During one of our workshops at Woman’s Place UK the question of our position regarding LGB Alliance UK was raised. We are therefore making an official statement.
As lesbian radical feminists supporting women- and lesbian-only spaces, our initial reaction is one of both support and doubts. Doubts because we will never trust that men can ever truly support women and lesbian liberation. We have seen that past alliances with them led to the dire situation of today’s lesbian erasure within communities and groups lesbians initially created. But we also know that the LGB Alliance UK is currently lesbian-led and we are truly happy about that and hope lesbians within this group will flourish and find sisterhood.
We also understand that Get The L Out UK and the LGB Alliance UK do not have the same role in this movement. We are not interested in reformist politics and lobbying as we feel male institutions and male politics cannot be changed from within, but we sincerely respect that some lesbians want to do this work and fully understand that it is necessary work to do given the emergency.
We however want to insist that it is very important to politically and financially support lesbian- and women-only group on the same level, or even more, than mixed groups.
We will always support lesbians, whichever group they belong to, and we will always welcome the ones who might want to focus on women-centred politics and autonomous lesbian activism in the future.