this might be a long post but it's something very personal to me that I think a lot of my fellow lesbians will relate to
I've struggled with identifying as a lesbian for a long time, and a lot of it has had to do with my lack of involvement in the lesbian community and lack of lesbian/sapphic friendships
As a young teen (13 or so) I readily expressed my sexuality, shouting to anyone that i talked to that "I'm a lesbian!"
But I was met with confused faces, questions like "how do you know? don't you want to figure yourself out and experiment first? well, maybe you just aren't interested in any of the boys at your school?"
I started dressing more masculine, accepting that if I was going to be a lesbian I had to look and dress the way the straight cis-hetero people around me expected me to. This only lead to more ostracization, and a disconnect from how I really wanted to present myself
In high-school, I stopped identifying as a lesbian, started answering questions about my sexuality with a shrug and a flippant comment. I still dressed more masculine than most girls my age, but because I had ingrained a belief in my mind that I wasn't "good enough", "thin enough", or "pretty enough" to be feminine in the eyes of the heteropatriarchy. That my interests weren't "girly enough". That women wouldn't be attracted to me anyway.
I lied to myself and the people around me, "yeah actually I am attracted to men", and "well I want kids eventually so I'll have to marry a man"
By college I was well adapted to pretending to be interested in men, bolstered by the fact almost all of my friends were.
but things changed around the time I turned 19. I read books like stone butch blues, learned what a "femme" was. I took in information greedily, a sense of familiarity and "rightness" began to grow roots in me.
The more I read and interacted with the lesbian community, the more I recognized myself. That the heteropatriarchal concepts of femininity I had been so scared of were not the only ways to express femininity.
I began recognizing myself more and more as I started dressing the way I wished I could have in high-school, feminine in the eyes of lesbians, feminine in the way not recognized by cis hetero people
Now, shortly after I've turned 21, I've made a promise to myself not to turn away from my sexuality or my identity as a femme lesbian because of my own internalized shame or because of external pressure
There's no point in being afraid how I am perceived, because those who truly know and love me will accept me as I am
2087
amandla
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
izzy806
blakekathryn
snowghoul
andulkaphoto
yousharknotpass
