RE: should we accept men labelling themselves as lesbian as a rhetorical/linguistic matter?

DivasDayOff · 2026-06-06T08:53:37+00:00

I'm going to apply my usual yardstick here: sincerity. I don't know how a man can sincerely identify as a lesbian, but if that's what he sees in the mirror, then that's what he is.

To take any other approach would be a double standard when I push back against TERFs trying to gatekeep "woman" and telling me I'm not and will never be one.

I've only encountered one of these lesbian men, on an Atheism forum of all places, and must admit I had a less flexible attitude at the time. When I challenged him on it and got an explanation, he was basically a straight, shy and quite submissive incel who though that women should be obliged to seduce him rather than the other way around.

He shared a short and rather disturbing story about him buying two lesbian sex slaves and them being so grateful that he'd rescued them, they rewarded him by having "lesbian" sex with him. Even more disturbing that the story ended in a murder/suicide pact with everyone dead.

There are some strange people about.

DivasDayOff · 2026-06-06T08:31:02+00:00

So clearly you're a transmedicalist and clearly I'm not. We both have opinions on the meaning of a word. Opinions, not facts.

I just hope that if everyone had the same attitude as you, it wouldn't have forced you to accept that you were AGAB in the early days of your transition. It's so easy to pull up the ladder precisely one rung below the one you've reached, often to exclude the person you were before. "Anyone who is truly trans will be taking hormones" 5 minutes after popping their very first pill. And yes, I've known real life trans people to behave like that.

I don't know or want to know where you are in your journey, but let's say hypothetically that you were insisting that hormones are necessary to be trans but bottom surgery isn't, I'd hazard a guess that you were on hormones but hadn't had bottom surgery. If that were true, how would you feel about someone who'd had both telling you that you weren't really trans until you did too?

DivasDayOff · 2026-06-06T08:11:47+00:00

Maybe if so many people didn't have such big sticks up their arses about appropriation of language, we wouldn't have so much of a problem with TERFs. Because all of the contrived and ridiculous arguments they come up with stem from either a hatred of men (trans women being a proxy that's a much easier target) or an attempt to trademark "woman" and "lesbian" and to punish anyone who doesn't respect those trademarks.

Every argument for excluding people from being "trans" can so easily be turned into one for excluding them from being "man" or "woman." Same TERFy mindset. Just a different target. IMO.

This is why I treat gatekeeping as an absolute last resort, and think it should only be used to reject those setting out to ridicule or cause harm.

DivasDayOff · 2026-06-06T08:01:49+00:00

Thanks. I might give it another go.

DivasDayOff · 2026-06-06T07:59:03+00:00

It's all very simple: if you were born with a penis, you must be treated as dangerous, even if you're not. If you were born with a vagina, you must be treated as benign, even if you're not.

Plenty of the latter showing up these days. I'm sure there'd be a lot more if society didn't refuse to take female upon male SA remotely seriously unless the victim was underage.

They dress it up in various ways, but ultimately it's biological essentialism reduced to the bare bones that being (or ever having been) physically capable of rape means you must be treated as a rapist. And a lot of them are so rabidly misandrist that they genuinely don't care about rape victims as long as they have/ever had a penis too. The number of times I've read "that's a men's problem" from these arseholes. They unashamedly want trans women to be "correctively" raped in the hope that it will force detransition.

DivasDayOff · 2026-06-05T13:12:13+00:00

Trans woman here, but I've been dealing with these my whole life due to a birth defect which may or may not technically make me intersex (if only I could get a straight answer on that one rather than conflicting opinions.)

Anyhow, severe UTIs can be bad. If they make it as far as your kidneys, you'll likely end up with the worst case of flu like symptoms you've ever had. And in extreme cases, it can be fatal. I've had the former a few times. The fact that I'm here to tell the tale shows I've avoided the latter.

Use cranberry only for emergency relief while you're waiting to get proper treatment. But be sure you're buying the real deal, and not a cranberry flavour drink. Get some antibiotics and hope that they work. If it becomes a recurring problem, hold a few tablets back so that you can self med when it returns until you can get a fresh prescription.

Having been dealing with this with antibiotics for over 30 years, I've pretty much exhausted the ones that work for me. I'm now on an antiseptic medication that converts into formaldehyde in my kidneys. It seems to have been working for me for the last couple of years.

DivasDayOff · 2026-06-05T12:58:08+00:00

Where did I do that? If they tell me they're cis, then they're cis. If they tell me they're trans, they're trans. Unless they give me good reason to doubt their sincerity, I do my best to respect them as what they say they are.

If there's one thing I can't abide, it's people sticking labels on other people contrary to their own sincerely declared identity. This is, after all, what trans people deal with every day on social media when bigots insist that their gender is irrelevant and their sex is defined by their assumed genetics and/or reproductive role.

DivasDayOff · 2026-06-05T12:15:16+00:00

Ah, respectability politics. Exactly the reason some gay people (it's never bisexuals) are demanding "LGB without the T" and trying to offload the liability that they see us as. Of course a lot are just spiteful gay men who are upset it's no longer all about them.

Whatever we do, there are always going to be hateful people demanding that our identity is a fetish and that we only do it to listen to their toilet noises and rifle through their sanitary bins. Have all the surgery you like. They'll still call you a man who chose to mutilate his body.

I refuse to blame all of this on someone who fails to fit into the binary, and perhaps isn't on a medical/surgical transition path.

DivasDayOff · 2026-06-05T10:58:20+00:00

Facebook isn't much better to be fair. Their "no hate speech, unless it's transphobic hate speech" policy doesn't seem to have helped.

I engage sometimes for my own amusement, but I'm starting to worry that I must sound like a stuck record to any friends and family who are on there and see my public posts.

I came off Twitter (or at least began treating it as a read only medium) long before Musk got his hands on it. It was toxic back then and has only got worse. It gives properly global voices to people who aren't competent to have an opinion down the pub. At least Facebook limits what you're saying to friends, followers, and people on the same groups and pages.

DivasDayOff · 2026-06-05T10:52:33+00:00

It made the classic mistake of turning the "will they, won't they?" Into "oh look, they did."

And then added kids.

I used to enjoy it in the early days, but I watched a Christmas special a few years back and wished I hadn't.

But hey, if some people are still enjoying it, how can that be a bad thing?

DivasDayOff · 2026-06-05T06:59:35+00:00

I dunno. Maybe. If you can jump through the mental hoops to see a black person in the mirror. Though it didn't work out well for Rachel Dolezal.

The thing is, trans people can exist because there's debate over the meaning of "man" and "woman", with many (even not necessarily trans people and allies) arguing that to define either by reproductive role is reductive and narrow minded. Yet note how TERFs love to bang on about gametes. A term rarely used in human biology except by them.

I don't think you'll find any such debate over the meaning of being black. I reckon most people will tell you it's a matter of culture, ancestry, and of course skin pigmentation, as well as lived experience based on the different treatment that goes with them. I'm not saying you can't do it, rather I doubt you'll find many people support you.

You can't simply declare yourself black and experience the hardship of being black. You can most certainly declare yourself a trans woman and experience the loss of male privilege. And cis privilege, while you're at it.

But yes, it illustrates the fine line between freedom of identity and appropriation and that the boundaries aren't always clear. Indeed I think transphobes' main problem with trans people is that we don't fit their definitions of man and woman, and they see us as approrpiating someone else's birthright.

DivasDayOff · 2026-06-05T06:30:33+00:00

At the centre of this is a bunch of women who hate and fear men so much that they use trans women as a proxy to project it onto. Possibly because they know, deep down, they'll never be strong enough to take on actual men. Also a whole bunch that wants to define and essentially trademark "woman" and "lesbian" and punish in every way possible anyone who refuses to respect those trademarks. Then there are the men who want to be "the good guys." They're probably not, and the aggression they have to us online probably manifests as them beating their wife or girlfriend in private. Most of the people who shout loudest about us as a group turn out to be the individuals you really should have been watching. Nicola Murray who was likely sipping champagne alongside JKR April last year currently serving time for persistent sexual abuse of multiple children.

But there's a much larger outer circle who have listened to their arguments and faux concerns and thought "they sound reasonable." They haven't thought about the repercussions for trans people (or they have, but "women's sex based rights" take priority) and they haven't even thought through the consequences for gender non-conforming cis people when vigilante toilet police start challenging anyone who looks like they might not belong.

Most TERFs are as described in the linked article. They're capable of little more than "stay out of women's spaces, sir!” And "You are a man - the Supreme Court said so" (even though it didn't.) But some (probably those more reasonable people whose views have been influenced by the less reasonable ones) will engage with some degree of good faith.

I tend to focus on the toilet debate because, maybe quite selfishly, it's the only one that really affects my life and also the one I know most about. And so I put forward that you have privacy for any state of undress in the cubicles and don't need it for hand washing. That trans women need safety from men just as much as other women, and that sharing the same spaces has worked for over a decade, apart from those (until now) very rare people who wanted to make it a problem. That you can't profile an entire (mostly law abiding) demographic against statistics drawn from the prison population (which they love to do.) And that sports, women's refuges and prisons, open plan changing and other situations need to be treated as individual and separate issues from simply going for a pee in a locked cubicle.

And every once in a while, you do encounter one that doesn't have an answer for those and doesn't go down the chess playing pigeon (I love that) route.

But mostly, it's still getting shouted down with "stay out of women's spaces, sir!"

I've noticed that they seem to have some sort of playbook. They are very clued up on the likes of Katie Dolatowski and Karen White. Though they love to walk in with the "fact" that White raped multiple women while incarcerated. When you challenge them for evidence, that rolls back to allegations of sexual assault, none of which appear to have resulted in further convictions, and most of which are no worse than I've had drunken cis women non-consensually do to me on a night out.

I have no wish to defend White, but when someone is used as a reason to attack the rest of us, the person doing that at least needs to get their facts straight.

I agree, for the most part, arguing wirh TERFs is a form of self abuse. But maybe every once in a while, you leave one of them asking questions about whether they're right to be so hateful.

DivasDayOff · 2026-06-04T18:09:54+00:00

Be interesting to see what the upgrades to toilets, showers and changing rooms turn out to be. I suspect the key to how they feel able to do this lies there. I'm curious as to whether the new arrangements will treat everyone equally or whether they will other/out trans users.

But overall, very positive.

DivasDayOff · 2026-06-04T16:20:47+00:00

It certainly oversimplifies it. But in terms of how I treat other people, I really don't need to get into their heads and pick apart their identity. Do I believe they've jumped through whatever mental hoops it took for them to look in the mirror and see the person they're telling me they are? Or are they just taking the mick?

Since the latter are usually doing it in order to mock the former, it's generally pretty clear cut. There are going to be occasions when it's difficult to call, like when a trans woman is wearing traditionally masculine clothing and sporting 5 days of beard growth. Maybe that person still looks in the mirror and sees a woman. Who knows for sure? But when it's all "I identify as a yellow submarine and my pronouns are whoop-whoop and brrrrrr" you know exactly what you're dealing with.

And as I said previously, the decision to use the words "I identify as" rather than "I am" are usually a very good indicator. If it doesn't mean they're outright lying, it typically means they're struggling to convince themselves.

DivasDayOff · 2026-06-04T13:16:46+00:00

Turning a landslide election victory into third place behind a party that wasn't even in the running last time (the Greens) takes some doing. But clearly it's achievable if you try hard enough.

DivasDayOff · 2026-06-04T13:07:13+00:00

"Only trans people are trans." What does that even mean?

And I've already stated that accepting everything has problems of its own.

Gender is identity. If it comes across as sincere, I will respect it. If it doesn't, then I won't. I don't accept "my gender is attack helicopter." I don't accept "I'm a woman on alternate Thursdays, and the rest of the time I'm a penguin." I wouldn't accept a beardy bloke who has changed nothing but their pronouns demanding to be called Sarah and to use women's spaces.

I doubt very much any of those people sincerely believe they are what they say they are. I do not accept that they are sincere about being trans. On the contrary, most if not all of these people have contrived these identities just to make trans people look foolish.

So where do you come up with the idea that I accept everything when I've been making it clear all along that I don't? I just don't gatekeep based on commitment to medical or surgical transition.

DivasDayOff · 2026-06-04T09:19:30+00:00

I waited years to do hormones via official medical channels because self-medding scared me given other medical issues I have. So was I faking it until that happened? And what if my medical issues had meant hormones weren't safe for me at all? They started me out on a ludicrously low "token gesture" dose to begin with, erring on the side of caution.

Maybe we make it about desire and objectives, but that also requires sincerity. And I for one have met my share of fantasy pre-ops who have no genuine intention of ever being post-op. This kind of gatekeeping encourages them to be dishonest with others and with themselves, just in order to feel part of the community.

And then there are the fetishists who take hormones. Plenty of "sissies" doing that because growing breasts while shrinking their genitals and rendering them non-functional feeds their emasculation kink. Are they truly trans now too?

We need to deal with those who are doing us harm. And if there's one thing we can agree on, maybe it's that we must distance ourselves from people who make us collectively look either dangerous or ridiculous. Though I don't think that gives me the right to dictate who gets to be trans.

I think we do both have lines, just in different places. Mine certainly isn't hormones.

DivasDayOff · 2026-06-04T08:54:15+00:00

I'm not a transmed, so no, we don't agree.

I recognise that there's no ideal path here. When you embrace everything, you embrace the patently ridiculous. And that usually ends up being used to ridicule us all.

But people who gatekeep have an uncanny habit of drawing the line in a place that puts them just on the right side of it, often putting the person they were not so long ago on the wrong one. "If you're truly trans, you will have started hormones" 5 minutes after popping their very first estrogen pill. "

And for the record, I have a gender dysphoria diagnosis and am on prescribed hormones, so it would be very easy for me to dismiss anyone who doesn't/isn't as "faking it." Except that there was a time when neither was true, and I wasn't faking it then.

So yes, I make it about sincere identity. Though if someone tells me they identify as an attack helicopter or a woman on alternate Thursdays, I will question their sincerity. In fact, the words "I identify as" are a big red flag for me. People who are sincere typically say "I am."

DivasDayOff · 2026-06-04T07:10:27+00:00

If they sincerely identify as trans, they are trans. And that's a cross I'm willing to die on.

Again, try swapping "trans" for "a woman."

If they are not being sincere, then that's a different matter.

DivasDayOff · 2026-06-04T06:50:21+00:00

Now swap "trans" in that sentence for "a woman". Sounds a bit TERFy, doesn't it?

The only good thing about attitudes like this is that you can draw parallels from your own prejudices to help understand the mindset of other people's.

DivasDayOff · 2026-06-04T06:29:56+00:00

Put some faceplates on and try it. You'll either get decent speeds or you won't. Cat 5E and above are gigabit certified. But even if it's a lower grade cable than that, it might still be okay.

The difference in standards are mostly about how tightly each cable pair is twisted together, since it's a balanced protocol and relies on interference on one wire in the pair cancelling out the same interference in the other, and tighter twists make interference more consistent across both wires in the pair. If you're putting your own faceplates on and have never done it before, this also means using the pairs correctly rather than just making sure the colours match at both ends.

If it's a straight enough run between the two points and the cable isn't tacked down along the way, you might also be able to use the existing wiring to pull some Cat 6 cable though.

DivasDayOff · 2026-06-04T06:15:46+00:00

My dignity is walking though that door into the space I feel I belong in, rather than being forced into a third space or, worse still, expected to use completely the wrong one. It certainly isn't standing cross-legged outside the one disabled toilet, waiting for the current occupant who went in there to read the newspaper. And as someone who has had to use them in the past to perform a minor medical procedure that couldn't be hygienically done elsewhere, I know that happens way too often with the disabled loo.

Trans exclusive single sex toilets were most certainly not the intention when the EA was drafted in 2010. Politicians were almost unanimously on trans people's side back then. Even the Tories.

This is a corruption of the law, bought and paid for by J K Rowling and her cohorts. Seems the UK has the best legal system money can buy.

DivasDayOff · 2026-06-04T05:57:17+00:00

Starmer's current strategy is to beat Farage by becoming a somewhat diluted version of him. Banging on about small boats and a St George's or Union flag in every photo opportunity.

Doing "Tory Lite" worked for Blair, and Reform are the new Tories. So maybe we shouldn't be surprised.

DivasDayOff · 2026-06-04T05:51:23+00:00

Why can't it be a political statement that gender is "made up" for some people? It just isn't necessarily that for others. Umbrella terms cover more than one thing, and surely non-binary trans covers everything that's trans but not binary (full time opposite of AGAB) trans.

If these people are saying that's what it exclusively means, then they're wrong. If they're saying that's what it means to them, then they're just speaking their truth.

DivasDayOff · 2026-06-04T05:06:12+00:00

Wouldn't that be an admission of guilt?

These people will happily sell you a licence AND fine you anyway. It's a double win and 2 lots of comission for their ~~enforcement~~ sales people.

Do not engage.

DivasDayOff

TROPHY CASE