Diva magazine is trans inclusive

[daimbars]

Statement on trans inclusion in a tweet from Diva, the UK's biggest lesbian magazine.
I'm pleased they've made their position clear, and support it.

Feminism is an umbrella term for a wide range of activism, theories and demands.

However it is generally agreed to mean that it is the promotion and advocacy of women's rights in order to achieve equality of the sexes.

Activism for equality of sexes - whereby men's rights are also centred - is not feminism. Feminism is concerned with the liberation of women from patriarchal structures and male oppression - hence the name of the general movement.

Last time I picked up a copy of Diva I saw Munroe Bergdorf's column & a fawning interview with Susie Green which completely ignored the issue of young lesbians being put on drugs that would put them on a path to cross-sex hormones, sterility & all the rest.

I put it back on the shelf.

All to often the line pushed on Mumsnet is that being feminist means being gender critical and refusing to see trans women as women and lesbians (if that is their sexual orientation). This is yet more proof that a lot of femists see the world very differently.

I am a feminist and I am proud to be trans-inclusive. The announcement by DIVA is welcome and important.

JuzzaL a person can be exclusively attracted to the female sex, but not wish to exclude trans women from the lesbian community. That does not make the person bisexual.

JuzzaL - A feminism is anyone who supports the rights of women to be equal. No one should be excluded from feminism. - A trans woman.

As for your comment on the girl I am seeing, you do not get to dictate that. We are not talking about sexual orientation as a PC. Human attraction is a complicated thing.

I'm a lesbian, and like most lesbians I know, stopped buying Diva years ago.

Snappity this madness won't last. It won't.

It's impossible to fight for the rights of women unless you can define the word "woman".

Lesbian = A human female in a same sex relationship. Anything else is a twisting of what lesbian means. Women here know what a lesbian is and we won't take lessons from people who try to change meanings to suit their own lifestyle.

Ah yes, 'human sexuality is a complicated thing' in response to women being exclusively attracted to women. That'll be the squish of lesbian erasure you are hearing right there.

Fwiw, if Daim is genuinely a bona fide woman and lesbian ( and, no offense intended, but that is impossible to verify here) and supports transwomen being included as 'lesbians', that doesn't make her Bi. It just means she has capitulated to a narrative that denies reality. Which anyone can work out from most of her other posts her anyway, so there's that.

A feminism [sic] is anyone who supports the rights of women to be equal.

A feminist is a woman who believes in feminism. You cannot be a feminist if you are not a woman because unless you are a woman then you are part of the patriarchal structure and male oppression from which feminists are seeking liberation. Therefore someone who is part of the oppressing structure cannot be a feminist - although they can recognise their privileged position and what feminists are fighting for and be an advocate and an ally.

To use another example, I support the Black Lives Matter movement. It's not possible for me to be a "Black Lifer" because I am not a person of colour - I haven't experienced racial profiling and oppression based on the colour of my skin. Therefore to claim membership would be me appropriating someone else's position and voice when I have no right. However I can be a supporter and an ally - which is what I do.

I disagree Resistance - of course men can be feminists.

Women can also be misogynists.

A friend of mine often used to say "I'm not a lesbian, but my wife is".

She was 100% correct. She's now in a relationship with a man btw - her ex married another woman.

Can we just use some honesty here and start substituting the word ‘inclusive’ for ‘about men’? Because that is EXACTLY what this is about even though a fair few are too dim/desperate for virtue cookies to see it.

The party which is part of the structure of oppression cannot simultaneously be a member of the resistance against it.

They can be sympathetic to the causes that the resistance champions, and they can also be an ally in helping a resistance movement achieve its aims and goals. However one thing they cannot do is claim membership of the resistance because unless they have been on the receiving end of the oppression, they will never understand or appreciate what it is truly like - because they are coming from a position of privilege that the resistance members are denied.

Misogyny is not mutually exclusive to feminist theory.

If a penis is or ever was a part of one partner the relationship is not a lesbian one. There is no such thing as a lesbian with a penis. It's that simple.

To follow on from my previous thought -

You cannot claim to know what oppression is like when you have the option to step out of it at any time by virtue of your privilege - because that's not oppression; that's choice.

Or to put it more pithily a la St Jarvis of Cocker:

Rent a flat above a shop,
Cut your hair and get a job.
Smoke some fags and play some pool,
Pretend you never went to school.
But still you'll never get it right,
'Cause when you're laid in bed at night,
Watching roaches climb the wall,
If you called your Dad he could stop it all.

I look forward to a similar statement from Attitude Magazine (the mag for gay men). I hope they will also give a column to a trans man and have trans male models. In fact, why not have a whole issue dedicated to trans men?

In real life everyone knows what a lesbian actually is. And is not.

Trying to appropriate and colonise female homosexuality is not cool or clever, despite attempts by glossy magazines to jump on the next big bucks bandwagon.

You can shout all you like on here and have the biggest hissy fit you want, but that still won't make any of this nonsense true.

Here you go SPOFS - it's been done.