By LGB Alliance Cymru

LGB Alliance Cymru knows that lesbians are facing enormous challenges defending our rights to meet as lesbians. We hear the stories regularly. Online groups being assailed by demands for access, even if only to a book group. Dating apps filled with male-bodied people seeking ‘friends, maybe more’. Young lesbians, including university students, unable to find safe spaces without men telling them to hate their love of women. Real-world events facing at best constant efforts to join in and at worst full scale picketing and aggression.

Lesbians have always faced challenges from men unable to accept our independent sexuality, but in the last five years we have seen such attacks ramp up every month. The number of assaults and the vitriol aimed at us has grown beyond many women’s ability to manage. The organisers of such spaces sometimes give in to these demands. Maybe they are not too concerned about lesbian boundaries, or they sincerely welcome male-bodied people into their organisations. That’s not a problem, so long as everyone knows what to expect.

But we hear too often from women saying that they don’t believe they have any legal choice, but to allow men into women’s spaces. Or they are scared of the doxing and abuse that frequently follow when women say ‘no’. We are seeing lesbians forced into gathering in secret, meeting behind closed doors or passwords, and using false names in social situations. LGB Alliance Cymru refuses to go back in the closet, to return to hiding. Those days are done for good.

So when FiLiA approached us wondering if we had a project in mind for which we would welcome some help, we knew what we wanted. An authoritative guide for lesbian organisers to defend our spaces, our groups and our lives. FiLiA hooked us up with the fantastic barrister Naomi Cunningham. We asked Naomi for both contextual guidance and for the answers to some specific situations we knew of, which are called ‘indicative questions’ in this document. This is her authoritative advice as at early October 2022; the date matters as there is ongoing case law but unless government changes primary legislation this is how the situation currently stands:

This advice is based on the law of the United Kingdom, and especially the Equality Act 2010. (This Act is not devolved to Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland though there may be local policy impacts.) If you are fighting the same battles in other parts of the world, you have our sisterly support, but you will need to seek a similar review of the law in your own country.

We have also produced an easy-read version of this advice which you can find above and on the LGBAC and website.

We are really grateful to FiLiA for this support to lesbians, and to all the lesbians who commented on earlier drafts and helped make this advice and the easy-read version as useful as it can be. We are especially grateful to Naomi for her clarity and focus. Most of all, we applaud all the lesbians, gay men and others standing up for our rights all over the world.