I just think that it's within that person's rights to say that they feel that their experience is different than that of gay women. It's possible to acknowledge differences in experience without downplaying one or the other.

Yes, it is possible to acknowledge difference without downplaying one or the other, though in this case, he wasn't actually doing that (and I know that's possibly a spurious claim to make since I can't find the post I'm talking about and link to it, so you have to go on what I'm saying). He was saying, as darkrose says, that women can't understand the gay experience, period. So firstly, he's basically saying that gay equals male, when actually I and plenty of my gay female friends use gay to describe ourselves. Secondly, he's implying, by not specifiying straight, that all women are straight. Thirdly, it's a big leap from 'my experience is different from yours' to 'you can't understand it. Ever.' Obviously, one person can never have a perfect understanding of what another person feels, but, regardless of the fact that physical violence is likely to be expressed differently towards gay men and gay women, a lot of the underlying stuff is pretty similar - certainly similar enough for one person to make a reasonable extrapolation of what the other is feeling.

Obviously, he and you would disagree with me on that.