Diva magazine exclusively for TRAs now

[SapphosRock]

I’m pretty hacked off about it truth be told, especially since I’ve supported Diva and bought pretty much every issue since I came out as a lesbian in the late 90s.

I’m a member of Diva’s online community and someone recently posted about Nicola Adams (Olympic world champion boxer, used to identify as bisexual, recently came out as a lesbian).

Nicola has made the suggestion of having a separate category in boxing for trans women to compete with one another as she doesn’t believe it is fair for them to compete in the female category. Thread on it here:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3834912-Olympic-Boxing-champ-Nicola-Adams-calls-for-transgender-athlete-categories-for-fairness#94290477

This seems completely fair enough, and there is an exception in the Equality Act for exactly this reason, to make women’s sport fair.

As Diva is (was?) mainly a place for lesbian women, quite a few in the online community spoke up in support of Nicola Adams.

A trans woman who is a prominent poster in the group wrote a long and detailed post to ‘educate’ everybody why it is completely fair for trans women to compete in female sport. Point 5 of her post states biological sex isn’t binary. Anyone who didn’t agree is a transphobe.

This was backed up by Linda Riley (Diva publisher) who compared debating the right of trans women to compete in female sport to debating ‘all lives matter’, not so subtly suggesting that questioning the fairness of trans women in sport is as bad as racism.

DIVA MAGAZINE IS OPENLY CLAIMING WOMEN ARE BIGOTED FOR QUESTIONING THE FAIRNESS OF A MALE BODIED PERSON HITTING AND PUNCHING A FEMALE BODIED PERSON IN SPORT.

I have absolutely no problem with Diva welcoming trans women into the community but centering trans activism like this is madness. I know I’ve posted here in defense of Diva before when other lesbians expressed concerns about the TRA / MRA ethos. Apologies I didn’t listen and feel free to tell me ‘I told you so’.

As a side note, the prominent TRA in Diva’s online community made Diva’s Pride Power list. Olympic world champion lesbian role model Nicola Adams did not.

www.pridepowerlist.com/the-list-2020.html

It’s such a shame, used to love having Diva, and going to actual lesbian women’s spaces like First Out in London when I first came out. As others have said it’s now all about the T and any others’ rights/opinions are ignored.

Linda Riley puts me in mind of a woke Kelly-Ann Conway happy to sell out women however ugly* a person that makes her

• personality not physical

Sapphos

Genuinely not being goady here, and i hope you take this in good faith but i am really interested in why it took you so long recognise this for what it is?

It's fairly straight forward, sadly.

This political belief attempts to frame it that you can either consent unquestioningly that every aspect of woman/female must be male centred and male prioritised at all times in all ways, or be excluded.

There's a lot of political beliefs I have major problems with, see as ethically wrong, and therefore don't consent to participate in, and this is one of them.

FWIW, Sappho, I know we've had a few cross words over the years about these issues, I've never thought you were coming from a position that wasn't well meaning even though we disagreed most vehemently. I'm quite sure I recall a really good exchange we had on a thread about how to react if your daughter comes out (which mine has now; like mother like daughter!).

I share your frustration. Back in the day, it felt amazing that Diva existed. If I could have looked into the future and known it would be readily available at Tesco, I would have been very happy. Had I known that the tradeoff would be no longer really being a magazine for lesbians and bi women, and in fact told them to sod off, I really wouldn't

It is horrible to realise how many men get a sexual thrill out of watching violence inflicted on women.

Unfortunately, centering trans women is the end result of "be kind" and TWAW mantras. It's not deliberate - it comes from a good but extremely naïve place. It ends up being the inevitable conclusion when a group of males are considered "more oppressed" and important than women and that we women must always bear this in mind. We end up making all the concessions, giving up our spaces, our sports, our awards, our refuges, our rights, even the very words used to define us.

I have seen so many groups on Facebook decimated as this crazy phenomenon spreads - so many women kicked out or banned, and many more others stay but go silent. The activists in the groups high five one another and revel in how progressive they are, while women have ever diminishing spaces to talk freely and defend their rights, especially lesbians.

I'm sorry you have found your online community turn into a hostile space for women defending the utterly rational and sane idea of single-sex sports. I know you've tried to hold on to a middle ground, especially in previous debates on Mumsnet. It really is all or nothing for the trans activists. Us women here might come across as 'heartless bitches' to some but that's because many of us have come to realise that we can't afford to concede any more ground otherwise our rights and the rights of future generations of women are utterly lost.

I totally support a female only lesbian magazine. No reason why women can't come together to start a new publication. Fuck the trans activists. Women gained their rights before through sheer bloody mindedness and hard work, and we can do it again.

You need to back up farther I'd say.

This:
This was backed up by Linda Riley (Diva publisher) who compared debating the right of trans women to compete in female sport to debating ‘all lives matter’, not so subtly suggesting that questioning the fairness of trans women in sport is as bad as racism.

Assuming people who think the BLM approach to antiracism is wrong and advocate a more universalist approach must racists is pretty much exactly what is going on with saying that those who question TWAW in any context must be bigots.

It is the same thing. The roblem is it's wrong.

It sucks so much to come to the realisation you’ve been ‘had’ by the people who were meant to be on your side

Thanks. Yep this sums it up really. I've always thought lesbians and the trans community could be friends and allies. We seem to have coexisted peacefully enough.

I've come to realise the attached picture is a more accurate depiction of how it is.

There's the Lesbian Alliance standing up for same-sex attraction. Awful that in 2020 this needs to be done all over again, but here we are. - lesbianalliance.org.uk/.

I think it's a case of once you see it you can't unsee it.

It's actually a shitty, depressing place to be so I can understand sometimes why people resist, want to find half way solutions and want to believe in good intentions. I think most of us started out that way.

How can this be happening?

Yep OvaHere - can't unsee it now.

The only other 'lesbian' Facebook group I'm in now seems to be centering trans women too with not so subtle pressure to date them.

It is shitty. Fucking hell, it's so shitty. I've spent the last few years unfurling from homophobic christianity, extricating myself from all of that toxicity, comforting myself initially that there is a community out there of LGBT+ people who just wanted to be free to live. Instead I have been told by members of that community that I have to accept that being called queer, even when I object, is no longer a slur and I search in vain for any local groups for lesbians where I might find real life support as I begin to come out for the second time in my life. Heck, I've even listened as a 'gay' transman told me how awful and bigoted it was that gay men thought genitals were relevant and rejected said transman. Time was I could have scanned the pink pages, or Diva, and discovered something useful. Now Riley and her crew are all about supporting the 'lesbians' who would have approached my late teenaged self in a lesbian bar and assured me that their penis would be life changing.

It's soul sapping, and I'm not really surprised you resisted the realization, Sappho. If I could go back to blissful, hopeful ignorance, I would be tempted.

Magdalen Berns did some good response videos to Riley's.

Thanks @FloralBunting

I share your frustration. Back in the day, it felt amazing that Diva existed. If I could have looked into the future and known it would be readily available at Tesco, I would have been very happy. Had I known that the tradeoff would be no longer really being a magazine for lesbians and bi women, and in fact told them to sod off, I really wouldn't

This is exactly how I feel. It's as though lesbianism isn't good enough or palatable on its own.

One of the things I struggle to get my head around so much is the ‘I date the person not their genitals’ comments as stated above. It always seems to be said with a saintly sure as well as in ‘I consider myself above such base things as actual sexual
Pleasure’. I have tried and tried but I just cannot grasp it!!

Do the people saying that never have sex?? I love my best friend to bits but she’s a woman and I’d no more consider having sex with her than I’d rub chilli pepper in my eyes! I like men’s bodies - I like the way they feel & smell, I like hairy chests, I like cocks

What is it with this idea that you’re not allowed to say “I’m only into vaginas thanks very much”

If you like cock & vag that’s great too but the idea that somone is somehow ‘lesser’ for only wanting to have sex with somone with a natural vagina or cock (delete according to preference) just does my head in

I think it probably arose from wanting to remove being LGB sexualities from the stigma of 'perversion', which is obviously a laudable aim. Similar to the way it was very much a thing to be 'straight-acting' for a while to underline that all day men weren't flamboyant and camp, and lesbians weren't all the common stereotypes either. But I recall reading an interview with Snthong Cotton from Coronation street where he said it felt important for him to be an openly gay and camp man because it had swung too far in the other direction where it was almost unacceptable to be gay and camp or lesbian and butch.
I think the weird 'above it all' attitude towards actually finding genitals significant in sexual orientation and behaviour is the pendulum swing too far in the same way. I'm glad to see that there are LGB voices gathering to acknowledge that there is nothing even slightly wrong or odd about same sex orientation as a physically based thing.

Snthong Cotton is obviously Anthony Cotton after I've had a few too many wine gums...

The only other 'lesbian' Facebook group I'm in now seems to be centering trans women too with not so subtle pressure to date them.

This is concerning. Because I know you used to say that there were sites that you were part of that were not following this line. Does this mean sapphos that in the past few months you have noticed the creep? Or do you think it was there but you either didn’t notice?

Sappho, it takes courage. You give me hope, because there are a couple of people in my life who don't see it. Now I have renewed faith that they will.

What is it with this idea that you’re not allowed to say “I’m only into vaginas thanks very much”

It excludes men, so it's the worst thing a women can do.
So many men are convinced lesbian can be turned if only they tried dick. It's seems TRAs are no different.

But why should lesbians care that men are pissed off they won’t have sex with them?

Riley is a lesbian, she’s not going to do penis, neither would Ruth hunt & yet they fall over themselves to ensure Male bodied people are let into lesbian spaces to lecture women about being transphobic fir not wanting sex with male bodied people.

Why do they do that??

Is it money? Is it power? Is it no skin in the game from being in a ltr?

@endofthelinefinally

Sappho, it takes courage. You give me hope, because there are a couple of people in my life who don't see it. Now I have renewed faith that they will.

This. Sappho has given me a bit of hope too. And what Kit19 said.

Lesbians have long been a valuable part of society and it pains me that they are losing their spaces. They are needed.

Riley is a lesbian, she’s not going to do penis, neither would Ruth hunt & yet they fall over themselves to ensure Male bodied people are let into lesbian spaces to lecture women about being transphobic fir not wanting sex with male bodied people

For Ruth Hunt, at least, it was about Stonewall needing a new cash cow after achieving gay marriage. I have no idea whether her personal views are different from her public ones but anyone who can say ‘women are going to get raped anyway’ is a raging misogynist totally without principles or integrity.