#the other blocklist is actually biphobic

[gayloringinplainsight]

Genuine question after seeing your response to that other anon: how would you react if she came out as bi?

Also I almost agree with the other anon. I think the aggressive hetlors are worse, but I think all the points they made seemed reasonable. Mostly because any time I try asking another gaylor a good faith question about ‘what if some signs actually meant something slightly different, like she hasn’t been bearding she’s just been bi and dating both men and women’ I get screamed at like you screamed at the other anon.

I feel like Taylor is in an impossible position, because the biphobia I have seen from some gaylors is absolutely unreal and every bit as bad as the homophobia I’ve seen from hetlors. If she comes out as gay, the hetlors are furious. If she comes out as bi, the biphobic gaylors will say it’s a baby step toward a Real coming out without invalidating her whole narrative (aka not believing her), AND the hetlors would be pissed.

I don’t think she would call herself a friend of Dorothea if she were straight, so I’ll leave that option out.

Again. Not all gaylors as biphobic. But holy shit, some of the things I have seen (and blocked) in this tag. Or been told.

I think we have to write the hetlors off as a lost cause, but I want her to feel like gaylors will at least stick with her and believe her if it turns out she was bi for some or all of this time. I feel like I never see that in the tag, though. I’ve seen people saying it would be appropriative because she had Me out on lesbian visibility day, but… I’m Taylor’s age, and all WLW were ‘lesbians’ in middle school bathrooms. And lesbian has historically included bi women under the label, even if that’s changed in recent years. (When I was in college running the campus GSA, lesbian still included bi women)

Basically, this is a lot of dithering to say that I’m worried about Taylor. I’m worried she thinks we’ll leave if she’s not a gold star lesbian. I’m worried she doesn’t know that not all gaylors are biphobic assholes because I just…never saw that vitriol getting shut down by other gaylors. My blocklist is huge because of it.

I don’t know if she’s bi. She might be a lesbian who dated men before realizing. She might be a lesbian who was in comphet but not bearding relationships as she tried to make herself straight. She might be a lesbian who was still groomed by older men who convinced her they could change that. She might be a gold star lesbian. I don’t know! I can see the signals meaning any of those options tbh. Because she has to talk in code, we can’t be 100% about anything. And I’m worried that she thinks she’ll lose EVERYONE if she comes out as the wrong thing. Does that make sense?

Basically, I want to know what other gaylors would do if her identity matched her YNTCD hair dye. I try to keep up to date on the tag, but you know how tumblr is. I might have missed posts reassuring her that we would stay regardless. That we would believe her. Because all I’ve seen were posts about how there was no need to worry, gaylors would understand if she called herself bi to cover up her narrative, and we would know that ACTUALLY she was a lesbian all along, etc. (this was admittedly a long time ago and I blocked whoever said that)

Anyway. If you think even suggesting she could be bi is an insult, just… Don’t even bother replying. Block me instead. Sigh.

If she's bi then she's bi and that would be awesome. I'm not sure why you think I'd have a problem with that. I'm very careful in all my posts to refer to her as queer because we don't know her label.

I interact with a LOT of gaylors because I'm very active in the gaylor subreddit, and I don't know anyone who would have a problem with her being bi or would abandon her for it. Sure, some suspect she's a lesbian based on recent flagging but everyone acknowledges that we don't know for sure.

I must not be hanging out in the same gaylor spaces as you because I really haven't seen much biphobia. But maybe we have different definitions of it. It's not clear what exactly you're referring to so I'll say a couple things on the subject.

First, it's not biphobic to suspect she might be a lesbian. There's been a ton of lesbian flagging on eras. There's also been bi flagging and pan flagging throughout the years. Simply having an opinion on her label isn't in and of itself biphobic.

It's also not biphobic to think that her public relationships with men may have been PR. Now if she were a normal non-famous person who dated both men and women and someone claimed that the relationships with men were fake, that would absolutely be biphobic. But she's not a normal person. She works in an industry that famously employs and requires PR relationships. Even straight people have PR relationships. There's a great resource on the subreddit that talks about how to recognize PR relationships and why celebrities use them. Personally I'm fairly certain that all the public guys have been PR. I've also seen some compelling evidence that she may have dated men privately, e.g. Martin Johnson. So just because someone thinks that the public ones are PR doesn't mean that they think there's no way she could be bi.

Lastly, I didn't address this in the other anons ask but since you brought it up, I think the idea that if Taylor were to come out that that would also mean she's co-signing every single little theory that gaylors have is ridiculous. And the idea that this is what's keeping her from coming out is also ridiculous. So is the idea that some rando on Tumblr who wants her to be a lesbian is keeping her from coming out as bi. She'll come out when she's ready and I think the overwhelming majority of gaylors will celebrate whatever label she claims.

[kamakiriwolf]

Looks like the blocklist is circulated again. Everyone knows this is the one true blocklist :3

TF2 MERC BLOCKLIST: UPDATED

TF2 Character Blocklist

The very first thing a new TF2 player must do is pick a class between the diverse set of mercs. But what would they really know about them? What if they pick one and the merc spouts something vile, sexist, or fatphobic right in the middle of a match? This is why a created a list of the most troubling mercs, so new and veteran players know which ones to void to make their TF2 gaming experience a safe and pleasant one. Please be mindful that this is not a call-out post. :)

SCOUT

Lesphobic (pursues Miss Pauling even though she was 100% confirmed by one writer (A CIS WHITE STRAIGHT MALE WHO WASNT EVEN THE ORIGINAL WRITER) to be lesbian.)

Fatphobic (has some of the most fatphobic lines against Heavy)

Abelist (Makes fun of Demo’s missing eye, calls him Cyclops)

Anti-sex work (gets insulted at the suggestion that his mother could be a porn star)

SOLDIER

- American white nationalist

- Is a Christian, which is steeped in homophobia, racism and sexism. Prays to god in the middle of matches

-Anti-free Gender expression (insults Demo for “crossdressing”, hates men with long hair)

- Ableist

-Supports colonialism (believes everyone on his team is American or he’ll get angry. Also claims Demo is an Englishman not Scottish.”

-Anti-communist

-Sexist (uses female gendered terms as insults, belives women are physically weaker than men.)

-Hates France, believes the Frenchphobic stereotype that all French are stinky.

- Possible rape of Zhanna, as Zhanna was sheltered most of her life and might not have really known what sex means

- WAS REALLY INTO SCOUT’S MOM SEX PHOTOS, WITHOUT HER CONSENT!!!!1

DEMOMAN

-Sexist (uses female gendered terms as insults)

-Transphobic (assumes Pyro’s pronouns)

-Supports rape (voiceline “don’t worry boyo, I’ll be gentle!” with clear sexual undertones.)

HEAVY

- Transphobic (refers to Pyro as “thing” and is afraid of “it”)

- Ageist (calls enemy team “babies”)

- WAS REALLY INTO SCOUT’S MOM SEX PHOTOS, WITHOUTBHER CONSENT!!!!1

ENGINEER

-transphobic (Asumes Pyro’s gender)

-Ableist (insult’s Demo’s missing eye)

- Fatphobic

-TEXAN, CLOSE TO TASTYTEXAN. ALAMO, CONFEDERACY.

- BELIEVES IN GOD

SPY

- Refers to Demoman as “black Scottish cyclops”

- In the same voiceline, its strongly hinted that he supports genocide and ethnic cleansing, at the very least he takes ethnic cleansing as a joke.

- Abelist

-Anti-sex work (shames Scout by suggesting his mother was a porn star, as if it was something to be ashamed of.)

-Transphobic (calls Pyro a monster that should go to hell)

-Sexist (refers to mercs he’s beating as women)

-Supports violence against women

-Fatphobic (openly says Heavy disgusts him and that he is morbidly obese.

- SHARED SCOUT’S MOM SEX PHOTOS, WITHOUT HER CONSENT!!!!1

SNIPER

-Forces his kinks on other/noncon (throws piss on people for sexual gratification.)

-Fatphobic (has some of the nastiest fatphobic lines)

-Transphobic

-Sexist (calls Medic nurse as an insult, uses female gendered terms as insults, assumes Pyro has ovaries)

-Austismphobic (makes fun of both Pyro and Soldier’s mental health.)

- HIS VOICE ACTOR DID A BIT WHERE HE INSINUTATED HE FUCKED SHEEP

- HIS VOICE ACTOR SAID SNIPER KILLED A “TRANSVESTITE PROSTITUTE”

Medic

-Misogynistic/Sexist (makes fun/shames menstruations)

-Supports rape (“Prepare for your examination!” in sexual overtones, while presenting his fingers in a way to suggest violating someone; performs surgeries on people without consent)

Pyro

You would think that Pyro would be safe, with their cute animations and indeterminate gender. But even this “sweet” creature is steeped in racism. Pyrovision is how Pyro sees the world, and you can clearly see that all the characters are not only white washed when presented with the real world view, but in the Meet the Pyro trailer, they actually are presented as angels! White washing equals angels in Pyro’s eyes. Avoid this merc at all costs!

[comingoutofthecauldron]

let’s talk about lesbophobia in fandom

i don’t like to use the word “lesbophobia” unironically because of all the gross radfem terfy connotations, so i will clarify right off the bat that i am neither a terf nor an aphobe and that if you are i want you off my blog like, right now. unfortunately, the meaning of lesbophobia has been so warped by alt right lesbians that seeing it in an unironic context makes me, a lesbian, uncomfortable, which speaks volumes in itself. so to clarify, lesbophobia is essentially homophobia with a pinch of sexism thrown into the mix, and it’s running rampant in supposed safe spaces and, more relevantly, fandom. 

/i’d also like to clarify that i’m not only speaking on lesbophobia, but also the general disgust and disdain for all wlw in fandom, and am using it as a sort of umbrella term/

lesbophobia and disdain for wlw has been around forever, but whilst gay positivity, mlm and mlm ships have been steadily increasing in popularity within fandom over time, wlw and wlw ships have remained perpetual underdogs. why? because lesbophobia has become a fandom within itself. both in and outside of fandom, we see instances of casual lesbophobia every single day—from aggression towards wlw to something as simple and prevalent as the complete and utter lack of sapphic ships and characters in media. hatred of lesbians and wlw is practically a trend, and it’s seeping in through the cracks of fandoms who are already facing issues with minorities and marginalized groups (i.e. racism, ableism). if you honestly think that lesbophobia isn’t prevalent as hell in fandom right now, you’re either not a wlw, you’re not all that involved in fandom, or you’re dumb as shit. 

just look at ships. in almost every single fandom, the ratio of mlm ships to sapphic ships is ridiculously unbalanced. people are quick to ship male characters who so much as smile at each other (and i don’t condemn that) but would never do the same for two women—even on the rare occasion that the ship is actually canon. i once wrote a wlw fanfic for a [predominantly straight] fandom, and received messages like this gem:

on the flip side of that, if there is a sapphic ship in canon or fanon, it is often fetishized and sexualised to a disturbing degree. there will be double the amount of nsfw art and fics, and ninety percent of it will be derogatory and fetishized as hell. having been actively involved in several fandoms over the past few years (and currently a content creator in one), i’ve seen instances of all this hundreds of times. people go crazy for mlm ships, but the second you say you ship/prefer a wlw ship, there’s always someone at the ready with, “i think all ships are great!” or “it’s not a contest” or “i prefer [insert m/m or m/f ship] actually” or “they’re my brotp!/why can’t you just let them be friends?”. not only do lesbians and wlw not get to have any rep in media, any rep that they try to create for themselves in fandom just gets attacked or ruined. this is so detrimental not only to all wlw, but especially to younger wlw who will end up being indoctrinated into this belief that their sexuality is something dirty, something that can never be tender and sweet but rather something that deserves to be preyed upon. 

building on that, let’s talk about engagement. i run an instagram account (where i have a significantly bigger following) as well as this blog for my fandom, where i post the content i create (mainly text posts). when i first started creating content, i made a lot for a relatively unpopular wlw ship, in which both girls are canonically romantically involved with a dude—though one of them is canonically pan. their canonical m/f ships are both very popular, and i noticed that my engagement was dropping every time i posted them, so i eventually just stopped. it wasn’t even a conscious decision; i merely resigned myself to the fact that the fandom didn’t want to see sapphic ships, and some people would even go as far as to condemn them. for reference, my instagram posts get an average of about 500 likes per post (popular ones usually exceeding 1k), but when i post this ship, my engagement drops to about 250 likes. similarly, my tumblr text posts have an average of about 140 notes per post (popular ones usually reaching up to 750), but my wlw content rarely surpasses 100. this just feeds the cycle of wlw never getting rep: if, like me, content creators become disincentivised by the lack of engagement with their sapphic content, they’re more likely to stop making/posting it, leading to further lack of rep—and when new content creators try to rectify that, they face the same problems. 

and then, of course, there’s the treatment of actual wlw in fandom. my best example of this is when my friend and i made an anti account on instagram (the first instagram anti account in that fandom), our bio saying something like “salty and bitter lesbians being salty and bitter”, and received an onslaught of lesbophobic insults and threats from angry stans within hours. (tw: r*pe) one commenter even went as far as to tell us that they wanted us to get r*ped. as well as this, i’ve seen so many instances of people using slurs against lesbians in arguments/in anons, often for no apparent reason other than they feel that they have the right. when i first mentioned i was a lesbian on instagram, my account only had about 200 followers, and within a day i lost 20. i also lose followers whenever i post f/f ships, not quite to that extent but enough for it to be noticeable, on top of the aforementioned engagement dips. in the face of all this adversity, i think a lot of wlw turn to mlm ships because they’re the closest thing we have to actual rep, but when we do we get accused of fetishizing them by the same people who fetishize us. there’s an endless list of double standards that non-wlw have been upholding for years, and i can firmly say that i’m really fucking sick of it. because of our sexuality, we will never be allowed to enjoy something without someone labelling it or us as dirty or otherwise problematic, when to them, the only problematic thing about us is that we aren’t pleasing men. 

as i mentioned before, the lack of rep for wlw in media is appallingly consistent, and part of that stems from tokenism. in a lot of modern mainstream media, you’ll have one, maybe two lgbt characters, and nine times out of ten those characters are white cis male gays. of course, there are exceptions to this, but generally, that’s it. script writers and authors (especially cishets) seem to have this mentality of, “oh, well, we gave them one, that’s sure to be enough!”, which means that on the off chance you do get your gay rep, the likelihood of also receiving wlw or any other kind of rep becomes practically non-existant. this belief that all marginalized groups are the same and that one represents all is what leads to misrepresentation on top of lack of rep, which is what makes tokenism so dangerous. if you treat your only gay character badly, you are essentially treating every single gay person badly in that universe. so not only is lesbophobia and disdain for wlw harmful to sapphic women via their exclusion in media, it’s also harming those minorities who do get rep. when people try to defend lesbophobic source material, that’s when fandom starts to get toxic. the need for critical thinking has never been more apparent and it has also never been less appeased—and wlw are getting hit hard by it, as always.

finally, a pretty big driving factor of lesbophobia is, ironically, lesbians. my lesbian friends and i often joke that though everyone seems to hate us, no one hates lesbians more than lesbians do. though i’d say it’s most prevalent on tumblr, i see traces of it all over the internet. the growth of alt right lesbian movements is not only reinforcing hatred for lesbians, but also reinforcing hatred for bi and pan women. here you have these terrible lesbians using their platforms to express their disgust for bi/pan women, for aces and aros, for trans women/nb lesbians, and people see them and say, “gosh, lesbians are just awful.” and just like that, all of us are evil. occasionally, lesbian blogs that i follow get put on terf blocklists for no other reason than the fact that they have “lesbian” in their bio. and the lesbians that actually deserve to be on those blocklists? they’re too busy spewing misinformation about trans women and bi women to care, boosted up by their alt right friends in an ever-expanding movement. i’ve found that this heavily influences fandom on tumblr, lesbians often getting branded as “biphobic” when they hc a female character as a lesbian rather than bi or pan. this criticism of both lesbians and wlw by lesbians and non-wlw alike only ever allows lesbophobia to grow, both in and out of fandom. that said, lesbians aren’t to blame for their own discrimination; rather, many of us have been conditioned into subconsciously endorsing it after spending our entire lives hearing heterosexual platitudes about lesbians and sapphic relationships. homophobic cishets are and always have been the nexus of this oppression—the only difference is that now they can hide behind alt right lesbians.

one thing has been made apparent to me throughout my time in fandom, and that thing is that no one likes to see men “underrepresented”. people hate sapphic ships and lesbians so much because there is no room for men, and men Do Not Like That. so, like the worms that they are, they slither their way in, be it through fetishization or condemnation of wlw characters and ships, and they ruin whatever good things we have going for us. the thing about worms, though, is that they’re easy enough to crush if you’re wearing the right shoes.

so to all my bi/pan gals and lesbian pals: put on your doc martens, because we’ve got ourselves some lesbophobes to stomp on. 

[bonni]

look this isn't a post about the inclusion/exclusion debate in general because idc about that but so many inclusionists just fucking hate lesbians and I'm getting really sick of it.

you see a lesbian flag icon and IMMEDIATELY search for ace discourse on their blog to prove that they're an exclusionist so you can call them out. you see a post complaining about lesbian erasure in merch and claim that it's actually just veiled hostility towards ace representation, as if our flag cannot be recognized without deposing another one. the creator of the orange and pink lesbian flag isn't even a fucking exclusionist and you accused her of being one just because she was a lesbian. you talk all the time about how toxic "allonormativity" is and then the second a lesbian points out that suppression of lesbian sexuality is a tactic of homophobic oppression you put her on a blocklist and refuse to acknowledge her very real concerns. you call us TERFs and biphobes and fascists just for existing, because apparently all of those are synonymous with aphobia, even though many of us are neither cis nor white, hell, some of us are even ace and you still treat us like shit.

I'm not talking about all inclusionists here. plenty of you are very respectful and quite lovely to be around. I also don't identify as an exclusionist, I have criticisms of both sides and I'm not saying exclusionists can't be lesbophobic assholes either. but what inclusionist lesbophobes do that's particularly insidious is use "ace advocacy" to justify their blatant prejudice. and other inclusionists NEVER call them out. inclusionists, if you want to prove that you respect lesbians and value their place in the community, you need to call out your peers on their lesbophobia. because when we try to do it ourselves, nothing changes.

[aro-culture-is]

I'm bi and would like to ask you to tag the bi/pan post with biphobia because 'bi means two' is a pretty biphobic concept and it greatly upset me and could potentially other people

hey! i actually just deleted the post because it’s not really content i want on my blog and you aren’t the only person who was uncomfortable with it. in the future if i get something like that i’ll just be deleting it, and if it ever pops up in my occasional blocklist/otherwise shitty people lists i’ll tag it. thank you for reaching out.

[bisexualbaker]

Responses from the “Bi Means Two” crowd

Just over a month ago, I published an explanatory note ostensibly directed at the aforementioned “Bi means Two” crowd, who tend to go on and on and on about how Bi people can’t be attracted to more than two genders because “bi” means “two”, and that means any person who claims to be bi and also is attracted to three or more genders is lying and actually something else - usually Pan, though I have heard of such people who are aware enough to mention Ply as a possibility. I’ve been meaning to reply to their comments for a while now (because these folks are at least aware enough to know that reblogging would cause an actual shitshow), because some of them seem like they might, in some universe, be acting in good faith, and I want to support that.

I’m not using their actual handles, because believe it or not, I don’t actually want to start a flame war. I just want to say my peace to people who are trying (consciously or not) to undermine my identity, and I am politely asking anyone who reads this to respect my wishes. That said, if any of these people decides to escalate, I’ll be sharing their handles for a blocklist. This is as far as I’m willing to engage in potential bad faith accusations.

Since this is a long-ish post and there’s a fair number of biphobic responses, malicious and not, I’ll be putting the rest under a cut. Read on if you care to, and skip otherwise. (Apologies to readers on Mobile, but at least the first person is the nicest of the original respondents.)

Person one:

if its more than two you would just be pan tho? this just sounds like pansexual erasure.

It is my understanding that there is no minimum number of genders one should be attracted to in order to identify as Pan; Pan is attraction regardless of gender. (And thank you to the anonymous asker who sent me the correct information!) Bi definitely does have a minimum number requirement, however, as seen in my original post on the subject.

I’m also not insisting that no one can identify as Pan, that Pansexuality does not exist because it’s possible for Bi to mean more than two, or that the existence of Pansexuality negates the existence of Omnisexual people (for example), so I’m not entirely sure how using the Bi community’s definition of our sexuality is erasure.

Person two:

Let's maybe call it multisexual or two-or-more-sexual then. I'm not joking. It's just for us who want gender to become a spectrum it seems we get easily offended by the preferences of another by what they understand it as.

So you seem to have missed in my header that I am genderflux as well as bi. Fun fact: It is possible to identify as bi while also being nonbinary! These are two different things, and one identity does not negate the other. Here is a delightful essay on why not all genderqueer and/or nonbinary people feel the way you do, written by a nonbinary bi person: Biphobia: Not In My Name. Give it a read! You may find it enlightening.

Person Three was blatantly transphobic, so we’re ignoring them completely after this.

Person Four:

Eh, I would also say this fits pansexual better.  But there really are too many labels these days.

I couldn’t disagree more! Aside from the difference(s) between Bi and Pan as I covered in my response to Person One, I have to say that I love having the vast multitude of language at my fingertips. I adore being able to look into our language, into our culture, and find a term that perfectly describes who I am. Not just “mostly”; perfectly. With as much room to grow and stretch as I need, and the knowledge that I am not alone, and that I know who I am. But then, you may already know how I feel about labels.

Person Five:

I think this is more about pan people? idk. freedom to identify with whatever 

I mean, I’m pretty sure I know who I was writing about, as the bisexual person who wrote this post, but at least you’re willing to “let” us identify how we want, so that’s... “nice”. Again, see how I differentiated between “bi” and “pan” above.

Person Six:

ok since ya’ll want to redefine things, what do you call those of us who are only attracted to two genders, male and female? This shouldn’t even be in the bi tag because you’ve described something different

I’m going to get my old friend Merriam-Webster to help me out with this one:

Minimum

the least quantity assignable, admissible, or possible

the least [smallest] of a set of numbers

(a) the lowest degree or amount of variation (as of temperature) reached or recorded

As you can see, since I was referring to the “bi” in Bisexual and Biromantic as "the minimum number of genders you should be attracted to [in order to identify as Bi]“, being only attracted to two genders still fits!

As for being in the Bi tag, “attraction to two or more genders” is the most accepted definition of Bisexuality and Biromanticism by actual bisexual organizations, and members of the group are the ones who decide that the word indicating them actually means.

So yes, my original post belongs, and we belong. If you don’t belong, you don’t get to decide what our name means.

[genquerdeer]

I mean, the entire point with the whole ‘ace discourse’ thing is that term ‘discourse’ became a meme and a joke because it’s NOT what word ‘discourse' actually means. It’s not about having a discussion or debate where both sides can present meaningful or nuanced arguments.

It’s became like some stupid fucking fascimile of a ‘war’ where you pick a ‘side’ and try to find as much ‘dirt’ on the ‘other side’. Was ‘a-spec’ ever actually used by autistic people? Noone knows, noone cares! Maybe it is still not a good idea to use that term because it can be confusing regardless, and it takes five minutes to come up with a new one? Who cares! What’s important is not thinking or truth, what’s important is delivering some Epic Ownage onto the other side!

The only time any arguments are presented are when fishing for notes/preaching to the choir, as its encouraged to block everyone from the other ‘side’. Again, that’s exact fucking opposite of ‘discourse’.

What side am I on? I’m not on any fucking side! What the fuck is this that it has ‘sides’?! Yes, technically I am ‘exclusionist’ (mostly because I don’t believe we have anything to GAIN from becoming ‘inherent’ part of ‘LGBT community’ which lets be fucking honest is barely a thing anyway) but lumping my view together with some edgelord fucks who call ace people ‘turbovirgins’ and ‘incels’ is kinda fucked up! Like, you give me two options and they’re both stupid, I don’t want any of these!

I really fucking hope that this entire business with that stupid blocklist can maybe put some reason into both ‘sides’ to realize this is not a fight, this is not a war, because you can’t win something like that. Maybe spreading slander about other people and calling every exclusionist an “evil aphobe biphobe truscum terf” and calling every inclusionist a “mogai turbovirgin lesbophobe who harasses lgbt children” is fucking moronic and won’t accomplish anything.

But who the fuck am I kidding.

[frabjous-fragment]

a critique of lesbian discourse from a nonbinary perspective

(saw something that upset me enough to want to get my opinion out there, so here i am, turning to my tum blur dot com poe eh tree blog to engage in lgbt discourse. happy pride)

I am an agender person designated male at birth. I consider myself pansexual with asexual characteristics, but historically, I have mostly been romantically involved with people who could be painted broadly as transfeminine. Because of this, binarism that tries to divide me from the lesbian community has always stuck out to me more. I hope to illustrate to people who will keep an open mind how the dismissal of individuals identifying themselves as bi lesbians is rooted in binarism.

This carrd seems like the most comprehensive and mainstream formulation of the argument I could find, so I'll go down it point by point. Before diving in, though, I want to point out that the author, an asexual and nonbinary dfab lesbian, feels so strongly about this issue that they operate a blocklist of people who identify as bisexual lesbians on Twitter. Bear the fact that people feel strongly enough about the issue to draw lines in the sand through the community in mind, as we dissect the causes, effects, and purposes of this issue's hot button status.

tl;dr: There is no antagonistic conflict of interest between bisexual women and lesbian women.

"Lesbian is not an umbrella term." It's not surprising to me that the carrd opens like this, since the entire argument requires this prior, but the formulation here is actually very weak and even concedes things that weaken it further. "These simplifications of people's sexuality were grown out of as queer people started to create labels and spaces that more accurately described them." Buckle up, because most of the rest of this post rests on this very loaded throwaway sentence. This is a simplification of the truth and overlooks some pretty unfortunate history. The fact of the matter is that bisexual and asexual people were included in the discourse of the gay rights movement from the very beginning. The Asexual Manifesto was written in 1972, and Donny the Punk, founder of the first LGBT student movement, identified as bisexual (recorded in writing earliest in 1972- incidentally, when he discusses his break with elements of the gay liberation movement, due to his treatment after falling in love with a woman in 1970). Therefore, the argument that people simply used weak terminology like "homophile" in the early days because there was not more specific terminology available to people lacks something. The cruder truth is that it was all people needed for compatibility, to go to gay hookup spots, make friends, have sex, and maybe find a long term relationship. Bisexual, transgender, intersex, asexual, and further subcommunities arose with the rise of gay identity politics, and conflicts of interest within it. Who would these conflicts of interest be revised out of our community's history? The answer is simple and unfortunate- sexism. Donny was far from the only individual met with the sentiment that he was a gender traitor- lesbian separatism, an unfortunate reaction to real issues the early gay movement had with representing lesbians, swept through lesbian spaces in the 70s, devastating bisexual and transgender women and bolstering the nascent bisexual and transgender movements. By the end of the decade, TERF queen Janice Raymonds included "testimony" from other bigots against two named trans women existing peacefully in lesbian spaces, in her hate screed The Transsexual Empire, quoting another TERF's writing as saying "I feel raped when Olivia passes off Sandy ... as a real woman." This is an obvious appropriation of the language of personal rights to justify bigotry, judgment, hate, and exclusion. All manner of feminists and lesbians have attempted to whitewash the darker sentiments of this period by dismissing the proponents of radical, genocidal propositions like Valerie Solanas' SCUM Manifesto as "just venting" or "fringe lunatics". (To not get too into it, Solanas went back and forth on whether or not her work was satire, in a manner I find eerily similar to what reactionaries do when they put 'this account is satire' on their Twitters.) This is easy to prove incorrect; non-buzzword, actual, political misandry had reached the highest levels of feminist leadership and academia. Observe what one of the first professors of women's studies in the world, Sally Miller Gearhart, had to say on "the male question": I) Every culture must begin to affirm a female future. "The future is female" is a phrase that has been effectively neutralized and recuperated by less radical elements, which I am all for. It is vague enough to work to better ends than the next two points by itself. II) Species responsibility must be returned to women in every culture. Here it becomes more clear that, in the minds of many prominent feminists of the 1970s, women would have to be supreme over men. There isn't much of another way to interpret the statement that women must bear all responsibility for humanity. III) The proportion of men must be reduced to and maintained at approximately 10% of the human race. How would this be done? The only answer is eugenics through selective abortion imposed by the state, and genocide. Clearly, even from just a perspective of women's rights, this is inadmissible to anyone who is genuinely pro-choice on the

subject of women's bodies, even though this is not a situation we usually think of. The very suggestion of this is fascistic. Make no mistake that the modern sentiment against bi lesbians is not rooted in the same fascist gender essentialism. One denies that "benign" anti-bisexual and anti-transgender sentiments still predominate in lesbian and gay communities at your own risk. Not only are you speaking over the lived experiences of people like me, you are speaking against the statistics. Not only do incredible majorities of 88.5% of gay men and 71% of lesbian women, compared to 48% of bisexual and similar people, still exclude trans people from romantic and sexual considerations due to the subliminal sexism they learn from both mainstream society and their LGBT communities, but surveys show that gay men and lesbian women respectively distrust bisexual men and bisexual women's attraction to them and affiliation with their communities. (Also widely*... couldn't resist pointing out the common eggcorn.) "Lesbian used to be the term that described all sapphics, but isn't anymore, and that's a positive thing. Having more specific labels has allowed for people's bisexuality and pansexuality to not be erased in common language, and was a step towards getting rid of the pressure for people attracted to multiple genders to 'pick a side'. The emergence of terms like 'bi/pan lesbian' and 'bi/pan hetero' reinforces the notion of needing to 'pick a side', and obscures the common definitions of all the sexualities involved" This is that concession that I mentioned earlier. Credit where it's due, it's an elevation of the discourse to actually admit this when other people won't even do that. But it again ignores why these pressures exist, and incorrectly presupposes a demand for terminology that could be argued to be divisive without looking into why such a demand exists in reality. In a world without these terrible and stupid issues of sexism, people would simply say "I am both gay and straight" and everything would be dandy. Nobody has ever called themselves "bi/pan hetero" and I'm almost not even being hyperbolic. It's not an identity community. Proposing this just sets up the writer's argument that the terminology of "bi/pan lesbian" (and its more accurate parallel, "bi/pan mlm", which I have seen- putting aside my qualms with the limitations and binarism of xlx terminology even when the left operator is nb) divides the bi/pan community. This is the same logic battleaxe bisexuals who view the pansexual label as biphobic and attack people they see as bi (and yes, pan people are also bi by definition) use for their argument that the pansexual label divides bi people, when the only people that I see it "dividing" are the same people getting pissy about trifling points of queer theory that nobody else cares about for no proven reason. In real spaces, nobody tries to get bisexual people to line up on one wall and pansexual people to line up on the other. Pan people do not engage in biphobic discourse. The issue is empty; a non-issue. This it shares in common with the bi lesbian discourse, where the issues are not directly with the communities under fire, but instead vague, abstract, unsubstantiated and unfalsifiable notions of "omg you'll make the straights think [blank]!!" It seems like a theme where, even within LGBT, majorities attack their negations and accuse them of being divisive for asserting themselves and asking for some solidarity in return for the solidarity they provide in the community; you see this with asexual and trans people as well, but that's not what this post is about. Since the entire argument is built on this first point, I could honestly stop here, from a logical perspective. But people have strong emotional responses to the subsequent points, and without going through those, people will change "is not" to "ought not to be" and carry on.

"Making Distinct Spaces for Different Sexuality's Unique Experiences is Important." Around here is where the carrd really starts to resort to trying to twist truisms against their opponents, and on the briefest reflection this doesn't work. The idea that the term "bi lesbian" erases the distinction in between bi women and lesbian women seems to me to commit a category error by defining lesbian women as exclusively homosexual women and then pointing out the obvious truth that these women are distinct from bisexual women. The truth is, bisexual women and lesbian women are not categorically different in really any way other than their relationship to heterosexuality, a distinction easily expressed by- you guessed it- the label "bi lesbian". To reiterate and combine into earlier points: There is no antagonistic conflict of interest between bisexual women and lesbian women.

"Woman Aligned Nonbinary People are Included in Lesbian Attraction". Another truism. Let's move on to the single clause of the single sentence that contains the actual argument- "implying otherwise by wanting to separate that attraction into a new label is enbyphobic invalidating lesbian attraction" So, hi! As a woman aligned nonbinary person, I am here to tell you that this is not correct! I think this is a lot easier for dfab nonbinary people and dmab binary trans women to say than is it for dmab nonbinary people like myself to say. When your identity is as arcane as "I am not a woman but I identify with women because I am of a marginalized neutral gender", a lot more people decide not to take you seriously. If you take out the bolded words, this statement becomes correct, so we're going to focus on them. The only people saying anything about non-binary people not being included in lesbianism by default are the antis and the radfems they unwittingly serve, who actually do believe that point and see it as a good thing. But unfortunately, as a dmab nonbinary person who does not get sorted as a woman under binarism, my experience has been that I am already excluded from lesbianism in practice. If you get sorted as a woman under binarism, good for you! But to say that all lesbians do is obviously incorrect, when you consider all the budding trans women who still have beards and face largely similar issues in the lesbian community. To say that this state of affairs is fine is harmful to trans people; to say that this is different from what people like me face is arbitrary, and arguably binarist. Sapphism needs to look deeper than the surface and accept a foundation built on ties of solidarity and identity with no tests of purity.

"Having a Lean or Strong Prefrence Does Not Make You Any Less Bisexual". (Preference*, firstly.) I am not sure what this truism is doing here. Even many bi lesbians would agree that preferring other women is not what makes them lesbians, their membership in the lesbian community is what makes them lesbians. Refer to the above point; each community should be built on nothing more than solidarity and identity.

"Lesbians Don't Have Attraction to Men or Men-Aligned Nonbinary People, Even When on the Split Attraction Model". Here it is, the Big Chungus of arguments in the bi lesbian discourse. This is one that is seen often that people feel very strongly about, and probably the most contentious, since the implication that bi lesbians facilitate abuse of lesbians seems to motivate how a lot of people feel on the subject. Who has the power here? The insinuation that bi women have more privilege than lesbians is silly and biphobic. Clearly, it's the abusive men who have all the power in this arrangement. So how is the presence or absence of bi lesbians going to change what abusive men, who don't believe in sexual orientation, let alone care about it, decide to do? It can only change the excuses they use, which are chosen at convenience. This is a trick that patriarchy has played on us to get us to attack each-other instead of the enemy. For such a common and spicy point of rhetoric, I'm surprised I didn't write more against it here, but I really feel that the argument against it is that simple. I'll add a personal note here, and say that the dismissal of the divergent opinions of people sorted as males under binarism, alleging that we're "rapey" and want to appropriate things that aren't ours rather than participate in solidarity, is incredibly harmful to those of us who happen to be lesbians, even by the strictest trans-inclusive definition.

"Trans Women are Women". Truism. This is by far the weakest point. Nobody is advancing "bi lesbian" as a trans-inclusive label, though as I said above, it's a statistical fact that bisexual people are much more trans-positive than homosexual people, and therefore, as a transgender person, I tend to feel more welcomed around them. Of course, that's not a categorical distinction, but an unfortunate tendency.

"A Lesbian isn't Less of a Lesbian for Previously Dating Men". Truism. This is a stronger point, but only because it is closer to real rhetoric supporting the idea that bi lesbians are "real". Bisexual women will answer the question of "would you be open to dating a man again?" in the affirmative, and homosexual women will answer in the negative. Some members of the lesbian community do not completely rule out the prospect of dating men, even though it is not something they currently pursue.

The above are the reasons why the community should not fall into the bi lesbian discourse, and the refutations to its arguments. In order to be in full solidarity with fringe members of our sub-communities against bigotry, we must not fall into needless categorical division of groups when our interests are the same. There is no antagonistic conflict of interest between bisexual women and lesbian women.

[drake-the-incubus]

Unpopular opinion: Most callout posts nowadays are just people finding a reason to whine about things without doing research on what the topic is about.

strongly agree | agree | neutral | disagree | strongly disagree

So you’re right! You’re absolutely right. I’ve gone through twenty call out posts, and they’re... nit picky. I can’t trust shit in them and half the time it’s wrong.

It’s not a tool of protection but rather dog piling and honestly it’s scary how well it works.

I saw one about shipping the other month, and while I don’t care much for what ships are what, I found myself gag at the end.

At the end of it, on a small sidenote which wasn’t even MENTIONED they talked about the person being abusive.

I was horrified and had to go down a rabbit hole because that was important.

Like half the things people spend hours on don’t even matter half the time. Like really, they don’t mention it. I’ve seen someone say, “saying queer” is a horrible offence.

Being pansexual is biphobic.

Being ace/aro is homophobic.

Nonbinary folks are transphobic.

Being trans is misogynistic.

At this point I see a form of oppression or bigotry thrown around and I spend five hours on the one topic to make sure if it’s okay.

Fuck I saw someone calling POCD pedophilia just the other day, and as someone who knows how distressing it can be to deal with intrusive thoughts, and having my psychology knowledge, I was horrified.

People will really go out, use what should be informative words, as buzzwords, and sling around misinformation as a way to condemn people they dislike.

I mean in full disclosure, without ASKING first, someone said I was a MAP/MAP supporter by having one follow me. On which I, a CSA survivor, who never interacted with anything with it and didn’t even involve myself, was put onto a blocklist. Someone who was a mutual at the time informed me of it, and I had to go in and see.

I didn’t even know, there was no verification, the person just followed me. I never got taken off of it. I spoke to them about it, and even told them how distressing it was, and they hardly addressed it.

I’ve seen callouts about someone pointing out there was a rapist in a community, for stalking.

I’ve seen a callout accusing someone of stalking, for them using stat tracker on their blog to tell their stalker to fuck off.

I’ve seen people be called transphobic, for SUPPORTING NON-DYSPHORICS AND NONBINARY PEOPLE.

I’ve been told outright, I’m ableist, for calling myself autigender, because my autism messes with my gender perception. And also accused of saying every autistic person is autigender, and that I’m saying my gender is autism gender. I didn’t realize your gender was cis or trans either.

So anon, I agree, to an extent.

I’ve seen callouts mentioning people who literally support Nazi rhetoric. I’ve seen people condemned for racism and it proven with no change in pace. I’ve seen people condemn child predators, rapists and abusers. On another blog I’ve called out exploitive and abusive tactics in a community I’m in.

I can agree most callouts are shit. I can say I haven’t seen one prioritize abusive/predatory behaviour in a while that I haven’t made or wasn’t made in a specific community, but I can’t strongly agree. Because it erases the issues at hand.

On one hand, fuck callout culture, on the other, I enjoy being warned of Nazis, racists, predators and unsavoury folk in that category.

Part of the issue with callout posts are, accepting with a lack of information.

People lie on the net, and the issue with accepting callout posts is, not knowing when the post is wrong, or not reading past the beginning and accepting it without evidence.

Note, some callouts are made to disenfranchise those who are marginalized, because it’s easy to paint them in a bad light.

I think it should be mandatory for everyone to learn how to spot cherry picking, obscuring information, and false information on a callout post.

If you’re not researching topics in the post, and verifying information, you’re part of the problem.

Also then there comes in, fake callouts. Callouts made for fun, or made as a joke, taken seriously.

Half of these callouts are reblogged by folks who go and say, “critical consumption” and “critical reading skills” whilst I’m watching them blur what a predator is or a pedophile.

A 30 y/o pursuing a 22 y/o can be extremely creepy, but I’m sorry, that’s not pedophilia, and saying it is, a) infantizes the 22 y/o, b) waters down the definition of pedophilia.

I’ve seen 18 y/o’s get called pedos for dating 17 y/o’s in callouts, or heaven forbid they’re a year n a half older and date a 16 y/o. All three of which can graduate and go to college depending on life circumstances.

I’ve seen a 20 y/o still be in high school because they failed so much, he was in my class.

I’ve seen a 26 y/o paint a 16 y/o as a pedophile for having a crush on a fictional... 16 y/o.

I’ve seen ppl condemn 16 y/o’s for making sex jokes, acting like it’s unhealthy of them, and then paint an adult as predatory for making a sex joke, on... their social media, “because of course minors follow them”.

Which is stupid. I don’t even have a lot of followers... I don’t know any ages. I don’t know their stances except shinigami eyes doesn’t label them as red.

And I block porn bots on sight.

I don’t know how a blog with over 20,000 followers or more is supposed to keep track, but apparently.

Necrophiles are okay so long as they don’t support a “homophobic relationship” which is a gay twink being submissive in a relationship with a Dom hunk. Because that’s not realistic.

HC’ing Asians/Autistic people as Asexual is dehumanizing, the callout post screams as ace Asian and ace autistic folks.

So all in all, I can agree, and disagree. Most callouts I see are bullshit. But I don’t know about most callouts. It’s not defineable because I can’t look at every callout made these days I don’t know where to look. But they were once capable of harm reduction and someone thought to weaponize them. But that happened during a lot of old rules added to websites. Road to hell... yadda yadda.

I’m sorry for the word vomit, I’m not great at articulation, I’m like dead tired and decided to answer this.

MAP discourse, Discourse about shipping, discourse about pedophiles ain’t tolerated on this post. I’m not engaging, fuck off. I mentioned it as examples, but fuck, they’re triggering to actually get into and I don’t feel like throwing up into the toilet.

Actually discourse can fuck off entirely, discourse is dumb.