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.

I’m curious

Are you? Cos a bit ago you were bewildered and even I’m not falling for that

As for perception and reality, isn’t everyone’s version of reality different? Therefore it’s all perception.

Facts aren’t based on perception.

A woman is an adult human female.

I agree with the OP. Specificity is important. It particularly irks me to see a person or a relationship described as 'LGBT' - they're obviously not all four!

It is not about perception.

We deal in absolutes here: biological fact, material reality.

All these bewildered and curious people lately...guess there’s lots of time during lockdown for flexing one’s thinking muscles. Probably a good thing since very many people seem to have lost the ability to do any robust or critical thinking at all.

As Bertrand Russell said:
One of the painful things about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision.

Yes, the whole 'curious' & 'bewildered' thing lost me at 'TERFs', I'm afraid.

Same old shit.

Old Bertie wasn’t a biologist though, was he?

It always fills me with mirth when people try to use quotes like that without any degree of self-awareness whatsoever...

Have you read Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel? Would you like to quote at us from that too?

as for perception and reality, isn’t everyone’s version of reality different? Therefore it’s all perception

Billi77

So you don't believe in the existence of external reality at all? What if I 'perceive' that I can fly? Do you think my 'perception' will impede the law of gravity?

Bertie wasn’t a woman either. I know that with certainty because he wasn’t an adult human female.

Billi, I have some new for you. You're not a feminist if you're not focussed on women —and you're not. You're counting anyone who says they're a woman as a woman. They're not, they're men. You're on here arguing for men. Men who could have gone and joined a mixed book group etc, but who decided to have a go at accessing the women's one and has turned it into a mixed sex book group.

Women and women's groups aren't there to provide shelter for men who don't fit in as men. Those men need to work to expand the bandwidth of what it is to be male, not invade women's precious space.

@Shedbuilder

Billi, I have some new for you. You're not a feminist if you're not focussed on women —and you're not. You're counting anyone who says they're a woman as a woman. They're not, they're men. You're on here arguing for men. Men who could have gone and joined a mixed book group etc, but who decided to have a go at accessing the women's one and has turned it into a mixed sex book group.

Women and women's groups aren't there to provide shelter for men who don't fit in as men. Those men need to work to expand the bandwidth of what it is to be male, not invade women's precious space.

Hear hear

@Shedbuilder

Billi, I have some new for you. You're not a feminist if you're not focussed on women —and you're not. You're counting anyone who says they're a woman as a woman. They're not, they're men. You're on here arguing for men. Men who could have gone and joined a mixed book group etc, but who decided to have a go at accessing the women's one and has turned it into a mixed sex book group.

Women and women's groups aren't there to provide shelter for men who don't fit in as men. Those men need to work to expand the bandwidth of what it is to be male, not invade women's precious space.

Absolutely right.

Adding Q, T, whatever else to the unpronounceable alphabetical compound, as silly as it seems, is still a compassionate response.

What is compassionate about tacking on the T, which has nothing to do with same sex attraction, to the LGB?
How compassionate are trans activists currently to women and LGB people?
All I'm hearing is be kind = women do not question, do not speak up.

Yes, it's the belt up and be kind thing all over again. Compassionate? I genuinely don't get it.

Billi77, it is not “cruel”, it is the truth. A group that includes men, regardless of how they “identify” their “gender”, is de facto a mixed sex group. Calling it a women’s group is simply denying reality or gaslighting. I imagine any devout Muslim or orthodox Jewish woman coming along to join your group would have to exclude herself, due to the presence of men. So your supposedly feminist group is not even accessible for all women.

Before lockdown, I'd been playing walking netball. We had two Muslim women who loved the group, because it enabled them to meet safely with other women, enjoy physical activity and socialise with a wider community of women.

A TW joining the group would have meant those two could not participate again. A TW in the changing room would have ruled out several (if not all) of us, who could not tolerate being there with a male.

Just two of the reasons why female-only groups are essential.

Yes,

‘Be kind’ more often than not is firmly rooted in ‘Know your place, shut your mouth.’

I am under absolutely no obligation to be kind to those who do not wish me well. My responsibility is to myself, then to my daughters, and after that to my sisterhood.

Compassion does not trump my boundaries.

It’s not compassion - allowing someone to join a group or enter a space where they should be just in case you hurt their feelings/in case they throw a fit and sue is just bowing down to bullies.

Yes quite.

Compassion is given as and when, where warranted.

I have been looking for a comment made by someone on a thread recently but I haven’t been able to find it. Relating to a roller derby group, I think? I’ve a terrible memory so apologies if I get terms or details wrong. Anyway, it was written by a lesbian woman as well, iirc, and talked about how men had joined this group and this woman had asked one of them to consider wearing a box to prevent him pressing his penis up against her. She was told that she was in the wrong and maybe it would be best for her to find another group. Something to that effect, but quite eloquently setting out what a shame it was to have one’s support system infiltrated in that way. Does anyone remember it so I can add the thread to this discussion?

No box? Well I’d know where I’d be aiming my boney elbows then.

How do you think I (a female feminist lesbian) see women as insignificant?

Ok.

So I gave you a whole list of situations in which females are excluded from female provision (with no alternative available) if female only spaces are mixed sex, and asked you how that was compatible with equal concern for females.

Your reply is how do I think you see female people as insignificant, and to tell me that being compassionate - ie female people enabling males to use their spaces - does no harm.

Despite that this excludes those females above (seeing their needs and exclusion and loss of any service as insignificant). Which blatantly does harm to females. Is this ok? Because there's no way to include these females and TW in the same space. It can't happen. Who has more need and right to a female single sex space? A female, or a male?

This is the problem with perception against objective reality. I think your perception of compassion, and even basic equality, is a bit confused to put it mildly.

Points at total internalisation of the tenets of male supremacy, doesn’t it.

I'm curious too.

How do you as a feminist support females who will be excluded from any space or service by turning all female services mixed sex?

Michelle. I understand your arguments up to a certain point, but I don’t necessarily agree with them. This is because I do perceive trans women as women most of the time. I also subscribe to a non binary view of gender, where I don’t believe we differ that much. I don’t think I am 100% woman, for example. Of course a lot of my views and perception are of course based on my own life experience. I have had trans people in my family since birth and am a gay single mother.
What I really dont see is how I am not a feminist when one of my primary objectives is in defeating the (not only male led) patriarchy.