Concept of ‘exclusively same sex attracted’

I don't believe in magic.

One day a magician pulled a rabbit out of a hat that I was 100% sure that wasn't there earlier... but he did it anyway.

I was comprehensively fooled by him. I still don't believe in magic though. Maybe some will be convinced by him that magic is true, doesn't mean I have to.

Or I guess I do understand deep down why it is - GC people don’t consider trans women to be women, so no one else is allowed to.

’consider’ what you like, but don’t expect me or the gvt or society at large to consider the same at the point where it affects my sex based rights. Sex specific services and spaces, sport etc.

And surely someone's sexuality is not defined by a second person's identity?

Look OP, is anyone actually telling her what she is or isn't? You say 'GC people are telling her...' - but are they? To her face? Somehow I think not.

But she is having sex with someone who has a penis. She is the very definition of bisexual. And actually - what's wrong with that? Is there something considered fundamentally wrong with bisexuality amongst your friends?

The vegan who declares themselves such over a bacon sandwich - they're not vegan. They may consider themselves vegan, have mainly vegan friends, adopt an otherwise vegan lifestyle. But they're no vegan by definition. And so what. Again being non vegan is not bad.

I've been a vegetarian most of my life. The "I'm a vegetarian but eat chicken" types have always been seriously annoying. We do now have a word that didn't exist when I first became veggie; "flexitarian" helpfully describes those who eat mostly plant-based, but consume meat on occasion. That leaves "vegetarian" for those of us who don't eat meat or fish.

Why is it so hard to come up with a word for those lesbians who date transwomen? It's a new concept, so requires a new word.

It is quite the conundrum isn't it.

How women tell men who say they are women apart from actual women.

We've gone back to the 1970's days of middle aged male comics who used to tell their audiences 'nobody knows I'm a lesbian'. And people like you believe them, like they are the second coming.

BernardBlacksWineIcelolly

Because threads like this cross over into proselytizing through shame.

Yes. This is how I read OPs posts. Not sure they understand quite how their post can be interpreted.

She’s adopted a fundamentally irrational position and is now berating others for not sharing it. It’s both bizarrely self centred and infuriating Eresh

i dunno why it still gets to me, but it does!

I'm not convinced OP grasps that Bernard. To her, we're just mean and won't share our words. She's subscribed to a belief based on magical thinking and we should too.

Let’s get down to it then

words are used for communication. They must mean something

what’s your definition of ‘woman’?

tell me why Barbie Kardashian and you and me are all women

Yes, this is what I was more clumsily trying to say

there’s a long history of pressure on lesbians to sleep with men. Transwomen being ‘lesbians’ is just that but 2.0

but you won’t address that will you @aseriesofstillimages ? You haven’t addressed any of the points raised in this thread

And basically by your rules we are all bisexual, but some of us just need persuading or haven't found the right person to convert us.

This.

GC people don’t consider trans women to be women

Nor do most people, when it comes down to it. A "trans woman" is simply a male person who has declared that they are a woman. Based on what? Why would people consider them to be women?

TW aren’t women. People attracted to men aren’t lesbians.These are my legally protected beliefs.

Lesbians need a word to describe themselves, women need a word to describe ourselves. People co-opting these words and trying to make them meaningless are harming lesbians as a group, and women as a group.

This is all very simple. Anyone who affects to be confused by it is probably wilfully confused, because they are benefiting from the harm that is caused to women and lesbians.

No, I don't consider TW to be women, I consider them to be male. I perceive them as male. I always will.

As has been repeatedly explained now for seven pages, you and other TQ+ queer ideology people are free to believe and consider whatever you feel like considering, diversity of belief is great. What you're not entitled to do is require that others agree with you and service someone else's belief against their own. Particularly when it involves requiring them to service that belief with their body, which ought to be obvious in its issues.

But considering that people have been patiently trying to explain all this for about seven pages, I'd guess we're all wasting our time. You're just going to be left permanently baffled and disappointed as to why women won't just do what you tell them to.

Go well OP.

Yes this is the crux for many Transwomen who truly believe they are more of a woman than so many real biologically born women. But it's so superficial with the hair and clothes and mannerisms (See the earlier awful comment on female body builders). They find it hard to understand that it's not appearances that make a women - we come in all shapes, sizes, styles, likes and dislikes. It comes back to truth and reality. Transwomen are free to live their lives but please don't assume others wish to be part of it.

But I really struggle with why GC people would want to tell a woman - a lesbian - who is in a relationship with a trans woman that they are wrong to consider themselves a lesbian.

Because words mean things. And because there is a long, long violent, misogynistic, homophobic history of men saying that lesbians really need dick in their lives - including corrective rape, or porn where two "lesbians" having sex is just a warm-up to a man joining them for the "real thing", or pressure from family to get married to a man, or asking a lesbian couple "which one of you is the man then?", ad infinitum. For a woman in a relationship with a male, however they identify, to describe both themselves and the male as lesbians is an active danger to real lesbians.

It seems like a transwoman "passing" to a lesbian is like the ultimate boss at the end of a video game in which a man wants to be validated as a woman. But this is a false level they'll never win as the lesbian will know.
Why can't women have anything just to themselves?

GC people don’t consider trans women to be women, so no one else is allowed to.

Only a minority of the world do consider transitioned males to be women though.

Your point is that the huge majority of people don’t consider transitioned males to be women, but you do, and you want people to change definitions of words to suit your belief. When it harms females to lose the words used to describe themselves exclusively.

Why should you get to choose the language that sets laws and policies over other females who want to maintain meanings that have been established for decades? Because you support the destabilisation of language?

All because a minority, a small minority at that, choose to force destabilisation of language rather than create their own to suit their needs.

I have seen various people on this forum say that to be gay or a lesbian is to be ‘exclusively same sex attracted’

Not just on this forum. That's just what "gay" and "lesbian" means - same-sex attracted. If you are also attracted to people of the opposite sex, however they identify, then you are bisexual. That's how definitions work.

I don't believe it's possible for a woman to sleep with a transwoman and not realise that they aren't female. I just don't believe it's possible. So your "thought experiment" falls down at that point.

And basically by your rules we are all bisexual, but some of us just need persuading or haven't found the right person to convert us.

It feels a bit like when people used to tell me I wasn’t bisexual because I hadn’t yet had a serious relationship with a woman. Or when people now say that I’m a lesbian because I am in a very long term relationship with a woman.

Haven't you just answered your own question there?

"But I really struggle with why GC people would want to tell a woman - a lesbian - who is in a relationship with a trans woman that they are wrong to consider themselves a lesbian."

Are you being purposely obtuse?

Gender-critical people don't believe in gender as anything other than socially constructed nonsense. They do not believe in gender ideology. They don't believe that a trans-identifying man is a woman. Ergo, the woman in your scenario is in a relationship with a man (regardless of how he identifies or whether he might, after several significant cosmetic surgeries, thousands of doses of synthetic hormones, and hours practicing a coquettish head tilt, manage to appear female at a glance to some casual bystanders).

A lesbian is a woman who is sexually attracted to other women.

Since we have established that the GC view is that your friend is in a relationship with a man, then she is not a lesbian.

To force a GC person to call her a lesbian is to force them to tacitly state that trans-identified men are women. Which they are not. That's literally the entire foundational point of this entire debate.

How can you possibly struggle with that?

A 'non-trans woman'.... Jesus wept