Hi, before I ask my question please know that I am in no way, shape or form, trying to be rude or offensive or anything like that, I am just genuinely confused and curious.
What is a nonbinary lesbian? Or like a FTM lesbian, male lesbian, or a male-identifying person who also identifies as a lesbian?
The term lesbian has always meant “a woman who is sexually or romantically attracted to other women” and I don’t know if it’s changed for some reason but that’s why I’m confused as to what any type of lesbian other than a female-identifying lesbian is.
Again, I’m really not trying to be rude, I just can’t think of how to ask my question without being pretty blunt. I’ve tried Google and looking at articles but none of them talk about male or nonbinary-identifying lesbians, and I don’t have anyone who I can ask.
Hey so I appreciate the politeness of this and I want to return the same sort of time whilst being educational and personal. I want to preface this by saying that the definition of a lesbian being strictly woman loving woman is NEW, it is a modern definition. Queer labels do not need dictionary definitions, they never have, they are given these to describe it easier to cis het people. Whilst yes, labels and definitions can bring comfort to people questioning, it is important to remember our history.
Lesbians has a long history with gender fuckery, a long long history. There have been lesbians throughout time who do not identify as women, some even identify as men/male adjacent. There have been lesbians who describe their gender as dyke butch fag. We now have labels such as non binary to help describe a gender experience outside of the binary. Personally I am trans masc non binary, this is because my gender is trans and more masculine leaning. This sort of expression is not new to lesbianism, we have terms such as butch to describe not only an appearance but the expression and dynamic of a masculine lesbian with femme lesbians and many of us butches do not identify as women.
I feel as tho there has been so much discourse with the online baby queer community about the definitions of things and they use modern definitions and try to apply them to a community (the whole LGBTQ+ community) which is built on a lot of gender fuckery. The term non binary is new, but the concept of a gender fuck lesbian is not.
I would sincerely recommend anyone who wants to read up on these sorts of things, to really do it. Of course there's classics like Stone Butch Blues, but there are many other amazing queer and lesbian authors out there. There are also websites and blogs dedicated to queer and trans and lesbian history. This is important for all queer people, I truly believe that. When our history is forgotten and replaced we lose sight of what we need to fight for. Policing what a lesbian is, is not important, it causes harm to not only trans/non binary lesbians but also many cis lesbians.
