As countries around the world work overtime to curtail trans rights and eradicate trans people, it's important not to fall for the rhetoric and framing that they use to justify these atrocities....
As countries around the world work overtime to curtail trans rights and eradicate trans people, it's important not to fall for the rhetoric and framing that they use to justify these atrocities. Here, Amy Ashenden explores one such piece of rhetoric: the idea that lesbians are threatened by trans people, particularly trans women, and so there is a lot of support on the lesbian community for TERF ideology. And there's a lot of 'evidence' for this belief: take trans hate groups like the LGB alliance. Headlines like this one. JK Rowling tweets saying,
Lesbian Visibility Week starts today in the UK. A good moment to salute the resilience and courage of my inspirational friend. #IStandWithAllisonBailey.
(Bailey is a lesbian who founded the LGB alliance and sued pro-trans charity Stonewall for discrimination). A lot of opposition to trans people is framed as originating with lesbians. But the research just doesn't bear that out. A UK survey saw that 92% of young lesbians support trans people, more than any other demographic. Another found that support for trans people is higher among lesbians than it is among trans people. And of course, women are more likely by a fairly wide margin to support trans people than men. So why is the anti-trans movement being led by women like JK Rowling and Posie Parker, and lesbians like Allison Bailey -- and not equally rabid anti-trans men like Matt Walsh and Graham Lineham? Those men are more representative of the demographic makeup of anti-trans ideologies, after all.
I would argue that it's for almost precisely the same reason that we see organizations like "African-Americans for Trump," or "Women for Trump" displayed in press and at rallies: not because those demographics are likely to support the racist, misogynistic candidate, but because putting a marginalized face on trump might help him beat the, say, racism allegations. It makes him look good, in other words, to have black supporters. Likewise with anti-trans movements (which have the advantage of not having a single, orange public face, and can thus craft their image more carefully). Framing anti-trans views, particularly anti-transfemme views (which are, for various reasons, the ones that get promoted) as coming from men might make them look bad. Men engaging in legislative discrimination to control the definition of womanhood and "protect" women? That smacks of antifeminism and patriarchy. But using the rarer anti-trans women and lesbians as mouthpieces lends the criticisms an air of credence: "I'm a woman -- a queer woman -- and I think that these trans rights activists are dangerous predators." Then, perhaps, Posie Parker can call for men with guns to hunt trans women in bathrooms, because now the call for violent misogyny is coming from a woman, so that makes it okay.
Somehow, people keep falling for this disingenuous framing: that the groundswell of anti-trans rhetoric and legislation is coming from queer women; that kids are being forced to undergo dangerous, irreversible surgeries; that women's sport competitions are being broken by men claiming to be women just so they can grab an easy medal. Not because any of these ideas contain more than a grain of truth, only because framing a push for trans genocide as stemming from and limited to these relatively agreeable conditions makes it easier to introduce anti-trans legislation, block us from receiving healthcare, openly call for violence against us, and make our lives unlivable.
Yeah, its garbage to divide us. The same as blaming immigrants for low pay. If you keep the masses infighting, they won't band together and demand change. I'm married to a trans woman, and we're...
Yeah, its garbage to divide us. The same as blaming immigrants for low pay. If you keep the masses infighting, they won't band together and demand change.
I'm married to a trans woman, and we're very good friends with several lesbians. When my wife came out, we got nothing but support & love from them, which is exactly how we feel about all our LGBTQ+ siblings out there, and everyone else facing bigotry and hate. We all know what its like to be ostracized & hurt. Trans rights are human rights, because every ounce of compassion between us is a net gain for the world.
Thank you for sharing your perspective, both in this thread and elsewhere on Tildes! I'm trans but closeted, though my partner (a cis woman) knows my feelings and sees me as a woman in private....
Thank you for sharing your perspective, both in this thread and elsewhere on Tildes! I'm trans but closeted, though my partner (a cis woman) knows my feelings and sees me as a woman in private.
It's been cozy to read your posts describing your partnership, as you two are a few steps ahead of where we are right now. Your comments give me hope. :)
Aww :') That's so sweet! I wish you guys the best! It was pretty scary when she initially came out, but once you figure out its the world with the problem, not you or your partner, it feels okay...
Aww :')
That's so sweet! I wish you guys the best! It was pretty scary when she initially came out, but once you figure out its the world with the problem, not you or your partner, it feels okay again.
She's just my favorite person. She makes me bold about important things, and I love it.
I know it's not always safe or possible to come out for everyone when they want, but I hope you get to be yourself as much and as intensely as you can be <3
Yeah I'm a lesbian, have met hundreds of others and I've yet to run into another lesbian who's anti-trans. I abhor the anti-trans LGB movement and others like it. These people do not speak for me,...
Yeah I'm a lesbian, have met hundreds of others and I've yet to run into another lesbian who's anti-trans.
I abhor the anti-trans LGB movement and others like it. These people do not speak for me, and the data shows they don't speak for the vast majority of us.
Quite frankly, they're shooting themselves in the foot. If the unthinkable ever happens, they'll be sent to the ovens too, just maybe a tiny bit later than the rest of us.
I'm not a lesbian, but my mom was, and the political group that she was part of that advocates for gay rights had a number of voices that are distinctly anti-trans, to her eternal displeasure....
I'm not a lesbian, but my mom was, and the political group that she was part of that advocates for gay rights had a number of voices that are distinctly anti-trans, to her eternal displeasure. They're the minority, which means that the public-facing statements don't include that kind of rhetoric, but she would often complain to me about the amount of space that they would try to take up in any discussion as they tried to exclude trans-women from their space. This was explicitly a group for older people, so it's possible that younger lesbians have a different outlook, but there's definitely a subset of lesbians who want to fight for "womens' spaces for women" who have very regressive ideas about who counts as a woman. It's not broadly true, but there's a contingent that thinks that way and that keeps the stereotype alive.
That isn't lesbo-phobic. It's just the truth of who some people are.
I don't think OP is denying anti-trans lesbians exist. The argument here is that the vast majority of lesbians are pro-trans, and that using lesbians as the "poster-children" of the anti -trans...
I don't think OP is denying anti-trans lesbians exist. The argument here is that the vast majority of lesbians are pro-trans, and that using lesbians as the "poster-children" of the anti -trans movement makes it seem like the opposite is true. The existence of this vocal minority is being exploited by other groups to make the anti-trans movement seem more palatable to others, and it works in their favour.
The article doesn't link to the study, so I can't really say anything about how they did the testing, but the author's anecdotes were pretty much just "I don't know any TERFs, and my beliefs...
The article doesn't link to the study, so I can't really say anything about how they did the testing, but the author's anecdotes were pretty much just "I don't know any TERFs, and my beliefs accept trans people, so do TERFs actually exist? NO!" This really disregards the beliefs that TERFs profess regarding womanhood, safe spaces for women, etc. (Please note, I am not at all defending or espousing their beliefs.)
I'm just trying to provide a counter-anecdote that talks about their existence as more than an anti-lesbian talking point.
Here's the study that the author was talking about. You will notice some limitations, the chief one being that this is a survey of 18-25 year olds, which is why I also linked a YouGov survey with...
Here's the study that the author was talking about. You will notice some limitations, the chief one being that this is a survey of 18-25 year olds, which is why I also linked a YouGov survey with similar findings (showing lesbians with 84% pos, 8% neutral, 8% neg view on trans people, as opposed to the author's 92% pos) and a broader scope in my submission statement. So, exactly what you'd expect: support for trans people is high among lesbians relative to the general population, and higher among younger lesbians.
Your interpretation of the conclusion of the article strikes me as flawed. It's obvious that some transphobic lesbians do exist; neither I nor the author make any attempt to deny that. The argument, I think, is rather that the voices and presences of the relatively rare transphobic lesbians are being amplified as part of a calculated attempt to harm trans people, which gives the public an outsized impression of the prevalence of anti-trans sentiment among lesbians.
Is this impression lesbophobic? I guess the argument would be that transphobia is a character flaw, so (incorrectly) assigning it to lesbians as a group would be negative stereotyping. I do think Ashenden could have stood to make that point in a little more detail. But the reason she, and many commenters in this thread, have instead leaned on anecdotes about trans-supportive lesbians is clear! Data points alone mean nothing and persuade no one. Contextualizing them with anecdotes about trans-supportive lesbians, though, tells a story, and stories stick with people. In a world where transphobes are winning largely by constructing a narrative out of lies, edge cases and anecdotes, it's important that our own stories, founded in data, are as compelling as possible.
I didn't interpret the article saying lesbian TERFs or anti-trans lesbians don't exist, but rather dispelling the notion that lesbians are more likely to be anti-trans than other demographics....
I didn't interpret the article saying lesbian TERFs or anti-trans lesbians don't exist, but rather dispelling the notion that lesbians are more likely to be anti-trans than other demographics. This line in particular gave that away for me:
"But there are other reasons that the idea that lesbians are more likely to be anti-trans doesn’t add up."
Relevant stats - Most (55%) cisgender LGB Britons view transgender people "very positively", with an additional 20% viewing them "fairly positively", 16% "neither positively nor negatively", 5% "fairly negatively", and just 3% "very negatively
I'd say it is lesbophobic in a way because the LGB alliance and anti-trans lesbian activists purport to speak for the whole community, arguing that they're doing this to protect us when most of us know it's b******t. They paint themselves as the majority opinion rather than what they really are - a very small but very vocal minority who get money and attention because their messaging conveniently aligns with that of far right groups. As a lesbian, I don't want to be associated with these people and am frankly pissed they're using us to help their fetid views to take hold.
It is certainly nonsense, but I don't get why people call it lesbophobic. It doesn't seem to build upon any lesbophobic trope. The sole purpose is to attack trans women.
It is certainly nonsense, but I don't get why people call it lesbophobic. It doesn't seem to build upon any lesbophobic trope. The sole purpose is to attack trans women.
I agree, it is overwhelmingly more transphobic than it is anything else. That being said, lesbians' voices are being silenced in favor of a select few poster children order to serve that...
I agree, it is overwhelmingly more transphobic than it is anything else. That being said, lesbians' voices are being silenced in favor of a select few poster children order to serve that transphobia, which is hostile to lesbians, even if they are not the intended targets of hostility (similar to how elevating someone like Dave Chapelle or Kanye West to "represent" Black people, while simultaneously downplaying Black people who disagree with them, is hostile to Black people — even if it's only a side effect of some political agenda, not the goal).
This article feels a bit iffy to me, like the point is to shut down the conversation rather than to disprove a stereotype. Of course being a transphobic lesbian doesn't add up, neither does being...
This article feels a bit iffy to me, like the point is to shut down the conversation rather than to disprove a stereotype.
Of course being a transphobic lesbian doesn't add up, neither does being a homophobic/lesbophobic trans person, nor any combination of queer identity and biphobia, aphobia, enbyphobia, panphobia, etc.
Bigotry never adds up, but not adding up doesn't stop it from existing.
Sprinkling in a word like denounce somewhere in there would've gone a long way.
As countries around the world work overtime to curtail trans rights and eradicate trans people, it's important not to fall for the rhetoric and framing that they use to justify these atrocities. Here, Amy Ashenden explores one such piece of rhetoric: the idea that lesbians are threatened by trans people, particularly trans women, and so there is a lot of support on the lesbian community for TERF ideology. And there's a lot of 'evidence' for this belief: take trans hate groups like the LGB alliance. Headlines like this one. JK Rowling tweets saying,
(Bailey is a lesbian who founded the LGB alliance and sued pro-trans charity Stonewall for discrimination). A lot of opposition to trans people is framed as originating with lesbians. But the research just doesn't bear that out. A UK survey saw that 92% of young lesbians support trans people, more than any other demographic. Another found that support for trans people is higher among lesbians than it is among trans people. And of course, women are more likely by a fairly wide margin to support trans people than men. So why is the anti-trans movement being led by women like JK Rowling and Posie Parker, and lesbians like Allison Bailey -- and not equally rabid anti-trans men like Matt Walsh and Graham Lineham? Those men are more representative of the demographic makeup of anti-trans ideologies, after all.
I would argue that it's for almost precisely the same reason that we see organizations like "African-Americans for Trump," or "Women for Trump" displayed in press and at rallies: not because those demographics are likely to support the racist, misogynistic candidate, but because putting a marginalized face on trump might help him beat the, say, racism allegations. It makes him look good, in other words, to have black supporters. Likewise with anti-trans movements (which have the advantage of not having a single, orange public face, and can thus craft their image more carefully). Framing anti-trans views, particularly anti-transfemme views (which are, for various reasons, the ones that get promoted) as coming from men might make them look bad. Men engaging in legislative discrimination to control the definition of womanhood and "protect" women? That smacks of antifeminism and patriarchy. But using the rarer anti-trans women and lesbians as mouthpieces lends the criticisms an air of credence: "I'm a woman -- a queer woman -- and I think that these trans rights activists are dangerous predators." Then, perhaps, Posie Parker can call for men with guns to hunt trans women in bathrooms, because now the call for violent misogyny is coming from a woman, so that makes it okay.
Somehow, people keep falling for this disingenuous framing: that the groundswell of anti-trans rhetoric and legislation is coming from queer women; that kids are being forced to undergo dangerous, irreversible surgeries; that women's sport competitions are being broken by men claiming to be women just so they can grab an easy medal. Not because any of these ideas contain more than a grain of truth, only because framing a push for trans genocide as stemming from and limited to these relatively agreeable conditions makes it easier to introduce anti-trans legislation, block us from receiving healthcare, openly call for violence against us, and make our lives unlivable.
Yeah, its garbage to divide us. The same as blaming immigrants for low pay. If you keep the masses infighting, they won't band together and demand change.
I'm married to a trans woman, and we're very good friends with several lesbians. When my wife came out, we got nothing but support & love from them, which is exactly how we feel about all our LGBTQ+ siblings out there, and everyone else facing bigotry and hate. We all know what its like to be ostracized & hurt. Trans rights are human rights, because every ounce of compassion between us is a net gain for the world.
Solidarity.
Thank you for sharing your perspective, both in this thread and elsewhere on Tildes! I'm trans but closeted, though my partner (a cis woman) knows my feelings and sees me as a woman in private.
It's been cozy to read your posts describing your partnership, as you two are a few steps ahead of where we are right now. Your comments give me hope. :)
Solidarity indeed!
Aww :')
That's so sweet! I wish you guys the best! It was pretty scary when she initially came out, but once you figure out its the world with the problem, not you or your partner, it feels okay again.
She's just my favorite person. She makes me bold about important things, and I love it.
I know it's not always safe or possible to come out for everyone when they want, but I hope you get to be yourself as much and as intensely as you can be <3
Yeah I'm a lesbian, have met hundreds of others and I've yet to run into another lesbian who's anti-trans.
I abhor the anti-trans LGB movement and others like it. These people do not speak for me, and the data shows they don't speak for the vast majority of us.
Quite frankly, they're shooting themselves in the foot. If the unthinkable ever happens, they'll be sent to the ovens too, just maybe a tiny bit later than the rest of us.
Exactly. Being 'one of the good ones' never saves them for long.
I'm not a lesbian, but my mom was, and the political group that she was part of that advocates for gay rights had a number of voices that are distinctly anti-trans, to her eternal displeasure. They're the minority, which means that the public-facing statements don't include that kind of rhetoric, but she would often complain to me about the amount of space that they would try to take up in any discussion as they tried to exclude trans-women from their space. This was explicitly a group for older people, so it's possible that younger lesbians have a different outlook, but there's definitely a subset of lesbians who want to fight for "womens' spaces for women" who have very regressive ideas about who counts as a woman. It's not broadly true, but there's a contingent that thinks that way and that keeps the stereotype alive.
That isn't lesbo-phobic. It's just the truth of who some people are.
I don't think OP is denying anti-trans lesbians exist. The argument here is that the vast majority of lesbians are pro-trans, and that using lesbians as the "poster-children" of the anti -trans movement makes it seem like the opposite is true. The existence of this vocal minority is being exploited by other groups to make the anti-trans movement seem more palatable to others, and it works in their favour.
The article doesn't link to the study, so I can't really say anything about how they did the testing, but the author's anecdotes were pretty much just "I don't know any TERFs, and my beliefs accept trans people, so do TERFs actually exist? NO!" This really disregards the beliefs that TERFs profess regarding womanhood, safe spaces for women, etc. (Please note, I am not at all defending or espousing their beliefs.)
I'm just trying to provide a counter-anecdote that talks about their existence as more than an anti-lesbian talking point.
Here's the study that the author was talking about. You will notice some limitations, the chief one being that this is a survey of 18-25 year olds, which is why I also linked a YouGov survey with similar findings (showing lesbians with 84% pos, 8% neutral, 8% neg view on trans people, as opposed to the author's 92% pos) and a broader scope in my submission statement. So, exactly what you'd expect: support for trans people is high among lesbians relative to the general population, and higher among younger lesbians.
Your interpretation of the conclusion of the article strikes me as flawed. It's obvious that some transphobic lesbians do exist; neither I nor the author make any attempt to deny that. The argument, I think, is rather that the voices and presences of the relatively rare transphobic lesbians are being amplified as part of a calculated attempt to harm trans people, which gives the public an outsized impression of the prevalence of anti-trans sentiment among lesbians.
Is this impression lesbophobic? I guess the argument would be that transphobia is a character flaw, so (incorrectly) assigning it to lesbians as a group would be negative stereotyping. I do think Ashenden could have stood to make that point in a little more detail. But the reason she, and many commenters in this thread, have instead leaned on anecdotes about trans-supportive lesbians is clear! Data points alone mean nothing and persuade no one. Contextualizing them with anecdotes about trans-supportive lesbians, though, tells a story, and stories stick with people. In a world where transphobes are winning largely by constructing a narrative out of lies, edge cases and anecdotes, it's important that our own stories, founded in data, are as compelling as possible.
I didn't interpret the article saying lesbian TERFs or anti-trans lesbians don't exist, but rather dispelling the notion that lesbians are more likely to be anti-trans than other demographics. This line in particular gave that away for me:
"But there are other reasons that the idea that lesbians are more likely to be anti-trans doesn’t add up."
There are other stats to support the argument that the LGB community largely supports trans individuals. Here's some I've posted before on Tildes:
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/society/articles-reports/2023/08/11/what-do-lesbian-gay-bisexual-and-transgender-brito
Relevant stats - Most (55%) cisgender LGB Britons view transgender people "very positively", with an additional 20% viewing them "fairly positively", 16% "neither positively nor negatively", 5% "fairly negatively", and just 3% "very negatively
I'd say it is lesbophobic in a way because the LGB alliance and anti-trans lesbian activists purport to speak for the whole community, arguing that they're doing this to protect us when most of us know it's b******t. They paint themselves as the majority opinion rather than what they really are - a very small but very vocal minority who get money and attention because their messaging conveniently aligns with that of far right groups. As a lesbian, I don't want to be associated with these people and am frankly pissed they're using us to help their fetid views to take hold.
Fair enough. I certainly agree that they hold a disproportionate amount of visibility when it comes to lesbian voices speaking on trans issues.
It is certainly nonsense, but I don't get why people call it lesbophobic. It doesn't seem to build upon any lesbophobic trope. The sole purpose is to attack trans women.
I agree, it is overwhelmingly more transphobic than it is anything else. That being said, lesbians' voices are being silenced in favor of a select few poster children order to serve that transphobia, which is hostile to lesbians, even if they are not the intended targets of hostility (similar to how elevating someone like Dave Chapelle or Kanye West to "represent" Black people, while simultaneously downplaying Black people who disagree with them, is hostile to Black people — even if it's only a side effect of some political agenda, not the goal).
This article feels a bit iffy to me, like the point is to shut down the conversation rather than to disprove a stereotype.
Of course being a transphobic lesbian doesn't add up, neither does being a homophobic/lesbophobic trans person, nor any combination of queer identity and biphobia, aphobia, enbyphobia, panphobia, etc.
Bigotry never adds up, but not adding up doesn't stop it from existing.
Sprinkling in a word like denounce somewhere in there would've gone a long way.