I would like everyone to take a look at this video, trigger warning for assault on an autistic lesbian, it was disturbing to watch. I personally never paid much attention to Get the L Out, I was vaguely aware of them specially when I had a twitter account, I liked the work they were doing with Lesbian Me Too but I couldn’t personally bring myself to watch their content because the co-founder of the group Angela Wild said in a video that she “chose” lesbianism and that made me uneasy. When I saw the video I thought this is absolutely a case of ableism but when I read the document I was even more horrified, not only did they assault Kat who is a vulnerable adult who did nothing to warrant this cruel treatment but Get the L Out and FiLiA have a repeated pattern of political lesbians facilitating harassment, abuse, assault and ostracization on lesbians. here is the document in question which details the accounts of multiple women and talks about the lawsuit. Please pay attention to what has happened, keep yourself safe if you are in the UK and inform other women specially the lesbians you know. This is why it’s extremely dangerous to allow political lesbians to run a supposed lesbian community.

Philogyny

The idea of women who want to lead women centered lives is such a powerful thought. Focusing your energy on them instead of your oppressors. It’s different from man hating, which is totally fair, but it is still giving your time and energy towards them. I feel a lot of the concepts proposed by political lesbians were great, but we’re tainted by the ideologies heavy homophobia and bigotry. I feel this term and idea could replace that.

Political lesbian this, political lesbian that. Tell me how male homosexuality is a political move for super woke men, then you can talk to me about how female homosexuality isn't actually real but rather a political move. No really, because it isn't new that people don't believe that women can have innate sexual desires towards one sex or another (or both) that males can. That our sexualities are somehow always more affected by our environment than males are.

The personal is political was never meant to be interpreted as being able to identify into any demographic you feel politically aligned with. I do believe that's what most of our issue is with the whole transgender thing, is it not? The idea that you can identify into groups you fundamentally do not fit the definition of because you believe it is more politically pure, or whatever propaganda the oppressor class you belong to is currently pushing about that minority.

I don't care if you are genuinely a lesbian or not, pushing that being a lesbian is a choice that can be affected by our environment or through social pressures, is homophobic. We do not belong to a system of thought that believes being a part of a demographic means you cannot hurt that demographic of people. That makes no sense. If that was the case class traitors would be impossible. Being a class traitor and throwing other members of your minority group under the bus, may cause people to question whether or not you're actually a member of that minority group because this is the internet and people have the capability of lying. That does not make lesbianism an ideology, it means we don't believe you, as an individual.

Our orientations are proven not to be effected by social conditioning, otherwise conversion therapy would work, and it doesn't. The fact that people in radblr still run with comphet knowing it came from a political lesbian and then are surprised there's so many political lesbians on radblr is amazing to me. Of course we are full of political lesbians, almost every "lesbian safe space" on the internet pushes that with enough societal pressure homosexual women will fuck men. Which is false. I'm also not going to pretend like people can't understand whether or not they're sexually attracted to women unless it's introduced to them through porn or social media. That's not how sexuality works. This was the hell I was willing to die in in the old feminist circles and in tra circles, I will continue to die on the hill radfem circles.

And I'm sorry, but this does circle back to the gold star lesbian thing. There would be far less gold star lesbians who felt the need to aggressively defend the boundaries of our community if there wasn't so many women pretending to be lesbians and speaking over us. We wouldn't have to scrutinize every woman's sexual history and her attraction to fictional characters or TV show characters, if women who were not lesbians didn't constantly try to encroach on our spaces. If you are angry about the hypervigilance in the lesbian community but preach either the old school homophobia or this new wave of bisexual flavored homophobia, you are the reason it is there in the first place. Hello, meet the consequences of your own actions.

[TL/DR] You are only a lesbian if you are a female homosexual. Any sexual attraction towards males disqualifies you from this category, whether you act on that attraction or not. There's nothing more to it than that. Female homosexuality is normal, innate, and absolutely natural. You are only materially a lesbian if you are a female homosexual, being a febfem or sexually celibate does not make you a homosexual. Sit down, shut up, and stay in your fucking place.

Thank you. :)

Men know their penises are weapons. They are capable of penetrating somebody they hate. Being aroused by hatred and pain. Why then do women consider intercourse as a loving act? I don't believe men can love with their penis involved. Men are selfish creatures, using your body as their personal toy. They don't care how it feels for you.

Look at how many men have r*ped a woman they planned to kill. Many sons who kill their mothers do this. Do you still believe a man can love with this weapon? That intercourse can ever be safe?

Agree with your take on political lesbianism! For me the “problematic” (for lack of a better word) nature of it has been mostly terminological. Encouraging female separatism is definitely endorsed in radblr, it's the calling yourself a lesbian part gyns take offence with. But as you said, critical thinking is a must and we can view it as a product of a different era. The terminology may be outdated but much of the feminist theory it involves is still relevant and valuable

thank you! I myself have political critiques of political lesbianism/lesbian separatism but imo it’s really disingenuous to caricature the OG poli lez feminists as “straight women who aren’t even ATTRACTED to women using lesbians as their personal sex toys!!” or “bisexuals making it seem like lesbians are sexually available to men!!” (as if men care at all lol)

it seems like their arguments were more along the lines of “most women are latently bisexual and every woman has the potential to have fulfilling sexual/romantic relationships with women if she unlearns patriarchal conditioning.” do we have to agree with that? ofc not. but it is definitely a very different beast. and frankly, I think it’s pretty self-defeating to write off the feminist contributions of women who chose to forego men and prioritize their relationships with women because we don’t like that they had a more expansive definition of one word than many of us do today

if political lesbians and their supporters are right about actually-bisexual women “practicing lesbianism” and thereby being “materially” lesbian....

....then the materialist feminists are right about trans women: if they “practice” a feminine social role and can be mistaken as female by the oppressor class (men) then they are women.  

you can’t both be polilez and radfem.

From my personal experience, having talked to a lot of political lesbians in the past, there's also a lot of condescension involved in their ideology. I've heard many of them boiling the lesbian community down to "us, the brave political lesbians who CHOSE to face lesbophobia because we want to actively challenge homophobia and misogyny" as opposed to "the people born lesbian, who are actually reactionary because they subscribe to the idea that you can only be born gay, which is actually homophobic bc it implies you are powerless and passive when it comes to your sexuality, as if you were a victim of it"

fauxbians will say that real lesbians affirming we were born this way is a cope we make bc we're ashamed of our sexuality like it's such a gotcha

.... but all it does is further prove they can't relate to real homosexuals.

when I say I was born this way, I'm not saying it because I'm desperate for heterosexuals to please PLEASE don't hate me because it's not my fault, I can't help it 🥺

I'm saying it because being only attracted to women is all I've ever known.

I didn't have crushes on boyband members like you did. while the other 7 year olds were daydreaming about the jonas brothers, I was sneaking peeks at the shakira album my mother owned when I was alone because I was enchanted by her curves.

while my friends were attracted to sebastian from black butler, I cared more about the girls in sailor moon (and their legs).

when other girls were fantasising about getting married and having babies, I was planning on going through life alone and dying a virgin because the thought of marrying a man seemed so alien and wrong. I didn't know a woman could be with another woman back then. I knew that there was no way a man would be in my future though.

I had never heard of adrienne rich, sheila jeffries, julie bindel, or any other political lesbian author when I was 11 years old to have been inspired to "become" a lesbian and direct my attraction towards women instead of men for the sake of feminism. but in spite of having no idea I could "choose" to be a lesbian, I still had both my first kiss and my first girlfriend at 11.

I didn't choose my sexuality. that doesn't mean I think my sexuality is like a disease I was born with no choice other than to put up with (to use a flattering comparison fauxbians often like to use when we assert our sexuality is innate, and not chosen). it means, since my earliest years, I've only been attracted to other females. my childhood crushes were female only. my celebrity crushes were female only. even my cartoon crushes were on female characters. and not once was my attraction ever for males. I've never been curious about males, not even curious enough about them to so much as hold hands.

my sexuality isn't some choice I made for feminism. how could it be, when it was manifesting years before I knew what feminism was?

it's something that just is. and saying that isn't an excuse, or a cop out, or some weird masterplan by gay men to undermine feminism, or whatever fauxbians say to cope with the fact that unlike them, some of us don't have to try and repress an attraction towards men. describing myself as born this way is merely the most accurate description of my lesbianism, that's always been a part of me as far as I can remember.

Why bullying straight women into political celibacy is sexually coercive.

I came across this post which is funny.

"No one is forcing gay men or lesbians to date trans people if they don’t want to’

Social coercion and shame is a type of force. It’s shaming gay people for their sexuality, telling them that they are wrong and broken, and telling them that the only way they can be ’right’ or ’an ally’ is to date trans people."

Just because you aren't putting a gun to a straight women neck doesn't make your rhetoric about how she should or ought to not have sex with men less coercive and unsettling.

the response is 10/10, an absolute banger

The funniest thing about political "lesbians" on this site is that they're the ones who get soooo riled up about identity politics and how men can't just identify into being women. But then they're going to transition from straight or bisexual women into lesbians? lol

Go on about how you can't just identify into a marginalized group and then try to speak over the experiences of ACTUAL members of that group. And sure, go on about how lesbianism isn't an inherent trait and actually sexuality is sooo fluid. And now replace the word sexuality with sex and see how much you sound like the people you hate so much.

It's very interesting to me how the most influential radfems on here are the least bit radical themselves. Not being able to admit that heterosexuality is relative to patriarchy and fetishized at best is not compatible with radical feminism in the slightest. Not being able to use the correct terms and words because they scare you is also not compatible with radical feminism. Invoking homophobia to defend OSA nonsense is also not compatible to radical feminism.

Romance cannot be had with males. Males do not "love" women as women to them are just holes. We are viewed as inanimate objects that were made to be fucked by males, to all males. OSA women who willingly participate in this are putting themselves in a harmful situation and it is not compatible wit radical feminism.

OSA women will throw around homophobia and lesphobia to defend their inability to go their whole life without laying with a male. Radical feminism is not a place to coddle your delusions. Lesbians are not required to become therapists and shelters for delusional OSA women.

yeah but you still want lesbians to fuck men. lol. why?

anon i think u got the wrong recipient bcs idk what this is responding to

feel kinda guilty about it but i really love andrianne rich’s work...like i know political lesbianism is anathema on radblr but personally i find it extremely valuable from a bisexual perspective? of course i disagree with the appropriation of the term lesbianism but i still think there's useful insight into female relationships to get out of it

fwiw, i don't think you have ANYTHING to feel guilty about! for several reasons!

i haven't read adrienne rich in years, but from what i remember, i do think she had a lot of useful insight, even from a lesbian perspective. and, fwiw, so did most of radblr until, afaik, pretty recently?? idk when exactly everyone turned on compulsory heterosexuality but i feel like that essay was very much in rotation back in like, 2015.

political lesbianism may be anathema on radblr these days, but rdblr isn't everything! you're allowed to have your own opinions! we can't, as a community, preach about critical thinking then turn around and expect ideological purity, especially because as far as transgressions go, being a political lesbian is, i think, not that bad? i assure you, anyone who would try to guilt trip you about liking her work has far more problematic faves, because we all do. i like morrissey :-) i say, take what you can use, and leave the rest.

the definition of the term "lesbian" has been, and some could argue still is, up for debate, and back in the 70s/80s, using "lesbian" to describe a political positionality instead of, say, an innate biological one, would just not have been seen as appropriation by a lot of feminists. and, sorry to be a postmodernist, but "lesbian" as an identity at all is a product of modern social relations. women have been doing gay shit together since before we were even human, much less political subjects. i bet we'll still be doing gay shit under the coming technofascist fratriarchy, even if our understanding of ourselves and the language we use is different 🙃 i just think we should keep our eyes on the prize, which is a world where women are liberated from the yoke of male supremacy and able to live freely, and fuck each other if they so desire. and if adrienne rich had some useful ideas about how to get there, why throw the baby out with the outdated-terminology bathwater?

this insistence that born-this-way lesbians are actually like genderists due to talk about “feelings” is such a reversal

political lesbians are like genderists because they assign social meaning to human conditions and then say anyone that identifies with those social meanings thereby experiences that condition.

the “gender” of lesbian would be “experiences patriarchal oppression due to prioritizing females and eschewing males”

while the “sex” of lesbian would be “exists as a homosexual female”

and political lesbians think that the “gender” of lesbian is the important part.  

so radblr fauxbians think we, as lesbians, are meant to believe lesbianism is a choice any woman can make just bc a bunch of 2nd wavers with no background in biology who wrote essays in the 80s when the predominant view on homosexuality was one that has since been debunked said so. kay.