LGB ErasureJulie Bindel: There's no gay gene – and I love the idea I chose to be a lesbian

submitted by yousaythosethingsFind and Replace "gatekeeping" with "having boundaries" from newstatesman.com

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[–]yousaythosethingsFind and Replace "gatekeeping" with "having boundaries"[S] 15 insightful - 1 fun15 insightful - 0 fun16 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

This article is from July 2014. What a quaint time. As many of you know, Julie Bindel is a prominent voice in the radical feminist movement and critic of gender ideology. But her thought process here underscores why her political lesbianism is just as much (or almost as much) of an appropriation of female homosexuality as transbianism. This gets reflected back onto us because she refuses to recognize that maybe just maybe there are women who are not like her who just happen to be attracted to women exclusively without it being a political statement or statement about men or an active rejection of men. This contributes to every actual lesbian getting labeled a TERF for having the audacity to be openly homosexual.

Not to mention, she sounds like an alien outsider who I can in no way relate to. She cannot advocate for the rights of young lesbians if she doesn’t even recognize that natural exclusive same-sex attraction exists. She cannot both advocate for us and our needs while denying our existence.

I find it sad how lesbians are never represented by actual lesbians. I can’t even extricate our own lesbian heritage from this misandrist political movement. I can’t relate to nonsense about “performing femininity” and butch and femme “identities.” It just comes across mostly as narcissistic projection.

And while I do appreciate the advent of the Lesbian and Gay News, it seems that nearly all content from lesbians and bisexual females is based in political lesbianism/FEBFem. It’s incredibly alienating and also makes it so that there is no room for any lesbian positivity on there. Because their entire notion of lesbianism is based on being “anti” things and not just being female while happening to only be attracted to other women. I have nothing in common with her.

[–]reluctant_commenter 14 insightful - 1 fun14 insightful - 0 fun15 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

Not to mention, she sounds like an alien outsider who I can in no way relate to. She cannot advocate for the rights of young lesbians if she doesn’t even recognize that natural exclusive same-sex attraction exists. She cannot both advocate for us and our needs while denying our existence.

I COMPLETELY agree. I could not agree more. I am not a mind reader, I cannot say whether or not Julie Bindel is actually same-sex attracted; but regardless of whether she is exclusively same sex attracted or not, many young LGB people are, and she is doing a terrible job of representing us.

I find it sad how lesbians are never represented by actual lesbians. I can’t even extricate our own lesbian heritage from this misandrist political movement. I can’t relate to nonsense about “performing femininity” and butch and femme “identities.” It just comes across mostly as narcissistic projection.

Also completely agree. I don't mind so much if feminists want to sit there and theorize about how one's experience of sexism might be different if one were same-sex-attracted versus not; I think that's an interesting discussion to be had. But that discussion can't just be had in a vacuum, because many feminists-- be it TQ+ liberal feminists, or radical feminists-- assume that one can choose to be same-sex attracted and thus force their way in to an invisible minority group and speak over its members.

I am so glad you posted about this. I have stopped reading most "Lesbian & Gay News" articles because of the homophobic angle in some of their articles. I already see enough of the same bullshit spouted by TQ+ activists. (I do appreciate the legal articles though, those tend to stay pretty on-topic.) And I'm not sure how much overlap there is between LGN and LGB Alliance, but there seems to be some substantial amount of overlap, which concerns me.

[–][deleted]  (5 children)

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    [–]yousaythosethingsFind and Replace "gatekeeping" with "having boundaries"[S] 11 insightful - 1 fun11 insightful - 0 fun12 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

    No, you doofus. This is exactly what we told you, Jiminy Cricket/exponent2/etc. when we said you were falsely ascribing the actions of political lesbians like this one here to actual lesbians (homosexual females). This is exactly what we told you. This isn’t new. What’s new is I actively looked for evidence that this woman is a political lesbian and shared it with the class.