Mick Hartley

Sally Wainwright in the Times – Gender reform bill has betrayed lesbians — and will send them back into the closet:

In 1988 the Thatcher government introduced Section 28, prohibiting local authorities from “promoting” homosexuality. In response, a friend and I founded the Deckchairs Collective, which organised annual lesbian gatherings. The point was to assert our right to exist and to ensure lesbians were not afraid to be “out” in the aftermath of that appalling homophobic legislation.

I was unprepared for the fear lesbians experienced. One woman rang to say she and her partner were teachers but hid their relationship from everyone for fear of the consequences of being discovered. She was too frightened to tell me even her first name or the town where they lived, but phoned just for the opportunity to speak to another lesbian. We are now seeing the same fear and isolation again, this time as a result of gender identity ideology.

With the reversal of Section 28, changes in public attitudes, eventually the introduction of gay marriage, I thought lesbians would finally be able to live free from prejudice, and certainly without state interference. For a few years that was more or less true — homophobia persisted of course, but we were able to organise lesbian discos, bookshops, nights out, walking groups. Naively, I thought that we had achieved an unchallengeable right to live publicly as lesbians. How wrong I was.

No sooner were we visible than men claiming to be “women” started demanding entry to our events. When I first encountered men claiming to be “lesbians” (in the United States in 1980) I thought it was an aberration. Again, how wrong I was. Today, it is the official policy of the Scottish government, which prioritises subjective declarations of “gender identity” over biological sex.

Over the years the demands of gender identity ideologues grew increasingly forceful and influential. For some years now, lesbian groups have been forced to organise and meet in secret, taking care how we advertise our activities or invite new members. Almost all our social spaces and meetings closed. Women self-excluded from previously safe lesbian spaces and events which had, de facto, become mixed. Lesbians are banned from Pride marches, while lesbian banners are carried by males in bulging silver shorts.

Not to mention the ridiculous "cotton ceiling" business, where lesbians who refuse to have sex with blokes claiming to be women are decried as bigots and accused of "transphobia".

We have been betrayed by ideologically captured groups and individuals who should have spoken for us. Scottish politicians too have mainly closed their eyes, ears and minds to what is happening; blinded by the inexplicably attractive ideology of “gender identity” and deafened by the shrill shrieks of outraged male entitlement. Politicians who simply don’t care about women, especially lesbians, at all.

The legal move to accept not only males with severe gender dysphoria but also sexual offenders, autogynephiles or just regular blokes as “women” is being driven by politicians who refuse to acknowledge women’s concerns. Politicians who celebrate the frighteningly large increase in the number of young lesbians presenting as “trans”, rather than paying heed to the Cass Review, safeguarding, or the clear element of social contagion. Politicians who do not wonder where the lesbian adolescents went. (A teenager told me few girls in her year admit to being straight, and none to being lesbian; they are all “trans”, “non-binary” or have some other “special identity”).

Politicians in short, who are happy to pander to homophobia. Better a trans-son than a lesbian daughter. Lesbians’ only protection in this toxic atmosphere is the UK-wide Equality Act, which allows all males to be excluded in certain circumstances. But in December the Court of Session ruled that men with a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) are legally “women” for virtually all purposes.

By extension, heterosexual men with a GRC must, absurdly, be “lesbians”. The few exceptions will not cover associations such as my walking group. The Scottish government’s determination to hand out GRCs like sweeties will deny lesbians a distinctive social or cultural existence. This new legislation will drive us back into the closet.

A court in Tasmania recently prohibited lesbian events which exclude biological males claiming to be “women”, ruling them “discriminatory”. That is where Scotland is headed. This is both outrageous and terrifying. Once we are forced to include people outwith our legally protected group, all protections become meaningless.