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our-lesboy-experience · 16 days

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hiii!!! so uh, this is sorta about 'contradicting' (?) identities in general, but i only recently found out about, like, lesboys and gaygirls and all of that, but what is it exactly? like how does it work? or is that weird to ask? i'm trying figuring myself out but a lot of stuff i've seen doesn't exactly... explain it (or explain it well), and while i guess i do get why, it's just kinda hard to understand it myself for my own identity

also, probably a question you get a lot in a hating way, but isn't the definition of lesbian nonman loving nonman? so then how does lesboy work? like is it for people with more complicated gender identites, like fluctuating genders and bigender? just genuinly confused, my apologies...

sorry for not getting to this sooner- been busier lately and didn't have the time to collect everything I needed to respond!

About what it exactly means to be a lesboy or a gaygirl ('turigirl' is the more common term, 'turi' meaning turian, another word for gay attraction to men. so I'll be referring to it as that from now on), there isn't exactly....one right way to call yourself such. it really depends on the person, but I can give you a basic definition and a list of common reasons someone may call themselves such

im gonna put a read more because this ended up being super long so sorry

lesboy is a term for any lesbian who may have a connection to manhood and/or masculinity. turigirl is just the opposite of that, a gay person (mlm/nblm) who may have a connection to womanhood and/or femininity. common reasons I've seen are:

being multigender or genderfluid

being cusper/in between trans and cis gnc (in between trans man and cis gnc woman, in between trans woman and cis gnc man)

being a system who uses lesboy/turigirl as a collective identity or when identities blur together

a person who uses man/boy or woman/girl as a means of masculine or feminine gender expression but not actually identifying as such

being a trans man/ftm or a trans woman/mtf who still identifies as lesbian or gay for personal reasons

those are far from all the reasons, everyone has their own unique experiences, but the gist is these people may have some sort of connection to manhood/womanhood while still having a queer attraction. personally, I'm multigender, genderfluid, and transmasc. lesboy I find is a nice label to express being both my bigender self and being a lesbian, as it forces people to acknowledge both without separating the two. it's cute and makes me feel validated!

as for "nonman attracted to nonmen" definition of lesbian......it has its issues. it's received criticism all around from all sorts of lesbians in the community. this definition is very new - it emerged only in the recent years, and someone on twitter had date searched it and found it didn't even really exist before 2019. and having that as the one and only official definition that every lesbian has to abide by, when lesbian is a centuries old word with so much history behind it, is a bit ignorant. people who are multiple genders or ftm or bi being lesbian is not even remotely new, going back decades upon decades, and it never stopped existing too. It's a bit weird to have a whole new definition that doesn't include all sorts of lesbians that have been here for so long and just tell them they're not welcomed anymore, right?

that's not even close to the only issue there is with it. it's been disliked for centering lack of attraction to men, or defining lesbian in relation to men, rather than who we're actually attracted to. putting nonbinary people in a new binary of either being "men or nonmen," which not all feel comfortable putting themselves into. especially when considering a definition of gay being "nonwomen attracted to nonwomen," man-woman bigender people are simultaneously excluded from being both lesbian or gay. It inherently overlaps with mspec identity ("attraction to nonmen, which is more than one gender" and "any orientation that involves attraction to more than one gender" kinda obviously overlap), despite people insisting that a lesbian can never be mspec. people have found multiple loopholes in it, (which I can elaborate on if someone wants me to, for the sake of trying to make this as short as possible), and lastly, and term "nonman" (and nonwoman) were found to have existed before to describe the degendering of black people in society. this isn't the only source I've seen for this, but sadly I can't exactly find it (or find it without going back to that hellsite called twitter and I'm not doing that to myself)

oh and as the link points out, defining lesbian by these words also ends up excluding a lot of two-spirit people from ever identifying as lesbian, myself included. which is also really racist. I don't know how you're gonna end up excluding a whole cultural gender that's common for indigenous americans to describe themselves with and try to prove it somehow isn't racist, to be honest

and lastly, some surveys/polls have shown that the definition isn't the most widely accepted by lesbians as people make it out to be. there's this simple poll that someone posted asking how lesbians felt about the definition that received 1,529 responses, and 61.1% of voters said they disliked it. comments gave lots of reasons I've stated already. there was another survey put out that received 211 responses that for any lesbian who had a genderqueer or unique relationship with gender, and one of the questions asking opinions on the "nonmen loving nonmen" as a definition. the average among the group was slightly negative (average 2.838), and reported that the group who tended to feel the most positively about it didn't consider themselves to be trans, with the other positive leaning group considered themselves to be somewhat cis. the group that felt the most negatively sometimes considered themselves to be trans. and of the multigender participants, the average opinion was 2.255 (more negative than the overall average). When concluding, the original poster stated, "When divided by gender, the only groups to feel positive about this definition were "not trans" and "somewhat cis" participants. Multigender participants felt especially negative about this definition"

all of this shows that this definition isn't nearly the best for everyone who considers themselves a lesbian. I know it's been a way to include nonbinary people who are lesbian in it's definition, but I think it really misunderstands why nonbinary people are included in lesbianism in the first place, and just assumes that all nonbinary people aren't men and fails to recognize that multigender/genderfluid people are nonbinary too. and it's not like lesbian has to only have on definition- it can definitely have multiple and depend on each person's experience with it. if someone personally defines them being lesbian around being a nonman attracted to nonmen, and takes pride in not being attracted to men, that's totally fine. what becomes a problem is forcing all lesbians to define themselves like this and make it the standard, or else they're "not real lesbians." it is ahistorical and ignorant to require this or else you'll strip them of their lesbian status, and is really at the end of the day, lesbophobic. especially as a requirement that primarily exists in online spaces. im sure the lesbian who is not at all connected to these circles doesn't particularly care about strict requirements or whether someone is a "nonman" or not. in conclusion, it is not the best nor most accepted definition of lesbian, and deciding which lesbians are valid or not based solely on that definition is pretty exclusionary and ends up policing a lot of lesbians, myself included

#lesboy #turigirl #lesbian #gay #multigender #genderfluid #mspec lesbian #asks #tw exclusionism #tw queerphobia #lesbophobia #I can definitely elaborate on some points if asked #I do have some thoughts I've never shared before

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yourfavismspechomohet · 4 months

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love, there’s no such thing as a “bi lesbian.” someone can’t be bi and a lesbian. Coming from a lesbian myself it just doesn’t happen that way. Being a bisexual means that you like BOTH, being a lesbian means you ONLY like non men. It’s a mockery of real lesbians, it’s not a real sexuality.

Let’s take this apart separately, shall we?

“There’s no such thing as a Bi Lesbian”

Tell that to all the Bi Lesbians that follow me, and like my posts, and request for posts.

Tell that to the Bi Lesbians I reblog from and talk to occasionally.

Tell that to the older queers that identify as Bi Lesbians.

I guess apparently they don’t exist then. 🤷

“Someone can’t be Bi and a Lesbian”

Ah, this is a very popular one on this blog that I keep getting. I could link you to those, but I won’t. Here’s some ways you can be Bi and a Lesbian at the same time:

Biromantic Homosexuals

Homoromantic Bisexuals

Bi people who label themselves as Lesbians, to reclaim queer history. Because ALL Sapphics, regardless of if they were attracted to men or not, were referred to as Lesbians.

Bi people may also label themselves as Lesbians to reclaim being called a Lesbian by Biphobes trying to get them to pick one.

Bi people who lean more towards women, may call themselves Bi Lesbians.

Abroromantics/Abrosexuals may label themselves as Bi Lesbians because their orientation only swings back and forth between those two.

“Coming from a Lesbian myself, it just doesn’t happen that way.”

Well, for the second part, “It doesn’t happen that way”, just go back to the previous comments on “Someone can’t be Bi and a Lesbian”. It does and can happen.

Now for the first part “Coming from a Lesbian myself”. I hear this a lot. Not just from Lesbians, not just from queer people, but people of all different communities, one thing I hear all the time is “Coming from a [Blank] myself”. You need to understand that you are not the only Lesbian on earth. And Lesbians are not a hive-mind. You’re not all the same, and you’re not all going to have the same opinions. If that were the case, all Lesbians would look, talk, act the same way, and have the same views. But you don’t, because you’re not a hive-mind. Simply implying that all people of the same sexuality should have the same opinions is wrong. Believe it or not, I’ve seen all different kinds of lesbians who were Pro-Mspec Lesbian, who were Anti-Mspec Lesbian, and were neutral on Mspec Lesbians. And if all Lesbians had the same opinions, you would not be separated on these different opinions.

“Being a bisexual means that you like BOTH, being a lesbian means you ONLY like non men.”

Being Bi means that you could just about like any gender. It doesn’t just mean both, as in men and women. Bi people could definitely just be attracted to women and men, but they’re also Bi people attracted to all different kinds of genders under the Nonbinary umbrella.

As for being a Lesbian, it means that you’re attracted to women and Nonbinary people. And if we can agree on that, we also have to agree that there are other Nonbinary genders where one identifies as a woman AND a man, that you may also be attracted to. Saying that Lesbians don’t like men excludes Multigender people. Even if that’s not how you mean for it to sound, I can tell you that a lot of Multigender people feel that way.

Also, a common misconception is that Non-Men and Non-Women is okay to use for Gay and Lesbian definitions. It’s not. What you probably didn’t know, is that the terms have racist origins. Black and indigenous queer people have literally been talking about this since this definition was coined. “Non-Men” and “Non-Women” are terms that have been historically used to describe the degendering of black people.

Forcing these terms for queer definitions is Anti-Black, I could forgive you if you didn’t know that and stop using those definitions after now knowing the origins.

But if you still use these definitions even after knowing this, congratulations! You’re racist! Pretty sure there was a book about this, “Bad faith and anti-black racism” by Lewis R. Gordon.

“It’s a mockery of real lesbians, it’s not a real sexuality.”

Mspecs have just as big a part in Lesbian history as Lesbians.

All sapphics were Lesbians regardless of if they liked men.

The term “Bi Lesbian” has been around since the 70s. I’d like to see you try and tell an older queer Bi Lesbian, that they’re “mocking” Lesbians and that their sexuality isn’t real. They probably accomplished more than you have in your entire life, because you want to fight with people on queer labels that you think are and aren’t valid because apparently no queer identity is acceptable unless you agree with it.

Love, wether you like it or not, Bi Lesbians and even male Lesbians have always existed and will continue existing. And they don’t need your permission to be themselves.

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gay-otlc · 2 years

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Transmasc Lesbianism

I'm a lesbian. I'm also a straight trans man. This might confuse you, but you may want to consider looking at perspectives of gender and sexuality that differ from your own and don't fit into neat little boxes.

A definition of lesbian that has been gaining popularity in queer spaces is "non men loving non men." This was meant to be inclusive for nonbinary lesbians, as an alternative to "women loving women." However, the phrase is very flawed. I've spoken about this elsewhere, but the main points are

It categorizes all nonbinary people alongside women. In this context, "non-men" comes off as "women or nonbinary people who are basically women." Not all nonbinary people, even if they're non-men will feel comfortable being labeled as a lesbian, since the term has feminine connotations and can cause dysphoria. It's unfair to put them in this box just because they're not a man.

Attraction is complex and cannot be divided into "attracted to men" and "not attracted to men." This disregards people who use the split attraction model (different romantic and sexual orientations), people who experience alterous attraction, people with fluid sexualities, and more.

Gender is complex and cannot be divided into "male" and "all genders that are not male." The identity most blatantly erased by this is multigender identities- people with multiple genders can be both male and a gender that is not male. There are also genderfluid people who are sometimes male, demigender people who are partially male, or nonbinary people who don't identify as male but may refer to themselves with masculine terms such as boy or man anyway.

The focus of lesbianism should not be excluding men. Mindsets like this are echoing TERF rhetoric that seeks to exclude transfeminine lesbians because TERFs wrongly consider them to be men. And it's annoying to make our identity about men or lack thereof, when we don't need to be talking about men at all- our community is about our shared attraction for women, because women are great!

Awesome, we've got that out of the way. If you're still reading this and going "but you can't be a trans man and a lesbian, lesbian means non men loving non men!!!!!", then I don't know what to tell you. Read the list again? Go through the other posts linked? Maybe log off tumblr?

If you read all that and you're willing to accept that not all lesbians will fit into "non men loving non men," and you don't understand but you're open to learn, read on! By the end you might still not understand, but you don't need to understand me to respect me.

For some context, here is a description of my gender and sexuality.

Gender: I'm a bigender trans man. To put it as simply as I can, my gender is primarily male, but I also have some of the female gender. I'm comfortable being seen as solely a man or both a man and a woman, but not solely a woman.

Sexuality: I'm sexually attracted to women almost exclusively. As mentioned at the beginning of the post, I describe myself as a lesbian (or gay, sapphic, etc). I also describe myself as a straight man (or straight transmasc, transhet, etc).

How can I be both?

That's where my multigender identity comes into play. I'm a man and a woman. I'm attracted to women. This makes me both a man attracted to women and a woman attracted to women; a straight man and a lesbian.

Like I said earlier, male is my primary gender and being female is more secondary. So, I'm primarily a man attracted to women, and to a lesser extent a woman attracted to women. Internally, I perceive myself as more of a straight man than a lesbian. I get a lot of gender euphoria from calling myself a straight man, and the feminine connotations of lesbian can sometimes make me uncomfortable.

So, why do I still identify as a lesbian?

Although I consider myself and my attraction to be mostly transhet, that's not really how I interact with the world around me. I'm out as bigender to some people, but I'm also closeted in many contexts, and I don't pass very well even where I am out. This means I navigate my life as someone generally perceived as a woman, who is attracted to women. Even if I don't always consider myself to fit fully with lesbianism, a majority of people will interpret me that way when they find out I'm attracted to women.

Lesbianism is a label I found my home in, for many years, and it still means a lot to me. I spent a long time defining myself as a lesbian and existing in our community, and it's a significant part of my identity.

The way I experienced my attraction growing up was a lesbian experience, not a straight experience. I consider myself a straight man now, but I didn't grow up interacting with the world as a heterosexual child. I was expected to have crushes on boys and was mocked for not fitting into that. I was called a lesbian in a derogatory way when I was ten, and I found power in reclaiming that. When I realized I was attracted to women, I spent years feeling like a freak for it until lesbians communities helped me to be proud. Lesbian is the label that most accurately describes my history and my experience as a young queer.

Also, although the label lesbian sometimes causes dysphoria, I sometimes get euphoria from referring to myself or being referred to as a lesbian. I especially get euphoria from being a butch lesbian. I take so much joy from my butch identity. And while referring to myself as lesbian in a joking manner, with phrases like "I'm so gay for her" or "not to be a lesbian but oh my god," might not count as gender euphoria, saying them makes me happy, and that's enough for me.

So, why do I identify as a man? Because I am one.

Why do I identify as a lesbian? Because it describes my past experience and the way I interact with the world as someone perceived as a woman. Because it's important to me. Because I want to.

Why do I use these labels that contradict each other? Because these are the labels that are right for me, and I have every right to have a confusing identity.

Thank you for your time.

#holy shit this is a long post #i'm so sorry if you actually read all that. i don't know when to shut up </2 #lesbian #men and non men #transmasc lesbian #male lesbian #transhet lesbian #bigender lesbian #multigender lesbian #bigender #multigender #transmultiphobia #<- because it is transmultiphobic to be an ass to me about my identity #gender shit #pride tag #important #so many tags jfk #i will shut up now

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xxlovelynovaxx · 1 year

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Term Coining Time:

Descrippunk

This is for when you defy the efforts of people to box you in with neatly delineated labels that don't overlap, as if they were putting you in a house with a manicured lawn and a white picket fence.

You may use the label bi lesbian, bi gay, straight gay, or similar. You may ID as queerhet due to another identity queering your heterosexual attraction. You may identify as a traumaendo system or endogenic in the increasingly used meaning of "not fully formed from trauma" instead of "not at all formed from trauma". You may identify as a manwoman, a nonbinary man, nonbinary woman, or nonbinary manwoman.

You reject that these identities are inherently mutually exclusive and let your garden of dandelions riot across multiple yards. You refuse the idea that anyone but every individual using the label defines it - and accept that any use of the label not explicitly intended to do harm therefore becomes a part of the definition. You break down pointless fences and reject the idea of labels as property with boundaries and ownership altogether.

You refuse the concept that things like gender (especially manhood), system origin (especially traumagenesis), heterosexuality (in the context of other queer identities), and more, inherently taint an identity when present in any amount to the point of locking you out of identities that don't and can't inherently exclude them.

When someone says "words have meaning", you respond "the meaning we make of them". When someone says "that meaning matters", you say "people matter more than words, because words aren't alive and we are".

It's almost a hedonistic approach to labels - that they are here for our use and pleasure. It rejects prescriptivism at a fundamental level. It rejects a claim to a "right" to restrict the definition of a label or indeed to have any entitlement to its meaning once coined.

And it assumes good faith if there is room for any benefit of the doubt whatsoever.

I coined this specifically after dealing with the same shit for ID'ing as bi lesbian and a traumaendo system and multigender.

The one and only negative experience I have ever had with a supposedly inclusive system as a partially traumagenic system is when I was told by the coiner that being even a little bit traumagenic locked me out of the endogenic label, despite a self-contradictory origin in which I am simultaneously entirely traumagenic, partially traumagenic and entirely nontraumagenic. Because origins aren't that simple.

And no, I don't mean individual headmates, I mean our system is all of those. Plurality is more complicated than some systems would like to admit.

This was after being repeatedly harassed over the bi lesbian label and our multigenderness, so it came to a head there, but it's really all the same shit.

#traumaendo #bi lesbian #multigender #queerhet #descriptivism #coining post

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oh-my-im-ply · 2 months

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This is another post which isn't completely ply focused, but I want to take a second to point out the overlap between people who are transmisic and people who exclude/invalidate mspec lesbians.

Last week, I made a post where I mentioned being a polysexual lesbian, and I made a few mspec lesbian pride flags. Yesterday, someone asked if I was polysexual or a lesbian.

On this blog, we have rules for interaction, as well as rules for mods to follow. At the very top, we have a rule against exclusion and invalidation towards good faith identities, and a rule against bigotry and dogwhistles. However, we will answer questions when they may have been asked in good faith.

So, I answered with this:

Both. I'm attracted to many genders, but not binary men, so I find that polysexual and lesbian both describe my orientation well. Other people may identify as a polysexual lesbian for other reasons.

After I answered, the mask came off, and they started being transmisogynistic and nonbinary-exclusionary, and weaponized the existence of bimisia against me. I deleted their comments and blocked them last night, so I can't copy what they said word for word, but I will repeat their key notes under the cut.

CW: bi erasure, exorsexism/nonbinary-erasure, transmisogyny, mentions of genitalia

"This is what people mean when they talk about bi erasure. You're erasing bi people."

This is a complete misunderstanding of what bi erasure even means. Bi erasure is when you ignore (the existence of) bi people, or outright deny their existence. These are some examples of bi erasure:

Erasing or ignoring bi history.

Saying that bi people need to just "pick a side."

Saying that bi people are secretly straight/secretly gay.

Saying that bi is just "a transitional orientation" or "a phase."

Redefining the broad definition of bisexuality without the consent of the bi community, especially with the intent of telling people that they "aren't really bisexual" or replacing the bi label.

Saying that "everyone is a little bit bisexual," especially with the intent of erasing bisexuality as a distinct category. This can also be a form of erasure against people who aren't bisexual.

Note that "identifying as something other than bi" is not a form of bi erasure, even if you might "technically" fit the definition... Because that is a matter of personal identity.

But do you know what is a form of bi erasure? Erasing bi history. Mspec lesbians (particularly bi lesbians), have existed for decades. It is not a new identity, and bi women and enbies have a right to identify their attractions to women as lesbian attraction if they wish to. The exclusion of bi people from the lesbian label began as a form of bi erasure. It happened because of separatism and political lesbianism, and an idea that attraction to men "tainted" people, or was a "betrayal" to feminism. It happened because of bimisia.

The word "lesbian" has served as an umbrella term synonymous to "sapphic" for over half a century. You want sources? Here you go.

Miller, Trish. Lavender Woman, Vol. 2, No. 5. Lavender Woman Magazine, 1973. "What is a lesbian? To me, a lesbian is a woman-oriented woman; bisexuals can be lesbians. A lesbian does not have to be exclusively woman-oriented, she does not have to prove herself in bed, she does not have to hate men, she does not have to be sexually active at all times, she does not have to be a radical feminist." Ferguson, Ann. Patriarchy, Sexual Identity, and the Sexual Revolution. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 1981. "Lesbian is a woman who has sexual and erotic-emotional ties primarily with women or who sees herself as centrally involved with a community of self-identified lesbians whose sexual and erotic-emotional ties are primarily with women; and who is herself a self-identified lesbian."....."[My definition] defines both bisexual and celibate women as lesbians as long as they identify themselves as such and have their primary emotional identification with a community of self-defined lesbians." Kafele, Dajenya Shoshanna (1991). Bisexual Lesbian. Archived from the original on July 25, 2022. Queen, Carol A.. Strangers at Home: Bisexuals in the queer movement,. 1992. "A great many bisexual women, particularly those who are feminist and lesbian-identified, have felt both personally and politically rejected and judged by the separatist sisters." Kafele, Dajenya Shoshanna. "Which Part of Me Deserves to Be Free?". Bisexual Politics: Theories, Queries, & Visions. New York : Haworth Press, 1995. ISBN 9781560249504. "Personally, I am unable to separate out the various ways that I am oppressed (as a woman, as an African American, as a bisexual lesbian, as an impoverished single mother) and say that one oppression is worse than the other, or that I desire one form of liberation more than another." Wyeth, Amy. "Don't Assume Anything". Bi Women: The Newsletter of the Boston Bisexual Women's Network. Vol. 5, No. 2, 1995. "Unfortunately, many of my experiences as a lesbian-identified bisexual woman have said to me that having an appearance or demeanor that diverges from the expected means I will not be accepted as truly belonging in the lesbian community. Despite my attendance at gay pride parades, dollars spent at gay resorts and in support of gay causes, and numerous attempts to participate in gay and/or lesbian groups and volunteer events, I have often felt unaccepted by this community." Holleb, Morgan Lev Edward. The A-Z of Gender and Sexuality. Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2019. ISBN 9781784506636. "LESBIAN — A woman who is sexually or romantically attracted to women. Lesbian can mean women who are attracted exclusively to other women, but it is also a broader term for women and femmes who are attracted to other women and femmes. This includes bisexual and pansexual women, asexual women who are romantically attracted to women, and non-binary people who identify with womanhood." Lesbian. The Trans Language Primer. Archived from the original on October 22, 2021.

Does this mean bi people have to identify as lesbians, or "aren't actually" bi, or can't just identify as bi? Obviously not, and I never said that was the case. That would be bi erasure, because that's policing bi people's identities and forcing them under labels that they may not want to be included under. But in the circumstance that a bi person also identifies as a lesbian, they have every right to do so. Bi-inclusive definitions of lesbianism have existed for at least 51 years, and still exist today.

"Attraction to men, binary or not, means you're not a lesbian."

See above for why the lesbian identity is not always dependent on a lack of attraction to men, binary or not. But lets focus on the nonbinary part specifically:

Nonbinary people can people included in lesbianism and lesbian attraction if they want to be. Yes, that includes all nonbinary genders. Even if attraction to men inherently disqualified a person from lesbianism, nonbinary genders cannot be confined to binary gender rules (even when they're aligned with binary genders) because they're nonbinary. Treating nonbinary genders like they're "functionally the same as binary genders" is a form of nonbinary erasure, regardless of gender alignment.

Whether nonbinary people are included in lesbianism or not is entirely up to each individual nonbinary person regarding their own identity. It is not dependent on the gender label used; it is dependent on how each nonbinary person feels about it on an individual level.

The implication that manhood inherently dominates and erases the rest of a person's identity is also troubling. If you accept that nonbinary people can be included in lesbianism, you must also accept that nonbinary men can be included in lesbianism. A nonbinary man is still nonbinary; their manhood doesn't erase that.

As a pangender lesbian, I've had to deal with the experience of people not only erasing my enbyhood, but my womanhood as well, because they think my manhood is the only relevant aspect of my identity. This is misogynistic and exorsexist, plain and simple, and people use this misogyny/exorsexism to tell me that I'm not a lesbian.

With all of that said, nonbinary people (of any gender alignment) are not always comfortable being included in lesbianism. This is why I describe myself as both polysexual and a lesbian; the polysexual part of my orientation acknowledges that my attraction to enbies can't always be described with my more binary-aligned labels.

And funnily enough, while some people tell me that I can't be a lesbian and can only be polysexual, other people tell me the opposite. So clearly, there isn't a consensus on which label is "correct" for me.

"If it has a dick, you can't be a lesbian."

This is just blatant mask off transmisogyny, and it's the main reason I blocked them. Do I even need to explain what's wrong with this? Even under a strictly monosexual definition of lesbianism, this statement is just false. Being attracted to people with penises does not equal being attracted to men. If a lesbian is exclusively attracted to women, including women with penises, that lesbian is attracted to only one gender and is not bisexual or mspec.

Any gender can have a dick. Lesbians can have dicks. Women can have dicks. The presence of a penis or lack thereof is not a defining trait of lesbianism, nor monosexuality. And for fuck's sake, maybe don't call your hypothetical trans woman "it"??

"Mspec lesbian" does not mean "lesbian who is attracted to vaginas and penises," and if you think that's what it means, you need to educate yourself. Yes, this includes any people who might identify as an mspec lesbian because of that transmisogynistic definition.

This blog is an inclusive space. If you come in here to spew bigoted or exclusionary nonsense, expect to be blocked. Think before you speak, and please read our rules.

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genderstarbucks · 8 months

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I think people need to realize that queer labels aren't meant to put us in a rigid box, they're meant to make us comfortable and describe our experiences, even if they "go against" the definition

Someone's identity being "contradictory" literally doesn't matter, it doesn't affect you

You exclusionists get so worked up over the fact that bi lesbians and any other "contradictory" identities are "going against the definition", labels are fluid and their definitions change

And we shouldn't be put in a stupid box over it

Lesbian isn't non men loving non men, it's for anybody who feels like that label fits their experience

Gay isn't non women loving non women, it's for anybody who feels like that label fits their experience

Stop excluding us multigender and genderfluid people from these labels just because we're also men and women in addition to those labels

Yeah sure, I guess I could be considered a "non woman" but that's not what I am, I'm a man, I'm agender, I'm nonbinary

But I'm also feminine-aligned, going by the "non women loving non women" definition then I can't be a gay man, even though my attraction to men is queer

The terms non men loving non men and non women loving non women are so exclusionary, multigender, genderfluid and anybody else who can't exactly fit in one of those boxes

Overall, the boxes people put us in is stupid and use whatever labels you fucking want!!

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lighthousegod · 7 months

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Recently, my cis lesbian roommate made a comment about "he/theys" that kinda stuck with me. She said these people, on her dating app, were matching with her and ignoring that she had lesbian in her bio.

We'd had convos about whether trans mascs and trans men could be lesbians (im a transmasc person, but not a lesbian, although ive identified with the label before), and I'm all for he/him lesbians and trans men who are lesbians- I've researched, I know Stone Butch Blues, I don't think telling anyone they can or can't be anything is right.

So this sorta stuck with me. I went, "but. They probably identify as nonbinary if they use they, and even if they don't, trans guys sometimes ID as lesbians too." And she was like "well, but I'm not attracted to masculine people." And I brought up that she does usually like butch lesbians (who definitely use other pronouns besides she/her sometimes!), and she sorta brushed me off, saying there was a different "vibe" between transmascs who use he/they and butches (even though they... sometimes are the transmascs she's talking about???)

So I was like "well, do you have 'looking for femmes' in your bio or something?"

"No."

"Then how are they supposed to know??"

"I don't know it's just my preference!!"

It was super. Odd. I should say, my roommate is cis but uses she/he pronouns. She is, in fact, a lesbian who uses he/him sometimes, as he identifies as bigender *but not a man, ever.

I just find this all so confusing. I mean, let's think about it, fr.

So the popular idea today is that lesbians cannot be men, so trans men can't be lesbians.

Now, here's what that implies: if trans men can't be lesbians, then they are always in the same category as cis men. Now, of course, some trans men ARE in that category, usually binary trans men- and they're all men, right, so every man is under that umbrella. But still, gender isn't so simple. Trans men and transmascs have vastly different experiences between each other and especially cis men. This isn't to do with internal identity, but outward perception. Regardless of whether I'm a man or not, the world has seen me as a woman all my life. That makes it very hard to be accepted and comfortable in mlm spaces, especially when theres so much transphobia in the cis gay community. Plenty of trans men are stealth, or simply have a supportive community, and are welcomed like a cis man would be. But that's not the case for everyone, and not every trans man WANTS to be treated in the same way a cis man might.

But whatever, okay, let's go with that. Trans men are men and lesbian means non-man attracted to non-man, so they're not included cause it's invalidating to (some) trans men, regardless of if they've identified with the label lesbian for years or feel unsafe in mlm spaces bc of how overwhelmingly cis they can be, or whatever else.

So... what about nonbinary men, then? Nonbinary women seem to be accepted, not just nb fems but those who identify as both nonbinary AND a woman- so why are nonbinary men not?

"Because they have man in their identity and lesbians can't like men"

So.. what about bigender people? People who are both men AND women. They can't be lesbians? I guess not.

But let's say they can, and we're just excluding binary trans men from the term lesbian..

People often bring up "would you accept a cis man identifying as a lesbian?" As an arguing point here. Bringing it back to my original point, would you accept a "he/they"? What if they were amab, and had no interest in transitioning? Or a transmasc person who DID? I just saw a transfem lesbian saying she couldn't possibly let trans men with full beards into lesbian spaces as it was transphobic and wrong- aren't there transfem lesbians who don't want to shave or get their face lasered? What do sex characteristics have to do with it? I thought we were trying to avoid labels based on that sort of thing.

So at the end of the day, I guess it really is about the label of "man." What's that even mean? That's literally just a word. I'm so confused.

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bilesproblems · 9 months

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Are nonbinary people inherently included in lesbian? Or all sexualities for that matter?

[PT: Are nonbinary people inherently included in lesbian? Or all sexualities for that matter? End PT]

This question is asked because I've seen people say that bi lesbians like myself are excluding nonbinary people from being lesbians, or that our labels are unnecessary, because "every sexuality inherently includes nonbinary people!" This is actually a false statement and I want to deconstruct why.

Note: I am bigender. I am a hypergirl and deminonbinary/demiaporagender. I view my enbyness and enby gender as a third gender.

Important terms that I will be using:

Elsegender: A more inclusive term for people of varying genders. Not all people view themselves as nonbinary just because they aren't binary men or binary women. I used nonbinary in the title because it's more popularly included in the statement I'm debunking.

Elsegender, ext: Someone who is elsegender is someone who does not identify as a man or a woman, or does, but they either don't identify as a binary man/woman, don't identify as a full man or full woman, only identify as a man or woman sometimes, or identify as both a man and a woman and feel included under elsegender. Elsegender includes a lot of genders and gender modalities or experiences.

Full moon springtide bi/mspec lesbian/lunian: Someone who identifies as a bi lesbian, mspec lesbian, and/or lunian who experiences attraction that is traditionally considered exclusively lesbian attraction. They are not attracted to men or masculinely aligned genders unless those men/masc people are genderfluid, multigender, or otherwise a woman or elsegender. It is up to the specific person if those masc people are included in their attraction. Unlike bi lesbians who are repeatedly excluded from being lesbians and told they're actually just bi, these bi lesbians are repeatedly excluded from bisexuality and told they can just be a lesbian if they give up their bi identity.

Lesbian: https://www.tumblr.com/redtail-lol/717897870015135744/my-take-on-a-definition-for-lesbian?source=share

Bi: Attracted to 2 or more genders, in one form of attraction. Has had other definitions, including "attracted to genders like and unlike your own" and both definitions are valid. Not inherently attracted to all genders but can be

Mspec: Attracted to 2 or more genders. They don't have to be in the same form of attraction

Lunian: An mspec lesbian

Mspec lesbian: A lesbian who is mspec

Bi lesbian: A lesbian who is bi.

Okay. Now I am finally at the point. I can answer the question: are elsegender people inherently included in every sexuality, including lesbian?

The answer is no. A resounding no.

There is a massive difference between inclusion and inherent inclusion. Using lesbian as an example, elsegender people being included in lesbian means elsegender people can identify as lesbians, (exclusive) lesbians can feel attracted to elsegender people, and elsegender people can be in lesbian relationships. Elsegender people being inherently included in lesbian means *every* elsegender person who is (exclusively) attracted to women and to other elsegender people is a lesbian and *every* lesbian is attracted to elsegender people. Which is just... Not the case, and harmful.

Not all people are going to be attracted to elsegender people. Not all lesbians, not all veldians, not all straight men or straight women, not all bi people, not all trixics and torics, and no feminamorics or viramorics. Not all sexualities include elsegender people at all, and only those that specify attraction to elsegender people inherently include them (see: enbian, trixenamoric, pansexual, etc.)

Not all elsegender people are comfortable calling themselves straight, gay/veldian, or lesbian, nor are they all comfortable being with someone who calls themselves one of these labels, because these words are all heavily connotated with binary gender love. Inherently including elsegender people into all sexualities misgenders them.

Being inherently included in lesbian can make some elsegender people feel like they're just viewed as women. There was a large debate on the inclusion of elsegender people in binary connotated orientations, and while some of the pushback was just from exclusionists who didn't want their labels "invaded" by people who had historical proof they'd always been there, but a lot of it was from elsegender people who didn't want to feel like they were just women or just men. The solution is an opt-in and opt-out system. You opt in to the labels that you want. You choose if you're trixic, straight, or a lesbian. Meanwhile, you can't stop a lesbian from liking you, but you can decide to not go out with them because you don't feel comfortable being with a lesbian and feel misgendered by that. That's normal inclusion. Inherent inclusion is anti-enby and also ignores all monosexuals. People who are only attracted to one gender exist and it's wrong to erase them.

If you believe elsegender people are inherently included in every orientation, you also believe:

Everyone is mspec, OR elsegender people do not have separate genders from 'man' and 'woman.' They're just spicy men or spicy women. Men lite or women lite.

All lesbians are mspec lesbians, OR elsegender people are just women, therefore making full moon springtide bi/mspec lesbians/lunians monosexual.

Lesbians are never exclusively attracted to women, OR elsegender people are just women

Bi and lesbian are actually not mutually exclusive, OR bi people must like men AND women in order to be bi.

Even if we pretended that this idea wasn't horribly enbyphobic and monophobic, it still doesn't invalidate full moon springtide bi lesbians because there are mspec neptunic flags while neptunic is an inherently mspec label, so having the specifier isn't excluding elsegender people from the label.

#mspec lesbian #bi lesbian #mspec lesbian safe #bi lesbian safe #pro mspec lesbian #pro bi lesbian #mspec lesbian positivity #bi lesbian positivity #nonbinary #enby #women and enby genders aren't just one gender babyyyy #lesbian #bi lesbians are valid #mspec lesbians #mspec lesbian discourse #bi lesbian discourse #elsegender

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genderqueerdykes · 2 years

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Hi, I've been identifying as bigender between neutrois and female for a while, but recently I've felt like I'm more girl and boy instead. At the same time I'm lesbian, but I feel weird calling myself lesbian because I might be part boy. Is it okay to still call myself lesbian?

that is perfectly fine, as long as it feels comfortable to you! : - D

it is okay for people who also have male identities to identify as lesbians, just like it is okay with people who also have female identities to identify as gay (men). attraction labels aren't about who you exclude. in having two or more gender identities at once, you are able to experience the forms of queerness that come with those identities, regardless of what other identities you have

i am an intersex bigender nonbinary butch lesbian and a lavender trans man at the same time, it's okay to have complex and multilayered identities! people who have male identities don't deserve to be excluded from the lesbian community! male and female identities are not mutually exclusive and they do not "contradict" or "rule each other out" ! also being a guy does not take away your lesbian identity

hope that helps! take care!! you are very rad and i'm glad you took the time to reach out! : - D

#asks #answers #lesbian #bigender #multigender #polygender

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lesbianamalvada · 4 months

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What resources is an actress stealing from the community?

Also I found this quote looking it up.

She then asked if being a lesbian means “you are ONLY” attracted to cis women and if being attracted to trans men, trans women, and nonbinary people makes you pansexual.

And it seems to stem from confusion, not any kind of maliciousness. I can see how someone who spent time in the feminism or lesbian tags would walk away confused with this same opinion because of how TERFs are trying to redefine women and lesbians.

Additionally, she uses both labels, not saying pan lesbian as one label like you made it seem.

They seem to be someone who, with a quick Google, is just confused, learning, and exploring. And you're being really hostile about it for no reason.

That said, if she thinks she's a lesbian is it stealing? If she ends up being lesbian after a few more years, is it stealing just because she didn't know that now?

I think people like you are why it takes so long for people to find identities. You make it unsafe to explore when that's half the reason the queer community exists. Because more than just straight, cishet ppl exist and we should be normalizing that.

So again, do you have a link for these stolen resources, cuz I can't find anything online.

i never said they stole resources. you are making a strawman. there isn't that many resources just for lesbians to begin with. they do steal our communities, spaces, and conversations. they scold us for not being "inclusive" enough. I'm all for people experimenting and if you identify as bi and then are gay or vice versa it is whatever. but when you try to change the definition of lesbianism, and say that men can be lesbians and we can be attracted to men, and then furthermore shame us for not being attracted to them or for our identities not being inclusive enough, i cannot support you. it is the same homophobia we experience from cishet ppl with a rainbow polish. you have made our own community a hostile environment for us. and we cannot vent about how alienating and degrading it is without people like you scolding us, saying our boundaries make others "unsafe" or how we are using bigoted dog whistles and we are the reason conservatives are winning etc etc.

we can all acknowledge that being bisexual, asexual, trans, a drag queen, etc comes with unique experiences and that they shouldn't be erased or overlooked. yet when it comes to lesbians we are not allowed to say the same? if someone is only attracted to one gender they are not bisexual so they shouldn't talk over bisexuals, police them, invade their spaces, or try to change the definition of bisexual. I just believe the same is true for lesbians.

Also someone using a contradictory label like "pansexual lesbian" and being questioned on it is not them being unsafe. they are not in any harm. what is unsafe is teaching young kids who are homosexual that they could emotionally like the other gender just not physically, hearts not parts, everyone is a little bi, the genitals don't matter that much and caring about them is weird, your sexuality should be inclusive etc. All of which I have seen happen in online queer spaces that champion the notion of mspec gays and lesbians.

It also doesn't surprise me that the only sexuality that excludes men is the one a large section of the queer community will use their dying breath to center men in. "lesbians can be men, lesbians can have sex with men, lesbians and men are best friends" it is always non-lesbians saying this. And then we push back and get comments like this. Lesbians with boundaries are the reason so many people have hard time finding their identities. Gtfo of here. Other people's feelings and journeys or whatever are not more important than our lived reality. We are the only group that is surveilled like this.

#anon ask #anon asks

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redheadbigshoes · 1 year

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As an agender lesbian I feel like what a lot of bi/mspec people don't understand is that being a lesbian/gay person is not only about being attracted to the "wrong" gender, it's also about the lack of attraction to the "right" gender (according to society). This is why excluding one binary gender from these labels is important to us, not transphobic reasons. Many of us are in fact trans/nonbinary/genderqueer. And we do share experiences with bi/mspec people (being oppressed for our attraction to the "wrong" gender and our queer love for women/men) but they'll never face oppression for their lack of attraction to the "right" gender (an experience that we share with ace/aro people). Being bi/mspec with a preference for one binary gender over the other=\= being a lesbian/gay/straight person. If you wouldn't call bi women with a preference for men "bihets", then why do you think "bi lesbian" is an acceptable label?

A lot of them treat homosexuality as attraction to the same gender (as if it’s a big umbrella term for everyone attracted to the same gender).

Just as for their sexuality it’s important to recognize attraction to both men and women, it’s also very important to our identity recognizing attraction to the same gender and lack of attraction to the opposite gender.

It’s like they completely ignore one of the reasons why we’re oppressed is because we don’t like men (lesbians)/women (gays).

#stephanie answers #anon #long post #‘bi lesbians’

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violexides · 1 year

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to take a more... calm stance on this, i think there are a lot of double standards within the queer community that is largely caused by people becoming so invested within their own personal experiences that they cannot conceptualize the experiences of other people within their community. further i think a natural consequence of forming a community surrounding an aspect of one’s identity that some may argue was inherent to them is that we create a community where certain experiences (Western ones) are centered and other experiences (literally anywhere else) are forgotten-- this is seen in the overriding of certain terms, gatekeeping, etc.

the reason i have stood as a radical inclusionist and will continue to align myself there is because a lot of exclusionist efforts come from this attempt to either advance the queer community in one way or reduce the problematic aspects of it, but... who are you leaving behind with this? our ancestors, definitely, but more readily forgotten are people literally from anywhere except America and Britain. like. the idea that we are starting these mass discourses over just the terminology when those specific terms aren’t even existent in other language, centering the concept of labels over people’s experiences... how do you expect that to translate? how do you expect that to stand historically?

and to kind of loop back to the former point, something that i have been raging about for a while (and why i am trying to make this more comprehensive) is the fact that people will talk about the experiences with misandry that queer men have in this community, and then imply within their definition of in-group misandry that queer women are the oppressors. and then queer women will talk about THEIR experiences with misogyny, and then in that casually throw out there that they think gay men benefit under the patriarchy which... isn’t? how the patriarchy works? (more on this later)

like, several facts can coexist. here are a few statements that are all true and very evident within online spaces especially, as that is my audience here, but also throughout the queer community as a whole:

lesbians who speak about lesbophobia are frequently & automatically assumed to be trans-exclusionary or misandrists, and therefore have their voices spoken over. masculine, or amab, nonbinary people are excluded from nonbinary spaces and seen as a threat. sapphic women (espec butches) are disallowed from speaking sexually about other women as they are then deemed by this to be feeding into the sexualization of women under the patriarchy. gay men are told they are disgusting and perverted for having sexual fantasies about men that veer towards the side of fetish, and thus ostracized.

these are things that coexist and as a lesbian specifically, i will speak to the fact that recognizing (and being enraged, because i often am) about the misogyny that gay men exhibit within the queer community... doesn’t override the experiences that gay men have when being told their attraction to men is something ‘unfortunate’. (side note: i keep mentioning the patriarchy as something queer men cannot benefit from, which i recognize is somewhat controversial of a take. however, the patriarchy is a system of oppression and not something that inherently champions all men. examples of other people who suffer deeply under the patriarchy, aside from women-- who are the most direct victims, certainly-- include BIPOC men and disabled men. and yes, queer men).

i could talk about this for a long time but i do genuinely think that the queer community lacks a lot of compassion for the experiences of others. and further i think that the online aspect of the queer community creates some of these difficulties, because some of these experiences are reduced when being actively surrounded by other queer people in real life-- but that is not always a direct possibility for people, especially right now, so it’s still important to consider the issues of the internet community and address them*. also, i think that in some respects the queer community was a little doomed when we began to create these community-wide discourses, because if you look at the people dominating these conversations, it is typically young white people from the US or from Western Europe, and it overrides a lot of the history that other groups have (ex. queer people are downright expected to know about Stonewall. how many of you know the names of any queer activists in South America btw?)

this isn’t really meant to make people believe in anything in particular. do what you want and i ultimately cannot do much with a somewhat inarticulate and inconclusive post about the subject. i just think it’s important that people know that their experiences, and their identity, are valid and EXTREMELY important. and in that means that the experiences of others, especially people who speak different languages, or people who identify with a different gender, or people who use terms you deem ‘offensive’ -- are important, too.

TLDR the queer community is all about fighting for our rights and protest but we keep mistaking innocuous queer people who commit the ‘cardinal sin’ of like, not being white anglophones who have your exact identity, as cops.

*when it comes to activism, which i do not claim that this post is, it is significantly more important to consider the real world implications of these discourses and see how this touches the real life communities first and foremost. again i am just talking in a specifically online lens because there is only so much that i can convey on a tumblr post and the entire reason i was making this was because i got angry about misogyny towards lesbians and couldn’t find any posts that encapsulated that sentiment without also leaning into misandry.

#ides.txt #okay to reblog. i am being so fucking brave and i am GOING to get eaten alive #i talked about this with one of my friends like two years ago and i never stopped thinking about it

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hellomynameisbisexual · 2 years

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Collective amnesia makes us feel as if there are no bi people in history. That is, until we see that bi people have been there all along, they’ve just been mislabeled or left out of the narrative. Bisexuality is the sexual and/or romantic attraction to multiple genders. Nestled within the term bisexual are other labels, including pansexual, omnisexual, and polysexual. Which term people use is almost entirely down to preference, although sometimes the choice is driven by an ahistorical misconception that the bi in bisexual reinforces a gender binary and excludes trans and nonbinary people.

One reason why we might “forget” bisexuals is because those who are attracted to people of multiple genders rarely call themselves bi. Historically, there have been a number of reasons for this, including wanting to avoid discrimination and stigma. There have long been toxic misconceptions of bisexual people as promiscuous and unfaithful, in a confused state of sexual transition or experimentation, lying about their attractions for attention or to attract men (particularly bi women), or simply adhering to some sort of trend (particularly young people).

Being bi could also get you kicked out of your local queer space. Bisexuality introduces nuance, which has always made it easier to discard than accommodate it. In tough times, when queer people were fighting for their lives and for basic legal protections, some gay rights groups strategically rejected bisexual people. For example, in the 1970s there were instances where the Gay Liberation Front, a queer-rights group, treated bisexual people as effectively straight, and thus associated them with regressive politics and edged them out of the organization.

But historians have never let a lack of self-labeling prevent them from trying to find queer people in history. People also shied away from terms like gay or lesbian, and yet we can find many books on their history. Still, it was only when I went back to university for a master’s in queer history that I realized that the absence of bisexuality in most versions of LGBTQ+ history wasn’t because there were no bi people in the past. Rather, that lack of knowledge is the result of an overcompensation for compulsory heterosexuality, which has meant that most people with homosexual desires in the U.S. were forced to live lives that involved heterosexual sex and relationships.

In the search for queer lives in the past, one way that academics have dealt with this is to assume that people who had any kind of same-sex desires or sex must have been gay or lesbian, even if they were also in heterosexual relationships. Partly because of this, the term bisexual is often entirely absent from historians’ writings. By doing so, we are systematically mislabeling people who were attracted to multiple genders, erasing bi history. When we untether bisexual people from their own past, we obscure the ways in which bisexuality is a cornerstone of the human experience.

Here are some important people in bi history you should know:

The bisexuality researchers you need to know

One of the earliest researchers to legitimize the study of bisexual people was Havelock Ellis (1859-1939). Ellis was based in the U.K., and in the 1927 edition of his book Sexual Inversion, he describes many case studies of bisexual people. He includes some negative stereotypes, but also some decidedly positive ones. For example, he wrote that bi women made “great religious and moral leaders.” It is these kinds of positive statements that led to the first edition of his book being ruled “obscene” in an English court because he dared to write about queer lives without condemning them. It took him multiple attempts to get the book published.

Probably the most famous sex researcher of all time was Alfred Kinsey (1894-1956). He was a biologist at Indiana University who introduced nuance into the discussion of sexuality. His Kinsey Scale allows us to categorize sexuality as a number between 0 and 6, from exclusively heterosexual to exclusively homosexual. In his famous mid-20th century studies, he shocked the world when he found that a huge number of people (he often stated “a quarter to half”) had homosexual and heterosexual desires. He also openly criticized other researchers who assumed that people could only be either gay or straight, and spoke of the “endless intergradations” that captured the reality of people’s sexualities.

Following in Kinsey’s footsteps, Fritz Klein (1932-2006) was a sex researcher and psychiatrist who published the book, The Bisexual Option, in 1978. He was a bisexual man himself, and he started a group for bisexual men to help them feel secure in their own sexuality; that practice grew into affirmative therapy that would help many people better understand their own sexual behaviors and identity. The Klein Sexual Orientation Grid is an expanded version of the Kinsey Scale. Klein also set up the Journal of Bisexuality and the American Institute of Bisexuality, which both continue to further bi research today. These organizations have been fundamental in giving a home to research and writing on bisexuality.

Bi activists who fought for queer rights

There have also been a number of tireless activists who have fought for queer and bisexual rights, including Brenda Howard (1946-2005). Howard is sometimes referred to as the “mother of pride” because after the Stonewall uprising, she played a major role in organizing the first marches of LGBT+ people, which laid the foundations for global Pride marches.

Another activist who worked in some of the same groups as Howard, and continues their work today, is Lani Ka’ahumanu (born in 1943). Ka’ahumanu has been a leader of the bisexual rights movement in the U.S. since 1980. She founded a number of groups that were specifically for bisexual people, which was particularly important given the shaky history between bi people and gay and lesbian communities. Ka’ahumanu created safe political spaces where bi people didn’t need to justify their sexuality or their inclusion. To this effect, in 1983, she co-founded BiPOL, one of the first bisexual political action groups in the country; she later co-coordinated the San Francisco Bay Area Bisexual Network. Ka’ahumanu is also a major reason why the B is included in LGBT, because of her campaigning in the leadup to the 1993 March on Washington.

Other people who are still fighting for bi visibility and protections today include activist Robyn Ochs, who wrote the most widely cited definition of bisexuality; New York Times columnist Charles Blow, who fights for bi visibility including in the Black community; and Kyrsten Sinema, who was the first openly bisexual person elected to Congress in 2012.

The main thing that people get wrong about the history of bisexuality is assuming that there is none. As more people embrace bisexual identities, I expect there will be a new thirst for knowledge, followed by a quenching wave of bisexual stories uncovered from the archives of history.

By uncovering previously untold accounts, and re-telling the stories of people previously too eagerly labeled gay and lesbian, bisexual people will finally be able to remember some of the pieces of their own history.

Dr. Julia Shaw is a criminal psychologist at University College London and part of Queer Politics at Princeton University which works for LGBT+ equality, democracy, and civil rights. She is actively involved in bisexual research and is the founder of the international Bisexual Research Group. Shaw’s latest book, Bi: The Hidden Culture, History, and Science of Bisexuality, is set to be released on June 28.

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xxlovelynovaxx · 10 months

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I am confused as to why a lesbian would want to sleep with a man unless certain circumstances like they are a sex worker or forced?

Okay, warning for a HUGE autistic infodump coming. I'm genuinely really hoping this ask was in good faith, because I really enjoyed answering it as such. (I say this because I have pretty bad anxiety due to past harassment campaigns on other sites/accounts). This is not directed at the asker, but if any trolls ARE planning on sending shit to my inbox, please just don't. I'll just block and it'll waste BOTH of our time, just block me yourself instead if this applies to you.

So, outside of sex work and sexual assault, there are several reasons a lesbian might have sex with a man.

I'm going to leave out talking about mspec lesbians for the most part, because that's a complex label (often involving people who are multigender/genderfluid, abrosexual, or plural systems) and just focus on monosexual lesbians who are attracted to women and only women. With the exception of stating a lesbian may be attracted to a multigender person who happens to have "man" as one of their genders, but never be attracted to monogender men EVER; or may be attracted to a genderfluid person only when they are a woman and not when they are other genders.

As an aroace/abro person who is only sometimes attracted to my partner, this is okay as long as all parties involved in a relationship are okay with it. In regards to being abro specifically, my sexuality is fluid between attraction to only one gender (which can be only men, only women, or only a given nonbinary gender at any given time), multiple genders (can be any subset, including and excluding any genders), and all genders. My headmates also have their own sexualities, which include and exclude any number of genders depending on the specific headmate.

But because of both those identities, sometimes I'm just not romantically or sexually attracted to my partner. Sometimes we still date and have sex even when there is not attraction, because it's fun and we enjoy spending time together doing those things.

As for monosexual lesbians, as I understand it, it's similar to why some asexual people who are sex favorable have sex even though they are not attracted to their sexual partner. As an ace person, I have sex because it physically feels good, even without the attraction component. It also is a fun activity to do (especially when I'm bored), and casual sex between friends can still be a platonic form of intimacy beyond just being sexual. This is much in the same way as handholding or cuddling can be romantic but can also be platonic affection. It can also help for people who are touch starved.

(Yes, I know it sounds weird to call sex platonic, but I do think there are multiple layers of affection/attraction to sexual and romantic contact, that very often involve platonic aspects. A lot of people who do have casual sex with friends do it without attraction, and it's just an enjoyable activity with someone they trust that enforces their platonic bond without creating any kind of sexual attraction.)

So in summary: being bored, because it physically feels good, being touch starved, doing an activity with a friend that happens to be sexual, etc.

But there's another element, too: The lines between genders are so much blurrier than most people realize. There's countless jokes from monosexual lesbians and gay men about mistaking each other for gay men and lesbians, respectively. Particularly when you get to gender nonconforming monosexual people, such as butch lesbians and femme gays, and you throw in how body type can affect gendered perceptions (twinks especially seem to be affected by this); and THEN you add in trans and nonbinary people... it gets complicated!

Something to note is that you can be transmasc and a woman, or transfem and a man, too. Some butches identify as transmasc women because they view themselves as transitioning toward a more masculine womanhood, and vice versa for femme gays. Note that this does not mean that butches are inherently transmasc or that femme gays are inherently transfemme, just that they can be.

Then of course you have multigender/genderfluid people, androgyne people, abinary/atrinary people, and plural systems. People can have extremely ambiguous or seemingly contradictory gender presentation either due to their natural body or due to pursuing some form of transition. I'd like to say here that I think genital preference is not transphobic as long as it is genuinely a preference for specific types of genitals and not just "I don't ever want to sleep with trans people, regardless of their surgical status or even if they have a penis as a trans man/vagina as a trans woman due to being intersex" (trans identities when you are intersex can be more complicated than perisex trans identities for obvious reasons). Basically, you can like/not like penises and testicles or vaginas and clitorises without being transphobic, but it's important to acknowledge some trans people naturally or surgically WILL have the genitalia you prefer.

Why do I say this? Well, to add that many lesbians also don't have a genital preference. Plenty of lesbians happily date trans women and AMAB nonbinary people regardless of their genitals. Rarely, they may even date a lesbian cis woman who simply decided to get bottom surgery because it made her feel more comfortable in her body to have a penis (gender =/= genitals for cis people too, and I support everyone exercising their bodily autonomy with regards to their sex).

So if they're having sex with a man, whether he has a penis or vagina, they may assume he's a trans or cis woman depending on his genitals.

Attraction here is also fucky, because some people can be genuinely attracted to someone right up until they find out something about that person's identity that conflicts with their orientation! Some monosexual people report being attracted to someone they thought was a man/woman right up until they find out they were wrong about said person's gender. Some people are attracted to someone until they find out that person's genitalia are incompatible with their genital preference.

Sexuality is weird that way! The important thing to remember is simply that you can't always tell someone's sex/gender. If someone ends up having casual sex - like a "one night stand", or sex acts at a club, or so on, they may find out later that their sex partner's gender is not what they thought and no longer be attracted to that person. They may brush it off or may regret it, but to be fair, how often do heterosexual people regret casual sexual encounters? Plus, attraction/lack thereof can even be a component of a heterosexual person's regret over a sexual encounter even outside of sexuality, because the capacity to be attracted to the other binary gender does not mean you are attracted to every single person of that gender.

So that's another component: individual lesbians aren't attracted to every woman on the planet, right? But they can still have sex with a woman without attraction to her. Some lesbians simply will choose to do the same with a man sometimes. The original context of what I was responding to was a vaguepost about someone who had lightly joked about a gay twink character having sex with a lesbian character because they were both bored, something that historically has happened a lot in the queer community. People have even gotten married and had kids without ever being attracted to each other (which as an aroace person, makes perfect sense to me!).

A lot of people responded by essentially saying "if you choose to have sex with a man, that makes you bi", which is incredibly homophobic because it classifies sexuality as a choice based on your sexual partners, and not an inherent unchosen attraction towards specific genders.

This is actually rooted in second wave radical feminism and lesbian separatism movements, that specifically removed bi women from lesbian communities (originally, lesbian actually meant "queer attraction to women" and included bi women), and was also massively trans exclusionary.

Radical feminism said "men (and anyone they considered men, such as trans women) are the enemy, if you sleep with men you are betraying your gender, if you ever have slept with men even before you realized you were a lesbian or because you rely on a husband to provide for you (keep in mind, women couldn't open bank accounts or credit cards in their name until the 60s and 70s, and many were illegally kept from owning property despite women's rights to own property largely being codified in the early 1900s) then you are not a real lesbian, if you have been sexually assaulted by a man you are not a real lesbian; and created the label "gold star lesbians" for lesbians that had never slept with or been raped by men.

I want to be absolutely clear about this, not as an aggressive statement to the asker, but to be unequivocally unambiguous: men do not have the power to taint you by sexual contact alone to such a point that they change your sexuality.

The fact that many radical feminists also consider sexual assault (including having to have ex with a man because you can't live independently due to misogyny, which though more common historically still does occur today, especially outside of the US) to make you bi is just especially disgustingly evil.

But even consensual contact - because you don't realize you're a lesbian, because you don't realize your sexual partner is a man (or even they don't realize it because they're transmasc but don't know that themselves yet), even because you are biromantic but monosexual (or asexual) and love a man without being sexually attracted to him. doesn't suddenly change who you have the capacity to be attracted to, or any other part of your identity, either!

It's that same bullshit idea that your first sexual encounter where you "lose" your virginity, where in heteronormative society it's often expected to be "taken" by a man, fundamentally changes an important part of your identity. I think men are great, but they're simply not that powerful or important to who you are as a person.

This is also, actually, why I prefer qlw rather than nmlnm as a definition of lesbianism, inclusive as it was historically of ANYONE who loves women in a queer way, from bi women to transmascs/trans men. Centering a lack of attraction to men still, to me, centers a lesbian's feelings about men rather than her love for women. I'd rather focus on loving women than not loving men, y'know? It still centers men to make the entire identity about them, even if it's about NOT loving them.

I think lesbian can mean different things for different people, and can still mean "nmlnm" for one lesbian while meaning "qlw regardless of attraction to other genders," to another. As a pangenderfluid intersex system, too, sometimes attraction is complicated.

Back to the additional context, though. Most people were also focusing on the lesbian having sex with a man, and not the gay man having sex with a woman. I suspect you asked about lesbians specifically either because you are a lesbian or because that original context was unclear from the post I reblogged, which only stated "man" and not "gay man".

However, I'd still like to examine the bias in the responses to that original post. Why is it seemingly assumed that a monosexual gay man would be fine having sex with a woman, but not the other way around? Why were so many accusations of the gay man engaging in corrective rape thrown (homophobic rhetoric of gay men as dangerous predators mixed with radical feminist ideals of women as pure and incapable of abuse, perhaps?) but not a single one of the gay man being a victim of corrective rape? For that matter, considering the extremely high rates of rape of transmascs, often by cis lesbian women, why was it assumed both parties were cis?

Why did most responses take that the man was a monosexual gay as gospel regardless of who he had sex with, but felt they knew a lesbian woman's identity better than she did, and had the right to speak over her and contradict her own self-determination and autonomy from a single sentence about her life on tumblr dot com? Yes, this was about a fictional character, but people were saying this about real living lesbians as well.

The extent of the pushback against gay men was calling the OP bi (which was ludicrous, as he is a gay men who often talks on his blog about how much he loves men. His blog header also literally says gay, and by his own admission the one time he tried making out with a woman he was so not into it that he cried afterward. This, to be clear, is still shitty and homophobic, but nowhere NEAR proportionate to the backlash against the idea of a lesbian choosing to have sex with a man.

So tl;dr: The reasons include for fun, as casual intimacy between friends, because it still physically feels good, to deal with touch starvation, as a case of mistaken identity, because gender is blurry and multigender/genderfluid identities can cause exceptions to general attraction (including causing attraction to all genders in a multigender/genderfluid person but never monogender men), because sexuality is also blurry and attraction can occur without knowing someone's gender for sure, because not everyone even defines their lesbian identity the same way, because even heterosexual people sleep with people they're not attracted to sometimes and action=/=attraction, because you don't yet know you're a lesbian, because your partner does not yet know they are a man, because you are biromantic but sexually a lesbian, because you are aspec lesbian and choose to have sex to women or men both that you aren't attracted to, and because sleeping with a man can't change who you are.

The most important thing, of course, is respecting all lesbians, including lesbians who choose to sleep with men, including trusting that they are capable of determining their own sexuality and communicating it and recognizing that if they make different choices than you that doesn't make them less lesbian.

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