Get The L Out: The lesbian protestors speak for themselves

Jo Bartosch meets the brave and dogged lesbians behind the campaign group Get The L Out who famously challenged the Pride in London parade in 2018 and continue their fight against the harassment of lesbians and lesbian-only spaces.

Waiting behind the metal barriers in the July sun, Liane, Angela and Sarah had different feelings about disrupting Pride in London. Sarah, the youngest of the group, admits she was “completely petrified.” Angela felt “stressed”, but Liane felt “no fear” because she knew they were doing the right thing.

Alongside other lesbian feminists the group of women slipped through the barriers and marched to the front of Pride in London. They carried banners emblazoned with slogans including “Lesbian=Female Homosexual”, “Lesbians Don’t have Penises” and “Transactivism Erases Lesbians.” The group distributed flyers and then lay down in the road, holding up the parade. Following the 2018 action, Get The L Out was formed and the lesbian feminist fight back against transgender lobby groups hit the headlines.

I spoke to the trio at the heart of Get The L Out – Angela C. Wild, Liane Timmermann and Sarah M. – about why they think it’s time for lesbians to ‘Get The L Out’ of the corporate, queer movement.

For Get The L Out, it was an action on the other side of the world that inspired them. In 2017, two radical feminists in New Zealand sought to raise awareness of the influence of transgender lobby groups on the treatment of children with gender dysphoria. The women walked to the front of Auckland Pride with a large sign reading: “Stop giving kids sex hormones. Protect lesbian youth”.

When Angela saw the reports of this she was “inspired by their boldness” and thought “why not try this in London?”. Sarah, who had just become active in the radical feminist community, had been thinking along similar lines. Liane admits she was opposed to the idea to start with but was won round by the need to “make lesbians visible”.

The stunt worked; one could practically hear the dropping of jaws and soya lattes at The Guardian, as the liberal media struggled to explain why a group of lesbians were protesting at what the outside world had lazily assumed was their own parade. The protestors were hastily cast as the ‘baddies’, but whilst the coverage was largely negative the action helped put the clash between radical feminists and trans activists on the news agenda where it has remained ever since.

Angela, Liane and Sarah from GetTheLOutUK (Photo copyright of GetTheLOutUK) 

Sarah noted the intervention of London Mayor Sadiq Khan was particularly revealing:

“I was shocked that the ‘progressive’ mayor personally took the time to condemn us. As if, as a man, like he had any right to call lesbians transphobic for asserting our sexual boundaries. It was crazy but I’m glad this action forced these types of liberals, especially liberal men, to show their misogyny.”

In 2012, when Liane and Angela met, the ‘T’ had yet to be added to the LGB; the idea of men identifying as lesbians, or gender non-conforming children being prescribed hormones, would’ve seemed like a dark joke to most people. Both women were volunteering at the radical feminist conference RadFem 2012 when they had their first brush with trans activists. RadFem 2012 advertised itself as open to ‘biological women’ and consequently attracted the ire of trans activists who bullied the original venue, Conway Hall, into cancelling. This set a pattern repeated many times since. Liane, who was in charge of security at the event, recalls:

“It was horrendous, and it was the moment when the power of these activists really hit home. You know, it got worse with the attacks.”

That Liane and Angela met when helping to organise a feminist event is no surprise. To Get The L Out, feminism is intertwined with lesbianism.

Angela explains:

“It’s forbidden for women to say ‘no’ to men; we are supposed to be sexually available. We’re not supposed to love other women. Lesbians both say ‘no’ to men and they love other women; both break patriarchal codes. That comes with repercussions from men.

“In my opinion any lesbian, whether she’s consciously saying ‘no’ or whether she’s not thinking about it in those terms, is being political. And in that way, I can’t think of lesbianism without feminism. They are absolutely one and the same.”

“The most horrendous thing is the transitioning of young women and girls. There are lots of parents who would rather have a trans child than a gay boy or lesbian girl. That is a huge problem.”

Asked why mainstream lesbian communities aren’t more explicitly feminist, Angela replies:

“It’s a lot of things to combine saying ‘no’ to. There’s an idea that ‘it’s OK to be a lesbian if you’re not a man-hater’, for example. Or, it’s ‘OK to be a lesbian as long as you don’t put politics into it.’ The cost of that is high, and I think a lot of lesbians would rather just be accepted… There is no pride in being a lesbian anymore; a lot of women apologise for being lesbians like, ‘it’s not my fault really.’ The pressure is huge.”

To Angela, Liane and Sarah these factors lead many lesbians to adopt transgender identities. Liane is particularly worried about homophobic parents:

“The most horrendous thing is the transitioning of young women and girls. There are lots of parents who would rather have a trans child than a gay boy or lesbian girl. That is a huge problem.”

The women agree that one of the biggest pressures faced by lesbians today is the ‘cotton ceiling’. The cotton ceiling is sexual harassment of lesbians by men who identify both as transgender women, and as lesbian. Angela believes this is leading young women to identify out of womanhood:

“We need to discuss the link between the transitioning of young lesbians and the cotton ceiling. Lesbians are fetishised; women who transition in the LGBT community are still targeted by men, and they are still expected to perform sexually for them. I don’t think they are separate issues. In the LGBT community whoever you are, you have to accept penises.”

Despite being headed by lesbians for the past seven years, the UK’s largest LGBT advocacy charity Stonewall has promoted the concept of the cotton ceiling. They have argued that ‘transwomen are women’ and as such should be considered as lesbian if they identify as such, irrespective of whether they retain their genitalia. When Allison Bailey, a lesbian barrister and co-founder of the LGB Alliance, complained that in her view the cotton ceiling was “abusive, coercive and fundamentally homophobic” Stonewall lobbied her employers, Garden Court Chambers, to put her under investigation. Bailey is now pursuing legal action against both Stonewall and her employer.

In a transparent effort to address bad publicity and their increasing reputation as an anti-lesbian organisation, Stonewall recently launched an online campaign encouraging lesbians to get in touch with any experiences of being questioned in women’s lavatories. Whilst the campaign was targeted at women, once again the focus was on enabling men who identify as transgender women to enter women’s single sex facilities.

Liane, Sarah and Angela have had varied experiences in this regard, though they are all in agreement that Stonewall’s campaign is an attempt to sew division within lesbian and feminist communities.

Liane, who has short hair and doesn’t hold with the trappings of femininity, tells me she is “constantly being called sir.”

She continues:

“I was more annoyed 30 years ago than I am now. In a way I’m really glad that there are women who actually check if there’s men in the toilet or not. And what I usually do is I turn around and I actually have a discussion. When I open my mouth they usually apologise straight away.

“I say look, there are women who don’t like to wear makeup high heels or skirts, you know, they like comfortable clothes. It doesn’t really bother me; in the end they are the embarrassed ones not me.”

“…Stonewall’s campaign is nonsense. There is no parallel between men who call themselves ‘trans women’ and lesbians who don’t conform to femininity. It’s outrageously insulting to be compared to men like that and what needs to be done is smashing patriarchal dogma that tells us ‘Woman equals femininity, equals heterosexual.’”

Angela explains she is angry about Stonewall’s campaign, which she describes as “manipulative to the extreme” and part of a strategy to divide women along lines of sexual orientation.

“It’s pretending to care about lesbian experience. We know they don’t because when we tell them what our experience is, they don’t listen. They are doing this to push a pro-trans agenda.

“They are drawing a false equivalence that if lesbians belong in women’s toilets then men who identify as trans do too. The underlying message is that lesbians are not really women. For me, the only threat in women’s toilets is men.”

Sarah has on occasion been made to feel uncomfortable in women’s toilets, and she now reflexively coughs to make other women aware of her female voice. After reading the testimonies of lesbians who have been insulted in women’s lavatories she now believes:

“It is an issue and lesbians deserve dignity when using public toilets. But Stonewall’s campaign is nonsense. There is no parallel between men who call themselves ‘trans women’ and lesbians who don’t conform to femininity. It’s outrageously insulting to be compared to men like that and what needs to be done is smashing patriarchal dogma that tells us ‘Woman equals femininity, equals heterosexual.’”

Since the stunt in 2018 Get The L Out have been busy, overseeing direct actions at Prides in Swansea, Manchester and Vienna Europride, running workshops and helping other activists start their own grassroots campaigns. The group articulates the bind that many lesbians find themselves in, cut out of mainstream LGBT groups whilst still facing sexism and lesbophobia from wider society. In 2019 Get The L Out published ground-breaking research into the cotton ceiling, the report entitled “Lesbians at Ground Zero” was the first of its kind offering an insight into the impact of transgender lobby groups on the lives of ordinary lesbians. Lockdown has put their organising on pause, but not their plans or enthusiasm.

Finally, I ask Angela, Liane and Sarah if they have a message for mainstream LGBT organisations like Stonewall and Pride in London. When the laughing dies down Angela replies:

“If they were open to dialogue, we would’ve written a letter rather than disrupting their march. But they are actively transitioning lesbians, pretending we don’t exist and calling us ‘terfs’ for loving other women. They can fuck off; we won’t discuss with the enemy.”

When the interview ends I find myself smiling broadly; the three women have infectious optimism and a sense of pride that the corporate behemoths of the LGBT world could only dream of.  Lesbians have been overlooked, ridiculed and bullied for too long; Get The L Out’s time has come and Stonewall ought to prepare for a fall.

You can support the work of Get The L Out UK by donating here: http://www.gettheloutuk.com/support-us.html

Jo Bartosch is a writer and campaigner for the rights of women & girls.

Photos (C) copyright of GetTheLOutUK.