Last year, Oxfam was forced to apologise after posting an animation for Pride Month featuring a character who many said resembled JK Rowling, depicted with red eyes and wearing a badge bearing the word “Terf” – an acronym of “trans-exclusionary radical feminist” used as a slur against feminists deemed transphobic.
Such disputes may on the surface appear minor, but there are worries among those who were there in the early days of the Pride marches that they are a sign of a more dangerous malaise. They warn that transgender activism has sown bitter divisions within the LGBT community and is now threatening to derail the movement they helped to build.
the clash between lesbian and trans rights has become so pronounced that one group of women has felt compelled to set up a grassroots campaign called “Get the L Out”, to protest at Pride events.
In recent years its members have attended parades in cities across the UK, carrying banners bearing slogans such as “Lesbians don’t like penises” and “Transgenderism erases lesbians”.
Liane Timmermann, a member of “Get the L Out”, says: “Pride was previously a political movement for lesbians and gays and then it was totally hijacked by this gender-identity movement
.
“Trans activists have got higher up on the Pride board and it’s just become shocking.
“Lesbians who are same-sex attracted are not welcome at Pride now.”
Timmermann adds that, initially, Pride organisers were uncertain how to handle the group.
Members of the lesbian rights group were gently asked to leave one London Pride event, she says, but were ultimately allowed to stay because it would cause more disruption to forcibly eject them.
Pride in London, which did not respond to questions from The Telegraph, said at the time, in 2018: “They demanded to march behind the rainbow flag, which marks the official start of our parade. We did not allow that as we did not want to legitimise them or their message.”
However, as time has gone on attitudes have hardened. In 2022, police stepped in to remove the campaigners from Cardiff Pride after they were judged to be stoking a “confrontation” with transgender attendees.
And this schism within the LGBT community over trans ideology is set to widen. On June 29, the day of London’s annual Pride march, Jenny Watson, a 32-year-old lesbian activist, will hold an alternative rally in the capital, because she believes that the main event no longer represents women like her.
Similar to the members of “Get the L Out”, she feels that it has become dominated by the transgender movement and a growing number of men in “hypersexualised” outfits.
“Pride used to be simple and fun,” says Watson, who went to her first march at 18.
“But it’s just turned into this sexualised circus with men in bondage gear or wearing ball gags and lots of women just don’t feel comfortable to be there.
Just a few paragraphs from a much longer article at https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/06/17/pride-trans-activists-lgbt-debate-divided/
So strange to find lesbians being given a voice in the Telegraph that Guardian would never allow!
Can also be read at https://archive.ph/o7XEg