A French lesbian perspective on sex-based boundaries and lesbian spaces

[TastySalt]

Hi everyone,

I hope this is okay to post here. I thought this board might be the right place because the topic is sex-based boundaries, lesbian spaces, and the way girls are taught to understand consent.

I’m a French lesbian, and this subject is personal for me.
When I was younger, I was exposed to the idea that refusing male-bodied people who identified as women was narrow-minded, cruel, or bigoted. At the time, I did not have the confidence, language, or emotional strength to clearly say: “No, I am a lesbian. I am not attracted to male bodies. My boundaries are not hatred.”

That kind of message can be very damaging for young lesbians and girls in general. Especially girls who are kind, anxious, isolated, conflict-avoidant, or desperate to be accepted by a community.

If a girl is taught that her discomfort is prejudice, that her boundaries are exclusionary, and that saying no makes her a bad person, she becomes easier to pressure. That is what worries me.

A lot of the public discussion focuses on medicine, children, sports, prisons, and free speech. Those topics really, truly matter. But I think the lesbian angle is often treated as a side issue, when it actually reveals one of the clearest conflicts in the whole debate.

Female homosexuality is based on women being exclusively attracted to women. That should be simple. But increasingly, lesbian boundaries are reframed as suspicious: “genital preference,” “cotton ceiling,” exclusion, bigotry, lack of education, lack of openness.

The issue is that women, and especially young lesbians, are being asked to surrender sex-based language, spaces, and sexual boundaries in order to prove they are kind.

That creates a very specific form of misogyny: women’s refusal is treated as a problem to solve.
I made a video rant (through a personal storytime[ about this from a French lesbian perspective. It is in French with handmade English subtitles. The tone is caustic and vulgar at times, but the argument is serious.

Link:

Id be interested to know whether other women here have noticed this pattern, especially mothers of teenage girls, lesbians, or women who have seen similar dynamics in schools, online spaces, dating apps, or LGBT communities?

Cheers!!

I have observed this and have some experience of it happening to my child. Have you found Osez le feminisme ! – On ne nait pas féministe, on le devient… yet - networks throughout France, and (last time I checked) GC.

For any valid objection, it'll apply at least vaguely to men as well.

Are gay men pressured to have sex with women to prove how kind they are?

😂

(You can stop laughing now.) Of course they aren't. The very idea is ridiculous. The BS applies only to women, and that's all the proof you need that it is BS. Misogyny is a hell of a drug.

This is worth the effort to view and gives a different perspective. My understanding of trans ideology is that it is both homophobic and misogynist, which means Lesbians get a double whammy of hatred.

Bienvenue à Mumsnet. This board often discusses the effect of transgender rights on lesbians, and plenty of lesbians post here. I’ll give your video a watch, I have no problem with caustic and vulgar 😁

When I was young, in the 1970s, it was not uncommon to be called a lesbian by a man you didn’t want to date. It was meant as an insult, or perhaps his true belief that he was irresistible. Fine by me though, as half my friends were lesbians.

Now the same sort of sleazy men are calling themselves lesbians!

Funny how times change. Still not in women’s favour, of course.

Welcome to the fight, I hope you video reaches a lot of people, especially young lesbians.

I think it would be fair to say the lesbian angle is pretty well covered in the UK's fightback against this batshittery. It been stated again and again how outrageous and homophobic the expectation that women who are only attracted to female bodies being forced to accept male bodied people as lesbians. One of the reasons why women's rights organisation are fighting to ensure that sex is not replaced by 'gender', is because same sex attracted orientation would cease to be if it were all about 'gender', and as mentioned that would make lesbians lose out twice.

The LGB Alliance was founded by Lesbians (and Gay men) who won't accept it, maybe they have a branch in France you could look up.

Thanks so much for posting this on mumsnet FWR.

And just brilliant that you have been able to stand up for your self, and made the video. Rants are fantastic.

We have had some threads on FWR about how women fighting for sex based rights in France are being treated really badly. https://reduxx.info/france-womens-rights-activist-convicted-of-insulting-transgender-women-by-discussing-their-male-attribute-fined-e4500/

But the impact on lesbians of trans ideology is really harsh. Not just the denial of biological reality but in demanding rights over their bodies.

Keep up the fight!

There have certainly been instances of trans-identifying women trying to get into gay saunas and gay dating networks. But there seems to be much more acceptance of men saying 'Go away and stop being so silly'.

There have been issues of this sort and of various TRAs talking about genital preferances etc. and that gay men should have sex with trans men or its transphobic etc.
The main difference is that gay men (seemingly as an entire group) told them to fuck off, and not changed its view as to what being a gay man is.

A point I’ve seen made to Owen Jones who as expected blustered angrily about how homophobic the question was before blocking everyone.

Surely most people have genital preferences just as they have preferences in lots of things? If a vegitarian came to dinner I wouldn't offer them roast chicken, nor would I have a tantrum if they wouldn't eat it.

It's a thing in Australia as well. The Lesbian Alliance had to go to court to apply for an exemption based on our sex discrimination act, to hold women only events. They lost a couple and I think are still waiting for the final outcome of their appeal, but I don't hold much hope for them following Sal Grovers recent case, which basically established that women have no right to female only spaces. Australia is deep south gender-wang territory of course. I agree this is a huge issue for young girls and young lesbians. Good on you for your resistance. Hope you stay here on MN as well :)

The strange thing with Australia is that they removed "sex" for "gender" in their equality act, and this is what is being fought against.
I think that even the judge in the giggle vs tickle case alluded to this and it being wrong.

The OP's video is a tour de force, an exhilarating polemic!

I agree! Brilliant video @TastySalt

Great post thank you @TastySalt and I’m really looking forward to watching the video

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to come back and thank you properly for all the replies!! I don’t think I’ll be able to answer everyone one by one, but I have read everything carefully, and I genuinely appreciate the feedback, the links, the personal experiences, and the different angles you brought up. Thank you again!

Mumsnet has honestly been a very pleasant surprise. I did not really know the site before posting here, so I have been browsing a bit, (especially this board, as Im not a parent yet haha) and I was struck by the quality of the discussions. It is rare, even miraculous, to find a place where women can talk about sex-based boundaries, lesbian spaces, consent, language, law, safeguarding, and misogyny without immediately being forced into the usual emotional blackmail.

Reading your comments made me feel much less alone. If only I had such a space when I was 19yo.

Several of you pointed out something that I think is central: the asymmetry. Gay men are not generally expected to prove their kindness by including female-bodied people in their sexuality. When the same logic is applied to men, it suddenly becomes obvious how absurd and homophobic it is. Yet when it is applied to lesbians, women are expected to be patient, compassionate, open-minded, endlessly explanatory, and sexually flexible. That point is very important, and I'm definitely using it in the future video (the script is almost over!! Im just really anxious about speaking English lol)

I also found the comments about the UK, France, Australia, the LGB Alliance, Osez le Féminisme, and the legal/political side extremely useful. One thing I am trying to understand better is how the same pattern appears in different countries: different laws, different activist cultures, but the same pressure on women to surrender language, spaces and boundaries.

The replies about young lesbians and girls also really stayed with me. That is one of the main reasons I made my very first video in the first place. I keep thinking about girls who are kind, anxious, isolated, conflict-avoidant, or desperate to belong somewhere. If those girls are taught that their discomfort is prejudice, and that their sexual boundaries are exclusionary or cruel, they become easier to pressure. That frightens me. Because that happened to me.

I also want to say that the positive reactions to the video really meant a lot. I know the tone is caustic and vulgar, and I know it is not for everyone, but the argument underneath it is serious. I am trying to build something from a French lesbian perspective: personal, angry (remember, we are born rioters and always angry at something here in France lmao), funny, politically clear, and hopefully useful to other women who have felt alone with these thoughts.

I will keep you updated as the channel develops, especially when I post videos that are relevant to lesbians, sex-based boundaries, women-only spaces, and the impact of gender identity ideology on women and girls. I wasnt honestly planning to be a gender-critical focused channel : I wanted to talk about shitty life stuff Ive been experiencing, like diabetes, the corporate nightmare, losing weight, making friends, men being men, women being victims etc. and the gender nonsense was part of it !

Again, thank you. Your feedback has been so, so precious, and I will be drawing from it a lot for the next steps!!

If your spoken English is even a tiny bit as good as your written English, then you have absolutely nothing to worry about.

Thank you for posting here to share this. 😊

Bon courage!

I also found the comments about the UK, France, Australia, the LGB Alliance, Osez le Féminisme, and the legal/political side extremely useful. One thing I am trying to understand better is how the same pattern appears in different countries: different laws, different activist cultures, but the same pressure on women to surrender language, spaces and boundaries.

My answer to this is needless to say sexism.

One of the reasons trans activism (RA) is so sucessful is that is builds on the existing men's rights / men's suprematist that is evident in all countries. Whether through religion, cultural "costume", political parties let alone so called art and culture.

TRAs would never have had the success it has if it wasn't built on the underlying sexism that means women are seen as second class citizens. Had any other movement tried to say X or Y group should give up their integrity to accommodate a load of self important colonisers, society would have told them to piss off. Much as most people did with the absurd idea that a white women could identify as Black and should therefore be treated and respected as "Black".

Trans activism is just the most recent manifestation of this sexism dressed up as an advanced analysis ie Queer politics, which from the start sought to deny the reality of women being oppressed by men because of their sex class.

re rioting - on a thread about rioting and whether it was a male thing, I did add a comment supporting this in the main, but then added and not being is a position to explain it, that this seemed to be true every where except France!

Women need to develop a form of feminist rioting!

ie not like male nihilistic destruction that women have to tidy up after.