With my own eyes, I just saw a lesbian on twitter say she was being oppressed by asexual folks because their flag is everywhere, and it’s asexual people’s fault that lesbians are now ‘the last on the conveyor belt in the LGBT community’.
Like. Dude, if you need a scapegoat for your suffering, capitalism is right there. Institutionalized religion is also a great contender. Saying asexuals caused all your suffering because their flag is slightly older and therefore more recognisable than yours is like. my god, have a snickers.
No. No. If they want a scapegoat, turn to the TERFs. There was a perfectly good lesbian flag that was well known in the 90s, that nobody uses anymore because the TERFs took it over. It was known and used before the ace flag was a glimmer. You want to be pissed, get pissed at the part of your own community who is trying to set up walls. Take that shit back if you want it. Use it while holding signs of trans sisterhood. You gave your flag up and are looking for recognition for a new one. That’s why your flag isn’t well recognized yet. Signed a transgender man, former part of the lesbian community for ~14 years.
You want to be pissed, get pissed at the part of your own community who is trying to set up walls.
This is so important.
We need a tag or shorthand phrase for “that thing where the TERF/SWERF/radfem crowd invades lesbian communities, makes it seem like any attack on them is an attack on the lesbian community, drinks all the punch, poops on the floor and leaves the next generation growing up without symbols or a cohesive community”, because it’s fucking happening again.
This is the older lesbian flag, the one that got grabbed by radfems / TERFs / SWERFs and that very few anti-radfem / anti-TERF lesbians ever made a concerted effort to reclaim. The Labrys flag:
It was created in 1999, eleven years before the creation and popularization of the ace flag. That gets thoroughly ignored, because it’s not convenient to the radfem rhetoric of ‘lesbians are the most oppressed members of the community EVER’ (uhhh…. trans women of color would like a word? Trans people in general? I’m not even going to get into m-spec people and every study so far showing that our parameters re: everything from rates of sexual violence to poverty are much worse than those of both straight and gay people, because that’s not the topic of this post).
I want to be very clear on this. When a young lesbian who’s been brainwashed by radfems says that ‘lesbians are the last on the conveyor belt in the LGBT community’, what she means is ludicrous nonsense such as this:
- all those ace pride flags? They should be lesbian pride flags instead, because under her beliefs, lesbians deserve absolute prioritization over other members of the community, on the basis of being ‘most oppressed’
- the community being seen as a coalition of EQUALS IN MUTUAL SOLIDARITY isn’t acceptable (at least not at more than shallow, declarative level), because acknowledging equality of marginalized orientations and refusing to build the community under a hierarchy is seen as ‘de-centering lesbians’
- remember what radfems actually said, in opposition to ‘queer’ as a term? ‘Queer de-centers and erases lesbians / lumps lesbians in with bisexuals and deluded men (hella transphobic code for trans women) and stops them short of naming their actual homosexuality.’ Changing the discourse to be solely about personal harm was a move of genius
- attention being given to issues that affect ace/aro people / activism for ace/aro people automatically takes away valuable time, valuable resources and valuable effort, that should have been spent on lesbian issues instead – therefore, any sort of ace/aro-centric work and the presence of ace/aro people is harmful to lesbians.
- hell, attention being given to issues that affect bi/pan people / activism for bi/pan people automatically takes away valuable time, valuable resources and valuable effort, that should have been spent on lesbian issues instead – therefore, any sort of bi/pan-centric work and the presence of bi/pan people (particularly ones that aren’t ‘SGA’) is harmful to lesbians
- insert the exact same thing about nonbinary / genderqueer people, about trans people (though most of the Usual Suspects haven’t quite gotten to the point of open and blatant transphobia), about intersex people (it’s my theory that this is at the base of that sudden and widespread campaign of ‘drop the I, intersex people are making their own community’, even in the face of many intersex people who fought like hell for their right to remain included and to keep the letter. Some, like @vergess, got rewarded for their effort by being called ‘pedophiles’ and being run off Tumblr)
And I could keep going! The spearhead of radfem infiltration within lesbian communities if two-fold – one, the rhetoric of ‘you are the most oppressed and any sort of attention being paid to these superfluous identities directly harms you’ and two, the notion that radfems are the ultimate champions of lesbian rights, the ones who will make certain that lesbians are always centered and prioritized. That’s how you end up with large recruitment into radfem ranks of young, inexperienced lesbians, who (naturally) feel flattered, protected and prioritized. That’s how radfems can shield themselves of criticism for their fuckery, by saying that any criticism of radfem rhetoric is an direct attack on lesbians. That’s how you end up with wankery such as ‘TERF is a slur used to demonize lesbians.’ It’s my prediction that in several years’ time, the currently-in-use lesbian flag (the lipstick one) will end up as much of a widespread symbol of radfems as the older Labrys flag, in the exact same way that the other flag was taken over.
What’s the solution? Widespread acknowledgement that no one is owed automatic centering solely on the basis of their identity and that the community wasn’t created to serve the needs of predominantly one or two groups. Thorough education on what ‘equality’ and ‘solidarity’ actually mean in the context of the struggle against cis-perisex-heteronormativity and actually implementing them in practice, rather than keeping them on as empty buzzwords. Acknowledgement that just because one has suffered under oppression, it doesn’t mean that others haven’t as well and that acknowledging and fighting against the oppression others deal with doesn’t lessen or ignore one’s own.
That is such a lovely flag, though. Someone please shove a trans icon on top and reclaim it as an inclusionist lesbian symbol.
Like this?
YES, PERFECT, THANK YOU
This post was needed
This is the flag I was talking about before!
I fucking love the labrys flag and have refused for a long time to let terfs fuckin have it. I use it and am aggressively pro-trans. I use it and AM trans (nonbinary). I love the one with the trans icon on it, it’s not good for small renditions but HECK YEAH terfs don’t get to steal our symbols, terfs don’t get to dictate our beliefs, FUCK TERFS, THEY DO NOT HAVE ANY PLACE IN LESBIAN SPACES.
