#some gay women don’t like to be referred to as lesbian

[girl4music]

I have a question about WLW couples or relationships that I’m sure you guys will be able to help me answer.

Is it appropriate to say it’s a lesbian/gay couple or lesbian/gay relationship if one or both of the women in it do not identify as either a gay or a lesbian woman?

The reason why I ask is that I’m bisexual and a woman but if I was in a relationship with another woman, I would have no problem with anyone referring to us as a lesbian/gay relationship or as a lesbian/gay couple. But my partner might feel differently if she didn’t identify as a lesbian or gay either but bi/pan/queer or some other sexuality in the confusing alphabet soup.

Is that an appropriate term to use or is ‘sapphic’ better? Which I also would have no problem with.

In terms of WLW in TV art/entertainment or storytelling I don’t often have too much of a worry because the characters are fictional along with it.

However…

Xena and Gabrielle is a TV WLW relationship/dynamic I’ve loved all my life. They are my NO.1 OTP of all-time. But I’ve always been wary of referring to them as a lesbian/gay couple or a lesbian/gay relationship because I interpret Xena as bisexual and Gabrielle as a lesbian. But I’ve never worried about calling them a WLW couple or relationship because they’re both women. And so I often just say WLW or queer.

I’ve never really used the term ‘sapphic’ but I’ve seen it been used a lot in regards to Xena and Gabrielle due to them being in the time of Sappho but also because no one can quite agree on their canon sexualities in the Xenaverse fandom. There’s many that interpret them both as lesbian/gay. There’s very few fans that only interpret both as straight. But the one thing that seems to be unanimously agreed upon by all fans is that they have feelings for each other romantically/sexually if not a couple or never made it as a couple.

It’s a bit difficult when it comes to them so it just got me wondering what’s the most appropriate term?

Saying that. Would WLW also be appropriate if one or both in the relationship didn’t identify as women? But rather non-binary or transgender or agender instead.

You think I would know this information by now but I’m honestly not so sure with the sources I’ve been using to educate myself on. They aren’t entirely reliable for accurate and up-to-date information.

And I have a very diverse following on here so I think you guys could tell me more accurate information or at least direct me to sources of where I can find it.

[vanpalmerenthusiast]

Yellowjackets sexuality headcanons?

this might upset some people because to me they’re all some kind of queer but here we go

jackie: comphet lesbian, one thousand percent. she was down insanely bad for shauna and did not fw jeff, straight jackie believers were we watching the same show??

shauna: she’s our fucking crazy mean bisexual, she had more chemistry with pretty much every girl on her team than with jeff or adam xo plus jackieshauna.. come on yall the YEARNING

we already know van and tai are lesbians and yup fully agreed, pushing the butchfemme taivan agenda ALWAYS

misty: misty’s just down for the ride tbh, she gets obsessive over literally anyone (coach ben, later nat) so maybe pan but she’s just an unlabeled psycho queer girlie to me

nat: sigh i want her to be a lesbian so bad but she’s not completely there for me, i feel like similar to misty she could get with whoever as long as she’s having a good time, and we’ve seen her be very flirty with both men and women in the teen and adult timelines

lottie: lesbian lesbian big fat lesbian like i feel like there’s nothing to explain, fucking look at her talking to any woman (im also a huge lottienat shopper so..)

laura lee: little baby lesbian who will sadly probably never really accept that and if she didn’t die, she would grow up and marry a christian guy and have a huge family. yes that thought pains me no i don’t want to talk about it

travis (yes i included travis): crazy one but he seems so transmasc to me, don’t ask me why it just radiates

side characters because i’m nice: genlissa are dating, i don’t know what kind of gay they are but they are some kind of gay!! mari has some queer moments, especially concerning lottie, so she’s a little bi to me, and akilah gives me straight.. sorry to all the tai and akilah shippers but she just seems like a valentina kind of person to me (get the reference please) 🫶🏼 ALSO CRYSTAL IS ONE OF THEM QUEERS!! her and misty matched each others freak on more levels than one.

not including some adult timeline side characters because most of them suck 💜 thank you sm for the ask this was so fun lol

[butchvampireheimerdinger]

any sevika x butch reader hcs? :P

i see her as soooo butch4butch omg. Transgression is so core to her characterization and I think she would find gender non-conforming dykes soooo attractive. Anyways

Butch4butch! Sevika x reader headcanons

✯ You’ve both got lil peach fuzzy moustaches and neither of u remove ur facial hair so when u kiss ur moustaches tickle each other a little bit.

✯ You’re both rather lesbian obviously and so your love for women n other queer people extends beyond romance. If some dude is bothering some poor chick at the bar, you become the Woman Protection Squad. You’re everyone’s lesbian moms/guard dogs.

✯ Idk who her parents are but she gives off military brat vibes/raised by a strict army father. Now she’s incredibly anti-military (”I didnt always see eye to eye with my old man) but she makes her bed meticulously army style. She’s disciplined like that.

✯ It drives her wild seeing you in “more refined” clothing. Which, for her, means pants without holes that are not jeans, and one of your gay little button ups you probably have. Especially when she becomes a counselor and you show up in Piltover all dyked out in your menswear. Old rich ladies are clutching their pearls and she could probably just take you right there.

✯ Your fav Sevika outfit is the rumpled boxers and wife pleaser combo. Nuff said. Also you share a closet and there’s not a really clear boundary with what belongs to who, except for a few items of clothing that are your “signature.” Like your leather punky battle vest. And her poncho.

✯ You guys would be the punky type of older lesbians that never fought for gay marriage because it was seen as assimilating to a heteronormative society and making queerness palatable to a straight audience. Regardless, you do refer to each other as life partners, domestic partners, sometimes wife. Not really girlfriend unless in a cutesy ironic sorta way.

✯ And as for cutesy nicknames? You call each other “my butch.” Or “my woman” or “my old lady.”

✯ If you did end up having a ceremony with friends and family to celebrate your bond, its double suits fosho. Not exactly matching, but complementary. Maybe borrowed parts from friends and family because who is gonna buy a new suit in this economy? We have a revolution to run!!

✯ It’s at The Last Drop obvs and you hop behind the bar and pour beers, getting your suit all wet. Instead of a bouquet toss, all the single people gather for a rapidfire round of blackjack for who’s the next to get married.

✯ Your “honeymoon” is camping in the nearest wilderness. its all either of you had ever dreamed of. You ride off on your shimmer motorcycle with a billion illegal modifications with cans hanging from it and a sign on the back that says “just hitched.” And you get to watch her chop wood. And she gets to watch you gut a fish. It’s like butchdyke brokeback mountain.

✯ Housework isn’t a masculinity or femininity thing to either of you. She can cook meat, you can do all the plants and veggies cause maybe ur like a gym bro health nut type. Her tendency to load up on protein and nothing else drives you up the wall. “Colorful plate, Sev.”

✯ She does vacuuming and laundry cause she likes to fold stuff a certain way. You do dishes cause neither of you are sure just how waterproof her arm is. And you pick up the clutter so she doesn’t irritate her bad back.

✯ She grills on the barbecue at the summer parties. You pour drinks and set up the trampoline and tetherball thingy/yard games for the kiddos

✯ Affectionate touches include: ruffling each other’s short hair. Pulling you in by the belt loops. Absentmindedly straightening ur rolled up sleeves. You like to rest your head in her lap when its the two of you on the couch and you don’t feel like talking. She uses ur head as a little desk for whatever she’s reading.

✯ You both wear gay little rectangular reading glasses. At night she reads whatever religious text Janna worshippers use in bed next to you and you gab. She peers over her lil glasses at u. Zaun is more religious than Piltover so maybe you both are people of the faith. But if religious trauma exists in this context and you’ve got it, she would always be respectful cause she knows what its like to feel like an outsider.

✯ Obviously you work out together, but neither of you have a consistent routine for that cause ur gay and probably have adhd and her line of work has inconsistent hours.

✯ You have a punching bag in the basement and sometimes the two of you let off steam by punching it back and forth like pingpong. (That’s not how punching bags move, but use your imagination.)

✯ It’s never been a plan for the two of you to have kids and i don’t see formal adoption/ivf/sperm donors being widely accessible in the undercity. But i can see it happening where a disparaged youth on the street adopts the two of you and you become parental figures in that way. Maybe you take in a young trans fellow with a rocky home life. also there’s isha.

✯ If you end up with a younger child in ur care, they call you mama sev or mama vika and mama y/n. Or a cultural name for mom if you have one.

✯ Sevika would be weirdly good with kids because she sees them as people with feelings. She wouldn’t talk down to them or anything. She would be the bad cop but also kind of a gentle parent type. And you know how people sometimes put their naughty kittens or puppies in “air jail?” She is buff enough to do that with her kid one handed until they’re at least ten. And she is the BEST at doing the airplane thing.

Fin.

[butchpeace]

Hey, I am a new follower here and uhhh.. I just want to ask you how did you manage to get rid of your gender dysphoria?

I never did transition and probably never will be able to because it is illegal in the country I currently live in. But the gender dysphoria remained there for years (8) even if I accept the fact that I will never be able to change my sex, along with my homosexuality.

So maybe it is a difference in experience, with me not being able to experience the harmful placebo of the "right body", but seeing other people expressing how they got themselves cured of severe mental distress makes me wish I knew how to do that.

So, thats why I want to ask, what lead to the cure of gender dysphoria? If it is a correct way to put it.

I don’t know if you’re male or female, but I assume female?

It’s less about “getting rid” of dysphoria and more about understanding what “gender dysphoria” actually is. That differs from person to person, but for most people it’s a combination of things.

For me it was:

1) The pain of growing up female in a world that either treated me as inferior or objectified me. Plain old misogyny.

2) The pain of growing up gay in a homophobic religion and society. Being basically taught during childhood that I was fundamentally different and wrong did a number on my ability to love myself. I’m 33 and it wasn’t until recently that I had any kind of self love.

3) The confusion of growing up gender non-conforming. Not feeling like I could relate to my female peers, feeling like an outsider, never meeting people like me or having any role models who I could see myself in. I didn’t have any kind of blueprint for what my life could be like as an adult - my only reference points for what life as a masculine lesbian would be were negative.

4) The constant anxiety of walking through the world as a gender non-conforming girl, and the way people treated me and acted around me. People don’t treat you well when you’re androgynous or clearly gay, and that led to anxiety and disliking being around people.

5) Feeling like I would be more lovable as a man, as it relates to relationship dynamics and gender roles. I had a feeling that I “made more sense” as a man.

Once I separated the feelings I was having from the idea of “gender dysphoria” as a stand-alone condition, I was able to see them individually for what they really are.

Those feelings were a normal response to being who I was in the world that I lived in.

Is my “gender dysphoria” cured? Depends how you look at it. Being female is still hard. Being a masculine lesbian is still hard. The way people look at me and treat me is still anxiety inducing. But none of that means I’m “supposed” to be a man, for some mystical reason that no one can scientifically explain. And I can work on improving things like my anxiety and self esteem individually.

To put it simply, being “trans” is the same thing as being butch. It’s all the same feelings women have always had, they’re just medicalizing it now instead of helping us learn to love ourselves. The only way to fix it is to build community, especially intergenerational community, and be with each other and be role models for each other.

Hope that helps! 🌈

[juyeonszn]

WHAT IS LOVE?

PAIRING ₊˚⊹ lee juyeon x f!reader

GENRES ₊˚⊹ fluff﹒crack﹒angst﹒slice of life

WARNINGS ₊˚⊹ mature language bc even on a different blog i won’t ever change, uni!au, reader is a matchmaker, juyeon plays baseball, lots of kys and kms jokes, sunwoo is an incel, a bunch of lesbian jokes, um one sided pining for a while, like i am absolutely ruthless to reader for a Hot Minute i am so sorry, but it’s okay!!! bc then i’m also ruthless to juyeon, the unrequited love in this series goes crazy, it wouldn’t be a fawn smau without a second lead — so there is a small second lead moment, most of the written parts are full of sheer Angst and i’m not sorry about it, there’s like idol shipping in here ? but it’s for the sake of the plot i swear i don’t condone idol shipping 😭 it’s literally in my carrd, the bullying in this smau goes even crazier, ummm for some reason there are a lot of barbie references towards the end

FEATURING ₊˚⊹ the rest of tbz, soyeon + yuqi from (g)-idle, seonghwa from ateez, lee know from skz, sakura from le sserafim, dahyun + tzuyu from twice, jaehyun from nct and mingyu from seventeen

SUMMARY ₊˚⊹ all is well in the business of matchmaking. except it’s actually not, because lee juyeon, the school’s star baseball player, has just come to you for help in obtaining the girl of his dreams. oh yeah! and he happens to be the guy you’ve had a crush on since your first year of university.

STATUS ₊˚⊹ complete!

BEGINNING ₊˚⊹ august 1st, 2023

ENDING ₊˚⊹ october 19th, 2023

MORE ₊˚⊹ HIIIII hello!!! my first smau on another blog this is crazy ?!!2!!22!!2 fun fact; in case the plot seems familiar, it was an old wip for yeonjunszn that i had for jake from enhypen and decided to scrap for reasons that i do not remember LOL but then it came back to me and i decided to redo it for juyo bc it was so juyo-coded and now we’re here 🤗 send an ask to join the taglist (bc note and dm notifs get swallowed up with the ones from my other blog)!!

PROFILES ₊˚⊹ realize real eyes real lies | ball hitters + the token lesbian | ouran high school host club (+ tzuyu)

ONE ₊˚⊹ i’m the ceo president and chair mama

TWO ₊˚⊹ the hwang yeji incident

THREE ₊˚⊹ i hide and u seek therapy!

FOUR ₊˚⊹ /s or /j

FIVE ₊˚⊹ setting virgins up with other virgins

SIX ₊˚⊹ POSER FAKE FAN

SEVEN ₊˚⊹ #mancrushfriday #mrstealyogirl

EIGHT ₊˚⊹ I HATE WHEN WOMEN ARE RIGHT

NINE ₊˚⊹ the start of a W matchmaking season

TEN ₊˚⊹ ur on THIN ICE JAMAL

ELEVEN ₊˚⊹ Just Like A Doughnut (2.04k)

TWELVE ₊˚⊹ need a comically large piano to fall on top of me

THIRTEEN ₊˚⊹ hit tweet follow me 🙌🙏

FOURTEEN ₊˚⊹ what the bell are u talking about

FIFTEEN ₊˚⊹ THAT WAS A CRY FOR HELP

SIXTEEN ₊˚⊹ chest heavy eyes misty

SEVENTEEN ₊˚⊹ they laugh at me cause i’m emo

EIGHTEEN ₊˚⊹ sangyeon boyfriend material era

NINETEEN ₊˚⊹ Blocked and Reported for threatening language

TWENTY ₊˚⊹ A Hole In The Shape Of You (2.17k)

TWENTY ONE ₊˚⊹ men against song yuqi

TWENTY TWO ₊˚⊹ i thought we were friends.

TWENTY THREE ₊˚⊹ u think i’m pretty??? 🥰

TWENTY FOUR ₊˚⊹ for research purposes

TWENTY FIVE ₊˚⊹ The Middle Of My Heart (1.60k)

TWENTY SIX ₊˚⊹ AND THE CROWD GOES WILD

TWENTY SEVEN ₊˚⊹ to me it was

TWENTY EIGHT ₊˚⊹ clown to clown communication

TWENTY NINE ₊˚⊹ A Space Just For You (2.05k)

THIRTY ₊˚⊹ THE JUYEON THERAPY FUND

THIRTY ONE ₊˚⊹ is this pic AI generated

THIRTY TWO ₊˚⊹ i’m gay…

THIRTY THREE ₊˚⊹ 11:11 make a wish

THIRTY FOUR ₊˚⊹ Our Love Loop (2.62k)

THIRTY FIVE ₊˚⊹ graduated from bitchless university

© juyeonszn. do not steal, claim, or repost.

[wowevenmoreloveonearth]

You know what? I have become a gaylor sympathiser

This is going to be a long post, sorry! Please read the full post before even thinking about commenting.

Over the past few days I’ve seen a few posts on my dash about taylor swift and her fans that have left a bad taste in my mouth.

I know that a lot of people think that some fans of her are “trying to make her gay” and I just wanted to put the record straight and defend some people after actually looking at what’s going on. And I know I’m probably opening myself up for tumblr’s poor reading comprehension but before I start I’m going to say this:

I do not think taylor swift is a lesbian

Ok? Now let’s have a conversation.

First of all from what I’ve seen most of the fans who talk about Taylor swift and queerness do it from a point of literary analysis and learning queer history. This is a huge part of the community and lots of people have said that they never would have learnt so much about queer history without reading taylor swift’s works through a queer lens.

Adding on to that point, it seems a little hypocritical for the gay site which loves queer readings of books, tv shows, songs, musicals, films etc to be bullying a pretty small group of people who are mainly doing queer readings of lyrics. Especially when those people get near constant death threats. Instead of bullying these people (who don’t think or do what you think they think and do) why don’t you go outside and think “does this affect me? No. Do I agree with them? No. Am I going to cyber bully them because of this? No.”

Secondly, for the people who believe that any speculation on a real persons sexuality is 100% wrong. I used to think this too but I have changed my mind a bit about this recently after stopping and thinking about it properly. I’m not trying to change your mind at all I just want you to stop and think for a minute.

If you only get mad when speculation is queer in nature, then maybe think about that for a minute. Why is it totally wrong to think a person might be queer. We probably do it in our daily lives with people we know and they likely do it with us, back in the day that’s how queer people found each other-by speculating on sexuality. Would you be upset if you found out someone that you know thought you might be queer? I wouldn’t, maybe you would but if you would, why? Why is it terrible to think someone might be queer (this is NOT about hounding a person to admit to being queer like shawn mendes, this is just thinking in your head and on your small blog that the person will likely never see). Also this is literally the website where we talk about historical (real people) being gay even when they would have never said something to the equivalent.

An addition to this point before people start saying in the comments is that this is NOT the same situation as with kit connor. The issue there was people assuming that he was straight and taking that role away from a queer person. Speculating that he was queer was the opposite of what happened in that situation. So this is not an example of what happens when you speculate queerness.

Final things to say:

1) don’t believe every post you see with someone looking insane about taylor swift being gay, a lot of them are fake.

2) before anyone says “they should listen to real queer artists instead” most of them very much do. There’s a lot of fans of Hayley kiyoko, girl in red, Janelle monae, tegan and sara, zolita, kehlani etc.

3) there are some queer flags that are there. Sorry but there are. Hairpin drops, lavender, the ladder, flag colours, songs about women, friend of dorothy reference. Whether they are intentional is a different matter.

4) shipping real people is not what is happening for the majority of the people in the community. Also this comes back to queer vs straight again. Plenty of swifties ship taylor with men she’s been seen with and no one goes into their inboxes and sends death threats even when they are the ones making taylor swift all about the men she may or may not have dated.

5) taylor swift has never stated her sexuality. I know this may be hard to belive based off of how some people act, but it’s true. She has made vague statements which could have many meanings but she has never clearly stated anything. When gaylors get upset with taylor it is not because she said she is straight, it’s because they are getting death threats and doxxed and she seems to either be unaware of it (which is unlikely given how she seems to be a little terminally online) or she doesn’t care enough to tell her fans to stop.

6) if she does explicitly say she’s straight then there will probably be disappointment in her use of queer history and flags and her potential queer erasure (as we saw with lavender haze, with straight women describing their relationships as lavender) and centring herself in queer spaces (like the you need to calm down music video) but no one will be angry that she’s not gay. And a lot will probably be grateful that she actually explicitly stated for the record to absolve any confusion. The main issue would likely be other fans ramping up the death threats and bullying.

In conclusion: these people who do queer analysis of Taylor’s work are not trying to out her or make her gay etc. if you don’t understand it that’s fine it’s clearly not for you and you can go quite easily without seeing any of it. It’s not illegal to read works through a queer lens and if it means more people know about queer history then I think that’s a very good thing.

I changed my mind after looking at what a lot of people are actually saying rather than what people perceive them to be saying and maybe you will too?

Just be kinder to people online please and if you don’t like what people are saying block them and do not engage!

[yuttikkele]

i finished a new media so now it’s time for ATLA PRIDE HCs WOOOO!!!

so aang is unlabeled (and doesn’t identify as unlabeled either 💀💀) in all areas basically. he loves freely and doesn’t see gender or sex. he doesn’t see it in himself either. he mostly presents and refers to himself as a dude, but he found out he doesn’t mind being seen as a lady either. he’s crushed on katara and zuko during different points in his life, but he settled on katara. functionally, he’s pan and genderfluid.

katara is queer. she is the most unqueer queer ever though. she acts straight as a board I tell ya. she doesn’t really confine herself to labels much either, but she can tell you she was surprised at how much she enjoyed Lady Aang when that first became a thing.

sokka is bi. he probably thought men were supposed to marry women, but he quickly got over it when he got over his short lived misogyny. bi awakening wasn’t really a thing, he just sorta knew he always liked boys and girls. he’s had many crushes, but yue and suki are the ones that always stood out the most for him. obvi he dabbles in drag, that’s like sorta a canon thing. zuko’s autistic charms get to him and he ends up developing a crush on him.

toph is an aroace lesbian. she only dates the finest of women. she can tell she’ll read your heart with her feet.

zuko is gay like GAAAYYYY I don’t mean to bring accidental cheesy puns into this but he is a FLAMING homosexual, and I refuse to believe otherwise. at some point I said “I like zutara, but I just think atla is way funnier when in the back of your mind, zuko is gay.” anyways he’s gay and sex repulsed. zuko didn’t know he liked boys until he was 17, and he didn’t realize he was completely gay until a year later. he was very comphet and was always expected to produce a blood heir, and he didn’t think much of it. looking back, zuko noticed how he did find boys cute when he was younger and often avoided them because of it. he could sense that he and his sister were different, but he always thought that was because they were royalty. he only really started dating mai because they had so much in common, he thought that’s what was supposed to happen. when zuko, not long after becoming fire lord, realized he liked boys, he kept it to himself. a year later when he realized he only liked boys, he vented about it to mai, and she helped him through it. they broke up, but he still values her friendship. zuko finally gets with sokka in his 20s. yeah it took that long.

OTHER CHARACTERS THAT AREN’T GAANG THAT COME TO MIND!!

azula is a LESSSBIAAAAN that is a lesbian

I wanna say suki and ty lee are dating

smeller bee is definitely trans I don’t wanna hear it

uncle iroh doesn’t care. he loved his wife whatever happened to her, and he would also date a man.

EDIT: sorry just here to say that zukaang is endgame actually. they get together in aang’s mid to late 20s after pining for a long time. aang always had sorta an underlying unspoken crush on zuko, and zuko caught feelings when aang shot up taller than him and he realized aang got really handsome. and yknow. the fact that THEY’RE SOULMATES.

[funhouse-mirror-barbie]

This will be more of a vent post than it is a critique or review. It’s just something I personally find so agitating and I wanted to talk about it to just get the feelings of my chest.

I hate. And I mean hate. That they named her “Vaggie”

More below cut/includes slight spoilers from released content and leaked audition sheets.

I just. And please keep in mind that this is all my personal opinion and you’re allowed to think whatever you want. You can love her name and think it’s the most creative beautiful name in the world and that’s fine. That’s your opinion, and that’s great!!

But this is my opinion—V’s name isn’t funny. It’s not creative or clever.

It comes off as trying to be “edgy” or daring, but it just flops. And it’s incredibly frustrating to be sapphic (I’m a lesbian) and to see one of only TWO sapphic characters be literally named after “female” genitalia.

And I wondered for a while if I was just being weirdly picky about this, but if this leak turns out to be real (and I am PRAYING it’s not):

Then the exterminators, a seemingly entire female group, are named after genitalia. Like. Why? What is the point of having a group of characters being named after genitals??

I have a hard time describing why this makes me so angry and makes me feel so disrespected. I think it’s because:

1. Whether intentional or not, it comes off as reducing women characters to their genitalia.

2. It’s reducing a sapphic (possibly lesbian, but never confirmed) character to her genitals. Again, whether or not this is intended, the writers have made it so that everyone who hears these characters names immediately thinks “oh like Vagina”. This is even a joke in the prequel comics:

And the FIRST EPISODE:

Apparently the original character that V is based on was actually named “Vagina” just straight up. Oh but they used a Y. Because. That really makes it unique a cool. (Being sarcastic)

3. Again. I don’t care if this was the intent or not. But it feels just so so reductive to name a whole GROUP of women characters after different female genital parts. It’s just disrespectful. And again, I don’t think it was meant to be this—but it just? It’s so reductive and just stupid.

Like. I also want to make it clear that I’d be saying the SAME thing as I am now if it was a male character named “Penissy” or “Scrothomas” or some stupid shit. If Angel Dust’s name was like… “Tainty” or “Schlong” or something I would also be frustrated and upset.

Because that would be the same thing. A gay man character reduced to his genitals. Anyway this is done, it’s disrespectful and feels gross and reductive to me.

But I don’t know what I expected because this is the same writing team that thinks a character referring to himself as “The Dickmaster” and saying “dick” 600 times in a row is peak comedy writing. Ugh.

Again, I’m sorry this is more a personal vent than any sort of review or critique. I’m genuinely hoping that the Lute audition sheet is not anything that will show up in the show, and that Clitorissa and Labianne will never see the light of day. It’s just.

It’s not funny. It’s stupid, and annoying, and I hate it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

And V deserved to be called by a real name, not a edgy unfunny punchline.

[nothorses]

Hi so I’m a nonbinary lesbian and have been out for well over 6 years. My gender expression has changed a lot over the years and now I’m just. A bit lost. I want to experiment more with masculinity again but I’ve kind of forgotten how to? I’m in a bit of a weird spot where most people around me aren’t trans (except for my roommates) but are of the (very good!) idea that “clothes and attributes aren’t gendered” and dress sort of unisex in as cheap second hand clothes as possible. Some guys have long hair or wear makeup to parties and some women don’t shave etc. But I still feel like most people view me as a woman or woman-lite because even though they’re well meaning and progressive, they’re not really well-educated about transness. And I’m in a long term lesbian relationship and have a lot of hobbies that are more traditionally feminine. My pronouns are they/she but most people use she/her exclusively. I’m starting to feel more and more dysphoric about this after a few years of no dysphoria, but I don’t know how to change things. So yeah do you have any tips on doing masculinity? Or experimenting more with combining gender expressions? I wish I could start t but the trans healthcare in my country is terrible.

ngl a lot of that is so familiar to me- especially the pronouns! It's been a long time since I started to lean more into masculinity from the kind of "I'm not a yucky man lol that would be unfeminist" purgatory I was trapped in pre-transition but post-realizing-i-was-trans-in-some-way (which isn't to imply that's where you're at, that was just my personal journey) but I definitely feel like I resonate with a lot of what you're describing from, like, that specific period in my life.

I think drawing harder lines around how I wanted people to refer to me helped a lot with this, early on. I know a ton of people who have pronouns they use with trans friends that are different from the pronouns they let cis people use; she/they for the people they know will make the effort to use both, but they/them or she/her exclusively for the people they know are unlikely to use those pronouns if they have an alternative. This works with other language as well- but that's all to your personal comfort level!

Outside of that, I think step 1 is really just thinking about what masculinity means to you, and what kinds of masculinity you're interested in or intrigued by. Don't worry too much about figuring out exactly what you want right away- just experiment with whatever seems like it might be fun or comfortable. Think clothes, hair, mannerisms, roles, hobbies and interests; anything you might have denied or been denied because of gendered expectations. There's no one singular way to Do Masculinity, and the goal isn't to start out with a single perfect, consistent way of presenting yourself to the world. You're just playing with things you haven't had permission to play with before!

I also have a lot of "feminine interests", and a big thing for me has been finding masculine role models within those things. In my area it's mostly women who are into horses, and I was the only man on the horseback riding team at my school when I transitioned; but cowboys are totally a thing, and I started leaning into that role pretty early on! We also ended up getting another guy on the team, I think partially because he saw there was at least one other & he wouldn't be the only man there, which was cool (he latched onto me hard, too. it was very funny to me when I mentioned being trans & he apparently had very much not realized that before. I got to watch his worldview shift in real time, lmao)

That one was probably the easiest, though. I've also looked to really positive, loving male teachers in my work in education, and that's been awesome! Sewing & embroidery have been the hardest by far, but I've definitely found plenty of men in both over time. Finding embroidery patterns to try out from gay men depicting masculine-presenting bodies has been especially fun & validating.

I know this isn't the most specific advice, and I'm not sure if you were looking for like, a list of clothes to buy? But honestly this has just been my own journey. I wear what's comfortable and I haven't really changed my interests or hobbies; exploring masculinity has really just meant giving myself permission to engage in things I haven't before, wearing things I feel good in, and looking to others who've given themselves that permission as well for inspiration. I had to be more intentional about considering the masculine-to-me options early on than I do now, but like, it should all be about you and what you're interested in. There are infinite types of guy! I think it's just a matter of figuring out which ones you resonate with and why, and building your own type of guy out of that.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

Am I the asshole for telling my guy friends I'am a lesbian?

I (29 F, cis, probably bi? A bit ace, definitely like women more) came out around 9 years ago and have mostly dated women. I’ve had a few makeouts with guys, and slept with one guy, but I am still on the fence about my sexuality overall. I like referring to myself as a “bi lesbian, because the lesbian flag is prettier”.

A few years ago, I was in game design school, and was the only girl in my class. The guys were nice, but I still felt a bit othered. I also was paying a lot of attention to how I dressed, and was very feminine. Then one day I talked about my girlfriend, and their attitudes shifted. I started shaking hands in the morning instead of cheek kisses (we’re french), wearing jeans and sweaters, and I became “one of the guys”. People generally assumed I was a lesbian and I wouldn’t really correct it unless it came up. A friend of mine even openly came out, saying I gave him the confidence to do so because of how open I was about my sexuality, and it was just a really nice vibe for the remainder of my time there.

Ever since then, I’ve started being vague about my sexuality, just saying “I’m gay” or “I’m queer”, or “I like girls” when asked, when interacting with guys I wanted to be friends with, or, and that’s, I think, the biggest assholery there, guys that I think were likely to develop a crush on me or try their chances, but I wasn’t interested. If I felt like a friend was becoming too chummy, I’d find the opportunity to be like “oh yeah I’m a lesbian”.

This happened with my current group of friends. There’s one guy I get along with super well, and he’s awesome, one of my best friends, but I felt that he was treating me a bit differently and feared he’d develop feelings for me, so I really hammered in the fact that I was “a lesbian”.

Today, he asked to talk to me in private, and he confessed his feelings for me. He said he would regret it if he didn’t say anything, and that he values our friendship a lot and doesn’t want things to change between us, but he needed to get it off his chest. I thanked him, and turned him down gently, being like “obviously I can’t reciprocate because I’m a lesbian…” but also pointing out that there were other factors that influenced it (distance, culture, general outlook on life and certain political issues, religion…) but it was a very fruitful conversation, and we ended up chatting about stuff and reiterating how much our friendship counted for us, and how much we liked spending time together as friends.

I would like to say I feel guilty, but the truth is I don’t… It feels easier for me to say I’m a lesbian, and give me a way out of these conversations. I feel like if I went in depth into my feelings towards my sexuality, I’d give some of my friends false hopes that they might have a chance with me and ruin the vibe of our friend group.

Should I come clean? Or is it ok to try to protect myself in this manner?

What are these acronyms?

[leikeliscomet]

A Brief Look at Stem(me) History

Wanted to know more about Black lesbian identities and I couldn't find a lot on Tumblr or Twitter so I did some research on stem/stemme myself. I'm not involved in queer discourse like that but I've noticed stemme being compared with futch both positively an negatively. The term "futch" is a mash up of butch and femme and the OG Futch Scale was posted 17th February 2011. In 2015, it got posted to Tumblr and became a meme, then an accidental "guide" on lesbian identity. Regardless of stances pro-futch or anti-futch I wanted to find info on stem/stemme as a Black lesbian identity for gender and gender expression. The modern definition of a stem/stemme is a Black lesbian whose gender expression and mannerisms fall between stud and femme. I've managed to find definitions not only supporting this but also definitions predating the futch scale, both pre and post meme version:

"Stem – A person whose gender expression falls somewhere between a stud and a femme.  (See also ‘Femme’ and ‘Stud’.)" Stud is defined as "An African-American and/or Latina masculine lesbian.  Also known as ‘butch’ or ‘aggressive’." (John Jay College of Criminal Justice LGBTQ+ Terminology, Eli R. Green, 2003-2004)

"Stemm A stemm is a gay/lesbian female who dresses like a guy, and dresses like a girl. Person 1: Look at that girl, she looks like a dude with all those guy clothes on, she has to be a stud Person 2: Well she was wearing girly clothes yesterday, so I thought she was a femm Person 3: Actually she's a stemm, she's wears boy clothes sometimes, and girl clothes other times" (Urban Dictionary definition of Stemm by user JenniferHill, November 8th 2009)

"A lesbian, who identifies as a Stemme, retains traits from both Femme and Stud/ Butch lesbians. Stemmes are in the center of the lesbian spectrum of classification and identities. Therefore, it is considered natural or common for Stemme lesbians to share the same behaviors as women of two diverse identity groups. Often times, the Stemme identity is viewed as the “transitional” stage of lesbianism, when a lesbian woman goes from being a Femme to a Stud/ Butch, or (on rear occasions) from a Stud/ Butch to a Femme... *In this blog the characteristic and behavioral difference between a Femme and a Stud is conjoined. The way a Femme or a Stud dresses is not the only way she can be identified. They can also be distinguished by their attitudes, actions and the way they interact with other people. A Stemme is the in-between identity of a Stud and Femme. She is apart of both groups and her identity is subject to change at anytime. A Stemme identity is often referred to as the transitional stage; however, some lesbian women remain a Stemme because they enjoy representing male and female dominance." (Lesbian Identity: Stemme, Nell S., 6th Nov 2009)

"'one who could switch up one day, she could be a femme and other occasions dress like she has a li’l hood, li’l ghetto inside her; a stemme –  part femme part stud a tomboy'" (STORY OF INTEREST: Lesbian Speaks Out, Dominica News Online, April 12th 2010)

"Stemmes presented themselves one day as femme and another day as stud; as such, they were visibly unrecognisable unless they divulged their gender identity. Stemmes expose the amorphous nature of gender identity and are invisible – silenced, ostracised or prescribed a gender identity. Many participants refused to recognise that stemmes existed and instead described them as confused. As Shane (age 22) admitted: ‘Sometimes they [studs and femmes] think that we’re confused. We don’t know what we want to be.’ Stemmes show that personal identity claims were often at odds with community perceptions of identity." (Good gay females and babies' daddies: Black lesbian community norms and the acceptability of pregnancy, Sarah J. Reed, Robin Lin Miller, Maria T. Valenti & Tina M. Timm, 21st April 2011)

"Stem, described as a cross between or combination of stud and femme, is a label that was used to refer to a lesbian that presented both masculine and feminine traits and characteristics. Short Dawg said, 'A stem, for me, is a little mixture of a lot of different things. One day you can be super feminine, and the next day you can be not so feminine.'" (Labelling, Butch, Femme Dyke Or Lipstick, Aren't All Lesbians The Same?: An Exploration Of Labels And "Looks" Among Lesbians In The U.S. South, Danielle Kerr, 2013)

Videos

Who has it harder in the world of lesbians? [studs? stems? or fems?}, iRoqStarStemme, 10th Jan 2011

WTH is a STEM??, AmbersCloset, 1st Feb 2013

The Black Lesbian Handbook: The Stem, Channel 4, 9th Feb 2015

There's a lot more I found and I'll post each article and video separately because they all go into more detail but tl;dr;

Stem(me) is an identity coined by Black lesbian spaces

Stem(me) mainly follows stud/femme dynamics rather than butch/femme (but can reference it)

Stem(me) predates the futch scale meme

Stem(me) is defined by clothing but also behaviours, so it can be a form of Black gender expression or gender itself

[writers-potion]

Hi, I am trying to write a homosexual book that takes place in the 20s. I am unsure where to start and how bad the 20s was for homosexuality so if you have any tips it would be appreciated. Thank you for reading.

Homosexuality in Historical Fiction

I'm going to answer this in two parts: (1) Tips for writing queer historical fiction, and (2) the 1920 gay culture.

Get Your Language Right

Vocabulary is key to capturing how homsexual people identified themselves and interacted with one another at the time. Consider:

The kind of language/code used at the time. For example, gay men in the 1950-60s would have spoken Polari to skirt UK’s strict anti-homosexuality laws. This might mean your characters say seemingly ridiculous things like, “Bona to vada your dolly old eek!” (good to see your nice face)

Authenticity vs. Sensitivity. We don’t need to perpetuate old slurs just because they were used “at the time”. Would the readers of today (your target audience) be accepting towards use of such language? 

Is it really necessary? Just like in the case of foreign languages and dialects, it may be better to just refer to the code/secret language being spoken rather than overdoing it in dialogue. Also, does your character identify themselves as a part of this community at all?

Balance Between Struggle and Hope

Often in historical LQBTQ+ fiction, if the conflict is badly written, the readers are just going to feel angry and frustrated. Because:

Even the likable, otherwise reasonable characters won't be able to accept homosexuality easily, often opposing it downright.

Homosexual characters may be confused, struggle with self-doubt and self-hatred (which can't be fun to read, obviously)

The norms of the time make any “resolution” rather disappointing (compared to modern times).

Your goal is to juggle between these strong negative emotions to convey the central message and let hope shine through. Linger too much on negativity and your novel will be dark, but treating these themes 'lightly' will make you sound shallow.

So, treat oppression just as you would write a physical antagonist. It's powerful and a possible life-threatening opposition to the Lead, but it has flaws, loopholes and needs time to regroup before it hits our Lead again with increased force.

+ General Tips

Beware of giving your characters hindsight. As a writer, we know what happened both before and after the time period the characters live through, but they don't! The characters not being able to predict what comes can be a good tragic element.

The word “homosexual” wasn’t coined until 1869, and didn’t become common parlance until the early 20th century. From at least the very early 17th till the mid-19th century, the most common term for women was “tribade,” referring to the act of tribadism (scissoring). Some people used the term “fricatrice.” In the 18th century, “lesbian” and “Sapphist” started to become more common terminology. Men were called sodomites and pederasts (a word which didn’t have the paedophilic connotation it does today). The word “homophile” was coined in 1924 and was most commonly used by gay men and lesbians in the 1950s and 1960s.

“Gay” didn’t take on the almost exclusive meaning of homosexual until the 1960s, and even then, it was still used in the old sense of “merry” more than a few times. Only in the 1970s did it finally emerge as the most popular, mainstream word.

Less suspicions were aroused by a lesbian couple living together for decades than a gay male couple. Many people assumed they were just two very close spinster friends, not that it was a Boston marriage. There were many more questions about why two men would want to live together.

To avoid the very real risk of jail, lobotomy, conversion “therapy,” or the loonybin, sometimes a gay and lesbian couple would enter a ménage à quatre. Though it appeared on the surface as though two straight couples lived in the same duplex or right next door, they were actually just lavender cover marriages. Some had children (through various means) and co-parented.

Photo booths were seen as a safe space where a same-sex couple could kiss, cuddle, and embrace without fear of arrest or public suspicion.

Some lesbian couples were able to adopt children as single women, in jurisdictions which permitted that. More daring couples underwent artificial insemination and then went abroad to give birth, coming home with “adopted babies.”

Similar to the handkerchief code in the BDSM community, some gay men signalled to one another with red neckties and green carnations. Parisienne lesbians signalled to one another with violets in their hair.

There’s a long history of gay bathhouses, dating back centuries. Since male homosexuality was illegal and severely punished, a bathhouse was among the few places it was safe to meet potential partners and engage in sexual activity. Even the very real fear of police raids didn’t deter patrons. Manhattan, Paris, and London were home to many famous (and luxurious) gay baths, but there were plenty of lesser-known ones in other cities.

While not everyone was lucky enough to have a lavender ménage à quatre, many people had individual lavender marriages. Sometimes the spouse knew s/he was serving as a cover, sometimes not.

There were also more “traditional” ménage à trois marriages, composed of the lavender couple plus the true same-sex partner all living together. Sometimes these arrangements were composed of a bisexual plus a partner of each sex.

People did NOT casually out themselves! They could only confide their secret to other confirmed friends of Dorothy and extremely radical allies who had proven they could be trusted and wouldn’t turn on them.

You don’t have to make your straight characters raging, violent homophobes, but it’s completely unrealistic and historically inaccurate to show them all immediately, unquestioningly, lovingly accepting their friends’ homosexuality if the secret comes out. They might agree to not let anyone else know, but the friendship would probably be over. Other people, a bit more open-minded, might eventually reconcile but never be able to completely shake the belief that their sexual orientation is unnatural, strange, or wrong. Some people might only come around after decades of estrangement and realising gays and lesbians are just like everyone else.

To avoid discovery, some lesbians called one another by male names in their letters. Some liked those nicknames so much they continued using them in real life.

1920 Gay Culture

The United States - The Roaring Twenties 

As the United States entered an era of unprecedented economic growth and prosperity in the years after World War I, cultural mores loosened and a new spirit of sexual freedom reigned.

Harlem’s famous drag balls were part of a flourishing, highly visible LGBTQ nightlife

"Pansy Craze”: gay, lesbian and transgender performers graced the stages of nightspots in cities

lesbian and gay characters were being featured in a slew of popular “pulp” novels, in songs and on Broadway stages (including the controversial 1926 play The Captive) and in Hollywood—at least prior to 1934, when the motion picture industry began enforcing censorship guidelines, known as the Hays Code. Heap cites Clara Bow’s 1932 film Call Her Savage, in which a short scene features a pair of “campy male entertainers” in a Greenwich Village-like nightspot. On the radio, songs including "Masculine Women, Feminine Men" and "Let’s All Be Fairies" were popular.

On a Friday night in February 1926, a crowd of some 1,500 packed the Renaissance Casino in New York City’s Harlem neighborhood for the 58th masquerade and civil ball of Hamilton Lodge.

Nearly half of those attending the event, reported the New York Age, appeared to be “men of the class generally known as ‘fairies,’ and many Bohemians from the Greenwich Village section who...in their gorgeous evening gowns, wigs and powdered faces were hard to distinguish from many of the women.”

The tradition of masquerade and civil balls, more commonly known as drag balls, had begun back in 1869 within Hamilton Lodge, a black fraternal organization in Harlem. By the mid-1920s, at the height of the Prohibition era, they were attracting as many as 7,000 people of various races and social classes—gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and straight alike.

London - Balls and Adverts

Like other large cities at the time, London was home to many drag balls and nightclubs where the gay community could express themselves. 

"Lady Austin's Camp Boys" (1933): At a private ballroom in Holland Park Avenue, west London, 60 men were arrested in a police raid after undercover officers had watched them dancing, kissing and having sex in make-up and women's clothes. But despite facing a lengthy prison term and disgrace, the organiser, "Lady Austin", told officers: "There is nothing wrong [in who we are]. You call us nancies and bum boys but before long our cult will be allowed in the country."

Other gay men found partners through personal advertisements, which could be an equally risky strategy. 

In 1920 the publisher of a magazine called the Link and three gay subscribers were each sentenced to two years of hard labor on charges of indecency and conspiring to corrupt public morals.

Some adverts even appeared in the national press, such as the Daily Express, although they were not quite so blatant. People would ask for 'chums' of their own sex and offer to take people on holiday.

One man responding to an advert in the Link wrote that he was "very fond of artistic surroundings, beautiful colours in furniture and curtains, and softly shaded lamps and all those beautiful things which appeal to the refined tastes of an artistic mind". He added: "All my love is for my own sex", and wrote that he longed to give his love "in the most intimate way".

Gay adverts often had references to Edward Carpenter, Oscar Wilde and Walt Whitman, or would say 'I have an unusual temperament'.

Berlin - The Weimar Republic

The Weimar Republic, Germany’s first parliamentary democracy lasted from 1918 until 1933 and was a time of progressive cultural renaissance from cinema, theater and music, to sexual liberation and a flourishing LGBTQ scene.

Berlin was home to around 40 known queer bars, a number which had doubled by 1925. The cabaret bars and clubs like Eldorado were packed to the brim with lust, tassels, glitter and flamboyance.

Drag shows were the norm and stars like Marlene Dietrich (a Berlin-native) and Josephine Baker who were icons for the queer community, performed regularly in Berlin’s lavish halls.

Kiosks sold an array of well known queer publications like Die Hoffnung (The Hope), Blätter für Menschenrecht (Leaflets for Human Rights), Frauenliebe (Woman Love), and Das dritte Geschlecht (The Third Sex).

As homosexuality was still illegal, Berlin’s Tiergarten and other parks, Nollendorferplatz as well as train stations and the infamous octagonal public bathrooms

Underground spaces flourished.

Here's a list of books with an LGBTQ+ POV character, set at least partly in the 1920s:

Self-Made Boys: A Great Gatsby Remix

Dead Dead Girls (Harlem Renaissance Mystery, #1)

In the Field

The Lady Adventurers Club

Last Call at the Nightingale (Nightingale Mysteries, #1)

A Good Year

The Last Nude

The Sleeping Car Porter

Once a Rogue (Roaring Twenties Magic, #2)

Slippery Creatures (The Will Darling Adventures, #1)

Crazy Pavements

References

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20180212-polari-the-code-language-gay-men-used-to-survive

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2004/jul/03/gayrights.world

https://www.history.com/news/gay-culture-roaring-twenties-prohibition

[yourfavismspechomohet]

love, there’s no such thing as a “bi lesbian.” someone can’t be bi and a lesbian. Coming from a lesbian myself it just doesn’t happen that way. Being a bisexual means that you like BOTH, being a lesbian means you ONLY like non men. It’s a mockery of real lesbians, it’s not a real sexuality.

Let’s take this apart separately, shall we?

“There’s no such thing as a Bi Lesbian”

Tell that to all the Bi Lesbians that follow me, and like my posts, and request for posts.

Tell that to the Bi Lesbians I reblog from and talk to occasionally.

Tell that to the older queers that identify as Bi Lesbians.

I guess apparently they don’t exist then. 🤷

“Someone can’t be Bi and a Lesbian”

Ah, this is a very popular one on this blog that I keep getting. I could link you to those, but I won’t. Here’s some ways you can be Bi and a Lesbian at the same time:

Biromantic Homosexuals

Homoromantic Bisexuals

Bi people who label themselves as Lesbians, to reclaim queer history. Because ALL Sapphics, regardless of if they were attracted to men or not, were referred to as Lesbians.

Bi people may also label themselves as Lesbians to reclaim being called a Lesbian by Biphobes trying to get them to pick one.

Bi people who lean more towards women, may call themselves Bi Lesbians.

Abroromantics/Abrosexuals may label themselves as Bi Lesbians because their orientation only swings back and forth between those two.

“Coming from a Lesbian myself, it just doesn’t happen that way.”

Well, for the second part, “It doesn’t happen that way”, just go back to the previous comments on “Someone can’t be Bi and a Lesbian”. It does and can happen.

Now for the first part “Coming from a Lesbian myself”. I hear this a lot. Not just from Lesbians, not just from queer people, but people of all different communities, one thing I hear all the time is “Coming from a [Blank] myself”. You need to understand that you are not the only Lesbian on earth. And Lesbians are not a hive-mind. You’re not all the same, and you’re not all going to have the same opinions. If that were the case, all Lesbians would look, talk, act the same way, and have the same views. But you don’t, because you’re not a hive-mind. Simply implying that all people of the same sexuality should have the same opinions is wrong. Believe it or not, I’ve seen all different kinds of lesbians who were Pro-Mspec Lesbian, who were Anti-Mspec Lesbian, and were neutral on Mspec Lesbians. And if all Lesbians had the same opinions, you would not be separated on these different opinions.

“Being a bisexual means that you like BOTH, being a lesbian means you ONLY like non men.”

Being Bi means that you could just about like any gender. It doesn’t just mean both, as in men and women. Bi people could definitely just be attracted to women and men, but they’re also Bi people attracted to all different kinds of genders under the Nonbinary umbrella.

As for being a Lesbian, it means that you’re attracted to women and Nonbinary people. And if we can agree on that, we also have to agree that there are other Nonbinary genders where one identifies as a woman AND a man, that you may also be attracted to. Saying that Lesbians don’t like men excludes Multigender people. Even if that’s not how you mean for it to sound, I can tell you that a lot of Multigender people feel that way.

Also, a common misconception is that Non-Men and Non-Women is okay to use for Gay and Lesbian definitions. It’s not. What you probably didn’t know, is that the terms have racist origins. Black and indigenous queer people have literally been talking about this since this definition was coined. “Non-Men” and “Non-Women” are terms that have been historically used to describe the degendering of black people.

Forcing these terms for queer definitions is Anti-Black, I could forgive you if you didn’t know that and stop using those definitions after now knowing the origins.

But if you still use these definitions even after knowing this, congratulations! You’re racist! Pretty sure there was a book about this, “Bad faith and anti-black racism” by Lewis R. Gordon.

“It’s a mockery of real lesbians, it’s not a real sexuality.”

Mspecs have just as big a part in Lesbian history as Lesbians.

All sapphics were Lesbians regardless of if they liked men.

The term “Bi Lesbian” has been around since the 70s. I’d like to see you try and tell an older queer Bi Lesbian, that they’re “mocking” Lesbians and that their sexuality isn’t real. They probably accomplished more than you have in your entire life, because you want to fight with people on queer labels that you think are and aren’t valid because apparently no queer identity is acceptable unless you agree with it.

Love, wether you like it or not, Bi Lesbians and even male Lesbians have always existed and will continue existing. And they don’t need your permission to be themselves.

[fierceawakening]

Because it’s on my mind , I wanted to talk a bit about what I remember of baeddelism when I’d was going around.

Full disclaimer I am not a trans woman, nor am I doing research on the era. So I neither claim to be unbiased nor do I claim to accurately remember everything. I just want to set down what I remember so I have it.

My recollection of how it started was that a trans woman user on tumblr noticed an etymological chart on I think Wikipedia, which said that the English word bad is related to an Old Norse word baedle, which was a term for an effeminate male. In that culture such people were seen as evil or creepy for doing woman things, and their doing so was associated with what we might call black magic.

A group of trans women on tumblr really liked this, and embraced the insulting ancient term in a similar way to how many people embrace queer. “You call me bad for being AMAB and a woman, I call that fine with me.” Baeddel started popping up in lots of trans women’s usernames.

(I do not know if the etymology is accurate. Nor do I know if the ancient term referred to people considered feminine men, considered gender confused, considered to have women’s temperaments or souls, etc.)

What you also saw with this group, though, was an emphasis on being assigned male (as they phrased it, CAMAB for Coercively Assigned Male At Birth, a phrase that has been criticized as ripped off from the intersex community, where people are recognized as physically ambiguous at birth by doctors but a binary assignment is picked anyway.) This was a little surprising at least to me, as the movement I was seeing was away from terms like MTF or FTM that emphasized assigned sex.

So you started seeing the mocking trans men phrased as mocking AFAB people. “Theyfabs” was popular, the idea being that trans masculine people say we don’t fully identify as men because we don’t want to get kicked out of women’s spaces, a neat trick we get to do that trans lesbians don’t.

But our AGAB is fixed. It’s something a doctor says and that gets put on a birth certificate. Once you have it, it doesn’t change.

Which leads to seeing people as inherently evil or inherently good. If you’re (C)AMAB you’re a victim, doomed to be mislabeled a predator. If you’re (C)AFAB you’re privileged, destined to get all the pussy be accepted by lesbians.

But whenever people make a trait destiny, the lends itself to Manicheanism.

So how do you get from “we trans women are cursed to never be accepted” to “we must be put first?”

Well, there’s already an echo of that in leftism anyway, and most gay and trans USians are leftists.

Leftists really like (for good reason imo, I count myself somewhere between “pretty lefty Dem” and “less extreme progressive”) the idea that a lot of social inequality is about certain groups being left out of the discussions and events that shape policy and culture, so the thing to do is listen to those voices first.

Couple that with “around birth you’re sorted and that sorting matters, but for us trans folks that sorting is wrong and painful, and you get, from virtuous to vicious:

Transfem: assigned male, rejects patriarchy/opts out. Most virtuous.

Cis woman: assigned female, oppressed by pstrarchy. Fights oppression but not by leaving high social starts behind. Pretty mid, unless they’re a TERF.

Cis man: assigned male, benefits from patriarchy. Doesn’t reject it, as he’s got a fairly cushy deal and why meds with that. Kind of gross, as shown by unwillingness to refuse the system.

Trans man: assigned female. Opprsssed by patriarchy. Deals with it by doing everything possible to reject assignment. Essentially begging for status and not caring who knows ir. Selfishness incarnate. Pretty fuckin evil.

Some people might think this couldn’t possibly be how any transfem person thinks—isn’t being trans about internal feelings, not relationship to patriarchy?

Usually, yes! But I think the emphasis on ASAB, coupled with the (correct) idea floating around that you don’t need dysphoria to be trans, led these people to focus less on internal sense and more on politics.

My evidence for this belief is that you started to see a lot of posts by these particular transfems saying things like “Ever wanted to be a girl? You can just be one! No particular internal states required!” You started to see a lot of talk by these blogs about trying to look for and crack eggs, talked about less like “I’m going to go look for nominally cis men who seem unhappy and tell them transition is possible” and more like “I’m going to plaster this everywhere to recruit.”

As I see it, the reason everyone is suddenly so chatty about transmisandry is not that we just made it up. It’s that these people had a stranglehold on discourse for a long time, and transmascs who saw it could either openly reject it and be labeled MRAs, silently ignore it and not be heard, or believe it and internalize that choosing not to just live with our dysphoria (when transfems get to have HRT for theirs!) makes us literally evil and selfish.

It often takes a while, when someone is no longer being abused, for them to come up with language to describe what happened. The reaction can be immediate, but can sometimes be a few years delayed. That’s what I think happened here. You’re seeing us talk about transmisandry now because we’re feeling safer to say “no, that’s fucked up, we aren’t just sex gods at the dyke bar, listen to us.”

Do I think that everyone around currently who thinks “transmisandry as a term implies misandry is systemic, and we shouldn’t do that” ascribes to this weird valence flipped “assigned male good, assigned female bad” gender essentialism?

No, but I think it’s reasonable to wonder if someone might, and thus reasonable to say “don’t tell people to stop using that word. Replace it in your head with ‘transphobia,’ shrug, and find another hill to die on.

[rainbowsforbeginners]

Rainbow 101: 001

Today’s topic, as voted by you: What is LGBTQIA+?

Hello, class!

Welcome to Rainbow 101!

To start us off, today I’ll explain the acronym LGBTQIA+:

It stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer/Questioning, Intersex, and A-spec - And the little “plus” at the end stands for any other queer labels that don’t fit neatly into the main acronym!

You may also see it shortened to LGBTQ+, LGBT+, LGBT, as well as a few others - But, they all refer to the same community!

Now, as this is a beginner-friendly lecture, I’ll also give a brief explanation of the main “flagship” identities - Though I highly encourage you do your own research of any terms you find interesting, as I will likely not be able to cover all nuance here!

Also, if anyone has any comments, questions, corrections, or kudos, please put them in the ask box after class!

Alright, let’s get started:

Lesbian:

Someone who is a lesbian is a women who is attracted to other women - Non-binary people can also use this label if they wish! The term Lesbian is also related to the terms WLW and Sapphic - Though I recommend finding sources who are more well-versed in those labels to understand the nuances/differences!

Gay:

The “proper” definition of gay is similar to lesbian, being a man who is attracted to other men - And non-binary folk can use this one, too! - However, you will also find many people use “gay” as a broad blanket term similar to “queer,” so context is useful here! Gay is also sometimes called MLM (men-loving-men, not multi-level-marketing :) )

Bisexual/Biromantic:

Someone who is bisexual/biromantic is attracted to multiple genders - Commonly interpreted as simply “likes both men and women.” But, as with many of these labels, there can be nuance that is different for every person; Such as having attraction for multiple, but preferring one over another. You’ll often see Bisexual/Biromantic shortened to Bi!

Transgender:

Someone who is transgender doesn’t fully identify with the gender they were assigned at birth. For example, someone who was born as a girl named Jane and later transitions to a man named John. (Something to note here: While many transgender people do fully identify with the “opposite” gender, and undergo various visual/biological transformations (ha!), there are many who don’t do either! Some people only change their pronouns, and some may not change anything!) Non-binary people are also under this umbrella term - though not everyone identifies with the label! You’ll often see Transgender shortened to Trans!

Queer/Questioning:

From what I’ve seen, “Queer” is a pretty broad label, often used as a collective term for all LGBTQIA+ people - But, I’ve also seen some people use it as a catch-all personal miscellaneous label, when they don’t care to explain or define the details! “Questioning” is pretty simple - It just means the person is figuring out some aspect of their identity, but hasn’t quite gotten there yet!

Intersex:

This one I don’t know as much about as I could, but my understanding is that an intersex person falls between or outside of the biological sex binary - And it can be as drastically obvious as physical organ differences, or more often, as subtle as having unusual chromosomes!

A-spec:

A-spec, or the A-spectrum, is a wide category for those who experience little, no, and/or specifically-parametrized attraction! Aromantic (or Aro, little-to-no romantic attraction) and Asexual (or Ace, little-to-no sexual attraction) are the more popular, “flagship” labels, but the A spectrum also includes Aplatonic, Agender, Afamilial, Asensual, and probably a few others I don’t know of! To oversimplify for the sake of comedy, the A-spec is for those of us who look at everyone else and go, “No thanks!” with varying degrees of intensity.

Plus (+):

And the + is for everyone else who might not fit within the above!

…And there you have it - That was a lot, and I’m glad you stuck around to the end!

I want to note here that many of these labels have more sub-labels nested under them, and/or have more nuance than we covered today - So, if any of you have questions or clarifications, or have a correction to make, please feel free to drop a note in my ask box!

Also, any ideas for future topics to cover would be much appreciated!

Batteries and Bars,

Neon

[iwanthermidnightz]

This was a very good article! I loved hearing Kristen’s (and Jodie Fosters) perspective as a queer trailblazer. Inserting some snippets below 🤍

To get to this point, Stewart’s weathered more than a decade of unrelenting media scrutiny, first about her straight relationships, then about her gay ones, as she figured out her own identity. She leveraged her global stardom from the “Twilight” franchise not to become a superhero or a lifestyle guru, but to fuel an astonishing run of acclaimed independent films, including “Clouds of Sils Maria,” “Still Alice,” “Certain Women,” “Personal Shopper” and the Princess Diana drama “Spencer,” for which she earned an Oscar nomination.

“Whenever I hear that she’s doing something new, I’m so curious to see what it is, because it’s going to be a movie that hasn’t been made before,” says Clea DuVall, who directed Stewart in one of her only Hollywood films during this period, Hulu’s 2020 release “Happiest Season,” the first lesbian Christmas rom-com backed by a major studio. “She really is so herself. And I think that’s why so many people respond to her the way they do — because she is so authentic.”

By the time Stewart stepped on the stage of “Saturday Night Live” in February 2017, she’d spent the previous two years trying to convince the press that it was OK to write about her relationships with women, rather than resort to the vexing practice of referring to her girlfriend as her “gal pal.”

“It wasn’t even like I was hiding,” she says. “I was so openly out with my girlfriend for years at that point. I’m like, ‘I’m a pretty knowable person.’”

But even with that posture, the media’s “gal pal” dog whistle triggered a deeper, more painful history of intrusive curiosity about Stewart’s sexual identity. “For so long, I was like, ‘Why are you trying to skewer me? Why are you trying to ruin my life? I’m a kid, and I don’t really know myself well enough yet,’” she says. “The idea of people going, ‘I knew that you were a little queer kid forever.’ I’m like, ‘Oh, yeah? Well, you should honestly have seen me fuck my first boyfriend.’”

It’s worth dwelling on this point: For almost the entire history of Hollywood, queer actors dreaded the public discovering who they really were, and that fear kept the closet door firmly closed. “Because I was gay, I really retreated,” says DuVall, who came out publicly in 2016. “Even doing a teeny tiny movie like [the ’90s lesbian cult favorite] ‘But I’m a Cheerleader,’ people immediately were like, ‘She’s gay, how can we out her?’ I wanted to stay small.”

Stewart, though, went big, with a monologue on “SNL” about how President Donald Trump, in 2012, obsessively tweeted about her relationship with Pattinson. “Donald, if you didn’t like me then, you’re really probably not going to like me now, because I’m hosting ‘SNL’ — and I’m, like, so gay, dude,” she said to wild cheers from the audience.

“It was cool to frame it in a funny context because it could say everything without having to sit down and do an interview,” Stewart says before running through the kind of questions queer actors have had to consider before coming out publicly: “‘So what platform is that going to be on? And who’s going to make money on that? And who’s going to be the person that broke it?’ I broke it, alone.”

A few days later, I mention Stewart’s “SNL” monologue to Foster over the phone, and she lets out a big laugh. “I never knew that,” she says. “What a wonderful, funny, wry, modern way to be honest to the world. That’s just awesome.”

As Stewart talks about her “SNL” experience, I think about how no stars of her age and stature ever came out when I was growing up as a gay kid in the 1980s and ’90s. So to have her professional trajectory not skip a beat feels like real progress.

When I tell her as much, she takes the conversation in an unexpected direction. “Because I’m an actor, I want people to like me, and I want certain parts,” she says. “I have lots of different experiences that shape who I am that are very, very far from binary. But I did get good at the heteronormative quality. I play that role well. It comes from a somewhat real place — it’s not fake. But it’s fucked up that if I was gayer, it wouldn’t be the case.”

I try to clarify what she means: “So your career maybe would have suffered after coming out had you not affected a performative femininity …”

“… that I know works to my advantage,” she admits, nodding. “That’s why I’m fucking stoked about ‘Love Lies Bleeding.’”

Stewart didn’t let that scandal, as intense as it was in the moment, stifle her. Instead, she grew to fully embrace her queerness in her public life — like bringing her girlfriend, screenwriter Dylan Meyer, to the Oscars in 2022. “It’s not that I wasn’t scared,” Stewart says. “It was just that there was no other way to live.”

She’s even started to recognize that the most ostensibly heterosexual thing she’s done, “Twilight,” has its own queer sparkle. “I can only see it now,” she says. “I don’t think it necessarily started off that way, but I also think that the fact that I was there at all, it was percolating. It’s such a gay movie. I mean, Jesus Christ, Taylor [Lautner] and Rob and me, and it’s so hidden and not OK. I mean, a Mormon woman wrote this book. It’s all about oppression, about wanting what’s going to destroy you. That’s a very Gothic, gay inclination that I love.”

I ask Stewart if she understands how much her decision to come out has also made her a role model for LGBTQ people. She cackles. “Oh, you have no idea,” she says. “Every single woman that I’ve ever met in my whole life who ever kissed a girl in college is like, ‘Yeah, I mean, me too.’ I’m constantly joking with my girlfriend. I’ll be sitting there and be like” — she whispers — “‘She’s gay too. Everyone’s gay.’”

It can be easy to forget just how rare this still is, a giant movie star living such an openly queer life. “It feels like a generational thing, where I’m watching somebody make the leaps that I didn’t think I could ever do,” Foster says.

After fiercely guarding her privacy for decades, Foster came out publicly at the 2013 Golden Globes, and has just now played her first explicitly gay character in the 2023 biopic “Nyad.” Talking about Stewart has put Foster in a reflective mood. As our call is coming to an end, she offers this unprompted insight: “I get a lot of questions about who I was and what I represented in the industry, and was I — I don’t know …” She exhales. “Was I helpful in terms of representation? I’m sure there’s a 12- or 13- or 14-year-old when I was making movies as a young person who said that I had something to offer to them in their life as a queer person. I had to do it my way. I had pioneers to help the way, who I’m grateful for. And now people can be grateful for Kristen for being the pioneer. I’m just — I’m grateful to her.”

This sense of communion with the wider LGBTQ tribe is why Stewart has dedicated herself to embracing the fullness of who she is as a bro-y, butch-y queer woman in her work as an actor and, come hell or high water, a director.

“I was like, ‘I would like to be on that team because we need each other,’” Stewart says. “I didn’t want to be left out anymore. It was this whole world that I didn’t realize I could explore.”