JO BARTOSCH Feminist Current article, 'Stonewall has sold out lesbians and its time they be held to account'

[R0wantrees]

'Stonewall has sold out lesbians and its time they be held to account
Rather than represent the LGBT community, Stonewall has cashed in on the corporate world’s desire to appear progressive and to use LGBT rights as a marketing tool.'

(extract)
It used to be the case that when lecherous men in pubs would lean in with beery breath and slur, “I’m a lesbian trapped in a man’s body,” they could be brushed off with a derisory sneer. Now it seems one might risk invalidating their gender identity. Indeed, according to Stonewall, the UK’s biggest lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) advocacy organization, anyone who identifies as a woman is a woman, regardless of their biology, and, as such, some lesbians have penises.

Increasingly, lesbians are beginning to tire of this fiction. On Friday, April 26, protestors gathered outside the QEII Centre in Westminster to mark the Lesbian Day of Visibility and call out Stonewall’s failure to support lesbian rights. The protestors, who carried banners reading, “Stonewall is Anti-Lesbian” and “Lesbian Visibility,” chose to target the Stonewall Workplace Conference, at which MP Secretary of State and Minister for Women and Equalities Penny Mordaunt addressed delegates who paid between £269 and £429 per ticket. While the paying delegates and politicians clearly have something to offer Stonewall, what the organization now offers to lesbian, gay, and bisexual people is increasingly unclear.(continues)

Research published this year by lesbian activist group, “Get The L Out,” outlines the what life is like for many lesbians in the UK, most of whom no longer have the option of meeting women or using dating apps without being pressured to consider transwomen as potential partners. Those who participated in the survey reported various forms of sexual violence perpetrated by transwomen who identify as lesbian, including sexual harassment, sexual assault, and rape. Get the L Out have called on mainstream LGBT organizations to take a stand against the harassment and assault of lesbians by transwomen, describing the current situation as akin to “corrective rape.” (continues)

Lesbians, gay men, bisexual people, and even trans people who have voiced concerns about the pairing of gender identity activism with advocacy for gay and lesbian people have been ignored and dismissed as transphobic by the charity.

While Stonewall’s support for transgender politics poses a problem for adults, the impact on youth has been devastating. The Times covered the resignation of five clinicians from the Tavistock Gender Identity Development Service who expressed concern that “potentially gay children are being sent down the pathway to change gender.” Young women who would otherwise grow up to be healthy, happy lesbians are increasingly identifying as “transmen;” binding their breasts, taking off-label hormones, and aspiring to double mastectomies. Rather than supporting these young women to be happy in their bodies, Stonewall is part of an emerging “educational” industry that teaches children they might be “born in the wrong body.”

Many of today’s lesbian and gay adults fear that, had they been born a generation or two later, they would have been susceptible to this lie, undergoing life-long unnecessary treatment in order to present as “heterosexual.” Make no mistake, this is modern conversion therapy — a medical scandal that will unfold in the future with dire consequences for all involved (aside from the lawyers).

The women who protested on Friday — and all of those who refuse to accept that there is such a thing as a “lesbian with a penis” — represent an inconvenient truth for Stonewall: that stonewalling these people will not work. Rather than represent the LGBT community, Stonewall has become a bloated irrelevance, cashing in on the corporate world’s desire to appear progressive and to use LGBT rights as a marketing tool" (continues)

www.feministcurrent.com/2019/05/02/stonewall-has-sold-out-lesbians-and-its-time-they-be-held-to-account/

thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3570840-Protest-outside-Stonewall-Conference-by-Visible-Lesbians

Penny Mordant MP (Minister for Women & Equalities and now Defence) speech at the Stonewall networking event protested above:

www.gov.uk/government/speeches/minister-for-women-and-equalities-penny-mordaunt-stonewall-workplace-conference-london-2019

'Get The L Out'
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3547287-Fantastic-report-from-Get-The-L-Out-please-share-widely

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3337090-Get-the-L-Out-Interviewed-by-Let-a-Woman-Speak

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3301033-Get-the-L-Out-Statement-by-the-lesbian-protesters-at-Pride-London

Thanks Rowan, sad but true 😕

Excellent piece. This comment, published below the article stood out for me too.

There was never anything grassroots about Stonewall. They were always top heavy with well heeled celeb and professional gays. They weren't in existence for five minutes before they decided they were the leaders of the then lesbian and gay movement. They quickly become the acceptable face of the struggle as they mingled easily with liberal politicians and CEO's looking for a trendy brand to support. They often put me in mind of the last page of Animal Farm, something like - ' and the animals looked to the pigs and then to the humans and they could no longer tell the difference.'

Ain’t that the truth?

Thanks for sharing R0, a great piece and interesting comments.

AfterEllen article:

'Stonewall Calls Police on Lesbian Protesters, Further Dividing the LGBT Movement'
By Claire Heuchanon May 2, 2019

(extract)
Stonewall is Britain’s biggest and best-funded LGBT organization. Named after one of the most significant political uprisings of the 20th century, you would be forgiven for thinking they’d be down with a bit of lesbian protest. Instead, Stonewall tried to silence and remove the grassroots women’s groups who had set up a demonstration outside of their event in London.

According to multiple protesters, Stonewall then called the police. Two officers spoke to the women in question, judged that – contrary to what Stonewall said – they were doing no harm, and left the protesters to it.

Elaine Hutton, of Lesbian Rights Alliance, described the demonstration as “a joyous day, with different lesbian groups and individuals coming together to protest – we sang songs, shouted slogans and gave out leaflets, with some lesbians coming out of the conference to find out more.”

Lesbian Rights Alliance, Sapphic Warriors, Stormé, and Lesbian Resisters had gathered to protest Stonewall’s erasure of lesbians. They carried banners that proclaimed ‘Lesbian Visibility’ and celebrated Stormé DeLarverie – a butch lesbian – as the spark that lit the Stonewall rebellion. While Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera are rightly recognized for their LGBT activism, a mixture of misogyny and lesbophobia have kept Stormé from holding the same sway over popular imagination. It is these acts of erasure, writing lesbians out of history and community, that these grassroots groups aim to challenge.

Stonewall’s glossary describes homosexuality as “romantic and/or sexual orientation towards someone of the same gender.” Their language has shifted from recognizing same-sex attraction to positioning gender as the determining factor. Some lesbian feminists find this approach to be problematic on two counts: because it erases lesbian sexuality, and because it rests on the belief that gender is innate.

To argue that gender is inherent is to argue that women are naturally suited to a subordinate role, and men naturally entitled to a position of dominance over us – an idea which feminists have been resisting for centuries. The women protesting Stonewall were not the first to challenge this belief, and they will not be the last." (continues)

www.afterellen.com/general-news/569593-stonewall-calls-police-on-lesbian-protesters-further-dividing-the-lgbt-movement

pictures from article

The worst thing is that the mainstream left won't even think about discussing these arguments. Anyone who expresses them is dismissed as a 'terf'. This is why some people have been loading 'terf' with all kinds of defamatory meanings, so it has more power as a dismissive insult.

Object! article:
HANNAH HARRISON
APRIL 28, 2019
'Remind Stonewall: Lesbians Don’t Have Penises!'
(extract)
On 26th April 2019, it was 'Lesbian Visibility Day'. This day was apparently invented by 'LGBT' activists in 2008, so it can be assumed that the type of 'lesbian' to be celebrated is the penis-bearing variety. The campaign to bring visibility to these new male 'lesbians' has arguably been a great success!

The UK 'LGBT' organisation Stonewall erases lesbians through it's relentless promotion of 'transgenderism'. They turn a blind eye to the sexual coercion, abuse and rape of lesbians by 'transwomen' a.k.a men. They encourage lesbians to self-harm by breast binding, taking cross-sex hormones and undergoing surgical mutilations – to erase themselves and their lesbianism by 'gender transitioning'. The only so-called 'lesbians' who Stonewall care about are male cross-dressers.

On ‘Lesbian Visibility Day’ 2019, OBJECT joined others to protest against Stonewall’s erasure of female lesbians - as Julia Long said, “the old-fashioned kind that don’t have a penis!”

One intrepid OBJECT representative arrived early and entered the conference building. This is her report from within:

I arrived a bit early for the Lesbian Visibility Day protest outside Stonewall's Conference at the prestigious Queen Elizabeth Conference Centre in London.

I found myself in the conference room, and thought I would stay to hear what was said. I have seen a lot of evidence that Stonewall is making money hand over fist out of its unthinking support of transgenderism with no thought to the rights of lesbians, other women or children. But I decided to keep an open mind and listen.

In the first hour four people spoke. Ruth Hunt, outgoing CEO (outgoing because of unthinking support for transgender rights, which was neatly 'papered over'), mentioned the word lesbian twice, as did Penny Mordaunt, Minister for Equalities. I was also counting how often the word 'transgender' came up, but ran out of paper to tick on, so often did it flood out of every speaker's mouth. Two of them did not even mention Lesbian Visibility Day.

Penny Mordaunt, said that the government 'still' (i.e. despite all the protests from women's organisations whom she initially failed to consult) wanted to make identification easier for transgender people, although she did not mention the dreaded 'self-id' word, thank goodness. Most of her talk was about the hardships of trans people, whom she felt 'a particularly strong imperative to support'. Yet her sad quotes from the consultation all came from lesbians, for whom she mentioned no plans. Why not? She promised the report on the government consultation 'very shortly'. I wonder if it will highlight the complete lack of scientific evidence that transitioning makes anyone happier in the long run, the complete lack of any participant organisation representing Muslim women, or analyse the horrendous impact on women's rights of losing the definition of women? Guessing not. (continues)
www.objectnow.org/news/2019/4/28/lesbians-dont-have-penises?

"Stonewall has cashed in on the corporate world’s desire to appear progressive and to use LGBT rights as a marketing tool."

nailed it.