I’ve been out for about 30 years and for the majority of this time, I had never heard of the term gold star (meaning a lesbian who has never had sex with a man). I had socialised in a range of LGB settings in different areas and it was never used in any of the circles I mixed in – whether that was LGB youth groups, university LGB society, gay bars and clubs, lesbian support groups, lesbian and gay friendship groups. I never read it in any of the lesbian and gay publications that we had and I didn’t see it in my early use of the internet. I’m not saying it necessarily hadn’t been created yet but it certainly wasn’t widely used and, in my regular lesbian circles (by which I mean, not queer and not radfem) that is still the case. The very first time I heard the term was in the L Word, in the mid-noughties, which was around the time that the queer agenda started coming to the fore. From what I understand, it was a phrase invented by some bi women to mock lesbians who hadn’t had sex with a man but has now been twisted to be about evil, exclusionary lesbians.

Over the last few years, I have heard the phrase repeatedly, primarily online and almost always from non-“gold stars” starting a thread about all the evil gold stars who are exclusionary and always going on about how superior they are. In fact, the only person I can think of who I have ever seen adopt the gold star label for themselves was Magdalen Berns – Whenever else the phrase has been used it has been other groups attacking this evil bogeyman figure.

The first time I came across this phrase in real life was a couple of years ago when a friend of mine was subjected to abuse. She is a lesbian in her 50s who I knew has been out since she was pretty young but I had no idea whether she had ever had sex with a man before then – and she had no idea about me – because in our circles it had always been a non-issue. Anyhow, she had been to a discussion group for lesbian and bi women at our local LGBT organisation and, within the course of the discussion, it had come to light that she hadn’t had sex with a man at which point a transbian in the group launched a lengthy tirade saying that “gold stars” were awful, transphobic and man-haters – This was supported by some bi women in the group and completely ignored by the group facilitator because this wasn’t seen as an anti-lesbian tirade - it was a difference of opinion about “gold stars” – punching up at a privileged elite.

As well as in trans/queer circles, the other place this phrase pops up a lot is in radical feminist and lesbian feminist circles. Most commonly this is when lesbians object to bisexual and heterosexual women identifying as lesbians (ie political lesbians) – No matter how clearly lesbians state that this is about attraction to men, not experience with men, bisexual and heterosexual “lesbian feminists” will immediately start talking about privileged “gold stars” who are trying to exclude even rape victims from the exclusive club of who is allowed to call themselves a lesbian – Therefore, changing the narrative from opposite-sex-attracted women feeling entitled to invade and colonise a minority group to a group of evil, privileged oppressors trying to exclude a more vulnerable group. (Sound familiar to anyone following the trans debate?)

The other way you will see it used in feminist groups is as a cover for making anti-lesbian statements. Eg “Gold stars tend to be predatory”, “gold stars have toxic masculinity/act like men”. It’s difficult to challenge because they aren’t saying all lesbians are like this and the women saying this identify as being lesbians. Even when you know the woman making the comment is actually bisexual (eg because she says that the patriarchy and comphet forced her to feel attracted to men or because she still makes occasional comments about hot men but insists that a lot of lesbians are attracted to men) if you challenge this as a lesbophobic statement they will counter with the assertion that many lesbians have had sex with men so they aren’t attacking lesbians generally just this one privileged group – It’s presented as punching up and is almost impossible to tackle and name what is really going on, because they will invoke lesbians who came out later in life as a sort of shield to hide their appropriation and lesbophobia behind.

In short, I think this is being used by two different groups to divert attention when lesbians try to challenge their appropriation of lesbian identity, to divide lesbians and to make anti-lesbian statements under the radar. At the same time, when you’ve got mass-appropriation of the lesbian label and queering of the word lesbian to mean whatever you want it to mean, I think some lesbians are naturally more cautious about women with a lot of sexual history with men identifying as lesbians so it also concerns me that genuine lesbians who have come out later in life could feel unwelcome.

Have other people noticed any of this? How can we address these issues? If we start talking about the way they are targeting “gold stars”, it sounds like we accept the use of the term and the division of lesbians into these two categories.

If you are a lesbian who has come out later in life (or any lesbian who has had sex with a man), what has been your experience? When someone out of the blue starts a thread railing against “gold stars” I tend to assume it is started in bad faith and react accordingly but I am also concerned that some lesbians coming out now are getting caught up in all this crap and believing that they are not welcome due to their sexual history and, while there is a genuine need to defend our language and our communities, I don’t want it to be at the expense of that group.

Should we be trying to counter this stuff and how do we do it? Is it worth trying to engage or best just to walk away?

I think I now truly understand how angry women who have experienced real, horrendous abuse because of their sex feel about all the comments about “cis women” having privilege, misogynistic comments with the word “cis” thrown in at the beginning so it’s seen as punching up and not about all women (just the privileged “cis” ones) and the silencing of discussion about women’s issues because that is about the “cis privileged” group. There are so many similarities between that and the colonisation of lesbian identity and spaces and the use of the term “gold star” but with the complication that, due to the lesbophobic, heterosexist society we live in, some lesbians have had sex with men, and other groups are exploiting that.