Womens liberation and lesbianism

[LesbianonFWR]

I've been reading this board for years. I'm a lesbian. It feels like until recently, there was a good appreciation here of the importance of lesbian rights to women's liberation and the womens' rights movement. If lesbians face discrimination and oppression, then it's harder to come out and lead a good life as a lesbian - more lesbians will get stuck in straight marriages that make them unhappy. More young lesbians will struggle with bullying at school. If lesbians who want to be parents are supported by the community in doing that, again, it makes it easier to imagine a good, fulfilling life as a lesbian. Easier to come out and live honestly for lesbians - that's important to women's liberation.

It suddenly feels more hostile to lesbians here. Does anyone else feel that, or is it just me? Like, there is reasonably regular criticism of lesbians who have kids by sperm donation, criticism of LGBT education/anti-bullying classes in schools as a whole. A general anti-LGBT feeling as a whole, which includes a feeling that lesbians are fine now in 2020 and just need to get over themselves and get on with it and not moan.

Maybe that's unfair, but it feels like there's quite a bit of talk about lesbians as "those people in the LGBT club over there" rather than as part of the women's liberation movement.

You're going to want examples aren't you, but I don't think I have the energy and anyway, then it would be a thread about a thread. It's more a feeling that this board is for straight women now. Does anyone else feel that?

[Goosefoot]

I think there are a few things going on.

With the school/education example, part of it is that other interests have very delibratly hijacked those issues in order to promote their own agenda. Perhaps some of those people were involved all along, sometimes it seems that way. You see the same thing to some extent now with race issues right at the moment, but gender ideology has largely tried to push in on sexuality questions. So people are looking very carefully at that and in some cases rethinking certain ideas that seemed ok before - "love is love" is a good example of something many accepted when it seemed to be about same sex relationships, but now looks rather different.

But the other thing I am seeing is that many people who have inhabited the progressive left have, until now, been quite happy with the direction of that progression, and pretty dismissive of those who disagree about even some elements of that. Not caring, for example, if education packages in school explicitly were looking to challenge the beliefs and culture of some families. Now however they are suddenly realising they are not happy about educational institutions and other state bodies pushing ideas they disagree with on their kids, and see it as usurping the parental role. To have that experience, if you are in the least bit self-reflective, it will mean realising that what's good for the goose is good for the gander - it's difficult to say it's ok to have educational social engineering in one direction but not the other.

As far as reproductive technologies. I am afraid I am a bit impatient about this, but the question of whether various technologies are ethical or not has zero to do with whether or not they allow lesbians, or gay men, to have children. Most people here that post regularly at least understand the argument that surrogacy is seriously problematic - the fact that it might be the way for gay men to have kids is irrelevant, and to say it should be allowed because it allows that is at best irrational and quite possibly morally compromised. We see people say this openly all the time.

The logical problem is the same if you substitute lesbians and other types of reproductive tech. Either the technology is ethical, or it isn't. I find it really disingenuous to suggest that somehow it's anti-lesbian to raise questions about the technology, children's rights, etc.

[notyourhandmaid]

Honey, this is a very pro-lesbian space - one of very few left online.

There is criticism of a lot of stuff around surrogacy for reasons mainly concerned with gay men and entitlement. Because mostly that's what is covered in the media.

That there is wider criticism of surrogacy is because... well, feminism. It's a field that involves huge exploitation.

[LesbianonFWR]

Goosefoot, what do you mean by this:
"With the school/education example, part of it is that other interests have very delibratly hijacked those issues in order to promote their own agenda. Perhaps some of those people were involved all along, sometimes it seems that way".
Which interests have hijacked, say, anti-homophobic bullying education, and may have always been involved? Your reference to "love is love" makes me wonder if you are saying that people with an interest in paedophilia have always been involved in LGB education. That sounds quite doubtful and also damaging to lesbian and gay people.

I don't think you can really frame it as a debate about reproductive technologies in the case of lesbians. There's usually no technology involved in artificial insemination and it's not new. It's not "disingenuous" of me to point out that if you argue that children have a right to live with and be raised by both their biologicial parents, your argument is that lesbian couples shouldn't be having children. I have acknowledged that it's not usually motivated by homophobia. But if that is your argument, it's not founded in a concern for women's liberation, and it's fair to lay it out like that.

[SD1978]

The T dominates, and the L is left behind. You can't show anything other than slavish support to the T and the L,G,B Is marginalised- in school education and in general. I haven't noticed what you've experienced, but in my actual life/ the above stands wokely and proudly- T before and above all else.

[HecatesCats]

I can't speak for Goosefoot, but it may be about new policies brought into schools under the auspices of 'anti-bullying', such as mixed sex toilets that actually infringe the rights of other students e.g. schoolgirls avoiding using the loo or experiencing period shame. Welsh LAs introducing mixed sex toilets to schools have said anti-bullying was their motivation. It's now standard practice for all new build schools in Wales. It has been widespread in the states too. It's then harder to challenge, because it's easy to claim that critics of anti-bullying policy are not being very nice.

[HecatesCats]

Should read under the auspices of anti-bullying organisations (which include numerous LGBTQ bodies)

[highame]

I'm straight so it would be daft if I said there wasn't an issue but what I can say is that since coming onto this board my eyes have been opened to the trampling on of the rights of lesbians to have sex with other lesbians and that to insist is transphobic. I felt real anger. I know that lots of women on this board share that anger. So whilst there will be issues regarding same sex relationships, god, there are issues regarding all relationships. I would hope that the joining together of women on this board is a real plus for women's rights in general and learning about the impact on lesbians of TRA's has been a real positive.

I signed up to LGB newsletters because this is about women, I don't have to be lesbian to understand the issues.

Hope you feel a little more positive op. I get very sensitive about pronouns because my son has Aspergers and doesn't understand but every time I see a post including that word, I can feel my hackles rising

[LesbianonFWR]

Thanks @highame.

My further analysis is that there are two main lines of thinking here.

Mostly there are progressive women whose main concern is for women's rights.

And there are a few women whose main impulse is a conservative one and who have generated here new arguments and support for the "traditional family" as the right context for having/conceiving children in particular. And who say they are sick of hearing about LGBT rights, and I don't think they're very interested in lesbian rights either. They are in the minority, but they are here. And of course they have every right to their view and their arguments, and to express them here, but they are not pro-lesbian.

[CuriousaboutSamphire]

who say they are sick of hearing about LGBT rights, I'd just like to expand that bit...

I suspect we are ALL sick and tired of hearing about LGBT issues!

Wouldn't mind listening to LGB isses. Would love to be able to discuss womens issues without being shouted at!

It's the all devouring T that causes issues, disruptions, misunderstangis and ever more entrenched views!

[Shedbuilder]

Yeah, there's a quiet and often plausibly deniable homophobia rising that we haven't see for the last decade. I'm a lesbian, by the way.

The first thing to do, OP, is stop linking LGB and T. Separate it out. It's not the LGB anti-bullying groups who are doing the damage in schools. It's the fact that the transactivists have forcibly co-opted the LGB agenda and added the T to it that's so damaging and is turning people against the lot of us. So we need to break that link — and that involves never writing LGBT+ again, always LGB and T+ and making it clear they are not one thing. Join the LGB Alliance and start doing something about it. The LGBA is open to everyone who supports LGB people, not just LGB people.

I've just watched another little, secret lesbian group I'm part of (only 30 or 40 people) bite the dust because one of the members who was quietly woke took offence at someone saying something mildly critical of trans ideology and has outed the group on FB and invited all her trans friends and their friends to come to events. Another small tragedy, more lesbians who are unlikely ever to be able to socialise comfortably together. I mention this because I'm sitting here seething bitterly at the moment about the damage that lesbians are causing their own community. How this woman would square what she's done with being a feminist I don't know and will probably never learn.

There are often strong whiffs of homophobia here on Mumsnet, some of it subtly expressed and by a handful of names I'm beginning to recognise, including Goosefoot. I think it's become quite acceptable in right-on society for people to be scathing of lesbians. I went to a WPUK event a couple of years ago. The four female speakers were all straight and there was the occasional comment that assumed that everyone in the audience was too. During question time at the end a local female Labour councillor got up and said something along the lines of: 'I never used to have time for lesbians, but now I feel sorry for them.' I thought of all the lesbians I know who run voluntary sector services in her area, all the lesbian social workers and teachers, my lesbian friend in child protection and the DV shelter I know that's effectively run by dykes. And this sainted Labour councillor, a local legend herself, didn't have time for them. Would she have said the same thing about red-haired people, Asians, deaf people? No she bloody well wouldn't. That was the day I understood that I was going to have to move away from Labour.

[CuriousaboutSamphire]

@Shedbuilder ye fucking gods! Really?

Oh, I am not saying I don't believe you. I am saying I don't want to believe you!

FFS!

But I suppose it's easily seen in the utterly intransigence of the youth and other woke peoples! That hard line It Is This Way And No Otherness. Like Brexit gave racists and xenophobes a free pass so the T is giving homophobes an equally free platform to disapprove, clutch their pearls and voice their bigotry!

[BettyDuKeiraBellisMyShero]

I’m an outspoken critic of much of the LGBT anti bullying stuff, but mostly because a) it’s being delivered by people with no professional expertise, only personal anecdotes and b) you may as well rebrand it TTTT.

My stepdaughter experiences relentless lesbophobic bullying in the school changing rooms, and the schools solution was to essentially groom her into identifying as a straight boy, rather than actually do anything about the bullying.
School is a stonewall bronze champion and the deputy head is a gay man.

It’s taken us a year to unpick it all and begin to repair the damage to her mental health.

I’m anti LGBT orgs, but only because as far as I can tell, they are almost all utterly shit for lesbians nowadays. Maybe I need to start typing it ‘GBT’ instead? Or (L)GBT?

[Shedbuilder]

Not sure which bit of my post you're so astonished by, Curious, but yes — all sadly true. Labour wouldn't have ended up where it has if every time someone said something homophobic or dismissive of lesbians, they were jumped on. If you're a straight, relatively conventional Labour supporter then lesbians ask difficult questions and make you feel uncomfortable.

[HecatesCats]

That's awful Shed, I'm really sorry about what happened to your group. Plus those comments! I don't understand how you can be part of a feminist organisation and not support Lesbian women.

[LesbianonFWR]

Not all the lesbians are contented, then.

[JanewaysBun]

I'm straight but I do think that there needs to be a separate space for lesbians generally as they seem to have been pushed out of the (l)gbtq+ sphere (for being pesky women no doubt!) And as a feminist I would like to hear more experiences and how we can support their requirements in our feminist aims.

The sperm donor thing - I'm on the fence about surrogacy etc as I think I would be destroyed if I couldn't have a baby so I do see where your e coming from but also where the critical element might be coming from too.

Yes I do think there is sometimes a whiff of homophobia around MN in addition to racism etc

[twoHopes]

I don't understand how you can be part of a feminist organisation and not support Lesbian women.

Me neither. But I do hear a lot of ignorance from people who think lesbians just have it all sorted now. As if having Nicola Adams on Strictly (love her btw) or rainbow flags in high street shops or gay couples in adverts is evidence that no-one is homophobic anymore.

[LesbianonFWR]

"There are often strong whiffs of homophobia here on Mumsnet, some of it subtly expressed and by a handful of names I'm beginning to recognise..."

Not just my perception then!

[CuriousaboutSamphire]

@Shedbuilder

Not sure which bit of my post you're so astonished by, Curious, but yes — all sadly true. Labour wouldn't have ended up where it has if every time someone said something homophobic or dismissive of lesbians, they were jumped on. If you're a straight, relatively conventional Labour supporter then lesbians ask difficult questions and make you feel uncomfortable.

I can't do that anymore. I sent my membership card back a few years ago. I doubt anybody read the accompanying letter.

And I just don't want to believe that any woman would so dismiss others because they are bloody lesbian! How has that become something you can not know about, say such shit about, betray?

I'm not gay... usual disclaimer about gay family and friends... and can't imagine being so fucking dense. But please don't ask me any questions, you may get told!

Not you, obviously Shed but those who walk amongst us with such closed and certain minds!

[LesbianonFWR]

@JanewaysBun
"The sperm donor thing - I'm on the fence about surrogacy etc as I think I would be destroyed if I couldn't have a baby so I do see where your e coming from but also where the critical element might be coming from too."
I think it's totally reasonable to look at both sides of the argument. I wouldn't personally see conception by sperm donation as part of "surrogacy etc" though - I think it's a different proposition altogether for women and children. You know I had my own post-partum haemorrhage, post-birth incontinence, breast feeding traumas etc - not another woman being pregnant and giving birth....

[LesbianonFWR]

"I thought of all the lesbians I know who run voluntary sector services in her area, all the lesbian social workers and teachers, my lesbian friend in child protection and the DV shelter I know that's effectively run by dykes."
It's so true that lesbians are the disproportionately the mainstay of loads of these public services and women's services. Youth workers, social workers, disability support workers, teachers etc etc.

[JanewaysBun]

@LesbianonFWR yes I know that, I was saying that sperm donors etc get pulled into the debate as part of assisted conception/rights of the child to know father etc. My post was in support of you.

[LesbianonFWR]

@JanewaysBun Ah sorry, I misunderstood