The Pride controversy "get the L out"

[Abertawe]

Can someone explain to me what it's all about?

 

[Stevencc]

A mission statement...

Who We Are

Get the L Out is a group of lesbian and feminist individuals and organisations, opposing the increasingly anti-lesbian and misogynistic LGBT movement and the erasure of lesbians.

Why We Protest

We believe that lesbian rights are under attack by the trans movement and we encourage lesbians everywhere to leave the LGBT and form their own independent movement, as well as to be vocal and take action against the proposed changes to the GRA.

Get the L Out believes trans politics (with uncritical support from the LGBT movement) does the following:

1. Promotes the social transition of lesbians, encouraging them to present as straight men thus favouring the pretence of heterosexuality over lesbianism – this is nothing more than a form of conversion therapy.
2. Promotes the medical transition of lesbians and pushes harmful drugs (untested hormone blockers, Lupron etc.) as well as unnecessary medical practices on perfectly healthy bodies – these are a form of misogynist medical abuse against lesbians.
3. Promotes the rights of heterosexual males who “identify” as women and lesbians (despite most of them still retaining their male genitals) over the rights of lesbians to choose their sexual partners. This new ‘queer’ LGBT politics thus coerces lesbians to accept the penis as a female organ and promotes heterosexual intercourse between male and female as a form of lesbian sex. This is simply a new facet to rape culture and compulsory heterosexuality.

What we Believe

“The trans movement with the complicity of ‘queer’ LGBT politics is coercing lesbians to have sex with men. We firmly condemn this vicious form of lesbophobia disguised as progress”.

“We stand for the rights of lesbians to choose their sexual partners on the basis of their sex not their “gender identity” and condemn any pressure on lesbians to accept so called “trans women” as potential sex partners and the penis as a female organ as coercive and a manifestation of rape culture”

“we oppose the transition of young lesbians on the basis that their appearances or behaviour does not conform to socially accepted images of women. Having short hair and disliking pink is not a sign of having a male brain and does not mean one requires transition. The trans movement is a conservative movement which reinforces sexist sex stereotypes.”

“We oppose proposed changes to the GRA and view self-identification as a threat to women’s and girls rights.

“We demand stronger sex-based protections for women and girls and that women maintain the right to sex-segregated spaces at the exclusion of male regardless of their “identity”.”

This action is supported by a number of individual Lesbians and Lesbian supporters, as well as Critical Sisters, Mayday4Women, Object ! and The Lesbian Rights Alliance.

 

[safsaf]

The group 'Get the L out' intercepted the Pride parade this past saturday. They stood on and jumped around the Pride Flag at the beginning of the parade and demanded to be put at the front of the parade with offensive banners. They laid down at the entrance to the parade to 'protest'm, much tot eh crowds amusement (nobody was there to give attention/mind to the hate- we were there to be ourselves and support each other). The offensive, foolish display left no bad vibes though as 8 people protesting our peaceful protest did not stop the 31,000 marching behind them with absolute pride. In fact, this small anti-trans group was ignored. Pride 2018 was a massive success , despite this minor hiccup.

 

[Abertawe]

Still confused though. How can anyone declare they can't be lesbian, wouldn't that be more or less saying gender identity doesn't exist, so get the L out deny the very concept of trans? I've seen some comment from this L group that the trans women exasperates rape culture too which seems weird.

I dunno if my confusion comes from not understanding or this L group being nutjobs with no logic...

 

[The Paranoid Pineapple]

"Nutjobs with no logic" sounds about right to me tbh.

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

Surely, if anything, they are the ones being ideologically consistent. The people who attack them want to claim that gender is a social construct to protect women on one hand, but then frame it as innate when they defend "trans women" and their right to lesbian pussy.

 

[Jockney]

Surely, if anything, they are the ones being ideologically consistent. The people who attack them want to claim that gender is a social construct to protect women on one hand, but then frame it as innate when they defend "trans women" and their right to lesbian pussy.

Analytical sloppiness: who is they? Trans-inclusive feminism is a tendency not a monolithic movement or ideology.

Defending the right of trans women to be recognised as women is not inconsistent with theories of social construction at all. If it is socially constructed it has a social reality: the end point is/should be a break down in gender categorisation altogether, but that process first entails the recognition of a multiplicity of identities and the erosion of 'natural' categories.

It's worth noting that Freud's notion of innate bisexuality is almost a century old (we are 'polymorphously perverse') -- those ideas have needed refinement, but they are not especially new and they shouldn't be all that radical.

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

Analytical sloppiness: who is they?

The protestors of course.

Defending the right of trans women to be recognised as women is not inconsistent with theories of social construction at all. If it is socially constructed it has a social reality: the end point is/should be a break down in gender categorisation altogether, but that process first entails the recognition of a multiplicity of identities and the erosion of 'natural' categories.

Which I think a lot of people find troublesome because truth claims like 'trans women are women' are basically being made for political expediency, rather than because they have any basis in reality. A trans woman does not fit our current or historic notion of womanhood, so you're not calling her a woman because you think she innately is or because society has deemed her so, you're calling her a woman because you want everyone else to.

If I were a lesbian being called a bigot for refusing to have sex with males for the sake of someone else's genderless utopian dream I think I'd be pretty annoyed about that, especially if it were being perpetrated by the people who were supposed to looking out for people like me.

What's interesting though is that there is actually quite a lot of evidence for the biological roots of gender even in trans people. Would it be cynical of me to suggest that the reason it isn't lent on more is because it would put the feminists - a sizeable cross-section of which consider themselves trans allies - in an ideologically awkward position?

It's worth noting that Freud's notion of innate bisexuality is almost a century old (we are 'polymorphously perverse') -- those ideas have needed refinement, but they are not especially new and they shouldn't be all that radical.

Of course it should be considered radical because the conditioning part is unsubstantiated, and does a horrible (non-existent?) job of explaining homosexuality.

 

[The Paranoid Pineapple]

The premise that they're operating from is just incredibly peculiar. I would strongly suggest that no one is "coercing lesbians to have sex with men". This is transphobia but with all the trappings of old-school homophobia and its accompanying paranoia ("what if i have to share a bathroom with them", "they're trying to convert us" etc).

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

The premise that they're operating from is just incredibly peculiar. I would strongly suggest that no one is "coercing lesbians to have sex with men".

Na, that's definitely not true TPP. It might be happening on a smaller scale than they say, but I've seen lesbian Youtube personalities like Arielle Scarcella get harassed to no end over this kind of thing. There are people who are genuinely convinced that if you're a lesbian that won't have sex with trans women then you're transphobic.