Quote:Some women no longer feel safe at what’s meant to be a celebration of all things LGBT [sic] – and the tensions could undermine the whole movement

Quote:“The big division has been around the idea of believing that trans women are women,’ says Simon Fanshawe, one of the founding members of Stonewall, the UK charity that takes its name from the gay-rights riots sparked by a police raid on the Stonewall Inn in New York, in 1969.

Anyone today who questions the idea that trans women are the same as biological females is immediately branded “trans exclusionary”, he says.

And it is lesbians, in particular, who have borne the brunt of this intransigence. “As a lesbian you have to accept them into this space as women or you are not an acceptable member of the community,” he says.

Quote:Meanwhile, the clash between lesbian and trans rights has become so pronounced that one group of women has felt compelled to set up a grassroots campaign called “Get the L Out”, to protest at Pride events.

In recent years its members have attended parades in cities across the UK, carrying banners bearing slogans such as “Lesbians don’t like penises” and “Transgenderism erases lesbians”.