For the last two years, The LadyBirds, a bi-weekly group for young LBT women and non-binary people, have been doing all they can to raise awareness around women’s sexuality and sexual health. Emily O’Connell details their journey.

The LadyBirds mean business. One of BeLonG To’s youth groups, over the last while they have taken part in training courses with Dublin Lesbian Line, released a manifesto of what they want to achieve and just last month they launched a video campaign to highlight the stigma that surrounds the female reproductive system and the lack of education that young people receive when it comes to women’s bodies.

The LadyBirds’ drive to campaign came from discussion groups in which they would share their experiences of coming to terms with their sexuality and the lack of resources and general information that was out there. For many of the participants these were the first discussions of that kind they had ever had, and the ability to finally be able to share and relate their struggles to other people allowed them to fully process their anger and clearly see what problems they had to face going forward.

One of the most harrowing and seemingly universal LBT experiences that The LadyBirds want to change is that the first encounter that many LBT women and non-binary people have with their sexuality and with what sex might look like for them is through porn.

In May of 2016, Pornhub released Irish statistics which revealed the most common search topic and viewed category on the site was ‘lesbian’. Going from having no information on their sexual identity to seeing a hypersexualised version of it undoubtedly has major psychological repercussions on LBT women and non-binary people. Issues range from developing severe problems with intimacy and sex, to feeling ashamed about their attraction to other LBT people, to not wanting to show affection towards their partner in public due to the fear of being sexualised by heterosexual men. This is affecting every part of the LBT community and yet it is hardly ever discussed and there are no resources to help them cope with these problems.

The LadyBirds are working to change this however, it is difficult, as there are few outside sources to help them. While there are a number of courses and workshops being funded by the Gay Health Network and the HSE for GBT men centred mainly around HIV prevention, there are few supports out there regarding the sexual health of LBT women and non-binary people. The Ladybirds have speculated on why this might be and what their discussions keep coming back to is the historical repression of women’s sexuality.

It is a common misconception, for example, that same-sex relationships were illegal in Ireland until 1993. Despite popular belief, what the Irish law actually prohibited was relationships between men. Buggery was listed under ‘unnatural offences’ in the Offences Against the Person Act in 1861 while Section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885 declared a two year imprisonment for any man found guilty of ‘gross indecency’ with another male. Neither of these laws reference relationships between women and this is not something that is unique to Ireland. While it might seem strange at first to complain about not being criminalised, once you start to analyse the situation it becomes evident that this is a side effect of a much deeper issue.

Up until the women’s movements of the 1960’s/70’s, the Western world largely ignored women’s sexuality. It had been ingrained in our culture that men were sexual creatures whereas women were not. While it has been proven untrue and various waves of feminism have worked to dismantle and reconstruct the way we think of and engage in sex, the knock on effect of this suppression has been immense. It became so incomprehensible that women could have relationships without men, that W/W relationships were completely erased or not taken seriously. This has filtered down to the present, causing the lack of information and attention given to relationships between LBT women and non-binary people.

The result of this is that young people are practicing unsafe sex, causing themselves both physical and mental damage, for the simple reason that there is so little out there for them or about them. Groups such as The LadyBirds are invaluable to young LBT women and non-binary people as they are taking control of their own narrative and attempting to create a better and more visible world for their community. While they have a huge amount to tackle, it is inspiring to see a start being made and if they continue on this path we can hope for a safer and healthier future for LBT women and non-binary people in Ireland.

The LadyBirds, a BeLonG To youth group for LBT gals and non-binary pals, meets every second Thursday in Dublin’s city centre.

For more info visit www.belongto.org