Clowntime is over

The panic is palpable as the BBC start scrutinising what lesbians have been saying for years

sad clown by Moley

Dr. Jane Clare Jones 🦕 @janeclarejones

Hear that sound? It's a gravy train coming off the tracks.

The big news this week is the BBC’s long-overdue look at the scandal of fully intact crossdressers sexually harassing and even assaulting lesbians. Those trying to cover it up are the ones who have invested the most into an absurd, homophobic ideology. Clowntime is coming to an end, and their panic today was palpable. Here’s a few examples.

Ash Sarkar

Implying that lesbians who reject trans-identifed men are bigots.

Doryrapter 🦕🦖 @FifeRight14

This is truly the problem with some women. They actually support men so much they take part in coercing other women to have sex with them under threat of being called names. So manipulative #handmaiden https://t.co/jW21iXJInP

Ash Sarkar @AyoCaesar

So you wouldn’t think it bigoted if someone went around talking about how they wouldn’t sleep with a woman of colour because they find them disgusting and not real women? https://t.co/OjnxDOv6zi

Owen Jones

A Lord Ha Ha figure in the fight to preserve women’s rights. Only remembers the existence of lesbians when it helps him impose males into their spaces.

Owen Jones 🌹 @OwenJones84

Here's how lesbians were long portrayed in the mainstream: as predatory "sexual vampires" who, in the Navy, "could make barracks life miserable for their women shipmates". The exact same narratives are being redeployed against trans people - by the BBC itself.

Adam Smith

Just one of many commentators who are suddenly all about ethics in data collection.

Progressive Misogyny @JustMisogyny

N=21 was fine when you liked the result, Adam.

Adam Smith @adamndsmith

Headline: "Lesbians pressured into sex with trans women!" Evidence: a social media survey of just 80 people, only half of which actually agreed with, from a group condemned by Pride in London. This is propaganda. https://t.co/GbRzieoCqu

Finn MacKay

It took less than a couple of hours for “the writer trying to help end the gender wars” to decide her best response to an urgent cry for help was “shut up, you lying lesbian bitches”.

Dr Finn Mackay Adult Human Queermale @Finn_Mackay

Outrageous that the BBC has produced a lengthy, anecdotal, opinion piece that headlines with, & promotes the idea that, trans women specifically are a rape threat & particularly to lesbians. It uses material from a booklet by an anti-trans inclusion group which promoted the same.

Nancy Kelley

Literally said in the BBC piece that same-sex attraction is bigotry. Put it out in a STATEMENT.

Cookie @UpsyDaisy666

The CEO of state-funded hate group Stonewall stated to the BBC today that homosexuality is like racism because same-sex attracted women are refusing sex with males who identify as women. This homophobia is chilling.

Nancy Kelley @Nancy_M_K

Today, as every day, my love and solidarity to trans people. And today, as every day is a good day to *listen to trans people when they talk about their lives. Including the brilliant @christineburns. #LWithTheT https://t.co/b34kL61Xqz

Ryan John Butcher

Having been successfully sued by high-profile lesbians Joanna Cherry and Julie Bindel, Butcher is very exposed. Just look at this.

ryan john butcher @ryanjohnbutcher

the bbc has published one of the most insidious, disgusting and toxic anti-trans pieces yet, interviewing a bunch of terfs, lgb alliance and other such anti-trans groups, and regurgitating right-wing 4chan myths with no basis or evidence. it's despicable

bbc.co.uk‘We’re being pressured into sex by some trans women’Some lesbians say they have been called transphobic for not wanting sex and relationships with trans women.

Emma Partlow

Ignore the trans ‘people’ sleight of hand. The BBC piece was specifically about men imposing themselves on women. Nevertheless, Emma here provides speedy reassurance to them that she will continue to defend them, and not even for a moment consider that a single one of eighty women might be telling the truth.

Emma Partlow @emmmzyne

Thinking about trans people today, y'all wonderful. Fuck the BBC. If you want to complain about *that* article BBC posted earlier today, you can do so below.

bbc.co.ukMake A Complaint | Contact the BBC

Linda Riley

Jumped aboard the trans train early and has invested far too much in it to jump off now. Currently hiding replies to her tweets.

Pat Mustard's Chodders @alan_bradford

Because lesbians who have been pressurised/coerced by a TW know that Diva has not been a safe space for these kind of conversations for many years. That is why you, Linda, never hear from them.

Linda Riley @LindaRiley8

In all my years publishing @DIVAmagazine the leading & longest running magazine for LGBTQI women, I have never heard from a lesbian who says she has been pressurised into having sex with a Trans woman- @BBCNews is reinforcing myths that are simply not true -#lwiththet 😡

Darren Styles

Friend of Linda Riley.

Darren Styles OBE @bydarrenstyles

Hey @BBCNews - publisher of @AttitudeMag here. We are about to take apart your developing anti-trans mantra on all of our channels and I’m going to carry a serious complaint to the heart of Government and seek apology and change. To whom do I speak for comment and correction?

Vic Parsons

Had to delete a piece about me that suggested I support conversion therapy and has written plenty more dishonest hitjobs for Pink News. Luckily for them, payouts to Julie Bindel and Joanna Cherry are absorbed by a grant from Google, who are also paying the WEP to say “transwomen are women”. Vic, like her boss Ryan, is also going to be very exposed when the movement crumbles.

Vic Parsons (they/them) @vicparsons_

the UK media is institutionally transphobic & has been for decades. it's also wildly racist, islamophobic, classist and obsessed with using minorities for clicks. instead of being outraged by the latest anti-trans clickbait, why not amplify trans journalists instead? i'll start:

Chris Godfrey

Bearded Guardian journalist. Kath Viner’s cowardice becomes a little bit more understandable when she has men like this on her staff.

Chris Godfrey @ChrisPJGodfrey

One day this media engineered moral panic about trans rights will be widely viewed with the same disgust as the attacks on LGB people in the 80s. I wonder how many journalists will be making Piers Morgan style apologies for their role in it.

Jack Duncan

It’s not a lie. I can introduce you to many lesbians who have this happen. You are lying.

Jack Duncan 🔻 @JackDunc1

'Lesbians are being pressured into sex with trans women' is one of the biggest and most outrageous lies told by transphobes. First the Stonewall smears, now this. There is something absolutely rotten and dangerous inside the BBC. This can't continue.

Rosie Jones

Such compassion for lesbians who have been sexually assaulted.

Haha, “fit pictures of me”!

Rosie Jones @josierones

Thrilled to see that lesbians were trending, until I read why. I am not sharing the transphobic article, but I AM going to say that that piece of trash is not the consensus of all gay women. Next time when 'lesbians' are trending, can it just be loads of fit pictures of me?

We interrupt these messages for some important news

Election Wizard @ElectionWiz

HAPPENING: Students at Loudoun County’s Broad Run High School stage a walk-out, chanting “Loudoun County protects rapists.”

Jolyon Maugham

Thought FILIA sprang up overnight because he hadn’t heard of them. When the movement goes south, his narcissism and stupidity—especially as they worked on matters related to children’s health— will come under harsh scrutiny.

Jo Maugham @JolyonMaugham

Running ugly stories - and suggesting they are representative of how a minority behaves - is the very essence of bigoted hate speech. But that is just how the institutionally transphobic BBC is these days.

bbc.co.uk‘We’re being pressured into sex by some trans women’Some lesbians say they have been called transphobic for not wanting sex and relationships with trans women.

Rachel Charlton-Dailey

More sisterhood. And once again, look at the work that the word ‘people’ is doing so Rachel can continue to subject lesbians to unwanted male attention.

‘Laura Kate’ Dale

A Twitch streamer. Again, no hint of investigating the allegations. Just an immediate demand the conversation be shut down. Why would that be, do you think?

Ted Neath @TedNeath

It wasn't implied. It wasn't a 'dogwhistle'. It was the testimony of lesbian women about things they had experienced in real life.

Laura Kate Dale @LaurakBuzz

If you're curious why today specifically caused us to start protest organising, the BBC published an article implying that trans women are pressuring cis lesbians into sex under the threat that refusal would be seen as transphobia. They're portraying us as literal rapists.

Conor Clark

“I read it so you don’t have to”. Funny how often I heard that phrase attached to JK Rowling’s letter and Dave Chappelle’s specials. Conor is either lying that he doesn’t know about the cotton ceiling, or he actually doesn’t know about it. Neither bode well for a writer working on a magazine called ‘GAY TIMES’.

Conor Clark @ConorClark

I read *that* BBC article in its entirety so you don't have to - here's my piece for GAY TIMES. ⬇️

GAY TIMES @gaytimes

The BBC is facing backlash for publishing an article about lesbian women allegedly “being pressured into sex by some trans women”. https://t.co/6EK5J6h10q

Sally Hines

Academic. Teaches young people that they have gendered souls. Absolutely fucked when all this is over.

JinnysO'Joe @JinnysJoe

This is the same type of thing some men say about women who have been raped.

Sally Hines @sally_hines

There are many very serious questions to raise about the BBCs latest take on the nonsense that is the ‘cotton ceiling’. What I want to know though is why an earth would a transphobe think that a trans woman (or ally) would go anywhere near her, never mind want to take her to bed?

I could go all night with this stuff but you get the picture. Please keep sending in more examples and please do share this post with the people involved. I want them all to know that we know what they’re doing.