Zoe from FiLiA in conversation with Julie Furlong

Zoe: Welcome to the FiLiA podcast. I'm Zoe and I'm a volunteer with FiLiA. Julie Furlong is a lesbian feminist activist, and she's organising the lesbian strength march in Leeds on the 7th of September. Julie, can I ask you, what does your lesbian feminist activism mean to you?

JF: I don't know what it means, because I don't tend to think about it like that for me, it's part of what I do. It's not specifically a lesbian thing or a feminist thing. It's like this needs dealing with this is ridiculous. I can't be a lesbian. I can't be a woman. So I need to tell somebody it's wrong.  I can't put my head into that space that says lesbian feminist. When I was younger in my early twenties, I refused to define myself as either a lesbian feminist, or even a feminist, because they all seem so boring and I think for me, it was more the case of that. It's not about something separate it's that old personal is political, but also it's like, this is just how you live your life. It's an extension of life, which is long way of saying, I guess. Yeah. It's part of your life. It's part of who you are. It's not a separate bit. 

Zoe: How old were you when you became an activist and what have you been fighting for along the way?

JF: I think I started in school probably with CND. It was CND and all through university and student cuts. And then it became various governments going around invading other countries and the Section 28, various Labour Party organisations. I think there's always been dormant periods, bringing kids up and not been able to do other things, but I think it's covered pretty well everywhere in between living life.

 This is only kicked off quite recently for me really, because I don't think I realised how much of an issue of a real problem, the whole trans ideology, had become, until just over a year ago, which I know is really late. 

In some ways I'm embarrassed at being so late to be woken up to all of this, but I fear that’s happened to lots of women that we've kind of woken up and it's like, whoa, what's happened in the meantime? The world has been taken over. There's been an invasion of the body snatchers.

So, but now we're playing catch up. 

Zoe: When you say, well, what's happened in the meantime, do you feel like, like feminists dropped the ball at some point?

JF: I don't like the phrase drop the ball, because that makes it sound like we should have been doing some of that we didn't do. And it's like, I think for me, I thought I've already fought this battle, but I've already fought that battle. These have already been fought, why is this still happening?

It wasn't until I realised how much worse it is being a girl growing up in this society, through schools now than it was when I was growing up. 

It was when I read Laura Bates, Everyday Sexism, who I don't agree with on everything, but I read her various chapters on how sexism still is impacting and it hit me that this is actually worse than it was when I was young. And I couldn't believe that at some point, all those gains that we had made seem to have been overturned. And yeah, I kind of hadn’t noticed, I was too busy bringing up kids and various other things and it did feel like I'd been sleepwalking through it all.

I don't think that's our fault because I don't think you can blame the oppressed for being oppressed, that’s unrealistic.

They’ve been bloody well organised. That's what it feels like. But then they've had thousands of years to perfect patriarchy haven't they.

Zoe: But thinking about the Women's Liberation movement in the past, how do you think that the movement today compared to that? 

JF: I think one of the biggest things seems to be the overwhelming age thing that so much of the trans ideology has been aimed at young women like between 18 and 21, the university years almost.

 They've been taken away from us all. And it's not that they don't respect their elders anymore. It's that they don't even think we've done anything within the feminist movement. And it's almost like they've invisibilised an entire group of women who have spent literally blood, sweat, and tears building up the society that they have benefited from.

All the rape crisis centres, all the women's aid centres, all everything. It's like the few gains we have had as women were because we fought for them and made them give them to us. Not because anyone decided in their wisdom - oh, that'd be nice for you to have love - and they're giving them away. I think that's the biggest difference.

I mean, it's all these nice white, middle-class predominantly straight students who think, let's all be nice, and accuse us of not being nice. It's amazing how many times that you're not being kind, you're not being nice. That's what's being said and people genuinely saying that as a political comment. It’s quite shocking.

Zoe: Okay. There's these sort of accusations which are very patriarchal about us not being nice enough and accommodating and all of that. But what about the claims about the racism within the movement? What would you say about the racism within our movement today?

JF: I think there's no way that anything in the Western world is going to come together without being inherently racist, any more than it's going to be not inherently sexist or inherently classist, because that's the system that has created all these movements. So we all have that to fight against.

It doesn't help that a lot of the trans ideology is using that we are women just like black women. And it's like, that's one of the most racist comments that anybody has ever made. And it's like, they're accusing us of racism. And it's like, there's always been a movement at the top within the women's movement that have been white, middle-class educated. That's always been the case and that's always been really irritating. And it’s always been fought against. Always. 

Every time there's been schisms on the basis of class and race and sexuality, and that's not changed. I don't think that's the only bad thing, because I think everybody needs to organise for themselves as well, on the basis of their oppression, as well as on the basis of shared oppression with us women we have different oppressions on the basis of our class and our race, our abilities, that disabilities. But I think a lot more why women need to bloody wake up and realise actually you are racist love.

You might not want to be, that doesn't mean you're not. Because you are and you live in a racist society and you're denying that you're racist.  That's fairly solid proof that you are in itself. 

That's my view on it all. And it doesn't help that we're all so isolated in our corners because of it all, because of the way this neo-liberalism has gone and individualism. Everybody's isolated because of identity politics, into our own little groups. 

And what it does is it makes us all easier to pick off and that's what's happening with the whole transsexual movement and transgender people who don't seem to realise that patriarchy is using them as much as us.

That they're the ones who are losing out as much as us. But they don't seem to realise either. We do all need to come together, but it's not going to happen while we're all shouting at each other and it's not going to happen without us realising that we're not on the basic level field, that there are differences.

I'm white. Therefore, that means I have white privilege. I can't put it any plainer. Being white means you do, just simple as that and you have to accept that.

It doesn't mean that you want to be racist doesn't mean you can't be anti-racist. It does mean you can't be non-racist. Does that make sense? 

Zoe: Yeah. Speaking of differences, you are a lesbian, you're also disabled. What additional issues do disabled lesbians face?

JF: Oh loads. I mean, apart from the usual ways that any disabled person faces in a society like ours, which is so terribly set up for keeping them in their own homes and keeping them isolated and away from everywhere.

Nowhere is accessible. It's like you go to meetings, you won’t have been thought about. I can only talk about it from my point of view, because obviously I don't have the full gamut, there are so many different disabilities that people have hidden and invisible and as well as the visible ones, but people don't think of even the most obvious things like accessibility.

So if you're not going to think of the most obvious things, why would you think about maybe providing a quiet space for somebody who does have difficulty with somewhere that's too loud? I mean, I do for a start. like people, you know, that's a big problem in that when you go to conferences and things. There's a lot more that needs to be done to challenge disability discrimination within our movement as well. And a lot of it, we can't necessarily help because we don't have the money. It's like when we meet places, sometimes it's not always ideal because we don't have the money. We have to go where its free or where it doesn't cost a lot or whatever we can hire or whoever will have us and is not always accessible.

And sometimes it's in a pub, which is culturally inappropriate, and sometimes it's in somewhere loud or somewhere miles away. There's lots of reasons people cannot go to places and get to places, but people need to get a grip a bit more. There's disability discrimination in place now. It needs to be policed anyway generally in society, but we need to at least think a bit more about it.

But what is quite interesting actually is I have noticed one of the things I have noticed is that there seems to be a lot more involvement from women with visible disabilities, this time round. Like, there's lots more women I know who have varying visible disabilities. And I can't say I've seen that as much before, and that's a good thing. 

Zoe: Well, just coming back to a point, I tried to raise before. What does your lesbianism mean to you? And what do you think of the term ‘Political Lesbianism’?

JF: Being a lesbian means that you are attracted sexually to women.  To me, there is no other meaning attached to it. My only problem with the words ‘political lesbianism’ is that they don't go together. Lesbian is sexual orientation. It's who you fancy, want to go a bed with. Your politics is not about who you want to go to bed with. It might be about how you end up deciding and having the freedom to make your decision, but it's not connected.

And I think the problem for me is the two words being put together. But I don't think they should be.

Zoe: Don't you think being a lesbian, even if it's only about your sexuality, isn't it a political act anyway just to love women? 

JF: No, it's sexual. Sexual orientation. I think lesbian is just that. It's like being a gay man means you like dick. Being a lesbian means you're sexually attracted to women. That's what it means. That is what it means. It's a sexual orientation. Your politics might have helped you get the time and the space and the freedom to be able to get to that, to how you felt you needed to be. For me, it's not.

To be perfectly honest, I don't really care. I find all this hoo ha a bit ridiculous, I think, with so much going on, is this really what you want to spend time doing? You fancy women, does it matter whether you put a P in front of the L or not? 

Zoe: So what do you think about lesbian feminist separatism? And do you think that lesbians will lead the revolution?

JF: Some lesbians might. It's a nice idea. Isn't it? I like that idea of there being spaces that are just for lesbians, to be honest. I like that in terms of, there is an energy, a freedom just with being with other lesbians and the same freedom with being with other women, but being with other lesbians, there's an extra freedom in that, you know, that's one less thing you have to think about.

You all know who your commitments are to. Your primary commitments. And I like that, I like people, you know, but to be perfectly honest, I couldn't live in a community with anybody. I'm too much of a misanthrope.

But the majority of people I know are women and that says something, doesn't it. 

 Zoe: Can you tell me about the last lesbian march that you went on? 

JF: No, because I can't remember that far back.

The only thing I can remember would be Section 28 marches and they weren't lesbian only. But looking back on some of the pictures, it looked like they were lesbian only. So I don't quite understand that, but then I don't remember much from that period of my life generally. I blame alcohol. 

Zoe: Why do you think we need the lesbian strength march? 

JF: I think we have to do it now because in all seriousness, I do think it's a very dangerous time to be a lesbian. I think it's dangerous in terms of being out on the streets, it’s becoming very dangerous as a lesbian. I think being in what we used to think of as safe spaces, are as dangerous now, even in our so-called communities, young lesbians aren't allowed to be called lesbian anymore because it's seen as too terfy.

Young lesbians are being transed. And I'm not saying that every young woman who decides to trans is a lesbian, of course they’re not. A lot of them are straight, but that's a different set of issues. Well, there is something going on there and I do believe that the transgender in its purest form is saying that because all of these genders are fluid and I'm a woman and you're a man and therefore we could be what we want. You have to sleep with anybody otherwise it's transphobic, which everybody is, we're all transphobic. 

So therefore there is no such thing as sexual orientation because sex as a social construct, sexual orientation doesn't exist because it's all about gender. And gender, as we know is fluid. 

So it's like, where does that leave lesbians and gay men only, they seem to be even later to wake up to this fact. But then they don't need to worry because they don't have trans women knocking on the door to come in and knocking them out either.

 We need to do it now because if we don't do it now, I think it will be too late.

Because I think we're being isolated more and more. And I think the Get the L Out campaign is very important. I think one of the dangers is that we're being thrown out as well. And it's almost like that's playing into their hands because it's like: get out, we don’t want you anyway.

And I think it's time, we need to say enough is enough. It's like drawing that line in the sand and that's what we're going to be doing in Leeds, drawing that line and say, this is who we are, we love being who we are. We don't want it to be a anyone else. We are very happy being who we are and we want young women to be happy being who they are. And we want them to love being who they are because it's fucking amazing. 

Zoe: That leads nicely onto my next question. What is your overall vision for the March and how does it differ from the Pride process that we've been seeing? 

JF: Oh, it differs loads.

It's a positive thing. Lesbian Strength is literally about us. It's about the positive, strong elements of being a lesbian. Of being who we are being proud of who we are. Whereas the Pride is all about saying, this is not who we are lesbian. It's like that posters banner that says, lesbians don’t have penises.

It's all so much about, which we don't want it to be, it’s about what we're not. Which is what we're saying in the Pride protest. And what we need to say is what we are. And again, that's about drawing that line in the sand and we need to get away from all that Pride corporate wank fest, it’s just sick. Oh, it's just, it's not somewhere that anybody in their right mind really wants to be. 

Zoe: It's not a wholesome place, is it? 

JF: No, I'm just glad my kids aren't young anymore. I really am. They don't want to go anyway. I couldn’t imagine anything worse.

It's almost like waking up and the world has totally changed shape around you. And it's like, how did this happen? When did this happen? 

Lesbian Strength is very much about not being a Pride. It's not about corporates. It's not about parties, which we are going to have incidentally, but it's going to be about talking parties because women do like to talk. We do. 

And it's because we are so interesting, we have interesting things to say, and I want to hear what people have to say. And I want to hear what our speakers have to say and I want to hear what other women have to say, because I'm expecting women from all over the place from all over England, Scotland, hopefully Wales as well. 

Zoe: Maybe from abroad?

JF: That would be wonderful. Wouldn't it? But I mean, I know it's a long way to come, but it would be absolutely wonderful to have women from outside the country. It's about being proud of who we are, claiming who we are and saying, this is our word. You can't have it. 

Zoe: Great. You spoke about women coming from all over the country. They're going to be coming to Leeds. Why do you think Leeds is a good place to have the march? 

JF: Because I live here! A bit facetious, but, I mean, it has quite a history, Leeds of feminism.  I mean, regionally it seems sensible. We were here, it’s symbolic. It's an incredibly symbolic place. The historic symbolism of Leeds can't be underestimated of that whole seventies, angry women thing. And it's like that incredible documentary. It’s absolutely fabulous. And the fact that you've got so many women, got Sheila Jeffreys, Al Garthwaite, for a short while you've got Julie Bindel and the wonderful Sandra McNeil, a little Scottish terrier, you’ve go out so many women, Linda Bellos. So many women, I can't even remember off hand and you'd got them all here and there was that much energy and things were happening over such a long period. Al G started The Reclaim the Night marches here. Leeds has got all that history going on. 

And then you've got Mermaids setting up here, you've got Sally Hines at the university and her gender studies department rewriting what it is to be a woman.

And you've got Leeds City Council deciding, well, we can't have Women’s Place UK meetings here because they’re too transphobic. 

Then you’ve got the managed zone, the council are running pay-to-rape zone in Leeds. So in Leeds, there are bloody Labour council, what the hell are they doing? Anyway, that's one of the many reasons I left.

But we will be dealing with that as well, because that's part of who we are as lesbians. We're about tackling patriarchy, tackling sexual violence that’s happening to women on a daily basis. And yeah, obviously that's something like the managed zone and there's all of that going on. But at the same time, there’s resistance to the managed zone.

The Leeds Spinners set up here, then you've got Leeds Resistors setting up here and there's fightback, and you've got that tussle. So you've got that historical feminism and you've got the modern feminism. There's was a bit of a gap in between and you've got Leeds City Council sandwiched in between.

It's a big F-you to them. I think, which is one of the reasons that I think ending up in Millennium square is such a good idea, outside the Civic Hall, where they refused to let us have our meeting because we're too transphobic.

Zoe: And how do you think you will deal with, with claims if we're made out to be exclusionary or transphobic, how do you think we’ll deal with that?

JF: Exclusionary doesn't mean transphobic. They’re different words. Words have ceased to have meanings with lots of people and they’re changing the meanings of words to suit themselves. And you can't do that. Everything is exclusionary of something. Isn't it. If you're a person of colour, then you're not white. If you're setting up a group for working class people, you're not going to let middle-class people in. It's all exclusionary. You can't include everybody. Lesbianism is exclusionary. 

It doesn’t mean we’re transphobic. Transphobic is somebody who doesn't like Trans people and who refuses to give them any basic rights. That's not us.

They do have rights. They have needs, they need to be looked after they need to be cared for the same as we all do. And they need extra protections because they face so much shit in the world. But that doesn't mean that a trans woman is a woman. They’re not coming into my spaces, claiming that they're me, the word woman is ours and the word lesbian is ours. And it doesn't belong to men. Men can have that word ‘man’. I don’t want that one. 

 I don't feel transphobic. I don't have a problem with trans people. And that ridiculous one about denying their right to exist that it's like, of course they exist. Are these people bonkers?  It's like, obviously people exist, they’re right in front of you. How can you deny people's right to exist? Because they exist. That's just silly. We all have a right to exist. We all have a right to be treated decently. 

But a man isn't a woman.

Can’t say much more than that really. 

Zoe: How are you raising funds for the March and what you're raising funds for? 

JF: Slowly. We need funds to cover the actual costs. Luckily we don't have to fund the police because they’re doing it under the Public Order Act or something. So we don't have to fund any of that business.

But we have to have a PA system for the rally afterwards.  Nobody's getting paid a fee for a appearing or anything, but we are paying train fares for the speakers to actually come up. So we'll pay expenses for them to come, which I think is only fair, that people should be paid if they're coming any great distance, which not everybody will be.

We also have to put money aside for hiring premises for our party. We want to raise some money to actually offer funds to assist women on low incomes to get here as well if at all possible. Well, obviously whether we can do that is going to depends on how much we can raise, but the sooner we can raise the money, the sooner we can start spending it on getting things sorted out and getting them definitely planned, we're getting musicians to come up as well.

So the costs will be, I mean, like I said, no one's getting paid. We are covering their cost to get here as well. Because I think that is only fair, but we'll see how much we can do that when we raise the money, which is, like I said, is quite slow at the moment. So if anybody listening has any spare cash at all, no matter how small and amount it would be very gratefully received. 

Zoe: Can you tell me about the t-shirts that you've chosen to promote for the March and what does Stormé DeLarverie mean to you? 

JF: I decided that's what I wanted to wear, but I think it's sort of cottoned on. I think a lot of women decided, Yeah, that's a really good idea. That would look good if a lot of us were wearing similar t-shirts and I think the image of Stormé is an extremely powerful one because she is the epitome of lesbian erasure and clawing back from lesbian erasure and of saying, no, we did exist.

Not only did we exist, but we actually were central. We've always been central actually, and she's a black woman. So it's like, the story itself is quite impressive. She lived an amazing life. She did amazing things. She helps out so much in her community until she was quite old. She was doing things like security and just generally being a friend to people. She seemed like such a lovely woman and such a kind woman, but a very strong one to live through what she did.  To be a butch lesbian at that time, not to mention being a black butch lesbian, must've been a bloody nightmare but she survived all that. She survived Stonewall. She didn't push herself forward. 

She was actually discovered through history being looked at and identified. She didn't ever come forward and push herself in the way that other people have pushed histories onto Stonewall. And I think in this 50th year, since that Stonewall event, I think we need to remember her and we need to remember that lesbian erasure is not ever going to work and we need to make sure that people know that. It didn’t work then it certainly isn’t going to work now. 

Zoe: Speaking of lesbian erasure, am I right that you led the campaign to have the word lesbian put on the Anne Lister plaque to replace the term non-conforming? 

JF: I set up the petition. Well, I was talking with a friend of mine saying, God, have you heard about this? And she said, well, why don't you start up a petition?

Because she was a bit busy to be doing it as well. So I'm going to go and just do that right now. And I went and did it. And it just seemed to take off, I mean, I can understand why, because I was incensed about it. There was this amazing iconic, that's such an overused word, but she really is in West Yorkshire, particularly she's an iconic image of a lesbian who lived her life as a lesbian and as an out lesbian and that was unbelievable.

And yet she was, she was a landowner, now she had money, she was in a position to do it all which was true. But she still got hell for it. And she still remained true to herself. I mean, I'm not saying for a second that she was a wonderful human being. But she deserves remembering as a lesbian because that's who she was.

And she wasn't a gender non-conforming entrepreneur. Which is what York LGBT Forum came up with because apparently they talked to loads of people. No they hadn’t. I know people in York, no-one was consulted hardly anyone. So I thought, well, enough is enough, I'm not having that. And then lots of other people seem to agree and they caved really quickly.

Zoe: Well, it's really great. I don't know if you heard that an employee at Shibden Hall recently claimed that Anne Lister was most probably transgender and also questioned the importance of having lesbian on her plaque. So how does that make you feel?

JY: Well, someone needs to actually get a grip and get some history learned. It's like who's training these people who the hell is training these people? It's like that's integral to who she was. Her lesbianism is as integral as the fact the she is from Halifax, she lived in Shibden Hall and that running Shibden was who she was. And being a lesbian was who she was. 

They were both huge parts of her personality and it's like to trans people when they’re dead, I think is fairly disgusting though. Isn't it? But I think so many people are doing that to people. And I think that's fairly vile behaviour. It's like, if you can't believe someone from their own words, and she was always very clear in her diaries where her affections lay, she made it very clear.

She had no intention of ever wanting to be male or anything other than who she was and what she was. And she was proud of who she was and who she loved and how she lived. She was very proud of that. 

Zoe: Are you watching Gentlemen Jack, and what do you think about it?

JF: I don't have live TV, but I probably would watch it only because Suranne Jones is in it. She was part of the land owning class and I’m not particularly interested in the land owning class.

There's far more interesting stories that could be told and on Shibden Estate than Ann Lister’s. But hers was integral because we know about it. So hers had to be told because of that. And it's integral to who we are because we have to have somebody to say, yep, them as well.

That's who we are as human beings. We need that continuity. Even if it's someone we may politically never have agreed with or any other women we have not agreed with, we do have things in common with, and at the end of the day we're all human. We all love. 

She certainly did love, a lot.

I didn’t watch it – did you?

Zoe: Yeah. And I think it's interesting in terms of how she's being portrayed and how it might differ from her diaries. I wondered what you thought about that, 

JF: It's TV. They’re going to tell you what sells. It’s a bit of fluff. It's a bit of Sunday night entertainment. Isn't it. That’s all it is. 

Zoe: But I think it's quite influential.  

JF:  It is influential. It's saying that we are normal is what it’s saying. Isn't it? It's normalising us. It’s saying that we're part of Sunday night entertainment now, same as anything else that is part of Sunday night entertainment. 

And that is a positive step in as much as Sunday night entertainment on the telly ever is. I don’t watch TV.

Zoe: So, what do you do? Do you read instead in the evenings and very studious?

JF: No. I'd like to say yes. I have always read a lot, but these days, I don't know whether it's because of the tablets I take because of my illness or whatever, but my concentration span isn't what it used to be. 

I talk to people. I go on Twitter occasionally and have little rants.

I do Leeds Resisters admin. 

So there is always something to do. It's like I try to do things that mean I don't have to do the important things that I'm supposed to be doing, like doing my banner. The I'm supposed to be doing my banner for the Miner’s Gala. This is what I actually promised.

Zoe:  You’re doing a banner for The Lesbian Strength march.

JF: It isn't for that. I actually started it ages ago with Leslie. We started it together, but I've been working on it bit by bit since then. And I keep kind of putting it back and putting it back and putting it back. I'm getting a bit close. 

Zoe: Well, hopefully lots of women will have lots of beautiful banners for the March. And maybe even some super dyke capes 

JF: Well, you never know what you might find very easy to make.

Zoe: So finally, last question. If you could hear an interview with a lesbian feminist activist from anywhere in the world, who's alive today, who would you choose? 

JF:  I think there’s quite a lot of people on lots of levels I would be interested in hearing from, but I don't think there’s anybody in particular, because I have watched a fair bit of YouTube and I've loved, like, for example, the Magdalen Burns videos and loved them. I mean like lots and lots of women they were one of my first wake up calls.

I'd like to see Magdalen again.

Zoe: Wonderful. Well, thank you so much, Julie, for your time today.

And it's been wonderful hearing your answers to the questions.