Oof, where do we even START.
Q
My two closest friends (and future roommates) *Sophie and Madeline have been dating for a couple months. Before that, Sophie and I had a bit of a quiet situationship that I was going to make official, but timing didn’t work out, so she and Madeline ended up together instead. I love both of them dearly and they make a sweet couple, but whenever we go out, Sophie is all over me instead of Madeline. I can tell this is distressing for Madeline, especially since she knows that Sophie has had a thing for me in the past, but I don’t know how to address it without being a problem. Now when we spend time together, I have to keep my guard up because I’m afraid something will happen to ruin our friendships if I don’t, let alone managing my own feelings for Sophie. I don’t even know really what advice I’m asking for, but I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s been in this situation. I have other friends, but we all revolve around this one group and I desperately don’t want to cause a rift. Help!
*Names have been changed! Did we pick good ones? What would you have gone with? Sound off in the comments.
A
Valerie Anne: What in the L Word is going on here! You absolutely cannot move in with these people before having an open and honest conversation about what is going on. You have to set boundaries, be honest, and clear the air before becoming roommates. It’s going to be hard. And probably awkward as hell. But it’s going to be way more awkward and awful if things come to a head after you’re all on the same lease (or in the same dorm; both similarly hard to quickly escape from). You don’t have to mention you’re navigating your own feelings for Sophie if you’re worried that will upset both of them, but you have to tell Sophie if her being all over you makes you uncomfortable considering the situation. You can talk to them separately or together or both, and make it clear that you’re having this conversation because you DO like them as a couple and DO want to stay friends and be good roommates to each other, but if you don’t set boundaries and expectations now, things can only get worse.
Summer: Oh, this is something.
My immediate reaction is that Sophie is violating the breach of trust she has with Madeline. If Madeline is stressed about Sophie coming onto you, then Sophie’s behavior isn’t above board in their relationship. People are allowed to have complex feelings within a relationship, but actively seeking you out in that romantic capacity is a violation of Madeline’s trust. It’s also contrary to your attempts to keep things stable with Madeline and the friend group. I think Sophie’s behavior is at the point where it’s infringing on your personal boundaries and this bears a firm, but caring discussion with Sophie. Since you’re also friends with Madeline, I would hope that you also have a good enough relationship to discuss it in private with her should you feel the need to ‘get ahead’ of a developing story. Before things get messier.
Drew: My immediate question is whether you’ve talked explicitly to Sophie or Madeline or both about what you want and how you feel. Because that does seem like the first step if your priority is to reduce the drama and end anything flirtatious between you and Sophie. I wonder if the feelings you still have for Sophie are resulting in you keeping the situation in chaos because a part of you still wants it to be. No judgment! An understandable behavior! But if what you really want is to change this dynamic toward something less complicated then you need to express that explicitly.
Laneia: Hear me out, is there literally anywhere else you could live?
Nico: This might sound super stressful, but it might be the move to sit down and talk with them together, in person. I think it’s fair to give Sophie a heads up that you’re going to disclose your situationship history, but that heads up can be while you are all in the same place (one of your apartments). I recommend this move so that no one amongst the three of you can have sidebar conversations about this until after everyone is for sure on the same page. If Sophie wants to dispute what you have to say, she can do it in front of both you and Madeline, and not just to Madeline in private. I think this protects you from a potentially extremely awkward living situation, and also offers Madeline the fullest perspective, and finally asks Sophie to be accountable for her behavior to the both of you at the same time. That said, I am hoping that you consider living somewhere else, unless your motives are to get between Madeline and Sophie. Unless you all are top notch communicators and de-escalators, I don’t foresee this situation NOT becoming tense. Save the friendship and please save yourself!
Should you retroactively un-identify as a lesbian?
Q
I have identified as a lesbian since my mid-twenties, and had two serious relationships since then. It’s not like I really hated the men I dated before I came out but I just had much stronger connections with women, and usually dated people on the butch or masc end of things. I only had two serious relationships though with people who did identify as women at the time, and since our breakups, both of those exes have come out as trans men. Does this mean I’m not actually a lesbian after all? Would it be offensive for me to still identify as a lesbian?
A
Valerie: Do you still FEEL like a lesbian? Is that still a label that you identify with and feel is right for you? Because if so, that’s really the only requirement. You’re attracted to women, and you thought your last two partners were women when you dated them. I personally don’t think, just because it turns out you were wrong and they came out as men, it has to change your label if you don’t want it to. I actually have a friend who identifies as a lesbian and has a trans man ex and she actually delights in being able to talk about her ex who has a stereotypically male name and watch eyebrows go up. That said, if the lesbian label doesn’t FEEL right to you anymore, you can change it! There are no rules about it. But if it still does, I personally don’t think you have to change it because your exes transitioned.
Sa’iyda: I don’t think other people’s gender journey needs to affect how you see yourself in terms of language. Labels are self identifiers, so no one else can tell you how you feel about yourself. If you feel like a lesbian, then that’s what you are. I identified as bi, then queer when I no longer was attracted to men but wanted to respect my past relationship with a cis man. Now I call myself a lesbian because that’s what feels right to me at this stage of my life. Maybe I’ll reach a point in my life where I go back to queer, I don’t know! Nowadays, people are constantly shifting their self-identifiers based on what feels right. And there are a lot of women who say they’re lesbians but have dated or been in serious relationships with men in the past! It happens! But if your former partners transitioning makes you question or want to expand the way you view yourself, try on a new label. You can always go back to being a lesbian if that’s what makes you feel most comfortable.
Summer: It wouldn’t be ‘offensive’ for you to still ID as a lesbian just because the people you dated turned out to be trans after the fact. You are a lesbian as long as you feel strongly enough about your attraction to women to call yourself a lesbian. I think it can be that simple.
More to the point, when you were dating those partners who are now trans, I’m guessing they still characterized themselves as women, or women-like enough to fit into the lesbian attraction matrix. That means you were dating people whose genders aligned to your lesbian identity. They can change that later, but the past is already written. And while there is much capital-D Discourse about whether to characterize trans people as always their current and correct gender or to alter your terminology to reflect certain parts of their lives, that Discourse™ doesn’t have to impugn your right to personhood. As far as my (trans) ass is concerned, you’re a lesbian because you feel strongly about women in a particular way and that’s your call to make.
Drew: I’m going to go a step further and say you could continue to identify as a lesbian even if you were still dating one of your exes and that felt good for you and good for them. I fundamentally believe labels are fluid and about what feels right in describing yourself and your community. This feels related to the exhausting “can trans men be lesbians” discourse that’s been happening even more than usual in recent weeks. People want everything to be so categorized but that’s just not how it’s ever been and I don’t see the value in it becoming that way. To me, queerness should be about expansion and I’m grateful that lesbian identity and community includes people with a wide variety of gender experiences.
Nico: Here to say that labels are always evolving and fluid in their meanings — as Drew said, and lesbian community does in fact include people of a variety of gender identities. At the end of the day, a label is just a word, and I usually find someone’s label, followed by their own personal definition for how they relate to that label, to be what is actually required for me to understand where that person is coming from. I think that if you had a current partner who, while you were dating, did not identify as a woman, and who was uncomfortable with you using the label “lesbian,” then that is a conversation you can have between the two of you to find out what feels best. I am assuming that at the time, your partners did not express discomfort with your label, and since you are not a psychic who can tell if someone is a trans man before they tell you, I do not thing you did anything wrong there. When I was dating a lesbian and also came out as genderfluid, she asked how I felt about her continuing to identify as a lesbian. But here’s the thing: it was more than just about her attraction, it was also about the history and culture she was tapped into, about her deprioritization of cis men, and how she moved through community and in all of her relationships — not to mention the word being a part of her own personal history of coming out and navigating a hostile heteronormative world. The word “lesbian” was core to her identity for a lot of reasons, and I didn’t particularly feel like my gender identity was in any way challenging or delegitimizing that. That, though, was my own individual take, and someone else could feel completely differently — and that is also valid. However, you are not in a situation like this, so you don’t have to worry about that right now, and you are free to use whatever label feels right to you. You can also try other labels on, see if they feel better than “lesbian,” and you can change your mind LITERALLY at any time.
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