The lesbian in question is Allison Bailey, a black survivor of child sexual abuse who has overcome much adversity to become a criminal barrister. She was told by her chambers, Garden Court, to delete two tweets they said fell short of the bar’s professional standards, one of which described a workshop on “Overcoming the Cotton Ceiling” run in Canada in 2012 as coercive.
Cotton ceiling is a reference to lesbians’ knickers. It is a riff on the glass ceiling and posits that just as the professional advancement of women is hindered by sexism, the sexual acceptance of trans women is impeded by the “transphobia” of lesbians attracted only to females.
But shaming an oppressed sexual minority into dropping their boundaries, or risk being tarnished a bigot within the LGBT community, is inherently coercive. You don’t have to look far online to see women who maintain they are female-only attracted abused as transphobes, genital fetishists and worse. Women report being banned from dating apps for transphobia after stating in their profile they are looking for a biologically female partner.
This is an important reason why gender ideology – the belief that gender identity, whether someone identifies as a man or a woman, should replace biological sex in society when it comes to sports, single-sex spaces and data collection – has divided people who are gay, lesbian and bisexual. Taken to its logical conclusion, it redefines same-sex attraction as same-gender-identity attraction. But this is fiercely resisted by those who say this simply does not accord with the lived experience of their own sexuality.
Another flashpoint is the fear that in the service of this ideology, adult trans identities are being foisted on to gay, gender non-conforming children who are experiencing gender dysphoria, through hormonal and surgical interventions that have long-term health consequences. Many gay people say they temporarily experienced gender dysphoria during puberty and an independent review into the care of children with gender dysphoria has outlined how it sometimes naturally resolves itself and that gender identity can be fluid until someone’s early to mid-20s.
So many analyses of the gender ideology debate characterise it as a conflict of rights between women and trans people. But there are plenty of trans people who shun gender ideology and some women who embrace it. It is really a conflict of rights between people who want gender identity to replace biological sex in society and people, particularly women, who believe sex is relevant. In the case of lesbians and same-sex attraction, it is vital to re-establish the principle that it is never bigoted for a woman to be clear that she is exclusively attracted to other females.
Great to be validated as not being a transphobe or a genital fetishist so outrageous… biological sex is based in scientific reality not random feels…..