Do you think lesbian is defined by sex or gender?

[neroforte]

So, if someone was of male sex, but identified as a woman, and they dated a woman, would it be a lesbian or straight relationship? Would the bio woman still be considered a lesbian for dating the woman indentified male?

Thats good of you to say, thank you

@Ijustreallywantacat

Not anti trans but thinks it's acceptable to interrogate strangers until they squirm about their sex life and partners on their genitals, and be aggressive to TW if they ask someone on a date. How is anyone going to live their best life if people act like that towards them? OK That's what I've been talking about for most of this thread. The point about being aggressive towards TW if they ask someone out for a date really got to me because ive been there. I asked another girl out at school, word got round, and the next year of my life was hell. My property was destroyed and every PE lesson I was accused of being a pervert. I was the 'dirty dyke' for 2 years. The PE teacher made me go change in the toilets on my own, rather than punish my bullies. I wouldn't want anybody else to be subjected to that feeling. TW or otherwise.

I don't believe the PP was "interrogating" anybody - you're projecting your own experiences into that scenario. And I'd rather make my child squirm with the truth than lie to them about biological fact whilst playing along with an ideology that harms biological women. Every time. And anybody can live their best life if they don't allow the past behaviour of others to negatively affect them as they move forward into their adult future. And why shouldn't someone be aggressive towards a TW asking someone out IF that TW does it in an entitled and inappropriate way? Not much critical thinking going on here, is there?? You seem pretty messed up, if you don't mind my saying so.

Oh arse

That was for ijustreallywantacat

"So if a person with a penis puts on a dress and says "I'm a woman" and then asks a lesbian out, and says no, that person can be called transphobic"

THIS was the post I was originally replying to. It says asks a lesbian out, nowhere in there does it say that it is in an entitled and inappropriate way. Other people were projecting their own presumptions of how a TW would ask someone out, not me.
I have NEVER on this thread said that it's okay to ask someone out in an inappropriate way. The opposite! My point was that in general, anyone can ask anyone they like out, as long as they're prepared to hear 'no'.

"I recently met a young lesbian, 23 years old, freshly graduated. Knowing about this controversy I asked her, in a lighthearted manner, what she made of "these blokes calling themselves lesbians" just to hear her opinion.
She shocked me by saying she'd been in a relationship with one for a year at uni. I asked how that worked, if she really was a lesbian. I suggested that she was in fact, bi. Oh no, she said, most emphatically, I am 100% lesbian. I said that makes no sense, you have been sleeping with someone with a male body. Then she said no, it's not like that, trans women have "a different essence" and "a female energy" about them. I then said, yeah, but they've still got the meat and two veg, how do you cope with that? She kept on saying that I "don't understand". (She's right - I don't!) She said you don't have to use it as a penis. You can "get round that". By this time she was squirming with embarassment and so was I, so I let it go and we've never broached the subject again."

This was the interrogation. Use if a different word if you want, but I thought it was bloody RUDE.

Can I define myself as black?

I doubt that you can actually come up with a watertight objective definition of who is black. (It's probably easier to do that for lesbian in fact!)

Maybe their needs to be new words for gender attractions based on gender not sex because they are not the same.

@MurielSpriggs

Can I define myself as black?

I doubt that you can actually come up with a watertight objective definition of who is black. (It's probably easier to do that for lesbian in fact!)

Well apparently we can't have an objective definition of a woman either.

I wish society would just let people be people and love whomever they love. We don't need labels and if we do, there's a debate, people get upset...and for what?

The medics will need their own definitions to ensure accurate medical advice and treatment. Just like not being able to remember the names of the bones in our body, we don't need to use these medical terms in real life.

I wish society would just let people be people and love whomever they love.

That sounds very nice, and I'm all for it, but it isn't the LGB trying to forcibly redefine lesbian sexuality and insist that lesbian women become inclusive of male bodied people or suffer all kinds of name calling and abuse. It isn't LGB with a problem with letting people be people and love who they love, it's LGB being told to overcome their homosexuality to benefit other people and 'learn to cope' with sex they wouldn't choose for themselves. This is the antithesis of loving kindness and tolerance and acceptance.

We don't need labels and if we do, there's a debate, people get upset...and for what?

Because, as you can see, some people, particularly homosexual women, have been forced to start defining themselves very strongly and to stand up against coercion and stomping all over their boundaries, their sexuality, their acceptance in society and even their right to seek sex that they want and enjoy rather than provide their bodies dutifully willing or not for social duty to male people. Who apparently get to choose and enjoy sex but they don't.

This is yet again like scolding someone who is asking the weighty person next to them to stop standing on their foot, for making the person hurting them feel bad and being judgy of their actions. There is no point in dressing all this up in nice words about love and wouldn't it be lovely to live without labels and be kind and we don't need to use medical terms (that upset people that don't fit them but want to), its flat out disingenuous.

As a lesbian yes. I have HAD to resort to being very, very clear in absolute terms because my boundaries are not being respected, never mind treated in a kind, loving, mutually caring way. That those who forced me to this point find that upsetting? That really is their problem.

We don't need labels

I'm afraid we do, otherwise we can't define the people who require certain sex based rights, protections and services. And that also means we can't see when one sex is being discriminated against.

*We don't need labels

We do need the right to name ourselves as a discrete group. Lesbian women have the right to their own name and not to have it appropriated by a group who have nothing in common with them.

We don't need labels

What do you mean by a "label"? Do you mean a garment that someone wears? What does that have to do with lesbians?

Let me ask you a question. Does the man in management who proudly declares that he "can't see colour" do anything positive to end racial discrimination with that statement?

I say he doesn't. He congratulates himself on how wonderful he is, and wends his way through life, never noticing that he is more likely to chuck CVs in the bin if they have a name at the top that suggests the applicant isn't white. He never notices that he never promotes people who aren't white. He never notices that the only department that does employ Asian people in a ratio typical of the town's population demographics is the cleaning one.

Now I ask, what happens when someone says "I can't see sex and I just treat people as people"?

Eliminating labels doesn't eliminate discrimination. It just eliminates the language we need to identify it, describe it, and combat it. We need labels.

We do need the right to name ourselves as a discrete group.

We most certainly do have the right to name ourselves and the groups we belong to. As does everyone, including transwomen, who do wish to call themselves women. I disagree that we have the exclusive right to the name. First off, totally unenforceable in any sort of ethical way, and you will find that not everyone who you think is there with you on the label agrees that it is a bad thing. I'm not brainwashed or a handmaiden.

@Ijustreallywantacat

We do need the right to name ourselves as a discrete group.

We most certainly do have the right to name ourselves and the groups we belong to. As does everyone, including transwomen, who do wish to call themselves women. I disagree that we have the exclusive right to the name. First off, totally unenforceable in any sort of ethical way, and you will find that not everyone who you think is there with you on the label agrees that it is a bad thing. I'm not brainwashed or a handmaiden.

Of course women have the exclusive use of the word woman, because that's what we are.

Transwoman are male. Women are adult human females. We're a discrete biological grouping.

It's like saying apples can be called oranges.

You don't get to give away our word on behalf of the other 3 billion women on this planet.

Well. I'm a gender-critical feminist, and a lesbian for nearly 50 years. But honestly, I don't really mind what words people use to describe their relationships. I have a good friend, a woman, whose partner for the past several years is a transwoman; previously, afaik, she only had female partners. I've never asked her if she thinks of it as a lesbian relationship, or defines her partner or herself as a lesbian. I imagine she would use other words, but I don't know. Quite likely she wouldn't see the need to define or categorise any of it.
Another friend I've known since the 90s was a lesbian woman, then surprised a great many people by "becoming" a transman about 15 years ago. She/he had been with a female partner for a number of years and they are still together. Again friend has never said anything to me about how he describes the relationship.
For me, a lesbian is a woman who is attracted to/has sex with women, but I wouldn't say that friend A, or friend B's partner, shouldn't call themselves lesbians if they choose to. I have never thought that I would or could have sex with a biological male; I don't know how I would have reacted if a partner I loved started to identify as male.

; I don't know how I would have reacted if a partner I loved started to identify as male.

Well as they are still female, though identifying as a man, the question of your sexual orientation doesn't really arise. However, if they insist that you rename yourself as a hetereosexual person then I am afraid that might be considered a firm of abuse.

@Ijustreallywantacat

We do need the right to name ourselves as a discrete group.

We most certainly do have the right to name ourselves and the groups we belong to. As does everyone, including transwomen, who do wish to call themselves women. I disagree that we have the exclusive right to the name. First off, totally unenforceable in any sort of ethical way, and you will find that not everyone who you think is there with you on the label agrees that it is a bad thing. I'm not brainwashed or a handmaiden.

Why can't transwomen use the word transwomen?

I disagree that we have the exclusive right to the name. First off, totally unenforceable in any sort of ethical way, and you will find that not everyone who you think is there with you on the label agrees that it is a bad thing. I'm not brainwashed or a handmaiden.

So nothing wrong with Rachel Dolezal saying she is an African American?

@Bloodybridget

Well. I'm a gender-critical feminist, and a lesbian for nearly 50 years. But honestly, I don't really mind what words people use to describe their relationships. I have a good friend, a woman, whose partner for the past several years is a transwoman; previously, afaik, she only had female partners. I've never asked her if she thinks of it as a lesbian relationship, or defines her partner or herself as a lesbian. I imagine she would use other words, but I don't know. Quite likely she wouldn't see the need to define or categorise any of it. Another friend I've known since the 90s was a lesbian woman, then surprised a great many people by "becoming" a transman about 15 years ago. She/he had been with a female partner for a number of years and they are still together. Again friend has never said anything to me about how he describes the relationship. For me, a lesbian is a woman who is attracted to/has sex with women, but I wouldn't say that friend A, or friend B's partner, shouldn't call themselves lesbians if they choose to. I have never thought that I would or could have sex with a biological male; I don't know how I would have reacted if a partner I loved started to identify as male.

This. Fellow lesbian here. Only difference is in the case of a partner starting to identify as male, I strongly suspect I'd lose the attraction. So gender (as opposed to sex) does seem to play an important part for me.

You have every right to call an apple an orange, Rachel D, while I strongly disagree with what she did (and so did society, thus her being punished via job loss etc), has the right to call herself whatever she wants, and I have the right to define my own group. You have the right to call TW men, as much as I disagree with you.

To me, when I say right, I mean 'the freedom to do something without being arrested', basicallly. I'm thinking of it in terms of freedom of speech.

What do you think the consequences should be for TW who call themselves women? Should those consequences be backdated for TW who have been living that way for many decades?

The idea that lesbians would be rude or aggressive when rejecting a male is just gaslighting. Women know you don't aggressively reject the advances of men, even the politest "no" can lead to verbal abuse; most of us value our safety so don't behave in antagonistic ways.

The aggression is all one way. It's very easy to find evidence of the violent threats lesbians have faced for asserting their sexual orientation is based on sex. It's dishonest to claim it doesn't happen just because you know some transwomen who don't behave that way.

Planned Parenthood in Totonto ran workshops for TW called "How to overcome the cotton ceiling", these workshops were specifically aimed at breaking down the barriers which made it more difficult for TW to find female partners. Lesbian boundaries are simple something to be navigated around and it seems accusations of bigotry and transphobia are the preferred methods with the suggestion that your sexual orientation being defined by genital preferences is a bit immature and not at all inclusive.

The person who ran these workshops is now employed by Stonewall in the trans leadership program.

The idea that lesbians would be rude or aggressive when rejecting a male is just gaslighting.

Speak for yourself. I've been rude and (mildly using some colourful language!) aggressively rejected plenty of men when they warranted it! Anyone is capable of being aggressive.

@334bu yes of course my partner would still be biologically female, but I think like @summerinthebigcity it's pretty likely I'd feel very differently about them and about the relationship. Being with someone who identified as male would, I think, not fit with my identity as a lesbian! And I guess that identity is important, valuable, to me.

But as I have never been in that situation I can't say for sure what I'd do.

@Ijustreallywantacat

We do need the right to name ourselves as a discrete group.

We most certainly do have the right to name ourselves and the groups we belong to. As does everyone, including transwomen, who do wish to call themselves women. I disagree that we have the exclusive right to the name. First off, totally unenforceable in any sort of ethical way, and you will find that not everyone who you think is there with you on the label agrees that it is a bad thing. I'm not brainwashed or a handmaiden.

I am a vegan.

Are you one of those people who thinks it's fine for people to call themselves vegans when they regularly eat animal products, even though it impacts on those of us who actually are vegan?

I assure you, being told that things containing chicken stock are vegan because someone's "vegan friend" eats chicken stock is very frustrating.

Words have meanings and they are exclusionary by nature. A dartboard is not a table, a dog is not a horse, a stag is a male deer, a doe is a female deer and a woman is an adult female human.

As for the "enforcement", it's quite simple. We keep pointing it out when people misuse words!