#LesbianNotGay - Political lesbian anti-gay solidarity campaign

submitted by LesbianInExile from self.Lesbians

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?

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[–]homosomes 15 insightful - 1 fun15 insightful - 0 fun16 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

"Lesbian feminism" is, despite the name, almost always upheld by self-proclaimed political lesbians. AKA Straight and bisexual women calling themselves lesbians in the name of feminism. A lot of them don't believe that homosexuality is innate and look down on "born this way" (actual) lesbians. The homophobic irony is lost on them.

Where are these groups? I see a total of 4 tweets with that hashtag in it. Are you sure this is legit?

[–]LesbianInExile[S] 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I've seen it in a couple of online lesbian feminist groups that I ended up in due to the whole trans thing...I joined them because I thought lesbian feminist just meant lesbians who were feminists but have obviously since realised it's something else entirely. They are mainly talking about writing it on the census form but maybe they will also do something on twitter to coincide with it. The census forms haven't been sent out yet - or at least I haven't received one.

[–]EzukiRaen 12 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 0 fun13 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I don't use twitter so I can't say for sure but, this does seem to be a very niche thing. I don't think anything needs to be done about it at the moment. However, if this does blow up into something bigger, then something should be done.

If this does blow up, it'll further demonize lesbians and turn even more people away from calling themselves lesbian. Also, most people wouldn't look to deeply into the difference between "political lesbians" and "lesbians" and they'll assume that it's all the same. But again, I don't think much will come of this so, I don't think there's much to worry about.

On another note, I think #lesbiannotgay is a great hashtag that we should take for ourselves. Someone else mentioned that there are only a few postings currently with this hashtag. Maybe we could repurpose it as a hashtag that challenges other lesbians to call themsleves "lesbian" and not "gay" as a way to destigmatize the word "lesbian" and essential promote lesbian positivity. Doing that would also effectively drown out whatever the political lesbians are trying to do.

[–]33799 11 insightful - 1 fun11 insightful - 0 fun12 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

If this is just four people on Twitter, then I'm thankful I guess, because yeah this pretty gross. I hate how they stole "lesbian not queer" to make this line. It's just like how trans people stole Black Lives Matter and all those other famous slogans to be about the T.