Yes, I agree it's more than a bit shitty to criticise Linda for her accent. This is another advantage of having a transcript, it helps us not to get distracted by accents, weird pronunciations, sniffy noses etc. so we can focus on what people are actually saying (not much in Linda's case, unfortunately).
Full transcript:
Jane Garvey: Now, we're going to talk again about sex and gender, which is - we've been having a series of conversations on these topics over the last couple of weeks. Some of you find it hugely involving and you're desperate to pitch in and get involved, other people say, 'I'm not sure why you're doing this, whether it's relevant or not.' Trust me, this stuff is really, really interesting and I think it is incredibly important that Woman's Hour does plunge into this debate and airs, as best we can, all shades of opinion. So we've already discussed the law, about why so many people describe the current debate as toxic, we've talked too about looking after children at school questioning their gender identity, and all those conversations are of course available on the various Woman's Hour podcasts from the last couple of weeks, which you can get via BBC Sounds, the all-singing, all-dancing, new BBC audio app, which is available now, where you get your apps, obviously.
Today, we're going to ask whether lesbian and transgender interests ever coincide and why some lesbians feel deeply uneasy about the current state of play, and others, frankly, don't. Let's talk to Linda Riley, who's the publisher of the lesbian and bisexual magazine DIVA. Welcome Linda ...
Linda Riley: Hello
JG: ... also with us, Julie Bindel who's a journalist and feminist campaigner. Julie, good morning to you.
Julie Bindel: Good morning
JG: So let's start with where we are. Do you believe, Linda, that there is something to debate here, or should it be simply a situation where lesbians embrace everybody and everything?
LR: Yeah I do, obviously with DIVA, we're very, very inclusive as a magazine and we do include transwomen in our magazine and yes, so I do think that.
JG: Julie?
JB: No, I think that there are some commonalities, in that the, often, men who sexually assault and beat us up are the same for transwomen and for lesbians, but I think, bearing in mind we know that lesbians are first and foremost women, which is why we have very distinct anti-lesbian bigotry and prejudice towards us, which is why around the world we're some of the most vulnerable people, such as the South African lesbians who are experiencing punishment rapes, lesbians who are forced into marriage, my own situation where I came out in the 1970's in my teens and was beaten up, was threatened, was sexually assaulted, lost jobs, lost family members ... I think that first and foremost we are women, we have misogyny. That's why we have some different interests to gay men, and certainly we have many different interests when we're talking about those people who identify as transwomen, maybe trans lesbians, but who were raised male, have male chromosomes and often male body parts.
JG: Well let's talk to Linda about that. Trans lesbians.
LR: Trans lesbians are lesbians. I mean, I personally don't like to differentiate when I talk, but then it's up to other people if they do differentiate, but I just say lesbians.
JG: But life experience differentiates, doesn't it?
LR: Well it does, but we could say that about everybody, like my life experience would differ from Julie's, you know. We have to remember that transwomen are also suffering domestic abuse as well, they are living in fear, and what we don't want to do at DIVA is increase that fear. For example, I've just come back from the DIVA music festival with around 700 lesbians, which included transwomen, and I want to create a safe space for all lesbians, including trans lesbians, if you're going to use that term.
JB: Well let's have a look then at the disappearance of many young butch lesbians Linda. We know that ...
JG: What do you mean by that?
JB: Well there are many - and when I use the term butch I mean visible, obvious lesbians. I don't mean those who look like they could go round kick-starting their own vibrators, I mean just visible, obvious lesbians who are now being told, and asked, 'when are you transitioning?', where many of them are actually having what they euphemistically call top surgery, which is double mastectomies, using chest binders, where it's now more stigmatised to be out as a lesbian than it is to be out as a transman ...
JG: OK, let me put that point to you Linda, go on.
LR: Yeah, I mean, this is just reinforcing myths, I mean butch lesbians are butch lesbians. I'm a butch lesbian myself but everybody has a choice. If somebody wants to transition they're not being forced into transitioning.
JG: Well, the suspicion is now that there is ...
LR: ... it is a suspicion ...
JG: ... forced isn't quite the right word, certainly pressured into thinking about it.
LR: They're not pressured, I mean ...
JG: Well I think some people would say they definitely are.
LR: Well, I've got to say I run DIVA magazine, it's got a readership of 100,000 a month, I've never heard anybody write in to me and say that I've been pressurised into any kind of top surgery, so I think this is just a myth being reinforced.
JB: Linda, with all due respect, it isn't a myth at all. It might not have happened to you, although I suspect you have been asked in the past, 'when are you going to transition?' But it certainly happens to a lot of other young women and we know now, if we look culturally at what shifts are taking place, you know, the whole issue about changing rooms and about, you know, single-sex spaces, in a way is a red herring. What we need to look at is, we used to have a proud lesbian movement that was about women saying I sexually reject men, my sexuality is my own, autonomous desire and choice, which is why we get so much misogyny and threats of sexual violence. That's different from transwomen because they have been raised male. But what's happening now with the whole LGBTQQI alphabet soup, which - we're going to have to start using Cyrillic when we run out of any more letters, is that straight people and men are dominating this LGBTQQI alphabet.
JG: OK, so once again ...
LR: ... not true ...
JB: Lesbians are now invisible.
LR: ... this is just ...
JG: Yeah, OK, lesbians are invisible. Linda.
LR: I've got to sort of interrupt here, well I've got to interrupt. Basically lesbians are not invisible. But what I'm doing by speaking out as an ally of the trans community today is saying that lesbians are inclusive and lesbians still have their visibility and it's not being erased.
JG: Are they inclusive or are they being made to be inclusive?
LR: They're not being - nobody's making me be inclusive and certainly not anybody that I've spoken to.
JG: Would you be concerned, Julie, that some lesbians might be expected to accept a relationship with someone for - to whom actually they are are not attracted?
JB: Yes, I mean you know, Linda's a kick-ass woman, you know, of my age, you've been through - you've been round the block, you know, you're stong, you're powerful. I doubt anyone could pressurise you to do very much at all Linda, and that is a compliment. But I get emails from young, female students all the time, saying that they're lesbians but they're being told they have to say they're queer, or they have to say that they would be attracted to a transwoman who identifies as a lesbian, who has a penis, and when they say that they're not attracted to a penis they are told that they're obsessed with genitals. Well quite frankly this is a straight men's fantasy about what lesbians are.
JG: All right, let's put that point to Linda.
LR: This - I mean all I can say is that obviously I've not seen these letters but it's not something that I've heard of.
JG: DIVA doesn't get letters like that?
LR: DIVA does not get letters like this, DIVA gets complaints from the lesbian community ... really ... small percentage ...
JG: OK, maybe there's a generational thing here. Maybe younger lesbians are more inclined to be inclusive, or maybe they're growing up in an era where they feel obliged to be more inclusive.
LR: I think definitely there is a generational thing because younger lesbians, for example, are way more inclusive from my experience.
JG: Well, because they want to be, or because they have to be?
LR: Because they want to be. Because they want to be.
JB: Linda, with all due respect, DIVA isn't really a lesbian magazine or a lesbian and bisexual magazine is it? Because you ...
LR: Last I heard, it was.
JB: Well, because you feature transmen. Now, if transmen are men, why are you having transmen?
LR: We feature everybody. We feature straight allies, you know ...
JB: German Shephards ... I mean the thing is, Linda, we actually deserve something for ourselves. What is wrong with saying there is something that's about lesbian culture that we, as female women, as adult female human beings, that we are allowed to say we're not attracted to penis, even if it's on a transwoman. We should be allowed our sexual autonomy, that's what feminists fought for decades ago. That's why I've been beaten up and threatened and have lost jobs, and queer bashed, and all the lesbians I know have been under way more threat even than gay men.
JG: OK, Linda
LR: I'm just actually reading a recent Stonewall report which says one in six transwomen received domestic violence so transwomen are probably more likely to get domestic violence than lesbians, for example.
JB: Linda, where are the dead bodies? Two women in this country die every week from domestic violence, not transwomen, adult human female women.
LR: Did you just notice Trans Day Of Remembrance just happened?
JB: Yes I did, where is the women's day of remembrance? Linda, we are being murdered ...
LR: I'm not averse to the women's day of remembrance
JB: ... we don't have one ...
LR: We should.
JB: We are being colonised by this and we are being murdered in droves by male violence. I care about violence that transwomen, that everybody faces.
JG: Everybody cares about violence against everybody, I think we can all agree on that, if nothing else.
LR: Yes. Yes.
JG: This idea that you, Julie, might be, as I know it's been put to you before, on the wrong side of history here - what do you say to that?
LR: Yes.
JB: Well, those that are actually saying that ...
LR: I'm saying that.
JB: ... the lesbian feminists like me are on the wrong side of history are the woke blokes with the beards usually, who are able to be misogynistic towards feminists that demand sexual autonomy, and still be seen as progressives. I am on the right side of history in the sense that I talk about violence against women living under patriarchy, and the difference between being raised a girl and choosing to be a lesbian and reject men sexually, and all the risks that brings to it, and I want to distinguish between that and the experiences of trans people, who undoubtedly have discrimination, but it is not the same as lesbians.
JG: Linda
LR: And I want to run a magazine that's inclusive and is on the right side of history and I disagree totally with what you just said, Julie.
JG: Thank you both very much. I think the most important thing is, and this is a programme for women, obviously, that approaches things from a female perspective, we know that lesbians - as we started the conversation with - lesbians throughout time have had a rough time. They're still having a rough time. Isn't Julie right, Linda, to suggest that this might be a genuine threat to the existence of lesbians? That some people really do feel passionately that some people out there are trying to erase them altogether?
LR: Well this is not true, I mean the most ridiculous thing - first of all, what I wanted to say is that because of the history of lesbians, that we should be more compassionate and more understanding to other people's oppression.
JB: Why does it always come on women, Linda? Every single social movement on earth, the civil rights movement, African American civil rights activists are not told constantly, 'you've got to take on women's rights, you've got to take on disability rights, you've got to take on trans rights.' We have a right as lesbians, as feminists, as women, to say we have specific issues relating to misogyny, which is different ...
LR: Yeah but, but ...
JB: ... Linda, I'll just finish ...
LR: ... but I'm a lesbian too ...
JB: ... which is different, which is different from people who are socialised and raised male, who have a penis and a beard and who decide to tell lesbians, who don't wish to be in bed with that penis and beard, that we are obsessed with genitals.
JG: Right, final word from you, Linda
LR: Final word is that I'd like you to look at the language that you're using because it's quite transphobic, although you're not going to accept that I know, Julie, but you know ...
JB: No, it's feminist, it's feminist language, Linda ...
LR: ... but I'm a feminist ...
JB: ... rooted in material reality.
LR: ... and I don't use that language.
JB: Well, you know, it's rooted in material reality and listeners will know there is something integral about being raised female under patriarchy.
JG: Linda, very briefly now. Anything to say about that?
LR: Well, obviously I'm finding it hard to listen to this language, and also when Julie speaks as a lesbian she - you know, I just want to make it clear she's not talking for all lesbians, just as I'm not talking for all lesbians, but my view is that I couldn't disagree more with what she's saying. Yup.
JG: Can I just say, I like you both. And thank you for being on the programme, very much indeed. @BBCWomansHour if you want to tell us what you think and indeed many of you already have. Thank you Julie and Linda.