Today’s Crash at the Four-Way Intersectionality

This item sounds like it’s from The Onion, but in fact it is from the very earnest lefties at Think Progress. And it really doesn’t need any commentary or explanation:

Lesbian group’s anti-trans protest at London Pride backfires

This weekend, the London Pride Parade was rocked by a protest from a group of anti-trans lesbians who call themselves “Get the L Out.” After trying to block the front of the parade, the group ended up being able to essentially lead the parade by walking ahead of it, but their offensive message prompted a sharp rebuke, particularly from cisgender lesbians who objected to their exclusive message.

According to Pride in London, “Get the L Out!” was “not a registered parade group,” but they could not be forcibly removed because their protest “was not a criminal offense.” They demanded to march behind the rainbow flag at the start of the parade, but were instead moved far in front so as not “to legitimize them or their message,” which Pride in London called “a shocking and disgusting” level of “bigotry, ignorance, and hate that is unacceptable.”

That message, according to the group’s fliers, was the bogus claim that “lesbian rights are under attack by the trans movement” and that lesbians should leave the LGBT movement to form their own separate movement. This belief is founded in all-too-familiar myths that trans people are somehow a threat to women’s privacy and safety and that trans people’s identities are not legitimate — that they should be defined according to their genitalia, not their gender identity. Likewise, the group argues that lesbians who romantically partner with trans women aren’t really lesbians.

One of the protesters reportedly yelled, “A man who says he’s a lesbian is a rapist,” a statement that both misgenders trans women and paints them as a violent threat to cisgender women. Jan Williams of the group Object, a member of the “Get the L Out” coalition, told GayStarNews, “Only women can be lesbians. A man who has surgery can never be a lesbian.”

“Get the L Out!” also espouses the emerging narrative that teenage girls are somehow being convinced by social pressure to transition to being transgender men rather than being affirmed as gender nonconforming women. This refers to the fake diagnosis “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria,” invented by anti-trans parent groups to justify their rejection of their transgender kids.

There’s more (including from fabulous tweets), but this is quite enough. Is there a Bingo card for all the required and contested terms currently in use?

I did once hear a gay friend declare that “There are gays and lesbians. Everyone else is faking it.” What a reactionary.

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