LGB Returns: The Alliance Fighting For Lesbian and Gay Rights

LGB Alliance USA is dedicated to protecting and advancing the rights of lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals. They are part of an international movement confronting a new wave of homophobia that tries to tell lesbians and gay men that same-sex attraction is wrong. On this episode of The Lesbian Take, we're interviewing the LGB Alliance USA to talk about the current challenges faced by LGB folks and how we move forward. 

Join the LGB Alliance USA's mailing list, and check out their events.

LGB Alliance USA recommends you read: 

• How the trans movement is erasing black women from history by N3VLYNN
• The Unexpected Penis by Amanda Kovattana

Remember to subscribe for new episodes and leave us a review. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:10

The LGB Alliance is a nonprofit that focuses on protecting the rights of same-sex attracted people. That means lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals. They aim to be a clear, independent voice for those who believe sex-based rights and same-sex orientation need focused advocacy. It's a mission that I care so deeply about, and I'm grateful to have Joes, Sylvia, and Ariane from the LGB Alliance USA here today on the podcast. So that interview is coming up and it is a hoot. So tune in. Welcome to The Lesbian Take. Thanks for having us. Excited to be here. I'm excited to see you guys today too. But before we jump into the questions, I think it'd be interesting to hear how all of you got involved with the LGB alliance. Maybe we'll start with Joe's and then Ariane and then Sylvia. Sure.

SPEAKER_03 1:27

So I I responded to a thing on Twitter from the UK group that was asking for people in the United States that might be interested in supporting or starting a US chapter. And so that that was that was the beginning for me. I was right at the jump. So I've been involved since then. And when was that? That was 2020. 2020. Yeah, my peaking was 2018-2019. By 2020, I was fully in it. And we launched in August of 2020. Okay. Yeah, we're coming up on our sixth year, actually. Sixth year anniversary is coming soon.

SPEAKER_02 2:04

Have you ever been to one of their uh big meetings in the UK? I have not, but Ariane has. Oh, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 2:13

Yeah, so I I joined in 2000, I want to say like maybe the end of 2021 or beginning of 2022. I found out about it on Twitter around the time I was peaking. And I think I I sent an email and Joss answered the email, and she suggested, well, were you interested in volunteering? And I'm like, oh, might as well see what that's about. And it sort of escalated from there. And yes, I I have been to the conference. I went to the one actually this year in April, because this was the first year of the conference where they had special panels dedicated to LGB International, which launched last year. And that's basically the international group that unites all the global LGB alliance chapters. And I'm the US uh chapter's liaison to the international group. So I was there. I spoke on a panel, I facilitated another one. So that's how I ended up at the conference this year.

SPEAKER_02 3:21

That's super cool. JK was JK Rowling at that one? I heard she went to something recently.

SPEAKER_01 3:27

She did not go to that conference. I I believe there was one year where she zoomed in to one of the LGB Alliance conferences, if I remember correctly. Yeah. I heard something.

SPEAKER_00 3:40

Wow. And Sylvia, how about you? So I I can't remember the exact month. Was it 2020, Joss? That I I I feel like it was the end of 2020.

SPEAKER_03 3:50

It was either the end of 2020 or the beginning of 2021. It was very yeah, pretty early.

SPEAKER_00 3:55

Yeah. And I just remember seeing the LGB Alliance in the UK was started. And then I basically kept searching LGB Alliance USA just all the time. And eventually, I think I found them on Instagram after looking them up. And I was like, finally, yes. And I and I messaged, and I'm thinking I was reached, I reached out to Jos and I was like, hey, I want to work for you guys. Or I wanna, you know, can I what how do I get involved? And we set up an interview. And I remember I was really nervous and I like put on a tie because I was like, I just need them to know that I'm serious about business and I'm, you know, uh this matters to me. And and here I am. And I, yeah, I feel like I'm the or I am a creative energy, whereas Joss and Ariane are a lot more practical than I am. But I'm the I'm the big dreamer for sure.

SPEAKER_02 4:54

Yeah, there's a lot of big dreams. I have a question about that coming up. You know, I'm I'm a donor for LGB Alliance Canada. So, and how how that came about was I peaked very late, a lot later than all of you. I probably peaked a year ago, to be honest. It was the non-man nonsense that really pissed me off. And also, it's just the the it seems in the last few years there's been a break from the social contract. I think like there was a contract in pre place, and it's like, look, we'll let you play believe and whatever, whatever, whatever. But, you know, then when they were trying to change the definition of lesbian, I just had it. That was my I was pissed off. I was really pissed off. I was like, this is insulting. Shut the fuck up. But yeah, so like I found out about the LGB Alliance. I also was like really driven, like, how can I help this? I think this is really important. I think we need a voice. And so I found out about LGB Alliance Canada and I started donating. I think the Canadian one is a lot newer, like it's uh maybe a newer what is the word almost like satellite of the UK one.

SPEAKER_03 6:07

Yeah, they're I think they weren't too far behind us, but they have had some restructuring things over time, so it yeah, they're they're great.

SPEAKER_02 6:16

Yeah. I have my uh first like intro meeting, I think in September. They have to vet me to check that I'm safe.

SPEAKER_03 6:25

Hey, it's unfortunate that we have we have to be very cautious about there's a whole manifesto that was written by a trans activist years and years ago about infiltrating camp trans and just the it's a manifesto of like destroying from within. And that was one of the first things that I read when I got involved in all this, and so I've been super, super on it about making sure that we are cautious with who we let in.

SPEAKER_02 6:53

Yeah, it's so sad that we've gotten to this point, to be honest. But let's move on to something else with the questions. I want to get to the heart of your mission. So, from your perspective, what are the biggest challenges same-sex attracted people are dealing with right now? And related to that, I I want to know why why do you think that legacy organizations like GLAD and Stonewall aren't best equipped to advocate on these issues anymore?

SPEAKER_03 7:25

I'd I'd like to jump in right away and and say we we've just gotten a correspondence from a woman in uh Serbia, a lesbian in Serbia. And so it kind of answers both questions at the same time. So she is seeking support because she's saying this is we're we're here, we have we have nothing. And the legacy organizations, those HRC type organizations there are exclusively focused on the trans activism, which is what we've seen here in the United States and around the globe. The legacy works have have shifted their focus to trans activism. And so she's saying there's no support for us. She's seeking for support, seeking to see if there's an alliance in Serbia or any resources that she could use. She's very worried about pride that's coming up, of about being an outspoken lesbian, because she really doesn't have that option at this point. Now it's so intertwined. And LGB Alliance International made that break a year ago in September. It's we're LGB, we're leaving behind the TQ, we're done with this. But that's okay for us in the West, but it's not the case for everybody everywhere. So in a country like Serbia, and this is even in our local communities here in the United States, there's a lot of areas where lesbians, gays, and bisexuals do not have the opportunity to connect with each other, to have a real sense of community, spaces that are just for us without all of the noise coming from outside.

SPEAKER_00 8:55

Yeah. Yeah, I I would say globally uh the biggest issue that homosexuals face is is getting uh put to death and tortured for being homosexual, hands down. But if we're talking in the United States, which is where our organization is based, it for me, I think the biggest issue we face is is the destruction of single sex spaces and uh the inability to create more. Legally, it's it's getting difficult, if not impossible, to do that. Definitely socially, it's it's impossible to do that because you get labeled transphobic if you want to have a single sex space. And single sex space is essential for homosexual community. Without single sex spaces, there is no gay or lesbian community. And without community, you're not able to work on the problems with within your community or to empower yourselves to face the problems that are experienced from externally. So yeah, there there can't be progress or empowerment for gay or lesbian or bisexual, same-sex attracted people without single sex spaces. And then, you know, we could ask the what led to this destruction and inability to create single-sex spaces, but I feel like that gets us a little far away from the prop from the question itself. So that would that would be my answer.

SPEAKER_02 10:25

Thanks, Sylvia. Ariane, anything from you?

SPEAKER_01 10:29

My colleagues did a good job at at answering. And I'll add to as the liaison to LGB International. I mean, one of the countries in LGB International is Bulgaria. And, you know, they have that that same problem of like, on one hand, they have a lot of very old-fashioned, old school homophobia still there, but at the same time, they also are now dealing with like a lot of the actual so-called gay rights activism is very, you know, TQ plus. And the representative from Bulgaria, Vasil, he was saying, you know, that there's now evidence in polls that support for gay rights in Bulgaria has actually declined. And he wonders if part of that is due to the fact that these LGBTQ groups have been trying to push all this really ridiculous gender stuff in a very conservative country that didn't even have an old-fashioned gay rights movement. So it's amazing in what reaches of the world the uh gender ideology bandwagon, you know, people are still jumping on that band bandwagon to the great detriment of the country. But, you know, I agree with what Sylvia says that in much of the world it's really just, you know, there's still old-fashioned homophobia that we have to confront as well. But it it's amazing though, how even how gender ideology has reached so many places.

SPEAKER_02 12:03

Yeah, like and it just sort of snuck up on us, sort of, you know. I'm I'm very interested to know a little bit about the history of of the group. If you would be able to maybe walk me through how LGB alliance was formed, um what was happening historically that pushed the founders to rebuild an organization centered around same-sex attracted people.

SPEAKER_03 12:29

The in the UK, it was built uh crescendo was building already. They what they call that Turf Island. So Bev Bev Jackson and Kate Harris were the the soul of of the UK alliance, and they ran it pretty much in two of them at the start. And just speaking out, uh they had the J.K. Rowling. J.K. Rowling is also a lot of the way that I peaked. It kind of got over the line. Like the peaking was starting in 2018, 2019. By 2020, it was it was really the stuff that was going on around her and that infamous essay that she wrote that was so transphobic but wasn't at all transphobic. So they had a lot of that sort of energy kind of building them. If I recall correctly, Kate Harris used to be work in charity for one of their major like Stonewall, maybe it was Stonequall, I think. And uh so she they tried to have direct interventions with these organizations to try to get them to turn, you know, shift directions, and they would not relent. They just doubled down. So at that point it became like I can't speak for them, but it at that point they just kind of came together and and this magic started. And then for us, it was it was it was all from the UK. So they started it, and then all of these chapters are because of them as well.

SPEAKER_02 13:43

Yeah, it's the peaking. It's like I I think more and more people are peaking too, you know. I think that all of us maybe at the back of our minds, like we always we at least for me, I can say I never believed in any of this stuff, but I was like, what's the harm? Like that was always I was like, this this is important to other people. What's the harm, right? Like, who cares? You know, and I I liked RuPaul's drag, right? I like drag. Like, I don't care, and I'm also the last person who can ever like comment on like how someone wants to look because you know, before I got my dreads, and maybe even now, like, you know, people give me a double take, because you know, I look I look like a little boy my whole life until I got long hair. So I didn't really care, right? But like I was like, we all know what's reality though, right?

SPEAKER_00 14:37

And then Well, that's where that's that was your mistake. That that's what I thought.

SPEAKER_02 14:42

I thought I thought there was a social contract, understanding. I do also think it's a little bit different in Canada. Like maybe I'm just not I don't think it's as like it's actually pretty bad in Canada, but it's not bad unless you like you encounter something. It's only when you actually are faced with something and want to complain about it or something happens to you, then it's like, holy shit, the world's against me sort of thing. Like there was a lady who went to I think YMCA or something in the BC and she walked in and there was a AGP in the woman's change room with the the giantest knockers, fake knockers, you can think, and a bulge in in a thong. And she was coming in there with her little, I think a six-year-old daughter and went to complain about this. And they basically told her that she was a bigot and that she needed to go find an a a single stall then if like she was uncomfortable changing in the the changer. And she filed a human rights complaint and they basically said, You're a bigot, you're the one who's wrong. So basically, it's only if something actually happens to you in Canada that you're kind of screwed. Because they're gonna just not do anything about it, right? But but yeah, I peaked because like I realized that lesbian space didn't have any spaces anymore, as like this is fucked up. How how how are you trying to turn this to tell lesbians that we're bigots for not dating the opposite sex? That's wrong, that's homophobic. Took me years to call it for what it was homophobia and the non-man nonsense, like trying to change our definition. So for me, it was that like because my identity really matters to me, and I I really worry about the younger generations of lesbians if they don't have that concrete label and definition and meaning, it it's very important to have that. So sorry, I just sort of went on a long tangent there.

SPEAKER_00 16:57

No, you're you're good. I I think in the states there was a heavy-handed cotton ceiling culture that got pushed really hard, pun not intended. But if you're unfamiliar with cotton ceiling, it's for anyone listening or any, you know, it it's a appropriation of the glass ceiling, which was the idea, you know, that women can only get so far in life, and then there's this secret glass ceiling that they need to break through to really get to where, you know, the the men in power are, and it was a feminist idea. Well, the cotton ceiling, I don't remember what trans woman coined that term, but it was a trans woman or trans-identifying man, if you like to use that terminology. And essentially it says that lesbians are accepting of trans women as women up until they get down to the underwear. And then, you know, uh sexual relations is a problem, and lesbians reject a trans woman's womanhood. Ergo, there is this cotton ceiling that exists, and it's rape culture. What is what what that is? That is trying to coerce and shame homosexual women into sleeping with men, which is disgusting. And that really, really was being pushed, uh, not just by by just local organizations, but like major organizations too. And I mean that so I feel like that was kind of the atmosphere in the states that led so many of us in LGB Alliance to to coalesce together. And then I think more and more gay men started showing up. A lot of gay men showed up to be allies to lesbians, but then gay men started catching strays too, and it then became like, oh, like, no, you, you know, you're gonna go to this sex party, and you better be okay if there's a surprise vagina there and you better not say anything about that. And that's assault. If there's a contractual understanding that everyone there is gonna be male, and then you're interacting with someone who's not male, and you were deceived into interacting in that space. So, and and there are other ways that gay men are targeted by this whole gender ideology inclusivity thing, but yeah, so really just an assault literally on uh homosexual rights and homosexual people and a silencing of them on all social media's publications that really just stifled any dialogue. And so now there's an LGB alliance to try to push back against that.

SPEAKER_02 19:41

Yeah, it's so sad. Like, cause it I don't know. I I just think that like 15 years ago this wasn't a problem. I thought we all like kind of got along, and now it's just like, whoa, 360 or 180 on me. I'm like, what? At least, but I don't know. So I want to talk a little bit about the goals. We kind of touched on this a little bit, but LGB Alliance, like all the websites have a lot of goals that they've outlined, like for like their mission. But when you look at the landscape right now, like which priorities would you say rise to the top for you and why?

SPEAKER_01 20:18

Well, one thing that we've really been prioritizing, I believe, since our founding, although Joss can speak to that better because she was there right at the beginning, is community building. So there's so many LGB people who come to our meetings. We have these uh various Zoom meetings for LGB people, like we have one for men, one for women, a mixed sex group. And people will come and discuss a particular topic, and a lot of people will say that they have nowhere else to go to talk about these things. They feel like they're silenced in all their communities, sometimes even from their LGB or LGBTQ community centers or whatever. And so a big part of our focus has been to make sure there is a space for LGB people to speak up. And another point I'd also make to that is forming coalitions with other organizations, for example, women's organizations, that they are tackling the problem of gender ideology and protecting sex-based rights from a women's rights standpoint. We tackle it from an LGB standpoint. There's a lot of overlap. There's some things that are unique to the women's group, some things that are unique to us. But working with other organizations is crucial in getting anything done in a country that's as big and as fast as the United States. So that's another thing that we're really focused on right now.

SPEAKER_03 21:53

Yeah, in addition, we've been for people that can't make meetings or haven't heard about the meetings or don't know who we are. We're trying to make more positive pro LGB content. So it's a it's a focus of ours to just try to get something out there that is. It's not going to get shadow banned. Like to just be frank, I was workshopping title ideas for this last video, and immediately it said, like, your content is going to be shadow banned. I have the exact wording for it, but it was just ridiculous that even in that notion of coming up with a title, it's just pre-warning that there's it's going to be hard to get this out there. So it's it's hard to get the reach. Educating people about what's really going on because there's so many, like you peaked within the last year. There's so many people like us that don't understand what's going on. They're in happily committed relationships, they're not trying to date, they're not trying to be out in in lesbian bars or cafes that just don't exist anymore because they've been in relationships and they're, you know, whatever. So they're just not aware of of the the way that the landscape has changed. So there's there's a lot of education to do, but also just to be pro-LGB.

SPEAKER_02 23:04

It's funny you say that because like I disappeared for for for like a decade. I used to be really active in the the lesbian like party scene. Like I've even like gone to LA and was in a wee ho. Like I went to one of, I don't know if you've watched that real L word, a party with Whitney. Met Whitney. Whitney also came to a few parties here in Toronto. Like I was just like, every night I was going out, and then I met my partner. We we got we U-Hauled, and then I I I didn't really have any lesbian friends for ages, and then I wrote a gay book, and then I was like, I I I need to find some some lesbians to read my book. So I went online, and then that's when I was like, What the hell?

SPEAKER_03 23:49

Where are all the lesbians? I was like, Where's the lesbians? Can can we just say the word lesbian anymore? We can't say that word anymore.

SPEAKER_00 23:56

What?

SPEAKER_03 23:58

But there are just really a small number of us that are actually homosexual and bisexual, and so this work has enabled me to meet truly LGB people who truly care about our community and are willing to give their time, like these ladies here, to give their time, their effort, their energy, their commitment to trying to rebuild the community that we all care so much about. So it's to me that's that's been everything. I get kind of emotional about it. So I'm not trying not to be emotional, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:31

No, that I I just wholeheartedly second what Joss just said, that it's been so empowering for me to be around other homosexuals online, on Zoom calls, and to be able to help people connect. I know that there are um a couple of lesbians that actually went to meet in person and have become friends through one of our Zoom meetings that we host. But I also feel really grateful that there was a point when we had a dysphoria support group for individuals suffering with gender dysphoria and who had either transitioned but wanted to detransition, or who had detransitioned but were still struggling, or people who never transitioned but had gender dysphoria and wanted to find ways to cope with it. And that ran for about two years, I feel. And it it was, it was hard, sad at times, but also just so empowering and so eye-opening to see the ways in which being same-sex attracted impacts our relationship to our body, our relationship to our understanding of ourself, and and how a misdiagnosis of gender dysphoria or how a diagnosis with gender dysphoria can just put you on a track that doesn't actually help you. It actually further hurts you. And to be able to be a part of connecting people and helping people find tools to use to feel more comfortable in their own skin was really rewarding. And I definitely want to continue that work in the future or at least be a soft landing place for individuals who are really deep in the sauce of trans identity, who eventually wake up one day and realize I'm just a homosexual and I was running from that. And now where do I go? And I want, and I I think I can speak for Ariane and Joss when I say that we all want LGB Alliance to be an organization that's not going to shun them or or make them feel bad or police how they talk about their experience going through medical transition now that they're on the other side and either want to try to reverse the decision or just exist in their new normal, but with a different understanding of what their identity is and going back to I'm my biological sex and I'm exclusively same-sex attracted. Because right now there is no other organization besides LGB Alliance, USA and all the other LGB alliances that acknowledge the importance of biological sex with regards to sexual orientation and the significance of our biological sex.

SPEAKER_01 27:25

That's very well said, Sylvia. And I I second all that. And I'd also like to say, for the, you know, positive, optimistic note, going back to what I was saying about community building, is I've definitely made a lot of friends through doing this. And I'm I'm just putting that out there for those of you who are worried, who maybe want to get involved in this sort of line of advocacy, but are worried about losing friends or losing social connections, or maybe you're already isolated, but you can make friends through doing this. It's it's not all like can't you'll be canceled everywhere and it's all doom and gloom. I've I I've made more friends. I haven't lost friends, I've made friends through this. So that's one optimistic note. I just want to sound.

SPEAKER_02 28:21

Maybe things are different in Canada than the the US, but I find that like because I have homosexual friends, and all of us, I think some of them maybe it's not that they peaked and they're so they're not like fed up of with anything. But it's like in our secret conversations, like even from the get-go, at least with my friends, we were able to talk. I do think now in this new landscape, a lot of people are only making friends online, and and maybe that is part of the issue too, because online it's very surface level sometimes, but sometimes you peek together too. I have a have a lesbian friend I made on uh TikTok, and we both sort of peek together at the same time, and now she's like, I don't fucking care if they call me a turf.

SPEAKER_03 29:11

Yeah, like those conversations are so important, those one-on-one conversations for that cognitive dissonance just like hitting the wall, like, oh my goodness, the you can't you can't ignore this anymore. So yeah, it's it's yeah, peaking together is a beautiful thing.

SPEAKER_02 29:26

It's so beautiful, but the community I think is so important, lesbian community, especially, which brings me to my my next question about, and this was also one of the goals on the the website, it which speaks about lesbians often dealing with a mix of homophobia and misogyny that often gets overlooked. And so I I'm just wondering because this is the lesbian take, how are you working to surface those experiences and make sure that they're they're not sidelined?

SPEAKER_03 29:58

Yeah, that was actually one of the main things that was really important when we were starting this this organization that Bev and Kate wanted it to be lesbian-led. So that was straight out the gate because of the the dual oppression that we face as as lesbians. So we really are lesbian first. We we didn't and it just happens to be the fact that lesbians are, because we're we're affected the most, we tend to see more lesbians come through trying to volunteer and and to be supportive of the cause. So we we lean heavily into women's issues and we do also take criticism for that. So that's not always the the the favored situation for gay men, and they point out to us that we we need more male representation. Uh, but you know, we're we're we have male representation, but uh, you know, obviously our focus is on supporting everyone in in the LGB community, hitting all the letters, but we are lesbians first. And so it's it just is that you know we tend to focus on lesbian issues and have lesbian speakers, and uh, you know, we're we're both built from there, but we definitely focus on the lesbian issues.

SPEAKER_00 31:08

And part of that is just because we're lesbians, so that's who we're connected to. Like, you know, there's we're not at all against gay men being like, hey, there's this guy I really wanna talk to or interview. We're like, great. I mean, and you know, not for nothing. I just found a a gay comedian who I'm like, he's great. I want we gotta, we gotta interview him. Like, you know, he's got this comedy special. So tune in for when that drops. Yeah. But I I feel like lesbian-led just kind of means like it, if all of the letters, LGB, if we're all working together towards an end goal, I truly feel that lesbians as a whole, not necessarily every individual lesbian, but just kind of generally, lesbians have a better view of the problem and a better view of the solution because we are so directly affected both by the homophobia and by the misogyny. That's not to say gay men are incapable of seeing the problem or that they're incapable of seeing the solution, but there are many things that have been brought up by the lesbians where our fellow gay men are like, I had no idea that was happening. And we're like, Yeah. And, you know, now there are things that les we've learned from the gay men, typically, you know, like kind of about their slang and some of their subculture stuff. We're like, wait, you guys call yourselves what? What's that mean? You know, but but a lot of the gay men that or all of the gay men really that that work with us really do have an appreciation for the fact that lesbians were hit the hardest by this and are are hurting the most. And so that, you know, they're not resentful that lesbians are the ones being like, all right, here's the agenda. You know, they're they understand and and they appreciate that and they want to support. Moving forward when we have other issues, there may be an issue that gay men need to lead on because they're, you know, uh they're the ones who are directly impacted by it. And they might be like, here's a problem that you lesbians are not aware of, and we will be so grateful for that input. But for this particular fight, it lesbians definitely are at the forefront.

SPEAKER_02 33:18

That makes a lot of sense. We just need to find ourselves again so that we can really start to tackle the issues that like there's so many countries in the world where just being gay, especially being a gay man, like you are gonna maybe get killed, maybe get locked up, and none of these issues we're able to tackle uh anymore. None of them. So that's something I'm really looking forward to in this community that you're speaking about, about building it back up. Like I I would love the day to come where we're able to focus and put our energy towards really helping to make it so that people in these countries can just live their lives and love who they want to love, you know?

SPEAKER_00 34:10

Right. Absolutely. We have to clean our we but we have to clean up our own house first before we can we can do that because yeah, otherwise it's like we're not we're literally not gonna get get anywhere because we can't even name what a lesbian is or what being gay is. So how are we gonna advocate for anyone when we can't even agree on what definitions mean? Yeah, we have to put our life mask on first.

SPEAKER_02 34:37

Right. Yeah. So one question that I had for you is about lesbians in particular, because this this sort of affects us probably from the start it hit us the hardest from the start. Julie Bindle, she's she describes it as we were the canary in the coal mine when all of this started up. But a lot of lesbians have aligned themselves with gender-focused activism. And so from your perspective, why do you think that's happening? And how does the LGB alliance try to reach people who may not see the risks you're concerned about?

SPEAKER_00 35:17

Ariane, it looks like you're such a big answer to that question, I feel, Ariane.

SPEAKER_01 35:25

So to be clear, the the question is lesbians who have who are pro-gender ideology, like who who's who are part of the sort of TQ plus we're all friends, let's be inclusive. Yeah, I I I recently wrote an article about LGP groupthink, and uh also talked about this in a recent discussion we had about the whole Windy A kerfuffle. How it does seem like a lot of lesbians are very much on the side of trans inclusion and TQ plusism. And I think one reason for that, well, first of all, I think a lot of the lesbians who are are not personally directly impacted by, in a negative sense, by gender ideology. And there could be a number of ways that could be the case, like someone like Megan Rapino, the lesbian soccer player who is not retired and she supports trans inclusion when her career is over, anyway. So um, it could be that they they just have not been personally negatively impacted. And I think also for a lot of it, it's just they feel like when they have experienced homophobia, they like the idea of other people being nice to them and being inclusive to them. And so they feel like, well, if lesbians have benefited from this love and sympathy, we should now do the same for other groups. And the problem is that that that's not how things work. There's an asymmetry here. Men who are identifying as women and want to get on a women's sports team, they are taking away opportunities from women and are not making it a level playing field for women. And it's not an analogous situation to lesbians who are women being denied equal rights. And I think a lot of a lot of lesbians are trying too hard in that in to sort of make a parallel between like gay and lesbian inclusion and trans inclusion. And also they're told in many cases how to think by these LGBTQ groups like GLAD and HRC, which have this narrative of LGBTQ, trans rights and gay rights, same thing. You know, this is the correct way to be a good LGBTQ advocate. And if not, you're a bigot. And so a lot of lesbians buy that narrative from these groups and don't question it.

SPEAKER_02 38:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 38:16

With the WNBA thing that just happened, Gabby Williams uh recently was quoted as saying something like kind of what Biden had said about trans issues, like that's our new fight, that's the new, that's our new fight. So it was that what Ariane said that LGBTQ, this is what we're saying, this is our fight, even though it it's actually really detrimental for lesbians to to put those those notions forward. But the way that we combat that, or the way that we try to get normies, as we we might say, is trying to give them a soft a soft space to land. So we don't we don't want to poke fun at anybody that it hasn't peaked yet, even if we find like some of their takes really absurd. So we we go out of our way to just try to be as level as possible because what was the thing that peaked you? The non-man thing, right? Like that was the main thing that put you over the line. Everybody's gonna have that one thing that's gonna break their cognitive dissonance. So finding that thing, asking the right questions, making content that is trying to elicit that response, that's what we can do to try to win over our LGB people who have not joined us on this side of the street yet.

SPEAKER_02 39:31

I think that's a really great way to frame it. And sometimes it's just they have to hear something different, is what is what you did mention, right?

SPEAKER_03 39:41

Like and Yeah, because they just they haven't, they they haven't gotten there yet. There's always there's gonna be something. For me on Reddit, it was hearing that there was kerfuffles in the LGBTQ community. It was being told that there was a a chasm, there was a fracture. And I was unaware because I was in my relationship for a long time and I was happy and I had my little lesbian community and we were all good and we had the clubs here, we had all that stuff here. We weren't lacking for anything. And then I hear this in 2018, 2019, and that and it was the guy that was it was it was you know, like lesbians actually or whatever, one of those Reddit threads and or subreddits, and it was the the punch the turf. It was like they were they were mad because they couldn't get the punch the turf shirt printed that the some company refused to print it. And so that was how I even saw this discussion at all. And I was like, What do you what are you talking about? Punch the turf? Like, what do you we don't do that? We're love is love. Like, what are you talking about? Punch the turf. And so it was just for me, that was like a big break right there. And but I didn't want to believe it because I'd been in this whole thing for such a long time. But that like everybody's gonna need something that that pulls them over the line. Unfortunately, for a lot of my contemporaries, they have teenagers and maybe even 20-year-olds now, because I'm a little bit older, and they're allowing the youth to dictate to them how we should perceive our own community and how we should interact with it. So it's that's a that's kind of a problem because they're letting the youth lead and they're leading us off a cliff.

SPEAKER_02 41:15

Yeah. I I I have a lot of uh older friends who were like a gen ex. And you know, like I was pretty lucky, so like not lucky, but I was born in the 90s, so like I remember when like gay was a slur, and uh, you know, it was it wasn't until the 2010s where it was okay to be a gay, but like they lived for a longer time where it was not okay, and a lot of them I know they just they don't even want to argue. It's like they they try to to war they were like, I said what I said, I got attacked, I'm done. So that's what I've also seen is that there is none of that wisdom anymore because the older gay men and lesbians have sort of been like, whatever you think you know better, I'm gonna just get gay married because I can now. Good luck.

SPEAKER_03 42:10

Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. Like, just it it's gone too far. Things got too crazy, and they're just like, I'm I don't have time for that. Or sure, my kids said that non-binary is the thing now, or call them they them. And that's what I'm gonna do because I want to be nice. You know, it's the weaponized empathy as well of groupthink and being kind.

SPEAKER_02 42:32

Yeah, but we do have trailblazers like uh Bev Jackson. Yes, yep. I did want to ask about lesbian history because this is also a new thorn in my side about changing our history. Ugh, I can't tell you how many times I've been told that like I only have rights because of Marsha P. Johnson. And I'm like, I'm like, you don't know anything. But anyways, lesbian and gay history, it it just seems to keep being filtered through today's gender conversations. And I'm just wondering for you, what moments or figures do you worry about? And and who do you think or what do you think is gonna be or is being misunderstood right now or repackaged or rewritten?

SPEAKER_00 43:22

Well, I I think you touched on a really important point, and it is one of our goals. I don't know if it was mentioned earlier, but just educating and fighting the the misinformation that's put out there, and it and you put it perfectly that everything is getting taught now through the lens of gender ideology, which is really problematic for a number of reasons. One, you have historical figures who were proud homosexuals who are now being called trans, and their relationship to their orientation is being completely erased, and they're even being now considered heterosexual because if they're trans, then their homosexuality gets reversed, and now they're not a gay man. They're a straight trans woman, or you know, or they're not a butch lesbian, they're a a straight man. So it it's it's really offensive. But I I also what what what concerns me is when we look historically at individuals who were homosexual, but who lived and passed as the opposite sex as a mode for survival and using that to be like, see, trans people have always been here. And it and that's really taking a part of homosexual history and and a part of homosexual lived experience of no, like you, you would be killed or you would be jailed. There was no other option except to live as the opposite sex. That doesn't mean they wanted to be the opposite sex, and maybe they did want to be the opposite sex. But could it be perhaps that they wanted to be the opposite sex because that was the only other option that they saw possible? Not because they had this internal gender identity that was not aligned. And and it just the narrative that they were all trans completely erases the reality of homosexual people throughout history, which is harmful in so many ways. I I could talk about it for a long time, but but so I I don't know that I can point to a specific figure, but I can point to historical warpings of homosexual lived experiences and and making those like the C look, they were trans. No, they were homosexuals trying to survive, and don't take that history away from LGB people. They do the same thing to two spirit. Yeah. Yeah. And and the there's a whole bunch of cultures that they appropriate and and use to justify a very Western privileged ideology. Like I said, I could talk about this for a long time. So I'll let someone else speak.

SPEAKER_01 46:15

Yeah, I just will offer two plugs the writer and artist Neville has written about Polly Murray as an example of a butch-lesbian black American woman who is being posthumously trans. That would be one example of the sort of posthumous transing of icons and gay and lesbian history. And as for the what Sylvia brought up with cultural appropriation, I recommend the book An Unexpected Penis by Amanda Covitana, who's a a Thai American, Thai British American lesbian who's a I I know her very well, actually, in in California activism. And she uh talks about the Thai const, like what what are considered sort of the Thai equivalent to transgender and how that's very frequently misunderstood by gender identity activists in the West.

SPEAKER_02 47:16

Well, that's very interesting. So I will definitely drop like a link to that in the show notes for anybody that wants to read that.

SPEAKER_01 47:26

That would be good. I would say both the book and and Neville's article.

SPEAKER_02 47:29

Yes, definitely.

SPEAKER_03 47:31

If I would contribute, first of all, I I love both of your answers and uh especially like thinking of the post-humous trancing of historical figures, like for property rights or any number of reasons, uh, people might have assumed an identity to survive. And that's that's really important. Stormy, obviously, Stormy is constantly this is for me as the the person that deals with the Instagram. I I see a lot of comments that talk about Marsha P. Johnson, who was a gay man. Number one, first and foremost, he was a gay man. Like he said that right before he died. So they always talk about that this was the the trans woman of color that we all owe our rights to. Um but also then they might also say Stormy is was was a trans man as well. She was a butch, lesbian, drag king performer. Like that's just what it was. And and so that that irritates me every time they get that history wrong and they get it wrong every single day, just about um, but I'm also concerned about Fred Sargent, who is a living icon right now. He is in the trenches on social media going to battle, absolute battle, with the TQ activists and holding the line. He has from the beginning, as one of the founders, co-founders of the original Pride March. He has held the line the entire time. And he's a brilliant individual, but he is slandered by mainstream media, by Wikipedia, like all of it. All across the board, his name has been trash, and it's it's disrespectful. It's absolutely disrespectful.

SPEAKER_02 49:02

It is disrespectful. Like, he shouldn't have to be doing all this rework.

SPEAKER_03 49:07

No, he's in his 70s. I think he just he just turned 70. I don't want to say what, but he's in his 70s and he's doing all the yeah, he's doing all this work.

SPEAKER_02 49:15

Yeah, like he already fought the good fight. He he shouldn't have to fight anymore. And I read about the the what happened to him at one of the Pride parades, and I just got so angry.

SPEAKER_03 49:29

Yeah, the Burlington Pride, like the the way that it does the for me, that's one of the things that I want to make sure we differentiate ourselves, like that they would put hands on an elderly person, if any elderly person for any reason. Any person, like just putting your hands on somebody else, like the audacity. It's it's important for me that other people realize that's not all of us. Most of us, I think I think most of us earnestly do not support that kind of behavior and find it really abhorrent.

SPEAKER_02 50:02

Yeah. It's it's ridiculous that that we're here. But you know what? Let's I I uh we we're talking about community. And so I want to ask if somebody is listening right now and they they want to stand with you, they they they want to get on board with the mission, support your work, or simply find other LGB people, you know, who share their concerns. What's the best way for them to get involved?

SPEAKER_03 50:31

The the best way is to attend our meetings. So we like Ariane mentioned, we have the sync we have single sex meetings and we have co-ed meetings, which are I think the co-ed meetings actually are are really one of the more enjoyed because lesbians and gay men and bisexuals get to come together and try to bridge those gaps because there are gaps in homosexual and bisexual community. So not only we're are we bridging those gaps, but we're having the opportunity to engage with people, to see people. And sometimes you know, you're asked like what's a rewarding thing or a good thing. Those people that come that have never, some of them are very young, they've never had real LGB community. So to have that space. And so that's that's a jumping off point. Come to a meeting, see what we're about, engage with the community, and then go from there. If if if people want to volunteer, we oh, we love that. So then from there, you know, the dialogue, the dialogue can develop from there.

SPEAKER_00 51:32

You can find out about the meetings that we have through our newsletter that we send out every month, but also by following us on social media that's we'll post links to sign up and reminders about meetings. And so if if you're like, I want to join a meeting, how how do I do that? You can follow us on socials. You can go to our website. We have a calendar that has our events page listed, and then you can find the meetings for the month there. But yeah, come come to a meeting. This this month's discussion is going to be about closet cases and DL culture, which I'm excited for because I know it's a juicy topic.

SPEAKER_01 52:15

Yeah, especially right now. Yeah, and and I'd like to give one other plug if you're from listening to this from outside the USA, LGBInternational.org, you can check to see if your country has a LGB alliance chapter. And if you don't have an LGB alliance chapter in your country and you're curious to join, you can find contact info on the website for you can reach out by email and hopefully you can get information on how to start your own chapter.

SPEAKER_03 52:50

And and I should note that we the meetings aren't closed to just people in America, North America. This is we we've had Australia, well, we are just all over the place. We've had people from all over, Sweden, I don't even know. Germany, Shanghai.

SPEAKER_00 53:08

That's great. Yes, we're all all over.

SPEAKER_03 53:12

If you can make the time zone, we do it in Eastern time, but set in Eastern time, but it was agreement GMT minus four or something like that. But yeah.

SPEAKER_02 53:20

So you're saying MC can crash the closet conversation.

SPEAKER_00 53:25

We would love to have you there.

SPEAKER_02 53:26

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's so awesome though to like if you do travel and you go to like the gay hoods around the world, it's amazing. So like I think that's great that you keep it open to like everyone because there's a lot to learn from from the you know, I lived in uh Japan. I'm talking about me right now. I'm sorry, it's the Gemini. But uh, you know, I lived in Cho Tokyo for for a little over a year, and uh yeah, the the lesbian community there is kind of funny, it's a little bit different. They think that we're strict here. They haven't they have nothing on like Asian, like they're very strict about who can say they're a lesbian in in in like the in China. I think China's like the worst for it though. It's like it's gold star or nothing, pretty much. Wow. Like, at least like from what like some of them have told me, or like there's just a really big stigma. If you used to have a boyfriend, so it's it's interesting, but I digress. I just want to say, like, this was so much fun. Uh, if I'm free, I probably will crash that meeting. I'm gonna put in the show notes like all the links and the books, the the calendar uh to your website and also so that and your Instagram, I'll put it all in the show notes. So if anybody's interested in supporting the LGB alliance, they know where to find that information. It's just in the show notes. And so I I just want to say like thank you so much for making the time to meet today. I really, really appreciate it. And I think conversations like this are so uh important, you know. And I just want to get back to gay joy instead of anger, right? Like, I just want to get back to like gay joy. I remember being such a slutty little lesbian, and it was wonderful. I love that. Well, like I I'm not gonna be slutty anymore. Uh like I'm pretty much married, but but you know, like you know what I mean. Like, just okay, forgot I said anything.

SPEAKER_00 55:40

Gay joy, LK Joy, homosexual joy, yes, absolutely, however that looks.

SPEAKER_02 55:46

Yeah, okay. Talk soon. I have a lot of personal updates that are really exciting. August is turning out to be a really nice lucrative month for my audiobooks. I have just crossed the mark of 341 audiobooks sold for the month of August, so that's pretty nice. So yeah, the cancellation of MCE has sort of failed, and so that's nice to see. I do need to get my my KU numbers up, but uh the way to do that, I fear, is to really start to market back on TikTok again. But there have just been there's been a lot going on. Let's just say that I've been very busy with organizing interviews for this podcast, and so there's some really great interviews coming up. Like I just met with Stonebutch Disco. Oh my god, there I hoot also uh had the pleasure of interviewing Julie Bindle. So I'm gonna be really focused on really making these podcast episodes as informative as possible and bringing on guests who can really shed a light on the issues that lesbians are facing right now, and that's something that's very, very important to me. Other things that are pretty cool is that Harry Potter is doing just fine. So the cancellation, not against not just against me, but also against uh JK Rowling is failing spectacularly. I'm glad to see that like JK is going to go down in history as one of the world's most important feminists. She spoke up when nobody would, and she's too big to cancel. But here in in Canada, Tim Hortons is like our version of Dunkin' Donuts, or not sure what you have in the UK if you're over there, but it everybody knows Starbucks. It's our version of Starbucks, and they just released a collab with Harry Potter, and they have these really delicious donuts that are all themed on the different houses in Harry Potter. Uh, so that has been pretty cool to see. I've also, you know, I am an author and an avid reader. I've never read Harry Potter before, but I know that they just released like a full cast series on Audible that I think I'm gonna be checking out. I'm gonna put my money where my mouth is and start to really support feminists. And so JK is one of those feminists that I have come to really, really respect. So very, very, very excited about that that collab and how it's doing so well. I could say too that I I went to Japan last year. So in 2025, fall 2025, I went to Japan and they opened like their version of the Disney store, but for Harry Potter, it was so busy, you couldn't even like walk through it. So yeah, JK's not canceled. Other things that are happening, I'm still working through the manuscript of Level Up Lex. I'm super excited about it. I think that this is my Magnum opus. This is the lesbian RPG lit book of my dreams. I think this series is gonna really put, you know, readers' hearts through the ringer. Uh, it's everything I would want in a series that is like a sci-fi for lesbians. And I am just super excited to bring it to the world. I have made it extremely complicated. I don't know why I did that. So if any of you have read Born of Blood and Magic, you can imagine if I'm telling you that level of Lex is way more complicated than Born of Blood and Magic, that's saying something. But I tore a page out of Brandon Sanderson's script. And I think that as a writer, a way to add layers and depth, I think the way that you really get there is with multiple points of view. I understand we live in a society right now where people don't want to use their brains when they read, and I think that's actually kind of valid. Like if you're just coming to literature to read something a little brain-numbing, I do think that's valid. But I think how you get depth is with multiple points of view, especially when they all sort of merge together and you could see the picture come together. It's like you get little snapshots, but it's not until you get the whole story that you see the broader picture. And I think that's why the series that tend to do so well, like you think of Game of Thrones or or Dune, these are very complicated stories. I think that humans, we are drawn to complexity. So we'll see how that goes. But I hope you really enjoyed this episode with the LGB Alliance today. I am finding more ways to get organized and to support the efforts. I just want to get back to a place where lesbians have our own things. That's it. I want lesbians to be able to organize and have community amongst ourselves because it's so important. Our issues are very, very unique. Our perspective, our experiences are very unique. And we deserve to have community that is just for us. We deserve to have books that are just for us. We deserve to have media that is just for us. We deserve to have forums that are just for us. And right now, everything that is labeled as lesbian has been co-opted by people who are not lesbians. We have this epidemic of people who are not lesbians co-opting our labels and basically turning it into a joke. And I'm so fed up with that. So that's a little rant that's kind of like not really an update, but that is where my hope to go with this podcast is is it's about creating real community. So till next time, and remember, be loud, be proud, and talk soon.