Pt.1 | Lesbian-only Spaces: The Harsh Truth
The issues hindering lesbians from finding community.
Dear lesbian reader,
Do you remember when nobody wanted to be a lesbian, let alone be associated with one?
To seek shelter from a homophobic society, in the early 20th century, lesbians gathered in underground communities where they could drop their shoulders, meet women like them and, hell, have a bit of fun.
Le Monocle, Paris, 1920s.
Lesbians have done it all — retreats, travel companies, festivals and even hiking groups… cool, right?
But a lot of these places weren’t as idyllic as they may sound…
Some bars were owned by heterosexuals whom actively profited from the growing exposure of lesbian culture (ex. drag acts), presenting it as “exotic”, with the purpose of attracting curious tourists.
Infighting and political division were also a big problem.
Nowadays — at least in most of the western world — lesbians have never enjoyed more rights and freedom. We no longer fear sexual conversion attempts or harassment.
We can finally breathe!
But is that really the case…?
We’ve grown so “acceptable” to the mainstream that we’ve… fucking disappeared.
In case you haven’t been to a Dyke March, bar, event, or online forum that claims to be “for lesbians” lately, let me catch you up: there are no lesbians there.
In fact, it seems that we’re all quite uncertain what that word means and if female homosexuality… even exists…
…crazy, right? I might as well be the bloody Tooth Fairy.
Never mind, I am too ungracious for that one. Bigfoot it is, then.
Community is a wish that lingers in our hearts, yet is nowhere to be found.
But, if we’re so free, why is it so unfathomable to conceive of a space that is ONLY for exclusively-same-sex-attracted females?
Jeez, feels almost illegal to say…
Through a mixture of personal recollection, research and speaking with other lesbians, I have realized that, all of us — in one respect or another — have noticed this phenomenon: it seems we can’t have anything for ourselves.
I asked my subscribers to provide their insights into this issue through a survey1 and, in this essay, I will share some of their words alongside my own observations.
Let’s dive into it together, shall we?
⚢ THE DISCUSSION NOBODY WANTS TO HAVE ⚢
When asked to identify the main reasons why we don’t have any lesbian-only spaces, these were the top three answers:
The rise of gender identity ideology
The pathological need of lesbians — as women — to be overly inclusive and accepting
The assimilation within "queer" and GBTQ+
But not limited to these.
In the “open answer” section, somebody pointed out that because lesbians are a small minority and one hard to find, we’ve been allowing other groups to join our gatherings in order to “increase numbers”.
“I think it’s mostly Financial. Lesbian bars, cafes and bookstores were pushed out long before the gender bullshit,” one responder recalls. “I also think that young women have been taught to see 'lesbian' as bigoted and 'queer' as inclusive.”
More than one lesbian identified the assimilation within wider “queer” culture and the “mandatory inclusivity” — starting from the 90s — to be a key problem.
“The mainstreaming of lesbian and gay cultures killed lesbian spaces,” a subscriber says, “before that, we were all in homophobic environments, and lesbian spaces provided a respite and safety.”
“Assimilation is a fine phrasing. The lack of pride and normalcy many young lesbians feel can lead to feelings of “not being cool”.
Someone else notes how a combination of several factors makes it impossible for lesbian-only spaces to exist. “If they do, they are very hard to find,” she says, “if I owned a space like this, I would be afraid to publicize it, because the boundaries would not be respected by males and women who are male attracted.”
Gender ideology might be our biggest pain point now, but it isn’t the only one.
Years before, opposite-sex-attracted (i.e. bisexual) women were already demanding inclusion within lesbian spaces & discussion.
“I think women naturally being accepting and inclusive adds to the lack of long-standing lesbian exclusive spaces,” someone else explains, “there’s also a fear that if the word gets out that there is an exclusive space, then it could be shut down by the men, male-attracted women and their allies.”
If all they genuinely want is to be “allies” to lesbians or meet women, why can’t they make their own damn spaces?
Their favorite catchphrase is “everybody is really bisexual,” after all, so, surely they won’t have a hard time finding members…
“Lesbian spaces where women who are attracted to men are included inevitably become male-centered spaces,” one responder points out.
From my observation, they are often the first to advocate for the welcoming of penis-havers in lesbian spaces.
Who could’ve possibly seen it coming?
When women call themselves “lesbian” one second and go off into the sunset with a man the next, we can easily see how that creates an ambiguous atmosphere where leeching men feel even more inclined to intrude.
Both groups have a stake in expanding the definition of “lesbian”, as neither believes that female homosexuality is real, but rather a mere “preference”.
…sheesh, at least the good old-fashioned homophobes just call me a dyke and spit after me on the streets. Then they move on.
Spaces meant for us then become all about them and they/them.
And don’t you dare say you only want to date other lesbians, you “exclusionary, evil, biphobic, TERF bigot”!
Gosh, how will I fit all those names on my insurance application form?
Their proximity to heterosexuality gives them power, which they use to justify their bullying and predation upon lesbians.
And, whenever called out on their lesbophobia, they resort to victimhood.
They believe it is homosexuals’ responsibility to make them feel validated and affirmed in their insecure sexual and gender identities.
What will they want next? A lollipop and a hug? This isn’t fucking kindergarten.
Rightfully, lesbians want spaces where none of this nonsense is present.
One responder discusses having to constantly specify that lesbians are exclusively-same-sex-attracted. “It is apparently hateful these days to want sex-exclusive spaces. Our sexualities *have* to be inclusive, when, in nature, they are not.” She bemoans, “The saddest thing about this is the complicity of lesbians.”
I know we don’t like to see other women as part of the problem, but we must acknowledge that female oppression actively requires women’s submission and complicity to males in order to be successfully perpetrated.
As homosexual women, we are double vulnerable.
But don’t ruffle your feathers yet. It’s easier to pin the blame on others than to look in the mirror: lesbians are part of the problem too.
“Being overly accommodating, not putting up boundaries & enforcing them is a big reason we got into this. If we didn’t try to make everyone happy, we’d have some lesbian-exclusive stuff.”
Antagonizing, silencing and dismissing other lesbians when we bring up these issues, going along with the demands of inclusivity and cognitive dissonance are all things we need to address.
I've witnessed lesbians shifting the meaning of “lesbian” based on the context or conversation to magnanimously include all sorts of women.
Beware: Political lesbianism is alive and well — it just takes on a different guise nowadays.
Except this time around they don’t even bother to deny it has something to do with men.
Lesbianism is not:
a “separatist practice” or “preference”
a refuge for women who are tired of men
an “oppression category” you can jump in and out of to gain social points and attention.
You either are a lesbian2, or you are not.
When we use words outside of their actual definition, we forsake the most fundamental of tools: language to communicate our differences.
Lesbian erasure is a problem.
The second we, ourselves, are ambiguous in defining our terms, we lose credibility.
How can we then complain about others overstepping the lines we have been complicit in blurring?
Are we ready to get serious? Because — as one subscriber highlighted — in some corners of the world, the illegality of lesbian-only spaces is a real threat.
⚢ WHERE ARE ALL THE LESBIANS? ⚢
The survey augmented my perceptions: most lesbians encounter a number of issues when seeking community — whether that is bars being overly “inclusive”, or events being assailed by TRAs when males are refused entry.
Some provided accounts of venue owners being met with hostility and even violence — leading to spaces having to cave in to the demands or being shut down altogether.
“All lesbian spaces I’ve been a part of eventually become inclusive of all LGBTQ+ people,” says one responder, “lesbians are then no longer able to communicate unique struggles without pushback.”
“I go to a lesbian bar regularly, but it's not really a lesbian bar anymore. It's a queer bar,” someone explains, “I also go to a ‘sapphics’ meetup group regularly and it's enjoyable. There are more lesbians than I expected, but still women with boyfriends.”
A large portion of lesbians has never been in any public space that was authentically lesbian.
“Other than a little Zoom group, every ‘lesbian’ event I’ve attended included 1) men who call themselves lesbians; 2) women who call themselves ‘queer’, ‘wlw’, or ‘sapphic’, who pay lip service to the former group.”
Trans-identified males and their handmaidens, have successfully bullied lesbians out of our own venues.
“Wlw”, “sapphic” or “queer women” spaces are all about “aesthetics” and presenting lesbianism as an hyper-feminine, soft thing.
The mental fragility knows no bounds: nobody has a real job or a stable relationship, everyone is mentally ill, over-coddling and you have to be inclusive and accepting without question.
Basically, like a madhouse… or a cult.
“The only ‘lesbian’ group I have found ended up having almost over half the attendees being male,” one subscriber explains. “They ended up making their trans identities the focus of the group and I stopped attending.”
“Every time I’ve gone to a lesbian bar, it has been full of men. The one time it wasn’t, I was grilled about whether or not “trans women” were welcome.”
The pursuit: claiming the throne of oppression and victimhood at the podium of the feminine hierarchy.
Trans-identified-males are prized for their performance of femininity, whilst any genuine showcase of female gender-non-conformity is demonized.
“Masculine” lesbians are the enemy n.1 — the beast to be tamed and conquered.
They are being told they are not doing womanhood correctly — that they should admit to their “masculine privilege” or worse, their “transness”.
The feminine bullying is REAL.
Last time my fiancée and I tried to go to a local “lesbian” event, we left within less than an hour.
I asked her to recount the experience:
“It was much like a girly club where you either fit in or not. I was looked down to — not ‘androgynous-looking’ enough for one half of the crowd, not ‘feminine’ enough for the other half who all looked like they were in drag,” she says. “I felt just as or more uncomfortable than around my straight, homophobic friends.”
These spaces are not only extremely infantile and desexualized (except to the male gaze) — they are deprived of any fundamental characteristic belonging to female homosexuality.
If there are real lesbians there, it is hard to connect with them, because everyone is terrified to step out of line.
It is exhausting to be around such profound immaturity, that lesbians often feel there is no other option but to self-exclude.
One subscriber laments the lack of physical lesbian spaces around her. Seeking community online, only one group was for lesbians, “The rest had men or bi women in them. That stops genuine discussion because it ends up being more important to defend them than have a real talk.”
And let’s face it: lesbians tend to get together and stay cozily ensconced at home.
God knows I am guilty of it.
“Now that I am single and returning to the community, I have found that queer ideology and the trans cult have destroyed lesbians' rights to exclude males from both online and real spaces.”
“I briefly had time in lesbian spaces, as I was sucked into transgenderism for nearly a decade,” one lesbian expresses, “but in those spaces, I was around a lot of emotional immaturity & mind-games in the dating scene. There was a lot of internalized misogyny and unhealed trauma swirling around.”
“The last time I experienced any true lesbian spaces was the late 90s,” someone recounts, “I spent my young adulthood and onward in a major metropolitan city, and I watched our spaces get whittled down to ONE lesbian bar. One. In the entire city.”
Has it been this bad for everybody?
“It’s a long time since I’ve been in lesbian/women-only spaces,” says one responder, “As a young lesbian, I thought I’d arrived in heaven the first time I went to one. There was lots of infighting too, but at least we had somewhere to call our own.”
“There used to be a cafe called ‘First Out’ and a club called ‘Candy Bar’ in London. They were amazing,” one subscriber says. “I left the scene for a few years and when I came back everything was dead/closed. I didn’t know how lucky we were back then.”
Out of all, only one account was overwhelmingly positive.
“I practically lived in a lesbian bar in New York throughout my twenties (Mid-70s to mid-80s). It was our community. It was everything,” she recalls. “When I moved to Virginia, to a very homophobic environment, there was a great group of lesbians. We had a big party every month on the First Friday, as well as formal dances and an annual camping weekend. It was deliriously wonderful.”
⚢ CAN WE TAKE A GRIP? ⚢
When asked to identify potential steps which we could take in order to retain community, two answers prevailed:
Investing time, money and energy into organizing events and spaces solely for ourselves
By making spaces lesbian-exclusive off the bat and not tolerate any intrusions
Of course, that is easier said than done.
One subscriber explains the difficulty in maintaining a lesbian public space due to discriminatory legal reasons. “Until we can change the law to be sex-based instead of gender, we have to go underground.”
“I think there is a desire for lesbian-only spaces, but with the mixture of them not being profitable and facing harassment from males and non-lesbian women, it feels really hard.”
Unfortunately, that isn’t just the case for physical-for-profit spaces.
Organizers of Dyke Marches, non-profit organizations, online forums, chats and groups are also unable to define who a “lesbian” group should be actually for.
Have we lost our fucking marbles?3
Many lesbians feel rightfully skeptical about the possibility of a lesbian-only space. After all, we don’t have any…
We’re struggling enough as it is to have women-only spaces.
But we need to make an effort to look at the ways in which we might be responsible for that.
“Any woman who’s into women” or “any woman who identifies with the lesbian label” are not specific enough.
…“label”?! What is this, a record company?
Avoiding any critical thinking about how we should approach this isn’t good enough.
“We should be more mean and less inclusive; have lesbian bodyguards at the door throw out the males. If we get in trouble, do crowdfunding, find gender-critical lawyers to defend us. We have to be firm and people have to deal with it.”
Where are all the big, mean dykes we were warned about?
…other than yours truly.
Someone explains how different spaces are needed for different purposes. “For younger generations, butch visibility is critical — they need to see that whatever you do and whatever you wear is FEMALE; activity doesn’t define sex or gender.”
“We should take on the task of confronting, healing and integrating our traumas first,” someone addressed, “creating spaces that have a truly compassionate and encouraging framework.”
The first step must be to address our in-house problems.
We must confront our own lesbian self-hatred; our own failures to stand up for ourselves, and each other.
Modern-day lesbophobia is real, rampant, and it’s coming from inside the house.
We have to be clear about our purposes, what and who a “lesbian-only” space is for — before we can think about having one.
⚢ Click Below for Part 2 ⚢
- The Critical Butch
*The survey was crafted as a spur of personal curiosity and is not meant to be considered as a formal research, census or study in any way, shape or form.
*“Spaces” can mean both online and physical: events, bars, forums, groups, but also organizations and charities.
*The responses and results of the survey span within a sample of 30 subscribers.
*All subscribers which received the survey have been informed that some of their answers might’ve been anonymously included for the purpose of drawing conclusions and enriching the conversation.
*Open answers may have been edited and shortened due to syntactical/grammatical reasons, with the intention to keep the essence of the original message.
Lesbian: a female homosexual. A female exclusively attracted to other females.
You hit the mark on this one. It's hard these days to have this conversation because so many in the lesbian community feel pressured to embrace anyone and everyone who wants to be under the LGBTQ+++ umbrella. We must all have our sacred spaces, especially lesbians. We will be erased if we don't push back, which is a hard act inside a pressure cooker.
This is incredible! You always knock it out of the park with your writing.
Emotionally immaturity is a common theme of experiences in the modern "queer" scene. I feel it's a perfect description, but I can't articulate what exactly is emotionally immature.