Supporting our lesbian sisters THREAD EDITED BY MNHQ AT OP'S REQUEST

[Muststopfaffing]

In response to this thread:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3621239-Being-a-homosexual-female-in-a-community-of-queer-people-transbians-and-penis-inclusionary-lesbians

I want to create a new thread to invite our lesbian sisters to tell non lesbian women how we can help support them and be allies to them through the current struggle and abuse from within their own community. I don’t have anything specific in mind and would love it to be led by those that need support, in whatever form that may be.

It should go without saying (but just in case anyone is tempted to do otherwise) that this is support for biological women who are same sex attracted and nothing else.

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That’s the banner! Thank you - it’s now my official response to all the rainbow/sparkle/unicorn posts I am getting on social media. Pride month my arse.

I seem to remember that Marshas sister said he never said he was a woman! It hey, why listen to family and people who actually knew him eh?

I also like the banner that says ‘wrong side of history by arse’ I can’t remember the groups who made it -Sheffield spinnners? It’s a beautiful piece of art but the slogan really makes it! Both banners should go to a museum!

Leeds Spinners! I've seen it in person.

Sorry Leeds (all is forgiven)!

(Oops Malcolm (here I am wittering on about erasure and misspell his name) And I’m glad he (like Stormé) is revered - just wish they would all watch the doco & respect his identity).

(Sorry OP - quite a derail - back to supporting lesbians now)

Who?

Sorry Lord was that to me?

That was an attempted joke . As in ‘who was that again?’

Is a one star lesbian akin to hotel ratings where one star is poor and five stars is excellent?

Haha, I’m just trying to work out what a gold star lesbian who doesn’t define womanhood in a way that’s dependant on biology is. I’m interested to know precisely what criteria you’re measuring your big shiny gold star against?

Magdelen Berns (a lesbian) has discussed this:
Published on 23 Sep 2016
"Riley J. Dennis thinks the terms "Gold Star Lesbian," "Gold Star Gay," and "Platinum Gay" should be "dropped from our vocabulary", I explain why h should probably stay in h* own lane and stop telling gays and lesbians how we get to describe ourselves."

Get The L Out have a support page on their website.

getthelout.wordpress.com/support-us/

They've spam-proofed their email address on that page so you'll have to edit it carefully if you want to use it for any reason.

Oh sorry Lord, got it, was having a slow moment there

I saw this today, made me sad. There is a generation of lesbians growing up with no lesbian community.

Just one more for the road

And the t-shirt modelled by the amazing Martina!

👍🏻. I see women were refused drinks And the police called.

One of them was..... wearing a t-shirt...

And in other news... press photographers are barred from Pride. Kinda makes you wonder...

Lesbian Strength March and Rally

We are a group of proud lesbian (adult female homosexual) women organising a march and rally for lesbians to be held in Leeds, UK on Saturday 7th September 2019 starting from City Square at 2p.m.

All women loving women are welcome.

We want to celebrate all lesbians past and present from all walks of life.

Our sincere desire is for all lesbians to be able to embrace themselves, to be comfortable with their sexuality and for them to know that they are loved and appreciated just as they are.

We acknowledge and condemn the lesbophobia and misogyny still very much present in our communities today all over the world and the resulting prejudice, persecution and violence our lesbian sisters face every day.

We wish to honour them and we stand with them in our struggle to be free.

We would like to draw strength and inspiration from our rich lesbian and feminist history to recreate and reaffirm lesbian culture and lesbian only spaces.

We need to raise some funds to meet the costs of organising this march and rally such as travel costs for women on a low income who wish to attend the event, bands, other musicians and speakers, P.A./sound system and venue hire.

Please give what you can if you would like to support us.

Thank you!

www.gofundme.com/f/lesbian-strength-march-and-rally

I hate to ask - and only do so because you will be asked in all earnestness can transsexual/vestite male borns who fancy women be there? You will be asked and the answer - no matter what - will be attacked.

I will donate something to that rally. I am heterosexual, but very aware of what is happening to lesbians.
Gay men also need to stand up and support lesbian women now. Some are, but most are not. Lesbians helped gay men in the AIDS crisis, gay men need to look at what is happening to lesbians now and act. I am shocked at how many gay men seem behind the Transactivist movement.

Gay men won’t. I’ve been told by a few that they don’t like lesbians because lesbians don’t like them. No it makes no sense but hey.

I will donate too. Great idea to celebrate lesbians and I hope you get a good turnout.

Telling lesbians to 'get over their genital fetish' would until very recently have rightly been lambasted as homophobia. In fact, however, that's the least of what it is. Using coercive tactics to force them into intimacy with a partner not of their choice is something altogether more sinister. It's also something with which women since time immemorial have been far too familiar.

Recently it felt that we were making progress.

Lesbian ally here too.

I am a lesbian. Anyone who needs to tell you they're a gold star lesbian probably isn't a lesbian.

What can our straight sisters do to support us? Remember that even though we now have the same rights as you, many of us are still aware of subtle moments that are possibly invisible to you. Remember that still for many people the default is straight, so we are forever forced to come out to people who assume we're straight and then sometimes we have to deal with the 'you can be what you want to be, dear, but I wish you wouldn't keep going on about it' number. Every time we do it we take the risk of rejection, insult or that second of silence when we see people digesting the fact that we are 'other'.

It can get quite exhausting and as I think recent events have shown, while on the surface it would appear we've come a long way in terms of rights and acceptance, even the organisations that are supposed to represent and support us (Stonewall, looking at you) don't give a shit about us. We are the bottom of the minorities pile and when LGB organisations are seen throwing us under a bus many of us are wondering whether ordinary civil society will follow suit. We need you to stand with us.

So, please feel free to pick up on any off-handed banterish comments about hairy barren lesbians (just an example) and take the offender to task for us. Please feel free, when receiving LGBT or equalities training to come back time and time again to lesbian rights, have lesbians been consulted, what about lesbians? Because the actual lesbians in the room may be feeling too nervous for various reasons to speak out. Go to Pride in Lesbian Ally/ proud supporters of lesbian women t-shirts. Speak up when lesbians are being othered. I attended the Women's Place meeting in Cardiff when a woman, a bastion of the left and generally all-round admirable person stood up and said something along the lines of 'I've never had much time for lesbians before but I feel really sorry for them at the moment.' As if we'd always been an irritating problem that she had no time for. Speak up, stand up, champion us. No need to say 'I'm not a lesbian but...' or 'Some of my best friends are lesbians.' Stand up for us as fellow women. I'll take support wherever I can find it and if any gold star lesbians start trying to take you down for it, refer them to me.