Lesbian's and the Trans debate

[DJLippy]

I was wondering what peoples thoughts were regarding the impacts that transgenderism was having specifically on lesbians and the 'erasure' of lesbian identity. I am concerned that many public debates are ignoring their concerns. I don't think the LGBT 'community' is representing them properly and I think that women need to understand and address the specific concerns they have. Lesbian, bi-sexual and straight women should speak up together because I think that we have an insight that men lack.

If you haven't done so already I would ask everyone to check out Magdalen Berns who speaks so eloquently about the trans debate but it's impacts on young gay and lesbian people.

www.youtube.com/channel/UCvTTakI97sQ4SkMnsH8r0qQ

I think there are two main areas that I have identified are of particular concern.

1. The extremely high (2:1) rates of referrals to gender-dysphoria clinics of girls and young lesbians. Heather-Brunswick Evans work is very interesting here, especially as regards the impact that porn and an overly-sexualised media is having female self-identity. I have heard people express fears that this is in effect 21st century conversion therapy whereby young gay and lesbian children will be effectively steralised and neutered.

2. The encroachment of transwomen on lesbian spaces . I think that Reiley J Dennis is a brilliant example of this. In my opinion he is a predatory and dangerous misogonist who is using the 'trans' cover to bully and intimidate young lesbian or sexuality questioning women. This was really brought home to me yesterday after I had a conversation on twitter with a male lesbian which quickly escalated into a creepy and overtly sexualised interaction. He obviously did not have a 'female' brain - he behaved like a classic misoginist sex pest, who did not respect my boundaries even after I made this clear to him that he was making me feel uncomfortable. It really gave me an insight into how this would impact on lesbians. I think that we take our spaces for granted. I lived in Manchester which is known for it's gay scene but still it only has 1 lesbian bar. It's important that these spaces are protected, especially for young lesbians who need a safe space to explore their sexuality.

This is not meant as an attack on trans people. I am not saying that all trans people are dangerous predators or that they don't exist. However, there is an alarming rise in transgender treatments and a small minority of very dangerous and aggressive autogenophiles. It's right that we should ask questions.

I hope to start a discussion and invite comments from anyone with an insight or any worries. This is just two areas I found of particular concern from my own research I'm hoping other people can share their expertise. I know that I am not a lesbian but it reminds me of that famous line about Nazi Germany.

"First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one ..."

I think that it would be really helpful if we started to educate ourselves about the threats that lesbians are facing and started to speak out more. Lesbian, Bi-sexual, straight or male: United we stand, divided we fall.

And don't use 'cunty' as an insult.

Like always with this debate I feel like I should have just taken the red pill and just stayed in Narnia. The more I educate myself the more concerned I become. I think that this is something which many women can understand - not being able to exert your boundaries or even see things for what they are.

I had my peaktrans moment on Saturday watching Magdalen's video's. Before that point I'd been conciliatory, trying to find a compromise. Transwomen are obviously not women, is it OK if we just agree that they're transwomen? Why did I need her to tell me to stand up for myself before I did? "Do lesbians have penis'?" Why is that sentence so much easier to answer than, do women have a penis. NO - Of course not! Therefore - transwomen are men. At what point in your transition do you become a "woman." When you get fake tits. Invert your penis. When you "pass" and nobody can tell. I don't believe in "ladybrain" it's unscientific claptrap! What is so wrong in expressing this obvious statement of fact - why all this hostility? Why do they even care what I think - I don't care if they think that Transwomen are women.

I have been researching this subject for months but it's sooooooo hard to find reliable evidence. Like, really good evidence. Who can really understand scientific papers? You just have to read propaganda and interpreting what you're reading is so difficult. Eventually, I felt I had a good handle on things but I had some questions so I started to ask people on twitter. I was so scared of being branded a TERF that I walked on eggshells the whole time. I was so polite, so careful to use correct terms. But if I stepped a foot out of line the reaction was awful! HOW COULD YOU KNOW YOU'RE NOT TRANS/NON-BINARY/INTER. Then they call you a terf and block you.

If they'd stop assuming so much I may have been able to tell them about my own gender non-conforming childhood, my own bi-sexuality, my own experiences. They didn't want to hear about it because they didn't care.

Meanwhile, whenever I've asked 'TERFS' they've answered me properly, polite and knowledgeable. What was the difference between the Terfs and the Trans?

One group were women and the other were men. That is how ingrained these systems of deference are. Why is everyone going along with it? Why are they pretending that they believe Lily Madrigan is actually a woman?

We need to call this out and say no - respect our female bodies because without it you wouldn't even be here. Do you know what you did to your mothers urinary system? If you really wanted to be an authentic 'woman' you'd have figured out how to give yourself an artificial meonpause by now!

I think that the 'lesbian angle' would be a great way to fight back. Initially I thought I was going to be called homophobe for questioning any of this but it could be flipped around on people if they know the truth. The most annoying thing about this debate is I think that key elements are missing from the MSM debate. Bathrooms are a minor. Prisons are more important. The medicalisation of young gay kids. I also think that the encroachment of men into lesbians spaces is repugnant and something that all women would understand, if only it was explained to them.

Pratchett

Wiggy I have many screenshots of trans people saying same sex attraction is transphobic. If you don't believe me, go on Twitter and ask, say, the LGBT Greens or LGBT Labour if exclusive same sex attraction is morally acceptable

Oh lord, the day we start using the views of a small minority on Twitter as decent reference material is the day we should all just give up. There's a ton of holocaust deniers furiously banging their little fists on their keyboards dispensing 280 characters of righteous bile. But I don't think they are representative of everybody or indeed right. (Or should be allowed to have access to the internet for that matter, but that's by the by.) You simply can't hold Twitter up as a normal, rational view held by the majority.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could have a respectful conversation that didn't mirror the worst of the Twitter echo chamber? I use it and enjoy it but it's not a great system for exchanging ideas. You can't break complicated ideas into 280 characters. Twitter is for polemics. Not discussion.

Beholdtheflorist
The trouble is that twitter is given a power way beyond all reason.
How many news reports do you see that includes 'quotes' from twitter?
I loathe twitter but I can see that this is the main medium that is being used to bully and harass lesbians and women. Have a look at this - it's chilling:
fairplayforwomen.com/misogyny_hate_silencing/

"I've never encountered this in real life, only on twitter"

"IT HAPPENS AND IF YOU DON'T BELIEVE ME GO ON TWITTER"

Behold we tried respectful conversation. for years. we tried having a discussion about the contest of rights and we're told we were bigots and to shut up, we tried talking about how sex and gender are different and got told we we're vagina feminists, we tried talking about how lesbian desire does not encompass men, that we have valid sexualities outside of hetrosexuality and got called vagina fetishists and transphobes. we tried talking about our needs in the organisations we founded and we're told we had some kind of magical privilege over hetrosexual men and to be smaller, be more supportive, demand less. we tried talking about our worries about young women diving into bodily alteration they can never undo and we're told some bullshit about authentic selves and affirmation and made up suicide stats.

We tried talking and got screamed at and threatened, and now when finally we're starting to have this conversation it's all "why can't you just be nice". like no woman's heard that before.

I asked you to ask official LGBT groups if they support exclusive same sex attraction. Real, verifiable LGB groups. None so blind as those who won't see. And by the way I know of a lesbian who was punched by a TIM when she rejected him.

Try asking Stonewall what the definition of lesbian is. They will refuse to say a woman who same-sex attracted.

They consistently refuse to use words that are sex exclusive.

They will say woman to woman attraction. Which, according to them can be a heterosexual relationship.

Ask them define it in terms of sex.

They can't.

I've been reading Stonewall's 'Vision for Change' (#prayforLifelong). They define sex as assigned to a person on the basis of primary sex characteristics (genitalia) and reproductive functions. Weirdly though they define intersex as amongst other things a term used to describe a person who may have the biological attributes of both sexes (my emphasis).

They're all over the place.

I wish people would start using the modern term Disorders of Sexual Development because it moves intersex away from a deep-rooted cultural idea of a hermaphrodite - something that has never existed. People with DSD have a sex, they are either male or female, but the expression of that sex is disordered which until genetic testing meant that people had to guess a bit. (well they didn't have to but the level of sex segregation of personality and behaviour is so high that the idea of leaving someone ambiguous horrifies people).

"IT HAPPENS AND IF YOU DON'T BELIEVE ME GO ON TWITTER"

Or reddit

I understand that reddit is a thing

Djuna: I agree. When people say 'what about intersex' and you say 'intersex people have a sex, they're male or female' people are dumbfounded. They don't know.

Exactly. Everything Djuna says. Thank you Djuna.

Thanks for sharing it's really moving, the more I learn the more concerned I become. First time I posted, just figuring mumsnet out and kind of giddy, not talked about this must so sorry if i'm a bit distracted and ranty

Stillscreaming

Thanks for that good to hear a varied perspective. Do you know where I can find info regarding assessment - would be good to learn more about the process from referral to diagnosis.

Datun

Hey Datun, as in Sarah Datun? - I hear you're famous now as a national figure of hate. Bloomin terf's eh, expressing their democratic rights to free speech

Thanks for that link it was really useful

DjunaBarnes

Thank you for sharing your story it's really moving :( And also makes me angry as hell!

WiggyPig
I understand what you're saying - twitter is not qualitative data but I have attempted to find out this information from TRA and what I did find was very poor and they weren't very forthcoming with quality information. Anything you would care to share with me would be much appreciated :)

And don't use 'cunty' as an insult.

I don't mind being called cunty. I am cunty - in both respects. I failed female socialisation I'm afraid. So badly that the patriarchy didn't even bother asking me back for a resit.

I feel sorry for the tweens and teens just feeling their way through an early understanding of their same sex attraction and landing in lesbophobic spaces like Tumblr and DeviantArt. And for the baby lesbians off to university only to find they're told they're transphobic by queer heteros and the ladypeens.

I just cannot see how today's environment is lesbian friendly at all.

thanks for the kind words

lang I grew up in the 80s when thatcher spoke on TV about how kids didn't have the right to be gay and legislation treated us all as predators, but I think it was an easier time to be a lesbian teenager than now. There were places we could go, gay and lesbian bars and bookshops we're a genuine refuge and people might not have liked us but at least other lesbians and gays had our backs.

I grew up in the 80s when thatcher spoke on TV about how kids didn't have the right to be gay and legislation treated us all as predators, but I think it was an easier time to be a lesbian teenager than now.

Me too. And, despite being het myself, spent a lot of time on the gay and lesbian scene. From what I observe, it was much better socially for lesbians then, despite Clause 28. We've moved forward on legal frameworks but backwards socially.

DJ there's no online substitute for a real-life group of people. I'm not friends with very many TRAs. Twitter / Reddit / any other echo chamber is going to be deeply lesbophobic, also deeply misogynist and pretty all-round hateful. I don't think anybody will get a true characterisation of the competing forces of trans and feminist thought on lesbians other than by asking lesbians - and this lesbian's thoughts are that there's much to be cautious about, for all the reasons given by Djuna, but that the fear of lesbianism itself being transphobic is not one that I've seen in meatspace, only online, and only from those who are not actually trans themselves.

Lang cunty wasn't meant as an insult exactly, more a term of mild irritation, I'm having a shit day and I apologise for taking it out on you. Today's world isn't a lesbian-friendly environment but I'm not sure there's ever been such a thing.

Lang cunty wasn't meant as an insult exactly, more a term of mild irritation, I'm having a shit day and I apologise for taking it out on you.

Don't worry about it. Disagreement is fine. Keyboards lead to rudeness, we all know that and none better than me. Like I say, I failed female socialisation and am regularly blunt to the point of rudeness as I probably was to you. All's good. Let's carry on arguing!

WiggyPig

Re:Twitter. Took me a while to clock that many of the lesbians I was talking to on line were actually heterosexual men! (sorry, misgendered, how spiteful!)

Stop being a cunt LangCleg

@Datum

Try asking Stonewall what the definition of lesbian is. They will refuse to say a woman who same-sex attracted.

One thing LGBT people love to do is have an argument. You should have seen some of the 80s lesbian faction rows.

I used to be a professional gay. One thing I can absolutely tell you from my experiences is that it is impossible to please everyone, extremely difficult to please a majority and the very best you can hope for is that you don't miff too many people and still provide some kind of useful service to at least some of your constituents.

So, as a lesbian, I don't really need to ask Stonewall what their definition of one is. They aren't the sex police, their definition is very broad and will include lots of people I don't want to sleep with. If we all agree that Stonewall should say same-sex and reduce it down to biology then are we including all the big, hairy transmen in that?

(They come under the heading of people I do not want to sleep with, together with anyone I'm related to, people from Luton and the ex who did the bad thing).

Stonewall are great, the do loads of anti bullying stuff, campaigning and give out chocolate at Pride but they're not the Sex Police. And they, like any other third sector organisation will only get it right about half the time.

@Djuna Barnes

I grew up in the 80s when thatcher spoke on TV about how kids didn't have the right to be gay and legislation treated us all as predators, but I think it was an easier time to be a lesbian teenager than now. There were places we could go, gay and lesbian bars and bookshops we're a genuine refuge and people might not have liked us but at least other lesbians and gays had our backs.

I would love to know where you grew up. As a spotty little teenage lesbian myself in the early 80s and then a grown up one by the time the 90s (and all it's terrible music) came round, I had a shocker.

I mean, even if I put aside the school bullying, the workplace bullying, the othering and the very real (and once realised) threat of the sack if your boss found out, the scene itself wasn't a utopia of togetherness.

Who can forget the great Lesbian Strength March and the resulting riot of 1988?

The men called us 'fish' despite the fact most of us raised money and volunteered for the THT. The lesbian scene was split into several factions. Yeah, there were bookshops and bars but a lot of them still had boards over the windows for safety.

And no, straight people didn't like us but we didn't have any legislation to protect us, anyone on television who looked like us, anyone who would stand up for us and no one in the public eye who would admit to being one of us.

So no, we didn't have it better back then.

Florist why is it you're putting so much effort into shutting down this specific thread, minimising everything and basically shouting 'nothing to see here, move along'?

Wonder why you don't want this discussed? And are so keen that everyone just stops talking about it?

#notshuttingup

OP I am very grateful I came out as a lesbian at a time long before all this crap started. The lovely women's only cafe where I spent a lot of time as a young, gay teenager, feeling welcomed and safe to go in alone to have a coffee and read a book for an hour without being harassed or stared at, and where I was able to find out information to lesbian only meetings and events, has long since been commandeered by TIMs. The battle for it was ugly. Few women now use it. My equally lovely LGBT group and drop in room of 10 years ago is now a TIM centred and dominated space.

I find it beyond sad that lesbian groups and meetings are having to be held secretly and out of sight to avoid TIMs taking them over.