Lesbians Have Always Stood With Trans Women – Our Safe Spaces Should Too

The news last week that the UK Supreme Court has ruled that the terms ‘woman’ and ‘sex’ in the Equality Act excludes trans women marked a sad day in human rights for this country.Challenges have been made about safe spaces and services that are designed for women and lesbians. And a frenzy around trans people, and in particular trans women, being a threat to safety has been a topic picked up by the media and certain cigar smoking celebrities, often with little or no evidence to substantiate this.As we have just marked Lesbian Visibility Week, I want to give my opinion as an open and out lesbian.I have been running events for LGBTQIA+ women and those who are non-binary for over 10 years, including five of those as part of the Board of Pride in London. This includes running Out & Wild Festival, now the biggest event for LGBTQIA+ women in the UK as well as pop up retreats across the country.I have been accused of creating unsafe spaces for lesbians because I have always welcomed trans women and those who are non-binary at my events. Yet in three years of running my festival, I have not had one issue or complaint about attendees feeling unsafe or uncomfortable about trans and non-binary attendees.Out & Wild has grown four-fold in 4 years. And whilst we have seen a steady increase in trans and non-binary attendees, the real growth has been driven by lesbians and bisexual women. I’m proud that attendees tell me it’s a safe and supportive for all who attend.Research from UK charity Just Like Us clearly highlights that lesbians are more supportive of the trans community than any other part of the LGBTQIA+ community. They are most likely to know a trans person (92%), and most likely to say they are “supportive” or “very supportive” of trans people (96%).What should be remembered is that the challenges that trans women face around exclusion from spaces, are also faced by non-gender conforming cis women. I know lesbians and heterosexual women who have been aggressively confronted at bars for using toilets, because they are tall, have short hair or choose not to wear make-up.Lesbians have always shared spaces with trans women and gender non-confirming people. We are really used to people being fluid around definitions of gender. I, like many of my friends, grew up as a tomboy and did sometimes question if I felt more masculine than female. So, it’s not surprising we are overwhelmingly supportive of this community.In 2018, when an openly anti-trans group disrupted London Pride, demanding to ‘Get the L out of Pride’ it was Lesbians that responded with the #LwiththeT movement. The hashtag and sentiment of support was quickly adopted across the UK and led to the group being invited to lead Brighton Pride just a couple of months later.There is also a history of Lesbians supporting more marginalised parts of the community. We were there for gay men during the ’80s and ’90s when prejudice around AIDs and HIV was at a peak. So why would we not be there for the trans community, especially when they face a similar barrage of online hate, often founded on fiction rather than facts?I just wish a fraction of the time spent on trans identity was focused on challenging toxic masculinity and the abuse women receive from cis men. Because this is a real and growing problem out there. Whilst Out & Wild is a safe space, research shows 40% of women under 40 have received unwanted sexual attention from men at music festivals in the UK.The real threats to safety for women continue to exist from a much larger group of cis men, not from 0.5% of the population who just want to fit in and live a life of acceptance.Related...David Tennant Shares His Take On JK Rowling As He Discusses His Allyship To Trans CommunitySupreme Court Ruling Is Anything But Clear – And Endangers All Women's Rights, Trans Group WarnsBridget Phillipson Still Can't Say Which Toilet Trans People Are Meant To Use

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