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.

Words mean something. Lesbian means something. It's not a word that can be used to mean anything the speaker wants.

Since the Lesbains Sex Wars (Google but it's not as exciting as it sounds), there has been a feeling in the LGBT community that, while words have specific means, human sexuality is a strange thing that doesn need very specific definitions.

For example, during the AIDS crisis Men Who Have Sex With Men were a distinct category. They weren't called 'gay' or 'bisexual' because they weren't, they just had sex with men and then went home to their wives and children.

I know a gay man, who finishes work at around 4am and gets a taxi home every night. At the end of the jounrny he offers to pay in cash or in kind. The taxi drivers are, presumably, as heterosexually self defined at the rest of the population but he claims to not hand over cash more than a couple of times a week.

You talk about the erasure of lesbians so Im trying to clarify if you know what a lesbian is, or if you were a Stonewall type lesbian.

That looks a lot like asking someone to justify their sexuality.

Haidees has a point - you haven't answered, just talked around the houses,so to speak. * I'd like to know the answer too.

Sorry, but my days of being straight womens lesbian encyclopedia are over. I gave that up in my 30s.

Haidees has a point - you haven't answered, just talked around the houses,so to speak. I'd like to know the answer too.*

Why be disingenuous enough to ask, you, as a straight women, with your heteronormative privilege, obviously know what it is to be a lesbians, so why not just tell her.

I'm sure she'll appreciate the help.

Such a lot of derailing after some very powerful and moving early posts.
I have no reason to disbelieve young lesbians testimony about the take over of all women lesbian spaces by transactivists. This is always worth posting again:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3146166-Transactivism-and-the-lesbian-community

Such a lot of derailing...

Yeah, @Beyone, you're here to be discussed and protected. Stop offering inconvenient opinions.

As I recall, no one was accusing S&Mdykes etc of not being lesbians, but of not being the 'right' sort of lesbians. Ditto the straight girls on exploratory missions and oggling the natives at the local lesbian hot-spot, they were only ever claiming to be a (bit) queer, not claiming to be actual lesbians, just a bit possibly bi at weekends (or until they had to settle down) kind of thing.

As regards transwomen hanging out with lesbians back then okay, a few did, in my experience, but very few dykes would have considered them as possible partners, and most of the dykes I knew were totally definite about the existence of a penis being a total no-go area, however 'pretty' the presentation. And it was okay and understood to say that pretty clearly. So, a slight annoyance at best, from the various hangers-on and tourists, no invasion or demands. And the whole lesbian sex-wars thing etc, it was only ever an argument amongst ourselves (which was allowed) I'm sure that if push came to shove we'd have defended fellow dykes, even if we very strongly disapproved of their sexual antics or dress-sense, or whatever. Even tories (although that last one was possibly the most taxing!). Very different from the current invasion and take over bid by the TRAs.............

In terms of the lesbian experience, I couldn't talk about because it's not my experience.

And I'm sure, there are all manner of different preferences within that sexual orientation.

And of course, sexual orientation isn't always necessarily reflected by who you actually sleep with. Given the prevalence of people who sleep with other people to whom they're not attracted.

But homosexuality is about same-sex attraction.

I don't have to be lesbian to understand the meaning of words and why the biological sex underpinning many of them is being blurred or erased.

If lesbians decide that attraction to a transmen means they're straight, I take issue with it.

Because a transman isn't a man.

That's kind of the whole point for me.

I can understand not being attracted to specific transmen, because they look too much like men, of course.

But they're not men. So, to me, it can't be on that basis.

That's not because I can understand the lesbian experience, it's because I understand that words have meaning.

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

*You're probably thinking of Sarah Ditum? Well known feminist. Datun has much more mundane meaning

Yes, it was a joke Haidees but one that I suspect most lesbians will get.

Also, "which type of lesbian"? I'm the chippy type who objects to being categorised like a bloody Buzzfeed quiz, if that helps.

Datun IIRC Magdalen Burns makes a great distinction between sexuality and sexual preference. To use myself as an example - I wouldn't date a transman because I'm straight and don't do vulvas. That's my sexuality. I wouldn't date a transwoman with a penis because I don't find men in dresses a turn on. That's my sexual preference. Nice distinction, I think.

And the whole lesbian sex-wars thing etc, it was only ever an argument amongst ourselves (which was allowed) -- I'm sure that if push came to shove we'd have defended fellow dykes, even if we very strongly disapproved of their sexual antics or dress-sense, or whatever.

While we probably would have turned on anyone from the outside, I've got an ex who has a scar over her eye from being hit by a Women Against Violence Against Women placard, it did get physical. The ex wasn't even a proper leather dyke, she just liked the jacket.

The argument for S&M dykes not bring lesbians, which I'm stating, not giving any credence to, was that, as sexual oppressors of women, they were men and therefore not lesbians.

I've always suspected that lots of women didn't get into S&M from a genuine desire, just to escape the folk music and dogma.

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'? I disagree that the purpose of the braggadocio is to shut down the thread. I expect that will be the result, but it is not necessarily the intent.

Really odd conversation, nobody here wants to police sexuality, it doesn't matter if you're bi or lesbian or het. But the words mean something. What's the point in being with men and saying you're lesbian? What's the point? It makes the words bisexual, heterosexual and homosexual completely meaningless. Homosexual people fought for decades to be acknowledged and shouldn't be erased in some rainbow of queer politics.

Exactly, Pratchet.

There's also the problem that if you don't have homosexuality as a sex based orientation, then neither is heterosexuality.

And as sexual orientation is a protected characteristic, these words do have meaning. Legally.

stillscreaming I have to say that as someone who in the 90s was very much on the queer end of lesbianism rather than the feminist end - it was precisely to get away from the folk music. Also I guess it's natural that young people think the thing that came before them is awful. I'm a little embarrassed about that now.

You know for me it’s not about anything but fucking men pushing us women around as usual.
We don’t “women” right we don’t “ lesbian” correctly.
They can all fuck off.

I’m not as sophisticated as you lot.

DjunaBarnes

I might mock the music but I'm genuinely grateful for the women who went before me. I can't tell you the gratitude I have toward the women who sat and listened to the bollox I was spouting at 16/17, gave consideration to it and opened my mind up to other ideas.

Those women taught me how to think, how to question and never to accept what the patriarchy handed to me. They had ideas about women's emancipation that were so outrageous to me, that I laughed at them. They accepted my laughter with good grace and educated me a bit more.

They taught me the value of vocalising my experience as a working class lesbian and the value of listening to the equally valid experience of others.

I totally accept that there are some young lesbians who are uncomfortable with aspect of the scene/movement/community, I think that they should be listened to and their experience honoured. I accept that the our scene/movement/community has changed radically. Personally, I've see radical changes before that haven't resulted in the total wiping out of lesbian identity. However, I haven't seen this total polarisation of views, with no one listening to anyone else and each side trying to out-scream the other, since the Sex Wars and they resulted in the death of second wave feminism.

I see that some women have genuine concerns about the changes we are facing and I've also seen unfettered bigotry. What I'm not seeing (on either side) is those with moderate views jumping on the bigotry at the extreme end of their own spectrum. That's a loss, it really stifles discussion.

This isn't the first time I've have a bunch of straight women tell me that I'm not the right kind of lesbian, I've also seen women told that they're not the right kind of working class women by middle classed women; not the right kind of black women by white women; not the right kind of disabled women by able bodied women. This is the first time that I've not seen anyone of their own group ask them to consider their position and moderate their language.