I identified as a lesbian for many years until I developed a crush on my partners brief boyfriend and then started recently identifying as pan. I only started hearing the butch/femme discourse this year. it's very anti-queer to think that butch (which my bi partner has always used) and femme are lesbian. I switch between the two depending on how I feel. to have that suddenly ripped from me now that I identify as pan? no. ps, I love your blog.
GOOD EVENING I’M VERY SALTY.
Yeah like!! You can’t separate the LGBTQ+ community into our tidy little hermetically-sealed groups, because even if you TRY, people will grow and change and shift! WE OVERLAP. WE DEFY BORDERS AND BOUNDARIES. WE’RE WILLING TO ACKNOWLEDGE AND PURSUE ATTRACTION TO PEOPLE WE AREN’T “SUPPOSED” TO. THAT’S KIND OF INTRINSIC TO THE NATURE OF OUR COMMUNITY.
So we go back to, “Do you treat someone like crap because of their gender/sexual orientation/consensual sexual habits?”
And for a disturbing number of people on Tumblr, the answer seems to be “Yes, unless I’d get in trouble for it!”
*tears hair*
There’s this line from an awful Katie Herzog article that sticks in my brain, where she’s moaning about the death of lesbian separatism at the hands of amorphous queerness and she says, “Half of the lesbians I knew in the early 2000s are now either nonbinary or transmen [sic]”.
And like, a big radfem/lesbian separatist argument against trans or nonbinary people is, “We should broaden the definition of womanhood so that people don’t need to leave it!” and YET,,, it’s these spaces that are seemingly ground zero for broadening womanhood that are experiencing so much attrition? Like, if it was so spacious and accommodating, why did they feel the need to leave?
I know that’s not really what your ask was about but that keeps GNAWING on my BRAIN. If 100% gold-star lesbian spaces, no bi/pan/ace/aro/trans/nb people allowed, are SO WONDERFUL, why are they struggling SO MUCH to recruit and maintain members?
And meanwhile, being in broadly inclusive LGBTQ+ spaces feels so amazing to me personally. Like, when I can say that I’m queer and bi, and everyone just accepts it, my shoulders come down from around my ears and I can relax and enjoy myself in a unique and special way. That’s not because there’s anybody there who shares my exact sex/gender/history/orientation, but because we have a mutual nonaggression pact going on.
Also, the sheer HORROR of radfem separatists that a lesbian might have to share social space and maybe, god forbid, interact socially with someone they’d NEVER EVER sleep with or date feels really, um....
Just, no? They’re not there to fulfill your emotional needs? They’re not there to 100% validate your personal experience of the world? They’re there because they’re a human being too, and they need community and acceptance just like you do, so their ability to exist in a rare and precious safe space shouldn’t be contingent on whether you’d make the same decisions as them if you lived their life?
(Also, thank you! Hi!)
