Tag: Lesbians

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Lesbians

We banned him from lesbian events for touching women without their consent

I’m a lesbian and was for years active in a women’s centre which acted as a hub for local lesbian activities and groups and support. I and other volunteers held monthly brunch meetings for lesbian women, we had a monthly lesbian feminist group, a monthly cafe event, a newsletter that publicised everything from walks and bike rides and dining clubs and festivals and weekends away to personal ads. We probably reached the best part of 1000 women. We had innumerable women tell us we’d been a life-saver for them. People actually moved to this area because they knew there was this wonderful, open, established lesbian network they could plug into.

Then a trans-rights activist in a wig and lipstick and long nails came to a couple of our events. 

He stood out because he didn’t look like the rest of us. We asked him to leave. He refused. He came to a brunch, made a speech about how he’d come to educate lesbians about transgender issues and, as women tried to leave the room, forcibly hugged them. They made complaints to us. We banned him from lesbian events for touching women without their consent and took the issue to the police who did nothing. The trans-identified man said he’d take the women’s centre down. And he did.

He applied to become a committee member. The committee at that time was dominated by straight white Momentum Labour women who welcomed him. The BAME women, many of whom are not allowed by their faith to attend events where there is a man present, took their funding and left. Many of the lesbians boycotted the women’s centre events in protest. The women’s centre closed down. The lesbian women’s movement fractured as some women took a GC stance and others took the ‘poor transgender people’ stance. Friends fell out. Younger lesbians told off older lesbians for their failure to be kind and reasonable. This fracture in the lesbian community is still festering and I can’t see a time when we will ever be able to rebuild what we had.

I have educated my MP about this, but while she’s sympathetic and makes GC noises to my face she still maintains a supportive pro-trans public persona.

I’ve written 50+  letters and emails to the BBC, the Guardian and other media organisations, occasionally with success (ie, articles have been changed, headlines have been changed) Lots of emails to Radio 4!

I send postcards of support to many women, particularly whose who are fighting alone within their professions/ institutions.

I’m out and proud as GC on my very secure FB page and found that as soon as I started talking about it, quite a few others started saying that they’d felt the same way but had felt uncomfortable about discussing such things.

I’ve taken a firm, rational, non-emotional GC line in lesbian social groups etc and while some people are offended, I usually find that the majority even if they’re silent at the time, sidle up later to say they agree.

I belong to a Resisters group and have stickered and gone out on the streets leafleting. Again, the majority of people agree with a GC line.

Once you start talking to people you realise that 80% are GC, 10% are confused or don’t care and fewer than 10% really take the TWAW line — and even then can’t justify that belief.

I’ve lost several people with whom I thought I’d be friends for life. I had a lesbian GP friend who is now so deeply enmeshed in transgender ideology that she has gone off to specialise in transgender medicine and refers to me openly as a TERF. She spouts all the Mermaids stuff about hundreds of trans teens killing themselves and won’t hear a rational response. It’s brought out a sort of Messiah complex in her: she’s going to rescue and protect all the poor transpeople. It’s profoundly disturbing to realise that even someone like her — clever, educated, years of experience in public service in the NHS — is so emotionally and intellectually susceptible to irrational ideology. 

I’ve also been very badly patronised by younger women friends who think their brand of feminism (intersectional feminism) is better than my 1970s/1980s feminism. It’s come as a real shock to realise that these apparently impeccably feminist young women don’t centre women in their politics. Some of them treat me as if I have learning difficulties. You know: ‘You can’t blame Issilly for her opinions, she comes from the medieval school of feminism where women hate all men…’

The biggest negative consequence has been realising how irrational and misogynistic and homophobic the world still is, under the guise of being ‘nice’. Lesbians are under attack from all sides, including other lesbians. I feel really glad to have had a wonderful 30 years of positive lesbian feminist culture and so sorry for younger lesbians who have nothing that I had to cling onto.

Issilly, who was just a lesbian until she discovered she was actually a radical lesbian feminist

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Healthcare Men

I saw women being attacked at the Anarchist Bookfair in 2017

Initially, I cared because I saw women being attacked at the Anarchist Bookfair in 2017 and the annual bookfair ending as a result. Since, I have been profoundly shocked by the misogyny of transactivists and the othering of their critics. As an affluent straight middle-aged white male, it all tends to be rather abstract, but I just can’t get past transactivists denying gender is a social-power construct within capitalism and the fact they vociferously accuse lesbians of being vagina fetishists but don’t apply that logic to straight men. The whole area of gender reassignment for children is very disturbing.

I used the fact that our radical publishers had a bookstall at the 2018 Radical Bookfair at Goldsmiths to help Jeni Harvey publish a pamphlet to be displayed their. This resulted in a very public confrontation with trans-activists and our ejection from the fair.

We, Chronos Publications, are now effectively banned from the remaining Anarchist bookfairs and the Radical bookfair. For example, the T&Cs for the latest ‘Anarchist Festival’ encourages attendees to take direct action against hate-speech. That’ll be us then based previous experience. We can’t get books placed in Freedom and their are some issues with Housmans. Other radical booksellers have secretly shown support but can’t say anything publicly.

Bryn Bazzard, Bryn, not seeking authority through one liner bio

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Healthcare Others

I have four nieces whose rights to their boundaries I will defend to the death

This matters to me because women’s rights have been hard fought for over a long period of time and have only been legally recognised for a very short period of time. Sex-based rights are crucial if women are to overcome the systemic barriers to equity that still exist in UK society and are particularly important for girls and young women who need single-sex spaces for reasons of safety, privacy and dignity. #

I don’t have children, but I have four nieces whose rights to their boundaries I will defend to the death. I also care about this issue because I am a lesbian, a same-sex attracted women. I object strongly to the idea that any male can self-identify as a woman and simply announce they are now a lesbian because of their heterosexual attraction to females. I am also infuriated by the deliberate conflation of sex and gender in official documents and by public bodies and organisations, in particular the Blood Transfusion Service and the NHS where an individual’s sex matters more than any specious idea of masculine or feminine.

I have signed a number of petitions; completed consultations on gender self-identification and reform of the Gender Recognition Act; donated to campaigns for women’s rights; and attended meetings organised by pro-women’s rights groups. I have written to my MP asking that she take account of women’s voices before committing to any vote on reform of the GRA. I have also written to my MSPs asking that they too take account of dissenting voices when it comes to the proposed introduction of gender self-identification in Scotland and followed up on their responses. I have also shared links to consultations on social media, asking people to take part in the consultation to get as wide a range of voices heard as possible.

I have been the subject of some anger and negative responses from friends on Facebook in particular and been accused of homophobia, transphobia and bigotry from people I considered good friends. That led me to make a conscious decision not to discuss the subject on Facebook, which I have stuck to now for around a year. However, the revelation this week that the Scottish Government is sticking to its redefinition of the word woman in the Gender Representation on Public Boards Act is making me rethink that decision, which I now consider a bit cowardly.

Frances Traynor, still believes that language matters and that words have meaning

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Self employed / entrepreneurs

I am self employed, and also too old to worry about my career

As a parent of a child who was somewhat gender non- conforming as preschooler and at primary school .. . As an elderly feminist who hated many aspects of ‘becoming a woman’ myself (and still do) with lesbian friends of my own age who have said openly that growing up in the current climate they would have believed themselves aged 14 or so ‘ a boy’, no question – rather than the adult lesbians they became. It was immediately clear to me that the basics of feminism as I understood them were being undermined.

I cancelled Guardian subscription (over (non) reaction to your case Maya and JKR’s response) and retweeted the editorial response to Glinner and Mumsnet. Written to MP. Got into a couple of Facebook arguments. Retweeted and shared a number of articles. Had serious email exchange with my very serious but uninformed sister (with lots of woke friends) when she put a trans tenant in to live with existing female tenant in our deceased mother’s house. She agreed existing tenant should be informed her new co-tenant was trans. (She was fine about it apparently . . But may have felt she had no choice).

I have been called a transphobic bigot etc of course!  And I’m sure I have been blocked by some on social media. But I feel able to speak my mind partly because I am self employed, and also too old to worry about my career!

Sarah G, Writer, dancer, musician, mother, feminist

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Healthcare Men

As a gay man, I thought I was part of a movement which was dismantling gender stereotypes

This matters to me because I’m a gay man who supports feminism. I see sexism as the fundamental structural inequality. It means that women are unsafe in their homes, workplaces and the street and disadvantaged in every part of their lives. It also means that lesbian, gay and bisexual people and all gender non-conforming people (assertive women and feminine men) are under attack.

As a gay man, I thought I was part of a movement which was dismantling gender stereotypes. Now I feel the LGBT movement is reinforcing sexist stereotypes and dismantling the protections and special provisions that are meant to try to rebalance a sexist society. Self ID and encouragement of children to be trans is the opposite of progress.

I want full legal and social protection for trans people who definitely face discrimination but not at the expense of women’s spaces, sports and sexual equality provisions.

I try to discuss through Facebook but am worried about LGBT activists.

S

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Voluntary sector

As an ex prisoner I was horrified at the policies allowing men into women’s prisons

I came to the transgender debate via 3 main channels. Firstly as an ex prisoner I was horrified at the policies allowing men into women’s prisons and could not imagine the thought of women I’d known and cared about having to share cell and living space with men, particularly knowing how traumatised by men many of those women had been. That was my introduction.

Secondly as a lesbian I was alarmed to see the increasing numbers of young lesbians being referred to gender clinics, and realising that their self hatred and discomfort was being used to legitimise what I came to see as a men’s sexual rights movement.

Thirdly, I have a daughter, and while I’ve always called myself a feminist, the call to activism came as a measure to try and make the world better for her and my friend’s daughters. Silence was not an option.

I have over the past 6 years become increasingly vocal against the trans lobby. I have joined many feminist groups, helped develop and execute campaigns with ReSisters, Fair Play for Women and many others. I’ve organised and taken part in many protests, including marching at the front of Manchester Pride with Get The L Out.

I attracted nationwide controversy when I was barred from my local pub for wearing a feminist T shirt. This attracted a lot of press coverage and radio interviews in which I tried to take the opportunity to bring the issues to an audience outside feminism.

More recently I’ve been concentrating on the issues facing detransitioned women and the unique challenges they face. I will continue to work to elevate their voices and I will never stop asking hard questions about trans ideology.

The first thing to happen was that I lost 70% of my friends locally and was threatened with violence from people in my town whom I have never met nor would even recognise on the street, which was a little disconcerting.

I run charity projects providing aid to refugee women and my main donation base is women, specifically mothers, who may pull funding if they know I’m a vocal activist, so keeping these projects separate is always a tightrope act.

The main harrassment I receive is online, which is easily brushed off, but being painted as a bigot in my home town has been difficult. Especially when it’s coming from people who’ve known me for years and know that I’m the opposite. I think possibly the most negative consequence has been really, properly seeing the misogyny that pervades every aspect of life and once you see it there’s really no going back. On the bright side though, the women I’ve met through feminism have been the best friends I’ve ever had and I have no doubt that together we can pull the plug on all this madness.

Rebekah W, Gobby lesbian single mum with pockets full of terrifying feminist propaganda

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Healthcare Others

Scotgov have effectively erased adult human females from legislation

This matters to me because pseudo-science, with zero-material evidence to support it, is used promote the lie that children can have a brain that ‘thought processes’ like that of the opposite sex. This is used to commit sterilisation and irreparable FGM on teenage girls and MGM on teen boys….crimes in my opinion endorsed by Government, committed by the NHS. Lifelong damage, just as child sexual abuse causes lifelong damage.

Women and girls safe/r spaces are being destroyed, placing them at greater risk of sexual crimes. Girls being forced to share changing rooms with naked men, as these men can watch girls getting undressed….all came about because Scotgov funded numerous trans-lobby groups who misdirected schools, womens orgs,  NHS, prisons re womens rights to single-sex spaces. Women imprisoned with violent men, incl rapists.

The rights to equal and fair treatment fought for by women…are being taken by men…handed to them by Government. Women’s scholarships, grants, sports opened up to men….effectively re-imposing the disadvantage in society that women fought against. Scotgov have effectively erased adult human females from legislation because any man can ‘identify’ into being a woman. We don’t exist in Law!

The Police, NHS, local Govt, central Govt, Education depts have all been complicit in imposing and enforcing trans-ideology across society.

I have leafleted on the streets and through doors, worked on stalls to inform the public, and talk to everyone I can, every chance I can. left leaflets on buses, chatted at bus stops, in supermarket queues. I have challenged politicians…only to find they are not interested…in fact, they have gaslighted me, used sneering, mocking tones, lyingly misrepresented most of what has been said to them (social media).

Consequences to speaking out have seen me threatened with rape, with being shot, battered. Told I am a bigot, to STFU, and have men tell me, a lesbian, that they are lesbians, been exposed to d*ck pictures. My mental health has been very seriously impacted, to the point of extreme rage, overwhelming hopelessness, violent and suicidal thoughts. There will be no forgiveness for this travesty against women and children.

Les, No forgiveness!

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Public Sector

As an ally to lesbians I want to protect their rights to homosexuality

As a woman I am terrified of the erasure. As an ally to lesbians I want to protect their rights to homosexuality.

I have only spoken on social media. I’m too afraid otherwise

I am too afraid to say something at work.

EA, Concerned adult human female, No thank you, USA

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Others

I care about this issue as it disproportionately affects women and girls

I care about this issue as it disproportionately affects women and girls. It affects women’s privacy and dignity, it affects teenage girls, some of whom undertake drastic interventions and it affects lesbians.

I have lobbied government, talked to friends and been effective in changing policy locally.

I have received negative reactions from local LGBT organisations including being accused publicly of causing young people to consider suicide as I stated that I do not believe people can change sex.

JLP

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Others

There is no way to fully explain my plight as a lesbian Middle-Easterner without the basic idea that I am oppressed due to my sex

It matters to me on a sheer logical level. There is no way to fully explain my plight as a lesbian Middle-Easterner without the basic idea that I am oppressed due to my sex, as all women are.

I’ve spoken up to my friends and family about it. My social media isn’t explicitly obvious but is to anyone with a keen eye.

I’ve lost friends, most have been long-standing online relationships but a few have been in person. I have no idea if my ability to get published as a fiction writer has been affected by this.

N, USA