In support of Amy Dyess

[AllNaturalWoman]

Title says it all really. Amy has publicly disagreed with the detransitioners representing lesbians at Manchester pride and has been called out for being 'unsupportive' rather than a recognition she has a right to hold the views she does twitter.com/amydyess/status/1166114175367532545?s=21

Whilst I've been glad to see a public retraction from the 2 desisters and I am sure doing that Pride being booed this time will not have been easy I see Amy's point that if they are bi they don't speak for lesbians and in particular they shouldn't go from speaking for the trans movement to speaking for lesbians. I'm bi, my life experience is very different and considerably easier than being lesbian. As a bi woman I don't have the right to speak for lesbians and just as most of us here don't feel LibDems women can give away our rights and identity as women to transwomen neither bi nor lesbian women have the right to give away rights and identify as lesbian to anyone who is not.

Amy is principled and consistent so I do tend to stop and take notice when she's calling behaviours out.

There should be room for Amy's principled stance at the same time as feeling Charlie desisting publicly is encouraging. Why the need to convince Amy she's wrong?

Sorry I should have said, my previous comment was in response to Birdsfoottrefoil

For those who haven't read it, btw, here's Charlie's thread which include her comment that Amy was reacting to.

Charlie reflected on her own anti-"TERF" comment from a year ago, and how much her thoughts have changed. Her words were powerful in my opinion.

It was aimed at the trans cult. She addresses it to them. It was an attempt to educate and provoke thought, and she should be celebrated for it IMO. She's not trying to speak for lesbians, she's speaking for herself with eloquence and integrity.

twitter.com/charlie_sci/status/1165378150517366784

From previous run ins with AD, I have to agree largely with Rollonautumndays comments. I believe AD would score fairly highly on the narcisissm scale. She carries a conviction that she deserves a say in british lesbian politics/activism, including having asked to join a private activism group, despite the fact she is US based (& doesn't travel here as far as I'm aware.) She has also demanded the de-platforming of a woman she didn't like/agree with at a british talk, which again, she had no connection to.

She is very hostile to political lesbianism and continues to make this an issue, in a divisive way, ignoring the valuable contributions that political lesbians like Sheila Jeffreys, Julie Bindel and Angela WIld have made towards lesbian culture and the upholding of lesbian rights and identity in the UK.

Finally, telling someone to fuck off doesn't further conversation/dialogue or debate on the centering of detrans issue, it shuts it down.

I don't agree with using geography to determine what any of us can comment on - many of us have had plenty to say about women's rights and feminism in other countries especially Canada an the US.
I'm not directly involved in any activism so have no insight into personalities so I may have missed something.

I could see the analogies between how I feel when people expect me to accept someone like DH speaking as a feminist on my behalf and how a butch lesbian might feel about a bi women speaking for lesbians.

A better analogy would be how I felt about Rosa Freedman feeling that cursed (cant remember the precise twitter handle but tra that has apparently converted) on twitter now had anything valid to say about women's rights. Yes they may have changed view but still not a woman and still has some revolting views about us in the past and probably going to flip flop again

For what it's worth, I do agree telling another woman to fuck off doesn't further the discussion

Comparing a vile internet troll, Curse E, to a young detrans women speaking her truth with integrity is pretty offensive IMO.

Apologies rollonautumndays I don't mean to be offensive, have I mixed people up? Is this not the person that Rosa was praising?

I'll retract that example if the person i referred to is not the person who has reformed and we're supposed to listen to now.

Does anyone object to my other example? DH is an ally but it massively pisses me off when they speak on my behalf 'as a woman and a feminist'

The DH example doesn't work that well on reflection

I've never heard of her. She sounds very self- important. Her reply to Julie Bindel is hilarious (and extremely dim. She comes across like a spoilt child stamping her foot)

I think we probably may need to stop recoiling when a woman expresses anger

Women are as capable as men of behaving like brattish toddlers.

Rosa has a weird online relationship with Cursed E, I think, who is indeed an internet troll. He's vile.

I'm sorry to have assumed you knew that.

I suppose Rosa interacting with him may give him an undeserved air of credibility.

Cursed E doxxed a load of feminists last summer I think it was. He's also just a vile troll. Kiwi Farms have stuff on him I've heard, if you're at all interested. I have no idea why Rosa even gives him the time of day.

I don't know anything about him supposedly reforming. I've missed this one, but even if he has the analogy doesn't stand.

Charlie wasn't an active TRA. She was a young women caught up gender ideology, who made, as far as I know, just one tweet responding to the GTLO London protest and calling the women TERFs. She brought attention to that tweet herself, in a thread aimed at others in the trans cult, to show how her thinking has changed over the last year.

Cursed E has been absolutely vile to more women than I can remember, and I can't see any justification for it. There's no comparison between them.

Apologies! Correction - Charlie didn't call anyone a TERF. She said, last year, that GTLO were a "small hateful minority of L".

She drew attention to this post to show how much her thinking has changed. She wasn't an active TRA, she was a young woman caught up in the cult.

Apologies I was trying to find a comparison with someone who had spoken out against people like me who was now being feted and I picked a bad example.

I had hoped a few more people would feel some empathy with a lesbian who isn't brave enough to put her name out there and feels hurt that someone calling lesbians terfs a year ago is now a hero and representing them. I'd hoped that referring to it as a support thread would discourage those who wanted to attack her from doing so on this thread but clearly the rules around who can designate a thread a support thread here are unclear

Is brave enough

Ffs not only do I not understand the unwritten rules here I cant type either

OP, I think you just want everyone to agree with you. There aren't any rules about who can and can't designate a thread a support thread for the simple reason that every thread follows its own course, often travelling quite far away from the topic intended by the original poster. That's how it goes on an internet forum - you just can't dictate to people what they can and can't write. And a lot of people clearly disagree with you about Amy Dyess.

so much of what we think is natural instinct is actually socially constructed.

I think it’s dumb to exclude lesbians just because at some point in their lives they dated men. Identities can change over the course of a lifetime.

I agree Pota2. I think socialisation and what we have been exposed to in our lives and the society in which we live, as well as our personal experiences, impacts greatly on how our likes/dislikes develop, and how we come to understand ourselves. There are some of us who don’t believe our lesbianism was a conscious choice, or due to being “born this way”, and instead believe our experiences shaped us, as they do for most other things. However, there are some lesbians who think if you don’t believe in “born this way” then you cannot be a “real” lesbian, it is ridiculous and has been going on for some time, many want to silence anyone who disagrees with them. I have seen it going on for many, many years. They seem to believe that rejecting the “born this way” narrative is somehow saying that lesbians don’t exist, or lesbianism is not legitimate, it is nonsense imo.

Lesbians should be able to reject males as a group as partners, without having to claim we were born with some kind of internal essence, or biological difference that makes us repulsed by men and attracted to women. I (and a number other lesbians) don’t believe it is true, and we shouldn’t be forced to pretend we do, in order to say no to men as a group, or to be considered real lesbians. Amy no doubt would consider me to be not the right kind of lesbian or an imposter, because I don’t subscribe to “born this way”, of course Amy can believe and say whatever she wants, others also should have the right to disagree with her.

Personally, as the wrong kind of lesbian I would welcome any woman, of whatever sexuality, on a protest, if she was willing to stand up and say that lesbians have a right to reject males as a group as partners, and who says trans activism harms lesbians. It takes tremendous guts to do that and I applaud any woman who does. Whether individual women think their sexuality is innate, a choice, or part of development, should not be the issue. The issue should be that females who reject males as partners, and instead partner with females: lesbians, should be supported to say no to males as a group. This could also go some way to help lesbians feel they do not have to trans in order to date other females. I think the more women who support that the better. To be honest I would go further, and say I think a march/protest with all women (regardless of their sexuality), who agree that lesbians should be able to reject men as partners and that trans ideology harms lesbians, would be very valuable.

someone calling lesbians terfs a year ago is now a hero and representing them

Something that's annoying me in all
This is that Thomasin is a GNC lesbian who was so confused by lack of GNC lesbian representation in her teen years that she was sucked into the tra crap online. She sewed that awesome banner too.

Charlie and Thomasin are in the same northern GC group and decided to go to the March together.

Charlie wrote that thread as she now realises how important the get the l out movement is. She was under the tra woke cult last year as so many people are.

Actually, the more I read what Amy has written I don't fully understand it; when you are growing up you do explore lots of different parts of your sexuality and identity. These days more so than ever which is where it gets hijacked by the trans ideology.

Which is what we are all protesting.

Op, I think you just want everyone to agree with you

That's a fair comment, I didn't consciously think I did when I started the thread and I know how they wander off, although I did think there were some rules about threads labelled 'support'. I didn't expect some real dislike of AD to come out and I feel responsible for not articulating things well enough and bad that if she did come here it wouldn't help things

Don't feel bad, OP. I don't know anything about her, but she's obviously quite a forceful personality and so there will inevitably be people who are strongly for her or against her. (See also Posie, among others.) She must be used to it.

I'm not sure if there are rules for threads labelled 'support'! Maybe someone else can enlighten us.

My own view on all this is that we do need people like Charlie on our side. She is proof of our argument that many young women are being encouraged to believe themselves to be trans when they're really not.

I agree we need young women like Charlie on our side as well. I was just appealing really for a bit more understanding of those that might them being held up as a hero.

From my perspective both of them still count as young women it isn't all relative

We are never going to all agree on every point and I don't believe we should expect to we all bring different life experiences that affects our viewpoint. I'd like more appreciation and acknowledgement rather than trying to push someone to retract beliefs that go to the core of who they are.

Maybe that's where so many of the arguments go wrong and why this forum on MN is so powerful. I didn't change from being a trans ally libfem by anyone arguing with me that I was wrong. Like many of us here I started to become concerned about the violence of the trans rhetoric and started to read more and more and change my viewpoint until a helpful trans activist tweets about mumsnet sent me here.

On the threads where a number of posters has disagreed with the original post is helpful to articulate ideas that others will read (and I know the benefit to those coming new to board isn't often mentioned by experienced posters) but the original poster is rarely convinced they are wrong by a lot of people pushing back on them all at once.

So before lots of us push back on a point we disagree with particularly if it's one of our own we should think about our objective. Do we want to convince them? Or the others who are reading? If if it's them let's be kinder about how we do it, we'll be more successful.

I don't want to change your mind Allnaturalwoman, I posted for the benefit of silent readers. When I'm having problems with someone in activism, I have gone searched them online in the past. I think warning women in the movement about abusive/narcissistic individuals is important & an act of sisterhood. It's easier to say nothing & not risk offending others/getting mud slung back at you. Activism does attract these characters & I've personally seen the havoc they wreak & projects they sink/almost sink. Just my experience with the person being discussed obvs, which women are welcome to take or leave.

AllNaturalWoman - you are being incredibly reasonable and measured in your arguments. I think the problem is you are defending someone who has been the complete opposite. Her comment to Julie Bindel was quite unnecessary, and seemed to me just to be creating dissent and disagreement for the sake of it. Those of us who are gc feminists are all on the same side, but we're fighting against a very powerful, very wealthy and very determined lobby, so it would really would make sense if we could put aside our differences as much as possible.

@AmyDyess
Aug 26

PSA: I’m against false “feminism” that aligns with the right wing and silences lesbians. That’s not legitimate, so I’m distancing myself. I’m going more left. It’s what’s best for lesbians

Yeah right.

The whole thing about so called gold star lesbians v political lesbians is bullshit, and was around even in the 80s when I was deep in the scene.
I would like to add, that in that era of a vibrant community, albeit uniformed with dungarees, men's clothing, cropped hair, and outright challenges to lesbians wearing makeup etc, there was a very obvious issue.

That issue was that a significant number of lesbians left the scene to partner with men.
Often those who had proclaimed their lesbianism the loudest.

I never thought badly of them, but some did, calling them traitors.
For some, lesbianism was innate. Others, looking back, were dealing with sexual abuse, the male gaze, gender non conformity etc etc.
I think it did us no favours to be in denial of this. It certainly did those women no favours being in denial. It reminds me of the young transmen of today.

Not sure where I'm going with this re Dyess and Bindell but.

Lesbians should be able to reject males as a group as partners, without having to claim we were born with some kind of internal essence, or biological difference that makes us repulsed by men and attracted to women.

All women should be able to reject males at any time for any reason but the word lesbian still means something and that meaning doesn’t include being attracted to men. Being lesbian is to be exclusively attracted to women and not to be attracted to men. Febfems (female-exclusive bisexual females – who seem to make up the majority of political lesbians these days) of course have every right to reject men but they don’t have the same experiences as women who are only attracted to other women and we do need to have the language to describe our own group and our own experiences.

Febfem political lesbians seem to be a dominant group in radical feminism and, while being a bisexual woman in a same-sex relationship does give you some of the same experiences as being a lesbian, there are differences and, although I initially thought we would have a lot of common ground, the more I’ve heard them talk about what being a lesbian is to them and about their experiences of being a lesbian, the more I’ve realised what a big difference it is.

That’s not to say that I don’t value the contribution of political lesbians on the trans issue and I think to a degree we can all (including straight and bi women) work together on this.

I do actually wonder about the political lesbian take on the trans debate though, for example, on the transing of young lesbians. This stems from stats which suggest that the majority of children with gender dysphoria will desist if they go through their normal puberty and that a large majority of them will turn out to be lesbian or gay (which suggests to me that some kind of genetic and/or early socialisation effect is involved) – but political lesbians believe that all women are potential lesbians, that there is no such thing as being naturally gay/lesbian and being a lesbian is just a choice you make when you are an adult – yet they still seem to agree that lesbians are being transed, even when those children/young people haven’t chosen to identify as lesbians???

When I’ve heard the experiences of young lesbians who’ve been affected by queer/trans ideology, despite the differences in what it is like growing up lesbian now compared to when I was that age, I do see similarities. There are certain things they’ll say (e.g. relating to internalised homophobia) where I’ll think that’s exactly how I felt – although the options (ie identifying as a heterosexual transman) are different now. I also think some of the young people in the trans movement are trying to break free of the gender box they have been put in and older feminists are also trying to break down those gender roles but we are shouting at cross purposes, using language differently so we can’t actually communicate and find those points of agreement.

I then started to think more about lesbians and political lesbians (although I think that is less of a generational thing as I know young-ish political lesbians and plenty of older regular lesbians) and whether we can find a way to communicate around the language barrier (specifically that we are using the word lesbian to mean two different things – one a natural attraction and one on ideologically-motivated behaviour) but I’m still not sure that’s possible. I do think we are two groups who are probably genuinely quite different (although of course we are all women so will always have some common ground) - and I haven’t actually found a way to talk to young women who are currently in the trans movement so I don’t know if I’d have more success in bridging the gap here!

When I finally found feminist groups which shared my views on the trans issue I was so happy. At that time, the issue wasn’t really being discussed in my LGBT circles (that has changed now) and I felt alone. I was happy to be able to talk to women who shared my views (including straight women who were all very accepting of lesbians and made me feel welcome) but I also wanted to get more involved in the feminist movement generally and I was particularly pleased to see that there seemed to be lots of lesbians involved.

The trans issue has particularly impacted on me and my community and it – and the attitude of (particularly gay) men - has made me reflect on a lot of things that have happened in my life, my experiences with both gay and straight men and my connections to women, which were all impacted by my sexuality, and how to move forward individually and in relation to the LGB community. I hoped that I would be able to connect with other lesbians who had had similar experiences and also learn and develop from women who were like me but who had more experience in feminist activism. However, the more involved I got, the more I realised that lesbian meant something else in feminism and that I just couldn’t relate to them and didn’t belong in lesbian feminist circles.

I’m not really sure if I’ve got a concluding point here because I don’t really know where to go from here. I do want to continue to be involved in feminism but I guess it isn’t going to be what I hoped it would be and, while I am involved in groups where women discuss their experiences (not quite consciousness-raising groups but I suppose similar in some ways), I never feel like my experiences quite fit so I can’t really join in. At the moment, I’ve got one foot in the radfem camp and one in the LGBT community and am just trying to find my balance.