Lesbian community groups and legislation

[MuthaFunka61]

Hi.

I'm a steering group member for an older lesbian community group and we've applied for funding but have been asked about our inclusivity policy towards trans women. As a relatively new membership led group this is something that hasn't yet been decided but we're aware that we'll need to have this discussion amongst the membership sooner or later but the consensus amongst the steering group is that we are for women born lesbians.

A couple of the members are looking at different sources and I offered to ask here.

So what we need is specific legislation regarding the maintenance of sex specific spaces and whether there is anything which may be of particular reference to lesbians.

Any thoughts?
Thanks

.......and female homosexuals who don’t presently identify as lesbians and instead have the protected characteristic of ‘gender reassignment’ (ie trans men)

VERY IMPORTANT.

Jeez. If you'd said to me ten years ago, a time will come when lesbians are having to twist through endless linguistic hoops to try and find a way to be allowed to meet as a group without the presence and involvement of men who wish to be with them whether wanted or not.... and that the law will be invoked to try and compel lesbians to never be allowed space or a group or even to name themselves as homosexual females because of not being allowed a life or space without men -

I'd have thought you were nuts.

@MichelleofzeResistance

Jeez. If you'd said to me ten years ago, a time will come when lesbians are having to twist through endless linguistic hoops to try and find a way to be allowed to meet as a group without the presence and involvement of men who wish to be with them whether wanted or not.... and that the law will be invoked to try and compel lesbians to never be allowed space or a group or even to name themselves as homosexual females because of not being allowed a life or space without men -

I'd have thought you were nuts.

Me too. It's a real struggle to find any lesbian groups that aren't dominated by TRAs or that aren't facing pressure to centre trans issues. It's completely nuts.

You are absolutely able by law to exclude men, I hope you're able to stick to your guns and get the funding. If they reject you on the basis of not accepting men I would suggest you go to The Times or something.

I'm so very sick of this and anyone who withholds funding for this basis alone needs showing up for the misogynist spineless arseholes they are.

Sorry, I'm cross, no way should you have to admit men so to get funding.

This might help.

womansplaceuk.org/2020/07/20/making-policies-equality-act-compliant/

Yes - LGB Alliance - of course!

Good luck @MuthaFunka61

Equalities Act, and stick to it.

It's a real struggle to find any lesbian groups that aren't dominated by TRAs or that aren't facing pressure to centre trans issues.

Really.

And it isn't as if there aren't many, many other groups available for male born people to access: it isn't about need. It's about utter determination to remove the right from women to ever have anything male people don't own and control.

Good for you, OP! Hope you get the funding.

Oh and (carefully choosing my words here) there is a new generation of adolescent and young adult female humans who are self describing as ‘Non binary lesbians’ - the rationale for this seems to be that gender identity (non binary) is not the same as sexual orientation (lesbian).

So there’s your trans inclusion demographic. Perhaps some social contact with lesbian elders will result in these young adult females discarding the non binary label and embracing the GNC aspects of their personality as part of their lesbian orientation? Because ticking all these identity boxes looks EXHAUSTING.

Thank you all!

If there's no objections I'll post a link to this thread in the email as well as highlighting the salient points from your replies.
I'll send the email Sunday evening to give you time to object if this is your preference.

In case nobody's said it today, you're amazing.
Thanks once again

Oh, and if your funding application gets refused start a crowd funder.

As the stepmother of a baby lesbian who experienced so much lesbophobic bullying in school she retreated into a male transgender identity for a year, I am very happy to put my money where my mouth is and chuck some cash in the pot!

I attended the female detransitioners event in Manchester last year and spoke to quite a few of the reidentified women present. After the event there was a women only disco and they were overwhelmed with emotion and relief at finally finding their tribe. These young women had had almost no experience of butch and otherwise GNC women who were content in their female bodies and their masculinity, living women-centred lives. Meeting unapologetically butch ladies such as Lianne from Get the L out was revelatory for them.

One even told me that she had thought for a long time that she couldn’t possibly be a lesbian because ‘transwomen are women’ and she knew she absolutely was not remotely attracted to transwomen.

They found so much freedom in the simple truth that woman = adult human female and that lesbian = female homosexual.

We need a ‘rent a butch auntie’ scheme or something. Baby butches need role models!

One even told me that she had thought for a long time that she couldn’t possiblybea lesbian because ‘transwomen are women’ and she knew she absolutely was not remotely attracted to transwomen.

This is heartbreaking @BettyDuKeiraBellisMyShero,those poor young women

I'd back a fundraiser for this every day of the week and twice on Sunday.

I have no skin in this particular game but I'd give you what I could to help lesbians not have to include men.

Hi MuthaFunka61

Sorry may have missed something in this thread.

But if the email is to the funder's I dont think you should link here!

But if email is to other members of the group fine!

Sorry if I have misunderstood.

@MuthaFunka61

One even told me that she had thought for a long time that she couldn’t possiblybea lesbian because ‘transwomen are women’ and she knew she absolutely was not remotely attracted to transwomen.

This is heartbreaking @BettyDuKeiraBellisMyShero,those poor young women

Two of the detrans panel had had full hysterectomies before their mid 20s. They are now lifelong medical patients due to surgical menopause.

The transing of young lesbians is an absolute scandal, but I am so glad these particular young women found their way ‘home’.

There is a transcript of their panel discussion here:
08e98b5f-7b7a-40c9-a93b-8195d9b9a854.filesusr.com/ugd/305c8f_34b673d3097c4df88bf9b9e8f6ed1006.pdf?index=true

... worth reading by anyone interested in the experiences of young same sex attracted women in the current day.

The detransitioners in Laura Dodsworth’s photographs aren’t all lesbians, but the majority are: medium.com/@barereality/the-detransitioners-72a4e01a10f9

Hi @stumbledin.

The link'd be to the steering group,apologies for not being clear.

@BettyDuKeiraBellisMyShero.
I was aware of the detransitioners network event in M/c but couldn't attend.
It's truly heartbreaking what's happening to our younger generation

I've no objections to you sending the link.

they were overwhelmed with emotion and relief at finally finding their tribe. These young women had had almost no experience of butch and otherwise GNC women who were content in their female bodies and their masculinity, living women-centred lives.

Beautifully expressed.

I remember so well that rush of freedom and emotion of finding women like me, where I could be me. It's why it is absolutely crucial that homosexual women have the option of being in homosexual female only groups and spaces, with that access to multi generational support and presence and lived experience, and even more importantly to not be in a group under pressure to twist themselves and their lives into what is in truth heterosexuality to meet the needs of male people in the group. These groups do not exist to permit women to support male people, not every group of women has to do this as their reason to be allowed to exist.

Like pp, I'd support fundraisers for groups like this anyday.

I would go further, Michelle, and say it's crucial for all girls to have access to groups and spaces in which all women are known and accepted as women regardless of how we dress and who we sleep with.

Obviously these shouldn't be the lesbian spaces repurposed though!

I've still got sexuality issues but meeting Get the L Out (the aforementioned Lianne hugged me! Where is my starstruck emoticon?) and being accepted as a fellow woman by women of such a range of presentations made quite an impact.

being accepted as a fellow woman by women of such a range of presentations made quite an impact.

Which makes it very understandable that TW and male born people of other chosen identities have the same desire to experience this, with the additional emotions around being accepted as a woman into women only situations. It's not that I don't understand or care about this. But it has to be equally understood and cared about that in some situations when a male person joins that group, they have by their presence ended the female only experience that the female users may have needed and sought out.

The answer as always is a compromised: that a mix of groups should exist, some female only and some mixed sex. There are plenty of lesbian groups that are mixed sex (in fact almost all the ones that have not gone under ground to hide and protect their group are). It does no harm that some groups be female only. And as no one is demanding that all trans groups to all purposes at all times always be inclusive of non trans people too, as that would obviously change what such a group did and offered to their users, no one should be demanding that all female single sex groups to all purposes at all times be inclusive of male people.

It requires live and let live thinking on both sides.

And as no one is demanding that all trans groups to all purposes at all times always be inclusive of non trans people too

Indeed, I very much doubt that women would be welcome in transwomen support groups ...

@MichelleofzeResistance your post is so balanced and properly sensible and kind (in a good way). I wonder if TRAs would be equally so rational & kind?

meeting Get the L Out (the aforementioned Lianne hugged me! Where is my starstruck emoticon?) and being accepted as a fellow woman by women of such a range of presentations made quite an impact.

Absolutely. It really demonstrates the simple but powerful truth of woman = adult human female, nothing more, nothing less.

I’m not a lesbian but I feel very strongly that lesbians have a right to free association with other lesbians and a right to build and access exclusively lesbian spaces and services, as they see fit.

I don’t feel any sort of slight at being excluded on the basis of being a boring old married heterosexual (although I do appreciate an invite to the odd women-only social event and will bring booze 😆)

I don’t feel any sort of slight at being excluded on the basis of being a boring old married heterosexual (although I do appreciate an invite to the odd women-only social event and will bring booze 😆)

Me too!

One of the wonderful things about the Feb 1st 2020 Women's Liberation Conference in London was being in an auditorium (and later, a bar) with around 1,000 women (and a few men and transwomen). The energy! I'd forgotten the sheer freedom & the exhilaration of being in a large group of [mostly] women - something I'd not experienced since the late 1970s when I attended Women's Liberation conferences as a baby teenage feminist.