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.

Lesbians don’t have penises.

What else can I do to help apart from that?

I’d ignore the goady posts telling off both straight women for daring to comment and lesbians for not... oh and speaking for all lesbians now.

Among other complaints to the BBC about their pride coverage, I raised the point that lesbians were completely underrepresented in the pictures

The only picture of a woman featured a person whose face was veiled, hardly a universally positive picture (I consider veiling to be sexist)

Where were the positive images of happy, out lesbians, to show girls questioning their sexuality that it’s going to be ok?

Anyway, hopefully pulling the bbc up on their literal lesbian erasure is hopefully supportive

Sticking to the main point here, it is that there is zero evidence to suggest that this forum speaks for anything more than a tiny handful of lesbians... and probably the majority of those are the likes of Julia Long and her mates who would still have issues with trans people if they'd found a way to deliver world peace. If the likes of Get The L Out have any real support then please tell me about the thousands of lesbians who have been in contact expressing their concerns about trans people and then I might think there's an issue. Perhaps people on here would be better off getting out from behind their keyboards, meeting a few lesbians in the real world (I mean somewhere apart from a WPUK type event so you can expect a range of opinions) and asking a few 'tell me about this trans problem I've been hearing about...' type conversations. I've done that and I can tell you the main problem for the overwhelming majority is transphobes rather than transgender.

When I had my feminist blog that I got constant rape threats for writing, the rape and death threats came from men of all walks of life, but what I did notice was that the transwomen were more articulate and educated on the whole, by percentage. What I've read about most of them being middle class men in IT tallies with this.

So I think that this type of character would just not really come into contact with the working class lesbians I know.

Sorry makes me sound like I'm saying my lesbian friends wouldn't go for an educated person. That's not what I'm saying, I'm saying a middle class man in IT would stand out like a sore thumb in my working class area, whether he's dressed as a woman or not

Shit or get off the pot, Teflon. How do you support lesbians?

i think teflon goes there on holiday every year, only buys their olive oil from there and has a house full of souvenirs bought from local people

or isn't that the sort of Lesbian you're talking about teflon, it's so hard to tell when you won't define your terms

I am actually friends with Julia Long in real life, yes

Shit or get off the pot, Teflon. How do you support lesbians?

or maybe teflon fully supports lesbians rights to get their back sack and crack done at the beauty parlour of their choice?

Shit or get off the pot, Teflon. How do you support lesbians?

I think teflon donates to charities that protect their habitat and supports the breeding programme at their local zoo

....oh hang on, that's lemurs

help a cis het white girl out here teflon, how are we defining 'lesbian' for the purposes of this conversation?

As for meeting lesbians in the real world, I live in north Wales and it seems like every other woman is a lesbIan, or has slept with a lesbian. Or maybe it's just the circles I run in: a couple of women are known for turning straight women, thus creating even more lesbians.

So I think that this type of character would just not really come into contact with the working class lesbians I know.

That doesn't reflect the reality of gay villages I've been to. Plenty of working and middle class (haven't met many I'd call upper class) mixing, gay, lesbian and trans.

What a shame this thread has been derailed.
But I'm glad it was bumped.

Supporting the Lesbian Strength march is a good move and hopefully in the future more of us will have the energy to organize further events and groups which will need support

Young lesbians in particular are very isolated.

I was talking to my partner about when she came out and the kind of support she got.
It's so different now.
Mixed groups where girls who are in any way butch or tomboy are often pressured to say they're Trans men.

Oh, you're back @teflontania

let's make this really explicit

do you support the right of lesbians to exclude males from their dating pool?

do you support the right of lesbians to meet and socialise not in the presence of males?

do you support the right of lesbians to define themselves as same sex attracted women?

or are we still talking about lemurs?

Young lesbians in particular are very isolated

YY to this, which is why the BBC pretty much only including pictures of men in their London Pride coverage was so fucking egregious.

That doesn't reflect the reality of gay villages I've been to.

Yeah "gay villages" exist in big cities, like the one in Manchester. There will be a mix of people in big cities.
Us welsh folks don't have the privilege of that, even the local gay bar in this town closed down twenty years ago, so I hear. So we have our own ways of congregating, a friend knowing a friend knowing a friend. The back room of the local legion is where the lesbians get together here

Darts. Lesbians seem to like darts. So for lack of a gay village you can join the darts night. Don't know how many men in IT would be into that sort of thing.

For any lesbians reading this thread in the North Wales area or even further afar I thoroughly recommend L fest for an event . L fest = Lesbian festival.

Here's a link
I
www.lfest.co.uk/tickets2019

I drove past it the other day as it took place this weekend and my girlfriend and I were gutted we couldn't go this year. She went last year. As we drove past we saw a lot of actual lesbians camping, having drinks outside tents in groups. My gf said the atmosphere last year was absolutely amazing and it was by and for lesbians.

The back room of the local legion is where the lesbians get together here

I grew up in a small town in the 80s, not near any cities, where the only regular gathering for LGBT people was in someone's house each week so I'm well aware of the difference between what's on offer in the likes of Manchester and London compared to other locations.

You’re being quite rude ignoring my questions @teflontania

Are you not here for a conversation?

BTW I was so impressed by north Wales on a recent visit that I'm learning welsh!
Don't want to force women in walking groups etc to speak English for my sake.

Also it made me think about how women only groups are so important for Lesbian women relocating.
One group I met only has 2 lesbians in regular attendance so Teflon Tania might sneer but actually it's been a lifeline to those women.
Alongside other women who want a break from their men folk, their children, caring responsibilities.

Supporting genuinely women only groups is such a help for lesbians.

And there's always been a divide between lesbians who want to get involved in feminism and want women only spaces and lesbians for whom that isn't important.
Which is probably why you get lots of 'I'm a Lesbian and nobody I know cares about this' comments.

It's important we can retain the choice to be involved in women only groups and Lesbian only groups.

I grew up in a small town in the 80s, not near any cities, where the only regular gathering for LGBT people was in someone's house each week*

E
Yeah the only reason the lesbians "get" the back room of the legion is because two of the three sisters that run the legion are actually lesbians themselves. Secret north walian cabul

And there's always been a divide between lesbians who want to get involved in feminism and want women only spaces and lesbians for whom that isn't important.

This divide exists between my girlfriend and I. She isn't really a feminist at all, and can take it or leave it with regard to trans. She does agree with me when I bring up a particular issue and the thought of a transwoman trying to coerce her into bed is actually hilarious if it wasn't so rapey.

teflon appears to believe that not finding a lot of lesbians posting on a thread aimed at straight women means not many lesbians are in agreement with the notion that lesbians are under attack.

Interesting threads on Twitter just this past few days - concrning dating sites for lesbians being swamped by transwomen claiming to be lesbians.

I don't need or use such sites, but - especially as most meeting places for lesbians have been closed and/or infiltrated by transwomen - a lot of lesbians do.

You might be of the opinion that "most" lesbians don't see any problem with the trans agenda, teflon. I'm afraid that's far from the reality.

This is a support thread, isn't it? Why is is teflon being allowed to shit and sneer all over it?