My (unplanned) lesbian speech at the Cambridge Union
Alternative title: The ramblings of a "selfish little girl"
Hi everyone! It’s been a busy few months, so I haven’t been able to post much. Last week, while attending the Cambridge Union debate on This House Believes Modern LGBTQ+ Activism Fails Its Community, I got a bit fed up with some of the earlier speeches and decided to give one myself. The Union allows for six impromptu 2-3 minute “floor speeches” in between scheduled speakers—two in favour of the motion, two opposing, and two for abstention. I managed to nab the last abstention spot, which happened to be immediately before Maeve’s speech, which you can find on her Substack and crossposted on CUSW’s.
Many thanks to Audrey Stephen for this transcript of my speech!
CORRECTION 23/5/2026: I’ve received some messages from readers concerning a factual error I made in this speech: there does not appear to have been a connection between Charlotte Reed and Patricia Wright, the lesbian couple murdered by Dana Rivers, and Michfest; I’m not sure where I got that from! The minimal planning I did for this speech, given largely off the cuff, was done without internet access, as I did not have my smartphone with me at the time. Thank you to those who reached out, and I apologise for any confusion or upset my mistake has caused.
I would like to argue in favour of abstention from this motion because I believe the construct of the LGBTQ+ community is incoherent.
** Applause. **
This is a community that does not, and it actively opposes, the rights of lesbians to this day—and I want to just list a few examples from the past few years that illustrate this point: that the “L” in the LGBTQ+ is never really part of the “LGBTQ+”.
In Australia, for years now, lesbians have not been able to legally gather in lesbian-only events. They have been required to include men who “identify” as lesbians in those events, thus making these events hostile to many women, and making them no longer lesbian-only events. Lesbian dating apps are full of men. I’m telling you—these apps are terrible—and you cannot filter. If you try to filter, you will be banned. “Cotton ceiling” rhetoric in the past decade and a half: this notion that it is somehow the final frontier for trans-identified men who call themselves lesbians to sleep with real lesbians. This is some kind of civil rights struggle, to have sexual access to women who are not interested in them. The Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival was cancelled about a decade ago. This is a primarily lesbian-organised and lesbian-attended event. Two prominent organisers of this event, a lesbian couple [and their son] were murdered by a trans-identified man who was upset about the fact that he was not allowed to attend the festival. His name is Dana Rivers. He is in a women’s prison in California.
And just to demonstrate the fact that lesbians do oppose this: we are vastly overrepresented amongst the women, who are also vastly overrepresented, in the struggle to preserve women’s rights. Because we are not only lesbians—we are women too. Women such as Julie Bindel, Magdalen Burns, Joanna Cherry, Lizzy Pitt, Kate Barker, Jamie Reed, and two of the co-founders of the Cambridge Society of Women—Thea and myself: all lesbians.
** Sammy McDonald, second speaker for the opposition, requests a Point of Information. **
I’m still going.
There are currently no lesbian bars in London that are only lesbians; they all accept men. It is almost impossible to organise lesbian events without them being picketed [or] protested by the LGBTQ+. This is clearly a community that is opposed to lesbian rights—
** Applause. **
—and I think it’s really important that we recognise that this is not a coherent category, and we should abstain from the motion because it is nonsensical.
Links to both the video of my speech and the full debate:
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