Have things gone too far?

I have no experience of lesbian dating apps but one thing strikes me very forcibly is the apparent lack of respect for lesbians shown by transwomen who post on these sites. As a marginalised minority you would expect some empathy towards another marginalised group. It is inconceivable that transwomen don't know that lesbians are same sex attracted so why, other than a complete contempt for same sex attracted females, do they post on these sites.

I'm not going to get into naming people who don't post here for the same reason I haven't when discussing trans people but honestly if you don't know who I'm talking about then you can't have been paying much attention..

Oh I’ve been paying lots of attention. Trouble is ‘anti trans’ seems to incorporate all sorts of things these days. Making observations about biological facts seems to be a major issue so if that’s the bar I’m not sure I can work out who you mean based on your description.

You haven’t my question about your statement on ‘rights’.

What rights do trans people feel are lacking or ‘being rolled back’?

It's funny how lesbian bars, clubs and dating sites were commercially viable five minutes ago, but now they're not!

It's funny how London has lost 20 LGBT venues over the last decade or so because of rampant gentrification and a move to online dating. It's nothing to do with the trans, The Candy Bar and other lesbians venues were always trans inclusive anyway. If it is more profitable to set up apps which are trans/nonbinary inclusive then that is what people will do in a capitalist society, and if that's a mistake, then I'm sure something will come along which blows Her, Hinge and all the rest out of the water - perhaps you should be working on a business plan if you've spotted something none of these other businesses can see.

For someone who says they are wholeheartedly rational, reasonable and inclusive about lesbian apps, rights and definitions, do you really think that what you say reflects that?

All these lesbians making trans people look bad, because of the threats against lesbians!

It's funny how lesbian bars, clubs and dating sites were commercially viable five minutes ago, but now they're not!

As an example of abuse, I encourage anyone to google “Giggle”, the only app that is for biological women only. The CEO is now a huge amount of abuse for only catering for biological women.

Not profitable to offer a women only dating app? How can this be so when the GC movement is awash with money from the far right?

It may only be a minority of trans women who are behaving inappropriately towards lesbians but its completely clear that any lesbian who clarifies in her dating profile, no matter how politely, that she's only interested in biological women will get abuse or thrown off the platform.

It's not completely clear, who are these women, which apps did they get banned from, what exactly did they say?

I don’t think this is difficult at all.

For biological sex, just enable that as a selection criteria.

This will guarantee that only those of the biological sex you are interested in are shown to you.

If people only care about gender, they will tick both sexes and selected gender only. Why is this a problem?

What evidence of their anti-trans activities can you provide jj that doesn't just comprise of them calling for lesbians to have a voice and that they are exclusively same-sex attracted?? Who is this 'notorious anti-trans activist' that apparently leads them (although they say they are a grassroots organisation with no leader).

I'm not going to get into naming people who don't post here for the same reason I haven't when discussing trans people but honestly if you don't know who I'm talking about then you can't have been paying much attention.

It may only be a minority of trans women who are behaving inappropriately towards lesbians but its completely clear that any lesbian who clarifies in her dating profile, no matter how politely, that she's only interested in biological women will get abuse or thrown off the platform.
This is like women trying to discuss #metoo issues and a man pops up with a defensive 'Well, I've never assaulted anyone and neither have my friends'. It adds nothing to the discussion and completely minimises a serious problem that most women have had to deal with.

Lesbians should have lesbian only apps. For goodness sake, it's hardly revolutionary.

No-one is stopping them other than the fact we live in a capitalist society and presumably no-one thinks a dating site which insists on some verification of the sex you were born to be economically viable. Her, Hinge, Autostraddle, these are big businesses not charities, they wouldn't be making the decisions they do if it weren't profitable.

I don't think it is the same Pride march but Get the L Out were treated pretty unpleasantly at this one too.

Their campaign is to increase lesbian visibility - in the good old days, that would have been a welcome aspect of Pride surely??

What evidence of their anti-trans activities can you provide jj that doesn't just comprise of them calling for lesbians to have a voice and that they are exclusively same-sex attracted?? Who is this 'notorious anti-trans activist' that apparently leads them (although they say they are a grassroots organisation with no leader).

You make this statement jj
All that seems to matter is portraying trans people in the worst possible light in order to remove public sympathy for them and roll back trans rights

I don't think any help is needed to do that - the activists lynching effigies of the Spanish Deputy Prime Minister and sending thousands of rape and death threats and getting ordinary women sacked for stating reality that are damaging our view of the situation.

I'll ask the question that is never answered - which specific rights do trans people not currently have or are in danger of 'being rolled back'?

Robert Mee, CEO of Lancaster Pride and organiser of the event stood amongst all the young people and said “fuck off you fucking dogs, you’re ruining it”, the swearing was hostile. Some of our group were spat on by the counter protesters and we were all sworn at multiple times.

www.gettheloutuk.com/blog/lesbian-visibility-at-lancaster-pride-2019.html

I am waiting for pro trans people to come and agree that biological sex should be possible to select for in the dating apps.

I wouldn't particularly have a problem with that, except there's no way to really verify it. One of the biggest problems LGBT dating apps actually face is straight people - either straight couples hiding behind a female profile looking for a threesome or straight men with fake profiles who've stolen pictures and are trying to coerce women into sexual conversations.

These apps are businesses and I suspect their policies reflect their users and the reality which is that the LGBT community has changed with people identifying as pan, queer, non-binary and all kinds of other variations of gender and sexuality. It seems very much a generational thing and it's quite likely young queers are more likely to use dating apps than older people and as they want to maximise their membership and keep them happy they allow people to identify as they choose. And this all makes things pretty complex from a 'search' perspective, and difficult to ensure that search results will only give you the exact type of person you are looking for. This doesn't even really just apply to LBG sites but any site trying to attract a younger customer, I was on okcupid for a bit and it was a nightmare for trans people and really hard to work out where to put yourself and how to describe yourself. It's all a bit of a muddle but as you can easily swipe past profiles of those you don't like and you are not compelled to respond to messages then most users seem more or less happy - and they do have millions of users after all, they must be doing something right.

So you would support the selection of biological sex on dating apps jj?

And there is a lot of anecdotal evidence of women being kicked off the apps for stating that they only are interested in biological women.

Is there evidence of people being kicked off lesbian and gay dating sites for being same sex attracted, or are they kicked off for ranting on and on about trans people? Because we've seen this banned just for being a woman rhetoric a lot, when it actually turns out it was nothing to do with the person's sex but what they actually said.

It's hardly fringe. It's everywhere.

Spaces kicking off Lesbians for stating they're same-sex attracted:

1. DIVA
2. HINGE
3. HER
4. WAPA
5. REDDIT
6. Autostraddle
7. Allure

I am waiting for pro trans people to come and agree that biological sex should be possible to select for in the dating apps.

Honestly I don’t mind what people do with their lives. If you think trans women are women and trans men are men and want to include them in your dating pool, go for it. I wish everyone the best of luck in their love lives.

It goes without saying that you should find your romantic partners within which sex (or both) that you prefer.

I just do not understand the policing of other people’s sexuality. I think it is vile.

If you had posted that kind of nonsense on teenage social media circa 2005, everyone would have piled-on. No-one would have worried about being transphobic.

As I recall, all female-orientated transwomen pratting around on web forums carefully avoided calling themselves lesbians.

These days, people either agree, or they are scared to say anything.

I started a discussion with one nice young woman asking about the causes of "growing transphobia". I said, well, people are very concerned about lesbians being pressured by transwomen. I expected her to say I was over-estimating its frequency or it never happened.

She didn't. She justified it. She said TWAW and she insisted that post SRS, you can't tell the difference between a transwoman and a woman.

I think it seems to be a problem that the dating apps for lesbians don’t allow women to select biological women only. And there is a lot of anecdotal evidence of women being kicked off the apps for stating that they only are interested in biological women.

Jj, why don’t the trans women object to this in large numbers if they really agree that lesbians are free to date biological women only?

It should be a really easy fix. Trans women and biological women can all set their dating preferences in terms of biological and be matched accordingly. And everyone would be happy if I understand you correctly?

What they will ignore is the thousands of trans people who have said this is not true,

Why should we be favouring the opinions of trans people about the experiences of lesbians, rather than listening to the lesbians?

If only you weren't so super-selective about which threads you venture into, you maybe could have nipped into this one and reassured the lesbians there that trans people do not want those lesbian spaces to be doing what they are doing, and that you might try do do something about women being punished for being same-sex attracted.

After all, if it's a fringe-of-a-fringe position, shouldn't be hard to help those women, right?

One moron on the internet isn't a growing social ill, I thought. I can find any kind of idiot purporting that their views are totally normal, I thought.

Absolutely. What you needed to have been looking at is the reaction - or lack of it. It's the reactions to people being idiots or sensible that tell you whether you're in trouble yet.

We're in deep trouble.

People have the right to refuse to consider others as a sexual partner on whatever grounds they like. We all have the right to set our own boundaries. I don't see why that's even in dispute. How could it possibly be the case that compelling lesbians to consider men as sexual partners is a reasonable or progressive position?

I don't think there is a single trans person I know who would disagree with that and in truth many trans people have come on these boards and explicitly said that they do not consider it transphobic if a lesbian doesn't want to sleep with them. It is not a mainstream position, it is fringe of the fringe and even then is completely misrepresented.

@Okbussitout

The truth of the situation is that trans people have always been part of LGBT culture, many trans people see themselves are LGB, and even if they don't they may be seen that way by others and so can face homophobic harassment or discrimination. There are some lesbian and gay people who feel that attraction based on gender is a part of their sexuality and as such might consider a relationship with a trans person and some who absolutely wouldn't and both are fine. Equally there are many lesbian and gay people who recognise someone in their aquired gender and even if they might not fancy them are happy to share spaces with them - so for example quite a few lesbian and gay dating apps or other spaces welcome trans people, but this nothing really new, the best known lesbian bar in Soho in the 90s was always trans inclusive.

The reason people objected to GettheLout at Pride was not because they don't want to have sex but trans women but because they barged themselves to the front of the parade and attempted to disrupt it and are led by a notorious anti-trans activist who is opposed to all trans rights and has a history and disrupting trans events and harassing trans people at work. That's why the group is considered transphobic, nobody cares who they want to sleep with.

I'm sure this post will be responded to with the usual furious objections and the insistence that it is mainstream 'Trans ideology' that lesbians who don't want to date trans women are transphobic. And they will no doubt find a blogpost or a youtube video or a few tweets to back this up - after all there are billions of people on the internet, if you go looking for a viewpoint of any kind you will doutbless find it. What they will ignore is the thousands of trans people who have said this is not true, and that they do not consider a lesbian a transphobe if she doesn't want to date trans women. The reason this falsehood is pursued so ferociously is twofold - first it presents trans people as sexually predatory is some way which has long been a key aim of trans hostile activists and secondly it is an attempt to split up the LGBT community and remove the natural solidarity that most LGB people feel with trans people in an attempt to marginalise and weaken the trans community.

And as an example of how disingenuous and insincere this claim is in the next breath gender critical activists will be claiming that trans women are trying to turn all young lesbians into men - which seems somewhat contradictory to the aim of trying to force all lesbians to have sex with them because trans women are secretly predatory heterosexual men. But consistency doesn't seem to matter anymore. All that seems to matter is portraying trans people in the worst possible light in order to remove public sympathy for them and roll back trans rights.