Due to the trans issue, I ended up in a few radfem lesbian feminist groups - although of course I've since realised that these groups aren't very lesbian-friendly at all and mainly consist of straight and bi women who are pissed off with their boyfriends and want to make a point by cutting their hair and becoming the caricature of the man-hating lesbian that they think we are (aka political lesbians).

Anyhow, in a few different spaces, I've heard them talking about a #lesbiannotgay campaign. In the UK census there is going to be a question about sexual orientation with one of the options being "lesbian or gay" which they want to start a campaign against, encouraging lesbians to cross this out and write in "lesbian not gay" to show that we are separate from and not associated with gay men.

This is because as "political lesbians" ie non-lesbians who have co-opted our identity to demonstrate how much they hate and separate themselves from men, they object to being classified in the same group as gay men.

If they were wanting data on gay men and lesbians to be able to be separated in the analysis carried out, I would support that - but that can be done anyway because sex is recorded elsewhere on the census. What they are trying to do is separate us and deny that while, yes, due to our sex we do have some different experiences, as exclusively same-sex attracted people we also have a lot of common ground, shared experiences and shared interests.

Do we need to counter this or just assume that they are a small minority of extremists and that, even though some lesbians (like myself) have got drawn into their circles most will see this for what it is and it will be a complete damp squib?