"Lesbians being anti-trans is a lesbophobic trope"

[MerlinsLostMarbles]

https://www.gaytimes.co.uk/originals/lesbians-are-not-anti-trans/

I think this helps give another viewpoint to the "gay people are anti-trans" trope that is often used by the LGB-Alliance and Julie Bindel etc.

Lesbians often have to put up with harmful stereotypes that may deter them from coming out, and in recent years the "lesbians are anti-trans" is another stereotype on top of the existing ones.

THIS - all day long.

https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/womans-place-struggle-lesfest-restricts-attendance-sparks-debate

If it is a trope, it's got a long history.

Twenty years ago this year lesbian woen lost the right to self organise. Lesfest continued as a private, invite only event for years. But I think that means the next generation of women coming out are less likely to find it than a public festival.

I was inspired by @MerlinsLostMarbles to look the whole sorry court case up. Surprised to realise this was 3 years before the Yogyakarta Principles. So the Australian state of Victoria was at the vanguard of the trans* rights movement.

What 'rights'? Right to dominate and coercively control females on an exceptionally sex based binary basis while yammering that sex doesn't exist?

@lechiffre55 @CoozudBoyuPuak @Naunet
sorry for the slow reply, I’ve been away for a few days. By ‘function’ I didn’t mean necessarily a practical function (ie in sexual intercourse), I was thinking as much of a psychological function - not only to do with how the person’s body appears to others, but also their feeling of completeness or rightness in their body - like in the artificial eye example, or where a woman has reconstructive surgery after a mastectomy. Obviously there is a difference in that, in the case of a trans woman, the surgery is not replacing something they used to have but lost, but I understand there may nonetheless be a powerful feeling that the surgery is needed for them to feel at home in their own body.

@aseriesofstillimages sure, I get that and so I totally agree that with informed consent and a full understanding of the practical limits of what is being offered, the transwomen for whom that is true should certainly have access to that surgery if that is what they need.

But the thing they have formed a psychological need for is a very male concept of what a vagina is, one which generally holds no appeal for women who want to have sex with women (I don't doubt that there might be a few exceptions because there are no limits to the variations in human sexuality but those are going to be very rare). So understanding that is an important part of the pre-surgery understanding necessary for that informed consent to be valid - a transwomen who is attracted to men may well find a male partner post-surgery and that male partner will share that male understanding that the surgical outcome approximates a vagina. A transwomen who is attracted to women probably won't find a partner from among the population of lesbians, whose understanding of the nature of female genitals is very different from that male concept and the outcome of the surgery offered doesn't even come close to creating anything that would work in a fulfilling woman-womam sex life, so any such partnership would generally be either sexless or would be so asymmetrical in the giving and receiving of pleasure that the relationship's emotionally health would be severely compromised.

Which isn't to say that such relationships don't exist but they are not usually what a lesbian is looking for when she is seeking a new partner. Given that, the analogy upthread holds that a transwomen on a lesbian dating site is the same as a restaurant insisting that their vegetarian option of the day is Cod Mornay - it might work for a subset of people who call themselves vegetarians but really aren't, but that doesn't mean it is vegetarian.

Transwomen getting angry about being excluded from the category of women seeking sexual encounters with women are very often not post-operative though, so what they are seeking is a bisexual woman, not a lesbian.

My vagina doesn't have a "psychological function". I only really think about it in connection with physical functions, none of which a "neo vagina" has.

For example, "Woah, isn't it crazy that I pushed my daughter out of my vagina."

I have never had sex with a trans woman with a neo vagina (or indeed any trans woman) so I’m not sure how that experience would compare to having sex with a woman with a natural vagina. But I can accept there are many lesbians who would not feel it was for them.

I still disagree, though, that a lesbian cannot continue to consider herself a lesbian if she is attracted to and has sex with a trans woman who has a penis. I just don’t think everyone has to define their sexuality solely on the basis of genitals. A lesbian who found herself attracted to a trans woman with a penis might then consider herself to be bisexual, but I don’t think it’s for other people to tell her what she is. There are so many aspects to sexuality and attraction, it isn’t just about genitals, or even just about sex.

I think there's a problem with your function argument.
Were the surgery is major, e.g breast removal, genital removal and opposite genitals simulation ( strange that sex isn't binary but sex change operations always are. It's one set or the other, no one asks for both ) the amount of surgery required is significant. The risks and potential of complications are large. Where those complications arise they are also complex in scope.
Normal medical practice is to reduce any unecessary medical procedures as much as possible. I give blood, several years ago they stopped giving the anaesthetic, I'm a real wuss and find giving blood much more difficult without it so I wrote to the blood service to ask why. They said that it removes one medical procedure from the process and so lowers risk. When one small easy injection is considered unecessary risk then major surgery should face proportionally more scrutiny and justification. Especially when that major surgery is on healthy tissue that has no medical reason to be operated upon.
Now take a healthy male body that wants to transition to an approximation of female. A whole bunch of functions of the body are removed. Urine expulsion, male hormones from the testes, sexual pleasure, reproduction. All these valid bodily functions are permenently removed. What's put in their place in a loss of function. A "vagina" that goes nowhere, and has no fuction, a need to take artifical hormones for the rest of your life via "unecessary" injections, numerous complications that often require surgical attention sometimes repeatedly. There's also a bunch of negative functional effects. Taking the other sex's hormones can cause negative effects as well as desired effects. There's a medical theory not yet settled that the risk of prostrate cancer in men is inversely proportional to ejaculation frequency. Basically the less a man ejaculates the more chance he'll get prostrate cancer. If this turned out to be proven, then thats another functional issue for MtF who can never again ejaculate.
All of this functional loss and surgical risk seems to currently be outweighed by what is essentially a mental disorder. Not feeling right.
To get to my point. I don't believe a simulated vaigna has any function, in fact it causes a huge observable loss in function. There's a belief that it fufills a function, but this belief is just that, a belief, it's all in the mind. As detrastioners have said it didn't help them. This believed function never appeared for them but the biological functional loss is always present and observable. Suicide rates for trans people is higher post op than pre op. One could argue the believed function probably didn't appear to them. To me it looks very much like a gamble. This might help you, or it might not. The only thing is it's an all in gamble that you can never go back from. One time only, win or lose, no reversal. And the people who are taking that gamble are under the most increible mental stresses and turmoil. The last thing people under that much mental strain should be doing is taking irreversable life altering all or nothing gambles.
This is why I disaree with your assessment that a surgical attempt to simulate opposite sex organs could be considered to provide a function. It demonstrably removes and reduces biological function in a healthy body every single time. It carries very high medical risks and complications. The "function" it supposedly provides is very ill defined, and mental not biological in nature. It's an irreversable all or nothing gamble by people in serious mental distress. The results as expressed by the words and actions of those who have gone down that route do not portray a clear positive outcome. In many cases the outcome is hugely negative. Medical science has been prevented from following the scientific method ( observe and record results for analysis ) by highly emotive politics.

@aseriesofstillimages
I still disagree, though, that a lesbian cannot continue to consider herself a lesbian if she is attracted to and has sex with a trans woman who has a penis. I just don’t think everyone has to define their sexuality solely on the basis of genitals. A lesbian who found herself attracted to a trans woman with a penis might then consider herself to be bisexual, but I don’t think it’s for other people to tell her what she is. There are so many aspects to sexuality and attraction, it isn’t just about genitals, or even just about sex.

I think the "vegetarian" analogy is helpful here to explain in what contexts it's an issue, and in what contexts it's not an issue.

A vegetarian is someone who doesn't eat meat, including chicken or fish. For food to be labelled as vegetarian it must not include any substance which required the death of an animal to produce it - so no gelatine or meat stock as well as no actual meat. Some people who consider themselves vegetarians aren't that strict, don't worry about making sure that their cheese and wine and chocolate puddings are properly vegetarian. Some people do actually eat chicken and fish but prefer to describe themselves as vegetarian because they usually enjoy the vegetarian options at good restaurants that have nice veggie offerings. But they will occasionally choose to eat fish.

It's not actually a problem for them to describe themselves as vegetarian or think of themselves as vegetarian when it's only them who are affected, but if they don't acknowledge at all that their fish-eating isn't technically part of vegetarianism then it does actually do damage to vegetarianism generally because the wider population get mixed messages about what vegetarianism means. I did actually get given squid as the "vegetarian option" on a flight once, and on another occasion at a canteen on a (fairly isolated) science research station the veggie meal was mackerel. Imagine going to a new vegetarian restaurant, as a vegetarian that doesn't eat fish, very excited that there's a new veggie restaurant in town, and finding that it's actually a seafood restaurant and the only thing on the menu you can eat is the chips. That's exactly what it can be like on some trans-inclusive lesbian dating apps.

Now imagine you aren't allowed to say "but I am an actual non-fish-eating vegetarian" for fear that you will upset the fish-eating vegetarians or invalidate their identity.

So within this analogy, it is good practice for fish-eating vegetarians to be clear, in contexts where their choices might cause others to make incorrect assumptions about the choices of other vegetarians, that there is a difference. No one will stop them going into the vegetarian restaurant or from ordering the veggie option elsewhere if they fancy it, but when there's a family wedding being organised where the main course is beef and they hear that the "veggie option" is going to be salmon, they need to be saying "hang on, that works fine for me but we need to consider the actual vegetarians too"

Of course dating isn't just about genitals or just about sex - there are a great many really fulfilling platonic relationship couples for whom sex isn't a big deal and they are more attracted to each other's personalities and an ongoing life partnership and what goes on in bed isn't particularly a priority. And if that's the kind of relationship you want then that's great.

But it's become actually forbidden for a woman who wants a full-on vag&clit orgasmic sexual relationship with another woman to explictly say so, or even vaguely and discretely hint that this might be on the cards by specifying that someone being biologically the XX variety of human is part of what they are looking for in a partner. That is highly misogynistic and lesbophobic.

Women who like sex with women and who also like sex with men or who aren't that bothered about sex generally and are more in it for other parts of the relationship that aren't about the genitals, and who aren't too bothered if their new "girlfriend" doesn't have a clit, are very much free to live their best life and self-describe as they choose in contexts where their choice has no impact on others. So it does no harm for them to self-describe as a lesbian when joining a lesbian walking group or lesbian book club to meet other women. But it very much does do harm when they try to impose their own definitions on such clubs and groups and make them male-inclusive, they do need to understand that their own self-definition doesn't apply to everyone and therefore some lesbian-centred services and facilities are going to have a tighter definition than they personally need, and that's OK.

I just don’t think everyone has to define their sexuality solely on the basis of genitals.

I just don't think everyone has to define veganism solely on the basis of not eating animal products.

I just don't think everyone has to define being Christian solely on the basis of believing in Christ.

I just don't think everyone has to define being 5'6 tall solely on the basis of their height.

Doesn't work, does it?

'Transwomen' are not Lesbians!

I mean, tell me you're a vegan while chomping down steak in front of me and lecturing me as to new and exciting right side of history veganism and your identity within it - and I'll think you're a bit special, but you do you. I'll leave you to enjoy yourself, live and let live.

Try and take over my vegan group and demand that we all eat meat to validate your version of veganism? And here's a steak, show me you'll eat it, and anyone who won't should be raped/killed? I'm going to get fed up and tell you to stop being a pita, and since you've rammed your twisted version of veganism in my face? You're going to hear what I think about it and why I disagree with it, and I'm going to defend my boundaries.

Whining that you're vulnerable and progressive is not going to make me stop defending my boundaries.

Are they still trying to convince us that blokes can be lesbians?

What a load of tosh. No one male can ever be a lesbian, even if he has undergone extreme body modification. A woman who has sex with a male who claims to be a woman is either heterosexual or bi-sexual.

It's homophobic to suggest otherwise.

While a person can consider themeleves whatever they want, It's the forcing of views on others that causes all the problems.
If a male wants to play at lesbian fine. But when that male approaches lesbians and says you must accept me playing at being a lesbian as exactly the same as you being a lesbian then that causes problems.
Riley J Dennis' video on why genital preferences are trans phobic ( translation lesbians must sleep with male "lesbians" ) is a perfect example. As is Nancy Kelley's "lesbians are sexual racists" https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10225111/Stonewall-brands-lesbians-sexual-racists-raising-concerns-sex-transgender-women.html

As JK Rowling said
"Dress however you please.
Call yourself whatever you like.
Sleep with any consenting adult who’ll have you.
Live your best life in peace and security.
But force women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real? "

Oh, and No means No.

"A woman who has sex with a male who claims to be a woman is either heterosexual or bi-sexual. It's homophobic to suggest otherwise."
@lifeturnsonadime Quite right, it is extremely homophobic.

I strongly agree that the group of humans who are (biological) women and like (biological) women and transwomen could be quite adequately covered by the term bisexual - there is nothing, from my point of view, that would suggest that to be Bi means that you have to like all men, but to borrow from* *@CoozudBoyuPuak 's excellent analogy perhaps if there is this new concept of liking women and transwomen, women who wish to reject Bi as a label need surely to come up with a new word, the equivalent of Pescatarian? There is no legitimate justification for taking the word Lesbian to describe a different concept, and saying that there is now no word to describe the concept of adult human females who are exclusively attracted to other adult human females.

@howdoesatoastermaketoast perhaps if there is this new concept of liking women and transwomen, women who wish to reject Bi as a label need surely to come up with a new word, the equivalent of Pescatarian? There is no legitimate justification for taking the word Lesbian to describe a different concept, and saying that there is now no word to describe the concept of adult human females who are exclusively attracted to other adult human females.

I wasn't saying that such women should never use the Lesbian label. Like, there's no problem with a fish-eater saying "no thanks I am vegetarian" when they are being pressured to eat a steak and they really just fancy a salad, and they can even join the vegetarian society if they want in order to get all the cool recipes and promote vegetarianism generally. But if they use the vegetarian label of themselves in this way it should be done with respect to those whose boundaries are in the more usual places and not campaign for those boundaries to be moved for everyone in order to ensure they don't feel like a second-class vegetarian.

So likewise more "inclusive" women should be clear that they are aware of the difference between themselves and the real deal when it comes to being a lesbian - and if they choose to self-describe as lesbian whilst being open to male partners should make it clear that this is an exception, not a rule.

There's no judgement to someone saying "I am basically vegetarian, but I make an exception when it comes to Mussels because they are just so delicious and they don't even have a face so let's just call them honorary mushrooms"

Likewise there's no judgement if someone says "I am basically lesbian but I make an exception for males that immitate femininity really really well"

And if you're not currently being offered mussels/helping to decide the menu at a veggie restaurant (and if you are in a group of other women and not currently helping to decide the rules for a women-only service) then you probably don't even need to make this clarification, you can just be one of the gang. You only need to care about the difference when it's actually relevant.

I really don't like the whole 'inclusive lesbians' thing. It basically translates as 'nice women do what makes men happy and don't have boundaries'.

Inclusive would be the capacity to tolerate that some women are female homosexuals, and to permit them words and identities of their own.

Inclusion has become an utterly poisonous word. Like 'kind'.

I completely agree.

None of the things they are using the word "inclusive" about, such as womanhood, lesbianism or women's sports, are supposed to be inclusive of male people. Not including male people is literally the point of them.

NO.
Lesbian is taken.
Men; feck off.

The whole “you must be inclusive” thing infuriates me. There are so many groups that I am not included in - because I don’t fulfil the criteria to join, or because they are not intended to support or serve me, but are vital to support and serve others - but somehow I manage not to stamp my feet and scream and scream and scream until I’m sick (because I can, you know) about their failure to include MEEEEEEEEE!!

There is only one group that does not exclude any man, woman, boy, girl, binary, trans person etc etc etc - and that is the human race. Everything else is for some people and not for others - and there is nothing wrong with that!

I totally agree that no lesbian GROUPS should be expected to be inclusive.
No MALE should be included in anything lesbian.
But I have to admit that some women who are basically lesbian are less picky than me, and they are women and PP above has a point that it's not really appropriate for other people to say "well you are bi then" if they have no interest at all in male-presenting males but find feminine-presenting males attractive. Yes it's probably inappropriate for them to use the word lesbian but it is no less inappropriate to say bisexual. How about "femisexual"? Or perhaps "femigendual"?

I honestly don't care what word they use, make them up all day, put them on flags, have t shirts, I'll applaud them on and hold their coats. Absolutely nothing wrong with adding more words and categories.

Just leave the existing ones alone and stop forcibly redefining other people to the point that homosexual women are being bullied out for refusing hetero sex with a male. On the grounds that this is 'lesbianism'.

It's not my problem what they call themselves; I thought that was the point of 'queer' .

Lesbian is taken.

A psychological function.

A psychological function that is intrinsically male, a concept bound up in a fundamentally masculine view of womanhood that is misogynistic in nature, and totally alien to lesbian experience.