Diva editor, responds to 'lesbian rights alliance' article in the times.

[garam]

Another strongly worded restating of support for trans rights....

"A Times article, published today, announces “lesbian fury at Stonewall over ‘trans agenda’”, as if the 135 signatories of an open letter speak for every lesbian in the world.

Sorry, but you're wrong.

Given DIVA’s unequivocal stance on trans issues, I’m sure it goes without saying, but for anyone not quite sure: those 135 signatories do not speak for us, or for the majority of cisgender lesbians.

The letter, from an organisation calling themselves the Lesbian Rights Alliance, accuses Stonewall of erasing lesbians and says: “Stonewall has rarely represented our interests. Now in your single-minded policy to promote the trans political and ideological agenda you not only fail to represent us but you actually promote lesbian invisibility – and lesbian erasure.”

I do agree that lesbians are underrepresented in the LGBT community. But it's worse for bisexual people, and even more so for trans people who are also lesbian or bisexual. That's why it's so important that a magazine like DIVA exists, and that an organisation like Stonewall is women-led and promotes bi and trans inclusion. It's the likes of DIVA and Stonewall who are making us more visible.

In fact, I'd go further. It is not Stonewall – or any other LGBT organisation – erasing lesbian identities, but these so-called feminists who, by peddling hateful and transphobic rhetoric, make people like me not want to use the word lesbian to describe myself because I don’t want to be associated with their views. What a sad state of affairs.

The letter continues: “We urge you to stop claiming to represent us and leave the L out.”

Take your own advice, LRA, and stop claiming to represent lesbians. You do not speak for me, for DIVA, or for the majority of our community.

As I’ve said before, and I’ll say again, trans women do not erase lesbians. I believe we are enriched by trans friends and lovers, parents, children, colleagues and siblings.

Groups like the LRA would have you believe that it’s “them versus us”. It’s not. They are us. We’re one and the same, and we can’t let divisive, hateful and misguided people drive a wedge between us.

DIVA publisher Linda Riley agrees with me. She says: “It seems ironic to me to complain about a lack of lesbian visibility while, at the same time, asking the L to be removed from LGBT.

“We are stronger as a community and 135 lesbians should not be able to decide what a whole community should believe.”"

Bisexual women are "underrepresented" in the lesbian community because we're not lesbians. Honestly, this isn't complicated.

@thebewilderness I'm sure that is a consideration for some. It wasn't for me, a combination of being sure my immediate family would be fine with it and a lot of naivety.

Of course I'd seen homophobia in my school, and even had it directed at me on occasion when I vociferously defended gay rights, but I never considered what the reaction would be in my home village if I went wandering about holding hands with a girlfriend. With hindsight I'm guessing we probably wouldn't have as the alternative would not have been pleasant.

@AngryAttackKittens if you're referring to the op it says we're underrepresented in the LGBT community.

It isn't necessary to @ people who are on the thread chatting.

Being a lesbian was really scary at times. Openly kissing girls, looking baby butch, led to some really hairy personal safety moments, particularly with groups of men when out socializing.

Since discovering much later in life that I was genuinely bisexual, the difficulties I've encountered are mostly snarky comments suggesting I'm not fussy, or am more likely to cheat on my partner.

Essentially, biphobia seems to boil down to people thinking I'm a potential tart, but as I'm in a heterosexual relationship, I completely sidestep any of the actual persecution that comes along with being affectionate with a partner in public, or nervously mentioning that I am doing something with my 'wife' at the weekend and fearing the reaction at work.

There is one hell of a big difference between people assuming I'm loose sometimes if they know enough about me to know my sexuality, and people actively spitting at me because I'm holding my partner's hand.

I've come to the conclusion that a lot of these women who cling on to the the lesbian label rather than admit that their orientation is to both sexes and they are in a heterosexual relationship feel that they have become invisible which is why the 'queer' thing has such currency now too.

As the movement has made such advances with genuine equality, like marriage and employment rights and so forth, the dilution of the message means that the outsiders have discovered that if everybody is an outsider, then nobody is the specialest anymore, and half this identity shitshow is because it's been forgotten that women loving other women (and men with men) was and still is in many places, an actual life-threatening orientation. Not in a 'validate me or I'll kill myself' way, but in a 'be killed by a mob or even the state' way.

It's baseline human rights, not personal fulfillment.

Essentially, biphobia seems to boil down to people thinking I'm a potential tart, but as I'm in a heterosexual relationship, I completely sidestep any of the actual persecution that comes along with being affectionate with a partner in public, or nervously mentioning that I am doing something with my 'wife' at the weekend and fearing the reaction at work.

Pretty much! I mean, yes, sometimes lesbians don't want to date you if you're bi. That's fine - people have a right to decide who they want to go out with, and I fully understand what they're afraid of happening because I've seen it happen. If you're really into someone it can hurt, but rejection always hurts, and learning to deal with that is part of being an adult.

If anything I'd say bisexuals are currently massively overrepresented in the LGBT community, in terms of how much pressure there is on people who're actually gay to be functionally bisexual via the "hearts not parts" nonsense. Just because we're happy playing with either set of genitalia doesn't mean that everyone is, and it's childish to get petulant when that turns out not to be the case.

@FloralBunting excellent posts and @AngryAttackKittens

I'm noticing bi women saying things like '...sometimes lesbians don't want to date you if you're bi. That's fine ...'

Very different to the argument from some TRAs make that everyone has to accept everyone! Or rather lesbians have to accept them.

Anyway, it doesn't make any sense to me this idea that anyone is entitled to romantic or sexual relationships with anyone else. As a straight woman I've never assumed I had the right to date anyone, for any reason. If they wanted to date me, and I them, great but really when did all this assumption about who has to date who come in?

Yup. There are a million reasons why someone could decide I'm really not for them. I'm brunette, I'm skinny, I'm Catholic, I'm a nerd, etc. Horses for courses.
One of the reasons I get so irked by Riley D is this 'examine your preferences' crap about sexual attraction and consent. Why should anyone have to do that?
If someone finds, like I did, that after a few decades of being repulsed by/indifferent to penis, that some penis owners might actually be attractive partners, then that's a thing. You adjust your previous parameters and you maintain the boundaries you are comfortable with. And you be a grown up and acknowledge that you aren't the orientation you thought you were. Fair enough.

But if you are quite happy to be pootling along the romantic road with zero interest in cock whatsoever, why should you ever feel the need to 'examine' that? Why would it ever be a source of reflection? Does anyone ever encourage straight men down the pub to have a few moments a week just having a think about a dick in their mouth - you know, just to make sure that everything was still as they had expected it to be?

@garam if someone identifies into a group, despite not fitting into the definition of that group, do they then get the right not only to stay in the group but also to then re-define the group based on themselves? Basically from the inside out?

Does Rachel Dolezal get to redefine what it means to be black?

Your list of tweets of various people arguing about how they are now lesbians because their 'husband' is now their 'wife'; how they are a lesbian, people not being happy to be viewed as straight, etc, that had me confused. I thought at first someone had posted it to prove the point that just because people do not like a situation, just because they want to identify in a certain way, doesn't make it so.

Do you think it does make it so?

I'm straight, I am married to a lovely man. But I find men (as a sex class) bloody frustrating/maddening/frightening/abusive (not all men of course!).

So a big part of me would like to be a lesbian. Can I identify as one if this is how I feel in my head?

Genuine questions.

PS Lesbians - I am not attempting to do this, I am only asking...

I don't think Garam has any interest whatsoever in what men do, or asking men to "examine their preferences". It's only women whose boundaries must always be up for negotiation.

I did see it happen once in the comments under a YouTube video. The reaction from the gay man being encouraged to examine his preferences was as you might expect, and that was that. No long follow up thread telling him off and shaming him for his lack of inclusivity. I'm trying to put my finger on what it was about him that exempted him from the witch hunting accusations. So hard to know, really...

@FloralBunting you can't put your finger on it, because it isn't there! Or maybe you could put your finger on it but would rather not!

Who are the 135 signatories, sorry?

It may in fact be precisely the thing that lesbians don't want to put their fingers on...

I barely slept all night with anticipation of garam's pronouncement on a double penis 69. It was almost like Christmas. How will I ever wait for another day? Sigh.

I expect you are both quite right, but I cannot disregard self preservation entirely.

Oh, absolutely, thebewilderness. I think it's a combination of those two things.

lang

Likewise!

Your audience awaits, garam. Do tell.

Placemarking.

Great conversation about lesbians/bi there.

I too await @garam

I said nobody has the right to re-define a lesbians sexual identity because you disagree with it.

Erm, its lesbians attempting to drag the meaning of lesbian back to what lesbian has always meant before men decided to redefine it, actually.

Come on garam, don't be shy!

Call me pedantic but it seems to me that we already have perfectly good words for females who are sexually attracted to both female and male bodies, and for males who are sexually attracted to female bodies. In neither case is that word 'lesbian'.

I am always mistrustful when people try and impose new definitions on us. It makes me wonder what their motives are.

2 dicks + 69 = lesbian ??

Do we have an answer yet?

Had to come to this thread to blow off some steam, after this story came up in a feminist group I’m in, where everyone is calling the signatories disgusting, sickening etc. Sometimes I feel like my head is going to explode.

Want someone to blame? Blame stonewall for literally including cross dressers and gender fluid in their definition of trans, ergo trans women are women, ergo if you as a lesbian exclude cross dressers and Dave who identifies as a woman on the second and third Wednesday of every month from their beds, they’re disgusting bigots.

And all the talk of these lesbians as privileged - DFOD