A Week of Lesbian Voices – 20-26 June 2022

Quote of the week

Gender is an ideology that secures women’s subordination in society and is tied to material relations. If you have the ideological belief that women are docile, feminine, subservient, servile, then you have the ideological justification to put women in the home and secure our reproductive labour. So gender is not essential to womanhood or manhood, but it’s an ideology that justifies and supports labour relations. It ensures that the nuclear family remains the basic unit of capitalism. And if woman doesn’t have a definition, how do women have any political solidarity with each other? […] The idea that women do not share any material conditions certainly doesn’t serve women.

Hannah Berrelli on TikTok, via LesbianLabour

Articles, activism, webinar

The webinar Life as a Lesbian Refugee, organised by FiLiA as part of Refugee Week, shed light on the harrowing conditions faced by lesbians fleeing homophobic families and communities. Far from finding a haven within refugee camps, they face the same violence and discrimination they sought to escape in the first place. The event heard from lesbians in the Kakuma Refugee Camp, Nairobi and the UK. Together with women representing organisations campaigning for change and offering practical support, they provided a thread that emphasised the violence lesbian refugees face at all stages of their journey. They are denied police protection, medical care and access to food and water within Kakuma, and they are then disbelieved when forced to relive their trauma in allegedly safe countries. There is no relief for lesbian refugees. The webinar ended with a plea for support and to raise awareness. You can help by downloading FiLiA’s Kakuma Campaign pack, donating funds (select Kakuma Campaign), signing the petition and emailing UNHCR (the campaign pack includes a draft letter and addresses). Book lovers can also help by buying books from the FiLiA Feminist Library bookshop, which will donate all profits on books sold in June to the Kakuma Campaign.

Some of you may know Carol F., a detransitioned lesbian and co-founder of Detrans Voices, a community resource dedicated to “raising awareness and improving the well-being of detransitioned and desisted people”. With the number of people who have detransitioned or desisted rising all the time, Detrans Voices are planning community outreach this summer. The aim is to attend women’s festivals and retreats, holding workshops and providing educational materials, in order to help better support detransitioners and desisters. You can support their work by donating to their crowdfunder. Carol’s story can be read here.

Lesbian Pride

In last week’s round-up, we mentioned United Lesbians and their fabulous #SaveTheTomboys trucks and clever messaging. This week we’d like to draw your attention to a resource they have produced for Pride 2022 – Profiles of Pride (on their resources page). In it, you can find short biographies of lesbians from all walks of life, as well as a section on the Daughters of Bilitis, the first lesbian social and political organisation in the US. The Barbara Gittins Story is a wonderful read and still relevant. Barbara challenged the idea that being a lesbian was unnatural or pathological, and together with her partner Kay Lahusen, worked to change attitudes towards lesbians and remove homosexuality as a psychiatric diagnosis requiring treatment. Profiles of Pride brings our history and achievements to light and acts like a balm as we face ongoing attempts to erase us.

Speaking of #SaveTheTomboys, Gaye Chapman was once again on call, this time at Valley Pride in the San Fernando Valley, California. She was handing out LGB Alliance USA fliers and Lesbians United’s Save The Tomboys materials. Gaye is doing this on her own so if anyone in California would like to lend a hand, I’m sure she would appreciate it. Don’t be shy: get in touch!

Now a story for tennis fans in particular. In the space of three months in 1981, Billie Jean King and Martina Navratilova were outed. Both were stars of the women’s game at the time, and the outings had personal ramifications as well as impacts on the women’s tour in general. Tabloids tried but failed to raise fears about lesbians in locker rooms, looking for evidence of predatory behaviour; they also offered money for names of other lesbian players. More encouragingly, the president of the WTA, Chris Evert, publicly offered her support to Billie Jean and Martina. For Billie Jean, the outing meant the loss of sponsorship and upcoming deals, as well as struggles to talk openly about her sexuality. Martina also lost sponsorships but eventually gained a lot more. Having defected from Communist Czechoslovakia in 1975 in order to flee repression, she initially had to keep quiet because of fears that coming out might harm women’s tennis. Yet being outed, and receiving a standing ovation at the US open despite losing the final in 1981, finally set her free. The legacy of both players has been, and continues to be, remarkable.

Upcoming

Organisations representing lesbians and women will be holding a protest in Berlin on Thursday 30 June in support of Christina Ellingsen. Christina, a representative of Women’s Declaration International Norway, is facing hate crime charges for tweets she posted between February 2021 and January 2022 in which she questioned the belief that men can be lesbians. If found guilty, she could spend up to three years in prison. You can join the protest from 11am in front of the Norwegian Embassy in Berlin.

Supporting lesbians

Many lesbian groups and women are being targeted and losing ways to earn a living or collect funds for their activism. If you can, please consider supporting them on the following links:

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