TERFs are trying to rip the LGBT+ movement apart. Don’t let them!

3 min readAug 29, 2021

Anonymous asked me the following over at Tumblr:

“from what i understand LGB is just about sexual attraction and trans people can still be gay so it still includes them?”

Here’s my answer:

These days the abbreviation LGB is mostly used by transphobic TERFs (trans-exclusionary radical feminists). It is an old tactic: Defeat your opponent by sowing discord and conflict.

Right wing extremists have caught up to this, and they are now actively doing the same thing: They are trying to split the LGBTQAI movement into different fractions by encouraging the exclusion of trans people, weakening the whole movement in the process.

The long term goal of the right wing extremists is to marginalize all queer people, reestablish the strict gender binary and promote traditional gender roles. Strange bedfellows for “feminists”, you might say, but that is what irrational prejudices can do to some people.

The good news is that no well established LGBTQAI organization has fallen for this trick, which is why the transphobes have had to make their own anti-trans organizations, like the LGB Alliance in Britain.

As for LGB including lesbian (L), gay (G) and bisexual (B) trans people:

Yes, gay, lesbian and bi trans people are included in the L and the G and the B as far as the leading rainbow organizations go. But they are not included in the LGB of the transphobic fringe.

The anti-trans activists claim that trans women who are attracted to women are perverted straight men and that gay trans men are deluded lesbian women. The arrogance of these people is mind-boggling. They show no respect for the life experience of queer people who do not live up to their own narrow and old fashioned standards.

They are, like their right wing allies, aggressively invalidating the gender identities of trans people, causing a lot of suffering in the process. They are now actively supporting policies that are aimed at harassing transgender kids, forcing them to use the wrong bathrooms, banning them from taking part in sports as themselves, causing these children the kind of trauma gay and lesbian kids have experienced through the ages.

This is a true tragedy: Lesbian TERFs, who themselves have been bullied for their sexual orientation, are now using the exact same tactics to harm trans kids. That is the worst kind of betrayal, and it says a lot about what kind of people we are facing here.

Sexual orientation is not the same as gender identity

Note also that transgender identities cannot be reduced to sexual orientation. A lot of trans people are neither lesbian, gay or bisexual. They are straight. But they are still part of the queer rainbow community, as they face the same kind of invalidation and marginalization as other queer people. This is why the T belongs in the LGBT+. Indeed, trans people have always played an important role in the LGBT+ community.

Here’s a photo of leading British TERF Posie Parker together with a Norwegian Nazi leader. Did she know he was a Nazi? I don’t know, but they did take part in the same conference, an event promoting anti-trans propaganda, and that tells you a lot about what kind of thinking “gender critical feminism” represents.

Photo from Kyiv Pride 2019 by Viktor Makhnov

Originally published at https://trans-express.lgbt.

TERFs are trying to rip the LGBT+ movement apart. Don’t let them!

Written by Jack Molay