Be an ally to lesbians: stop using LGBTQ+

[Shedbuilder]

I'm a lesbian and I mentally parted company with Stonewall and began opposing it and a lot of other LGB organisations when they added the T and then the Q and then all the other identity letters to the original LGB.

LGB people are united by same-sex attraction. TQ and whatever are linked by their insistence on identity — defining themselves by feelings or whatever. LGB people are united by their experience of homophobia. Transgenderism, and its attack on sex, is inherently homophobic. The two cannot and could never exist comfortably together. As soon as Stonewall added the T to their constituency, it began working against its core community.

Stonewall and other organisations have done this by force. Uncoupling the LGB from the TQ+ is one of the most important things anyone with a GC stance can do.

Please, let us work towards making the letters LGBTQ+ a badge of ignorance and shame, not something that employers should be plastering everywhere as proof of how progressive they are.

And of course their are gay boys/young men who get absolutely get caught in the cross fire too. Because sexuality and gender and sex are all different things. And giving children the opportunity to make permanent changes to their bodies, which aren't really reversible, without the appropriate safe guards, seems both dangerous and irresponsible.

There are times I've worn men's clothing and rejected my femininity, and times I have fancied/kissed/had sex etc, with both sexes. There have been times I wished I could cut off my big boobs and escape Male attention, other times I've loved being a woman more than anything. Most of my life's issues have come from being a woman. Endometriosis, pregnancy complications, breastfeeding successes and failures, mastitis, domestic violence, sexual assault, rape, etc. If you'd given me a choice as an angry traumatised teenager I may have chosen hormones or even surgery. Anything to make me less of a target to Male violence. But i am so glad I didn't. I get to be a mother, I don't have to take daily hormones, I'm just glad I grew up in different times.

Hello lesbian! We are your allies, and we will relentlessly hound you about your medical experiences and make you out to be liars!

I know right? I suspect the agenda isn't about being a lesbian ally at all 🧐

One doesn’t have to agree with, personally affirm or otherwise completely align with every single individual’s opinion(s) in order be an ally, and that applies to whatever group(s) one is allying with. Overarching principles matter a lot, and if your opinion is damaging to the overall cause then I will challenge you on it.

If people want complete affirmation without any opposition where it is deemed appropriate then again, I will stress that FWR likely isn’t going to be your kind of place.

In the meantime we will continue arguing vehemently for women’s rights and protections in law, including those of lesbians and bisexual women.

The agenda is really clear and logical, SR. Lesbians, bisexuals and gay men who are united by homosexuality were never consulted about being paired with T people. T is an inherently homophobic gender ideology that was forcibly paired with LGB in order to ride on the coast tails of the success of civil partnerships, equal rights and equal marriage.

People who want to be allies to lesbian, gay and bi people can help us by separating the LGB and the T, making it clear that T doesn't belong naturally with the LGB. And that's it.

Well that's quite a jump, but hey

You’d know

To be fair I’m so befuddled by the whole ’ally’ thing that I don’t think I’ll bother

Which will be a relief to all I'm sure

Ninkanink Supporting lesbians being visible and acknowledged in healthcare is a bare minimum requirement of an ally. Many on this thread can't even bring themselves to do that.

It must be down to the circles we mix in. My assistant is bi and her sister is lesbian. They both talk about feeling bullied, because they won’t sleep with a male bodied trans person. My assistant feels bullied because she’s bi, so some of her friends can’t understand her reluctance. It has been very difficult for both of them, as they don’t want to loose friends, but apparently just saying they don’t find that particular member of their circle sexually attractive isn’t enough of a reason.

@SapphosRock

Ninkanink Supporting lesbians being visible and acknowledged in healthcare is a bare minimum requirement of an ally. Many on this thread can't even bring themselves to do that.

Don’t be disingenuous. It’s not many, it’s a few at most. Secondly, your derailment isn’t the main focus of this particular discussion.

I advocate a great deal on behalf of women and girls of every sexual persuasion (and however they choose to ‘identify’) and much of that advocacy absolutely is directed at ensuring their visibility and acknowledgement within healthcare, and safeguarding their interests. Your individual circumstances are not the focus of this discussion, nor the only relevant aspect of the wider problem being addressed here.

I don't know if our lovely 'allies' are aware of this - but our complex communities often consist of diversely IDing people - iindeed many transmen in our communities previously identified as lesbians.

We don't push out our friends because they have come to a new understanding of themselves, we support them through their changing lives and encourage them to explore options that are right for them. (Including conversations about how bottom surgery or phalloplasty might not be best the option for them, as we all know as older experienced lesbians that we can swap in a hundred different dildos of varying shapes, sizes and textures to keep our partners happy at any given time, but they will be stuck with the one penis they get!) But whatever they choose they are still our friends, or at least that's how it works with people I know.

And where on earth has this specious argument come about 'lady dick' or lesbians being expected to have sex with anyone they don't want to have sex with come from? Some may be quite into transwomen, I don't happen to know any dating a transwoman personally but I'm sure there are some. I think you'll find, a bit like the heterosexual population, we are dating individuals in populations we are attracted to, we are not dating the entire classification at any one time and we feel under no pressure to!

And where on earth has this specious argument come about 'lady dick' or lesbians being expected to have sex with anyone they don't want to have sex with come from? Some may be quite into transwomen, I don't happen to know any dating a transwoman personally but I'm sure there are some. I think you'll find, a bit like the heterosexual population, we are dating individuals in populations we are attracted to, we are not dating the entire classification at any one time and we feel under no pressure to!

Perhaps you should look up ‘the cotton ceiling’ and you’ll see it was a phrase coined by a male bodied person who identifies as trans who created it. Maybe you should also have a look at Twitter and you’ll see how much abuse is being directed at lesbians who won’t sleep with those who identify as trans.

Absolutely lillian

Gay men are also being called transphobic if they don’t want PIV sex

Yes of course it depends on the circles one moves in, just like opinions on most other things. Like tends to attract like, broadly speaking. But in this area in particular I would venture that many young women especially would probably be afraid to openly express their true opinion on this. Or they may not yet have developed the confidence to assert their boundaries in the face of accusations of bigotry and ‘phobia’. Or perhaps they haven’t yet acquired the experience and the wisdom to see with clarity.

Ultimately, it doesn’t need a consensus. We as a group here are advocating on behalf of those who do mind, who are frightened, who are being bullied and whose boundaries are not being respected. Those who are of a different opinion can choose to associate or not associate with whomever they want. That choice isn’t available to those who don’t like the current status quo.

@Shedbuilder I’ve definitely heard you and others.

@RufustheRowlingReindeer

Absolutely lillian

Gay men are also being called transphobic if they don’t want PIV sex

I guarantee they’re not being threatened with violence from those with vaginas, or being told to choke on a cunt, for refusing.

It’s only ever the men who weaponise their genitals in that vile and violent way. Always a dead giveaway, no matter how much they claim to be women.

I took a look at the Diva page where Sappho tells us the penis is never a problem, and indeed welcomed..

This is the first post you see.

m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10156793434120671&id=14494605670

I guarantee they’re not being threatened with violence from those with vaginas, or being told to choke on a cunt, for refusing

Certainly wouldn’t argue otherwise

But i do struggle with people who believe that pressure on some lesbians is made up when i know its also happening to gay men i know

It's not exactly winning the PR war to make claims about being allies to lesbians and then attacking them is it.

"Them"? I think one person may not be entirely reliable, or possibly not entirely accurate, and I am therefore attacking an entire class of individuals of whom they may be a single example?

That is the equivalent of saying that because there is a blonde person I dislike, I therefore dislike all blondes. I'm sure that there must be some sort of named philosophical fallacy in that.... It is certainly a faulty generalisation.

Oh yes I understood what you were saying.

Everyone is being told to swallow or else. Lesbians are right down the very bottom of that chain, given the overwhelming misogyny that drives this ideology.

Still, at least the new terracotta lamp the British Museum have got for their "diversity display" has a pair of lesbians on it, and they are not saying that the couple are trans. www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/G_2005-0921-1

Or at least, they didn't seem to be this morning. That may all be changed if enough woke people notice and complain, of course. But the exhibit isn't open at the moment so perhaps it will stay as it always has been, lesbian.

Fanta, that's shocking — and it's what young women are having presented to them as totally normal and acceptable. For anyone who can't see it, it's a video showing 6 'lesbians', divided into pairs, discussing the questions they're always being asked. Except the two most glamorous ones with the longest, swishiest hair are trans. One talks about having been a gay male and tells us that whether he's had surgery or not is none of our business. This is what young women and readers of Diva are being told is lesbian life.

I don't know what group Fanta and Shedbuilder are looking at but I can't open that link and it's not to the group I mentioned.

How strange! Opened perfectly well for me & here’s a screenshot

Maybe it's like a unicorn, you have to believe it exists in order to see it...

Yeah. That's not the group I sent to Shed.