Any lesbians feeling a tad battered and deflated?

[ImmortalityMyDarlings]

Or is it just me?

Just read some plonker on Twitter saying that lesbians are just “femininity attracted to femininity”. Makes me sad and angry.

The edifice is crumbling, OP. Let these people expose themselves. They'll do our work for us.

People don't believe us. They humour us. This has to stop.

You want people to stop humouring you

Oh

Not sure that's going to go well

I noticed yesterday two of my friends posting on Facebook about the awful transphobes at pride. They're straight men. They didn't think Pride was the place for lesbians to protest their concerns over homophobia. Straight men congratulating themselves on being so open minded that they called lesbians protesting homophobia at Pride bigots. It's mind blowing. They couldn't/wouldn't be convinced that women had genuine concerns. They just believe they're bigots. How has this happened?!

Well said @Sarahjconnor, I'm not a lesbian either but I am disgusted at how these ladies have treated.

Nynaeve, I've just joined in that Twitter thread you linked to. What a joy to see women (and some men) speaking truth to TRA power.

I'm not a lesbian but I am horrified by the attitude towards lesbians atm and what happened at Pride. It's like people are just looking for an excuse to hate women and lesbians. They don't even research what the issue is. And so many people saying they 'don't believe' the pressure to have sex with people with penises. Same people who jumped on the bandwagon for #metoo are disbelieving women now. And when it is really easy to find out if it is true, just google Cotton Ceiling. So angry and really really upset.

I’m not in the lesbian or even Feminist communities but I find it deeply troubling that a lesbian would be expected to sleep with a person with a penis. It’s a bit like a religion , we must believe and have faith that transwoman are woman against all biological facts. It’s like a strange distopian fiction. Also where are all the trans men in this? And are straight men bigots for not wanting to have sex with a trans woman? Are gay men bigots for not wanting to sleep with trans men? What’s wrong with being simply happy with being a transperson?

Thanks, FermatsTheorem, for saying what you did there. Lightbulb moment for me.

I’m heterosexual. I stand with lesbians against this rapey gaslighting crap.

I am a straight woman as well and lesbians have my support.

The thing that gets me, is that I'm pretty certain if you asked heterosexual men if they would consider a trans woman a woman for sexual/ romantic relationships the VAST majority would say absolutely no way.

I think trans rights activists are going about it all the wrong way. You can't force people to accept an untruth but you can ask them to accept you into society and expect to be able to live in peace without prejudice.

Arguing that it's up to lesbians to just say no to sleeping with someone they don't want to sleep with, completely ignores the social context we all operate in.

Young women who are still learning who they are and what their boundaries are; vulnerable women who are afraid; suggestible women who want to be "nice" or "woke", might all be pressured into sex they don't want to have.

Women in general have trouble saying no; because they are afraid of the response; because they're socialised to be nice; because men don't listen.

It's not good enough making it just the responsibility of women to refuse sex they don't want. It has to be the responsibility of men to respect boundaries and not just take no for an answer but recognise that asking might be inappropriate.

Putting pressure on one class of people to be available for sex with another class of people, in defiance of declared preferences is aggression.

Another heterosexual woman here deeply distressed at the colonisation of lesbianism.

colonization
ˌkɒlənʌɪˈzeɪʃ(ə)n/Submit
noun
noun: colonisation
the action or process of settling among and establishing control over the indigenous people of an area.
"Africa boasts a tradition of higher education institutions that predate Western colonization"
the action of appropriating a place or domain for one's own use.
"the complete colonization of television entertainment by reality shows"

Yes and no.

On the one hand, the lunatics running this huge asylum are never ever going to convince normal people that "lady dicks" exist, or that lesbians should accept men as partners. That's why they're shouting so loud online right now in their echo chambers.

But it's also incredible that the "woke" public figures including the city's mayor are publicly condemning the statement that "a lesbian is a female homosexual".

It's scary.

I'm another straight woman standing with my lesbian sisters.

I have been very disappointed in the media coverage of Pride. The BBC report simply called the protesters "anti trans", no mention of what they were really saying.

Fear not OP, what's that Hannah Gadsby quote "Nothing is a strong as a woman who has been broken down and rebuilt herself", something along that line. It's true, what we women are good at is resilience, it's what we develop to counter the regular shit that life throws at us simply because we are female.

I'm a straight women.

But I am outraged that the right of homosexual women to define themselves and the language to do this is being taken away without their consent.
Taken away to protect the feelings of a tiny minority of men with a sexual fetish, who want it for themselves.

It's outrageous, it shows such contempt for all women, it should outrage all of us.

I had been been feeling incredibly deflated, but then those brilliant women at Pride fired me up again.

Seeing people on here, Twitter, other SM speaking out and standing up for us always gives me a lift.

*Arguing that it's up to lesbians to just say no to sleeping with someone they don't want to sleep with, completely ignores the social context we all operate in.

Young women who are still learning who they are and what their boundaries are; vulnerable women who are afraid; suggestible women who want to be "nice" or "woke", might all be pressured into sex they don't want to have. *

I totally agree with you all about this madness - I've never heard anything so bloody daft in my entire life. But how will the fact that TRA are trying to push this nonsense make things any different for young women, really? Young women get pressure from straight men to sleep with them, and they have to learn to say No, if that's not what they want. How is that any different from being pressured to have sex with a man who has decided to "identify" as a lesbian?

I totally agree with you all about this madness - I've never heard anything so bloody daft in my entire life. But how will the fact that TRA are trying to push this nonsense make things any different for young women, really? Young women get pressure from straight men to sleep with them, and they have to learn to say No, if that's not what they want. How is that any different from being pressured to have sex with a man who has decided to "identify" as a lesbian?

No one would defend a normal man trying to pressure a lesbian.

But a transgender male is a different story, they use accusations of transphobia and TERF to try and coerce lesbians. Other people are so desperate to look "woke" that they support this. The number of women I have had in my Twitter notifications this weekend that support this rape culture is shocking. I post examples of the disgusting things these transgender males say to lesbians, and women dismiss and ignore them.

They claim to be women and even female and thus lesbians should sleep with them.

I'm astonished that you can't see how this is differently.

YourMajestyJ, I can actually see how it's a bit different - but I can't see how it's much different. All the thinking about this seems very much in the abstract. In the real world, a decision about whether or not to sleep with someone else isn't made with a lot of other people standing on the sidelines giving their opinions. It's a private thing between two people. If a woman turns a male "lesbian" down, what's he going to do? Run to social media and complain? He would never be able to prove that she turned him down because of his biological sex, because there are so many different reasons for fancying or not fancying other people.

YourMajestyJ, I can actually see how it's a bit different - but I can't see how it's much different. All the thinking about this seems very much in the abstract. In the real world, a decision about whether or not to sleep with someone else isn't made with a lot of other people standing on the sidelines giving their opinions. It's a private thing between two people. If a woman turns a male "lesbian" down, what's he going to do? Run to social media and complain? He would never be able to prove that she turned him down because of his biological sex, because there are so many different reasons for fancying or not fancying other people.

How about these males stop doing it?

I see you've missed the posts on here about lesbians being punched and beaten up for saying no to transgender males. I'll add another one from Twitter just yesterday.

Then there is the transgender male who tried to murder 2 strangers with an axe, after being rejected by a woman.

Oh, and then there is Dana Rivers. Currently awaiting trial for the brutal murder of 2 lesbians and their son. With the motive rumoured to be that they wouldn't accept him as a lesbian.

Saying that women can just say no makes you a rape apologist, do you realise that?

It's completely different time40.

Straight men pressuring a lesbian woman into sex can reassure themselves that she doesn't want to have sex with them because she's attracted to women, so it's nothing personal.

A trans woman pressuring a lesbian women into sex wants her to believe that the trans woman herself is a lesbian woman. If she continues to say no to sex, it's because she's transphobic and homophobic and doesn't accept that 'trans women are women'. That makes her 'no' into a 'hate crime'.

It's not the same thing at all. And I can't agree that decisions about sexual relationships are taken in private by two people these days tbh. Social media profoundly blurs the private and the public, so much more goes into the public domain.

Imagine putting the onus on women to say no, rather than on men to stop their rapey behaviour.

They are horrible examples, YourMajestyJ. But is that any different from the more usual forms of rape and male violence? It looks like exactly the same thing to me. This is just one more way for men to attempt to force themselves on unwilling women.

Saying that women can just say no makes you a rape apologist, do you realise that?

Sorry, I have no idea what you mean by this!