Trans people aren’t ‘erasing’ lesbians like me – I’ll fight for equality standing side-by-side with them

It’s not easy to move through the world as a butch lesbian. It never has been. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been subject to the most vile abuse for challenging what it means to be a woman – misogyny is a right pain in the tits.

But never fear, because over the weekend there were two newspaper stories leaping to the defence of lesbians like me. An article in The Times suggested that lesbians like me are “besieged by society and sidelined within the LGBT+ community”. Scotland on Sunday also ran a cover story which identified supposed “splits” in the LGBT+ movement over “gender issues”.

Apparently, lesbians like me are treated as “second class women”, or “barely women at all”, within the LGBT+ movement and this is all because of “the gender culture wars” which are being waged. While there’s no denying women are marginalised within the LGBT+ movement, this having anything to do with trans people, or trans issues, is news to me. It’s about time someone paid attention to the lesbians in the corner, but this is a conversation for lesbians to be leading – not heterosexual women.

The sudden focus on lesbians, seemingly as a route to disparage trans people, makes me uncomfortable and angry. Where were the columns when I was having eggs hurled at me from a passing car? Where were they when my neighbour called me a “f******* dyke c***” through the wall at five in the morning? Every time I’ve been gawked at in a public toilet, or called “Sir”, or laughed at and ridiculed? Where was the concern then?

I don’t recall a plethora of columns offering solidarity from heterosexual “feminists” before so many latched on to lesbians as a way to push their agenda on trans issues. There was no faux-concern from our “straight allies” on any of those occasions, no calls to celebrate my swashbuckling swagger. Straight women were often the first to tell me to grow my hair, shave my legs or be more “ladylike”. Instead I found comfort in the LGBT+ community and learnt resilience from those around me. While the world tried to box me in and crush my queer spirit, I was lifted up by lesbians, gay men, bi people and, yes, trans people.

This merry band of misfits have always been the ones who have come to my rescue, helping me to celebrate my butchness and not be shamed by it. Not for one minute have I felt erased by trans people – if anything, I feel enriched.

Let’s be clear: in my personal life, and as editor of the world’s leading magazine for queer women, I know a lot of trans people. Not one of them has ever tried to recruit me or even asked me if I’ve ever thought about transitioning. Not one has “pressured” me to “accept them as sexual partners”. This is scaremongering, designed to divide us. But believe me: it’s not a thing.

Yes, some of the trans men I know were once lesbians. Some lesbians I know now identify as bisexual or non-binary. Some cisgender lesbians in my life are in relationships with transgender lesbians. And, crucially, they’re all happier for being able to live their lives authentically.

Some might be wringing their hands, but I think this is a good thing. As we become less binary in our thinking, we become less binary in our identities, free to explore ourselves and our desires in a way we never could before. The numbers back it up too: in 2018, the Office for National Statistics reported an increase in those identifying as LGB – up from 1.5 per cent in 2012 to 2 per cent in 2017.

And not only are there more of us, but we’ve free to express ourselves like never before. Lesbians are no longer split down the middle – butch or femme. Today, we have language to describe the nuances within ourselves and our communities, tired old stereotypes are falling away, and we’re richer because of it.

Perhaps lesbian culture is changing. I’m sympathetic to those who are afraid of that: feeling the ground move beneath your feet can be disconcerting. But there will always be swashbuckling butch lesbians. So if I’m not worried, heterosexual newspaper columnists – with precisely zero personal stake in lesbian culture – shouldn’t be either. If these women are really interested in helping lesbians, how about letting us speak for ourselves?

I spent so much of my young life believing I couldn’t be a woman because I didn’t look like one. But with time – and support from my queer family – I realised it was the narrow definition of what it was to be a woman that was the problem, not me. This definition was pushed on me by a patriarchal, heteronormative society – not trans people. The current narrative peddled by some paints trans people as bullies and aggressors, but it’s a falsehood, and worth remembering that when two women were beaten up on a London bus last month for refusing to kiss, it certainly wasn’t trans people who were the perpetrators.

The only threat to lesbian identities is those who believe “lesbian” is for them alone to define, and seek to exclude anyone who doesn’t fit their narrow view of what it means to be a lesbian. It is that kind of thinking, I believe, which makes many women steer clear of claiming a lesbian identity.

Me? I’m still a lesbian. A beautiful butch one. I’ve fought long and hard to be okay with that, and there’s no way I’ll let a handful of so-called “feminists” take that away from me.

Carrie Lyell is editor-in-chief of DIVA Magazine