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

@Kit19

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?

With Riley, I think it's money and power, with Hunt I suspect power and influence mainly. But let's be honest, there are straight women who support TRA demands with enthusiasm even though it will probably hurt their own mums and grannies. Lesbians are not on a higher moral plane, there's no reason to expect them not to succumb to the baser selfishness that throws other women under the bus.

@Winesalot

It is such a shame that women lose their communities like this, so I can empathize with you.

It is also very dangerous for a magazine to take this attitude when income is dwindling and there is so much free well written content available.

Get woke go broke.

@Kit19

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 suspect this is the kind of thing where it is partly true, and a lot of people don't have very good insight into what is really going on. I am romantically interested in men, but I'd still potentially be interested in one with some sort of abnormal genitals or who had an accident where they were non-functional. I find some women sexually attractive but I'm not at all romantically interested in them. But it can be difficult to articulate what that kind of thing is all about and for many, they just interpret it as "I am interested in their inner soul" or something vague like that.

There are also some subtle differences in the way people think about sexuality that aren't always obvious - they tend to reflect their own experience and often they don't realise it may not be quite the same as others experience. And it can be looked at from very different perspectives. Look at someone like Julie Bindle who has claimed for years that she chose lesbianism and anyone could do so in the same way, but is also very against transwomen with penises claiming that they are lesbians and so other lesbians should accept them. But you could take her same starting point - that any woman can choose lesbianism, and say that therefore, any lesbian could choose to accept that TWAW and treat them as lesbians. Because clearly if you choose something like that for political reasons, it's not about the genitals mainly.

My thinking is that most of us have a lot of things that attach to an attraction to male or female that include genitals, secondary sex characteristics, and other less tangible things which our brains associate with male or femaleness, either because they are associated biologically or it's a learned association..

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?

I think it was very much on the periphery before. For me there's a big difference between supporting trans women and centering them and all of sudden there's been a big shift towards centering them, to the detriment of lesbians.

I hope this doesn’t sound patronising, but I think it takes a big person to admit they have changed their views. And it must be pretty shitty for you as you’ve been a firm defender of something you now realise couldn’t give a flying one about you or your lesbian sisters. Or hetero sisters either.

We’ve all been where you were, Sapphos, we all found a line we couldn’t cross. This is yours.

all of sudden there's been a big shift towards centering them, to the detriment of lesbians.

Well that fits the increase in pride signaling and inclusion messaging I guess. To say it is concerning is an understatement.

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.

You me too! And to that I’d also add a big mm hmm because I’m sure they date ‘ugly’ people too because it’s what’s inside that counts chinny reckon.

For me there's a big difference between supporting trans women and centering them and all of sudden there's been a big shift towards centering them, to the detriment of lesbians.

SapphosRock it’s really not been “all of a sudden” it’s been a slow mission creep for years now, but I think I understand your feeling because for me it’s like that phenomenon when you buy a for eg car and all of a sudden you notice a bazillion other people also drive the same car.

As an aside I don’t think it’s surprising that men are finding novel ways to solicit sex from lesbians. It seems to be the pinnacle of macho pride to ‘turn one’ 🤮

Diva will fall into self-serving irrelevancy because actual lesbians will stop buying it. Print mags are having a very hard time as it is, without alienating their core audience.

Nicola Adams on the other hand is on Strictly Come Dancing on our tv screens on prime time at the moment. I hope she takes the opportunity to talk about what is being done to lesbian culture at the moment.

Oh fuck is this how it feels to peak t.... (I really dislike that term)

It's ridiculous that in a group of women, only trans women and TRAs are allowed to express an opinion.

Thank you for letting me vent on here

This is how I would respond to the 'educational post' if I was allowed to:

can we reinforce the point a person’s Gender is NOT UP FOR DEBATE - Group members will be removed if they ignore our Group’s rules

I'm not debating anyone's gender identity. I'm saying males are physically stronger then females. That's all.

Trans women have been allowed to participate in all sports at all levels since 2004. There has been no issue with this in 16 years. No trans athlete (except for a trans man this year) has ever reached anywhere near the top tier. Saying that trans women in women's sport is going to mean that women never win anything every again is hypothetical and not grounded in fact.

Nope there's an exception in the Equality Act which clearly says its lawful to exclude transsexual women from female sports. You are trying to remove that exception.

Sports like boxing are already segregated by weight so Nicola Adams would only ever face someone her own size anyway

With the added strength and bone density of male puberty

What they told you about biological sex in school was massively over simplified. Like every other subject. Biological sex isn't simple or binary.

How to even respond to such silliness?

really hope that this community is as open, inclusive and supporting - and open to learning - as I thought it was

Maybe you could listen and learn too? Or should we all sit down and shut up like good little women?

Thanks I feel better for that

Nicola Adams is ace, knows about boxing and is going to win Strictly.

Who is this other person?

Dear Misogyny, what a beautiful dress you're wearing these days. I barely recognised you.

Riley is a lesbian

Riley is a transbian, that's why Riley is arguing so hard that genitals don't matter. No idea what Ruths deal is.

Sappho thanks for posting. I always enjoyed your posts which challenged my opinions. It's really valuable to have posters around who make you question yourself. Despite what some claim, most people here don't want Mumsnet to be an echo chamber. Having said that I'm really glad that your rose tinted glasses are off now. I just hope the rest of the LGB community have a similar reality shock before its too late.

Unfortunately, as you say, male supremacism is so deeply ingrained in our culture that its almost impossible to see sometimes. Like the fish who don't know they're wet. And given that intersectional social justice activism works by highlighting assymmetrical power dynamics, the TRAs have very cleverely positioned things to obscure what's really going on. If you say that TWAW and women are "cis" women then not only do you lose the ability to see the power dynamics between men (including transwomen) and women, but you also construct a second artificial axis of oppression in which women ("cis") are said to have power over men (transwomen). This basically obliterates the foundations of intersectional analysis, which I actually think otherwise has something valuable to offer. But a disturbingly large number of people who can easily see the power dynamics between, say, white and black people, can't see them between men and women, or lose the ability to see them if the man declares himself trans. It's a big (deliberate) mess and I don't blame people for getting caught up in it.

Zana a TRA that's obviously held in higher regard by Diva Magazine than Nicola Adams.

Radicalised by Mumsnet.

We need that T shirt!

Sappho, do stay true to yourself, and keep arguing. Here or elsewhere.

That’s a shame about Diva. The online lesbian spaces like autostraddle are also entirely dominated by non binaries and trans women. The sad thing is that taking over lesbians spaces and publications literally isn’t enough for the TRAS. If you make a female only magazine they will want that too. There was a funny post on the Reddit page for “actual lesbians (which of course is full of males). This trans woman asked how many trans women were in the group and hundreds responded. He seemed put out and asked “are there no cis lesbians here?” So the end point of this is the lesbians will all go under ground and have their own spaces and the guys can be left on their own.

Dear Misogyny, what a beautiful dress you're wearing these days. I barely recognised you.

Oh my gosh so true.

Strength sapphos.

I didn’t agree with you in past.

But what a shower of shites diva mag is.

Zana a TRA that's obviously held in higher regard by Diva Magazine than Nicola Adams

That's really stark isn't it, a black lesbian and incredible sportswomen being disregarded at the behest of TRAs.

That's really stark isn't it, a black lesbian and incredible sportswomen being disregarded at the behest of TRAs.

As someone said, there must be a deeper motivation? And it must be very political.

It surely can't sit right with Linda Riley to deliberately overlook a brilliant black lesbian sports woman for daring to have her own opinion?

And I would imagine Nicola Adams is more inspirational (and more fanciable) to the majority of Diva's readership too

Sapphos, you and I have differed on trans issues in this section.

I used to be all about 'being kind'. Then things started niggling away at me that I couldn't ignore.

I'm not a lesbian, but the cotton ceiling tipped me over the edge. How dare men pressure lesbians to centre them in every way?

Solidarity sister. 🌹

Oh and I have a HUGE crush on Nicola Adams. Sadly I'm too old and fat for her. 😀

Money and power

Grifters got to grift

Well, thanks to this thread I have now looked up Nicola Adams. I am quite ashamed to think I did not know about her in the past.

An incredible women that certainly should be on women’s power lists. It is just another example of women budging over to make room for males.

And while we’re getting stuff of our chests I’ll tell you every time I see stuff about the editor of Diva I think Mandy Dingle from Emmerdale. Yes I know the names are different but my brain automatically goes there.