The reality of being a lesbian
The following story has been compiled, with consent, from two submissions by the same author to the AHRC in support of the Lesbian Action Group’s request for a single-sex exemption for a lesbian-only event. One submission was sent in initial support, the second in response to the AHRC’s preliminary rejection decision. Read this author’s submissions in full, along with other individual submissions provided to us, on our website to learn why single-sex spaces matter to our community.
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“The subjection of women to men being a universal custom, any departure from it quite naturally appears unnatural.”
John Stuart Mill, The Subjection of Women, 1869.
When I came out as a lesbian in the late 1980s and early 1990s I was welcomed into a thriving community of women. That community has helped and supported me through a range of life experiences, especially those experiences of exclusion that were prevalent at that time. In the intervening years and on the basis of my lesbianism I have been physically assaulted; verbally abused; refused service; stared at in public; asked to leave premises; lost employment opportunities and ostracised at work. While these were unpleasant experiences, they are experiences that I share with other lesbians, especially those that do not conform to regressive gender stereotypes about what women should do, how they should behave and how they should dress. While these experiences have been profoundly negative they are common among lesbians and have developed a steely resilience within myself and my community.
While I was welcomed into a thriving community of women, I have grown increasingly troubled over the past few years about young lesbians joining my community. Lesbians are a small and marginalised group within the broader community and forcing us back underground where we again employ the use of passwords and vouching systems is regressive and robs us of our right to free assembly. It is akin to lesbian life in the 1950s and has no place in contemporary society. It robs us of the connection with our young counterparts who are denied an understanding of their culture and rich history, which was a connection that I so thoroughly benefited from. As lesbians we are no longer able to meet up as women with a common bond without the presence of men who do not share our experiences of the world.
My identity as a same sex attracted person has been erased in law and public policy as state and corporate entities now refer to me as being same “gender” attracted based on an ideology that I do not believe in or adhere to. Gender consists of regressive sex-based stereotypes that I have been liberated from, yet the state wishes to further imprison me in. Mainstream Rainbow Organisations that do not support my interests have supported this change without any consultation with me or my community. I am a same sex attracted women and no legal sophistry designed to get biological males into women’s spaces will ever change this.
Since coming out over 30 years ago I have been harassed by males asking how I “have sex as a lesbian” on buses, planes, boats and cars; in bars, clubs and restaurants; in classes, on tours, walking down the street and countless other locations. I have been leered at and threatened with sexual assault by men in those environments. I have had men tell me that I just haven’t met the right man, while insinuating that they might be the answer. Now I am told by institutions such as yours that it is bigoted of me to refuse to engage in any type of sexual relationship with men. Mainstream Rainbow Organisations that are meant to represent my interests have made homophobic public statements referring to lesbians who do not wish to have sex with men as “sexual racists” who need to reconsider their choices, as if lesbianism were a choice I could opt out of to serve the sexual needs of men.
In the late 2000s I was a member of a Lesbian Social Group located in Melbourne. This was expanded to include transgender identified people as they considered themselves part of that community and for the purpose of inclusion. This process of inclusion resulted in trans identified males joining the group, and they were soon leering at some of the women in the group, sexually harassing them and creating a hostile and unpleasant social environment. Their behaviour was coercive, threatening and profoundly unwelcome. Fewer and fewer women attended the meet ups each month and inevitably the group finally disbanded. It has been over a decade since I have been able to connect with that community, which I consider a fundamental part of my identity.
In the late 2000s I was also a member of a lesbian book club. We met frequently to discuss books, socialise and connect with our community. We had wide ranging discussions about our lives, our experiences and of course, books. In the name of inclusion a trans identified male was accepted into the group, with everybody being supportive and understanding. It very quickly became clear that this individual did not read the books, they dominated conversations and were frequently inappropriate in those discussions. They would be overtly sexual and were sexually coercive towards a number of women in the group. After some time the lesbian book group was disbanded and I lost yet another connection with my community. These experiences are echoed by countless women who are too afraid to speak up for fear of being labelled transphobic. Women who do speak out are removed from social groups, ostracised in their communities and banned from social media.
It is with bitter irony that I observe the legislation that protected me from discrimination in a range of areas in public life is now being used as tool to discriminate against me. That lesbians have not been able to meet without the presence of men in the state of Victoria for 20 years is regressive and profoundly homophobic. It renders me a lawbreaker that had a greater freedom of association when homosexuality was unlawful. That this is being done in the name of “inclusion” makes it all the more egregious. Any creepy man can currently self-identify as a lesbian and legally force his way into lesbian spaces that should be free of men staring and leering. We have the right to enjoy friendship, community and intimacy that is free of this coercive expectation and intrusion.
Lesbians have a right to freedom of association no matter what the state says. You can legislate against us, you can vilify us and call us names. You can threaten us and relieve us of our livelihoods. These are all things our community has endured before and endures now, but you will never stop us from meeting without the presence of men.
“The coloniser always make use of ideological weapons. No matter whether this ideology is religion, philanthropy, a ‘civilising mission’ or whatever, it is intended to mask the true intent of the invasion. That intention is always to pacify the invaded people and to convince them that the colonisation is for their own good.”
Anne Summers, Damned Whores and God’s Police, 1975.