“Well, we did it, we lost another lesbian, guys,” says lesbian YouTuber Arielle Scarcella in response to Elliot Page coming out as trans. The video, which deadnames Page in the title, is captioned with the following: Why are we losing all of our biological women lesbians? Non-binary, queer, and other labels are being used. Anything besides ‘gay women.’
Scarcella went on to show a Tweet she made to Elliot that said the following:
"Much respect for @TheElliotPage for coming out as trans. I still wonder where all the lesbians are going... Two things can be true at once. 1. Some people are actually trans. 2. Some lesbians are internally misogynistic and want to be anything other than a woman."
Scarcella’s video and tweet caused outrage and other YouTubers were quick to make response videos defending Page, disavowing what Scarcella said in her video. One YouTuber, a trans woman named Riley Grace Roshong, called Scarcella’s Tweet ‘literally concern trolling.’ She went on to say, “She doesn’t see Elliot as a guy. She sees him as a lost lesbian sister.”
Arielle’s friend, Claire, weighed in on the conversation on Twitter: “If coming out as transgender brings the actor (deadname) any measure of peace, then I am glad for them. But, my heart breaks as the lesbian community grows smaller. Again. And loses a role model. Again.”
Trans activist and journalist Ashlee Marie Preston responded to Claire’s Tweet with the following: “What we’re not going to do is conflate gender identity with sexuality. Elliot was never a lesbian; he was a young queer person trying to find himself like many of us were before we had the courage to live authentically. If ANYTHING, this makes him much more of a role model to our youth.”
She posted a photo of this Tweet to her Instagram with the caption: Say it with me: Trans men are not confused lesbians, and trans women are not confused gay men.
Ashlee did a follow up post to this one to amend some of her points. She said, “On my last post, I shared my response to a tweet from a cisgender lesbian woman of felt personally afflicted by Elliot Page and his truth as a trans person. While the caption to my last post was 1000% spot on, I said in my response that Elliot was never a lesbian. I said that because the conventional understanding of lesbianism is one must identify as a woman- as the baseline. However, language is expansive, and we’re often required to update information.”
She accompanies this post with an article about people who are non-women lesbians being gatekept out of the community by women lesbians and how that needs to stop.
Here’s Arielle’s video. Watch Riley's response below:
Gayes, do you think Arielle’s concerns are valid or is she simply concern trolling like Riley said? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!