As a non-binary lesbian myself, it makes me happy seeing more people in non-exclu spaces speaking up against the "non-men/non-women" definitions for lesbian/gay (mostly the first one, it's lesbians who are pressured into this language most of the time).
To me, it feels like a double standard around degendering. Everyone agrees it’s wrong to avoid calling a trans person "she," "he," or their neopronouns by using "they" instead. But erasing our identities by calling us "non-men" is suddenly allowed or even encouraged.
This kind of language isn't inclusive, empowering or affirming at all. It ignores the fact that many nonbinary people feel partly male, or somewhere in-between, or have a very complicated relationship with gender. These people aren’t included by a definition built on not being a man.
It also reduces lesbians to nothing but the absence of maleness. Instead of acknowledging lesbian identity as something real and meaningful, it defines us only through what we aren’t. It strips away our own genders, our cultures, our history, our language, and replaces all of that with a negative category. We’re suddenly not women, not men, not anything - just "non-men." That’s not affirmation. That’s erasure.
And somehow this is only ever applied to lesbians. Gay men aren’t pressured to call themselves "non-women." But lesbians are constantly expected to redefine ourselves to prove we’re "inclusive enough," even though the definition itself excludes huge parts of the nonbinary community.
Also...attraction to non-binary people, or non-men, or non-women, is impossible to define. Attraction is based on certain characteristics and whatever sex/gender your brain ASSUMES the person to be, and it's easy to get that wrong.
