Tag: lgbt

thefingerfuckingfemalefury:

goodbattm:

tarastarr1:

thecoggs:

So apparently last year the National Park Service in the US dropped an over 1200 page study of LGBTQ American History as part of their Who We Are program which includes studies on African-American history, Latino history, and Indigenous history. 

Like. This is awesome. But also it feels very surreal that maybe one of the most comprehensive examinations of LGBTQ history in America (it covers sports! art! race! historical sites! health! cities!) was just casually done by the parks service. 

This is really great??

I encourage you to all document this and back it up. Protect our history.

^ IMPORTANT

von–gelmini:

von–gelmini:

tenitchyfingers:

Anyway the LGBT community is for anyone whose identity is outside of the heteronormative rule (heterosexual, heteroromantic and cis, all three of these) and any “older” LGBT person is gonna confirm BECAUSE THEY BUILT THE DAMN COMMUNITY. Try asking them. Ask a 40-50 year old (or older) gay man or lesbian what the community is for. Ask them. Do it though. Learn some of your own history from them, and then come back to me then try and tell me I’m wrong. 

You’re wrong.

I’m a 59 year old gay man and I’m telling you in no uncertain terms, You. Are. Wrong.

Here’s a history lesson from someone who both lived it and has read extensively about LGBT issues, as well as being involved in many different organizations. I realized what I was when I was very young. I first came out in the late 60s. I was an activist during the 70s, 80s, and early 90s.

This is long, but history is long. It’s important. I tried to break it down into smaller paragraphs for easier reading. But it’s long. I debated not putting this under a cut, but holy hell it’s long. 

If you’re actually interested in WHY you’re wrong, OP, I hope you’ll read it.

Keep reading

I’m a feminist and I’d also like to be a good trans ally. Why are there so many trans people who characterize playing with dolls/wearing dresses/liking pink as a sign they were a girl, and why do some say that their interest in sports was a sign they were a boy? It may not be a community-wide issue, so forgive me that. It strikes me as essentialist and somewhat tactless. Is it okay for me to question people who say things like that? Thank you for your insight!

roachpatrol:

hobbitsaarebas:

jenniferrpovey:

hopeology:

jenniferrpovey:

anartificialaspidistra:

thedeadflag:

This is actually a form of institutional violence that trans people, largely trans women, face.

To copy-paste from a previous post I made on this matter:

Growing up, I had a few trans lady friends who were hyped about being openly/visibly butch and/or gnc trans women when they began transitioning.

Three of the bunch committed suicide after basically being blacklisted out of access to medical transition. Others were wealthy enough to be able to move to where they could have a second or third shot. A femme trans lady friend forgot to apply nail polish and makeup to one of her sessions with her doctor, and that led to him keeping her from medical resources for the next two years of care, and she, as well, ended up killing herself. I could keep listing story after story with similar narratives and endings, it’s really pretty common.

Gatekeeping, whether it’s within a medical context, or a social one, relies on heavily policing trans women to prescribe to normative gender expressions dialed up to 11. We don’t, and we tend to suffer. And I don’t think it’s at all fair to cast blame on trans women who follow those norms, not when our survival is paramount and we’re coerced into those conditions via potentially fatal consequences.

Like, I’m a sloppy/lazy femme in terms of my expression, often shifting towards the hoodie and jeans aesthetic because it’s just comfy, but every doctor’s appointment, every tribunal over my transition, best believe I was probably among the most stereotypically feminine presenting ladies those docs saw that day. Not a chance I’d risk it. Every job interview, every meeting when I was looking for housing, same deal. Survival wins over the microscopic impact I might have on the reproduction of gender norms in those instances, especially when my continued survival means I can live to fight those (and other) battles in other ways less tied to my survival.

So, to be blunt and concise, it’s not trans folks upholding harmful notions of gender. It’s cis folks…cis men and cis women, weaponizing society against us to uphold gender norms through us because we’re deemed as threats and as less legitimate, so our standards are often exponentially higher than our cis counterparts.

Like, I live in liberal Canada, and this gatekeeping shit still happens. I have sat down and taught so many trans people how to strategize and what language to use, what narratives will provide the path of least resistance, so that we can get what we need in the aggressively oppressive system we live in.

Like, as a young child, I played hockey, I liked micro-machines, I liked video games, I liked climbing trees, riding bikes, building forts, and track & field.

I told my therapist that in my third session when she asked about my childhood, just minutes after telling me she felt I was ready for hormones. I had to endure 23 more sessions with her, spread across the next year and a half, to get back to where I was mid-way through that third session, a long enough time for her to forget enough about those remarks on my childhood, before I could get access to hormones. When she asked about my childhood again in the 22nd or 23rd session, I told her I played with dolls, and that secretly, my favourite colour was pink as a child, and that I yearned to play house but no one would play with me, that I’d try on my mom’s shoes and some of her clothes, etc. etc. And after I tossed out enough cliche elements of the standard narrative (basically painting myself as a very heterosexual hyper-feminine 50′s housewife), I got access. I can’t say that if I ever got interviewed on public media that I’d stray from that safe narrative, because chances are, my doctors would/could see, and I could lose access to healthcare, employment, housing, etc.

Like I said, I’ve had friends who forgot to wear nail polish and were punished for it. I had a friend…in the dead of winter…who wore pants to an appointment and was suddenly told by the doctor that he had no confidence that she was a ‘real’ trans woman. A trans dude friend of mine got in a car wreck and had busted up ribs, and couldn’t wear his binder comfortably for a while, and his doctor refused to renew his prescription to T. He eventually had to find a new doctor, endure the waiting list, and get back on, which took like, 9 months.

So if we’re saying things like that, it’s almost always a self-defense mechanism. It’s very hard to tell who we can trust, and who has the power to derail our transitions, or kill our support networks, etc. And while I’m sure if all trans people revolted and told the truth, it might help disrupt that system of norms and standards and gatekeeping, but I could never ask others like me to take a stand on principle that would likely kill a great many of them. I know that without HRT, I wouldn’t survive more than maybe three months, it’s really that simple, and I know so many others in the same boat. It’d be like walking into a building burning from a three-alarm fire to try and activate the inactive sprinkler system, instead of calling the fire department to put it out. This isn’t our responsibility. 

I think it’s important to remember that trans people who are coerced into expressing these narratives are a tiny demographic, so our ability to significantly ‘reproduce’ or ‘essentialize’ any gender norms is negligible at best. And that in the overwhelming majority of the world, trans folks have to comply with exaggerated gender norms for our gender simply for survival. And that survival must take precedence over worries of us reproducing harm that we’d only be reproducing because cis people can’t get their heads out of their asses over their need to police everything about our bodies and our lives.

Like, in case you’re not aware, the “born in the wrong body” language stemmed from trans patients decades and decades ago, who were being experimented on, sterilized, mutilated, and tortured. Eventually doctors listened to us and our pleas to just treat our dysphoria, but our language didn’t fit necessarily with their worldview. They couldn’t accept that pre-transition trans men and trans women were actually men/women. That we had men’s/women’s bodies. That we were male/female. So we were coerced into using their language for us, in order to get the treatment we needed, to get any shred of support we could get. The cis-dominated structures of science and medicine are to blame for that sexism, cissexism, essentialism, etc. as well.

We’re just trying to get the help we need in a world that does not want us to get that help, and will generally only provide it if we tell them everything they want to hear. Some of the greener, fresh out of the closet trans folks push that sort of language/narrative hard, because it’s what they’re exposed to, it’s what they’re taught keeps them safe, and it’s pretty wrong to be critical of someone for surviving and actively reducing harm against themselves from society at large.

So if you get the urge to criticize a trans person for bringing that sort of thing up, maybe instead criticize the structures that prevent us from saying anything else.

This is really interesting and a perspective I hadn’t ever considered.

Trans men and women are pressured into performing masculinity or femininity more than cis men and women.

I used to think that trans people tended to be that way, then I realized society pressures them into it.

Whilst I, as a cis woman, can get away with speaking in public in jeans and a button down shirt (I do like to femme out when I feel like it, mind), a trans woman has to wear a dress and heels.

I, as a cis woman, can follow motor sports and like Top Gear. A trans woman who likes those things has to hide them.

And not only is this oppressive, but the pushing of trans women into stereotypically feminine roles can deny society the talents they may possess in traditionally masculine areas. The expectation to perform extreme femininity is likely to push trans women out of STEM, for example.

Trans men, on the other hand, are pushed even more into toxic masculinity and “macho” values than cis men. I don’t think it’s as much of a gap because the extreme forcing of gender roles is actually worse for men than it is for women. I can wear a pantsuit. If my husband were to wear a skirt… (He wouldn’t, he’s not the type, but…)

The moment I announced my transition to the public, someone I worked with on a professional level asked, incredulously, when I was going to start “dressing like a woman.”

I was wearing Tripp pants, a tank top, with a bra, and sneakers. I asked him what a woman dresses like? His answer “Well, that opens a whole can of worms.”

Yeah, you see what happened right there? Women are not expected to dress a certain way. But if I want to be seen as a woman, I have to dress drastically different from what I did before. I have to “show I want it.”

On top of that, if I hadn’t told my psychologist about how when I was a child I didn’t feel comfortable playing with boys or sports, she wouldn’t have approved me for Estrogen. She told me that because I didn’t wear makeup and lipstick, it was hard to “justify transitioning.”

We don’t do this to force women into feminine roles, but we are punished, neglected, and killed if we don’t match up with “feminine” or “masculine” based on what other people expect. It’s terrifying.

I think cis women are pushed into feminine roles. I have failed to get jobs because I insisted on wearing flats or did not wear makeup.

But trans women get it worse, because they are constantly having to prove that they’re women. And ironically, some of the people who harass trans women the most are the same people who tell cis women they’re “supporting patriarchy” if they wear makeup. (I only wear makeup when I have an actual reason to, because dang it, that stuff is expensive and annoying!).

I’m a trans therapist and I advise my trans clients to straight up lie to their doctors and other psychologists/psychiatrists if it gets them hormones. I tell them to make up the whatever stereotyped, unrealistic “trans narratives” they need to if it will get them access to hormones and surgeries they need. The medical system is not set up to protect or help us, it’s set up to safeguard cis people from being like us. 

This is why the entire idea of gatekeeping and everything relating to it needs to be burned to the ground. If anyone tells you gatekeeping is a good idea–no matter whether they are cis or trans–they are wrong and they are condemning trans people to death. 

cis feminists KNOW that rigid gender roles profoundly damage the men and women who adhere to them. to expect trans women to perform ‘femininity’ to a standard that we KNOW fucks up cis women is just ridiculous. ditto trans men– i know i stop looking ‘like a guy’ when i pull out my embroidery or coo over beautiful clothes or anything else soft and sweet, and it’s already pissing me off only a couple months into my transition. sometimes i won’t have the luxury of gender ambiguity, much less open rebellion against a toxic patriarchy, but like. when i can, i’m gonna. it just sucks so hard so many people can’t at all.

transboysunited:

transadvicegroup:

spyhops:

stephrc79:

howler32557038:

Since joining Tumblr, I’ve met a lot of young queer people. Look, I’m a bisexual man in a gay relationship, and I’m approaching 30. I was still a kid when Matthew Shepard’s story was being covered on the news. I remember thinking, “I better keep my mouth shut about these feelings I’m having.”

And then I met Dominic when I was 12, and people could see how in love we were. And we got the shit beat out of us. The year I met him, some kids in the grade above me held me down against the bleachers in our gym and stomped on my hand until my fingers broke. Instead of sending me to the nurse, the teacher sent me to the assistant principal to explain the situation. She asked why the kids had beat me up. I said, “They were calling me gay.”

Her response was, “Well, are you?”

My, “I don’t know,” earned a call to my parents, and I was outed. Efforts were made to keep me from seeing Dom. Throughout high school, Dom’s stepmother intensified these efforts. He slept in the basement of the house. Although he was an incredibly talented student, he was prohibited from participating in any extracurriculars. He suffered a lot of physical abuse during those years.

The day he turned 18, he packed up everything he had and walked to my house, and we’ve lived together ever since. Things are better, but they’re not perfect. I’ve had trucks pull up next to me at stoplights and, seeing the pride sticker on my car, through old drinks and garbage into my window. I no longer speak to my dad’s side of the family. I haven’t been to see them for Christmas or Thanksgiving in years. One of my uncles had cornered me at Thanksgiving when I was 17 and said, “I’m not going to judge you, but I’d be happy to break your neck so God can do the judging a little sooner.”

I joined a support group for trans and intersex people. When I joined, 40 people attended regularly. Within the year, the group was half the size it had been. Some couldn’t make it anymore, because they were staying at the shelter, where their stay hinged on them agreeing to instead to attend homophobic sermons. Some were put in correctional therapy. Five of them died. Three of those, I didn’t know, but I knew Alex, the 19 year old who was fag-dragged in Kentucky and died a day later in the hospital, and I knew Stephanie, who went home to Alabama to care for her mom in hospice and was beaten to death with a baseball bat by her mom’s boyfriend.

Tumblr is not reality. The dynamic here does not reflect the dynamic out there. Here’s the part where I finally make a point, and it might be extremely unpopular – but guys, value your allies. Value each other. We are met with enough hate in our daily lives to enter an online safe-space and meet more hate from our own, over petty things. Don’t go after one another over every little thing you find problematic.

Learn to see nuance. Maybe the word “queer” bothers you, and you see a gay man using it as an umbrella term. Maybe someone called a trans man a trans woman because they’re confused about terminology, but the post where they did it was voicing support for the trans community. Maybe someone is just asking a question, wanting to learn more. Stop. Attacking. These. People.

Allies are being driven away. Members of our own community are being ostracized. Others are feeling nervous and estranged, and it’s largely because of places like Tumblr, where the social justice movement is quickly becoming violent and radical. I am begging you, stop nitpicking “problematic” things and start directing your efforts to create real change. When it comes to comes to your allies, forget the “social justice warrior” mentality and put down your torch. Educate calmly. Be respectful. Be understanding. Be forgiving. And I’m certainly not saying that your anger doesn’t have a good place – when you are met with bigots on the street, congress members who want to pass hateful laws, violent protesters, abusive parents, prejudiced teachers, that is when you need to be a warrior. That’s when it counts. In the real world. When you have the opportunity to protect people from real harm. Attacking your would-be allies via anonymous asks is just going to lose us ground in the long run. And we don’t have time for that, not when trans women of color are being murdered every day, not when states are still fighting against marriage equality, not when there are politicians in office who believe that trans people are possessed by demons, not when we’ve just lost 50 brothers and sisters to one gunman, not when the media won’t even admit that the attack was homophobic.

Please step back. Look at the big picture. Look at where we are, globally. Don’t just log on to your safe space and attack your allies over small missteps. That’s like washing the dishes in a house that’s on fire, kids. Let’s fight on the battlefield, and when we come home to each other, let’s just focus on bandaging up our wounds so we can go out and win the war.

Signal boost to this unbelievably important message.

I’d reblog this a thousand times if I could.

Stop attacking allies. Educate. Not hate. 

This is incredibly important. Please read!

koryos:

all right guys here it is THE BIG GAY ANIMAL SEX POST

or in other words, “Why Nonhuman Homosexual and Asexual Behavior has both Survival and Reproductive Benefits” aka that lit review i’d like to write if i could ever be arsed to get around to it

yes reproductive benefits you heard correctly we’re gonna get there but first we better do a basic rundown of what I mean by homosexual/asexual behaviors

IRREVERENT DISCUSSION OF ANIMAL SEX BEHIND CUT YOU’VE BEEN WARNED

Keep reading

At first the marchers came one by one, then in droves. By 7 P.M., on April 24, 1993, Dupont Circle was filled to bursting, spilling over like a dyke Times Square on New Year’s Eve. Young ones, old ones. Suburban dykes in their khakis, city dykes in their boots, softball dykes with the little rat tails in the back of their short-cut hair, shaved Sinéad heads like mine, the big hair of die-hard femmes in dresses, butches dressed to the nines. People who knew about the march before they got to D.C. brought their own banners and signs. The rest dragged each other. I was supposed to be in charge, but how can you manage a hurricane? A tsunami of twenty thousand dykes? You don’t. You just try to get out in front. The Avengers gathered the fire-eaters and drummers together and with the banner pushed our way to the head of the crowd. When that huge entity started moving, what a roar.

[…] I bellowed the few words I had to say into a bullhorn. Probably no one understood, though it didn’t much matter because all those dykes knew where we were (in front of the White House), and how many we were (enough to fill the streets of the entire city), and that together we were Dyke America taking over the capital.

After I got done shouting, a dozen of us Avengers stood on the plastic crates we’d toted from New York. The crowd around us grew quiet. It was getting dark by then. You could hear voices shouting in the background, others yelling, “I can’t see. What are they doing?” We dipped our torches into lighter fluid, lit them, and raised the flames in the air. Then, silhouetted against the familiar glowing white form, we brought them slowly toward our faces, which were lit up, too. Exhaling, as the heat approached our lips, fire entered our mouths and disappeared. The crowds hollered and screamed. And we did it again, while Marlene Colburn tried to get a chant going, “The fire will not consume us. We take it and make it our own.”

That moment, of dykes eating fire in front of the White House, endured as the image of the Avengers. Photographers sent out their photos. The Ministry of Propaganda shot off their press releases. Journalists from major venues beat down our doors for interviews, marveling at the turnout, at the drama and life compared to the same old, same old of the official March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Rights and Liberation with all the groups lined up and orderly. All the speeches predictably moving.

The message of the Dyke March was in our bodies. All twenty thousand of them there together in front of the White House, lit up with flame. We were disorderly, raucous, happy to be behind our own lesbian banner for a change. I can almost hear a couple of dyke readers murmuring as they turn the pages, “What’s the big deal? I don’t need anybody’s validation.” But if you don’t think it makes a difference, it’s because you don’t know. Maybe you’re dulled a little by seeing one or two lesbian faces on TV, in your local politics. One among thousands. Well, imagine what it’s like to suddenly be the majority. Not even the one in ten on the street or whatever it is. But the 100 percent. I suppose that would be my Lesbian Dream if I could describe it now. To be big enough to count. To take up space in the great brain of the country, for even ten minutes a day. To be free.

Kelly J. Cogswell describing the first national Dyke March in Washington, DC, in Eating Fire: My Life as a Lesbian Avenger (2014), Ch. 1, Pt. 8
(via enoughtohold)

Common experiences of lesbians who don’t know they’re lesbians yet

thatdiabolicalfeminist:

 Out of
curiosity, I recently googled “Am I lesbian quiz”. Half the “Are You a Lesbian” quizzes just asked outright, “Are you attracted to women?” as though that isn’t the
very answer a questioning lesbian is trying to figure out. The other
half marked me as heterosexual for things like owning more nail varnish than
dogs. I hope this list will give you more nuanced ideas to think about
as you explore your identity.

These experiences are all really common among – but not universal or exclusive to – people who later realize they’re lesbians and find a comfortable home in the lesbian label and community.

It’s mostly stuff that I and
other lesbians I know have wished we knew when we were first coming to
grips with our lesbian identities, because the fact is it takes a long
time to discover how common a lot of these experiences are among
lesbians, and not knowing what to look for when trying to figure out if
you’re a lesbian can be hard.

‘Attraction’ to men

  • Deciding which guys to be attracted to – not to date, but to be attracted to – based on how well they match a mental list of attractive qualities
  • Only developing attraction to a guy after a female friend expresses attraction to him
  • Getting
    jealous of a specific female friend’s relationships with guys and
    assuming you must be attracted to the guys she’s with (even if you never
    really noticed them before she was interested in them)
  • Picking a guy at random to be attracted to
  • Choosing
    to be attracted to a guy at all, not just choosing to act on it but
    flipping your attraction on like a switch – that’s a common lesbian
    thing
  • Having such high standards that literally no guy meets
    them – and feeling no spark of attraction to any guy who doesn’t meet
    them
  • Only/mostly being into guys who are gnc in some way
  • Only/mostly being attracted to unattainable, disinterested, or fictional guys or guys you never or rarely interact with
  • Being deeply uncomfortable and losing all interest in these unattainable guys if they ever indicate they might reciprocate
  • Reading your anxiety/discomfort/nervousness/combativeness around men as attraction to them
  • Reading a desire to be attractive to men as attraction to them
  • Having a lot of your ‘guy’ crushes later turn out to be trans women

Relationships with men

  • Dreading what feels like an inevitable domestic future with a man

  • Or looking forward to an idealized version of it that resembles literally no m/f relationship you’ve ever seen in your life, never being able to picture any man you’ve actually met in that image

  • Being
    repulsed by the dynamics of most/all real life m/f relationships you’ve seen
    and/or regularly feeling like “maybe it works for them but I never want my
    relationship to be like that”

  • Thinking you’re commitmentphobic
    because no relationship, no matter how great the guy, feels quite right
    and you drag your feet when it comes time to escalate it

  • Going
    along with escalation because it seems like the ‘appropriate time’ or bc
    the guy wants it so bad, even if you personally aren’t quite ready to
    say I love you or have labels or move in together etc.

  • Or jumping ahead and trying to rush to the ‘comfortably settled’ part of relationships with guys, trying to make a relationship a done deal without investing time into emotional closeness

  • Feeling
    like you have to have relationships with guys and/or let them get
    serious in order to prove something, maybe something nebulous you can’t
    identify

  • Only having online relationships with guys; preferring not to look at
    the guys you’re interacting with online; choosing not to meet up with a
    guy even if you seem very into him and he reciprocates and meeting up is
    totally realistic
  • Getting
    a boyfriend mostly so other people know you have a boyfriend and not
    really being interested in him romantically/sexually
  • Wishing your boyfriend was more like your female friends
  • Wishing your boyfriend was less interested in romance and/or sex with you and that you could just hang out as pals
  • Thinking you’re really in love with a guy but being
    able to get over him in such record time that you pretend to be more
    affected than you are so your friends don’t think you’re heartless
  • After a breakup, missing having a boyfriend more than you miss the specific guy you were with
  • Worrying that you’re broken inside and unable to really love anyone

Sex with men

  • Having sex not out of desire for the physical pleasure or emotional closeness but because you like feeling wanted
  • OR: preferring to ‘be a tease’ to feel wanted but feeling like following through is a chore
  • Only being comfortable with sex with men if there’s an extreme power imbalance and your desires aren’t centred
  • Using sex with men as a form of self-harm
  • Feeling
    numb or dissociating or crying during/after sex with men (even if you
    don’t understand that reaction and think you’re fine and crying etc for
    no reason)
  • Being bored with sex with men/not understanding what the big deal is that makes other women want it
  • Doing it anyway out of obligation or a desire to be a good sport/do something nice for him
  • Never/rarely
    having sexual fantasies about specific men, preferring to leave them as
    undetailed as possible or not thinking about men at all while
    fantasizing
  • Having to make a concerted effort to fantasize about the guy you’re “attracted” to

Early interest in women

  • Not recognizing past/current crushes on women until you’ve come to grips with your attraction to women
  • Being unusually competitive, shy, or eager to impress specific women when you’re not that way with anyone else
  • Wanting to kiss your female best friend on the mouth for literally any reason (”to practice for boys” included)
  • Getting butterflies or feeling like you can’t get close enough when cuddling with a close female friend
  • Looking at a close female friend and feeling something in your chest clench up and being overwhelmed with love for her – love you may read as platonic
  • Having
    had strong and abiding feelings of admiration for a specific female
    teacher, actor, etc., growing up that were deep and reverent
  • Having had an unusually close relationship with a female friend growing up that was different and special in a way you couldn’t articulate
  • Thinking
    relationships would be simpler “if only I were attracted to women/my
    best friend who would be perfect for me if she/I weren’t a girl”
  • When
    a female friend is treated badly by a man, having your protective
    thoughts turn in the direction of “if I was him/a man I’d never do that to her/my girlfriend”
  • Being utterly fascinated by any lesbians you know/see in media and thinking they’re all ultra cool people
  • Having
    your favourite character in every show be that one gay-coded or butch-looking woman
    (like Shego from Kim Possible or Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica)
  • Feeling weirdly guilty and uncomfortable in locker rooms etc., when your
    female friends are less clothed than they normally would be around men
    and being more careful not to look than they are

The ‘straight’ version of you

  • Thinking that all straight girls feel at least some attraction to women
  • Thinking
    that your interest in seeing attractive women/scantily clad women/boobs
    is an artificial reaction caused by the objectification of women in
    media
  • Being really into how women look “aesthetically”/“just as artistic interest”
  • Thinking it’s objective and uncontested that almost all women are way more attractive than most men
  • Being a really intense LGBT+ “ally” and getting weirdly
    emotional about homophobia but assuming you’re just a Really Good Ally
    and v empathetic
  • Having like half your friend group from school turn out to be LGBT+

  • Getting emotional or having a strong reaction you don’t understand to f/f love stories etc.
  • Having had people think you were gay when you had no suspicion you were gay

Exploring attraction to women

  • Feeling like you could live with a woman in a romantic way, even if you can’t imagine doing anything sexual with a woman
  • Feeling like you could enjoy sexual interaction with a woman, even if you can’t imagine having romantic feelings for a woman
  • Thinking
    you couldn’t be a lesbian because you’re not attractive enough, cool
    enough, or otherwise in the same league as most of the women you know
  • Interacting
    with het sex/romance in media by imagining yourself in the man’s
    position or just never/rarely imagining yourself in the woman’s position
  • Really focusing on the women in het porn
  • Being really into the idea of kissing/being sexual with a woman ‘to turn guys on’
  • Being really annoyed when guys actually do express interest in watching or joining in when you do that
  • Only feeling/expressing attraction to or sexual interest in women when you’re inebriated or otherwise impaired

Gender Feelings

  • Having a lot of conflicting gender feelings that are only possible to resolve once you understand you are/can be a lesbian
  • Thinking
    that being gnc and feeling a disconnect from traditional womanhood mean
    that you can’t be a woman even if that’s what feels closest to right –
    many lesbians are gnc and many lesbians feel disconnected from
    traditional womanhood since it’s so bound up in heteropatriarchy
  • Knowing
    you’re attracted to women and not being able to parse that (esp + any
    gender nonconformance) as gay, taking a long time to figure out if
    you’re a straight man or a lesbian
  • Being dysphoric about the
    parts of you that make straight men think your body is owed to them,
    having to figure out what that dysphoria means for/to you
  • Knowing
    you’re attracted to women, but feeling weirdly guilty and uncomfortable
    trying to interact with them as a straight man, and only later
    realizing you’re actually a trans lesbian
  • Knowing you’re gay, but experiencing a lot of the symptoms of comp het
    when you try to interact with men romantically/sexually, and only later
    realizing you’re a trans lesbian and not a gay man
  • Being
    nonbinary and taking a long time to sort through being able to
    respect/understand your nonbinary identity and your lesbianness at the
    same time

Considering lesbianism

  • Wanting to be a lesbian but feeling like if you don’t already know you are one you can’t be
  • Feeling
    guilty about wanting to be a lesbian, feeling like you’re just
    attention-seeking or trying to be trendy
  • Suppressing your lesbian
    dreams because you think exploring that desire would mean you’re a
    bad/homophobic person using lesbianness selfishly
  • Wishing you were a lesbian to escape the discomfort of dating men
  • Fantasizing
    about how much fun it would be to be a lesbian and just be with women/a
    specific woman, but thinking that can’t be for you
  • Worrying that some of your past attraction to men was actually real so you can’t be a lesbian
  • Worrying that bc you can’t be 100% sure you’re not attracted to men and can’t be 100% sure you won’t change your mind, you can’t be a lesbian
  • Worrying that you only want to be a lesbian because of trauma and that means your lesbianness would be Fake
  • Worrying that trauma-induced complications in how you experience sex (e.g., a habit of self-harming via sex w men or a fear of any sex at all) mean you’re not a Real Lesbian

Every item on this list is common among Real Lesbians. It’s all Normal Lesbian Stuff. If you’re worried that you can’t be a lesbian even though it’s the life you really want for yourself, I hope this gives you permission to explore that. You are allowed to be a lesbian. 

And if you’re not sure yet – if you took the time to read this entire thing because you’re curious about your identity, if you identified with a bunch of items on this list – you may or may not be a lesbian, but friend, you almost certainly aren’t cishet. Welcome.

(I’d love to hear other things lesbians wish you’d known were A Thing when you were first exploring your identity!)

List of bisexuals whose identities are erased by the media.

gettin-bi-bi-bi:

neurodivergent-crow:

becoming-mara-jade:

neurodivergent-crow:

what-are-you-stuck-in-now:

neurodivergent-crow:

oljawolf:

somalihottiee:

alaynas:

All or which have either been given the name “gay” or “straight“ by the media despite coming out. There are more than two sexualities and this is a fact that most people (even on Tumblr nowadays) forget. People tend to assume that since someone is with a person of the same gender, they’re gay. (Or vice versa in Angelina or P!nk’s case) This is incorrect to assume because you’re erasing their identities in the process. The people on this list aren’t gay or straight, they’re bisexual. No matter how much the media tries to erase that.

also….

Nicki Minaj

Mel B

Pete Wentz

Socrates

Louis XIII

Eleanor Roosevelt 

Jason Mraz

Linsday Lohan

Frida Kahlo

Billie Holiday

Paris Hilton

Salvador Dali

Kurt Cobain

Cher

Coco Chanel

this just made me feel so much better

CHANNING FUCKING TATUM

what

Channing Tatum is openly bisexual but people just….ignore it.

No the fuck i don’t. The fact that i have a chance with Channing Tatum regardless of my gender has gotten me through some bad days. Also David Bowie.

Omg I can’t believe he wasn’t listed I had to double check!

AND DAVID FUCKING BOWIE

reblogging for all my bi kids out there who are trying to find bisexual role models. there are a lot of bi celebrities out there, it’s just that the media doesn’t like to accept that.