What proportion of male lesbians is too high?

[TeamRex]

I saw this posted on Twitter yesterday. Many responses and quote tweets are saying "this is made up".

The thing is, we all know that any "lesbian" event now attracts men who say they are lesbians. So no-one would be surprised at say 1 out of 10 lesbians at.an event being male. It would be transphobic to complain.

But a claim of 9 out of 10 is too high, it obviously must be made up, according to responses. So even for supporters of trans ideology there is a level which is too high to maintain the idea that a space is lesbian.

So, now we know there's a "too high" proportion to maintain the pretence of a lesbian space, where that's only one lesbian, I was wondering what's the acceptable cutoff? 30%, 50%?

Lesbians are same sex attracted women.

So none.

Because they don't exist in reality.

So again, the TRA response is to accuse lesbians of lying.

“Hey marginalised/coerced/pressured/assaulted/raped person - you’re a liar.”

In what fucking post #metoo #timesup world is this acceptable?

I’m going to report these tweets though likely fuck all will be done as we know Twitter hates women.

This kind of narrative makes me despair.

And ‘transbians’ and their enablers can fuck off.

I feel bad for genuine trans people (NOT AGP woman fetishists and rapists) in this mess.

It's like the WiSpa incident. They deny it ever happened rather than defend their own ideology.

So true.

@NecessaryScene

So even for supporters of trans ideology there is a level which is too high to maintain the idea that a space is lesbian.

That's not what they're saying though. I believe they'd say they'd be fine with it being 100% transbian (even though I don't think most be), but they're denying that that would ever happen, because trans people are such a small tiny oppressed minority.

Why aren’t they saying they’re fine with it, then? Why is the reaction that the situation must be made up? Why is it important to stress the numbers angle?

Can you imagine if someone reported that they’d gone on a boating holiday and 9/10 people were wheelchair users or unemployed or from another country? Those scenarios might be unusual too, but I feel pretty sure that the first reaction would be to call the commenter out about having a problem with people in these groups. Why not here? I feel the reaction acknowledges that where this group starts to outnumber females, there is an issue. Which goes to the op’s question.

@TheWeeDonkey

Well there's no such thing as a male lesbian anyway. Just like theres no such this as a lady penis.

There is such a thing as males who don't respect boundaries and that is a huge problem that really needs to be addressed, but when we start talking about male lesbians all we're really doing is indulging a delusion and distracting from what is really happening.

Yes, exactly.

That didn't happen.
And if it did, it wasn't that bad.
And if it was, that's not a big deal.
And if it is, that's not my fault.
And if it was, I didn't mean it.
And if I did, you deserved it.

It surely isn't surprising that such spaces could end up predominantly male

I imagine that would stop being fun for them very quickly - especially if they were looking for a shag.

Why don’t you believe it?
It seems quite reasonable that women would tend to avoid a holiday in a confined space with males so the people the trip would attract need not be a representative sample of the lesbian community. If it was a group where some of the people knew each other already and one of the males was a known weirdo it could easily mean women cancelling or not booking. Once it got to 50% many women might drop out even if they would have been ok with a smaller number.

When dd was at village school her class of 15 was meant to have 6 girls but they gradually left because of the lack of other girls until she was the only one so she got moved to the class above. Could be a similar process.

Sorry, my ‘why don’t you believe it?’ was to Soubriquet.

@TeamRex

Obviously I think that no men should be in lesbian spaces, men cannot be lesbians.

My interest was in the "we don't believe it" responses. They refuse to believe it because even people who insist some men can be lesbians can see that most of a lesbian group being men is not a lesbian group in any sense.

They don't believe what they proclaim to believe.

Exactly. They clearly don't see male lesbians as lesbians. And there's an underlying assumption that a predominantly male lesbian gathering isn't at all desirable for a male lesbian.

They can't keep track of their own ideology!

I feel the reaction acknowledges that where this group starts to outnumber females, there is an issue. Which goes to the op’s question.

The point is that they know that a lot of people (particularly women) would have an issue with that. For lots of "moderate" trans supporters they're internally justifying it via the "no conflict" reasoning.

In theory this sort of thing could happen, but their claim is that it won't happen in practice - it'll be fine, you'll just get 1 or 2 lovely transwomen in your spaces, and they won't bother anyone or change the space at all. Don't worry. Just relax.

(The same arguments were used to get the GRA2004 through).

So if any incident like this happens they have to try to shout down all such occurrences as lies/propaganda whatever. (Like WiSpa, the BBC cotton ceiling article and so on).

(This was also done during the GRA2004 debates - dismissing news stories of men with beards in women's spaces, and saying "well a real trans person like we're talking about in this bill wouldn't do that".)

Online at least, I get the impression many "lesbian" spaces are predominantly male. Check out the main "lesbian" sub on Reddit - r/ActualLesbians, for example. (If you dare)

I wish I hadn't.

@Avarua

It's like a gay bar. Everyone's allowed and there's no rules saying if you're straight or the wrong gender or whatever you can't come in.

There used to be, though. Bouncers wouldn't let in people they thought were obviously straight, especially in groups. It used to be a real problem for feminine lesbians who felt invisible.

If you were bringing a straight friend to a gay club you'd have to rehearse your story for the door staff.

And there have always been men-only gay club nights with no women allowed at all.

@Avarua

It's like a gay bar. Everyone's allowed and there's no rules saying if you're straight or the wrong gender or whatever you can't come in.

Women, who are not gay, don't usually go to a gay bar and pretend they are gay men, though. I'd suspect the gay men there wouldn't be allowing their boundaries to be breached to accommodate that notion, either. I imagine any woman identifying as a 'gay man' would get short shrift, with no feeling of obligation to caress their 'identity'.

It does show a conflict. If TWA literally W then even a 100% TW attendance at a lesbian event is logically no problem at all. “So what” should be the response.
The assertion that it is NOT TRUE does imply a tacit acknowledgment that IF IT WAS true, it could be a problem. Hence TWA not literally W, but we can go along with it because it is a minority.
You can imagine, especially in a context of something like sailing - male dominated, requiring specific skills, that it could attract more TW - poss a group of friends booked together, perhaps women knew that it was not female only and backed out?
Personally if I turned up to an event that I expected to be women-only, but realised I be out on a boat with a load of males I did not know, I’d be going home.

The assertion that it is NOT TRUE does imply a tacit acknowledgment that IF IT WAS true, it could be a problem.

Exactly. Which is why the wi spa incident was so revealing. TRAs have been campaigning to allow exactly that situation to happen. And when it did, they all jumped about saying it hadn't happened.

You can imagine, especially in a context of something like sailing - male dominated, requiring specific skills, that it could attract more TW - poss a group of friends booked together, perhaps women knew that it was not female only and backed out?
Personally if I turned up to an event that I expected to be women-only, but realised I be out on a boat with a load of males I did not know, I’d be going home.

Yes, exactly.

So are these heterosexual male "lesbians" attracted to each other - I.e other people with penises?

They often seem to say that causes them too much "dysphoria".

Reading with interest but when I read “ male lesbians” I immediately thought of trans men attracted to trans men. Is this perhaps what is meant?
If not then I agree about no such thing as a male lesbian,
Equally women could invade gay men space as identifying as a gay man.
World gone mad.

No such thing as a male lesbian.

I.....a lesbian, am offended everytime i hear such nonsense.

So are these heterosexual male "lesbians" attracted to each other - I.e other people with penises?

I think a lot of GC women insist that obviously they'd not be.

But in practice, these males (the ones colonising lesbian spaces) will often pair up with each other. Blanchard calls it pseudo-bisexuality, IIRC. They're not really attracted to men - they're really heterosexual - but they're primarily attracted to "themselves as women", and they might accept a relationship with a male willing to participate in that fantasy, if they can't find a woman to do so.

And as Eresh says, those who don't do this have the "dysphoria" excuse.

I immediately thought of trans men attracted to trans men. Is this perhaps what is meant?

Allison Bailey would absolutely not be calling them "heterosexual males". And I don't believe she could be miscommunicating with the primary source to that degree.

The assertion that it is NOT TRUE does imply a tacit acknowledgment that IF IT WAS true, it could be a problem

I didn't take that from the responses at all. There's no point in saying trans women are women to Bailey. I took it that they don't believe the attendees were 90% trans.

Why aren’t they saying they’re fine with it, then? Why is the reaction that the situation must be made up? Why is it important to stress the numbers angle?

What would be the point of saying they're fine with it? The importance of stressing the numbers angle is because that's what the tweet they are responding to did.

The Tweet is supposed to show lesbian spaces are being taken over by trans women - 90% here. The responses don't believe 90% of the people who turned up were trans. There's no need to argue they trans participants are women.