Don’t Follow If You’re -18

bi, ace, nonbinary ❤️ terfs and transmeds will be blocked 🧡 pan = bi 💛 aces/aros and those with similar struggles deserve our own separate space catered to our needs and not lgbt needs — I am asexual so please don’t call me an allo or saying I’m oppressing aces for wanting actual ace resources 💚 lgbt is about fighting homophobia, biphobia and transphobia. aphobia is important to talk about but in its own conversation 💙 Stop saying ‘queer community’ just say lgbt -- and no, you’re not just referring to people who ID as queer you’re forcing that label onto nonconsenting people — reclaiming it for yourself is 100% okay and I support that but you can’t reclaim it FOR other people 💜 pronouns are like clothes and names and other forms of gender presentation. Men can use she/her and women can use he/him just like men can wear dresses and women can wear suits 🤎 gender is fake and things like stargender aren’t hurting anyone 🖤 blog made 3/29/2020

[mint-chocolatey-chip]

you're a bihet freak who fetishizes femme gay men, do you want an applause for your hettery? the only thing you zesty straights do is fetishize opposite-sex homosexuality and call that 'qWeEr' as if that wasn't the most peak het thing imaginable. most gnc men are same-sex attracted and you're just blatantly saying you want to be in a hetero relationship with a man who's same-sex attracted? might as well admit you have a mutual homophobic 'conversion' kink 🤢 no bigger hettery than Two ssa bi people in a het relationship, disgusting. if you ever managed to date a femme bi man you'll soon be left for d*** lmao, they probably crave it even more than a hettie bettie like you xo

thanks for reminding me this blog exists lol anyways idk what you’re on but i’d like some

[mint-chocolatey-chip]

TW Rape discussion

I watched S4E7 of the handmaid's tale and it left a really bad taste in my mouth.

First, was June's thing about Serena. It is extremely gratifying to see Serena crying and imagining the suffering she has caused other women. However, it feels empty when Fred is just over there enjoying himself. "There is no one less deserving of redemption than you" is that really what June thinks? Even the Commander who took the child bride and sex trafficked her?

I feel like this comes from an idea that women who enact misogynistic violence against fellow women are more deserving of punishment than men who enact misogynistic violence against women, rather than it being an equal playing field (while also recognizing how the woman already takes some punishment in the form of misogyny while the man does not).

Why is it so gratifying to see Serena crying and facing the suffering she has caused others? Would it be as gratifying to see Fred in that position? Or is it a situation where you cannot imagine Fred having the capability to empathize because he is a man? Could he ever truly understand? Whereas Serena has every capability and likelihood of understanding, since her life is entirely ruled by misogyny.

The next thing that bothers me about the episode (though honestly not the episode itself but the reactions I've looked at) is the scene with Luke. June raped him. There is no doubt or gray area. It was EXTREMELY clear what was happening. He told her to wait, and she ignored him, held him down, covered his mouth, and raped him. And yet... people are focusing on how traumatized June is and how messed up her trauma has made her (though a good thing to talk about) as if that's the only thing involved in that scene. And then you have dumbasses saying that it wasn't rape because he was stronger and could get away if he wanted to, etc.

It feels like some deeply-rooted misogyny to me to brush off that scene.

i think it was very significant when June's voiceover said the word "rape" and it showed Luke's smile fading as he watched June and Nicole. The show absolutely has made it clear what happened.

It reminds me of the episode where the ritual was done violently rather than peacefully. People were disturbed and upset as if THAT was a rape scene but none of the other ritual scenes were. No, it's been rape all along.

I haven't watched any other episodes yet but I'm curious about how they're going to handle June's relationship with Luke from here on out.

[julienbakerfavormp3-deactivated]

the whole woc have no shared experiences w white women thing is so wild to me like i, a brown, can read some medieval white european womans thoughts on female embodiment and how it’s a prison and think “mood.” I can read some misogynistic Ancient Greek text and feel hurt and disgusted by it.

I can relate to these things bc guess what… women of colour are women…. we are female…. we can relate to white women and their experiences of misogyny bc we too suffer from misogyny… and while some of these experiences are different due to the nature of our oppression as racialized women, many of these experiences are exactly the same. I’m so fed up of queer devils, not even all of them white, using us as pawns for their dumb arguments.

[rainaweather]

That sentiment always comes down to 

1. Women of color aren’t actually women or

2. misogyny is okay when men of color do it

[lgbtpolitics]

This is so aggressively homophobic at the end wtaf. Do you think lgbt+ people are responsible for this in some way?

Yes. You are exactly responsible for this. You assholes who call yourselves “queer”, who say sex isn’t real, that women are not oppressed for being female, that women are not a coherent class with shared experiences, that surgery and hormones change your sex, that anyone who says they’re a woman is one without question, that Black women are just like “transwomen”, that women of color can’t like or associate with anything made by white women, that intersectional feminism isn’t about race, but including men who don’t “feel” like men.

This is all you. This is all the fault of the dumpster fire that is the “LGBT community”.

The end isn’t homophobic. Not at all. I’m a lesbian and I know exactly who OP means when she says “queer devils”. It’s not homosexuals she’s talking about. It’s trans people and their activists. People with “gender identities” who call themselves “queer”.

The BTQ+ is to blame for this, not the LG. But, I mean, we’re not even part of the community anymore. You “kicked” us gays and lesbians out for “bigoted genital fetishists”.

Either way, don’t associate gay men and lesbian women with your bullshit. We are not like you. We’re normal. We’re the ones actually trying to live our lives in peace. The LGBT community isn’t for or about us anymore. You’ve made sure of it. And you’ve done your very best to ensure women of all races never feel solidarity with each other again.

[lgbtpolitics]

You assholes who call yourselves “queer”, who say sex isn’t real, that women are not oppressed for being female, that women are not a coherent class with shared experiences

I’ve never said any of this… for a start queer is a slur and I would never call myself that other than in very select circumstances, and I’m honestly just baffled that you would say this, you’ve clearly not looked at my blog at all because I actually go on and on about hating the term queer as some kind of umbrella term, to the point where it becomes obvious I have way too much time on my hands. OP has taken it a step further though and is full on using a homophobic slur as an insult, that’s disgusting. I’ve also certainly never said women aren’t oppressed for being female or that women have no shared experiences.

The end isn’t homophobic. Not at all. I’m a lesbian and I know exactly who OP means when she says “queer devils”. It’s not homosexuals she’s talking about. It’s trans people and their activists.

I’m not bothered who they allegedly mean by this, its homophobic and nasty. You’ve literally got a post on your blog talking about how its not okay to call a woman a c*nt no matter the circumstances why can you not understand this also applies to slurs for other oppressed groups? It’s just not okay to throw around homophobic slurs like that. 

The BTQ+ is to blame for this, not the LG. But, I mean, we’re not even part of the community anymore

Erm what? I mean there is a huge part of LGBT activism that promotes OTT liberalism with no critical thought, and yes, they make up a large proportion of people practically high on preaching about intersectionality without understanding what it means but a) this does absolutely not exclude lesbians and gay men, literally the most “uwu everything is valid” person I know irl is a gay man. I realise that’s just anecdotal but I’m just a bit blown away by your perspective here. You’re very clearly anti trans I can see that, but you are wildly reaching to say that gay men and lesbians don’t chat some utter shit sometimes. And b) there is also a huge amount of cis, het people who peddal all kinds of nonsense, in fact possibly more so considering they don’t have reason to think critically about these things. My own sister, a cisgender heterosexual woman, just the other day was saying how putting x’s in words makes them more inclusive. But yeah it def makes sense to throw around slurs that don’t even affect people like her when placing blame. 

Either way, don’t associate gay men and lesbian women with your bullshit. We are not like you.

I’m a lesbian but go off. 

[lgbtpolitics]

…

What the absolute fuck

[mint-chocolatey-chip]

The BTQ+ is to blame for this, not the LG.

I expect the hatred of trans ppl bc they’re a terf but like why are bisexuals in there lmao

[porkue-deactivated20230306]

Mormon sex co-op speedrun any% no major glitches no anal

[digestive]

And on this week's episode of 'The Allos are not Okay' -

[porkue-deactivated20230306]

Yeah bc this is just an allo thing and not specifically Mormons

[butchflirt]

[lgbtpolitics]

This is the kind of thing that literally results from being puritanical about sex, believing sexual attraction is sinful and that Good People TM are above lust... imagine seeing this and posting "the Allos are not okay" like thats not literally a mild version of the same mindset omg

[vampish-glamour]

Women who are scared for their rights, are now told, they probably would support taliban. Aren't those gender-crazies the ones, that use dehumanizing language for biological women, want to take away their sex based rights and even attack trans-people and gay people, who do not agree with them?!

I’m guessing this is about that one tweet that went around where somebody was like “the taliban doesn’t have to ask for pronouns to know who to oppress”?

I was really annoyed about how people reacted to that… IMO the reaction should have been criticizing them for being disrespectful and bringing up pronoun stuff when we’re talking about women being persecuted. Not purposefully misunderstanding what they were trying to get at, which is the idea that the taliban persecutes women for their sex, not their gender “identity”.

Because it was incredibly inappropriate, unnecessary, and disrespectful to go on about pronouns and such when talking about this. But it seemed like people were so eager to misinterpret it as “omg they’re praising the taliban” which wasn’t what was being said at all. People would’ve looked much smarter if they’d criticized the tweet for the right reasons.

[lgbtpolitics]

This kind of thing really annoys me; it comes out of people prioritising making some kind of funny statement "owning" the person who said it. But doing this throws out any possibility of actually criticising them. To any rational human, that tweet was clearly not agreeing with the taliban.

Purposefully misinterpreting the meaning behind someone's words makes it so easy for people to say that they are just being taken out of context and their viewpoint is actually completely rational. It adds legitimacy to the argument that the left/progressives are idiots who just don't understand how things work.

It also just combines to create a type of political discourse that centres your ability to make quips than your morals and opinions.

Anon is clearly a terf agreeing with the tweet so I wanna be clear that it is not my intention to side with anon. But the response to someone using the oppression of women in Afghanistan to make some weird terf point about pronouns should not be "lol so you agree with the taliban?" when that is so blatantly not the intended point.

[mint-chocolatey-chip]

i don’t know if i’m totally getting the point (that anon is almost incomprehensible to me but maybe it’s just too late in the evening for me to be on tumblr) but, was that tweet actually a terf point? Like, trans women very much are oppressed in places like that and they don’t need to be asked about their pronouns in order to be oppressed.

[disabledprincesses]

If your disability/trauma is the reason you're lgbtqia+

You're still a valid queer person

[bubblesbenson]

Yes. My experiences in the 12th grade are why I self-identity as apothiromantic/apothisexual/acoromantic/acosexual.

[shaftking]

You aren’t valid. What you need is therapy and self reflection. Quit playing into and promoting homophobic, biphobic, and transphobic rhetoric that someone could be LGBT because of trauma.

[vampish-glamour]

So we really just started saying that people aren’t born lgbt???? What the actual fuck?? What happened to “being lgbt isn’t a choice, we’re born this way”??

[deep-space-idiot]

I was sent to conversion talk therapy because my parents believed that i could be cured because of this belief.

Get proper help and figure yourself out if you know your trauma is impacting your life in such ways.

[mint-chocolatey-chip]

even if an LGBT person wasn’t born LGBT or at least doesn’t conceptualize it as such (i know someone who started having SGA in their 50s!) I don’t think making this a trauma thing is smart… trauma is something you heal from, something you learn to cope with. Being LGBT isn’t something you should try to heal from!

[mint-chocolatey-chip]

You guys really need to come up with an argument other than “you can’t tell a nonbinary person from another person” when saying gay and straight people can be attracted to nonbinary people

I just met another man who looked like, acted like, talked like, and was indistinguishable from a woman. He was a man! He told me about how he confuses straight men and lesbians all the time and how they sometimes insist that he’s valid enough for their attraction because he looks like a woman.

If I started going around saying “straight men and lesbians can be attracted to men because you can’t really tell who’s a man and who’s a woman on the street! They could be any gender!” then (I would hope) people would get up in arms.

Yeah a straight man or a lesbian could be attracted to someone of ANY gender, including nonbinary or male, on first glance. They could even get to know them and fall in love with them if the person didn’t disclose their gender. That doesn’t automatically mean that straight men and lesbians can be attracted to men and still be straight / a lesbian.

I just wish you people would stop using this argument because it’s stupid. Attraction isn’t about gender, even though it’s based on perceived gender for many people. You can’t actually know what someone’s gender is unless they tell you, you have to just assume.

[prince-of-mirrors]

Can someone explain to me why trans women experience (trans)misogyny but trans men also experience misogyny??? Is it just this deep refusal to acknowledge that misandry could ever be a thing? Because trans women apparently experience a form of misogyny on the basis of their gender, but discrimination against trans men is... also misogyny but on the basis of their sex??? If trans men experience misogyny, why don't trans women experience misandry? After all, the whole basis behind transmisogyny is that people hate when AMAB people ("men") don't abide to gender roles.

[mint-chocolatey-chip]

Misogyny is a multifaceted thing. Trans men can face misogyny without actually being women because our world is cisnormative and assigns certain things to womanhood that aren't actually what being a woman is about. Sex-based oppression is as much misogyny as the hatred of the female gender.

Trans women don't experience misandry because misandry does not exist (if we're using the same definition of misandry -- the "reverse racism" of misogyny, or the oppression of the oppressors). The reason why transmisogyny exists is because our society hates women, and it hates when "men" choose to be women. When society punishes men who are feminine, it is a hatred of women that is causing this to happen, not a hatred of men. It is the upholding of a system of oppression that benefits men (just like our society can punish any privileged person who "lowers themselves" to the oppressed, like how white people can be punished for entering mixed race relationships and how cishets can be punished for being allies).

[blackarachnya]

“the queer community is more radical than the lgbt community which is white and assimilationist” is the primo incomprehensible online take of people that literally cannot think for themselves and just copycat whatever hot takes they see on twitter from people that do the same thing

[blackarachnya]

i think all asinine online discourse could be solved in 3 minutes if everyone would realise that there is no cohesive lgbt community and this its going to vary wildly from culture to culture and also that not being connected to any larger lgbt community irl is like. fine. there are various reasons for this to be the case for someone. but pretending that you are in order to say dumb things online makes you look very stupid

[heavenslittlemachine-deactivate]

it makes sense if ur going by the definition of queer from, like, a decade ago, since it used to be used (at least in the US) primarily by leftist, activist gays explicitly w the intention of separating ourselves from homonormative, capitalist gays. its obv really different now since academia twisted it like it did, & the distinction is pretty much meaningless at this point since ppl call themselves gay or queer or w/e mostly arbitrarily without regard to their political orientation, but that’s where that idea comes from

[mint-chocolatey-chip]

homonormative

[hearthome-deactivated20210601]

some people on this site seem to have a really profound misunderstanding of what slurs are. like, you can’t “use a word as a slur.” it’s either always a slur or not a slur, and a slur is different from an insult.

for example- gay is not a slur, since it’s a term gay people chose for ourselves, but is frequently used as an insult because of homophobia. in contrast, dyke is a slur because it originated as a way to criticize stereotypical lesbians, then was later reclaimed by some wlw.

slurs cannot be universally reclaimed. a word does not go from a slur to “no longer a slur.” like that’s not how this works lol, and there will always be people who are uncomfortable with a slur you reclaim.

remember that your experiences are not universal- in many places, slurs like queer are still used and it’s incredibly disrespectful to those of us who’ve been called slurs you haven’t to say that they’re not slurs anymore.

[hazeldomain]

Queer is a word people chose for ourselves. The original quote was “not gay as in happy but queer as in fuck you.” As in, they specifically requested not to be called gay because it implied a level of happiness which was impossible given the amount of discrimination and pain that came with being queer.

Queer became an insult because queer people identified as queer. It does not have to be reclaimed because we never lost our claim in the first place.

If queer and gay are both used as insults and one feels disrespectful but the other one doesn’t, you’ve got a double standard that queer people aren’t responsible for fixing.

[hearthome-deactivated20210601]

queer is not a word lgbt+ people chose for ourselves. it originated as a simile for strange (german, quer), and we were called it because we were seen as strange, weird, perverse, etc. its use as a derogatory word for us started in the 19th century. gay wasn’t even a word we identified ourselves with until the 20th, and queer was largely not reclaimed by anyone until at least the 1960s.

phrases such as “not gay as in happy but queer as in fuck you” originated when protests were sparked in the 80′s and 90′s by police violence and the aids crisis- but we had already been called queer as in strange or perverse long before its reclaimation, and that was used to grab the attention of our oppressors. it was used in protests precisely because of its status as a slur, because back then, it was seen as an ugly word. it made cishet people UNCOMFORTABLE to see a slur be reclaimed, which made the movement gain momentum. 

queer is a SLUR, not an insult, because of its history. learn that history before coming onto posts like this. this is why it differs from gay, and why i compared the word queer to the word dyke.

[lgbtpolitics]

“Not gay as in happy but queer as in fuck you” literally does not mean (or didnt anyway) people didn’t identify as gay, but queer instead. Its the actual definition if reclaiming, not the weird one we have today, alongside a play on words about gay also meaning happy. It comes with an understanding that the person in question probably is gay. And also “queer” given that it is a slur that targets LGBT people. They are not separate things.

“If queer and gay are both used as insults and one feels disrespectful but the other doesn’t then you have a double standard”

Okay, so, tell me something, would you react the same to someone referencing someone else being a poof as you would them just saying someone is gay? Are they the same thing? Would you call someone a poof? No? Why is that, if gay is as much as slur as queer or any other word?

The answer is of course that “being used as an insult” is the definition of a slur, gay is not a slur but queer very much is.

[mint-chocolatey-chip]

Tbh I think the whole concept of lesbian =/= woman to be taken to a ridiculous level. As you say, on an individual level it makes sense but when you start applying it on a large scale and insisting no one even make a generalisation that lesbians are women? What does lesbian even mean then?

Honestly, agreed

I still stand behind my reasoning that you can be nonbinary and a lesbian, but you do have to be comfortable enough with being associated with women to be a wlw.

I dislike the definition “non-men attracted to non-men.” First of all, who is a man is just as difficult a question as who is a woman. Second of all, it seems weird to phrase lesbianism around men. Like, people do that to bi women all the time (“available to men”) but lesbians? Why?

I just think it’s important to keep the wlw community centered around women who love women, because misogyny and homophobia and biphobia are all at play.

[mint-chocolatey-chip]

It’s so easy to have words for lesbians with difficult relationships with gender to the point where you can be a lesbian who isn’t a woman at all, but nothing like that exists for bi women

It’s been said before that bi women can have difficult relationships with gender too because of the reality of being a woman who loves women in a heteronormative and homophobic world, but no one is really thinking about this IMO. “Some lesbians aren’t wlw (women who love women)” are bi women allowed this too?

Would you see a post that says lesbians & bi women = wlw and protest because some lesbians aren’t wlw, but you don’t mention bi women at all?

I think this is purely because “lesbian” is a noun by itself and “bi woman” has “woman” in it. If the word lesbian didn’t exist and lesbians only had “gay women” to go off of i’m sure this conversation would be very different.

The idea that some lesbians can not be wlw but bi women have to be just makes me feel like no one takes bi women seriously when they say they struggle with gender too

[mint-chocolatey-chip]

hi im the op of that post u rbed. im down to answer any questions you might have. im not saying to separate lesbianism from women at all. im saying that not every lesbian is a woman so referring to lesbians as women as a whole excludes lesbians who arent women. that doesnt mean stuff like the double venus symbol/the term wlw/the phrase lesbians and bi women are wrong. im just saying dont generalize an entire groups gender based on their sexuality. (1/2)

lesbians are a diverse group and all of us deserve to be included in discussions about lesbianism and positivity posts about lesbianism so i was just asking people to use more inclusive language. 2) i definitely include amab people who identify as lesbians. 3) bigender nonbinary people are still nonbinary. even if theyre comfortable w the term man they still aren't a binary man therefore they can absolutely be a lesbian. (2/3) (sorry, i underestimated how many asks this would take)

and 4) idk about the gay men thing. i personally have seen people talk about how nonbinary people who are exclusively attracted to men and nby people should absolutely be allowed in spaces for gay men, however i'm not that involved in the mlm community seeing as i'm a lesbian. all i can say about this topic is that the reason i'm bringing nonbinary lesbians up is bc im a nonbinary lesbian myself and i'm tired of being invalidated (3/3)

Thank you for being civil despite my challenging your post, I really appreciate it! Like I said I am conflicted about all of this, because I do understand not identifying as a woman while being a lesbian on an individual level. And I also think it’s important to consider diversity when talking about a community. Plus, I also know that “who is a lesbian” is something that unfortunately varies between people. I’ve heard the definition of lesbian being:

Women exclusively attracted to women

Binary women exclusively attracted to binary women

Cis women exclusively attracted to cis women

AFAB people exclusively attracted to AFAB people

Non-men attracted exclusively to non-men

Anyone except binary men who are attracted to anyone except binary men (this includes nonbinary men and people who are both binary men AND nonbinary or women)

Women attracted to women

Non-men who are NOT attracted to men (attraction to women not required)

Women who chose not to date men

There might be more but I can’t remember them at the moment. Some are very fringe and I’ve only seen it once or twice.

My point with that is that really no matter how you talk about lesbians you’re going to alienate some people who identify as lesbians. So like:

Lesbians are women (i personally include the usage of “women who love women” in this because it is literally calling lesbians women)

Lesbians love women (again, wlw)

Lesbians are not men

Lesbians are AFAB

Lesbians are binary women

And so on...

I get how a post that says something like LESBIANS ARE WOMEN can be alienating to lesbians who aren’t women but identify somewhere close to womanhood, but I fail to see how the term “wlw” is much better than that.

And I have to mention bi women here too. People like to act as if bi women are worlds different than lesbians, and yes the two groups do have different experiences, but they overlap a LOT. Lesbians are made to feel like they aren’t real women because of heteronormativity, but bi women are as well. There is a dimension missing (lack of attraction to men) but being attracted to other women is definitely something that can make a woman feel like she is doing gender wrong. And unfortunately, there is no way to separate bi women from the term woman like there is with “lesbian.” Bi women are sort of forced to either embrace their label as women or reject it entirely and go with nonbinary — you can’t say “don’t generalize bi women as being women!!!” Even though bi women are just as capable of having difficulty identifying as women as lesbians. But we still recognize that there is a difference between a wlw who doesn’t identify as a woman and an agender person. And even that seems like an impossibility — a woman who doesn’t identify as a woman.

I just think that if we’re going to start setting rules such as “don’t refer to lesbians as women” then we need to go all the way and examine the phrase “women who love women” plus recognize that bi women are in this struggle as well. Truly, I think it is easier for nonbinary wlw to just accept that they are women in a sense, because otherwise they can’t be women who love women, and not get offended when someone refers to wlw as women (which is literally what happens by using the phrase wlw).

And perhaps accepting that they’re NOT women/wlw could be easier as well, being a nonbinary person who loves women is a beautiful thing and we would love to welcome you into the trixic label. Honestly, I think a lot more people would identify as nblw if we were more visible and accepted.

[catgirlapologist]

okay so. i know that the lesbian community has a lot of differing views on the definition of lesbianism (and it’s heavily rooted in transphobia). i personally feel like there isn’t anything morally wrong with disregarding transphobic people’s comfort, especially when their goal is excluding trans people from an entire sexuality, so to me it really doesn’t matter if i’m alienating them by my definition of lesbianism. i personally define lesbianism as either women and nonbinary people who are exclusively attracted to women and nonbinary people, or people who aren’t men who are exclusively attracted to people who aren’t men. these are the most widely accepted definitions of lesbianism in the community (or at least in the parts of it that aren’t transphobic), so when i talk about lesbianism, this is how i define it. 

i wasn’t particularly saying that wlw as a term is better or inclusive, i was mainly just saying that there isn’t anything particularly wrong with it. however i do wanna clarify that when i said the term wlw isn’t an issue, that doesn’t mean that every lesbian is a wlw (because some lesbians are n-blw), i just meant that nonbinary lesbians existing doesn’t mean wlw as a term can’t be used anymore. however that does not, in any way, mean that wlw is the only term we should be using, and that there can’t possibly be any issues with it, especially when it comes to inclusivity. not every lesbian identifies with wlw, it depends on each individual person and what they’re comfortable with, so when talking about lesbians being part of a larger group of people who love women it’s better to say wlw/n-blw or sapphics in my opinion. 

i completely agree that lesbians and sapphic bi people share a lot of struggles when it comes to gender identity and having trouble with identifying as a woman. i also completely agree that the term wlw should be examined as well. however i do not think that we should simplify/generalize the issue to say that either lesbians/bi sapphics have to accept being referred to as a woman or we need to get rid of terms like wlw altogether. there’s a lot of nuance to this topic, every nonbinary person is different; we all have different preferences and are comfortable with different things, so talking about this issue in a generalizing way is kind of reductive, and potentially harmful to sapphic nonbinary people. saying that sapphic nonbinary people should just accept that they are “women in a sense” is definitely harmful in my opinion. nonbinary sapphics cant be generalized into one single group. there are nonbinary sapphics who feel comfortable with being referred to as a woman and/or a wlw, and there are nonbinary sapphics who aren’t. that doesn’t mean any of them have to accept that “they’re a woman in a sense” just to validate their attraction to women, or to be allowed in sapphic spaces. the whole point of them being nonbinary is that they aren’t a woman. they might be fem-aligned, they might be comfortable with the term wlw, but at the end of the day, they’re still nonbinary, and they don’t have to accept anyone misgendering them when they’re talking about a group that they’re a part of.

i feel like it should definitely be addressed that there’s an overlap between being wlw and n-blw. there are nonbinary people who are comfortable with both terms, there are nonbinary people who are only comfortable with one, and there are nonbinary people who aren’t comfortable with either. that doesn’t make any of them less nonbinary, and it doesn’t invalidate any of their individual identities. wlw and n-blw can’t be neatly separated into two different boxes. also terms like sapphic exist, which is inherently inclusive of both n-blw and wlw, and is much easier to use anyway when talking about lesbians and bi wlw/n-blw’s shared experiences. 

sorry if this was incoherent in anyway, but basically my point is that being nonbinary isn’t one single identity, it’s a wide range of identities, therefore every sexuality inherently includes nonbinary people, and excluding nonbinary people from sapphic spaces in general, but also from lesbian spaces specifically, is harmful. transphobic people’s definition of the word lesbian literally doesn’t matter, it’s trans lesbians who you should be listening to when it comes to the label’s definition. discussing nonbinary people feeling alienated in sapphic spaces is an important topic, however there’s more nuance to it than “either they have to accept being referred to as a woman or they can’t have the same access to the community as binary women do”. sapphic spaces have always been inclusive of nonbinary people, and excluding them and generalizing nonbinary people’s identities is counter-productive. 

also sorry but i just wanna give you a heads up that i’m going to be tagging the post with transphobia and enbyphobia, since the post discusses both of those, and i want to give people a warning. i am not, in any way, calling you transphobic/enbyphobic, it’s just so if people want to avoid discussions about topics like this, then they get a chance to do so. i just wanted to clarify that so there wouldn’t be any misunderstandings.

[mint-chocolatey-chip]

transphobic people’s definition of the word lesbian literally doesn’t matter -- totally agree

every sexuality inherently includes nonbinary people, and excluding nonbinary people from sapphic spaces in general, but also from lesbian spaces specifically, is harmful -- Also totally agree, I’m not sure why you put this here but if something I said prompted it then there was a misunderstanding. I will say that the wording “every sexuality inherently includes nonbinary people” is misleading and causes a lot of unnecessary discourse, so it’s best to say “every sexuality includes at least some nonbinary people” because not every sexuality is going to include anyone who is nonbinary 

The idea that some lesbians are not wlw is new to me and I’m not totally sure that I agree with this, as wlw was created as a term to unite lesbians and bi women as the two sexualities for women who love women

The reason that I said that nonbinary wlw need to either accept being women in a sense or not identify as wlw is because when you’re trying to demand that an entire community change their language to not be about women when the community is heavily centered around women and cannot be separated from women, this just isn’t realistic… perhaps I should say that either you should accept being a woman in a sense, accept not being a woman but being part of a community Of Women that is centered around women, or not identify as wlw. I realize that you can not identify as a woman but still consider yourself part of a community of women (which is the entire concept of being nonbinary and a lesbian). Like my issue isn’t with anyone’s individual identity but rather policing the language of a large amount of people. Language policing is okay in some situations but I don’t really think that this is best when it comes to the wlw community who have historically been a women-centered community, and considering that women and especially wlw are a majorly oppressed class, it’s important not to distance the wlw/sapphic/lesbian/bi women community from womanhood even if individual members are not all women. They identify with the community for some reason that is connected to womanhood even if they don’t identify as women themselves (I’ve heard “SG attraction to women is my only connection to womanhood” -- that is still a connection to womanhood, even if it’s not a female identity)

Also I thought that I had mentioned the overlap between wlw and nblw in my post but I must have deleted it. They definitely are hand-in-hand, but not the same. Many people are both, but as you’ve said, nonbinary encompasses so many different variations of gender that nblw can’t be automatically considered sapphic/wlw. There are nblw who are man-aligned and nowhere near comfortable with any sort of feminine identity and calling them sapphic is just not right, not unless you also want to call bi men sapphic. I’m gonna assume that you meant that sapphic inherently includes SOME nblw (this is a common issue with nonbinary discussions, people saying anything inherently includes nonbinary people which makes it sound like it includes all nonbinary people rather than just some). Like not two different boxes, but a venn diagram. But yes, nblw who identify close/connected to wlw definitely should be welcome in wlw spaces.

[mint-chocolatey-chip]

hi im the op of that post u rbed. im down to answer any questions you might have. im not saying to separate lesbianism from women at all. im saying that not every lesbian is a woman so referring to lesbians as women as a whole excludes lesbians who arent women. that doesnt mean stuff like the double venus symbol/the term wlw/the phrase lesbians and bi women are wrong. im just saying dont generalize an entire groups gender based on their sexuality. (1/2)

lesbians are a diverse group and all of us deserve to be included in discussions about lesbianism and positivity posts about lesbianism so i was just asking people to use more inclusive language. 2) i definitely include amab people who identify as lesbians. 3) bigender nonbinary people are still nonbinary. even if theyre comfortable w the term man they still aren't a binary man therefore they can absolutely be a lesbian. (2/3) (sorry, i underestimated how many asks this would take)

and 4) idk about the gay men thing. i personally have seen people talk about how nonbinary people who are exclusively attracted to men and nby people should absolutely be allowed in spaces for gay men, however i'm not that involved in the mlm community seeing as i'm a lesbian. all i can say about this topic is that the reason i'm bringing nonbinary lesbians up is bc im a nonbinary lesbian myself and i'm tired of being invalidated (3/3)

Thank you for being civil despite my challenging your post, I really appreciate it! Like I said I am conflicted about all of this, because I do understand not identifying as a woman while being a lesbian on an individual level. And I also think it’s important to consider diversity when talking about a community. Plus, I also know that “who is a lesbian” is something that unfortunately varies between people. I’ve heard the definition of lesbian being:

Women exclusively attracted to women

Binary women exclusively attracted to binary women

Cis women exclusively attracted to cis women

AFAB people exclusively attracted to AFAB people

Non-men attracted exclusively to non-men

Anyone except binary men who are attracted to anyone except binary men (this includes nonbinary men and people who are both binary men AND nonbinary or women)

Women attracted to women

Non-men who are NOT attracted to men (attraction to women not required)

Women who chose not to date men

There might be more but I can’t remember them at the moment. Some are very fringe and I’ve only seen it once or twice.

My point with that is that really no matter how you talk about lesbians you’re going to alienate some people who identify as lesbians. So like:

Lesbians are women (i personally include the usage of “women who love women” in this because it is literally calling lesbians women)

Lesbians love women (again, wlw)

Lesbians are not men

Lesbians are AFAB

Lesbians are binary women

And so on...

I get how a post that says something like LESBIANS ARE WOMEN can be alienating to lesbians who aren’t women but identify somewhere close to womanhood, but I fail to see how the term “wlw” is much better than that.

And I have to mention bi women here too. People like to act as if bi women are worlds different than lesbians, and yes the two groups do have different experiences, but they overlap a LOT. Lesbians are made to feel like they aren’t real women because of heteronormativity, but bi women are as well. There is a dimension missing (lack of attraction to men) but being attracted to other women is definitely something that can make a woman feel like she is doing gender wrong. And unfortunately, there is no way to separate bi women from the term woman like there is with “lesbian.” Bi women are sort of forced to either embrace their label as women or reject it entirely and go with nonbinary — you can’t say “don’t generalize bi women as being women!!!” Even though bi women are just as capable of having difficulty identifying as women as lesbians. But we still recognize that there is a difference between a wlw who doesn’t identify as a woman and an agender person. And even that seems like an impossibility — a woman who doesn’t identify as a woman.

I just think that if we’re going to start setting rules such as “don’t refer to lesbians as women” then we need to go all the way and examine the phrase “women who love women” plus recognize that bi women are in this struggle as well. Truly, I think it is easier for nonbinary wlw to just accept that they are women in a sense, because otherwise they can’t be women who love women, and not get offended when someone refers to wlw as women (which is literally what happens by using the phrase wlw).

And perhaps accepting that they’re NOT women/wlw could be easier as well, being a nonbinary person who loves women is a beautiful thing and we would love to welcome you into the trixic label. Honestly, I think a lot more people would identify as nblw if we were more visible and accepted.

[catgirlapologist]

it's lesbian visibility day so here's a friendly reminder that not every lesbian is a girl! nonbinary lesbians exist and they're still just as much lesbians as any other lesbian. referring to lesbians as girls/women/ladies/etc generalizes the lesbian community and excludes nonbinary lesbians from their own community

[mint-chocolatey-chip]

This is really my only hangup about lesbians who aren’t women. I’m 100% okay with the concept on an individual level, and I understand the concept completely, however on a wide scale it doesn’t seem good to separate lesbianism from women in the way of like, it being wrong to refer to lesbians as a whole as women. Like... is the double venus symbol wrong too? Is the term “wlw” wrong? Is the phrase “lesbians and bi women” wrong?

[shirkers2018dirsanditan]

look im sympathetic but this is some colorblind ass nonsense. how are we going to address oppression if we can’t use the only language we have........yes actually male people are most likely to be perpetrators of violence and yes female people are most likely to be victims of this particular kind of violence. you literally are only hurting everyone with this

[quirkycerebralwiring]

I mean you’re right that there’s nothing wrong with discussing gendered trends in violence (and that it’s actually harmful not to) but also saying “male people” and “female people” instead of men and women is setting of alarm bells for me. I could be wrong but it sounds like you’re trying to lump trans women under those most likely to be perpetrator of violence while completely ignoring how often trans women are victimized

[lgbtpolitics]

I didnt personally take it like that given a lot of people use "female" to refer to gender rather than anatomy but idk

[mint-chocolatey-chip]

I use female and male to refer to gender rather than anatomy but “male/female people” as a phrase sounds like it’s trying to specify anatomy because “men/women” is shorter and also more commonly used, and yet the longer and more awkward / less common way of saying it was used instead.

[stfudiscoinfernoed-archive]

Bi people being able to have certain rights and access to certain privileges only when they are in m/w relationship isn’t an aspect of bisexual privilege: it’s a symptom of societal biphobia.

[stfudiscoinfernoed-archive]

If you have the capacity to be attracted to people of different genders, but are told you will only receive certain comforts, privileges, and rights if you have relationships with a particular gender, than you don’t actually have access to full autonomy and don’t really benefit from being attracted to that particular gender.

[mint-chocolatey-chip]

It’s difficult for me to conceptualize, personally. It feels so two-sided. On one hand, I saw a clear difference in how I was treated by strangers and family depending on the gender of my partner, and I enjoyed the benefits of being considered “basically a cishet.” But on the other hand, it was a constant reminder that I only had those benefits because I just happened to be in a socially acceptable relationship. If I decided to change that one day, all of that would go away. It made it all feel so fake.

Like... yes I was invited to family gatherings I had previously been banned from, I could take my partner anywhere and not fear for our safety, I didn’t have to worry about the future irt “will I be able to marry you” and all that (pre marriage equality). But I always felt like I was on thin ice, like if I ever expressed the wrong kind of attraction or let slip to strangers or people around me that I was bisexual then all of that respect would go up in flames. Then I would be a cheating liar to everyone and my partner should leave me for their own good.