No International Lesbian anything for you, Karens
The Sydney Morning Herald last month:
Hatred against trans people and a “radical precedent” in anti-discrimination law would flow from a lesbian group being allowed to invite only biological females to its events, Victoria’s peak union body has warned.
It’s not hatred for lesbians to have lesbian-only events. Women are the only people who can be lesbians; men can never be lesbians. Men who call themselves lesbians remain men. It’s not “hatred” to understand that men can’t be lesbians.
An application by the recently formed Lesbian Action Group to lawfully exclude trans women from a “Lesbians Born Female” event has caused a heated rift, with equality and inclusion advocates squaring off against women’s rights groups.
What about equality for women? What about inclusion of women? What about supporting equality and inclusion and rights for women?
The Lesbian Action Group, an organisation formed by veterans of the lesbian rights movement of the 1980s and 1990s, wants to stage its event at the government-funded Victorian Pride Centre in Melbourne next month to celebrate International Lesbian Day, and has applied for a five-year exemption from the Sex Discrimination Act.
So the Sex Discrimination Act requires everyone to pretend that men can be women?
The application triggered a flurry of submissions, published by the Australian Human Rights Commission, which echo arguments raging more broadly within political and feminist circles and women’s sporting and cultural institutions over how to balance gender inclusion and sex-based rights.
It can’t be done, not the way it’s being framed currently. It’s not possible to “balance” women’s rights with an imperative to pretend that some men are women. If men can invade and take every single thing women have just by saying “I’m a woman” then women have no rights.
In a joint submission, 15 community and legal groups – including Equality Australia, the Human Rights Law Centre, Transgender Victoria and Dykes on Bikes, which leads the annual Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade – said while it was important for lesbians to gather to celebrate their culture, it was unnecessary to exclude trans women and other queer groups.
Well you can’t have both.
The kind of trans woman who feels entitled to go to a lesbian event is the kind of trans woman who will want to use up all the oxygen at the event. Men who want to destroy everything women have by invading it and taking it are not going to stay politely in the background at lesbian events, they’re going to dominate everything they can.
The day after this masthead first reported the details of the Lesbian Action Group’s application, Pride Centre management wrote a letter to the group setting out its reasons. “Your request to hold an event that excludes and seeks to legally discriminate against people on the bases of their sex, sexuality and gender is inconsistent with the Pride Centre’s purpose,” the group was told.
So what is the Pride Centre’s purpose? To be a centre for everyone? Then what does the “Pride” part mean? It used to mean lesbian and gay; is that all over now?
Victorian Trades Hall assistant secretary Wilhelmina Stracke said the name of the proposed event revealed it true purpose.
“The Lesbian Action Group seeks to exclude transgender people from their events because they refuse to accept that transgender women are women,” Stracke told the commission. “This application seeks to exclude and discriminate against the most marginalised and discriminated against group of people in Victoria for no reason other than that the applicants dislike transgender people.”
But transgender women are not women; that’s what the “transgender” modifier means. If they were women there would be no need for the word “transgender” in front.
And who says men who call themselves women are the most marginalised and discriminated against group of people in Victoria? Based on what?
And why does Stracke equate knowing that men are men with “dislike” of anyone?
The Victorian Women’s Guild denounced the Victorian Pride Centre’s refusal to stage the event, noting centre management had previously allowed its meeting rooms to be used for trans-only functions.
What’s up with that then? Why is trans-only ok but lesbian-only forbidden?
Anna Kerr, a Sydney lawyer whose Feminist Legal Clinic specialises in domestic violence cases, said an exemption should not be necessary to hold a lesbian-only event.
“This application clearly demonstrates how extreme trans activism has
adversely impacted on[harmed] the rights of women and girls,” she submitted.“If the protections for gender identity, whether at state or federal level, were interpreted in a manner that did not inappropriately conflate the concepts of sex and gender identity, these conflicts would not arise.”
But destroying women’s rights is the whole point.
Huh. They dropped the “one of” before “the most marginalized” this time. Are we at that move already?
When they’re not doing it themselves, the trans-cult likes to accuse its critics of conflating sex and gender. In their desire to intrude upon a lesbian event (an event for women who are sexually attracted to other women) these TIMs are the ones who have lost the plot. Even if we avoid the fact that “gender” is a meaningless term, “transwomen” are not of the female sex. As you say, that’s why the “trans” is in the word.
Nobody has ever been happy about the “great gender” they have with their romantic partner.
Why go where you’re not wanted? What the hell is their problem?
Women aren’t allowed to say “No.” They must not be permitted to say that TiMs don’t belong in their spaces. Violating women’s boundaries, forcing them to accept TiMs as women is part of “validation.” Anything that belongs to women automatically belongs to them too. It’s infuriating and criminal that so many organizations, agencies, and governments have so eagerly gone along with the lies and bullying.
On a related note… have y’all seen this?
https://www.motherjones.com/media/2023/10/medicine-female-body-cat-bohannon-eve-evolution-science-sex-bias/
Turns out male and female bodies might be different.
Who knew?
True, but there’s more to it. Many ‘transwomen’ are heterosexual. They don’t want to have sex with each other; they want to have sex with women. They see sex with lesbian women as ‘validating’, because lesbians are only attracted to women: therefore if they can bully or guilt-trip a lesbian into bed with them they have ‘proved’ that they themselves really are women. Lesbians who publicly resist their intrusion are harassed. This is driving lesbian culture back underground, where it was when I first came out fifty-odd years ago.
For more information see What is the cotton ceiling? and The homophobia of the trans lobby. Lesbians are being pressured into having sex with people with penises.
Going where they’re not wanted – and where the not wanting is specifically women not wanting – seems to be pretty much the whole point now. It’s just misogynist sadism in the costume of a Social Justice Movement. Nasty childish male bullying expanded until it’s taken over the entire left.
When I was in college ca. 1980 there was a women’s center on campus. The women’s center ran a variety of programs. Most were open to all, but they also had a meeting for women only, so that women could talk about things that they weren’t comfortable talking about with men in the room.
And–inevitably–there was one male undergraduate who took exception to this, and insisted on his right to attend the women’s only meeting. He wasn’t trans–this was long before trans was a thing. He simply claimed that any campus group had to be open to all, and that included him.
I no longer recall the official resolution of the issue.
@7 I think I’ve mentioned that earlier this year a 20-something woman in my office, in response to the challenges she was dealing with in our ‘male-dominated’ industry, started a ‘sisterhood’ group, which I thought was charming. During its early days I became its unofficial senior sponsor – it’s her thing, it’s for younger women, I attend the meetings but don’t want to get too involved personally. But of course there was one man who found the fact that women wanted an all-women group ‘offensive’ enough to speak up about it, so we had to enlist one of the (male) office leaders, who’s surprisingly and refreshingly very pro-feminist, to calm this guy down. There’s always (at least) one.
I hope he calmed him down by telling him what a jerk he is.
No idea, but he’s apparently shut up about it (I left it for the men to sort out amongst themselves). I did ask for a couple of minor changes (but made it very clear to the woman who set up the Sisterhood that these were not mandatory, it was her thing and entirely up to her how she wanted to run her show) – for example, she was happy changing ‘safe space’ to ‘supportive space’ as the guy in question was upset that if we had a ‘safe space’ that meant we thought the rest of the office was unsafe and that was very insulting to him personally. But that’s almost a no-win argument – reminded me of the woman I used to know who responded to someone saying she looked nice today ‘what, does that mean you think I look awful every other day?’
guest, that’s similar to where I worked. I tried to get a study group started to look at the issues women were dealing with, issues men didn’t have to deal with. I was told I could not do what I wanted unless I allowed men to be part of it as well. So the men could come, talk over us, take over, and report that nothing bad was happening? Right. Plus, with the men there, how could we talk about things done by the men? Even if none of the men doing those things were present, the very presence of males would limit conversation.
Same thing when a student of mine started an atheist group on campus. She was told it had to be open to everyone, including members of Campus Crusade (now Cru). Who could join in enough numbers to overwhelm the few non-believing students willing to stick their neck out enough to be in the group. They could take over leadership positions and turn our group into something for them.
Oh, wait. I see the link between religion and trans identity yet again.
I was really pleased (and frankly surprised) that a) this woman had the guts to start an all-women group in our office, b) that the office leadership (both female and male) were happy to support her, and that c) the one man who had a problem was dealt with. It’s been really great – we’ve had some excellent frank and open conversations about various topics, and the group does seem to be bonding with each other. (We meet in a glass-walled meeting room, so everyone can see the women talking with each other! Such a scary sight!)
Oh I can see it now…
[guest and other B&W women’s group] Right, now let’s all turn and look at Rob.
[Rob] Holy shit! They’re all staring at me. What are they saying? What did I do!?
[guest et al] He he he, that was fun. More cake while we decide who’s next?
We must all be sure to comb our hair.
@13 excellent idea, I’ll see if we can do that!
As an aside, the Feminist Legal Clinic mentioned at the end of that article in support of women is Australia’s only women’s legal clinic (any others are “women” in name only). They lost their lease and funding at the hands of the Sydney Council that used to fund them, and no other funding is forthcoming due to their pro women stance.
They take memberships though, and (in line with their constitution, see at link) you can have one. Bargain at $10 annually for individuals, and $50 annually for organisations.
https://feministlegal.org/membership/