#biphobic lesbians

[bi-sapphics]

bi women whining about lesbians having boundaries is the REASON some lesbians prefer les4les relationships smh

okay, i said i didn't wanna get into this too much, but this ask is kinda pissing me off because it's yet again dismissing us calling out the very real and harmful treatment we face as "whining." i'm going to put effort into this answer, because i haven't seen anyone talking about it outside of twitter and i'd like a post i can fall back on for reference.

ANYWAYS.

what boundaries though, anon? please do specify. because i've heard plenty of reasons for deciding to go les4les float around many times now, and they've never expanded out of the following criteria (and anything related):

Bi Women Bad™

bi women are tainted by men

(potential) attraction to men ruins a relationship where no men are involved

bisexuals cheat (yeah, still, it's a belief)

all bisexuals are polyamorous, dirty, liars, uncommitted, etc.

bisexuals inherently can't be gold stars, which, matters for some clean purity reason i guess??

bi women "don't understand" what it is to live a life solely dedicated to women and other sapphics (+ to exclude men), and/or somehow "couldn't provide" a lesbian what they're looking for in a relationship. this has NEVER been elaborated on, especially the latter idea. and theoretically speaking, lack of experience doesn’t make for worse or lesser support.

if a bisexual identifies as butch or femme, it ruins the unnecessary safety illusion that all butch/femme relationships will be les4les without fail. it's literally just the same TERF rhetoric as the safety illusion that all WLW relationships will be AFAB4AFAB. no, really, unpack that. what makes you feel safer about knowing your partner isn't transfem, or, y'know, bisexual (also one is much more conceptual than the other, which is more materialistic. so like. yeah. what's the point.)

bi women aren't apologetic to lesbians for who they are 24/7 and therefore oppress them

bi women "are homo/lesbophobic" (see: not tolerating biphobia & harassment, using butch/femme, being dykes, using the term "sapphic", using the ⚢ symbol, sharing a history with lesbians without needed permission, daring to ask for a community of solidarity with lesbians, not exclusively dating women in their own personal lifestyle choices, etc.)

the false and generalized assumption that *all* bi women are *actually* homo/lesbophobic (see: forcing lesbians to like men, claiming comphet can't be real because it makes one bisexual instead, erasing canon lesbian characters, derailing lesbian posts, being ignorant towards lesbian issues, and/or otherwise treating lesbians really shitty and not including them where they belong, etc.) ─ including this one because for some reason, it's a one-way street and the reverse is bad-faith, bigoted, and exclusionary.

ETA: bi people don't talk enough about mspec lesbians, apparently (even though they do so pretty much all the time on twitter but ok)

keep in mind that these are all things that i have ACTUALLY SEEN being used as arguments consistently over time with my own eyes, unironically. and yes, they are always about bi women. who else would it be, pan women? other mspec women? who else could be a potential romantic/sexual partner to lesbians? who else is les4les designed to be a protective shield against?

i've never seen a good faith reason that isn't either biphobic, misogynistic, a combination of both, or two-sided in a way that acknowledges bi women can't oppress lesbians, despite how much we try to add that when we agree that lesbians don't oppress bi women either. or even anything that doesn't exclude the fact that, behaviorally, we can do anything that you can too (not regarding inherent attraction).

i guess i'll address bi4bi while i'm at it. i'm not a hypocrite, i think the same thing goes for us. lesbians can't oppress us, lesbians can do whatever another bi sapphic can, yes lesbians can be biphobic but it's not a trait they all share in one big hivemind ─ and it's certainly not enough in numbers to consider a bi separatism movement for radical purity reasons (*cough* lol lmao), etc. i've seen some people say bi4bi is acceptable because mspec hatred within the queer community is so much worse than monos get within their own rightful spaces, which, i see where they're going i guess (because we do face the highest statistics from both sides), but i disagree because in the LB dynamic neither letter has more power over the other in the real world, and certainly not enough to unbalance ourselves into inconsistency like that.

the other thing i want to say is, i don't inherently have a problem with any random les4les or bi4bi relationship picked out of a hat in a lottery. i even headcanon some of my favorite ships as such sometimes. also, factually, some fictional ships and even real relationships are one of those two, or bi4les/les4bi. as i said in the tags you're responding to, anon, these types of relationships aren't inherently flawed, especially if they form by chance and not intentional setup. in fact, those like t4t, aut4aut, ace4ace / aro4aro / aro4ace*¹, blk4blk, disabled4disabled, and the like actually have a systemic and structural reason for setting their preferences. but doing this just to avoid other sapphics? the "safety" reason is absolute bullshit, and just creates a further unnecessary divide among mono and mspec sapphics that really shouldn't be created. we're not a danger to each other, we're both in danger from everyone else ─ namely, the straights™.

hell, i would even say casually looking for a partner who shares your orientation labels is totally valid, even though the preference would have no real basis or weight if it's not in bigotry. and then if you fall in love with someone and they don't meet that expectation, so what!! who cares!! it'd be a really dumb loss of opportunity to say no due to that minor and irrelevant difference despite the fact that you both seemed ready to commit to each other as partners. that, and actively excluding harmless groups of people, making it your life mission at all costs, especially for a few twitter discourse points™, is such a waste and only hurts real people's feelings, yourself included.

you're welcome to send another ask just to mock me or say i'm wasting my time proving your point by whining about “the mean angry oppressive lesbians”, or whatever i dunno. but i just want you to ask yourself what really makes these particular "boundaries" so important to you. what makes you feel threatened? we're not forcing you to go date a bi woman right the fuck now or else you're Biphobic, i'm just asking you why you would (hypothetically, of course) reject a bi woman as a potential partner at the top of your list upon finding out she's not a lesbian. i answered why this matters so much to us, but i actually do want to know, why does this matter so much to you? just wondering.

*¹aros & aces absolutely do not share the same rivalry and discourse among each other like they do with the rest of the queer community. aro4aro people have never made it a point to exclude ace people, but rather alloromantics as a whole, and vice versa. that is why they are not comparable to the sapphic side of _4_ discourse, as generally speaking, unlike aros & aces, lesbians & bisexuals treat each other far too often on a wider scale like enemies rather than sisters in sync (which is what we should be doing instead).

[waterdeepthroat]

not to be That Person but y’all have got to learn to be more normal about bisexual and pansexual characters. this isn’t 2012. women romancing astarion is not the problem, nor is karlach “lesbian coded”. the real problem is y’all’s bi/panphobia stemming largely from homophobic stereotypes

[thefrogginbullfish]

"Biphobia Pt. 1"

[detentiontrack]

I LOVE YOU BISEXUALS!!!!!!!!!!!!! I LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!! I AM SO SORRY ABOUT THE HORRORS!!!!!!! I LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!

[bi-sapphics]

okay so obviously, anyone who follows me knows i’ve read & reblogged this a couple times before, and then continued to see it everywhere since then (which is good!! i’m tired of misinformation being spread instead!!), but re-reading the thread actually made me realize something about my past experiences as someone who used to be gender-critical a long time ago, however well-meaning, and tried way too hard to be accepted as a bisexual butch. of course, i have since then grown for the better and educated myself so that i could become an advocate-slash-activist for the real queer community, and dismissed anything radfems have to say about people who aren’t cis lesbians, but that doesn’t mean i haven’t learned anything vital about them.

anyways, i realized i was demonized for it because butches and femmes who are mspec (and/or trans) defy and challenge the very idea of lesbian separatism, which is what a radfem’s entire personality and set of beliefs is based on. biphobic rhetoric is how they define their lesbianism, and it always has been. that’s where the lesbian superiority complex over bi women about “being more pure” comes from, it isn’t based on nothing. it wasn’t because they were less informed than me on our shared history, they knew damn well; it was just because bisexuals were/are inherently anti-separatist due to being the formed made-up enemy during the prime time of that movement. after all, as teamarimo said:

it’s interesting that people say butch/femme is for lesbians only when the beginning of lesbian as an exclusively-woman attracted identity & the downfall of butch/femme go hand-in-hand.

when a lesbian separatist pretending to be pro-LGB says bi women are anti-lesbian, remember that the opposite is true: historically, lesbians were actually anti-bisexual. it’s written in the books (literally). it was pretty much their lifelong goal to cleanse their community of other queer women and they were quite proud of it too. that’s not what we should be standing for, and yet it’s exactly that when you defend the gatekeeping of butch/femme and other sapphic culture as if your life depends on it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

(and that being said, keep in mind that this post holds absolutely nothing against most lesbians in general today. the problem is not lesbians or the lesbian community itself; it’s the separatist movement, its founders, and its supporters across any decade since the ‘70s. anyone who helped take action leading to the consequences still in effect modern-day are the ones to blame. ^^)

idk if this has been posted yet but i read this thread by @teamarimo and found it SUPER interesting and thorough and thought it’d be good to share it

[armoralor]

WolfWren featuring real comments from the fandom. It's okay to have different opinions on fiction, but maybe let's all remember there are actual real life people having to read this shit daily

[lesbianralzarek]

boggles my mind how overused the term "playersexual" is. its useful for critiquing games where the devs had no interest in bi/pan representation, and refuse to work the characters attraction into it. "playersexuality" is the result of a writer's cowardice when faced with the task of incorporating any semblance of a queer experience into the actual game. it is NOT when a romanceable character is bi/pan for player convenience. of fucking course they are. theyre also willing to adventure with the player for your convenience. you can heal getting shot by going to bed for your convenience. welcome to video games. its also not when characters have preferences and talk more about one gender than another. thats actually, like, accurate to how most bi/pan people experience attraction. its fine. shut up.

ALL THAT BEING SAID, if you refer to any of the bg3 companions as being playersexual or "actually gay/a lesbian/straight" im killing you. no the fuck they arent. there is no run where wyll is straight and karlach is a lesbian. the player's gender is irrelevant. they are all bi/pan whether you like it or not. die about it.

[butchthirteen]

my least favorite thing some people in doctor who fandom do is try and argue that, because of spin-off non-tv media released years after a character's last appearance, a particular trait is immutable canon and you're a bad person if you say otherwise. eu writers are doing just as much after-the-fact interpretation as the rest of us and the only difference is they're getting paid for it.

[whitediamondfairy]

Dorothea Arnault "fans" who insist she's a lesbian with comphet, shut the fuck up. She has endings with men and women. She's bisexual. Stop calling her a lesbian when she's not AND she does not have comphet.

It’s even worse when they’re all “This character is literally the only rep we have and the bihets Wanna steal her/him from us!!!” Which I’ve seen a lot of. (I’m in the DC fandom, there was a lot of this when Harley Quinn started dating a dude in the comics. The fandom swears up and down she’s a lesbian with a supreme hatred for men. Twitter began acting out over it because “THE BIS STEAL EVERYTHING FROM US!!11!”)

Ah yes, Harley Quinn, a character famous for her unhealthy relationship with a man, and a slightly less unhealthy relationship with a woman, is totally a lesbian. Because THAT makes sense.

[biracy]

Hmm

[n7punk]

what's the worst thing you watched and kept up with (at least for a while) because you were gay and begging for scraps? mine was probably pretty little liars

[sapphicdesiis]

more “gay” pages posting complete homophobic garbage claiming bisexual women are lesbians

[bi-dykes]

“What do you mean there’s still so much biphobia in fan spaces? Bisexuals are like some of the most popular characters!”

Yeah, and they either get treated like this:

Or like this:

“Biphobia isn’t real” neither are your braincells

[jewishbarbies]

biphobic lesbians are so ugly

[hoorayforlesbians]

I hate when I scroll around on social media, I see the same shit takes dragging lesbians who simply are les4les

God forbid we want someone who actually fundamentally relates to our lesbian experiences

Funny how I never hear how “bi people who are strictly bi4bi are lesbophobic/homophobic”. At least not to the same extent.