Lesbians are under attack from predatory men

The BBC this week published a thought-provoking article about lesbians being sexually victimised by trans predators. The experiences of dozens of women were taken into account. Their stories made me sick.

In light of #Metoo one could be forgiven for thinking that this BBC article would have inspired its own watershed moment, one in which lesbians could reassert their same-sex boundaries and say that, in a tolerant liberal society, they have a right not to be tormented by the opposite sex. But no. The article is being howled down because it is apparently prejudiced and transphobic. Over 16,000 people have now signed an open letter calling for the BBC to apologise for the piece.

The article went to some length not to sound incendiary. The careful headline was a quote: ‘We’re being pressured into sex by some trans women,’ it read. The author did not herself use the word rape, even though some of the women she quoted did describe this. Nevertheless, the trans anger machine fired itself up, and Trans Activism UK launched a fresh campaign against the BBC’s ‘transmisogyny’, a nonsense term activists hurl at anyone who dares to talk in biologically real terms.

Lesbians, it has to be spelled out these days, are same-sex attracted – i.e. not sexually attracted to men or any part of a male anatomy. Yet it turns out that lesbians increasingly find themselves harassed, abused and violated by men, who are using the mental fog of the trans debate to cover for their depravity.

You see, the homophobia of the past has not disappeared. It’s just been given a shiny new multi-coloured rebrand and been alloyed to sexism in order to make lesbians an acceptable target for abuse.

Lesbophobia, what the BBC report is really about, is misogyny on steroids: how dare these women think they can exclude men from their dating pool? Accusations of transphobia are bandied about as a manipulative tool to coerce lesbians into having sex with men, men who call themselves lesbians.

Predatory men have always found ways to access victims — it’s part of the male genius to create avenues through which their power and authority can go unquestioned. We’ve seen it in charity ambassadors, men in dog collars claiming to represent god, pop stars, and BBC DJs. But the new ‘get out of jail free’ card is the sacred caste of transgenderism.

Attributing prejudice to sexual desire, or the lack of it, is a manipulative tactic to coerce women into accepting partners they do not want. The pressure comes both within the intimate exchange and from the wider male-dominated LGBTQ community.

Lesbians have long since heard yobs at their local explain how the majesty of his ‘very best friend’ would turn her straight. However, there’s something more sinister about this new threat.

According to the trans lobby, a woman should not be able to explain that her same-sex attraction excludes these so called ‘transwomen’ because ‘transwomen are women’ and therefore ‘transwomen can be lesbians.’ Therefore straight men can be lesbians.

You can tell the BBC report hit a nerve because of the reaction it provoked. Rather than expressing concern at the news that lesbians are saying they have been raped, LGBQT mouthpieces have turned on the Corporation for publishing a transphobic story.

The responses have been so angry, homophobic, dishonest and threatening and so intense that the author of the article has deactivated her Twitter account. A couple of pretty awful hashtags have sprung up: ‘#CiswiththeT’ and ‘#Transwomenarewomen’ as if anyone needed further proof that ‘I believe her’ really only applies to women that toe the progressive line. One academic self-described feminist practically asks women to not speak about their assaults as it may damage the community.

As Angela C Wild, co-founder of the activist group ‘Get the L Out’ and the author of the Lesbians at ground zero report, puts it:

‘The response from LGBT organisations as well as a wave of anti-lesbian sentiment we are receiving in the last 24 hours is brutal but unfortunately not surprising… Same-sex attraction is now framed as a form of racism by Stonewall and other prominent transactivists. As we have seen with the MeToo movement, rape victims are very often not believed at first and it takes many years of campaigning for victims to be heard. However there is a specific aspect to the phenomenon of the cotton ceiling. The rape victims we are talking about here are lesbians coerced into what effectively are heterosexual practices and relationships. It is utterly disgraceful that large and government funded organisations still carry on calling rape victims terfs and bigots and enforcing heterosexuality.’

The logical trajectory from the erosion of female-centric language to the coercive rape of lesbians is only shocking to people who haven’t been paying attention. If we can’t say what a woman actually is, or is not, real world harm follows. That horrible and inevitable process has already begun.