Sisters, it’s been a while! The emotional pull of the lesbian ‘gender critical’ movement and a failure of solidarity

Thurlow, Claire 2024. Sisters, it’s been a while! The emotional pull of the lesbian ‘gender critical’ movement and a failure of solidarity. Journal of Lesbian Studies 28 (1) , pp. 161-174. 10.1080/10894160.2023.2229144

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Abstract

For five years the UK lesbian community has witnessed growing animosity over the acceptance or otherwise of trans people. This division has been increasingly recognised and commented upon outside of the lesbian community as part of the mainstreaming of so-called ‘gender critical’ (trans-exclusionary) views. Focussing on the lesbian gender critical position, this article tackles its persistence despite the oft-presented counter that empirical research shows its concerns to be unfounded. This article aims to ask questions of this persistence, and to this end ponders the primacy of emotion in the development and sustaining of the lesbian gender critical movement. By tying its rise not only to concerns about trans rights, but instead to an opportunity to recreate lost lesbian community, purpose and solidarity, it is hoped new avenues of understanding can be explored. A centring of the emotional needs met through gender critical activism might explain why it persists even as it has become a movement that vociferously defends the strict gender categories that lesbianism itself rallies against. This centring also poses uncomfortable questions about when anti-establishment itself becomes (some form of) establishment and how that relative power is wielded. While many lesbians view the current dire situation as demanding solidarity with trans people, and make excellent arguments to promote this, this article suggests that the emotional pull of ‘gender critical’ will not be easily overcome and greater attention should be paid to it.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Cardiff Law & Politics
Publisher:	Taylor and Francis Group
ISSN:	1089-4160
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	10 August 2023
Date of Acceptance:	2 July 2023
Last Modified:	19 Feb 2024 13:42
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/161561

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