that involves a penis" and that it is unfair and dehumanizing "to reduce lesbian women's sexuality into nothing more than a source of validation for trans women." She said it "is dangerous to conflate women treating someone with respect with women considering someone as a potential sexual partner, especially in a political context where women's rights face fresh jeopardy." Heuchan argued that "lesbian is again a contested category" and "even acknowledging lesbian visibility is described as 'dogwhistle transphobia'. ... Lesbophobia isn't coming from social conservatism as it has in the past, but within the LGBT+ community." African-American lesbian performance artist and writer Pippa Fleming, writing in The Economist, stated, "Lesbian identity is now being dubbed as exclusionary or transphobic. You're damn right it's exclusive: lesbians have a right to say no to the phallus, no matter how it's concealed or revealed." She added that "patriarchy and sex-based oppression are real, and they remain the driving force behind the invisibility of black lesbians. The gender-identity movement's attempt to rebrand the lesbian as queer, and the pronouncement that 'anyone can be a lesbian', are nothing short of erasure." Many LGBT activists have opposed use of the term lesbian erasure with regard to transgender activism. In a 2018 open letter opposing this use, twelve editors and publishers of eight lesbian publications stated, "We do not think supporting trans women erases our lesbian identities; rather we are enriched by trans friends and lovers, parents, children, colleagues and siblings." Carrie Lyell, editor of DIVA magazine and creator of the letter, stated that "while there's no denying women are marginalised within the LGBT+ movement, this having anything to do with trans people, or trans issues, is news to me." She referred to the argument that trans women are pressuring lesbians to "accept them as sexual partners" as "scaremongering". Shannon Keating of BuzzFeed argued that "though lesbians are by no means under attack by gains in trans acceptance, it's true that American attitudes about gender identity are evolving, which has started to impact the way many of us think about sexual orientation." Abigail Curlew of Vice argued that noting that cisgender people may find themselves sexually attracted to a trans woman, especially if relaxing their "preconceived notions and stereotypes of transgender folks", is "very different than saying that if you're not attracted to trans women you are transphobic." She said she is not shaming people for their