Gary Powell: “Perhaps we simply need lesbian groups, or gay groups, or bisexual groups. The LGB initialism may be what first set the Alphabet Soup bubbling.”

As lesbian and gay gender-critical activists take stock of 2021 and plan for 2022, now is a good time to indulge in radical scrutiny, and to ask what we might be able to do in order to progress our campaign in a way that gets effective results and that best meets our needs.

Questions concerning what we decide to call ourselves and how we choose to organise ourselves should be at the forefront of our minds, together with a willingness to propose and work towards any changes we think might be necessary. For too long, decisions have been made for us lesbian and gay people by self-appointed “representatives” who do not have our best interests at heart, and it is surely time for us to take back control.

We have refused to accept the label of “LGBT+” that the gender ideologues insist we must embrace, given that we assert our right to group as same-sex attracted people and not to be force-teamed with identities that have nothing to do with being same-sex attracted, and with ideologies that actively cause great harm both to our minority community, and to society at large.

That the LGB should be separated from the T+ will therefore be an uncontroversial belief among gender-critical Lesbian and Gay News readers, given that LGB defines a group that has same-sex attraction in common, whereas T+ emphatically does not. For me, that is certainly a step in the right direction.

When I was a writer for Pink News in 2013 – before it transformed into something with which I would be ashamed to associate – I also used the LGB initialism when referring to my longstanding gay rights activism: an activism that involved campaigning for the rights of lesbian and gay people, before the modern identity politics obsession with gender ideology emerged. I didn’t have any qualms then about using LGB, and I have even used it fairly recently, though now I wonder whether this short initialism might have been what initially set off the ever-expanding letter-chain under the anxious “acceptance without exception” umbrella.

It is not that I have anything against bisexuality. It’s just that being bisexual is significantly different from being lesbian or gay, as the latter entail being exclusively attracted to members of the same sex, whereas the former does not. Bisexual people can, by and large, assimilate more easily into the heterosexual mainstream, and lesbian and gay people do not enjoy this degree of facility and escape into apparent statistical normality. This is particularly obvious in countries where homosexuality is illegal or at least profoundly stigmatised, and where bisexual people have a far greater opportunity than gay or lesbian people to enjoy a socially-endorsed sexual relationship with someone to whom they are sexually attracted, and to present and live as an apparent member of the heterosexual mainstream. Bisexuals can also generally integrate far more easily with the peer group of their sex, and they can talk to their heterosexual peers about at least some of the people they fancy.

This is not to disparage bisexual people in any way, or to attempt to trivialise the challenges that bisexual people experience. Especially in cultures where people are socialised into feeling guilty and flawed for having sexual feelings towards members of the same sex, bisexuals can, like lesbian and gay people, find themselves entangled in painful and damaging psychological conflicts.

In such countries, they are also, just like lesbians and gay people, impeded in their attempts to have sexual relationships with members of the same sex. The point I wish to make is that there is a significant qualitative difference in the experience of a bisexual person compared to that of a lesbian or gay person.

So even though lesbians and gay men have in common that we are exclusively same-sex attracted, it feels to me that we still need our own separate groups and spaces. As gay men on the one hand, and as lesbians on the other.

Furthermore, there is a significant qualitative difference between being a gay male and being a lesbian, given the considerably different social experiences of males and females, based on centuries of socialisation and also on the different kinds of sexual and romantic consciousness and behaviours generally – though by no means invariably – associated with males and females.

As well as being attracted to members of the same sex, lesbians experience oppression, intimidation, abuse, and physical and sexual threat, from a significant number of males, simply because they are women.

As for gay males, we often run the gauntlet throughout our adolescence of being force-teamed with a male peer group that invariably contains a number of aggressive and confrontational individuals, and where anxious attempts to spare ourselves violent attacks by hiding our homosexuality will often still fail to save us from peer group marginalisation and homophobic bullying.

So even though lesbians and gay men have in common that we are exclusively same-sex attracted, it feels to me that we still need our own separate groups and spaces. As gay men on the one hand, and as lesbians on the other. The social experiences of our two groups are different, producing a need to create groups that support us, and where we can bond with, and draw on support from, others with whom we can closely identify in the relevant respects.

There is also, despite the fact that both groups are same-sex attracted, a further significant difference between us, given that one group is exclusively sexually attracted to men, and the other group is exclusively sexually attracted to women. Given that being lesbian or gay is all about being attracted to men instead of to women, or being attracted to women instead of to men, the sex of those to whom one is attracted does not really seem to be a complete irrelevance where the question of grouping is concerned.

Although I happily referred to LGB activism and LGB people when I used to write for Pink News in 2013, I am no longer enthusiastic about that initialism – even that short initialism. It feels to me as though bisexual people, gay people, and lesbians, need three separate groups and three separate campaigns to reflect our distinct experiences, needs and identities.

Indeed, I wonder whether the establishment of three separate L, G and B groups in the same-sex-attracted wing of the gender-critical campaign might also lead to these distinct groups giving themselves permission to develop views, perhaps nuanced views, that may even diverge from the current gender-critical mainstream, which is women-led and that has evolved from the radical feminist movement and therefore bears the imprint of that perspective.

The question I raise does not seek to devalue the overall radical feminist perspective or its immense and unique contribution to the gender-critical campaign. Instead, I am wondering whether lesbians, gay men, and bisexual people organising separately might lead to some new perspectives, and to new opportunities for cross-fertilisation of ideas, and whether a separate group for gay men might help to encourage political consciousness among the gay male constituency with regard to the gender-critical campaign and increase the number of gay men involved in it.

The participation of the gay male subgroup in the campaign against gender ideology is still very limited, and its growth still seems to be very slow. That has consequences, and it deserves our attention.

We have the LGB Alliance, of course, which is the UK’s only national organisation dedicated to protecting the rights of same-sex attracted people. There is certainly a place for an alliance of lesbian, gay and bisexual people working in the campaign to protect our rights from homophobic gender ideology.

However, there is also a distinct need, or so it seems to me, for separate gay rights, lesbian rights, and bisexual rights campaigns and social organisations. In a sense, it feels as though the cart has been put before the horse with the founding of a group called LGB Alliance. In an ideal world, separate L, G, and B gender-critical organisations would have been founded first, which could then have formed a fourth, umbrella group in addition – the Alliance – that consisted of the other three, or of representatives from the other three.

However, gender lobby colonisation had reached such a serious stage by 2019 that there was no time to consider this, and gender-critical members of the same-sex attracted community needed a campaign group to be set up without further delay, which is what rightly happened.

Just imagine, though, if three separate L, G, and B gender-critical campaigns and social groups had been founded instead of one gender-critical umbrella LGB organisation. The transgender activists would have had a much harder time of vilifying each of these three groups for “excluding the T”…

LGB Alliance has been repeatedly and unjustly vilified for allegedly “excluding the T”. Even though, until around six years ago, not even Stonewall included the promotion of transgender ideology in its campaigns. In fact, until about ten years ago, the campaign for lesbian, gay, and bisexual rights had always been all about, and only about – oh, the bigotry! – lesbian, gay, and bisexual rights.

Just imagine, though, if three separate L, G, and B gender-critical campaigns and social groups had been founded instead of one gender-critical umbrella LGB organisation. The transgender activists would have had a much harder time of vilifying each of these three groups for “excluding the T”, given that each one of them would have been excluding the two other groupings that exist within the same-sex attracted community.

A “Gender-Critical Gay Men’s Group” of the kind I have in mind, for example, would not be one that included or catered for lesbians and bisexual people. The same principle would apply to the lesbian group and the bisexual group. Each individual group would be geared towards supporting and meeting the needs of its own distinct membership.

Although historical urgency and political necessity have caused the cart to be put before the horse, it is still perfectly possible for separate lesbian, gay and bisexual groups to be set up that work independently from, but in parallel with, LGB Alliance, or whatever other umbrella organisations might emerge in the future to meet the needs of our communities.

Perhaps we simply need lesbian groups, or gay groups, or bisexual groups. Separate, but working together as and when needed. The LGB initialism may be what first set the Alphabet Soup bubbling. That doesn’t mean that we cannot work together on projects of common interest or support one another when help is needed.

Indeed, lesbian activists were at the forefront of campaigning for an equal age of consent for gay men at a time when lesbians themselves did not experience this particular discrimination. Lesbians also played a key role in supporting gay men during the AIDS crisis, even though lesbians themselves were a low-risk group for HIV infection. In the modern age, it is lesbians – and women in general – who now need help to defend themselves against the attacks on their rights from gender ideologues, and it is to be hoped that more gay men will respond to this challenge in the same way that lesbians have been solidly there for gay men in our hour of need.

Just as same-sex attracted people need to assert and protect our personal boundaries, the groups we form need to do the same with their organisational and definitional boundaries, and to draw clear lines between themselves and other associations of people, even when important similarities prevail between themselves and those other associations.

The group that really makes a difference to an individual may be one where a particular homogeneity prevails: one that creates a nurturing environment, and where all members share in common the relevant characteristics that make that specific group uniquely vulnerable and that have caused its members to have experienced wounding from the outside world.

Lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals have a lot in common, and we can and should all work together to pursue valued objectives that we share. However, the experiences and needs of people in these three subgroups of the same-sex attracted constituency are also significantly different. We should allow ourselves to group and organise with the tribe that is closest to our own identity and experience, as this kind of connection is likely to meet some fundamental needs and help us to develop the strength to grow, flourish and organise.

Gary Powell is a gay man and has been active in gay politics since 1980. He is the Research Fellow for Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity at the Bow Group and the European Special Consultant to the Center for Bioethics and Culture.