transactivism – – Lesbian Not Queer

OPINION: Lesbians need to get the L out of the LGBT+ community

Thomas Reuters Foundation News website published an opinion piece by Angela Wild, Get The L Out co-founder.

The full text of this piece follows:

Angela Wild is a lesbian feminist activist, researcher and co-founder of Get The L Out, lesbian activist group.

When a few of my lesbian friends and I decided to march uninvited in front of the Pride march in Londonlast year to promote lesbian visibility within an increasingly misogynistic and anti-lesbian gay, bisexual and transgender (GBT) movement, we had no idea this would cause such a huge backlash from the GBT community itself.

We had no idea that we would be attacked by officials of GBT organisations as well as by most of the British press.

From being called “transphobic bigots”, “hateful” and “Nazis” who should be “dragged out by our saggy tits”, to having our personal details published on social media and receiving rape and death threats, the supposedly progressive mainstream seemed to have slightly overreacted to the fact that a small group of lesbians were simply marching at Pride in London.

Our crime? We simply dared to reclaim the right to define what a lesbian is.

The definition is – and should remain – “a woman – in the biological sense of the word – exclusively emotionally and sexually attracted to women”.

As lesbians we retain the right to say what we find sexually attractive, irrespective of gender identity, thank you very much.

The fact that such a statement is now labelled hateful says much about the misogyny of those who condemned us.

Lesbians in 2019 are constantly vilified and excluded from the GBT community for stating their exclusive sexual preference.

Interestingly, we are routinely told there is no research to support our stance by a GBT movement that is funded precisely to do this research and stand up for us, but is clearly too busy looking the other way or burying its head in the sand to care.

To confront this bias, Get The L Out has just published research on what we have termed the “cotton ceiling”.

If you have never heard the term, you can just translate it into “the first research on the sexual pressure and sexual violence experienced by lesbians at the hands of what we define as ‘transwomen’”.

Our research findings show that lesbians are under huge pressure within their LGBT+ groups to accept transwomen as sexual partners so as not to be labelled as trans-exclusionary radical feminists – or Terfs – and subsequently excluded by their GBT groups.

Our research shows the invasion of lesbian dating sites by men (whether they identify as women or not); women’s fear of going on a date with a person who could potentially turn out to be biologically male; and the complete disappearance of lesbian-only spaces leading to difficulties in meeting like-minded women.

Lesbians who responded to our survey also reported experiencing sexual violence from transwomen ranging from online grooming, domestic and sexual violence as part of a relationship, sexual harassment, sexual assault (including in women’s toilets), coercion and rape.

Women who are critical of gender ideology are routinely accused of being on the “wrong side of history”.

However, our findings throw up several questions:

Who is on the wrong side of history when the GBT community operates a large-scale gaslighting of lesbians to accept the mantra that “trans women are women”; penises are deemed to be a female organ; and heterosexual intercourse is now redefined as a lesbian sexual practice?
Who is on the wrong side of history when the GBT community uncritically supports a population of transwomen who identify as lesbians to coerce lesbians into having sex with transwomen against their will?
Who is on the wrong side of history when lesbians’ sexual boundaries are disrespected and publicly demonised as hateful by the very charities whose purpose it is to defend them?
Who are the GBT organisations protecting by refusing to engage with lesbians’ very serious concerns?

Major gay, bisexual and trans organisations such as Stonewall and Pride in London should hang their heads in shame for ignoring our rights.

They do not represent us.

FEMINIST CURRENT ARTICLE: Lesbian visibility matters now more than ever

From https://www.feministcurrent.com/2019/06/18/lesbian-visibility-matters-now-more-than-ever/

« Get The L Out is about more than defending lesbian’s sexual and political boundaries — it is also about creating a common future for lesbians and other women.

June 18, 2019 by Sarah

The 2019 Pride season is on, and it seems the climate gets stormier with every passing year. Last month at Swansea Pride, Angela C. Wild, a member of Get The L Out, was dragged out from the front of the parade by four police officers. In March, London LGBT+ Community Pride (the community interest company in charge of organizing this year’s Pride in London Parade) released a statement (which has since been removed) reiterating their apology for the “transphobia” at last year’s event, saying:

“We will not let Pride be used as a platform to spread transphobic hate again. We have learned from last year, we have listened, and we are doing everything we can to avoid anything like this happening again.”

As such, London LGBT+ Community Pride says they will be partnering with the Metropolitan Police, Westminster City Council, and the Greater London Authority to increase “security.” In 2018, lesbians throughout the West attended Pride marches to speak out against lesbian erasure by queer and trans politics. I was one of eight lesbians who marched uninvited at the front of the Pride in London Parade and was labelled “transphobic” by the mayor of London, as were my sisters in Get The L Out.

Our action was guided by one key principle: lesbian visibility. While the Pride Parade claims to represent everyone in the “LGBT family,” it does not. A 2016 survey done by Her, a social networking and dating app for lesbian and “queer” women, found that 31 per cent of women surveyed reported not feeling comfortable or welcomed at Pride. Since the arrival of trans activism, this problem has been exacerbated, as women not only feel unwelcome, but lesbians in particular are being actively pushed out of Pride events.

Queer communities and “progressive” heterosexual society alike claim to support lesbians’ right to assert our own sexual and political boundaries, but today’s trans activist movement tells a different story. We decided not to take this (actual) exclusion lying down, and jumped in front of the Pride in London Parade last July in order to give a voice to all the lesbians who feel erased and silenced due to gender identity ideology and queer politics. We carried signs that named the problem — “Transgenderism erases lesbians” — and that rejected the erasure of lesbians in the queer movement: “Lesbian not queer” and “Lesbian = female homosexual.”

Many words have been used to describe our action and the women involved: “protest,” “anti-trans,” “hateful,” “bigoted,” “old,” “bitches,” “saggy tits,” “TERFs.” In truth, we are simply unapologetic lesbians and feminists. Get The L Out means removing the already marginalized “L” from an alliance that is failing lesbians.

Trans and queer politics are erasing lesbians on at least two levels. First, transgenderism is effectively selling a (post) modern version of the Victorian concept of “female and male brains” by claiming that those brains can be in the “wrong body,” thereby enforcing rigid gender roles in a regressive and anti-feminist way. Femininity and masculinity — concepts usually used by feminists to refer to the roles imposed on individuals based on our sex, which have the effect of creating and enforcing a social hierarchy where men are on top and women at the bottom — are said, under this ideology, to be something one is born with and an essential part of our individual nature. This would necessarily mean that women pushed into wearing unhealthy, painful feminine clothes and shoes; forced into subordination and passivity; and exploited in the workplace and in the household were born into these circumstances — an idea feminists have fought from the get-go.

Young lesbians — especially those who do not conform to femininity — are particularly vulnerable to internalized anti-lesbianism and hatred of their female bodies. For girls, puberty usually rhymes with an increased awareness of their bodies and a feeling of shame and self-hatred when they do not conform to rigid, heterosexist beauty ideals. Moreover, adolescence is a time when pressure toward heterosexuality from peers, family, and the media is the strongest. Sex education, pop culture, and questions from family and friends about “boys” all perpetuate the idea that practicing heterosexuality is the ultimate sign that a girl is becoming a woman. For lesbian teenagers, this means that the gap they perceive between their female bodies and beauty ideals is also tainted with the understanding that even if they do try to align with those beauty ideals, they will never be “the perfect woman” because they are not heterosexual. And when feminism — the only politics that offers a way to understand, criticize, and reject these norms — is silenced and vilified by both mainstream society and LGBT groups, some young lesbians feel even more deeply uncomfortable with their bodies.

At Transgender Trend, Gill, a lesbian detransitioner, writes:

“Everything changed as I reached the teenage years. My body changing caused me some distress, and I had thoughts around whether I would simply rather have the body of a boy. At this point I was aware of my attraction towards girls.”

Pushed by medical institutions and queer culture to see this experience as a sign of “transness,” some young lesbians are having mastectomies and/or taking hormones, thereby harming their bodies under this new “progressive” ideology. “Make no mistake, this is modern conversion therapy,” Jo Bartosch argues.

Second, transgender ideology forces heterosexuality on lesbians, pressuring women to accept men as female and accusing lesbians of “transphobia” when they won’t sleep with or date men who claim to be “women.” In her report on the cotton ceiling for Get The L Out, Angela C. Wild found that “lesbians are routinely being coerced into sexual relations with transwomen.”

But the story of Get The L Out is not just about protesting the addition of the “T.” It is also a story of lesbians who refuse to be subordinated by gay men in the movement. In her 2003 book, Unpacking Queer Politics, Sheila Jeffreys, a British lesbian feminist academic, argued that gay men’s misogyny and anti-lesbianism is at the root of lesbian erasure within LGBT culture. Despite a homophobic culture, gay men are men and lesbians are women, and therefore patriarchal dynamics still play out. When doctors were too scared to care for gay men during the AIDS epidemic, lesbians organized political campaigns and volunteered en masse at hospitals, despite the fact that gay men continued to insult and humiliate them. “We’d call them ‘fish’ and make fun of the butch dykes in the bars — and yet, there they were,” one gay man who survived the epidemic told British newspaper, the i.

The free labour and care lesbians have given to gay men over the past few decades is yet to be fully acknowledged. Meanwhile, gay men still tend to treat lesbians like second-class citizens and sexual objects. For lesbians, sexual assaults and sexualized comments from gay men are not uncommon.

For The Good Men Project, Yolo Akili writes:

“At a recent presentation, I asked all of the gay male students in the room to raise their hand if in the past week they touched a woman’s body without her consent. After a moment of hesitation, all of the hands of the gay men in the room went up.”

Testimonies of such sexual assaults are usually ignored because of the idea that sexual assaults are not about domination but sexual attraction, and in this flawed logic the claim that a gay man sexually assaulted a woman does not make any sense.

Further evidence of how gay male politics play out against lesbians is in the misogyny of drag queen culture, one of the pillars of gay culture. While there’s nothing wrong with what is called “cross-dressing,” men mocking women for their oppression and gaining money and fame on their backs is not solidarity, especially when this practice is rooted in gay men’s sexist ideas of what a woman is. Drag queens do more than just put on feminine clothes, they take female names and try to mimic the female body by wearing fake breasts and vulvas and imitating our voices — the same patriarchal stereotypes that men claiming to be transwomen use to justify their “identity.”

“LGBT” is, in practice, a coalition that is not based on equality between all its members but on the political, economic, cultural, social, and sexual domination of men over lesbians. What Get The L Out activists have not had the platform to say is that our activism is about more than removing the “L” from the “GBT.” It is also a call to lesbians to reconsider where we put our energy, who we work with, and what we want to work towards: women’s liberation.

There will be no lesbian liberation without women’s liberation and no women’s liberation without lesbian liberation. Because lesbians exclusively love women, they are living proof that women can survive, be happy, and be fulfilled without men in their intimate and daily lives. As such, lesbianism is in itself a political and revolutionary act under patriarchy.

When Monique Wittig, a French radical lesbian author unfairly co-opted by Butler and queer theorists, wrote in The Straight Mind and Other Essays (1992) that “lesbians are not women,” she did not mean it in a biological sense. Rather, she meant that lesbians do not fit the patriarchal definition of what a woman is or should be: an adult human female who can be privately appropriated by adult human males via heterosexuality. It is because lesbians have sexual desires and boundaries that do not include men that their womanhood has been negated, that they have been compared to men (without ever reaching their social or political power), and that they also experience a specific type of oppression on top of the usual misogyny all women experience.

Lesbians have everything to gain by breaking this abusive political relationship with men of the GBT and focusing on ourselves, as well as working with other women towards our collective liberation. However, given the history of feminism and the current dynamics within gender-critical and radical feminism, there are several challenges related to women’s different experiences of patriarchal oppression that we need to overcome to make a serious step towards uniting women.

First, there is still some work to do to unite women across sexual orientation. Heterosexual and bisexual women in the feminist movement need to acknowledge the anti-lesbianism of patriarchy, and that their own words and behaviours can contribute to this. From heterosexual feminists’ historical fear of lesbianism for the reputation of the movement, as expressed by Betty Friedan’s rejection of what she called the “Lavender Menace” in 1969, to casual accusations of “imitating men” and accusations of “biphobia,” when lesbians claim their rights to lesbian-only spaces and sexuality, heterosexual and bisexual feminists’ anti-lesbian behaviours have pushed some lesbians towards men of the GBT.

Lesbians also have a lot to learn from all women who dedicate their lives to feminism. The radical feminist critique of patriarchy, pornograhy, and harmful practices of femininity, including arguments developed by Catharine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin, can enable lesbians to get rid of our own internalized misogyny and self-hatred.

The other main challenge we need to overcome is the ongoing impact of white supremacy on the feminist movement, which has serious consequences for lesbians of colour. The rewriting of the history of the 1969 Stonewall riots by trans activists is a good example. The queer community commonly presents Marsha P. Johnson as the “transwoman who threw the first brick,” thereby starting the Stonewall riots. But this is not true. Thanks to this popular myth, two males, often presented as “transwomen” or simply “women,” are getting a statue in New York. This will cost the city an estimated $750,000 and is taking place after a consultation in which “98 per cent of respondents said they would like to see a woman honoured who was committed to social reform or justice.”

A woman who was committed to social justice for black women and lesbians was Stormé DeLarverie, who, after being hit on the head with a billy club and handcuffed, turned to the crowd and yelled, “Why don’t you do something!?” DeLarverie is the woman who started the riots at the Stonewall Inn, but will not get a statue. Claire Heuchan, writing about DeLarverie’s erasure from LGBT history, argues that black lesbians are the first victims of lesbian erasure: “Black representation, female representation, and lesbian representation aren’t always straightforward to find — especially when you’re searching for all three at once.”

The erasure of lesbians of colour from history takes place in a context of racist and misogynist structures and ideologies that dehumanize (and usually animalize) women of colour. From a patriarchal point of view, femininity and womanhood are conflated by enforcing gender roles on women. As black feminist authors and academics such as Angela Davis, Audre Lorde, and bell hooks wrote, under white patriarchy, the ultimate femininity is white, and the ultimate woman can only be white, which leaves women of colour somewhere outside of womanhood and their bodies othered.

Priyanka Meenakshi writes about her experience growing up as a young lesbian of colour in the UK:

“I could not meet the markers of being Girl — as whiteness sets the standard for true and pure femininity, my brownness and hairiness relegated me consistently UnGirl…

… Although I was expected to be beautiful, I was consistently conceived of as ugly. And although I was expected to be desirable, I would never be desired — I was an aberration.”

When racist and anti-lesbian misogyny is ignored in feminist groups, it creates further divides among women and weakens lesbian feminism and communities.

Get The L Out does not mean isolating ourselves; it means making lesbian feminism revolutionary again and working with other feminists towards women’s liberation. The way this alliance between lesbians and other women will look is still under construction, and there are different ways of collaborating, depending on the national and local context. The only sure thing today is that if we do not leave this abusive political relationship with men, more of us will be victims of male violence, and our lesbian sisters of younger generations will not know a world where lesbianism is allowed, let alone celebrated. »

FEMINIST CURRENT PODCAST: Lesbians at ground zero — Angela C. Wild on gender identity ideology and lesbian autonomy

Podcast available at https://www.feministcurrent.com/2019/04/11/podcast-lesbians-at-ground-zero-angela-c-wild-on-gender-identity-ideology-and-lesbian-autonomy/

« Meghan Murphy speaks with Angela C. Wild of #GetTheLOut about her new report about the impact of trans ideology on lesbians.

April 11, 2019 by Meghan Murphy

The conflict between trans activists and lesbians is reaching new heights, as lesbians are being shut out of their own events, movements, and spaces. Moreover, lesbianism in and of itself is being disappeared by gender identity ideology, as the word “woman” is said to be undefinable, and a category that can include males. What is a lesbian, if not a female homosexual?

But lesbians are pushing back against this activism and ideology, and fighting for lesbian visibility. On today’s episode, I speak with Angela C. Wild, a member of #GetTheLOut, who recently published, “Lesbians At Ground Zero: How Trans Ideology is Conquering the Female Body,” a study looking at how gender identity ideology and trans activism impact lesbians.

Angela C. Wild is one of the organizers behind the #GetTheLOut protest, which took place during Pride in London last year. She is a lesbian feminist activist, a writer, and a political artist based in the UK. Her work focuses particularly on challenging institutions such as compulsory heterosexuality and motherhood, on protecting and creating women-only spaces, and promoting lesbian rights and visibility. »

FEMINIST CURRENT INTERVIEW: Angela C. Wild of #GetTheLOut on Pride in London and Lesbian erasure

From https://www.feministcurrent.com/2018/07/17/interview-angela-c-wild-getthelout-pride-london-lesbian-erasure/

« Meghan Murphy interviews Angela C. Wild about the recent Lesbian protest at Pride in London and the state of the LGBT movement today.

July 17, 2018 by Meghan Murphy

“Get The L Out” is a group of *Lesbian and feminist individuals and organizations who oppose the increasingly anti-Lesbian and misogynistic LGBT movement and the erasure of Lesbians.

Angela C. Wild is one of the organizers behind the #GetTheLOut protest, which took place during Pride in London this year. She is a Lesbian feminist activist, a writer, and a political artist based in the UK. Her work focuses particularly on challenging institutions such as compulsory heterosexuality and motherhood; on protecting and creating women-only spaces; and promoting Lesbian* rights and visibility.

~~~

MEGHAN MURPHY: Tell me a bit about yourself — when did you first come out as a lesbian and what brought you to lesbian activism?

ANGELA C. WILD: I became a Lesbian feminist in 2013. I use Adrienne Rich’s definition of the term, “Lesbian feminist”: a woman whose feminist politics, consciousness, and sexuality are interlinked and developed together; a woman who sees heterosexuality as an oppressive institution for women. As a woman who was trapped in heterosexuality for a huge part of my life, when I heard about the “cotton ceiling” in 2012, I was outraged and saw it immediately as an assault against Lesbians’ right to sexual boundaries, as well as an assault against every woman’s right to sexual boundaries, as it pushes compulsory heterosexuality on women. My lesbianism and my critique of the trans ideology developed simultaneously and are inherently linked.

MM: You and your group are behind a website called “Get The L Out” — what does that mean? Get the L out of what? What is the message?

AW: “Get the L out of LGBT” is an expression that has been used by Lesbians for some time now. The LGBT community does not represent nor does it advocate for Lesbians. As is always the case, when women organize in mixed groups, men’s issues take priority over women’s issues, men’s voices and concerns are centred, and women’s concerns are dismissed as irrelevant or secondary. Women have witnessed this on the left, in the anarchist movement, in the environmental movement, etc. Unsurprisingly, what is happening today in the LGBT community is no different. When the sexual rights of men who call themselves “transwomen” or Lesbians take priority over the rights of women to define their sexuality then as Lesbians, we have a problem.

MM: Your group argues that “lesbian rights are under attack by the trans movement” and you “encourage lesbians everywhere to leave the LGBT and form their own independent movement, as well as to be vocal and take action against the proposed changes to the GRA.” How do you see lesbian rights as being under attack by the trans movement and why do you oppose proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act (GRA) in the UK?

AW: We witness Lesbian erasure in our lives and in the lives of Lesbians around us every day. It is very telling that a lot of gay men — including the PinkNews reporter who filmed the protest — are not familiar with the term “Lesbian erasure.” It reveals how unconcerned they are about the issues we face as Lesbians.

Lesbian erasure takes many forms: it can mean lack of representation or negative representation in the media, and it can also mean the denial of historical Lesbian figures in history (the first wave and suffragette movement is full of Lesbians, yet few know this). Today, it means that Lesbians are routinely pressured — via Lesbian dating sites and forums, women’s festivals, Lesbian gatherings — to include men who call themselves “lesbians” in our communities and as sexual partners. It means actual Lesbians are being shamed for not wanting to have relationships with men who call themselves “Lesbians” (this is what trans activists have labelled the “cotton ceiling,” referring to the fact that lesbians reject trans-identified males as intimate/sexual partners).

Today, in the LGBT community, Lesbians cannot openly say that they are not attracted to penises or would not date a “pre-op transwoman,” because this is now considered “transphobic.” Look at what happened to Arielle Scarcella, the Lesbian YouTuber who has been targeted for saying she would not date a “pre-op transwoman.” In the name of “inclusivity” and “progress,” we have reached a stage wherein same sex attraction is called “hate speech” — this is what Pride and London Mayor Sadiq Kahn’s comments condemning our action communicate very loudly to Lesbians. Reframing females who are attracted to other females as somehow “bigoted” or “hateful” functions as a vicious form of misogyny, because it denies women’s right to have sexual boundaries. It is clear anti-lesbian propaganda enforcing compulsory heterosexuality, under the guise of political correctness.

We also know that “gender non-conforming” girls (what we used to call “tomboys”) are transitioned at an alarming rate in the UK (Transgender Trend and Lesbian Rights Alliance have done crucial work on this issue). As Lesbians who do not perform femininity, and as feminists who campaign against sex stereotypes, we cannot support the social or medical transitioning of women and girls who reject sexist stereotypes. Refusing to look like or behave in a “feminine way” does not make one a boy.

In the UK, the government has begun a consultation process regarding proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act (GRA). Trans activists are campaigning to make it easier for people to “choose their gender,” meaning that a man could simply “self-identify” as a woman in order to legally be considered female, without any process or procedure. It would make legal what is actually already happening in practice today, which is that men calling themselves women are being given access to women-only spaces, all-women shortlists, female prisons (as offenders), women’s toilets, rape crisis centres, transition houses, change rooms, pools, etc…

Fighting these changes is essential, but we also need stronger sex-based protections. We need to maintain the unequivocal rights of women to have our segregated spaces on the basis of our sex, not “gender identity.”

These discussions need to be part of the consultation process, which is why women need to be vocal now. We also need to highlight the fact that Lesbians need to be heard on this issue. Under the UK Equality Act 2010, there is an evident clash of rights between Lesbians (females who are sexually attracted to other females) and so-called “transwomen” (including men who identify as “lesbians”). In this case, the category “sexual orientation” is in direct conflict with the category “gender identity.” Same-sex attraction is a protected category under the law, but if any male person can identify as a woman and as a lesbian, this nullifies the rights of Lesbians to exclude males from our sexual life. Lesbians are attracted to other women on the basis of their sex, not their “gender identity,” yet men claiming to be Lesbians insist we accept them as sexual partners on the basis of their “gender identity.” It is this new definition of “Lesbian” that we reject. Why should the rights of men who identify as “women” supersede the rights of Lesbians?

MM: Your inaugural protest took place at London Pride on July 7th. Can you tell me about that? What did you do and why?

AW: First, I want to say that the group of women who have worked together to make this happen have been active for many years around this issue. I got involved in 2012, but some of us were aware and active way before that. In the past, we conducted a series of actions, including protesting the 2014 London Dyke March, because the main speakers for a number of years were men (who call themselves “transwomen”). The media took little notice of our protest then, because, in my opinion, no one in the mainstream cares about dykes.

Taking the protest to Pride (which includes both men and women, so naturally is a male-centred event and receives huge media attention) seemed like the obvious thing to do. A number of Lesbians worldwide (New Zealand, Baltimore, San Francisco, and more…) have demonstrated against the increasingly misogynistic GBT movement this year alone. We felt it was important to show that British-based Lesbians were fighting back as well, because this is a global problem. Other women who demonstrated as part of their local marches, carrying signs challenging trans activism and advocating for Lesbians, have been harassed and sometimes beaten.

We decided to not march in the Pride March, because we do not feel part of Pride as its message exclude us. Instead, we decided to confront the parade by standing in front with banners explaining our message and with flyers to distribute to the crowd. The idea was to disrupt and delay the march for long enough for us to be seen. We had a GoPro camera to film our own protest. We have very little access to the media to explain our message, so guerrilla tactics such as this are the only way we found to reach a wider audience. We hadn’t made definite plans in terms of the action, so improvised as we went along.

It is incredible to realize what a huge corporate machine Pride has become, with sponsors and officials all queuing up to show how progressive they are — it is a massive business opportunity for them, so of course Pride has become an incredibly apolitical event. It is also very guarded and regimented, so there is no way we could have obtained a pass to march in the parade given that our pro-women politics are perceived as hate speech. So, a few minutes before the beginning of the march, we just jumped in.

MM: What was the reaction to your protest from others at the march and from the media?

AW: It was very interesting to witness people’s reactions. Many understood the situation and what we were advocating for, and were supportive of what we were doing. This is also true for a number of gay men, who I think begin to realize how inherently homophobic the trans movement really is.

The general media reaction was (unsurprisingly) to condemn the action as anti-trans, because, naturally, stating that Lesbians do not either want or have penises is seen as an attack on men. All these men are completely obsessed with their penises don’t you think?

The main feedback we received after the demonstration came in the form of a huge amount of supportive emails, sent privately by women who say they agree with us but cannot say so publicly. This is very telling and shows that a majority of Lesbians and women, in general, are threatened into compliance by the trans movement or kept silenced by fear. This is the state women and Lesbians are in today. I don’t see any reason to see Pride as a celebration of the progress we supposedly have made.

MM: PinkNews reports that Pride in London issued a statement “rescinding their earlier positions and issuing an apology to trans attendees, [and] condemning GetTheLOut’s actions.” The statement reads:

“We are sorry.

Yesterday a group of individuals labelled as “Get The L Out!”, who were not a registered parade group, forced their way to the front of the parade to stand on the rainbow flag. Their behaviour was shocking and disgusting, and we condemn it completely.

The lesbian board members at Pride in London made their anger towards the unsanctioned group clear and our organisation as a whole condemns their actions. The protest group showed a level of bigotry, ignorance and hate that is unacceptable.

We reject what this group stands for. They do not share our values, which are about inclusion and respect and support for the most marginalised parts of our community.

We are proud of our trans volunteers, proud of the trans groups that are in our parade, proud of our trans speakers at events and proud of the trans people who take part in our campaigns and proud of those who cheered even louder for them yesterday…

… A comment from Patricia Curtis, Board Member: TransPALS

‘It’s disappointing that anti-trans activists decided to hijack the front of a parade, an insult to all the hardworking staff in the NHS whose place they stole.

But their vile stunt failed. London is a place that doesn’t tolerate hate. The reaction of the crowds to our groups was inspiring. We felt their support and goodwill all the way from Portland Place to Trafalgar Square.’

What do you think about this statement? Can you respond?

AW: It all comes down to this: does society at large and the GBT community accept that women and Lesbians have a fundamental right to sexual boundaries?

It would seem that they don’t.

Today, in 2018, Lesbians who refuse so-called “transwomen” as sexual partners receive death threats and rape threats. The Pride committee called women who state that the penis is a male organ which has nothing to do with Lesbians “bigoted,” “ignorant,” and hateful.” Pride, as part of the GBT community, needs to be held accountable for their complicity with this modern form of rape culture which targets lesbians, specifically.

We protested in order to protect our rights and on behalf of all the Lesbians being intimidated, threatened, and silenced. This is what the LGBT “community” is supposed to do. Today, Lesbians are not only not supported by the movement, but actually targeted by it. This is unacceptable and we will not accept it.

MM: It is often claimed that “the Pride movement was begun by trans people.” For example, it is repeated online ad nauseam that “a transwoman threw the first brick” at Stonewall. Is this true?

AW: Here is another obvious example of Lesbian erasure and, in that particular case, black Lesbian erasure. It was a black Lesbian named Stormé DeLarverie who started up the riots. Claire Heuchan recently published a brilliant write up about it: when the police attacked, DeLarverie hit back, then was arrested. Heuchan explains that when Stormé complained about being cuffed too tightly, an officer hit her with a billy club, so she turned to the crowd and yelled, “Why don’t you guys do something?” This launched the Stonewall riots. Historically speaking, transgenderism was not an ideology at the time. Marsha and Sylvia, who are usually credited with starting the riot, were not “transwomen” — they were gay men and drag queens. This really needs to be seen as a patriarchal rewriting of history and erasure of black Lesbians’ significant role in the gay rights movement. The trans movement has not only been claiming gay men and drag queens as “transgender,” but also transing Lesbians in the past, claiming they were really “transmen” (because they were gender non-conforming). The case of Claude Cahun or Radcliff Hall are some of the most obvious example of that trend.

MM: Lesbian feminists have taken up the slogan, “Lesbian not queer.” Why? What does this mean?

AW: “Lesbian” and “queer” have significantly different political connotations. First of all, obviously “Lesbian” refers exclusively to females. Only a woman can be a Lesbian — this is why we do not call ourselves “gay women.” “Gay” and “queer” are used by everyone. Even straight couples call themselves “queer” these days! “Queer” does not mean anything at all, and it certainly does not mean “female who is sexually attracted to other females.”

Queer politics, born from postmodern theory, is in essence anti-feminist. Queer theory claims there is no such thing as the category “woman,” which opened up a path for the trans movement as we know it today. If the category “woman” is seen as politically irrelevant, where does that leave the feminist movement? What are feminists fighting for?

I really like Bit Blair and Ashley Obinwanne’s article about it at After Ellen. They explain that “queer” is a friendly, inclusive, neutral term, whereas “Lesbian” unequivocally means, “I only date women” — “exclusively female only.” That is a political statement in itself. It has a hostile connotation because men hate being excluded from anything (see Marilyn Frye’s notes on separatism and power). A woman calling herself a Lesbian is a political act in and of itself because that means that, by definition, she excludes men, which is forbidden in patriarchy. A Lesbian is a woman who has already said “no” to men’s sexual advances — trans activists who claim to be lesbians are pushing women sexual boundaries. This is rape culture.

MM: What is your advice to lesbians elsewhere — in the US and Canada, for example, where trans activism has similarly taken over and where women who support women-only spaces and who question or criticize violence advocated by trans activists and notions of innate “gender” are branded “bigots” and “TERFs” — in terms of pushing back and defending the rights of women and lesbians?

AW: Apart from raising awareness, this action was taken for women everywhere, to show support for them, to speak on behalf of women who are silenced, and to tell them it can be done. More women have spoken up about the issue of gender identity and trans activism this year than in the last five years. We can win this. I want to see more direct action — this makes us visible and strong, and if we can do it in London, other women can do similar things too where they live and shake things up.

So my advice is this: find like-minded women. That’s the first step. I know it’s tough, but we are everywhere. If you are in a queer environment, leave — this shit is poisonous and it is brainwashing Lesbians. Go online find the radfem community. You will need friends because this is what will keep you sane in this mental environment which forces us to deny the reality we know.

Obviously, disobey. If you support women-only spaces, create those women only-spaces which we are not allowed to have today — even small ones. Have consciousness-raising groups and meet real women in real life — this is the basis of everything. There are a number of spaces that still exist — womyn-only gatherings have happened in France in the last two years, replicated in different parts of Europe this year. Women’s land, I am sure, exists everywhere. Find ones that are near you, go to them, and support them if you can. If you and your group are in a position to create one, do it. This is where the resistance is born in terms of building sisterhood, theory, and activism. It gives us strength and makes us feel as though we are part of a movement– this is why they are forbidden to us.

Trans ideology and trans activism is no different than any male rights movement — it employs the same tactics men use against women to keep us in place: gaslighting, threats of violence, actual violence, shaming, ostracization, economic abuse, name calling, etc. They use these tactics to keep us scared. This is how they maintain power over us. At some point we will collectively need to realize that we need to get past our fear of men, disobey, and take action. »

*Lesbian is capitalized for the purposes of this article as per Mary Daly’s usage, in reference to the writer’s “women-identification” and her rejection of “false loyalty towards men and male myths.” (Daly, 1987.)

Lesbian Visibility at Lancaster Pride 2019

A group of lesbians from the ReSisters United did an action for lesbian visibility at Lancaster Pride (22/06/2019).

They carried a suffragettes-coloured flag with the slogan « Lesbians don’t have dicks », and banners saying « Cotton ceiling = rape » and « Lesbians don’t have penises – Lesbians are female homosexuals ».

A few gay men and male transactivists gathered a group of about 30 young adults and teenagers to hide the lesbians and their banners, while inciting the group to chant: « transwomen matter ».

One lesbian who took part in the action writes:

“I was later told by an onlooker that this crowd, of mostly teenagers/students, had been encouraged by the male organiser of the event, adult transwomen, who kept their distance, and a drag queen, who themselves did not join in, other than to walk by, pose for a picture. This drag queen, who we understand to be named Ivy Rose, was seen sticking two fingers up at us and then started a chant “Transwomen Matter!” – though nothing about transmen… Isn’t it concerning that they were whispering into the ears of the young people to run across the road, or to chant certain slogans, whilst they, for the most part, stood back? Like sending in the foot soldiers…

Robert Mee, CEO of Lancaster Pride and organiser of the event stood amongst all the young people and said “fuck off you fucking dogs, you’re ruining it”, the swearing was hostile. Some of our group were spat on by the counter protesters and we were all sworn at multiple times.”

Other feminist coverage:

Are Lesbians Welcome at Pride? The answer at Lancaster Pride is no

Lesbian Visibility at Edinburgh Pride 2019

A dozens of lesbians and allies showed some lesbian visibility at Edinburgh Pride (22/06/2019).

They held banners and placards saying: ‘Lesbian Visibility’, ‘Lesbian, Not Queer’, ‘Transactivism Erases Lesbians’.

In her account of the action, Jackie Mearns writes:

« There was an act of physical aggression when an angry young person grabbed a placard I was holding and tried to rip it up, shouting “TERF” in my face, but this was quickly handled by stewards and police liaison and I’ve honestly faced down worse violence from violent men than a ripped placard.

[…]

But what did chill me and did stir some actual fear for how I and the others might fare on Pride was the speeches given by MSPs from the top of the open top bus. In particular the words of Patrick Harvie, Green MSP, where he felt the need to apologise for the democratic workings of Parliament, and the decision taken this week to put the brakes on GRA reform until the full due consideration and further deliberation by a broad range of groups affected by these reforms and, importantly, the conflation of sex and gender that has infested our policy making.

[…]

I felt Patrick Harvie’s speech inflamed an already dangerous situation for Lesbians on Pride. It did make me fearful, since immediately after, some people started shouting about getting the ‘TERFs’ out – it was obvious they meant us. We had already been blocked in by some very tall people wearing ‘Trans’ and ‘Non-Binary’ flags draped over their shoulders – quite literally and intentionally making us and our ‘Lesbian Visibility’ banners invisible.

[…]

I was dismayed to find out later that my sisters who joined the march were harassed by marchers behind them, had bells rung and whistles painfully blown in their ears and even had a missile thrown at them in the shape of a juice bottle, that fortunately missed them but unfortunately hit a tourist photographing the parade.

[…]

The rally where Lesbians were intentionally blocked-in and made invisible. »

More personal accounts here.

Lesbian Visibility at York Pride 2019

A group of lesbians went to York Pride (08/06/2019) with lesbian visibility signs and banners: “Lesbians don’t have penises”, “Lesbian Pride – Stormé Stonewall `69”.

Lesbian Visibility at Bradford Pride 2019

A group of lesbians went to Bradford Pride (01/06/2019) to show some lesbian visibility.

They carried signs such as « Lesbians don’t have penises », Lesbian = female homosexual », and « Lesbian Pride – Stormé Stonewall `69 ».

In a statement, one of the participants says:

« We had decided to meet in a coffee shop before going into the square. Whilst sat drinking coffee we were approached by two police officers from West Yorkshire Police. They explained that someone had come to them and said that they’d seen some placards and so they wanted to make sure that there was nothing derogatory and that we were not a hate group »

During the parade, they stood with placards on the side of the parade. Young lesbians approached them for a picture and a group of gay men and a few male transactivists later came and talked loudly at the peaceful lesbians while hiding lesbian visibility signs with their bodies and trans flags.

Media coverage:

Lesbian protesters at Bradford Pride claim police asked if they were a ‘hate group’

They handed out flyers:

Get The L Out Lesbian Visibility at London Pride 2018

A group of lesbians and allies (8 in the parade and 2 on the side) marched uninvited in front of Pride in London (07/07/2018).

We carried banners saying: « Lesbian not queer », « Transactivism erases lesbians », « Lesbian = female homosexual ». At the start of the parade, we jumped in from the side and when we were incited to walk faster, some of us decided to lie down on the floor for several minutes. We then finished our action by opening the march until the end of the route.

We chanted slogans such as: « Get the L out of Pride », « Lesbian not queer », « Dykes not dicks », « LGBT doesn’t speak for me ».

credit to Pam Isherwood for the pictures

Three lesbian radical feminists (Liane, Sarah and Angela) organised the action, and were joined by some individual lesbians and feminists. The action also got support from feminist groups (Object!, Mayday4Women, Critical Sisters, Lesbian Rights Alliance). After the action, #GetTheLOut became Get The L Out, an autonomous activist group.

We also handed out flyers:

All participants were doxxed (names and some workplaces were published on malicious transactivist Twitter accounts), and one of us (Janice Williams) was the target of a witch hunt at her worplace, Humanists UK.

Some media coverage:

What Really Happened With Lesbian Protestors At Pride London Yesterday?

Why were lesbians protesting at Pride? Because the LGBT coalition leaves women behind

Interview: Angela C. Wild of #GetTheLOut on Pride in London and Lesbian erasure

Why “Get The L Out” ?

Who We Are

Get the L Out is an autonomous lesbian feminist group opposing the increasingly anti-lesbian and misogynistic LGBT movement and the erasure of lesbians.

Why We Organise

We believe that lesbian rights are under attack by the trans movement and we encourage lesbians everywhere to leave the LGBT and form their own independent movement, as well as to be vocal and take action against the proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act.

Get the L Out believes trans politics (with uncritical support from the LGBT movement) does the following:

Promotes the social transition of lesbians, encouraging them to present as straight men thus favouring the pretence of heterosexuality over lesbianism – this is nothing more than a form of conversion therapy.
Promotes the medical transition of lesbians and pushes harmful drugs (untested hormone blockers, Lupron etc.) as well as unnecessary medical practices on perfectly healthy bodies – these are a form of misogynist medical abuse against lesbians.
Promotes the rights of heterosexual males who “identify” as women and lesbians (despite most of them still retaining their male genitals) over the rights of lesbians to choose their sexual partners. This new ‘queer’ LGBT politics thus coerces lesbians to accept the penis as a female organ and promotes heterosexual intercourse between male and female as a form of lesbian sex. This is simply a new facet to rape culture and compulsory heterosexuality.

What We Believe

“The trans movement with the complicity of ‘queer’ LGBT politics is coercing lesbians to have sex with men. We firmly condemn this vicious form of anti-lesbianism disguised as progress”.

“We stand for the rights of lesbians to choose their sexual partners on the basis of their sex not their “gender identity” and condemn any pressure on lesbians to accept so called “trans women” as potential sex partners and the penis as a female organ as coercive and a manifestation of rape culture”

“we oppose the transition of young lesbians on the basis that their appearances or behaviour does not conform to socially accepted images of women. Having short hair and disliking pink is not a sign of having a male brain and does not mean one requires transition. The trans movement is a conservative movement which reinforces sexist sex stereotypes.”

“We oppose proposed changes to the GRA and view self-identification as a threat to women’s and girls rights.

“We demand stronger sex-based protections for women and girls and that women maintain the right to sex-segregated spaces at the exclusion of male regardless of their “identity”.”

More info contact :

GetTheLOutUK@gmail.com

gettheloutuk@gmail.com

Tag: transactivism