Mkay, so, a few things I've observed today which are really really concerning. It's International Lesbian Day, and so the exclusionist kids (and I do literally mean kids) have been out in force, bombing any positivity threads they can find for m-spec lesbians.


1/

First of all, some ground rules:
I'm 43 years old. I'm not going to debate my identity or engage w/bad-faith discussions.

No one owes you debate. If you act shitty, people will block you. They might block you just because they want to. Using alts to sidestep that is shitty. 2/

Okay so anyway:

One of the main tactics of TERFs online is repeatedly demanding that trans women "define woman." They do this so they can drag the discussion down into pointless semantics rather than engaging in any talk which might reveal points of commonality w/trans folx. 3/

Marginalized genders of all sorts share many points of common struggle, but rather than engaging points where we could push forward together, TERFs insist on splitting the community with constant cries of "define woman! Okay now define it again while not using THIS WORD... " 4/

"Okay, now define it without using the letter e in any word while polkaing in a field of rabid badgers and covered in fresh bacon!"

These goalposts, which don't so much *move* as *levitate* in a fashion befitting a sport invented by England's most boring transphobe... 6/

... are used because the point isn't - as every trans person who has engaged with a TERF knows, the point is NEVER to actually functionally define 'what is a woman?' in a useful way and move on to productive discussion.

The point is to drag down any discussion.
7/

There's been a LOT of discussion and research into the fact that TERFs are deeply connected to white supremacists & the religious right. For that, I refer you to @herong, whose work on this is absolutely unparalleled. I cannot add any more proof to that than they already did.
8/

This is yet another reason why it's so VERY disturbing to me to see young lesbians - some cis, some not - start using not just the exact same tactics as TERFs - zerg-rushing Twitter threads, bombing people's mentions with harassment - but now carbon copies of their language. 9/

"Define lesbian. Define bisexual. Define pansexual. Isn't lesbian defined as [definition Rich could have written]? Can you define it without [political lesbian talking point]?"

Just as with TERFs, this isn't meant to engage any points of commonality or discuss anything... 10/

... meaningful about the common struggles of lesbians, whether monosexual or m-spec; cis, trans, non-binary, two-spirit, agender, third gender, genderqueer or another gender not listed. They're not trying to meaningfully define anything for the purposes of helping anyone.
11/

I can't discuss how growing up in an Evangelical household and becoming Jewish has influenced my growth as a butch non-binary bi lesbian and how my faith influences my view of the queer community and what strengths I can bring if I have to deal with 15yo kids... 12/

... zerging my mentions every time I start to talk about my life.

And that, of course, is entirely the point.

I've talked in the past about how adult TERFs prey on young lesbians, usually starting with 'ace exclusion' and 'bi/pan discourse' and ramping up...
13/

... to full indoctrination from there. This isn't a mystery, this is something that's well-documented, which has been openly admitted to by adult TERFs and spoken about by their young targets.

It's especially disturbing to see more open evidence that these kids...
14/

...& they ARE KIDS (the average reported age is 15-16) are adopting the exact same tactics, word for word, as LuellaWombyn65 from Essex.

Which, honestly, really concerns me when we're looking at kids who are going to spend the next year or 2 without the ability to engage...15/

... with offline queer/LGBTQ+ spaces.

Usually in situations like this, I can at least point these kids to actual real-life spaces where this behavior DOES NOT WORK and where they'll see messaging like:
16/

Where they'll meet older queers who they have to look in the eye and who won't put up with this bullshit, and where they won't be able to call in a zerg rush to back them up when Jan and Pat, who have been together since 1980 and have dealt with multiple generations...
17/

... of identity-policing "you must be this gay to be a Real Gay" baby lesbians, gently but firmly tell them "No, that's not how we behave here, and if you want to stay, you have to stop."

These kids are going to go through multiple years of being predated upon by...
18/

...a group with ties to some of the most homophobic and transphobic segments of our society, WITHOUT the balancing of Jan and Pat who run the LGBTQ Youth Support Group face-to-face on Tuesdays.

And look, I'm not gonna say that any given group of lesbians is without drama.
19/

Like, COME ON. It's not. And I'm not gonna say that any given group of lesbians is without its actual TERFs.

Obviously. They show up and interrupt marches and disrupt our gatherings.

But I *am* saying that without those gatherings, I am seeing increased markers...
20/

...of TERF-like behavior in young LGBTQ+/queer folx, ESPECIALLY lesbians.

As a parent, it scares the shit out of me, because those years are so highly important to how you start out your adult life &whether you spend the rest of your life building on those years or repairing
21/

...from them.

So what's the answer? I don't know, actually. I am not sure how to bring about that sort of organic multi-generational interaction which forced me to remove my 19yo head from my butt.

But it's something we're gonna have to deal with.
22/

Right now, I'm watching these kids, who are going through huge piles of trauma, increasingly parroting TERF talking points, and while I so often have said "look, if you go to any RL queer space, this shit doesn't fly," as I typed that today, I realized that they just can't.
23/

And they're not going to be able to for a long time, during this really sort of crucial socialization stage for teenagers and young adults.

Frankly, my daughter, who is 20, is super suffering from not being able to hang out with other young lesbians, so...
24/

... I'm kind of embarrassed that it took me watching literally half a dozen 15-18yo lesbians demanding that a 33yo lesbian DEFINE LESBIAN FOR ME to realize that *holy shit, we're in trouble.*
25/

A lot of these kids really think that if they just define all the "bad" queers out of existence and yell LALALA BI LESBIANS DON'T EXIST, LOOK, I'M ONE OF THE GOOD ONES, that the allocishets will leave them alone.

*glances at the Supreme Court*

Yeah. About that.
26/

So... I don't know, y'all.

We need a plan, bc otherwise the work that the Religious Right has been putting in on splitting the community into shards will be far more effective than even they hoped, bc these kids are literally isolated from the community now in unreal ways. 27/

I'm ... worried, y'all. Legit worried.

I hope I'm wrong.

I don't think so.

28/28