This is a @bindelj appreciation tweet. She has spent her entire adult life being a feminist warrior, at great personal cost during the last 16 years. I’ve only been writing about sex, gender, and sexuality since 2017 and there are days when it leaves me feeling broken.

I started writing a series of essays about sex, gender, and sexuality in the sincere belief that my words would act not simply as a learning resource, but a potential bridge between two warring factions. But the conflict only ever goes on, and it only ever gets uglier.

When I started those essays back in 2017, I thought that the tensions between lesbian feminists and the queer left could be resolved. Maybe that was naïve, but I miss that optimism. It has been replaced by exhaustion.

I have forged an incredible circle of friends along the way, met women I can’t imagine my life without. But if I live to be 100 I will never forget the pain a straight (former) friend caused when she told me we could no longer associate because of my lesbian feminist values.

Another former friend, a white woman, cut ties because I don’t believe gender is innate. She continues to be friends with a white gay man who publicly holds the exact same views on gender & sexuality that I do. He’s a gatekeeper in the arts. And I’m not. Go figure

I get all of these messages from women thanking me for speaking up, saying they can’t risk doing the same. But if those women did use their own voices, this whole shitshow would feel a lot less lonely. And there’s no way we could all be burned as witches. Strength in numbers.

I wish we could fast forward to a future where lesbians aren’t vilified, women and trans people both live free from male violence, police brutality no longer exists, and far right politics have been eradicated from the political mainstream. But I’ll probably never see any of it.

I try to use my voice to uplift women. Lord knows there are times when I fail. But now I’m completely burned out. And it’s so hard to keep putting one foot in front of the other.