The curious case of Pride vs the Lesbians: Part 3

Gender extremist attacks on lesbians: three quick case studies

Oct 07, 2024

Read Part 1. In which it's all inclusion and aroha, but not for lesbians.

Read Part 2: Lesbianism, patriarchy’s final frontier

LAVA’s not alone

Lesbian Action for Visibility (LAVA) was barred from being part of a public celebration of the rainbow community, the 2021 Wellington Out in the City event. It was barred because of its members’ belief in biological reality. LAVA believes lesbians are same-sex attracted adult human females.

Pride’s ignoble turfing out of the “terf cunts” (aka old school feminist lesbian activists) is not an isolated incident. Attacks on homosexuality by trans rights activists are happening in multiple countries. Lesbians get a double-whammy, not just recipients of gender extremists’ anti-homosexuality sentiment, but also of their misogyny. As I’ve said earlier, I don’t think everyone or even most people involved in trans rights activism are motivated by homophobia or misogyny, but the ideology that they, perhaps unwittingly, sign up for, is homophobic and misogynistic.

Opposition to Lesbian Strength, Leeds, UK, 2024

Lesbians held a Lesbian Strength rally in Leeds in September. They held XX and lesbian love signs, played drums, celebrated their exclusive same-sex attraction, claimed lesbianism as a women-only reality, listened to speakers and shockingly held hands in public.

As usual, this celebration of women-only sexuality, which has been running since 2019, was met with a counter-protest. At the protest, a man led chanting against the women. He was wearing a t-shirt that read ‘Just have some fucking empathy’. On point, dude.

It’s not the first time trans rights activists have tried to silence Lesbian Strength in Leeds. Like New Zealand lesbians lesbians been marginalised and harassed at Pride events and, as they discuss in this submission, their promotion of a lesbian event was taken down from a Council-run public events website, partly on the grounds that trans activists would protest them.

Attempts to shut down the LGB Alliance, 2021-2023

The LGB Alliance formed in 2019 to protect the rights of same-sex attracted people. Members felt like it was needed when legacy rainbow groups denied biological reality and replaced meaningful definitions of same-sex sexuality with gender-identity-based definitions. The LGB Alliance website states “As lesbians, gay men and bisexuals whose orientation is sex based, we believe that replacing sex with gender means that we can no longer name or describe the discrimination we face and, therefore, that our hard-won rights can be dismantled.”

There have been multiple trans rights protests against the LGB Alliance conferences, yelling at attendees and declaring it a hate group. This interpretation of LGB Alliance as a hate group saw children’s transgender charity, Mermaids, attempt to strip the Alliance of its charitable status. Mermaids was unsuccessful and, in a beautiful moment of comeuppance, Mermaids is now being investigated by the Charities Commission. The Commission is seeking confirmation Mermaids’ governance and management is appropriate to support its work with vulnerable children.

Lesbians barred from holding events in Australia, ongoing

In 2023 the Lesbian Action Group in Australia applied for a five-year temporary exemption to the Sex Discrimination Act to allow for public events restricted to lesbians born female. They wanted to meet, as lesbians, as they understand the term, in public, for example, to acknowledge International Lesbian Day. The Sex Discrimination Act (unlike New Zealand’s Human Rights Act) explicitly prohibits discrimination on the grounds of gender identity.

The Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) turned down the application. It noted “that if this exemption had been granted, it may have led to the further exclusion of and discrimination against transgender women who are lesbian”. The Commission is explicitly denying lesbians freedom of assembly, one of the rights mentioned in the UN Universal Declaration on Human Rights. Lesbians are also denied the right to name their sexuality in ways that are meaningful to them.

Meanwhile, a gay bar in Melbourne was awarded an exemption by the AHRC to exclude heterosexuals, lesbians and anyone who upsets the character of the venue. Men excluding women, the Commission appears to say, is equality, but women excluding men is discrimination.

LAG appealed the Commission’s decision and evidence and arguments were heard on September 2nd and 3rd of this year. The ruling is likely to be in November.

Back to LAVA

Read more about LAVA’s case against Pride or if you want to, and have some spare cash, go ahead, and donate towards their court costs. In the next of this series, I’ll be looking in detail at the factual and legal issues that will come up in LAVA’s case against Wellington Pride.

The Ministry has fallen.

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