“I just don’t get why lesbians are being forced to center men in their lives,” my grandmother pleads with me through tears at our favorite diner spot. She’s so distraught, she can’t even finish her porridge. The whole lunch has been like this – droning on and on about identity politics: who can be what, who can say which slur, who’s allowed to go to the dyke bar. Just last week, she barked at a bi4bi couple at the sapphic-owned coffeeshop for not tipping more than 25%.
I’m finding it hard to hold a conversation with her that doesn’t escalate to straight up conflict. The last time I asked her to talk with me about her behavior, she requested an intimacy coordinator.
Maybe I’m just overreacting? Let me share some other questions she’s asked me over soft beige foods and you tell me how I should handle this.
- If she’s bisexual, why does she have a lesbian’s haircut?
- Is this white person allowed to be crowdfunding for rent in gentrified Bed Stuy?
- If a white man has more than 6 polycule partners, isn’t that just colonization?
- [this one’s more of a statement than a question] Someone posted a deeply personal essay about their identity and I can’t help but feel it invalidates mine.
- Why are we okay with queer people wearing Doc Martens when the leather industry is unethical?
- Don’t you think the act of even asking someone if you can kiss them is coercion?
- Is it okay for trans men to go to the gym or is that just toxic masculinity on display?
- Why are all the teenage boys at the mall dressed like masc lesbians?
- How do I tell your little cousin Jane it’s transphobic to read the Harry Potter books that have been in the family for decades?
- Did you see Uncle Jack brought the kids to Chick-fil-A after baseball on Saturday?
Comments
Question 8 is something I ask regularly…
her questions are reasonable
why are transmen and transwomen both being considered lesbians?
men are never lesbians and women who do not centre women are also not lesbians
The only ones saying ‘trans men are lesbians’ are terfs who refuse to acknowledge their male identity.
Trans women who like women exclusively pretty much fit under the definition of lesbians.
If your confusion comes from a belief that trans women are men, then your understanding of sex and gender is myopic and feeble, but the good news is that you can always improve with a bit of effort!
biology is not a construct and men are never lesbians
women who are not unclear about who is a woman and who is a lesbian are not the villians
Men have long claimed all women are bisexual or he is a lesbian. saying trans does not improve the claim.
biology is not a construct and men are never lesbians
women who are not unclear about who is a woman and who is a lesbian are not the villians
women are not men, but if they want to pretend to be, then they are out of the lesbian community as they are not women loving women
I am not confused that men are not women. I refuse to be gaslight to cater to men’s sexual fetish.
Maybe you should consider what it sounds like to say both transmen and transwomen belong to the lesbian demographic.
You cannot have it both ways.
And you do not get to displace actual lesbians from lesbian for saying no to persons who do not belong because they have defected out of women or are trying to insert their self into.
stop pretending male fetish and harassment does not exist.
Nina, you managed to be on this article that you commented on 4 days earlier, within an hour of someone replying to you. You wrote four comments saying roughly the same thing that no one replied to, with the timing suggesting you sat here stewing for at least 20 minutes, probably more, typing more and more replies. I’d politely suggest that you find a hobby that isn’t being weird about trans people on the internet.