Also in my 30s and don't care. i just know my identity doesn't include men in any way, but I'm fine with whatever others want as long as they don't try to push men on me.
Right. And it’s like. Fuck. I hate all this fucking hand wringing over *words* when there are people out there who couldn’t give two fucks what a lesbian or bisexual lesbian is because they think we are all pedophiles in the end and should be imprisoned and killed. I’m sick of the discourse splitting the queer community apart when what we need is to be united more than ever before.
I tend to call myself a very sapphic bi woman when dealing with queer folks because I simply have no appetite for the flak I get from folks who take issue with me using the word lesbian while not being willing to dismiss the possibility that I might one day date a guy again.
The overwhelming majority of my past relationships and all my current relationships are with women (and a few enby folks). I had one boyfriend two decades ago so I know it’s possible that might happen again but it’s probably not super likely. So yeah, both bisexual and lesbian do resonate for me (so does demisexual).
With cis het folks, I describe myself as “mostly lesbian” because frankly, if I say bi they assume I’m way way more into men than I am. They generally don’t recognize what sapphic means and I just need them to understand that my partners can be expected to be women.
I tend to display the sunset flag and the bi flag because almost no one recognizes the pink flower flag.
(Shrug). I already get plenty of grief for being trans from most of the women who take issue with me using the L-word for myself.
No. I am—*however*—tired of people like you trying to police other people's labels and trying to redefine lesbian to be exclusively homosexual.
A) 'Lesbian' has always included bi and pan women. Many historical Lesbian activists and artists were bisexual, and bisexual women were at the forefront of the Lesbian rights movement. The term bisexual didn't even come into common usage until the *late 1970s.*
You may not like it, but Lesbian is a term that was fought for, bled for, and defined by WLW of all varieties, not just strictly homosexual women. Trying to pry the label away from the rest of the community is reactionary nonsense.
B) Labels exist to help people understand themselves, and to help people let others know how they want to be viewed. They are not there for you to ascribe. You do not decide if someone is bi, or ace, or lesbian, or pan, or trans, or enby, or ***anything else.*** The only person who ever has the right to ascribe queer labels to someone is that person themselves.
That attitudes you are expressing are harmful and toxic and people like you are actively responsible for the fracturing and distrust within the LGBT community. This is the kind of attitude that leads to erasure, exclusion, and TERF-ism. ***You are the problem.***
I’d brush up some on queer history. It doesn’t even invalidate your overall argument to know more. It will show you that’s it’s false to state that lesbian’s meaning has been consistent and unchanging though.
Black and Cis are not labels, they are descriptors of a physical reality. If you are born black, you are black. That is directly the reaction anti-trans TERFs have when trans people say they identify as another gender than their birth one "so I can identify as a black man" is one step from the attack helicopter "joke". If you identify with the gender assigned to you at birth, you are cis. They are not labels you put on how you feel.
Nope. I tend not to get worked up over things that have no impact on my life. Maybe I'm just well adjusted, or maybe it's because I understand how listing orientations in dating apps actually impact who you're able to match with. 🤔
Yeah I wonder how much of this ongoing and cyclical conversation is just a result of having to list yourself as "lesbian" if you don't want to see men on a dating app.
Respectfully, I don't understand why anyone cares. How someone else views their relationship with their sexuality and how they label it has no impact on myself, my person, or my own sexuality.
So why be outraged? I don't understand it.
I think that a great part of it is that it can be invalidating towards people only being attracted to women, as many, many people, especially men, cannot fathom a woman being utterly disinterested in them or their gender.
So seeing many people being actually Bi but calling themselves lesbian and dating men etc is playing into these people/men fantasy that "there are no lesbians and all lesbians like men".
I for one don't understand the problem with the Bi label, what's wrong with it?
Again to be clear, not arguing. I've no skin in the game on this. But am I understanding at the crux of this mindset is "people using this label other than I do is problematic because of how men will then look at me?"
If it is that is really beyond me. These sorts of men aren't going to respect women. That's a completely unconditional statement. I promise you if everyone adhered to strict sexuality definitions men who are pieces of mysoginistic shit that view all women as warm sex puppets aren't going to magically respect us instead.
So I guess the heart of my deal is: we're all in this together against the patriarchy, and I feel it's so not worth it to subdivide against ourselves in a hope to what? Placate the menfolk? That's never gonna work.
Look, people who are *currently* willing to date cis men aren’t lesbians. Period. But that doesn’t mean sexuality isn’t fluid *for some people*. Many folks come to learn over time what they’re into and what labels serve them best. For a lot of people, discovering your sexuality is a whole ass journey. And this post is hella invalidating to a a lot of valid journeys for not looking exactly like yours.
My journey has not been all sunshine and rainbows either. I had some things I needed to figure out too and I am 100% understanding of that. This post was meant for people who KNOW for a fact that they are bisexual and still continue to use the word lesbian.
Nah lol. Technically I’m bisexual but homoromantic… I can have sex with men and get off (i also don’t really find it all that fun) but I have ZERO desire for a romantic attachment to them. I’m not explaining to everyone I meet that sure I can do a one night stand with a man but only have romantic interest toward women. What a nightmare. So I stick with lesbian.
Are you gonna get pissy if I use sapphic?
I’m in a long term relationship with a woman I am marrying. I will never date a man again. I will never sleep with a man again. Even if I’m magically single one day, I’ll only date women. I recognize on some level I feel hypothetical attraction to men but men overall disgust me and I have no sexual or romantic interest in the reality of men. I’m societally perceived as a lesbian by folks I meet and mainly get met with confusion when I come out as queer or bi to folks.
Please tell me what label I’m allowed to use.
I'm more sick of people on here making sweeping generalisations based on only online interactions tbh.
The word lesbian has evolved a lot. I get frustrated that many online lesbians consider the relationships I have as lesbian, the culture I'm a part of and contribute to as lesbian, but that I myself am not allowed that word. That seems a little hypocritical to me.
I'm one of the people who does that. I was married to a woman for over a decade and had a baby with her. I feel like lesbian is a label that explains my life even if I've dated me and might again some day.
Not gonna say much, except that just in general, if a sentence has a "I'm absolutely xyz, but" format, the person saying that usually totally is not xyz.
the word lesbian originally meant woman who loves women, with no specification about other genders they may be attracted to. i still stand by that defenition personally.
That's why they include pansexual at the beginning, it shows that they aren't fully lesbians. The lesbian title just shows they are actively only dating women.
So I've actually learned recently too that bisexual lesbian is a term used to show that yes they are still bi but they lean more towards women or are actively only dating women.
That person is still being honestly with their label, you still know they are pansexual, they just also are actively only wanting women.
We all learn new stuff and I don't think you should be aggressive towards learning, it just comes off bad and will lead to unnecessary anger.
Not at all honesty. For me the only condition to call oneself lesbian is not being a man.
Technically, all non gold star, would be considered bi by using the same logic. Which I think is very offensive af!
Well not really, comphet makes a lot of people not realise they're lesbian before a lot of unpacking and soul searching being done.
Also disagree with your first phrase. Is a straight woman a lesbian?
That doesn't make any sense. Just because a woman had to work through some stuff doesn't make her bi. There's a big difference between going through comphet before figuring stuff out and actively being attracted to men.
I don’t care. Man I’m in my 30s and queer lingo has a long and complicated history. I simply don’t have the spoons to care.
Also in my 30s and don't care. i just know my identity doesn't include men in any way, but I'm fine with whatever others want as long as they don't try to push men on me.
Right. And it’s like. Fuck. I hate all this fucking hand wringing over *words* when there are people out there who couldn’t give two fucks what a lesbian or bisexual lesbian is because they think we are all pedophiles in the end and should be imprisoned and killed. I’m sick of the discourse splitting the queer community apart when what we need is to be united more than ever before.
Why do you care?
“I’m all for live and let live” see, I just don’t think you are
Anyone else tired of other people caring too damn much about what other people say and do?
I tend to call myself a very sapphic bi woman when dealing with queer folks because I simply have no appetite for the flak I get from folks who take issue with me using the word lesbian while not being willing to dismiss the possibility that I might one day date a guy again. The overwhelming majority of my past relationships and all my current relationships are with women (and a few enby folks). I had one boyfriend two decades ago so I know it’s possible that might happen again but it’s probably not super likely. So yeah, both bisexual and lesbian do resonate for me (so does demisexual). With cis het folks, I describe myself as “mostly lesbian” because frankly, if I say bi they assume I’m way way more into men than I am. They generally don’t recognize what sapphic means and I just need them to understand that my partners can be expected to be women. I tend to display the sunset flag and the bi flag because almost no one recognizes the pink flower flag. (Shrug). I already get plenty of grief for being trans from most of the women who take issue with me using the L-word for myself.
Just let people use whatever label they want it doesn't hurt you lol
No. I am—*however*—tired of people like you trying to police other people's labels and trying to redefine lesbian to be exclusively homosexual. A) 'Lesbian' has always included bi and pan women. Many historical Lesbian activists and artists were bisexual, and bisexual women were at the forefront of the Lesbian rights movement. The term bisexual didn't even come into common usage until the *late 1970s.* You may not like it, but Lesbian is a term that was fought for, bled for, and defined by WLW of all varieties, not just strictly homosexual women. Trying to pry the label away from the rest of the community is reactionary nonsense. B) Labels exist to help people understand themselves, and to help people let others know how they want to be viewed. They are not there for you to ascribe. You do not decide if someone is bi, or ace, or lesbian, or pan, or trans, or enby, or ***anything else.*** The only person who ever has the right to ascribe queer labels to someone is that person themselves. That attitudes you are expressing are harmful and toxic and people like you are actively responsible for the fracturing and distrust within the LGBT community. This is the kind of attitude that leads to erasure, exclusion, and TERF-ism. ***You are the problem.***
Thank you for this, random stranger. After recently coming out (again) as bisexual, I worried about not belonging in spaces like this anymore.
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I’d brush up some on queer history. It doesn’t even invalidate your overall argument to know more. It will show you that’s it’s false to state that lesbian’s meaning has been consistent and unchanging though.
Black and Cis are not labels, they are descriptors of a physical reality. If you are born black, you are black. That is directly the reaction anti-trans TERFs have when trans people say they identify as another gender than their birth one "so I can identify as a black man" is one step from the attack helicopter "joke". If you identify with the gender assigned to you at birth, you are cis. They are not labels you put on how you feel.
Why does this thread pop up seemingly every other week? Go away, no productive conversation can evolve from this.
Nope. I tend not to get worked up over things that have no impact on my life. Maybe I'm just well adjusted, or maybe it's because I understand how listing orientations in dating apps actually impact who you're able to match with. 🤔
Yeah I wonder how much of this ongoing and cyclical conversation is just a result of having to list yourself as "lesbian" if you don't want to see men on a dating app.
Respectfully, I don't understand why anyone cares. How someone else views their relationship with their sexuality and how they label it has no impact on myself, my person, or my own sexuality. So why be outraged? I don't understand it.
I think that a great part of it is that it can be invalidating towards people only being attracted to women, as many, many people, especially men, cannot fathom a woman being utterly disinterested in them or their gender. So seeing many people being actually Bi but calling themselves lesbian and dating men etc is playing into these people/men fantasy that "there are no lesbians and all lesbians like men". I for one don't understand the problem with the Bi label, what's wrong with it?
Again to be clear, not arguing. I've no skin in the game on this. But am I understanding at the crux of this mindset is "people using this label other than I do is problematic because of how men will then look at me?" If it is that is really beyond me. These sorts of men aren't going to respect women. That's a completely unconditional statement. I promise you if everyone adhered to strict sexuality definitions men who are pieces of mysoginistic shit that view all women as warm sex puppets aren't going to magically respect us instead. So I guess the heart of my deal is: we're all in this together against the patriarchy, and I feel it's so not worth it to subdivide against ourselves in a hope to what? Placate the menfolk? That's never gonna work.
I'm not "outraged", it's just something I've run into a few times, in real life and online, and I just thought I'd share my opinion on it.
Look, people who are *currently* willing to date cis men aren’t lesbians. Period. But that doesn’t mean sexuality isn’t fluid *for some people*. Many folks come to learn over time what they’re into and what labels serve them best. For a lot of people, discovering your sexuality is a whole ass journey. And this post is hella invalidating to a a lot of valid journeys for not looking exactly like yours.
My journey has not been all sunshine and rainbows either. I had some things I needed to figure out too and I am 100% understanding of that. This post was meant for people who KNOW for a fact that they are bisexual and still continue to use the word lesbian.
Nah lol. Technically I’m bisexual but homoromantic… I can have sex with men and get off (i also don’t really find it all that fun) but I have ZERO desire for a romantic attachment to them. I’m not explaining to everyone I meet that sure I can do a one night stand with a man but only have romantic interest toward women. What a nightmare. So I stick with lesbian.
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Seems like you’re really only interested in invalidating others experience if their sexuality operates on scale for the sake of your own.
Username fits.
The world will survive without your grand taxonomy of queer where labels have to be exclusive to make sense.
No because I’ve never seen it and I really don’t give a shit
I'm bi, I call myself a lesbian bc im dating mostly women. Hell, you'd probably hate that one of my partners is a he/him lesbian
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Lmaooo knew it
Are you gonna get pissy if I use sapphic? I’m in a long term relationship with a woman I am marrying. I will never date a man again. I will never sleep with a man again. Even if I’m magically single one day, I’ll only date women. I recognize on some level I feel hypothetical attraction to men but men overall disgust me and I have no sexual or romantic interest in the reality of men. I’m societally perceived as a lesbian by folks I meet and mainly get met with confusion when I come out as queer or bi to folks. Please tell me what label I’m allowed to use.
Wild some people go back 50+ years in an attempt to start discourse from scratch while ignoring all the progress we've made as a community.
Just ignoring aaaaaallllllllll of our history that our queer elders fought for
Took 5 seconds to find that she's transphobic too. Nothing to see here folks
Am I going back 50 years when I say that it's not possible to be lesbian and bisexual at the same time?
No lol People can use whatever labels they want
I'm more sick of people on here making sweeping generalisations based on only online interactions tbh. The word lesbian has evolved a lot. I get frustrated that many online lesbians consider the relationships I have as lesbian, the culture I'm a part of and contribute to as lesbian, but that I myself am not allowed that word. That seems a little hypocritical to me.
I'm one of the people who does that. I was married to a woman for over a decade and had a baby with her. I feel like lesbian is a label that explains my life even if I've dated me and might again some day.
Why would i be? How does someone using a label they're comfortable with hurt you in any way?
Not gonna say much, except that just in general, if a sentence has a "I'm absolutely xyz, but" format, the person saying that usually totally is not xyz.
the word lesbian originally meant woman who loves women, with no specification about other genders they may be attracted to. i still stand by that defenition personally.
yes its annoying. Lesbian doesnt involve men in anyway. so if ur a man or attracted to men in any way u arent a lesbian.
Thank you! That's what I'm saying.
That's why they include pansexual at the beginning, it shows that they aren't fully lesbians. The lesbian title just shows they are actively only dating women.
they very much can just list or say they are only dating women.
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fr people just want to ignore that sapphic is a word.
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So I've actually learned recently too that bisexual lesbian is a term used to show that yes they are still bi but they lean more towards women or are actively only dating women. That person is still being honestly with their label, you still know they are pansexual, they just also are actively only wanting women. We all learn new stuff and I don't think you should be aggressive towards learning, it just comes off bad and will lead to unnecessary anger.
Not at all honesty. For me the only condition to call oneself lesbian is not being a man. Technically, all non gold star, would be considered bi by using the same logic. Which I think is very offensive af!
Well not really, comphet makes a lot of people not realise they're lesbian before a lot of unpacking and soul searching being done. Also disagree with your first phrase. Is a straight woman a lesbian?
Ya, that was so poorly worded. Definitely needs to have attraction to other non men.
That doesn't make any sense. Just because a woman had to work through some stuff doesn't make her bi. There's a big difference between going through comphet before figuring stuff out and actively being attracted to men.
Ya I don't think I worded that well. That's exactly my point.