From Dirt's Blog: What has caused the most devastation to the Lesbian Community?

Here's my answers: I'd like to hear yours too, as long as it stays respectful.

Shaming. Shaming those of us who are LeatherDykes, thus the Lesbian Sex Wars...shaming those who thought differently, were a little too Butch or too high Femme(but my concern of course are the Butches, high Femmes still get privilege in the outside mainstream/malestream world), and the lie told to Butches "You just want to be a man", the death of our Lesbian businesses and bookstores, the elimination of our women only events AS women only events, allowing men and others in, MTF's attempting from the get-go to coopt our culture, our needs, and our sympathies while having been raised male and treating us in the same sexist ways they treated their hetero wives and girlfriends, then claiming a 'Lesbian' identity, and WE ALLOWED THEM TO DO IT, and by allowing them in, that brought more legitimacy to those who transitioned to FTM, instead of moving into the gay men's or even straight/bi men's communities or mixed more hetero communities like
FTM's used to do, because they wanted to be seen as MALE, allowing them to stick around cuz 'they used to be a lesbian' and still are dating 'lesbians' or lesbians had their lovers transition and did not want to leave either the relationship or the community, so thusly the community should be FORCED to accomodate them.

Another thing was the whole arguement of the 'boychild' issue, Lesbians began getting artificially inseminated, and 80% of babies born that way ended up male....rather than the 'natural' method where there's a 50/50 chance of either sex. Because now they identify with motherhood which legitimizes them in a way one is not when one does NOT have children, they wanted to bring their boychildren EVERYWHERE including into Lesbian spaces because we should be forced to 'accomodate' them now that they have chosen to be mothers....this is what childcare used to be for, so the women could have their own times and spaces SEPARATE from their children and role as Mother..and it gives no validation to little girls to have special time with other females/women only(while it's still o.k. for boys to go with Dads and other males only to fishing and hunting excursions).

It did not start just with the trans...all the trends above were part of why there were those Lesbians, myself included at times, who identified with other more accepting sectors of the commmunity, and even if we had differences, we should have allowed ALL bio-female Lesbians access to Lesbian only/woman centered spaces and been a bit more tolerant with each other, but also NOT assume that it is ok to bring males along(like I see every year at the Dyke March, what with FTM's, and bisexual women's boyfriends forcing their way marching along with the Dykes/women, and even gay boys marching when they don't belong, because Dolores Park isn't far from the Castro, and like always, males feel entitled).

If we fought this entitlement from day one....whether you're bringing along your male baby, male lover(if bi), FTM, or even late transition MTF's, or gay male friends, all these things undermine Lesbian community and spaces.

If we better supported ALL of our Lesbian businesses, and if they were struggling bought them out and KEPT THEM in Lesbian hands, bought buildings with Lesbian money so we could OWN our resources rather than rent them where a landlord could jack rents sky high, especially on commercial businesses, if we REALLY FOUGHT For keeping our women's/lesbian bookstores open, our events, our safe havens, and guarded them in the way that gay men guard theirs(though because they're men they have way more money to work with), we'd still have a viable community and would have the collective power to counter some of the trends going on today