Dublin Lesbian Line and Switchboard relaunch vital helpline for women and non-binary folk

[IwantToRetire]

The new “Women’s Night” will run weekly on Tuesday evenings from 6:30pm to 9pm and will offer support to all female, non-binary and female-aligned people in the LGBTQ+ community.

Although DLL and The Switchboard both share their roots in Ireland’s first LGBTQ+ helpline, Tel-A-Friend, which commenced its services in 1974, DLL later went on to establish itself as an independent volunteer collective in 1979, providing a dedicated service for lesbian and bisexual women.

It quickly became a cornerstone of the lesbian community, spawning lesbian lines across the country in Cork, Belfast, Galway, Derry and Sligo.

With over four decades of experience, Dublin Lesbian Line has remained a steadfast pillar of assistance and empowerment not just for Dublin but for the queer community across Ireland.

“During COVID-19 we had some tough decisions to make including a temporary pause of our helpline. “Our helpline has been an integral part of our history and identity, so the decision to pause it left us uncertain about the future. We were unsure when we could gather the necessary resources to resume our vital services.”

She continued, “Recognizing the immense significance of providing a dedicated space for women, non-binary, and female-aligned members of our community to find support, we knew it was essential to find a way forward.

“The unwavering support of The Switchboard made this partnership possible, a remarkable testament to the strength of the queer community, coming together to share resources, insights, and expertise, and to carry forward this invaluable legacy.”

Extracts from https://uk.news.yahoo.com/dublin-lesbian-line-switchboard-relaunch-145352527.html

It goes on to talk about recruiting new volunteers, the implication being that it is too difficult to recruit lesbians volunteers for a true Lesbian Line (althought they were able to do so in the past) so it is positive to include "female aligned and non binary".

But no indication if they had tried to recruit lesbians for a Lesbian Line.

Of course it could just be nothing to do with not enough lesbian volunteers, but just an opportunity to colonise another women only service.

:'(

You made a claim and now choose not to back it up. Fair enough - your call.

The fact remains - it is and was lesbians and bi women who founded DLL and they who decided how it was run. All these claims of changes being foisted on them by colonisers has no basis in reality.

Interesting though that you refuse to back up your claim that all volunteers left in 2017. Almost as if that didn’t happen.

@PlanetJanette Fri Aug 11 13:03

As far as I know, though, the board has been and continues to be made up of lesbians. I'm not aware of any trans women on the board - and certainly when the change was made, there were none that I know of.

Well we know that was a load of bollocks.

Now you show me that the board was exclusively lesbian or bi women when the change was made and that government and philanthropic organisations didn't exercise any influence in return for providing 83% of the funding.

Finally, would you support the existence of a support line run for lesbians by lesbians?

(Lesbian
noun
a woman who is sexually or romantically attracted exclusively to other women; a gay woman.)

The act of colonisation is complete when the natives do it to themselves.

So you're not going to back up your claim that all volunteers left in 2017. Fair enough.

Yes, I was wrong in saying there were no trans women on the board - that was the case fairly recently, but I missed the addition of Lillith Ferreyra-Carroll. Unlike you, I am happy to admit if I get something wrong.

But that is not the gotcha you think it is, because it does not back up the colonisation claims.

OK, well I suppose this is progress in admitting that it was lesbians who decided how to run their service, rather than any outsiders foisting changes on them.

It was a small group of women imposing upon other women their ideological commitment.

To demonstrate that you'd need to demonstrate that the then board of DLL were out of step with what their user base thought about trans inclusion.

I've no idea - just observing from a distance.

Why does everything for women have to be trans inclusive - which, in effect, means for male people too?

I expect the Lesbians decided that having a group and trying to influence from inside was more important and they would rather have some support than none.

To suggest that individuals make these decisions are happy and doing it of their own free will is disingenuous. Funding is frequently the stick to beat and control groups. When these groups are self funding they can make their own decisions and the outcome would be different.

OK - but if you've no idea, then you've no idea how accurate it is to say that change was 'imposed by a small group of women'.

It would only have been 'imposed' if the user base of the service disagreed with the change. I've seen no evidence of that. Have you?

Pfft. If they aren't lesbians, it's not 'Lesbian'.
Definition of 'lesbian' - women with XX chromosomes who fancy other women. No approximations of women or women-opting-out-of-womanhood included.

I'd have thought.

So why make a big hoo-ha about it being for women, when it is nothing of the sort. Why not just say it is a helpline for 'queer people' however they identify?

And what is it withn the use of 'folk' - it's so American - which in itself is an act of cultural colonisation.

It does make you consider that one of the reasons so many young lesbians are now identifying as 'queer' or as 'trans' or as non binary is in no small part down to the fact the environment is no longer set up to support the fact of their same sex attraction. And this is seen as progress.

I guess it is if 'queering' everything and eroding boundaries is your goal.

I would hate to be a young lesbian nowadays, the coercion to accept men as suitable partners, the probing of whether you're "really" a man, is just so awful. Having said that, it isn't so easy being an older one either. I don't live in a big city and the only "lesbian" groups I can find are trans inclusive. Not just trans inclusive though, they are actively ( stated in their blurb) gc excluding.

So inclusive that they now exclude many women.

I don't know what your view of lesbians is and I apologise if I was wrong.

Absolute final attempt at clarifying your position.

You could have posted:

Not sure why this is particularly newsworthy?

The DLL has not suddenly become open to trans women. For about 10 years (at least) several years they have been open to trans women as volunteers, and as callers. This is not new.

All that is new is them reopening the service after it closed during Covid, in partnership with Switchboard.

As far as I know, though, the board has been and continues to be made up of lesbians. I'm not aware of any trans women on the board - and certainly when the change was made, there were none that I know of. So it's a bit much to claim that the DLL has been got at by people who are 'weaseling in'.

This would have been a statement of fact.

I am still interested in your view of a service provided by lesbians for lesbians. Ignoring DLL, would such a service be of any benefit?

Sorry, the underlined paragraph should have been crossed out.

OK. Your non-reply was all the reply I needed. Hiding the thread now.