I am angry about the drift towards rejecting the term “same-sex attraction”

I care about the conflation of sex and “gender identity” because it risks undermining the legal and political rights of women and lesbians. How can the pay gap be tracked when people who have achieved a top job as a male then identify as a woman, changing their employers statistics overnight and erasing any trace of the real picture? No longer being able to reliably record, collate and analyse statistics of the social, political and economic impact of our biological sex will make it impossible to have an evidence-based discussion about sexism and misogyny.

I am angry about the drift towards rejecting the term “same-sex attraction” and that organisations such as Stonewall are not supporting lesbians, and are actively silencing discussion on this issue.

I am very worried about the numbers of young lesbians that report that they resorted to defining themselves as non-binary, asexual or “queer”, often being coerced into having relationships with males, and taking several years to realise that they were lesbians.

I am very proud of those young women now detransitioning/desisting from a trans identity, but am very upset about their experiences of a conveyor-belt approach to hastily validating and medicalising their trans identity, with no consideration of the other factors that had led them to start on this path, and no exploration/promotion of the possibility that they were lesbians.

Given that such a high proportion of those in prison who identify as “transwomen” are convicted of serious and sexual offences, then either there is a high proportion of transwomen who are perpetrators, or a high proportion of perpetrators who falsely claim to be transwomen – either way, including biological males in women-only spaces clearly adds a new and statistically very significant risk, and the silencing around discussing this is nothing new in the context of sexual and physical abuse.

I have initiated many discussions in real-life with people and have shared articles on social media. I have taken part in discussions on social media and tried to focus my thoughts on those who are new to this discussion and need to see something other than name-calling and antagonism.

I have had a huge amount of my time taken up by having to keep responding to antagonistic and accusatory comments, rather than leave them stand – it is difficult to get the balance between not allowing people to maliciously take up my time, and ensuring that they do not get to dictate the tone and context of the discussion. I have been very fearful of reprisals and targetting of organisations that I’m publicly associated with, so have always had to double-check everything I write/say.

Jill H, Lesbian feminist