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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[–]PatsyStoneMaverique 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

They're straight celibate women who live with each other. I've never met one in person, they seem rarer than hen's teeth.

Bisexuals are uninvolved in this. It's rare for a bisexual woman to be so dedicated a feminist that she would commit her entire lifestyle to it. Feminism is harsh on bisexual women.

This idea that Marxist feminists are anti-lesbian is a new one to me. They used to mostly be lesbians. This seems to be a dispute between bourgeois lesbians and a Marxist lesbian over self-definition. It's a class and political disagreement.

[–]reluctant_commenter 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

they seem rarer than hen's teeth.

They're not that rare, at least in the media. Some of them post frequently on the "Lesbian & Gay News" website that is frequently shared on this sub! Examples:

  • Julie Bindel

  • Sheila Jeffreys

  • Kathleen Stock -- the other two have come out as explicitly saying "sexual orientation is a choice," but she has implicitly suggested it as well. See this recent discussion post, e.g. this comment

And Kathleen Stock just got added as a trustee to LGB Alliance. So there are some self-identified "political lesbians" for you. And they are trying to frame themselves as "LGB leaders". Seems a little concerning to me, but I'm happy to hear arguments otherwise.

[–]PatsyStoneMaverique 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I was talking about the general population in the U.S. I was an active gender critical feminist before 2016 and I never saw or heard of one in that subculture either.

[–]reluctant_commenter 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I'd be curious about numbers of the general population in the US, but I'm not aware of any survey data like that, and it'd probably be difficult to get accurate numbers even if there were; they seem more unpopular in the US than in some other countries, such as the UK, and people might be afraid of responding to such a survey.

Julie Bindel and Sheila Jeffreys are both radical feminists/GC, but I don't know how well-known they are in GC circles.

[–]PatsyStoneMaverique 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yeah, they're both really well known but they're about it as far as political lesbians go. I have a vague memory there were more in the seventies but radical feminists don't seem to reference them much. It was never promoted or encouraged that I can remember and I remember no posters who claimed to be political lesbians.