#because they do not define queer women as women. by excluding them from womanhood altogether they can argue that they fight for women

[the-feminist-philosopher]

Damn. TERFs really do see themselves as white nights fighting on behalf of black & brown women against an aggressive hoard of black and brown men. I cannot go into the #feminism tag without seeing some of the wildest takes…

Because a TERF will really get on the Internet and say some shit like,

“Trans-exclusionary ideas are globally popular ideologies” and fail to see how public discrimination against a group is maybe a symptom of the current power structures, structures like the patriarchy, white supremacy, and colonialism.

and then follow that up with,

“Because the global majority isn’t white, my activism for those women isn’t white. Also because the women fighting against the patriarchy globally aren’t majority white, my brand of feminism can’t be white,” and fail to see how this is white-night activism and an attempt to co-opt other feminist movements globally, many of which actively resist their country’s neo-colonial resource exploitation and imperialist extraction of their country. But positioned in argument alongside the take that trans-hate is globally popular, it’s also an attempt to make non-white people look uniquely or predominantly hateful compared to those within their lofty country.

Which is exemplified by the fact that when a trans person—regardless of location—shows support for any cause in the global south, the popular response is to tell that trans person the people of that country would behead them or throw them from a roof. Because in addition to believing the brown other is uniquely “backwards” and “brutish,” they also believe that any oppressed group’s “salvation” is contingent upon good behavior. Whose salvation? Theirs, of course. These people will freely repeat talking points about things that don’t happen in whatever foreign country of their picking to support their argument because the intention is to show they have credible reason to believe “those people” are not the perfect model of “(western) civility,” and as such, are in need of the TERF’s ideas, resources, and “activists.” It’s a reframing of “The White Man’s Burden” to center women.

(I’ve always found the “defenestration threat” a particularly disingenuous take. There’s the apparent racism on one hand, but clear pink washing, too. I—a gay—cannot care about the suffering of others in another country if gay rights in that country is not on par with that of its imperial oppressor? Are these trans-exclusionary radicals disagreeing with the existence of transphobia in another country? Or are they disagreeing with the purported tactics? “My enlightened policies that mass incarcerate, push children to suicide, and strip strangers of bodily autonomy; their barbaric policies that do much the same, oh, and defenestration.” They do realize that they, the trans-exclusionary radical, are more of an existential threat to me in *my own country* than a stranger half a globe away, no?)

And this worldview becomes ever so apparent when, after pointing out their attempt to co-opt feminist movements led by black and brown women, the usual comeback is to ask the person who disagrees with their take if they think that black and brown men are “too stupid” to “know” to or how to oppress women. “Do you think it’s not worse in other countries?”

Not only is this an attempt at purple washing; an attempt to benefit from purported support for women’s rights as a way to distract from the issue at hand: Western paternalism and chauvinism, this is also an attempt to turn it back around on the other. The TERF could not avoid being critiqued for supporting imperialistic ideas that downplay the significance of white supremacy and the struggles of black and brown women by arguing that because the majority of women aren’t white, any advocacy for women couldn’t possibly be racist. And they couldn’t avoid being critiqued for supporting imperialistic ideas that downplay the significance of white supremacy by deflecting with a “what-about’ism” about the state of affairs in a foreign country. And now they’re faced with the fact others may think that they think black and brown people are uniquely brutish. So, their last hope is to argue that no, actually you 🫵 are downplaying the oppression that other women in other countries face at the hands of “their men” and engaging in the “noble savage” trope.

(Of course, this ignores how such a trope refers to positioning Indigenous people as people uniquely removed from societies—when in reality they had complex societies, social structures, and politics—who live in harmony with nature. Suggesting that someone’s ideas and characterization of other peoples is influenced by Western Imperialism and white supremacy is in no way the same as suggesting there is “innate goodness, pureness, and moral superiority” among an “uncorrupted” “primitive” other, but a TERF’s ideology often depends on equivocation, usually as a means of distraction.)

But, when someone points out that this is in no way what they said; the TERF is attempting to create a strawman to argue against, the final play in the book is to literally @/ the one brown TERF they know of on this site or conclude by saying “well, my brand of feminism has had Black and Jewish thinkers, so…,” fully blind to how this is quite literally tokenism.

All this because “I can’t be racist; I’m a feminist” really isn’t the argument they think it is.

[garetthawke]

no but seriously? its so fucking infuriating when people don't understand that lesbianism is not just being sapphic. its so easy as a non lesbian sapphic person to look at us through their lens and see no difference, and that is exactly why there is a divide in the end.

the ability to understand just how much of our experience and identity is defined not just by loving women, but specifically not liking men, is crucial.

and its not about body types (fuck terfs,) its not about gender essentialism (its nothing "inherent" about men,) its EVERYTHING to do with enduring a life of comphet and living in a world where you have felt pressured and forced into including men in your attraction and into your space and into parts of yourself that you are utterly uncomfortable with, to the point of self hate and self harm, and then realizing through lesbianism that for the first time, you don't have to.

the supreme liberation of self that comes from finally being able to draw boundaries, to be able to say "i do not like men," and to take pride and comfort in it, feel free and safe because of saying it...

it affects everyone. so much of womanhood is designed and defined around attraction to men, its fucking REVOLUTIONARY for us to be able repossess it and shed it altogether by excluding men entirely, and embracing ourselves as we are without them.

its not some feminist imperative, and there's nothing wrong at all with liking men; in fact its just as revolutionary to embrace it within your own queer sexualities. but for those of us who don't like men, quite literally half the struggle is dealing with a society who is openly hostile towards us for that part alone. (trust me; i came out as asexual before i came out as lesbian, and my lack of availability to men from that was the same.)

so for non lesbians to look at us saying that we love ourselves and the fact that we don't like men, and go, "that's just being hateful towards men, that's discrimination." hello???? it's so fucking out of touch. i swear, everyone BUT lesbians wants us to like men just as much as the cishets want us to.

[smallnico]

Are you a Gold Star lesbian? (Just in case you don't know what it means, a Gold Star lesbian is a lesbian that has never had the sex with a guy and would never have any intentions of ever doing so)

EDIT: i’ve been told this anon is a bot, and a lot of people have received this same message. who would program a bot to do this and why is a mystery to me. assuming no harm is done in doing so, i’m going to keep my response up instead of deleting it because i spent a good amount of time writing it, and i think it’s informative, which is why i wrote it in the first place.

~~~

i’m going to do you a favour here and assume you didn’t mean any harm by asking me this, that you just didn’t know better or didn’t think it through. i’ve said some pretty weird things to people on impulse, so i know how it feels when people react aggressively when you weren’t trying to insult them or freak them out or anything. normally, i would just block you for something like this and delete the ask, but given the number of asks i’ve been getting these days after a long drought of interaction, maybe it’s a good idea to re-establish some boundaries, not to mention explain to someone who might not know better why i have so many objections to the concept of a ‘gold star lesbian’.

first off, even when i’m hosting a frank discussion about sexuality on this blog, i never want to be asked about my sex life. some people are comfortable talking about theirs on tumblr -- i am not one such person. people are welcome to enjoy this blog and ask the occasional question, probe me for opinions, but my personal life is not open for spectators. there’s a meaningful difference between asking me about my sexual orientation and my experiences as a queer person, and asking me who i’ve had sex with. one is an opportunity for education, and the other is inappropriate and invasive. i’m already really dodgy about answering questions about my personal life, about friends and location and whatever, so already that ought to be a good warning to never ask me about my sex life. it is none of anyone’s goddamn business. this is a recipe for an instant block, and to restate, the only reason i’m not blocking this anon is because it’s a learning opportunity, and i’m feeling generous today.

the other reason i’m answering this question is because it’s an opportunity to save you, anon, from the trap of believing in ‘gold star lesbians’. i already know what the term means, and i’ve long since formed a firm opinion about its uselessness. 

1) a lesbian is not a better or worse lesbian for having/not having sex with men. there are a wide range of lesbian experiences that have room for a sexual history/future with men, and nobody -- absolutely nobody -- has the right to claim superiority over these people based on their comparatively “”pure”” sexual history. some lesbians formerly identified as straight, bi, pan, etc., and some may identify with those labels in the future. some older lesbians went their entire lives thinking they were straight, being married to men and having children before discovering who they are, does that make them less of a lesbian? does that make their current identity less qualified? i’ve been questioning my sexual orientation since i was thirteen years old, and not that it matters, but i don’t even identify as a lesbian anymore. am i tainted somehow? 2) let’s not pretend it’s not about purity, and let’s not pretend that purity means fucking anything when it comes to the spectrum of human experience. nothing is pure, nothing human will ever be pure, and anyone who claims their whatever the hell makes them pure is inflating their own pride at the cost of others they’ve arbitrarily declared are dirty. 3) men are not dirty. sex with men is not dirty. people who have sex with men are not dirty. you don’t get an award for not having sex with men, and the idea that ‘not having sex with men’ is a reward in and of itself is deeply unfair to both men and the people who find men attractive. there are a lot of excellent reasons people choose to have sex with men. the choice to have sex with men is not something i’m willing or even inclined to slander, even if the person making that choice is a lesbian, and even if they’re making that choice for pleasure.  4) sometimes, it’s not a choice. let’s not pretend rape in all its inglorious forms doesn’t count as sexual history, and hopefully we can all agree that, even if you’re 100% certain someone has never been raped, asking them to recount their sexual history to see if they qualify for some kind of honour is, at best, a rude and senseless violation of their privacy.  5) let’s also not pretend the concept of a ‘gold star lesbian’ isn’t borderline transphobic. i’ve seen a lot of people define ‘gold star lesbian’ as “a lesbian who has never touched a penis”, which naturally frames trans and some intersex women as dirty, while also discounting their womanhood. even if the term isn’t meant in a transphobic way, it has altogether too much flexibility as a concept for use by transphobic lesbians and terfs and not enough value in and of itself to bother reclaiming. 6) the label seeks to frame a specific lesbian experience as superior to any other experience, and does so at the expense of other queer people, and for what? is there a point to policing people’s identities and sexual experiences beyond “proving” one person is “”more queer”” than another? it’s ludicrous. it invalidates their experiences to make a select few people feel like they’re inherently better than everyone else, and i’m against that dynamic on principle. 7) if anyone thinks i’m reading too much into this, two things. one, it’s one of the only things my degree qualifies me to do, and two, just look at how the phrase ‘gold star lesbian’ is worded. you get a gold star. it’s a reward, an accomplishment, a sticker on your nametag, something which separates your from and prizes you above others because you did something good. in this case, ‘others’ is functionally everyone else in the queer community, and ‘something good’ is abstaining from sex with men. we’ve already been over why sex with men should never be seen as an inherently bad thing, and we as queer people should know better than to exclude each other for failing to conform to an arbitrarily ‘standard’ experience of sexuality.

i’m sure there’s more, but i’ve already spent enough time on this response. anon, if you’re reading this, it’s okay if you didn’t know better, and i hope i could teach you something today. i do get the feeling you asked this question in earnest, so as long as it doesn’t happen again (in which case, again, you will be blocked), no sour grapes. but to you and everyone else following this blog, this is an example of an inappropriate question -- for reasons on top of how many objections i have to the ‘gold star lesbian’ label. we have fun here on smallnico.tumblr.com, but i’m a real human being out there in the world, and this blog is my platform and spectacle, not me. there’s a reason i’m on tumblr and not twitter or instagram.