What is a lesbian?

Doodledog

Lathyrus

And are they they same as the ones who have been active in the “gay erasure” movement.

No such thing as homosexuals. They are denying their need to transition. Apparently🤔

Yes, I've mentioned this and been told I was making it up.

I don't know the endgame, Dickens, but it's sinister. Women's rights are being rolled back all over the world, and I see this as part of that, but whether it is a zeitgeist thing or an actual conspiracy I have no idea.

Maybe misogyny is not the word, but it takes such a deep, deep disrespect of women for any man to believe that they can choose to be a woman and that they have the right to demand women believe they are women.

I read this- it's a comment by a reader on an article about transgender rights (about a year ago). I copied it because it struck a chord with me.

Again, I have said that many times, but the lame arguments about how intersectional feminism includes men come up in response. Obviously that just confirms that men have infiltrated even the movements that have been used to resist oppression, but that irony is entirely lost on proponents of the new world order. Luckily it seems that dams are now being built to stop us from being entirely overwhelmed by the flood of misogynistic ideologies threatening women and girls, but we still need to be vigilant, as this is about more than half-baked theories about ‘identity’. Whoever is behind it (if there is an ‘it’) it is about restoring gender stereotypes and rendering women powerless again.

You know when some men crow that ‘if women want equality they shouldn’t expect courtesy or any ‘special treatment’, forgetting that centuries of discrimination have moved the goalposts and that little things like childbirth and our different physiology mean that expecting us to tread the male path was never about ‘equality’ in the first place? This is more of the same, I think.

In this rather simplistic view, if you want to be a woman, you should ‘live as’ a woman. Nobody will tell you what that means, so it’s easy to get it wrong. There are no more signposts - even having a uterus or a cervix is not a clue. Men can be ‘birth givers’, so being a mother won’t cut it either. All you need is to ’live as’ a woman and preferably dress in a girly way with long hair and makeup. There will be no ‘special treatment’ such as protection from predators- we are equal now, remember? No female sports teams, or any recognition that our bodies are different - it’s all about ‘equality’. They think that wanting equal pay and a right to earn an independent living is ‘living as men’, so in return they can colonise womanhood, but their male bodies and the male-dominated culture will put them back at the top of the pile, where they think they belong.

Too ridiculous to be taken seriously? You’d think, wouldn’t you - and reading back, it does sound like the product of a fever dream- but look what’s happening.

MissChateline

As far as I’m concerned a person who is born male, has a penis, and starts life as a male is and will always be male. He can have surgery to remove his penis. But he remains a male with no penis. He can have breast tissue surgery, but he remains a male with false breasts. He can take female hormones, but that doesn’t make him any more than a male taking drugs.
He can tell me that he is now a woman, but that doesn’t mean that he IS a women. He will always be for me a male who has had surgery and no idea of what it is really like being a woman and certainly not a lesbian.
He can not and never will be a lesbian. I’ve never been to a lesbian ( or any other) speed dating occasion but he would receive very short shrift from myself and many other lesbians who feel the same way.

Well said MissChateline.

Doodledog

I agree with you both. I think the notion that men can be lesbians would be laughable if it weren’t so serious. I do, however have sympathy with the small number of surgically transitioned transpeople who want to use the facilities of the sex to which they want to belong. They are never going to ’be’ that sex, and should not have full sex-based rights of the adopted sex, but without being flippant I see their using the ‘wrong’ loo in the same way as I would a student using the staff loo when caught short. Why not? As always it’s when it gets abused that problems arise, but if someone has no penis and is full of female hormones they are not likely to be a threat, and for me this is about threat to women - dot discrimination against transpeople.

Really what a complete and utterly nonsensical world we now live in. Sodom and Gomorrah spring to mind.

Doodledog

Too ridiculous to be taken seriously? You’d think, wouldn’t you - and reading back, it does sound like the product of a fever dream- but look what’s happening.

Not as crazy as it seems Doodle - I have been reading comments from men on a SM site discussing trans matters - specifically trans women - and from what they have said, we have "brought this on ourselves" because we wanted 'equality', and now "we've got it". These are men who are supportive of the aggressive TWAs - and they are supportive because the TWAs are 'sticking it' back to wimmin who had the temerity to ask for equal pay, equality under the law, and the right to take on jobs for which they were qualified. We encroached on their territory, upset the hierarchical patriarchal structure - we feminised society.

Just look at the placards these TWAs sport - look at the sexually aggressive and explicit 'messages'... all centred around their "girl" dicks which they demand that you "suck"... this is in fact 'verbal rape'.

Are these men in fact trans women?

Yes, the TRA movement is deeply misogynistic and always has been.

I also sympathise with those who have felt the need to choose to take the painful route of full transition. Difficult for anyone who hasn’t felt that desperate, to understand.
But the implication that doing that and adding a dress, long hair and lipstick makes you acceptable to lesbians is disrespectful to lesbians.
With regard to toilets, I have no idea how many TIM, transitioned or not, have used female toilets unnoticed and may well be continuing to do so unnoticed.

Unfortunately, the fact that they are still male means that they may well find themselves suffering because of the actions of other less well intentioned males.

But the implication that doing that and adding a dress, long hair and lipstick makes you acceptable to lesbians is disrespectful to lesbians.
I am not saying anything like that at all. My comments, as I said, are about letting transitioned people use the facilities appropriate to the sex to which they would like to belong, not about sexuality.

(if your comment wasn't addressed to me, I apologise, but it followed mine, so I'm not sure)

The original question was “what is a lesbian?”
As a woman who was aware that something was a bit different in the crush department at my all girls school in the 60’s but had no name to describe it and I had 2 marriages to men and 2 beautiful daughters before having the courage to be able to stand up talk and with pride say “I am a woman and I am a lesbian”.
To me, a lesbian is first and foremost a woman who loves other women. A woman Who has intimate relationships with other women, whose primary sexual relationships are always with women. I enjoy intimacy with my female partner because as a woman I have a good understanding of what she is feeling. She is in every sense a woman.
What is a woman? Walking back from dropping my grandson off at his school club this morning, I found myself pondering this and trying to define what makes me a woman and the sheer audacity of those men who actually believe that they can just become a woman. How on earth can they really believe that they can just drop in to being a woman later in life by way of a few drugs, surgery, dresses and some makeup? What a sense of entitlement and what a total disregard of the female experience.
I am a women, I have breasts, I grew them myself. I went through the agony of female puberty. I started my periods. I got pregnant and gave birth. My breasts continued to grow(exponentially) and I went through more image agonising. No male who states that he is now a woman will ever understand what it is to be a “real” woman, however much they want to. This is just not possible.

“No such thing as homosexuals. They are denying their need to transition. Apparently”

This just made me laugh out loud. I was always a “tomboy“ as a child, I have short hair, I rarely wear dresses or makeup. I have a choice. But I have NEVER considered myself to be anything but a woman. What on earth would I transition to?

I know someone who is a lesbian, had a same sex marriage and sadly a divorce. She is not in your face, just a woman, who happens to be attracted to other women not men. The other day she told us she had been physically abused by her step father at a young age which continued until her mother divorced him following avvery threatening harassing situation. She thinks this is why she is gay and claims this to be the case for many lesbians. That being so think of the extra stress being confronted by a male trying to infiltrate lesbian spaces.

Thank you for your contributions to this thread.

I’m aware that in making any comments about homosexuality I’m doing it from the outside as it were.

I am currently very aware of the pressure that is being put upon (mostly young) men to reject any thoughts that they might be gay and to consider that their attraction to other males is rather a sign that they are females in the wrong body.

The gay erasure movement that runs alongside all the other ideologies designed to confuse and dominate.

Doodledog

*But the implication that doing that and adding a dress, long hair and lipstick makes you acceptable to lesbians is disrespectful to lesbians.*
I am not saying anything like that at all. My comments, as I said, are about letting transitioned people use the facilities appropriate to the sex to which they would like to belong, not about sexuality.

(if your comment wasn't addressed to me, I apologise, but it followed mine, so I'm not sure)

It wasn’t addressed to you Doodledog. It referred back to a comment by someone else early on in the thread, so no apology needed.

The gay erasure movement that runs alongside all the other ideologies designed to confuse and dominate.
And ironically it is the biological realists who are accused of homophobia, treated to lectures on Section 28 and told that not believing that men can be women is akin to wanting a return to the way gay people were treated decades ago.

What is a lesbian?

A woman who is attracted to someone of the same sex.
It doesn't mean they might not like men as friends and love their male relatives.

This is possibly an affront to some men, in particular the one who felt the need to parade his penis to a group of women who would never find him sexually attractive.

Thanks MissChateline - an interesting and thoughtful post.

Calistemon said -

"Supporting someone who wishes to change gender is one thing and the right thing to do.

Believing that someone can change sex is wrong as it is not possible."

Why then are we told that someone with the gender of woman should be in single-sex places for people with the sex of female eg a lesbian dating event?
Or a hospital ward for females?
Or applying for a scholarship intended for females?

The "gay erasure " movement is completely unacceptable. but should be viewed in the historical problems that have existed since homosexuality became recognised and legal. Many transwomen were denigrated and abused by gay men. This happened also to coincide with racial discrimination as many of the people transitioning in the US were of Latino heritage. They were condemned and discriminated against by all branches of society. Not surprisingly now there is a backlash. Totally wrong like all forms of discrimination.

That includes the wrongful representation of Intersectional feminism as "putting men first". Intersectional feminism recognises that some women suffer more discrimination that other women and one way of recognising that discrimination is by adding a qualifying word. So black women suffer more discrimination than white, poor women more discrimination than wealthy and trans women more discrimination than other women.
The subject has been being discussed by Intersectional feminists for a long time. The fact that some feminists just seem to have discovered the problem is quite amusing.As always with feminist issues a democratic vote is the only real solution en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan_Womyn%27s_Music_Festival

M0nica

Surely if a physically entire man with an erection who identifies as a female attends a lesbian event wanting to meet up with woman, complete, that just proves that he is heterosexual and doesn't belong there.

Transwomen are not automatically homosexual, Following their logic they should be attending male homosexual meet-ups to meet men as the masculine half og their femininity.

Or have i got it all completely mixed up!

Nowadays some men claim to be women who have 'ladydicks' and say that if they 'identify as lesbian' it is transphobic for actual lesbians to refuse them.

That is the basis of the complaints about Jenny and her lesbian dating event.

It really comes down to who is allowed a choice.
Lesbians, who by definition, choose to have sexual relationships only with females,
or males whether or not they claim to be women who feel that lesbians should accommodate their demands.
In our daily lives, how many of us whether gay, straight, trans or bi would happy to be obliged to do things that go against our natural instincts or what we know to be right, just because someone else wants us to do so?

'ladydicks'!!! whatever next.

Just reading this thread and once again when there's any discussion on this topic, there are are many informative and thought provoking responses, especially yours MissChateline.

I would think that anyone whose fully trans gendered and looking for a relationship, would be completely honest from the very beginning rather than allow a prospective partner to believe they are something that they're not.

As has been said here, regardless of how much surgery has been undertaken and the extent of physical changes due to hormone treatment, a man cannot be a woman and for that reason can never be a lesbian.

It's not transphobic to say so, or for an organised dating event for lesbians to refuse entry to anyone other than natal women.

Farnorth, Yes, I get your point, but relationships are based on more than just gender. I may be heterosexual, but that doesn't mean I want, or be willing to pair off or mate with every man I meet.

Similarly these transmen with 'lady-dicks, may well fancy a Lesbian they meet, but there is nothing transphobic about her turning him down because she will be equally selective as to which lesbian woman she pairs with.

M0nica

*Farnorth*, Yes, I get your point, but relationships are based on more than just gender. I may be heterosexual, but that doesn't mean I want, or be willing to pair off or mate with every man I meet.

Similarly these transmen with 'lady-dicks, may well fancy a Lesbian they meet, but there is nothing transphobic about her turning him down because she will be equally selective as to which lesbian woman she pairs with.

The problem is that some TW do call rejection by lesbians transphobic.

Women turning down men who want to have sex with them? Outrageous behaviour- whatever next?