What's in a name?

When it comes to Scottish Lesbians, it seems, quite a lot.

I attended the Scottish Parliament on Tuesday, for a feminist round table event, organised by WRN Scotland, wearing my ‘Scottish Lesbians’ badge. On entering the building I was told, by a very polite and apologetic security officer, that ‘Scottish Lesbians’ is a political message and the Parliament doesn’t allow those (despite it being home to MSPs from six different political parties). I removed the badge, put it in my bag, and went through to the lobby- where I was checked into the event by a man wearing a rainbow lanyard. 

It seems that the rainbow, universally seen as a (distinctly political) symbol of support for LGBTQ+ people, is welcome in the heart of Scottish democracy, but the two little words ‘Scottish Lesbians’ are not.

Once I’d recovered from the explosion in my irony meter I started to think again about how we came by our name. When Lorraine and I started the group nearly two years ago we gave careful thought to what to call ourselves. We’re lesbians, and we’re in Scotland, so Scottish Lesbians seemed like an obvious choice. It’s purely descriptive, and perhaps that’s why it seemed so ridiculous that I wasn’t allowed to wear it inside the Parliament. It gives no clue to our political stance, or indeed our stance on anything. For all the security officer knew, I might have been promoting a very niche skiffle band.

We felt a bit presumptuous going for a ‘national’ type name, and we confidently expected other lesbians to contact us and tell us that we should join their long established Scottish group instead, but it never happened. It turns out we’re it.

We considered adding in further words to clarify what we are all about, but we didn’t want a name that would tie us to the current issues around gender ideology. Things for lesbians are always a bit of a challenge; if it’s not gender, it’s porn, or compulsory heterosexuality, or reproductive rights, or general lesbophobia. If the gender stuff went away tomorrow there would still be a need for a group or organisation looking out for the rights of lesbians.

We also wanted a name that any lesbian could be comfortable with. Some have been seduced by gender ideology and would, at present, consider us beyond the pale; but when the whole edifice inevitably comes tumbling down and they’re looking for a group that advocates for actual lesbians we want them to look again at us. We need to hold the door open for all lesbians- not the high profile ones who have happily chucked us under the bus, obviously, but the ones who have been told they are bigots if they don’t accept men, or that they must *be* men if they fancy women. ‘Scottish Lesbians’ is flexible enough to do that. 

So, although our name is very simple, there’s a lot to it. It was chosen with great care, to be non-political, for lesbians now and, hopefully, in the future. We look forward to the day when we’re not fighting for the absolute basics, such as being able to define ‘lesbian’ as being applicable only to women, or being able to attend meetings in our Parliament without our very name raising objections.