'Get the L Out' Statement by the lesbian protesters at Pride London

[R0wantrees]

getthelout.wordpress.com/blog/

Why “Get The L Out” ?
July 5, 2018
Angela C. Wild
Who We Are

Get the L Out is a group of lesbian and feminist individuals and organisations, opposing the increasingly anti-lesbian and misogynistic LGBT movement and the erasure of lesbians

Why We Protest

We believe that lesbian rights are under attack by the trans movement and we encourage lesbians everywhere to leave the LGBT and form their own independent movement, as well as to be vocal and take action against the proposed changes to the GRA.

Get the L Out believes trans politics (with uncritical support from the LGBT movement) does the following:

Promotes the social transition of lesbians, encouraging them to present as straight men thus favouring the pretence of heterosexuality over lesbianism – this is nothing more than a form of conversion therapy.
Promotes the medical transition of lesbians and pushes harmful drugs (untested hormone blockers, Lupron etc.) as well as unnecessary medical practices on perfectly healthy bodies – these are a form of misogynist medical abuse against lesbians.
Promotes the rights of heterosexual males who “identify” as women and lesbians (despite most of them still retaining their male genitals) over the rights of lesbians to choose their sexual partners. This new ‘queer’ LGBT politics thus coerces lesbians to accept the penis as a female organ and promotes heterosexual intercourse between male and female as a form of lesbian sex. This is simply a new facet to rape culture and compulsory heterosexuality." (continues)

A statement from various vocak feminists and trans commentators condemning this protest

PoulaFisch

The final paragraph seems significant.

They are fundraising for this lot?

"We're a prison abolishionist organisation- we don't think prisons are a safe place to put trans prisoners, or anyone else for that matter. The exact process of shutting them down is irrelevant."
mobile.twitter.com/act4transhealth/status/1006304105072119814

This is the edinburgh branch;
"We demand nothing less than the total abolition of the clinic, of psychiatry, and of the medical-industrial complex. We demand an end to capitalist & colonialist “medicine”."
mobile.twitter.com/EdinburghATH/status/942194004195672064

What is "vocak"?

cf the letter discussed on this thread:

OP *Crispbutty wrote (May 2018):

freedomnews.org.uk/its-spelt-sisterhood-not-cis-terhood-statement/

"a little taster of the content, not my words....

"We are disgusted by the TERF techniques of bullying trans people and their friends and comrades. TERFs stand against a vulnerable minority by refusing their right to exist, using their dead names, doxxing them, smearing them online and in the press and waging a fear campaign, all whilst accusing trans women of being a possible legal and physical threat to cis women. These techniques are not consistent with their announced aim of getting legislation refused by parliament and belie the TERFs real agenda of intolerance.

We are sick and tired of TERF alarmism. There is no evidence that trans women are in any way a threat to cis women. To the contrary, there is a lot of evidence that TERFs feed the prejudice against trans women. The countries which introduced their own versions of GRA are not experiencing the problems the TERFs associate with allowing trans people to determine their own gender."

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3257491-Strong-words-from-feminists-unhappy-with-trans-exclusionary-ideology

its an interesting thread & worth reading

I was at Pride London as was disgusted by the behaviour shown on Saturday at Pride and the comments on here . Do any of you know what it is like to feel trapped in the wrong down. I thought lgbt people stuck together and looked out for each other . You should all be ashamed of yourselves . Do we straight people scream and shout about your life choices I don't I accept everyone regardless of what their life choice is.

Lesbians are female homosexuals. Do you disagree?

Pink News reports Pride saying that the protestors stood on the Rainbow flag. The Rainbow flag is hugely significant to LGBTI people. If Pride are reporting matters accurately, of course most LGBTI people are going to feel offended by the actions of the protesters.

Lots of people were standing on the flag. Watch the footage.

Lesbians are female homosexuals, protected under the Equality Act. Who disagrees? Who wants to remove that protection.

Lots of people were standing on the flag. It was on the ground.

I loved what those women did.

The rainbow, Pride & LGBT now mean men''s rights to shit on women from a great height. Taking our spaces and words, buying our babies in surrogacy, sterilising our kids, telling us what we should like to be done to our bodies, how we should be represented. The happy rainbow of inclusion has become a symbol of male domination and female obedience backed up by big business.

I find it oppressive that every corporation and business put rainbows all over the place and it's now pride 'month'.

We need a feminism for women to fend off this assault on our rights.

I see the conversation has moved on a lot, but I've finally finished your previous links, @R0wantrees, and found them very helpful, so I hope it's ok if I reply to a couple of older posts in this thread?

If so - with my new-found vocabulary from the "break it down for me" thread - I suppose what specifically makes me uncomfortable is that the language of the protest does not acknowledge and may further marginalise those who that post refers to as "dysphoric, genuine transwomen*". While I understand much better how AGP or non-dysphoric men (happy in their male body while gaining sexual gratification from identifying as women IIRC?) pose a threat to women, I worry that this lack of specificity pushes the genuinely gender dysphoric transwomen out of the conversation and out of women's spaces.

I have no issue with someone who feels like they should have been born a woman, and is doing everything they can to make that happen, from using women's spaces, although I can understand that there may be certain spaces where still having a penis might make this more problematic/embarrassing for all involved. So putting AGP trans and gender dysphoria into the same bucket is the issue for me.

And I can understand why the gender dysphoric transwomen attending Pride (and their supporters) feel that this protest was not appropriate, using the one event that is supposed to make them feel safe, included, and celebrated for who they are, to make them feel anything but.

Whether or not this interpretation of the protest was intended, I'm not sure, but that was my immediate reaction and that has not changed, although my understanding of the reasoning and issues behind the protest has improved.

• I'm not comfortable using the term HSTS for this group, as this suggests an individual cannot be both dysphoric and gay - why should a "genuine transwoman" (according to that thread at least) have to be attracted to men to be a woman?

@blythebyname One more apology to you too and probably many others (this thread is tricky to navigate by phone). I was surprised at your comment and pretty defensive until I re-read what I had written. My Brookside reference was meant to be a demonstration of how minimal/rubbish lesbian representation used to be 20 years ago… while things have now moved on a lot, but in comparison trans representation is still pretty much at Brookside levels …but realise that that's not actually what I said. And also didn't check my privilege before posting so genuine apologies. Your ire/mirth was warranted and I'm sorry for any offence.

in comparison trans representation is still pretty much at Brookside levels

Always will be. There are always groups who believe that they can successfully lobby by talking to the establishment but over the years they have achieved very little. Most advances have been secured by individuals having the guts, with no support or funding, taking on Governments in the courts and winning. It is a very micro level.

I worry that this lack of specificity pushes the genuinely gender dysphoric transwomen out of the conversation and out of women's spaces.

They're still male. They don't belong in women's spaces.

Tell me how to take on someone in the courts with little or no funding Snappity, I would love to know. Legal action is eye-wateringly expensive (been through litigation so I know this)

They're still male. They don't belong in women's spaces.

Then where do they belong? Someone who thinks of themselves as a woman and always has done, has had surgery to remove breasts and penis, is taking hormones and presents as a woman… should use men's toilets? Men's changing rooms? Should under no circumstances be permitted access to woman's refuge facilities even under the worst circumstances? Should be sent to a men's prison if arrested and incarcerated?

I disagree. But please explain it to me.

So on one hand you say you "can understand that there may be certain spaces where still having a penis might make this more problematic/embarrassing for all involved" (how fucking dismissive you are of women's privacy and dignity) and the next you're talking about full surgery?

PS I didn't say they should be in men's spaces. I said they shouldn't be in women's. Because male.

This is relevent freezingsheep. The male/female difference in offender profiles has been well established for a long time.

Times article today:'Jailing damaged women is brutal and Dickensian'
by Jenni Russell:
(extract)
Britain’s record on incarcerating women has been a national scandal for decades. In the vast majority of cases it has been pointless, enormously expensive and wildly destructive, reinforcing a cycle of damaged people and broken homes that affects not just the women, but their children, families and the society that bears the subsequent costs. Now, after more than four decades of compelling critical reports on the issue, and years of earnest statements of goodwill from assorted politicians, David Gauke, the justice secretary, is at last unrolling a serious, comprehensive strategy to keep non-violent offenders out of jail.

What we do to vulnerable women now is as barbaric as the debtors’ prisons of Dickens’ time. They make up only 5 per cent of all prisoners, and they don’t have the same profile as men. They are far less dangerous, and much more likely to have committed crimes to support others. More than 80 per cent have been convicted of non-violent offences, compared with 70 per cent of men. Two fifths of mothers report offending to support their children, and half report offending to support someone else’s drug use, compared with a fifth of men.

They are also even more likely to be victims themselves. More than half were abused as children, twice the proportion of men; half are victims of domestic violence. They have much higher rates of drug addiction and mental illness. Five times as many women as men self-harm while in jail." (continues)
www.thetimes.co.uk/article/jailing-damaged-women-is-brutal-and-dickensian-jwkbs299b?shareToken=7fab65287c526119a0cc085ca972242d

See also Francis Crook's comment in Mail on Sunday article:
'As more trans women who were convicted as men hope to follow rapist Martin Ponting into female wings, prison governors fear vulnerable inmates could be attacked'

(extract)
"Prison reformer Frances Crook said that she was worried that ‘some men with a history of extreme violence and sexual violence against women have found a new way of exercising aggression towards women’.

Ms Crook, executive director of the Howard League for Penal Reform, added: ‘These men are not transitioning because they like women and want to be a woman, but in order to exert a new kind of control and dominance over women, a sort of infiltration.

‘Moreover, the process is inherently discriminatory. A woman identifying as a man could not be transferred to a man’s jail because placing a person with female attributes into a prison to live with 1,000 men, all using communal showers and living areas, would put them in serious danger.’ (continues)

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5798945/Trans-women-convicted-men-attack-vulnerable-inmates.html

Freezing, it’s a problem that’s for sure.
The trouble is the assumption that their needs trump women’s needs.

So, my trans friend who has done all the things you describe is welcome in my spaces, but I support a system where other vulnerable women can say no. And saying no has to be the default.

Woman = Adult Human Female

Female = Ova bearing sex which, in mammals, gestates young.

Mammal = Species where females sustain young with milk produced by her mammary glands.

Woman is not and can never be male.

Women's rights are specific to women - the disctinct group of the female reproductive sex.

The tiny minority of males who have powerful feelings that they are actually women, have something wrong in their minds.

Women have a fucking enormous job on our hands fighting for our rights which are under constant attack. We don't have enough time, energy or resources to be also fighting for this tiny minority of males who believe themselves to be women (and often also gallingly entitled to women's rights and resources in such a way that works agains women's rights and protections).

Women. Put yourselves first ffs! Stop all this nannying and pandering to males. They can help each other.

I disagree. But please explain it to me.

Do you need to have it explained to you that a group can create their own movement and spaces, instead of demanding that women do all the thinking and all the explaining and all the work and then just erase themselves?

Then where do they belong?

Not in the women's spaces. Beyond that, I'm sure a solution can be found. There's enough money and power behind transgender ideology to make it work. I like the idea of turning men's spaces gender neutral and leavingvthecwijen's sex specific. But it's really a male problem, for them to sort out, as feminists aren't listened to anyway.

When we say no, the response is to demand that we then solve the problem. They should grow up and sort it without harming us. It irritates me when they say we should do all the work for them.

I remain completely baffled about how we have got to where we are. If anyone had said 10 years ago that in 2018 people could risk losing their jobs for saying that a penis is not and never could be a female sex organ, or that there would be leaflets explaining how people with penises can have lesbian sex or that saying "I am a woman" means you can compete against natal women in sport, they would have been considered bonkers. But now it's mainstream. How did it happen? Where did it start?