terfs dont interact

[icon description: a pink monochrome digital illustration of ty lee from atla by @aucatgirl. end id]

[vaesbian]

about the blog

this is a positivity blog and safe space for lesbians!

i made this blog to spread positivity about lesbian identities (especially about trans lesbian identities), talk about lesbian experiences, and sometimes discuss lesbophobia. although the blog is mainly centered around lesbianism, occasionally there will be posts about other lgbt+ identities as well, as a way to show support and solidarity. anyone is allowed to follow this blog regardless of identity, however it will be centered around lesbianism.

a few important things i want to get out the way:

the way i define lesbianism is “sapphics who aren’t attracted to men”. this definition is inclusive of nonbinary people, but only of the ones who feel comfortable with being included in lesbianism. not every nonbinary person feels comfortable with identifying as a lesbian or with lesbians being attracted to them, so because of that not every single nonbinary person is included in lesbianism, however being nonbinary doesn’t mean you can’t be a lesbian

this blog fully and completely supports transfem people, and if you’re against transfem people in any way, shape or form, you are not welcome here, and you will be blocked on the spot

i don’t tolerate any form of racism, antisemitism, islamophobia, xenophobia, or any other race/ethnicity/religion-based prejudice (however i do want to point out that “reverse racism” and “christophobia” aren’t real things), if you say anything harmful to marginalized racial/ethnic/religious groups i will immediately block you

i do not condone any form of biphobia and transphobia, if i find anything you said biphobic or transphobic i will block you on the spot

this blog supports nonbinary lesbians (theysbians, hesbians, neopronouns lesbians, etc) and is run by a nonbinary lesbian. if you’re against nonbinary lesbians this blog isn’t for you, and i’m asking you not to interact. if you want to know more about nonbinary lesbians here’s a carrd

however, this blog doesn’t support “bi/pan lesbians” since it’s an extremely lesbophobic, biphobic, panphobic and transphobic label, regardless of how you define it. if you want to know why it’s harmful, here’s a carrd about it.

this blog is a safe space for aspec identities, aphobia won’t be tolerated here

lesbian isn’t a “monosexual” identity, the very term has transphobic implications, and it groups lesbians in with their oppressors (cishet people). lesbians don’t have privilege over other lgbt identities on the basis of being a  lesbian. no lgbt identity is the oppressor of another lgbt identity. the oppression the individual groups in the community face is based on different things and is perpetrated by our oppressors in different ways, but that doesn’t mean one group oppresses the other. we don’t have privilege over each other on the basis of our identities (with the exception of cis people having privilege over trans people, and tme people having privilege over tma people)

i’m willing to have peaceful discussions about anything as long as you don’t say anything i find harmful, and if you want me to help educate you about something or find resources so you can educate yourself, you can always ask for help

tagging system:

i try to include image descriptions on all of my posts, if a post doesn’t have an image or video description it will be tagged as #undescribed

i tag original posts as #ev.txt

i tag discussions about lesbophobia/transphobia/racism/biphobia/etc as the word itself, and if something contains lesbophobia/transphobia/racism/biphobia/etc i will tag it as #tw [word]

i tag lesbian specific content with #lesbian tag and trans specific content with #trans tag

i try to use trigger warnings for everything potentially triggering, however if you need me to trigger tag something feel free to let me know

[vaesbian]

Actually all female femininity conforms to gender norms it's literally a method of self harm to perform femininity as a woman. You're hurting yourself

[blkdyke-deactivated20230921]

A good video that accurately explains why stud is a term used for black lesbians only, not white, not poc, BLACK

I’m not even going to say please. Respect black identities and labels, they are ours for a reason.

[daddyisatitlenotagender]

Imma need this reblogged by white queer tumblr users since it’s mostly yall who wanna use it or want to know why you or other white people shouldn’t/can’t use the term “stud”

[loveridden1999]

happy lesbian visibility week

[spiribia]

middle school lesbianism

[faunafemme]

To black femmes who’ve been told they need to be a “strong, black woman”. You shouldn’t have to be strong. You deserve rest. You deserve peace. You deserve softness.

[irlwakko]

hey you guys do know you can hate terfs and criticize terfs and make posts teaching people how to spot terfs without just being blatantly lesbophobic right. like you guys do know that right

[irlwakko]

lesbians are not and have never been your enemies. we are not tearing the community apart by existing and being visible. there are people on here with an ACTUAL vested interest in tearing the lgbt community apart by pitting vulnerable groups against one another and you guys are falling for it hook, line, and sinker because they use the correct progressive buzzwords in their lesbophobic posts.

[irlwakko]

the context to this post (besides the fact that you guys just Constantly hate and scapegoat lesbians) is that I saw a post accusing “monosexually attracted wlw” (read: lesbians) of causing and perpetuating intracommunity discourse/violence and claiming we unilaterally perpetuate “exclusionary radfem bullshit”

a lot of these “people are tearing apart the community why don’t we all just get along?” posts seem to be good faith at first glance but are actually just lesbophobia with some extra words thrown in to make it seem like they’re being kinder and more inclusionary than they actually are and I’m BEGGING you guys to start identifying and calling out lesbophobia in your communities

excluding lesbians from your lgbt activism and deeming us undeserving of the same support other communities receive in the name of inclusionism is a form of exclusionism

[taavot-deactivated20170404]

I know there’s a widespread lack of understanding/context on this, but “butch” and “femme” are not a spectrum with every possible experience falling in between them somewhere. they are not just synonyms for “masculine and feminine”. it’s more than that. butch is not synonymous to “gender nonconforming” and femme is not the same thing as “gender conforming”. 

butch and femme are a distinct identity framework that developed around certain forms of expression, presentation and interactions between women who loved and had sex with each other and that remains true now. butch falls within the category of gnc womanhood, but there are things specific to butchness that are not shared by every gnc woman. likewise, femme women may be feminine, but are not gender conforming. there are gender nonconformances that femme women share, culturally indicated behaviors, markers of expression etc that femme women engage in that do not read as gender conforming - which is why I can often (not always but often) tell a femme woman from a straight woman. not to say that one can always read an identity from stereotypes, but indicators/signals are a thing.  

the “futch spectrum” post(s) that went ‘high femme, femme, futch, butch, stone butch’ or w/e, was brought up as a lesbian tumblr joke, but ended up confusing a lot of ppl about what butch and femme are. ppl who took that spectrum seriously got this perspective of it as “super girly, girly, in the middle, not girly, really masculine” which is… not at all how butch and femme work as identifiers. if you don’t identify as one or the other you don’t have to pick an awkward spot on a spectrum between them because those things aren’t a spectrum. you’re either butch, femme, or neither and being neither and not identifying with that framework is just fine and not uncommon. 

I think in order for ppl to understand more about how “butch” and “femme” came into use (especially in the gay bar scene among other related places in the 60′s), and what those identities entailed, it’s important to read literature, for example, like Stone Butch Blues. that’s only one title and there are others but that’s the first one that pops into my head. feel free to reblog with others. the way butch and femme developed in the time portrayed in that literature are not necessarily reflective of the exact way they are today, but it does give a background context, and introduces the concept that not every gay woman identifies as butch or femme and that’s been true since the start of their use.

summary: the butch/femme framework is a specific cultural dynamic. there’s variety within it, and sub-groups and labels that different femme and butch women use to describe themselves. but even with that variety, not every gnc woman is going to fit within a butch narrative (or want to at all). femme women are gnc to certain degrees. many women are not either. and u just can’t equate “femme” and “butch” with masculine and feminine, or with an all encompassing spectrum that everything falls in, because it doesn’t. 

[butch-femmeily]

More things to read: Persistent Desire & Boots of Leather Slippers of Gold

[taavot-deactivated20170404]

thank you! 

[taavot-deactivated20170404]

to add some things of import re: the origin and development of butch/femme culture historically

-butch/femme were not only specific to the bar scene but also surrounding / related places like drag shows, ball culture, on the street, in working class jobs where many butch women worked, etcetera. butch/femme was a very working class framework in its origin, and upper class lesbians in academia at the time often fought to distance themselves from it because they saw it as “regressive” or associated with a certain scene. many communities of black gay women also used this framework.

-many butches worked factory or other industry jobs that were mostly male dominated, and were the lifeblood of those workplaces, but were excluded often from unions. 

-there were many femmes in the bar scene, although not all femmes, who were also sex workers, colloquialized as “pros”.  this overlap showed up very visibly in the bar scene.

-butch womanhood was viewed / defined as ppl who were women, who loved other women, and presented themselves in ways that were socially marked as masculine or non-feminine (including clothes, hairstyles, certain coded mannerisms and behaviors, jobs, etc). 

-some butch women made the decision to go on hormones / get top surgery / etc even though they did not view themselves as men, either to pass for safety or to try to alleviate intense dysphoria. this decision was viewed with a lot of complexity in their communities and there was some conflict around it.

-ppl who identified as femmes were women who took pride and care in feminine presentation, but did not do so for the sake of men. they wanted to be seen and interacted with (romantically/sexually) by other women. many went to bars seeking out the specific companionship of butches, or defined their femmeness by “wanting to be with a butch”. the reverse was also true of a lot of butches (going to bars to seek out femmes to interact with). 

-there were butches who saw other butches romantically, and femmes who saw other femmes, but this was rarer in the 60′s, 70′s etc, and some femme/butch women saw those relationships as a defiance of the framework (i.e believed that the butch/femme framework was meant to have that polarity / that polarity was a central piece of it). I think there are still some of these intracommunity issues today but it is more common for butch/butch femme/femme relationships to exist and be looked upon with acceptance.

-police often raided bars at this time looking for people who didn’t meet the minimum requirement of “three or more articles of their “proper” gendered clothing”. this meant that a lot of transfem amab people, drag queens, and butches were the biggest hypervisible targets of police violence and sexual violence. this violence defined and affected butch/femme subculture viscerally. it also brought these groups together in solidarity and shared relationships. 

-lastly, the book Stone Butch Blues is available officially as a free pdf due to the author’s death and in honor of the 20th anniversary (i think?) edition. it can be found at lesliefeinberg.net  I think it’s a really important text re: understanding butch/femme as a framework and the women who identified with it and gave it its foundation during its early stages. It’s been a source of a lot of my info. Leslie Feinberg hirself was a working class butch lesbian who lived these experiences that she wrote about. I learned a lot from reading it. again the current definitions of butch/femme aren’t going to be identical to the experiences highlighted in a book set around the 60′s, but it is the origins of butch/femme, there are still things about butch/femme identity that are very similar, and u cannot remove the terms from that historical context. 

[lesbiansinc]

Read S/HE by Minnie Bruce Pratt for a femme perspective!

[kingofthebitches]

all black lesbians deserve happiness

[angelsaxis]

I haven't seen this version anywhere so I made one!

[natalya-rostov-deactivated20230]

[ID: The lesbian flag with the progress triangle. /End ID]

[vaesbian]

god we can never catch a break. for the last time lack of attraction to men is a defining part of lesbianism. it affects our identity and experiences just as much as our attraction to women. people who are attracted to men or are men cannot be lesbians. there are so many descriptors to use if you wanna express your preference/love for women such as sapphic, bi w a fem lean, etc. there's no need to take a whole identity that specifies lack of attraction to men and try to force that on yourself. if you're attracted to men and you're also attracted to women that's so cool and you should take pride and joy in your bisexuality/pansexuality bc it's genuinely a beautiful thing. but you can't really do that by calling yourself someone who isn't attracted to men

[goldxnfemme-deactivated20241112]

hi, I'm here to tell you that lesbians should be way meaner, we're not nearly mean enough

[femme-spellsword]

transmasc femmes and transfem butches literally fucking rule

[vaesbian]

butch lesbians you are loved and adored and admired

[our-queer-experience]

there are not many posts like this out there but shoutout to trans women who like their voices, shoutout to trans women who like having a dick, shoutout to trans women who are butch, shoutout to trans women whose transition has been ‘unconventional’, shoutout to trans women who will never pass and dont care to, shoutout to trans women who are tall, shoutout to trans women who break the binary that was reinvented in progressive spaces. you people are so fucking incredible.

[sir-dyke-genderpunk]

Just thinking about how much I love stone butches and soft butches and studs and stems and femmes and leatherdykes and he/him lesbians and androdykes and chapstick lesbians and lesbians with neopronouns and bulldaggers and diesel dykes and pillow princesses and transfem lesbians and transmasc lesbians and disabled lesbians say it with me lesbians dykes lesbians dykes lesbians lesbians lesbians!!

[notabled-noodle]

lesbianism is a gift and a virtue. sapphic love is wonderful. having a deep understanding of women is delightful.

sapphic sexual attraction is amazing, sapphic romantic attraction great, and sapphic alterous attraction is incredible.

being a lesbian is good and right, and I hope any lesbian reading this has a marvellous day