The New Standard interview: Violence against Lesbians
In a follow up to my post When Lesbians Become Targets: Leeds Queerfest 2015, Serena Ryan from The New Standard and I discuss the meaning of publicly endorsed violence against lesbians.
Baseline: there is nothing that justifies violence against women – actual or symbolic. I don’t think this is complicated.
We might threaten the gender dynamics of male dominance gender dynamics, but the attempt to blame shift is an elaborate attempt to justify and mask the misogyny involved in threatening and silencing women.
We need to be able to discuss our political disagreements like we manage in every other area of political life, rather than responding by silencing women.
There’s nothing progressive about threatening lesbians or promoting violence against us – it’s a centuries old story of woman hating, so let’s move beyond it…
Interview: Violence Against Lesbians
If you have any feedback or would like to know more, please feel free to contact me at liz@listening2lesbians.com.
***Just a reminder, this is a blog about lesbians, and I discuss lesbians alone, as a response to the silencing. Please respect the intent.***
Listening to Lesbians 
Reblogged this on Stop Trans Chauvinism.
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We need to be able to discuss our political disagreements like we manage in every other area of political life, rather than responding by silencing women.
You talk about “political disagreements” as if we were discussing a flavour of ice cream and that if we all just sat down and talked nicely then we’d be in a happy rainbow world of strawberry, vanilla and rum n raisin.
I said a bit of this in the other thread: what we are talking about here is women’s fundamental human right to say “no”. This is not a debateable or compromise issue, it’s not a “sit down and discuss our politics” or “both sides have a point” situation.
Men demanding and forcing access to our bodies and lives is not an equal and opposite to women being able to be free from that.
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I agree that this is not an insignificant matter – I discuss it as ‘political differences’ because it centres on power relationships between groups, and the potential transfer of power. I do not mean it in the normal “party politics” sense.
From that perspective I am not at all inferring that it is unimportant, or even a matter on which women *could* or *should* compromise. I understand women’s anger at being told that not only should we compromise, but that we are bigots for even questioning this.
I am really trying to challenge the idea that these are topics about which we cannot speak – we manage to debate (even if not well) a variety of profound issues but on this one, the issue is framed without reference to the power dynamics involved, without reference to the context of endemic violence against women.
I hope that bringing it back into the realm of the political will allow us to remove it from an individual frame and allow us to focus on it as an issue for women as a group, with all that entails.
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Thanks for the reply. I agree that it is political in the sense that “women’s rights” are a political matter, but I’m not sure that the line that we should be able to discuss our rights on that basis will carry any weight with the trans/queer cult and no-platformers anyway.
They have already declared us as (even worse than) fascists – and they are no-platformed for political reasons – so us appealing to them to have an open political discussion won’t work.
Look how that “free speech” Observer letter went down. Tatchell and Mary Beard, amongst others harrased and lied to and both of them caved in to it and just started repeating all the lies themselves !
I do think there is still merit in reminding the rest of the world, or at least women out there who are questioning these things, that we are being no-platformed because we say we have a right to choose our intimate partners, for instance. Let people know what it is that the libfempomoqueertrans tossers are actually objecting to.
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Thanks for the reply. I agree that it is political in the sense that “women’s rights” are a political matter, but I’m not sure that the line that we should be able to discuss our rights on that basis will carry any weight with the trans/queer cult and no-platformers anyway.
They have already declared us as (even worse than) fascists – and they are no-platformed for political reasons – so us appealing to them to have an open political discussion won’t work.
Look how that “free speech” Observer letter went down. Tatchell and Mary Beard, amongst others harrased and lied to and both of them caved in to it and started repeating the lies themselves !
I do think there is still merit in reminding the rest of the world, or at least women out there who are questioning these things, that we are being no-platformed because we say we have a right to choose our intimate partners, for instance. Let people know what it is that the libfempomoqueertrans tossers are actually objecting to.
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PS, talking of silencing and no platforming here’s the latest cowardly capitulation
http://socialistresistance.org/7323/feminism-and-transgender-why-is-there-a-debate
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