my view legitimate) criticism of an LGBT agenda in schools being used to coerce children and promote the (now apparently dumped) 'born in the wrong body' agenda, not to mention all the queer theory porn advocating SRE.
I suspect if I wandered on here I might look at some of the above criticism and wonder about it being hostile to lesbians - but I genuinely believe it isn't. It's part of this awful realisation that organisations that should have been supportive of women and lesbians - political parties, unions, the arts etc, even the bloody WEP, have turned out to be implacably hostile to women's and lesbian's rights and it's right that they are challenged - even though it's bloody uncomfortable.

I'm L, many FWR regulars are. The only issues I've experienced that I'd say were offensive or unaware of the realities for the L part of LGBT+ has come from those vigorously supporting the right of male people to define themselves as lesbian, and to encourage lesbianism as a label to be optionally inclusive of heterosexual sex and sexual partners, in other words removing the definition of lesbian from homosexual women to be a more general label that better fits the self identity of male people. Oh and cotton ceiling stuff and the whole current political lean in some quarters that the word 'lesbian' is now a wrongthink political statement and naice women say they are queer. (But lesbian is a word to be celebrated if a male person self defines themselves using it.) That I get really fed up about. But FWR being always female centred tends to hold discussions in which the majority of posters see and discuss the difficulties and homophobia involved in the above listed positions, which I personally find very supportive.

There's interesting discussions here around surrogacy and donation which obviously significantly involves LGBT+ parents. I have mixed feelings there. I have many gay friends who are parents, through adoption or in the case of several lesbian couples sperm donation, and they are great parents with happy and well raised kids. But they were either very carefully vetted and worked for a long time with adoption agencies and openly support their kids with the trauma of losing birth parents, or the child is living with the birth parent. Where I have a lot of doubts (and you will find robust discussions here regarding it as should be held) is surrogacy, because of the many issues for the child's mother and the child and the many risks to those two key people's rights and protections being minimised or lost altogether in the conversation. The threads are worth reading but they're not anti-LGBT+.

It always comes down to the same key points really: that the experience, rights and experiences of female people (and children) should not be lost behind a wider agenda. And I'm all for that for all female people, whatever their sexuality.

I hope there’s no hostility to lesbians here. More than ever, we need solidarity among women. Lesbians have always played an important part in the feminist movement. The new anger I see is about the trans (not gay) lobby’s push against women.

I was thinking more that with sperm donation, egg donation, suragacy etc (on children raised with ANY sort of parents) there is a chance that kids don’t get a full idea of their genetics which has been something raised as an issue by people that were adopted for example. If doctors ask about family history of medical issues etc there’s a missing piece. I don’t think that’s a slur on the LBGT community or any family set up (many a single mother won’t have access to this information through no fault of their own) It’s more a debate about modern conception ethics in general.