I'm one of the lesbians involved in yesterday's protest in Cardiff. I'd say 90% of the abuse I received came from women and that's what's at the forefront of my mind today, the way that so many women have become not just the handmaidens but the frontline troops for the TRAs.
On the pavements women took up the chant 'Shame on you' jabbing their fingers in our direction. A group of very straight-looking women in frocks and full make-up approached me and after telling me I was being silly and making a fuss about nothing, went on to tell me I was disgusting before the police shooed them away. A couple of men dressed in skirts and tiaras yelled the kind of classic sex-based insults that men always yell at women. Two furious males, one of them very clearly with complex needs, were screaming in an out-of-control fashion and were restrained from launching themselves at us by the people they were with.
But the vast bulk of verbal abuse came from women. I know that at least one of the women who was screaming at me with absolute hate on her face is a lesbian and a member of various lesbian groups I once was a part of. So the question I'm asking today is why it's women who are so vehemently opposed to simple statements of biology. Why so many women were shouting and jabbing at me yesterday and not the men.
I think over the last 20 years or so I'd forgotten that being a lesbian and refusing to contemplate intimate relationships with men is the most radical and provocative position a woman can take and one that a lot of straight women have only superficial tolerance of. Pre-Covid one of my friends attended a Women's Place UK meeting where a highly-respected Labour female councillor with a long track record in improving women's rights got up to speak and prefaced her comment with 'I never used to have any time for lesbians but I feel sorry for them now'. Which tells you how low in the pecking order some women are to women who are generally supportive of women. The insult to lesbians, who have started and underpinned almost every women's organisation you can name, is staggering.
We thought the world had changed, but I don't think it has. Yesterday was like being back in the 80s and 90s. The hatred was palpable. It must be so hard to be a young GC lesbian coming out into this climate.
I'm tired: I'm rambling: I'm trying to process too much. I'll stop now.