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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Be an ally to lesbians: stop using LGBTQ+

681 replies

Shedbuilder · 18/06/2020 09:28

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.

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Michelleoftheresistance · 19/06/2020 09:30

You see this gets repeated over and over again on MN and it's just not true. Yes some dodgy TRA may have tweeted it once

Utter bollocks. Rachel McKinnon: lesbians should learn to cope with PIV sex as a social duty- and if that didn't hit you as outrageous in multiple ways, you haven't thought it through enough. Particularly notice the very, very male belief that female people don't need to enjoy sex with males, and their pleasure, or even willing consent, is absolutely not what it's all about. Riley Dennis. Multiple videos, plus Magdalen Berns deconstructing them: why genital preferences are transphobic, and females have a duty to overcome their prejudices (to give sex to males, even though they don't want to). Many articles. You can go on denying it, the evidence is right there. Sorry about that.

I've personally never experienced racism for example, but I'm confident this is a thing and have personal ethics about dismissing other people's experiences when they tell me about it, because there's absolutely no excuse for that behaviour. Walking around going 'oh it's just one solitary weirdo on twitter' doesn't help anyone.

I'm in a very active lesbian Facebook group with over 5,000 members, you'd think if this was a 'thing' then someone would have mentioned it but not once has it come up.

Considering the speed and repetition and persistence with which you rush on to any thread mentioning the word 'lesbian' to tell lesbians off, correct them, silence them, speak over them and tell them what you will allow them to say they've felt or experienced or how they identify - I'm not really surprised it hasn't come up. They've either all learned to shut up, or any not holding the party line have done what so many lesbian groups have done and gone away to where there's less thought policing going on.

You don't speak for me.

I'm lesbian. I feel threatened by lanyards representing homophobic values and erasure of female sex. I have major concerns about what is termed 'queer culture' and the shoving of everything and everyone into a group that was by and for people who were homosexual and bisexual. I wholly reject LGBTWTF+ and Stonewall in particular.

And yes, male born people identifying as lesbians, trying to make their wives identify as lesbians and trying to pressure female people into surrendering their homosexual orientation is a thing. No matter how many times you try to shush people and tell them in post after post that no it isn't.

SapphosRock · 19/06/2020 09:31

I see what you're saying LittleCabbage but the rainbow is an important symbol of tolerance and acceptance to a lot of lesbians. Straight women might think they are doing lesbians a favour by rejecting it, I think it would be doing lesbians a massive disservice.

ThePankhurstConnection · 19/06/2020 09:32

I've been using LGB for a while now because it means something different to me than LGBTQetc.

Michelleoftheresistance · 19/06/2020 09:32

And my 9 million friends and all their pet hamsters agree with me.

PurpleHoodie · 19/06/2020 09:34

And yet you ignore the voices of Lesbians who reject the rainbow flag.

Right. Got it.

Michelleoftheresistance · 19/06/2020 09:37

Just musing here, but what do you suppose is the purpose of repeatedly telling people - 'you're all alone in your views, nobody agrees with you, your experience of life and your own sexuality is a bit weird and sad really'

Particularly when claiming to speak for pretty much everyone else in the UK of that sexuality, all of who are one happy family in their beliefs with no problems, and you could just put aside this silliness and join them.

It's like something out of a bad novel.

ThePankhurstConnection · 19/06/2020 09:39

@SapphosRock

I see what you're saying LittleCabbage but the rainbow is an important symbol of tolerance and acceptance to a lot of lesbians. Straight women might think they are doing lesbians a favour by rejecting it, I think it would be doing lesbians a massive disservice.
It's not about rejecting it, it is about the wariness it now produces in women who feel they may have to step on pronoun-based eggshells or fear being reported for some transgression or other. I love what it represents (or should represent/used to represent) but the fact is it has been largely representing the TQ+ for a while now and the online attitude that contingent has towards women makes women wary.

Oh and great post Michelleoftheresistance (I like your name too)

ThePankhurstConnection · 19/06/2020 09:41

@PurpleHoodie

And yet you ignore the voices of Lesbians who reject the rainbow flag.

Right. Got it.

Oh. Maybe it is about rejecting it Grin

I can understand why lesbians would do that at this point.

PurpleHoodie · 19/06/2020 09:42

And edit:

LGB (Gay/homosexual Rights)

I (Intersex Rights)

TQWERTY--- (Fetish Recognition)

Shedbuilder · 19/06/2020 09:46

I'm in a very active lesbian Facebook group with over 5,000 members

Which lesbian FB group would that be, Sappho's Rock? We're on several already and always looking for new contacts.

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LittleCabbage · 19/06/2020 09:52

I see what you're saying LittleCabbage but the rainbow is an important symbol of tolerance and acceptance to a lot of lesbians. Straight women might think they are doing lesbians a favour by rejecting it, I think it would be doing lesbians a massive disservice.

I would hate for any lesbians to feel upset by this, but it is not my fault. The trans bullying has forced me to have that reaction. I do not reject the rainbow in some misguided attempt to do lesbians a favour. It is an involuntary reaction due to what the rainbow has come to be associated with. Or more accurately: due to who has chosen to associate themselves with it (read: take it over).

SapphosRock · 19/06/2020 09:52

Michelleoftheresistance That's why we're all here surely? To debate and share different opinions.

The OP makes a rallying call to do something that directly affects all lesbians.

Please, let us work towards making the letters LGBTQ+ a badge of ignorance and shame

Surely the people this affects (ie lesbians) should be able to voice their concerns?

How about Let's make Black Lives Matter a badge of ignorance and shame

If the BLM movement was important to you, and others, would you not speak up to defend it?

Straight people working towards making LGBTQ a badge of ignorance and shame is is like white people working towards BLM being a badge of ignorance and shame. Troubling. Very troubling.

JackiFazaki · 19/06/2020 09:52

My Facebook group is bigger than your Facebook group.

So

LGB it is.

Shedbuilder · 19/06/2020 09:56

Little Cabbage, please don't worry. I'm with you: I see the rainbow symbol or the rainbow lanyard and I brace myself.

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SapphosRock · 19/06/2020 09:56

Shedbuilder I'll DM you. You never know who is reading this and it would be a shame for it to be infiltrated by people trying to prove a point.

PurpleHoodie · 19/06/2020 10:07

"Straight people working towards making LGBTQ a badge of ignorance and shame is is like white people working towards BLM being a badge of ignorance and shame. Troubling. Very troubling."

Again with always putting out the view that Mumsnetter Feminists are White and Straight as a "gotcha" to shut them up.

The inferred racism is increasingly tedious.

Many, many Black and Asian lesbian and bi-sexual women post here.

SapphosRock · 19/06/2020 10:11

PurpleHoodie I was addressing posters such as Chickoletta and LittleCabbage who are straight but feel comfortable taking on issues that directly impact lesbians.

PurpleHoodie · 19/06/2020 10:13

lgballiance.org.uk

Further information for why language is important in the lesbian and gay community.

SapphosRock · 19/06/2020 10:19

I actually really wanted to be on board with the LGB alliance. If it was purely pro LGB it would be a great organisation (and a good alternative to Stonewall) but being explicitly anti trans puts me off. Being anti trans is still centering trans issues, even if it's done negatively.

PurpleCrowbarWhereIsLangCleg · 19/06/2020 10:24

I'm with you, OP.

& agree with PPs that my perception of the rainbow symbol is no longer remotely positive.

My FB friend list has always been overwhelmingly 'woke', at least in public, but now actually many of them are no longer telling me to STFU every time I post anything GC.

Either everyone who believes TWAW & similar mantras has deleted me, or they're just bored with engaging with me on the subject OR the sunlight is starting to break through.

But still, every time it's Pride Anything, which seems to be roughly every other day, loads of them change their profile pics to rainbows. Every time I see one I think - rightly or wrongly - 'oh bugger, I wouldn't be able to have an honest conversation with X, then'.

I'm seeing that nasty 'STFU terf!' meme rather less now, but the people who used to post it correlate quite strongly with the rainbow profile pic-ers. Hmm

EmpressLangClegSpartacus · 19/06/2020 10:24

You know, the best women’s march I’ve ever been on is Million Women Rise, where it’s all red & the suffragette colours. I usually go in my Fair Play for Women hoodie. I think the only times I’ve seen rainbows there have been on the odd passive-aggressive “ALL women” placard.

As a lesbian I feel infinitely more comfortable there than I would on a rainbow-festooned alphabet soup march where I was expected to accept gender over sex.

Michelleoftheresistance · 19/06/2020 10:28

Straight people working towards making LGBTQ a badge of ignorance and shame is is like white people working towards BLM being a badge of ignorance and shame. Troubling. Very troubling.

I don't find it nearly as troubling as someone saying repeatedly how they speak for pretty much all lesbians and that there is no problem, silencing lesbians who say otherwise, and trying to silence straight people from saying anything by implying they have no right to interfere.

You're basically working to separate lesbians not on message with you from any form of support. And in doing so, further disenfranchise female people from focusing on female issues and female needs.

Michelleoftheresistance · 19/06/2020 10:31

And 'badge of ignorance and shame' - what are you on about?

The rainbow now explicitly represents views that do not see females as a sex class, and sees sex based rights as so damaging to males that they have no business existing in a civilised society. It represents denying females same sex hcps (regardless of excluding many vulnerable females from health care by doing so), and homophobia against females claiming the right to same sex only relationships as opposed to being sexually inclusive with their bodies of a male based on the male's self identification.

There's a whole lot of shame there, yes.

But calling females ignorant for seeing this and having a problem with it?!

PurpleHoodie · 19/06/2020 10:38

Women should never get together to read and talk Michelle.

They might learn things. They might Get. Ideas. Tsk.

Hoiks bosom

PurpleHoodie · 19/06/2020 10:42

lgballiance.org.uk/about/

The LGB Alliance Mission Statement for any Straight allies who would like to know what the organisation is about.