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Bev Jackson vs. transgender people

Bev Jackson is a Dutch anti-transgender activist. Jackson is a founder of UK anti-trans hate group LGB Alliance.

Jackson promotes the conspiracy theory that trans people and gender recognition based on self-identification are erasing or eradicating lesbians.

Background

Beverley Ruth Jackson was born in June 1951. When she was 11 years old she experienced antisemitism at her new school. 

She studied math at the London School of Economics. She was a founding member of the UK Gay Liberation Front, the only woman to attend the first GLF meeting in October 1970. 

I was a student at LSE. I started there in 1969, I was studying maths, and I walked down the corridor and I saw a poster which said: “First meeting of the UK Gay Liberation Front.” It was the most astonishing thing because I had to translate it in my head as to what it might mean. I had heard that “Gay” was a new word for homosexual, and I knew “Liberation” was about freedom and “Front” sounded a bit militant. It sounded very exciting and I thought “I think I want to be on there that sounds right.” I went to this first meeting and there were 19 men there, and just one woman – me – so I was immediately voted on to the steering committee.

[…] I was among the minority of lesbians who decided to work within gay liberation; most lesbians worked within women’s liberation because of feeling more in common with other women’s issues. The fact of lesbians being doubly oppressed both as women and as homosexuals is just a really important part of understanding what it means to be a lesbian. 

She has worked as a translator and writer. In 2015 she was mostly involved with refugee rights, writing A Month with Starfish, a book about volunteering to aid refugees for a month on the island of Lesbos.

Anti-trans activism

In late 2016 Jackson began criticizing transgender youth and was surprised that other disagreed. Her radicalization happened in 2018 when Angela Wild went to the front of the Pride march with her “Get the L Out” group.

Jackson wrote a letter to Stonewall president Ruth Hunt expressing concerns “about young lesbians having nowhere to meet, not being able to call themselves lesbians any more, about the way in which people were encouraging children to think that they might be born in the wrong body and a whole range of other concerns that really worried me.” The letter was ignored.

Jackson has said of trans women:

Look: you can be a lovely gentle male and you can wear dresses and you can call yourself Lilian and it’s absolutely fine. But you’re still a male and you can imagine you might be all sorts of things, but you’re still a male.

The final straw for Jackson was when Stonewall opposed ex-transgender activist Keira Bell, who sued the Tavistock GIDS Clinic.

After a meeting commemorating the 50th anniversary of Gay Liberation Front was cancelled, Jackson and Kate Harris decided to have a secret meeting to start LGB Alliance. “But everyone kept the secret. Not one of the 70 people we invited gave away the meeting at which we formed LGB Alliance.”

Jackson remains committed to separatism for lesbian and gay people:

Gay men and lesbians need spaces of their own and they have a right to spaces of their own – and that we have to say this now in 2021 is an absolute outrage. We could really lose a lot here if we don’t stand together and fight against this madness.

References

Bridle, David (February 18, 2021). The first woman in the Gay Liberation Front in 1970 is fighting again for lesbian and gay rights in 2021. Lesbian and Gay News https://lesbianandgaynews.com/2021/02/the-first-woman-in-the-gay-liberation-front-in-1970-is-fighting-again-for-lesbian-and-gay-rights-in-2021/

Wansell, Geoffrey (November 1970). Homosexuals demonstrate for equal rights. The Times

Resources

A Month with a Starfish (amonthwithstarfish.com)

Twitter (https://twitter.com/BevJacksonAuth)

The Critic (thecritic.co.uk)

Facebook (facebook.com)