#or in this particular case bi people 🙄

[fvckingcrazybutfree]

been binging MASH and uhm. fellas.. fellas is it...are they...?

[aishabellasbigblogofeverything]

If i may hope into your inbox rq to rant,i think there's a special kind of masculinazation queer black women go through specifically.There's this weird thing white cis wlw have where they automatically assume 'black women with a queer gender/orientation=masculine presentation' even if the bw in question is blatantly femme(remember the tomboy Megan Thee Stallion allegations💀)and it's highkey insane how they can't wrap their heads around the fact that black women can be girlypops and softgirls as much as any other queer women and i can only imagine how much worse it is for femme black trans women

Like for me i'm bigender and genderfluid along with being bi so i understand why people would assume i want to be masc on first meeting but a quick look at my blog or talking with me will make it very obvious i'm a dude but not the slightest bit masculine and that's absolutely influenced by my black womanhood but white woman fragility makes the idea of unlearning misogynoir 'scary'🙄Ntm my white trans girl friends have been way more normal about me and guys like me than cis girls so that adds to my opinion that transfem and black woman friendships are almost inherent and the overlap between transmisogyny and misogynoir.They think it's 'allyship' but the thing is almost no black woman ever asks to be masculineized

All of this is so true!!!

And then there's the fact that whenever you see Black wlw rep in media, they are almost always butch/stud or on the androgynous/masculine side, and while that does deserve rep, you hardly see femme Black wlw nearly as much, especially when they're paired with a non-Black or lighter-skinned Black girl who will almost always be the femme to their butch, it feels like Black wlw almost never get to be the feminine one.

A lot of white wlw I've seen tend to assume that Black wlw must be masculine, often so that they can be the more feminine one and it's unfair. Plus I feel like Black femme lesbians in particular face a DOUBLE form of femme invisibility that other femmes do not, because while femmes in general are read as straight or seen as having straight-passing privilege(which we do not), Black femmes often face both where we are assumed to be straight feminine girls or we are seen as not being "lesbian" enough because we're femme when Black lesbians must be studs. And it's unfair. And also I wish there was a term specifically for Black femme lesbians the way Black masc lesbians have stud, that was common and widespread, but I also just know that if a term like that did exist, then it would just be co-opted by non-Black femmes anyway, just like non-Black mascs try to do with stud.

I feel too that my femmeness is def influenced by my Black womanhood as well so I see where you're coming from. And I also agree that Black girls and trans girls(esp Black trans girls) should be friends because our oppression, although not identical, has a lot in common on the grounds that we are both denied womanhood by the white gender binarist society.

I wish this was a thing people talked about more, a lot of people act like femmes don't have any unique problems or that we are privileged for being straight-"passing" or having "so much representation" in media, when that is not the case and especially ignores the reality of being a femme of color, especially a Black femme who has to fight to be allowed to embrace her femininity and not be seen as man-lite due to white supremacy. I feel like only other femmes and butch lesbians care about our struggles but that the wider non-lesbian/non-wlw society doesn't? Especially with a lot of lgbt men/male-aligned people saying that the lgbt community has a "fear of/aversion to" masculinity which is complete bullshit(unless you're referring to butch/masc/stud women of course). But we need to start having this conversation! So thank you for bringing it to my attention!

[clatterbane]

Honestly, I am still disconnected enough where I am these days that I am really not up on who is likely to start yelling at me over using which words. Which may be another reason for my awkward ass to consider trying the local RFSL branch's weekly språkcafé! 🥴

(Which I don't think is primarily aimed at stray English speakers who are actually attached to Swedes. But, I definitely feel like I need some kind of language café for practice at this point, especially no more than I've been getting out and trying to talk to people, with the mobility issues for a while now. After 20 years this month knowing each other in person, the Household Swede still automatically defaults to English at home. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Apparently a hard habit to get out of.)

Good that they are running one, though. Also seeming to be putting some effort into various programs to help support immigrants/refugees from less queer-friendly countries to get settled in and connected with resources they might need.

A lot of language cafés do apparently already lean toward a win-win dual purpose of giving lonely older native speakers a good opportunity to socialize, while also helping immigrants work on their language skills. But, they are explicitly leaning into that, which sounds like an excellent idea.

Anyway, while I was mostly joking about running a reconnaissance mission to spot terminology pitfalls? (Which might or might not even be so effective in this case, likely dealing with a number of older folks.) I am trying to push myself to at least try going for one of the language café sessions, before too long.

I really do need to work on my conversational skills, like seriously--and that seems like a relatively low-pressure way to do it. Plus, you know, actually socialize more myself with somebody locally. That's kinda what language cafés are for.

These damned shoulder problems have certainly legitimately been getting in the way--and have frankly also been providing a handy excuse for not getting my awkward anxious ass out and interacting with people more. My current situation has been getting a little depressing for a while now, which naturally hasn't helped much either.

In this particular case, I'm also up against that old familiar fun of pretty specifically wanting to get to know more/some people in local queer communities--and inevitably unsure of what political situation exactly that I might be stepping into. Or how someone like me is liable to be received, and by whom. That can get aggravating enough, even when you're not relatively new to the country.

These days, on the surface I am some middle-aged AFAB weirdo who is pretty happy married to some large beardy dude. (Who only seems to be approximately cishet-by-default himself, incidentally. Besides a general ally.)

I also seem to come across as less blatantly GNC by general social standards here than where we were living before. Where I actually got loudly "dyked" at on one occasion--while I was out shopping with Beardy right next to me. 🙄 Don't think I ever got aggressively "sirred" with him there, at least.

At least I've had plenty of opportunity to develop significantly thicker skin than when I was coming to terms with the idea that I was bi in the early '90s. I've just gotten progressively queerer, more openly genderweird, and tireder over the intervening years, with much lower tolerance for BS--and yes, some extra hypervigilance by now.

At any rate, no pressure at all! On any front! 🙃 I'll obviously deal, but it really is darkly funny in its own absurd way.

[piqued-curiosity]

“Your implication that lesbians are paranoid and delusional and just hating on bi women by making things up is what I was talking about.” See this is the problem. Because in this scenario… it WAS people making things up! This situation was nothing to do with bi women and was blamed on us. But when we say this we’re told we’re calling lesbians “paranoid and delusional”? I never once said that bi women can’t be horrible to lesbians. Of course they can. Why would I deny that? Any group can be horrible to any other group, and I’ve certainly seen examples of bi women being lesbophobic.

My POINT is that this is a ridiculous thing to bring up in this situation. Like imagine if some man did something horrible, fantasised about abusing his partner or something. And then someone said “lesbians do better”. And you rightfully went, hang on, what has this got to do with us? Wouldn’t you also be annoyed if the response you got was “yeah sure this particular situation wasn’t anything to do with you but I’ve seen lesbians be abusive partners!! Lesbians can be abusive and they should be called out and they’re always so sensitive when you tell them this! If this situation HAD been a lesbians fault I bet you wouldn’t have taken the criticism!” Isn’t that an insane way to behave?

Like wtf lmao. You can’t say “yeah ok that’s fair this wasn’t your fault. But bi women actually are awful a lot of the time and you’re all whiny bitches when called out”. Do you not understand why people are annoyed about that? And this “well I feel like I’ve seen posts similar to these before and I think they could’ve been bi women so I’m justified in saying this” is so ridiculous. Put your criticism under posts where bi women ACTUALLY verifiably did something wrong! I’m sure there is, in existence, a bi woman who has fantasised about something like that. It’s STILL not relevant for you to bring that up in this situation where a MAN did it!

OBVIOUSLY bi women can treat lesbians badly. Literally nobody said they couldn’t or denied that, and yet somehow this turned into people going “bi women ARE abusive sometimes though!!” And not understanding why that’s a completely irrelevant comment to this situation. “Sorry bi ladies, this was a man, not you”. Would’ve been fine on it’s own. But you had to finish with “But SOME bi women are EVIL and you all are not ready to hear it!!! REPENT!!!” Ok??

“What I was saying was that if ms-revived-frogs had said the same thing on a post by a bi woman, I’m not sure that she’d have received 100% positive feedback.” Why is this relevant? “Ok you didn’t do this, but if a bi woman HAD done it you’d be defending it!!” No I wouldn’t? I would think that was awful. This is such a weird stretch for you to make. “Well I’m just wondering… if it WAS a situation where blah blah happened” 🙄

A lot of the time when this sort of discourse comes up it really does feel like it’s any excuse to start shitting on bi women. And lesbians get a hell of a lot of shit (some of it from bi women, yes!) and that deserves to be spoken about. But this is not that. This sort of thing is literally just that you feel it’s acceptable to scold bi women like naughty children because you think you’re in a position to do so. Radblr has made it completely and utterly taboo and unacceptable for bi women to ever disagree with anything a lesbian says about us. (And I recognise this is online-specific in many cases). There’s some sort of pretence that bi women will lose it and can’t take any sort of criticism despite the metric ton of awful things I see said about bi women on this site daily. And because we’re more privileged than lesbians or whatever we can’t defend ourselves or we’re being an example of that whiny out of touch bi woman. I’m sure you see the opposite, I’m sure we’re both biased. But it really sometimes feels like smug bullying instead of actual criticism aimed at members of the community who have ACTUALLY DONE SOMETHING WRONG.

I’m sure this will be used as an example of me overreacting or whatever. Being a crazy hysterical bi woman. But I’m sick of seeing shit like this. It’s not just this one thing. A man doing something disgusting and radblr going “how dare you bi women! Say sorry” is the EPITOME of how we are treated.

After thinking about it I do actually agree that my comment was misplaced. So I apologise for that. That’s all I’m going to say except for comment on your claim that nobody denies that bi women can treat lesbians badly; because people do deny that all the time. Or at least just refuse to acknowledge it. Which is why this is such a sensitive topic for me, and I agree that clouded my judgement.