Times article about lesbians by Sally Wainwright

[WandaWomblesaurus]

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/82515090-980f-11ed-91ab-4070465550ba?shareToken=6dcf538a69e87a8f07c3c2730148cdd7

Here are some lesbians from the WDI in the Palace of Westminster meeting Joanna Cherry who are right behind Sally Wainwright and share her concerns. I guess they're the wrong kind of lesbians. Vagina fetishist types as I believe some men like to call them.

Or the way most LGB women still aren’t out at work and why that is?

why do you think that might be?

why do you think teenager girls aren’t ‘out’ as lesbians?

there are some theories in the article

Is nobody interested in the cost / barriers of getting pregnant as an LGB women?

no

no more than I’m interested in the barriers to two men getting pregnant

reality isn’t homophobic and having a child isn’t a human right

I agree with you, PlumPud but I also usually take the lead from lesbian women in terms of discussion and these issues are rarely raised probably because the trans issue is still so dominant for many (because they deem it to be so important) and particularly those not in stable relationships.

My personal concern is young women who are same-sex attracted and how difficult they must find it all what with the dominant trans narrative, women going underground, the lack of other young women and the prevalent porn narrative.

Is nobody interested in [very long list of potential subject changes]

Why not start a thread on whichever one of those it is you want to talk about? Starting threads is free.

If they want to do dick then that's up to them. I would suggest they are bisexual rather than lesbians

Why do you think all lesbians should be forced to accept dick though?

To be clear, Plum, I've been a feminist for a long time and I'm interested in most of the issues you raise and do not want to just use lesbians and their experience as battering rams for the anti-TRA cause and otherwise shrug you and your other issues off.

This is the same for me.

I was brought to the trans issue almost entirely by lesbian colleagues who objected to the wholesale adoption of rainbow lanyards at work. They told me of their fears around the 'cotton ceiling' coercion and their disappointment at losing a local lesbian night at the local gay club (which was already colonised by straight people at weekends) because they know admitted "male lesbians" and they no longer felt safe there.

I was taken from my #bekind, rainbow is good position to "say what now?" very quickly. And now have huge compassion and concern for lesbian women who feel incredibly alone on this. Unable to meet, identify themselves, have fun in a safe social space etc and also risking being pushed out by local LGBT venues and communities for not being "inclusive" enough.

I am absolutely prepared to support my lesbian friends, colleagues and family members in anyway they highlight. I will not tolerate homophobia. (I have slight reservations about the cost of IVF stuff as really not sure that's along the same lines but...a different discussion..) but this is the issue that seems to be the one that threatens them and they bring up with me.

I have 2 daughters, they may be Lesbian - I want for them to be able to come out if so, and for other people to respect what that means. Right now, the repurposing of words and the policing of language and the endless attempts to obscure boundaries means that I would be really worried for them.

@YetAnotherSpartacus battering ram is a good way to describe it.

and to be clear I’m not saying that NOBODY cares about these other issues, but it does feel at the moment as if the main reason lesbians and bi women are mentioned now or get any political / media / public / policy interest or attention or concern, is within the context of the trans issue.

The reaction to it from most of the not straight women I know has been “oh this again” eye roll

I did not say that the fact that two women face costs and barriers to getting pregnant was homophobic or that having a child was a human right. I just cited it as one of many issues (I’m sure there are countless more) that affect the real everyday lives of many lesbians and bi women. As a way to illustrate the fact that our lives are about more than just what we think / feel / how we’re affected by trans issues.

Well I guess that's similar to feminist issues in general, in that we'd all like to get on with focussing on more specific issues but if we can ring fence and define what a woman is, we fall at the first hurdle every time.

I can't help but feel that all the other topics you've listed as concerns of LB women, are difficult to champion/engage with if you can be definite about who it is impacted by them or why that matters to you as a distinct group.

I was surprised to find Sally Wainwright was an Indy supporter as I thought she was Yorkshire through and through.

Then I realised the Times link referred to a different Sally Wainwright (I'm not very bright this morning)

Are there two separate but connected issues Plum?

i) Feeling like the trans issue has become dominant and whereas you see its importance you also experience other significant issues as being silenced.

ii) Feeling used to make points by trans by people/media/women who don't otherwise understand or support your campaigns around other issues?

I take posters' points that the trans narrative has dominated a range of issues for women but the media still do discuss other issues of importance to us - but issues of importance to lesbian women are very marginalised (and always have been). Those of gay men are not so much.

If they accept men with dicks they aren't lesbians.
If they are men who say they are women they aren't lesbians.
If they are women who actually are lesbians - then sure - of course they have their own views on this.
But that is not the view shared by the lesbian writing the article. Or is she not allowed to talk for the lesbians like herself who don't accept men in their spaces?

Some of those things you mention are absolutely issues I have also raised where possible PlumPudd. In 2018, I went to a series of company wide diversity talks at work ( I worked in financial services at the time) and they had lots of different speakers, some internal and some external.

Among the speakers they had people of different races, people with physical disabilities, people who were neuro divergent, 2 very senior people from lower socio economic backgrounds, a gay man and a transwoman. I gave feedback that I was disappointed that among 15-20 speakers, there were no (visible) lesbians. (I didn't think about the absence of any transmen although I probably would now). The following year was similar and the speakers line up was similar too. This time, as well as giving feedback, I posted on an internal message board that I was disappointed to see such an obvious group missing from the representation, despite the fact that I had given feedback previously.

I don't work there any more but in my new job, one of my colleagues is a lesbian who is saving everything she can towards a second round of IVF. She's become a good friend and I can see the strain it puts on her both financially and emotionally. When DH had to rank various possible benefit changes in a survey for his employer recently, he ranked the funding of a round of IVF for all employees higher purely because we had discussed my colleague's situation (with her permission). Irrelevant to us as our family is complete but we can see the importance to others.

I now have a mid tees daughter who tells me she is a lesbian and I am hugely concerned that if her school jumps on the gender bandwagon, she could be at risk of being persuaded she should take puberty blockers and sterilise herself. At age 10 and 11, she had a group of friends go on and on at her that she must be transgender and wants to be a boy because she mostly wears trousers and has short hair. She found it very distressing insisting over and over that she was a girl. Rightly or wrongly, this issue now looms by far the largest for me. I won't stop giving feedback about lesbian visibility at work etc but holding the line on single sex spaces and schools, on what schools teach children, on doing my best to prevent children being experimented on will absolutely be my main focus because my lesbian daughter is perfect as she is and it's my job to protect her from anyone who says otherwise.

i wouldn't read much into one woman's opinion. or mumsnet opinions.

So no one needs to read much into your opinion either then. Mumsnet is a wider group than your personal circle.

This just seems to be another derail of an issue raised in a newspaper.

I dont know if the Times went out and commissioned it or the writer submitted it and they accepted.

The reason this article about this issue being published now is obviously because the Times has been investing quite a lot of coverage on the trans issue, and the recent vote in the HoC has raised other issues.

But in all of that coverage I dont think there has been any mention of the impact of gender self id, how Scotland seems to have been effectively entrenching self id as though it were the law, on lesbians. (I think there have been mentions of LGB Alliance.

So for that reason it is good that theTimes has widened the issue to its readers.

I suspect that in the past the Times has rarely covered lesbian issues.

It just seems idiotic to come on this thread linking to the article to complain it was ever published.

Write to Times and say how about covering this othre issues.

Better still write to all the papers who aren't saying anything about the impact on womens whatever their sexuality.

Seriously, there aren't that many threads on FWR focusing on the lived experience of lesbians.

And of course, mumsnet itself has the perfect answer. If you dont like a thread just dont bother commenting.

If you think there are other issues that are important start a thread.

I had wanted to discuss the article becomes I have some issues with it.

But now so p'd off I cant be bothered.

Its like going on a thread about cooking and whining why are you talking about cooking.

But hopefully by tomorrow morning we will see a whole list of issues that focus on lesbian concerns, and i am sure the majority how have similar concerns or want to learn about them will contribute to the threads positively. Not just go and comment why are you having this thread.

I'm really pleased to see this in The Times. The impact of gender ideology on women and children in general has been covered quite well by the paper and other outlets. But it's good to have a focus exclusively on the impact on lesbians and their experiences - as a minority demographic, it is them who will feel the biggest impact on the loss of single sex spaces and services.

It's irrelevant if some lesbians are happy doing dick. They are free to set up as many mixed sex spaces and events as they like. (I'd say that makes them bisexual.)

Lesbians are exclusively same sex attracted and those of them who want women only social groups and spaces should be able to set these up and advertise them openly without harassment by people with dicks and the type of women who are happy to shag people with dicks.

I remember from some time ago reading a thread on here from a woman who identified as gay and had happy memories of finding lesbian clubs and spaces and how important that had been to her.

But that now she rarely went on and felt as isolated as she was before she came out.

It was really moving and well worth sharing to anyone who hasn't considered how lesbians have lost the freedom they've gained.

And just as bad now face hostility from the very community that should be helping them achieve their right to live as they want.

it does feel at the moment as if the main reason lesbians and bi women are mentioned now or get any political / media / public / policy interest or attention or concern, is within the context of the trans issue

Presumably because it is a hot topic, involves significant potential legal changes and because a huge percentage of the lobbying carried out by groups such as Stonewall relates to so-called “trans rights”.

This is rapidly evolving and new, whereas most of the issues you list are not. And of course it isn’t just lesbians and their rights and equality, it extends to women more generally. Conversations about women’s rights are also currently dominated by this topic.

Sorry dont want to do a derail about the actual article but this is the thread I mention. Just a reminder of how long this idea / reality of losing rights and not being safe ot go out a socialise has been going on.

Being a homosexual female in a community of queer people, transbians and penis-inclusionary lesbians www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/3621239-Being-a-homosexual-female-in-a-community-of-queer-people-transbians-and-penis-inclusionary-lesbians

"ii) Feeling used to make points by trans by people/media/women who don't otherwise understand or support your campaigns around other issues?"

I'm not the previous poster but I definitely think there is an element of that and that it's useful to use us on the trans issue because we are a minority group and particularly as we are supposed to be represented by Stonewall et al. I think it's become more obvious in recent years because some people criticise anything "rainbow" and anything "LGBT" (whether it's about trans people or not). The GC movement includes conservative people who are at best iffy about anything LGB or T, feminists who underplay sexual orientation issues or try to make everything about biological sex and their war against men and some straight women who feel that feminism is about finally putting themselves and their needs centre, see themselves as the default version of a woman and see anything around sexual orientation, race, class etc as not focusing on feminism and about prioritising other groups - when we are actually all women too, not other groups.

'As woman married to a woman, I find it a bit dispiriting that almost all public discourse (in the press, on mumsnet etc) about LGB women, our concerns, our rights, our lives now seems to be dominated by the trans issue or is quickly hijacked by the issue. I’m not saying this issue isn’t important, but it seems there is no space for anything else any more.'

Same. I'm sick of straight woman using us as a reason to bash trans people too.

Explain 'bash trans people'. Do you mean objecting to using changing rooms, rape crisis shelters, showers, entering women's sports and being on women only short list. Are all these examples of 'bashing? Or please provide a specific example of what you are on about because I fail to see it.

Quite. Are you ok with homophobia? Encouraging lesbians to 'learn to cope' with straight sex as a social duty to men?

All this 'oh there's other aspects to our lives' is just another version of 'you didn't care about female prisoners before you found out they were getting raped by serious sex offenders who are men so it's only a way to bash TQ+ people' and 'why don't you silly mummies go and fund refuges that many vulnerable women now can't use because of the men in them and do something good for women?'

It means 'women shut up'.

Got that t shirt. Had it bloody years now.