A few weeks ago, a group of Lesbians activists around Julia Long were forcibly removed by the police from an event on Transgender Visibility Day in London, despite just sitting peacefully in the audience and eating pizza. The event was explicitly marketed as ‘open for everyone’, but ‘everyone’ plainly did not include Lesbians: The activists were not just asked to leave, Julia Long was physically dragged/carried outside by several cops.
Since this action, instigated by the t-cult and worthy of a police state, is a clear example for anti-Lesbian violence, it makes sense to organise an event in response to it. This event, Lesbians On Chairs, happened on May 11th in London and offered a panel of some of the most high-profile stars of the radfem scene, like Sheila Jeffreys and Julia Beck.
Julia Beck first became famous for being “the most hated Lesbian in Baltimore“, when standing up for Lesbian interests against TIMs, and then for her testimony in front of the US House Judiciary Committee on the same topic. That she only was able to give her testimony with the help of the proto-fascist, capitalist, christian Heritage Foundation and also found it appropriate to do interviews on the Republican propaganda channel Fox, does not seem to disturb anyone in the radfem scene. It also doesn’t seem to disturb anyone that organisations like WoLF or other stars like Meghan Murphy obviously don’t mind at all to rub shoulders with the most unsavoury right-wingers, for as long as they are touting the correct slogans.
Julia Beck’s speech at the London event is predominantely remarkable for her plagiarism of the work of three long-standing radical feminist Lesbian activists she gave zero credit to. She does not just take thoughts and ideas, but sometimes whole sentences without re-phrasing from the videos and articles by Terri Strange, Bev Jo and Kelsey on her Youtube channel Cere’s Revenge. One glaring example is the phrase “Slander is the weapon of cowards!” (timestamp ), a direct quote of a video title by Bev Jo and Terri Strange which is online for almost a year now.
In the meantime and under the pressure of women who she quoted without giving them credit has put up a list with her sources . Of course she is praised for it, but the fact remains that it needed pressure for her to disclose and reacted dismissively when first confronted. This belated post is very much a case of of too little, too late.
It is highly questionable that a woman who is an out Lesbian for only two years all of a sudden is an internationally famous star of the radfem scene. It is highly questionable that she openly plagiarises the work of longtime activists and only reacts with mocking when addressed about it. It is highly questionable that she makes it impossible to confront her about it by blocking, hiding or deleting the thread in question.
And it is most questionable to work with the vilest, most reactionary elements in the US, by this associating radical feminism and radical Lesbian feminism with christo-fascist, capistalist fundamentalism.
The phenomenon of a woman rising out of nowhere to become an internationally celebrated face of the radfem scene is repeating itself in Posie Parker, who funded the Lesbians On Chairs event.
A hetero married mother of four is being sold as THE representative of radical feminism – while in the meantime less privileged radical Lesbians who have years and decades of fighting for feminism under their belts are being plagiarised, marginalised, excluded, ridiculed and hushed up.
What is going on? How can it be that women end up in the spotlight whose radical understanding seems to be limited to their opposition to the t-cult, which is just one aspect of the whole range of radical feminism? Who steal the thoughts of other, much more radical and brilliant Lesbians or are just random middle-class het women? Isn’t it enough that pseudo-academical international conferences like Lesbians On Chairs prioritise privileged women and, just like the hyping of “feminist stars” are clearly mimicking patriarchal patterns? Do the ends (blocking the t-cult) justify the means (betraying radical feminism by working with right-wingers and fundamentalists)? Where is the line in the sand?
And what of all this can still be called radical?
IceMountainFire 
Thank you SO much for this! It feels so powerless to be used and slandered. At least if our work was credited while being lied about, it would be something.
Your analysis is so important. The identifying of “Radical Lesbian Feminists” with the worst right wing is so dangerous and damaging.
I hope everyone who identifies as a Feminist, and especially Radical Feminist, reads this. The class divide is bad enough in terms of access to book publishing and distribution, and even just who is quoted among feminist, that erases the majority of Radical Lesbian Feminists who are not academics or class privileged, but to use our work and even exact words adds to the insult Because that proves they know what they are doing. They erase us just as the men do.
The irony is that my article with the exact plagiarized title and our video was about Sheila Jeffries’ slandering while plagiarizing. Jeffries uses a pseudonym to lie about us and our book, while lifting material without credit. In the “Chairs” video, she presents Butches as only role-players, but, if her community was like mine, Butches were very much part of creating Lesbian Feminism that changed everything for us here. (Pat Parker and Judy Grahn are just two examples.) There used to be a higher percentage of Butches, but as Lesbian Feminism developed het women coming out, most of who are Fem, became dominant. Jeffries definitely wants this history erased, even though our work helped her, like so many others, come out.
And also, Jeffries ridicules Lifelong Lesbians, and manages to get everone to laugh at us by referring to Lesbians who never wanted to be around “penises,” except in their conception. That is exactly how the cult ridicules us. Since the majority of Lesbians now have been heterosexual, of course the existence of Lesbians who said no to men threatens them (just as it threatens the men), so she knew she’d get a big laugh at our expense. But who does this ultimately serve? Just like media film/tv ridicule of teenaged girls feeling ashamed to be virgins because their fucking friends are now “real women.”
In examining the politics, why wouldn’t the existence of women who say no to men be positive for Feminism and Lesbians? But does she want to shame us into not identifying so she and the other ex-hets can continue bonding over and bragging about their past men, as so many Lesbians do? Our very existence is inconvenient and must be erased. Again, who does this serve? Men.
Why does she hate Lesbians so much?
Note the giggling of the so-called lesbians during this part of the event: “It’s hard to avoid penises”…” It really is!!” They sound like a bunch of hetero high school girls ridiculing their once good friend for daring to state that she finds prick disgusting and will not capitulate to the teen girl MAN-DATE. Yes, as Bev Jo states, exactly like those disgusting films.
As for the wife’n’mommy GCs like Posie Parker, I think they first got into this issue out of hatred that their daughters would not turn out to “marry well” and “give mumsy my grandbabies” (ie grandsons). If the daughters were mutilating via the feminine beauty industrial complex with what plastic surgeons call “vagina makeovers”, butthole bleaching, breast implants, and gastric bypass surgery, Posie and co wouldn’t even uncurl a little finger: ” She’s just trying to be the best version of herself!!!”
If Posie and co were forty years older and had given birth to me, she would have sent me to gay conversion therapy and Little Miss Charm School feminization classes, stat. She doesn’t hate the cult for its rapism and misogyny, she hates it because strict gender roles in dress and compartment are part in parcel with her homophobia, man worship, and belief that women and girls are supposed to be prick sheaths, breeders, and handmaidens (albeit ‘classy’ ones, since she is extremely classist as well).
She picks former-hets as her pets, and while I admit I’m a bit biased due to past betrayals, one at the hands of a woman who was only really “giving up prick for feminist lent” (despite her effusions of never ‘really’ being attracted to men and having crushes on other girls since age 8), I am still repulsed by the condescending way she treats them.
Yes!
These women are not gender critical at all. They happily perform and promote gender. Someone who makes herself look like a dollar store Marilyn Monroe and makes videos on how children need fathers has no issue with gender. It is just sad to see that she can literally buy her way into radical feminism and gets worshipped.