Q:
In LA, met a girl who calls herself a lesbian, though she’s married to and attracted to a heterosexual cis man. I know I shouldn’t care because labels are arbitrary anyways, but doesn’t that kind of defeat the whole purpose of, well, lesbianism?
A:
Once upon a time, I was a lesbian with a boyfriend.
I’ve written about my coming out story in various capacities for this website through the years, but the most honest I ever was about it was in this essay I wrote about horror threequels. For at least half a year, I was an out lesbian with a boyfriend. I came out to him as a lesbian, and we didn’t break up. When we finally did, he was the one who dumped me, not the other way around.
All this to say: I have some personal bias when it comes to reflecting on your advice question, because I’ve been in an identity/relationship situation before that wasn’t entirely legible to people outside of it. My situation in those early days of coming out felt so complicated to me for so long that I often avoided writing about it or even fudged details to hide it. In reality, I don’t owe anyone a perfect explanation of that time in my life and of my decision to come out as a lesbian even when I had a boyfriend. I’ve had people respond with “so you were/are bisexual” and nope! I’m not and never was. I promise I’m not committing bisexual erasure against myself by claiming lesbianism then or now.
On a much more visible level, we have the example of Tricia Cooke, who is married to Ethan Coen and identifies as a lesbian. I’ve observed a lot of hand-wringing and identity policing of Tricia’s life and queerness on social media, especially during the Drive-Away Dolls press tour and following Autostraddle’s own interview with Tricia. But even as a famous person, I don’t think Tricia owes us an explanation of her marriage, her sex life, and how her identity sits inside of this marriage.
It’s not that labels are arbitrary. It’s that they’re personal, complex, and subject to shifts. There are a slew of reasons this girl in LA you met could have a husband. Financial reasons, cultural reasons, logistical reasons. Does her identification of a lesbian with a husband in any way threaten anyone else’s lesbianism? I don’t think so. I know there is a lot of fear around protecting lesbianism as an identity, but so often that fear is rooted, ironically, in heteronormative language and assumptions about gender and sexuality.
Queerness to me does not represent a perfect inverse of straightness but rather a rejection of binaries altogether. We are not the opposite of straight people but rather a complete reimagining of how relationships of all kinds can look and work. So this purpose of lesbianism you mention? It’s a vast and varied purpose, and one person’s relationship/marriage does not defeat it.
Since your question has more to do with someone else rather than yourself, I wonder if there’s some other question beneath the question. Did meeting this woman make you reconsider identity or challenge some of your ways of thought in a way that brought other things to the surface? Why has this stayed with you? If more questions do arise as a result of this self-reflection, you know where to find us.
You can chime in with your advice in the comments and submit your own questions any time.
Comments
Call me problematic but I have to disagree. I think women actively in relationships with men with no intention of breaking up do cause harm. Figuring yourself out and in the process of breaking up? Sure. Insisting youre a “lesbian” with a male exception, are totally into him, and its all fine? Nope. Why can we not have one identity that does actually exclude men? Because yes, people like Tricia Cooke absolutely do add fuel to the fire of “lesbians can just find the right man!” I know I can’t stop anyone from this kind of thing, but I cannot be in community with them because they are actively causing harm and erasing lesbian identity.
I’ve got to agree. Why can’t women who are solely attracted to women have a word to describe themselves? I take issue with this idea that labels and words can be applied to whatever suits the speaker’s fancy because that breaks down the basics of language and communication. If I went around saying that every four-limbed mammal is a cat, that would be rightfully called out as ridiculous. A lesbian isn’t any woman who simply calls herself a lesbian. It’s a word with a specific definition, and you either fit that definition or you don’t. It’s not gatekeeping to simply use a word as it’s intended.
This reminds me of that infamous story about Diogenes and Plato.
Plato had defined man as a featherless biped; so Diogenes, eternal shit-stirrer, ran into the lecture theatre with a plucked chicken and said something to the effect of, ‘Here is Plato’s man!’
This 100%
The idea that lesbians just have to find the right man exists whether or not some individual lesbians like Tricia Cooke indeed get together with a man. They are not responsible and not to blame for the climate of homophobia and the system of heteronormativity.
And Cooke and her kind add to the dominant culture of lesbopobia. No one who says lesbians get with men is innocent of spreading that hate.
I disagree. Lesbians living their life and making decisions for their own romantic and sexual life do not add to homophobia. I’m sure that even if no lesbian ever got together with a man, there would not be any less homophobia in this world.
Also, people do not live so that they can fit in someone else’s tiny box of what constitutes a lesbian and the “correct” code of behavior others prescribe.
Ok well screw us then. I guess lesbians don’t really exist and don’t need to be able to talk about our identity. We thought we had (1) identity group for women that only love women but that’s not allowed according to you.
Yes, exactly! Wake up, AS! A word that means everything means nothing!
It’s one thing to disagree—even vehemently—with someone else’s use of “lesbian” to describe themselves. It’s another thing entirely to refuse to be in community with them.
How does shunning others keep you safe? It certainly will do nothing to change their self-description, nor the broader societal homophobia that may indeed cherry pick narratives like this one to bolster itself (though I also strongly agree with other commenters that this homophobia would not disappear in the absence of these cases). All it will do is make people like the lesbian-or-not in question more isolated, more vulnerable themselves to homophobic violence, and more likely to harden into their usage/identity as a defense mechanism.
Remaining in community with those you disagree with has value. Maybe this person, over time, would hear these concerns and decide to shift their identification or word usage in response. Maybe they would keep describing themselves as a lesbian but offer other forms of reparative work to offset the harms done, like speaking out against the “right man” narrative when describing their own life and identity. Maybe not—but you’ll never give them an opportunity if you refuse to be in community with them.
Holy mother of all guilt trips batman. Ever heard “don’t set yourself on fire to keep others warm”? How can I be in community with someone who doesn’t think my identity or boundaries are real and worth respecting? Because let me tell you from experience, the women that say stuff like this are exactly the type to tell real lesbians “you just haven’t had the right man/dick yet! Come to think of it, why don’t we have a threesome with my boyfriend!” Shunning that kind of person does actually keep me safe, why do I have to be vulnerable to homophobic violence from them?
Would you tell a bisexual person to be in community with people that insist they “pick a side”? Tell a trans person to be in community with who “just disagrees with medical transition”? Tell a non binary person to be in community with someone who says “non binary isn’t a real thing”?
Lesbians, as a women coded group, are always always always expected to bend over backwards for others to our own detriment. I can disagree on a lot and be friends with someone, but if they disagree with my core identity, they’re not safe for me. And I’m not going to be guilt tripped over it.
Once again, exactly all of this. The constant bending over backwards for literally everyone and no one does the same. for the lesbian community, this truly needs to stop everyone takes advantage.
Like, what are we doing here? especially in these times
100000% Agree!!! It’s like I’m so sick and tired. That lesbians can’t even have the f***ing word or identity everything gets taken away and no respect.
It reminds me of when straight ladies call their female friends their girlfriends. It’s not correct usage, but they’re going to do what they want regardless. This lady has the freedom to call herself a lesbian all day long, but the wider world will either laugh at her or be angry/confused, because words have meaning and she doesn’t appear to fit the meaning of the word lesbian based on her choice of gender for her spouse.
Like Inigo Montaya says “I don’t think that word means what you think it means”.
obsessed with an Inigo Montaya quote happening here
I’m spreading the gospel of the Princess Bride one quote at a time! 😆
Honestly my main emotion for this is amusement. I’m not outraged by this lady calling herself a lesbian, nor am I outraged by other people being outraged that she’s calling herself a lesbian. My prioritization schema has “how strangers describe themselves” very low in what I care about overall in this life.
I didn’t even read. She’s not a lesbian.
highly recommend “my autobiography of carson mccullors” which has a chapter called “preaching.” here’s my fav excerpt:
“So it isn’t about ‘Is Carson a lesbian?’ or ‘Carson is a lesbian’ or ‘What is a lesbian?” What I want to know is, how have lesbians gotten by and had relationships and found love and community? What does that look like? One answer: we don’t really know. If we–writers, historians, biographers–can just start acknowledging the lesbian parts of ourselves and others, maybe we can start to know what it is. What it is to love woemn. But please, no more demands for certain kinds of proof, no more ‘doesn’t count unless–’ bullshit Don’t tell me there’s just not enough evidence. Let’s call a lesbian a lesbian. Call yourself a lesbian if you’ve ever loved women. Loved another women. Period. You loved your mother? Lesbian.”
Loved this book and this section specifically so much.
I love this answer to this question. Identity categories are historically and culturally specific: their meanings evolve over time and space. If you read lesbian history and lesbian feminist theory, you learn how the term “lesbian” (which wasn’t even popularly used by women in the U.S. until the mid-20th century!) has had multiplicitous meanings. It can refer to sexual behavior and romantic relationships between women; it can also refer to a set of political commitments, an association with and sense of belonging to a particular community and subculture, “a complete reimagining of how relationships of all kinds can look and work” as Kayla said, and more. “Lesbian” is an expansive category. And actually, it might be helpful to consider every sexual identity as an expansive category. Dictionary definitions of sexualities are often much too simplistic to actually account for the vast diversity of our sexual behaviors, desires, attractions and how they evolve over time.
As Lillian Faderman writes in her book Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in 20th Century America, “The lesbian community and lesbians’ relationship to society in the twentieth century have defied any pat definition; they have been in perpetual metamorphosis.”
Love a historian‘s take. I suspect it’s one thing to accept an expansive understanding of the label ‘lesbian’ applied to women in the past, because we know life was more circumscribed and independent, fully lesbian lives were generally restricted to those with the means of living this way (I’m thinking the Natalie Clifford-Barneys of this world). Whereas these days, in general, living your authentic lesbian life is far more achievable. However, understanding how lesbians lived differently in the past should, ideally, allowed us a more relaxed perspective on our peers today. Or maybe this is a naive hope! Thanks for your contribution :)
NO.
I liked this analysis a lot. I don’t understand when people started wanting to categorize people so strictly with labels. If you want to call yourself a lesbian and any part of you is a woman attracted to women then it isn’t hurting anyone to use that identity.
I know people who are bisexual but primarily attracted to women and who call themselves lesbians and I know nonbinary people who identify as lesbians, I also know people that never experience sexual attraction but are romantically attracted to other women who identify as lesbians. All of these people exist and feel comfortable with the term lesbian and yet mainstream society still use it exclusively for women who are attracted to women. Gatekeeping the term lesbian isn’t protecting anyone.
Yes, gatekeeping and using the proper definition of words does protect people. I guess us actual homosexuals aren’t allowed us to describe our identity and boundaries since other people want to appropriate our identity.
I completely get what you’re saying. I grew up with the, “You haven’t found the right man yet,” group of people. I hate labels but I felt the need to label myself because, no, I haven’t found the “right” man, because I’m not attracted to men, at all. It doesn’t matter to me who understands that because I live my life very much as IDGAFWYD so don’t GAF about what I do. Legal age and consensual is all that should matter. With that said, even now, with my partner/wife of 26 years (we started dating when we were 16), I still hear from people that I should keep looking because I can’t possible be a lesbian. What part of that is hard for people to comprehend?
Lesbians do exist and many of us are not, have never been, or will never be attracted to (or agreeable to), a relationship with a man. If people want to call it gatekeeping the word lesbian, fine, do whatever makes you feel good. But I will never believe that a woman who had sex with a man and liked it, isn’t a little wibbly-wobbly on the Kinsey scale and not fully a lesbian.
You just did though, homosexual. How does that have any less utility? Why do you have a right to say what WLM are and aren’t welcome?
Some people think lesbian means strictly homosexual women loving women and some people think it means a gay woman of any stripe. Is gay woman (inluding bi people and others) really a bad definition or just one you dislike?
I agree with Kayla. And I hate lesbians policing and gate-keeping one another on who is a “real” lesbian, according to their standards. This was actually one reason I did not come out earlier: the judgment of lesbians about those who were, or are, involved with a man. Fifteen years later and with all the knowledge and experiences I had, I still feel like a second-class-lesbian because of my history with men, and not coming out as a teenager, as if these were the only “real” lesbians. And I am not alone in this, had many conversations with others who feel similarly… This policing and gate-keeping creates an atmosphere of shame, you all. And by the way, it is still brutal for bisexual women from what I heard.
I found the scenes in “Chasing Amy” and “Go Fish” really poignant when it comes to lesbians getting involved with a man. This “Go Fish” clip may be 31 years old, but it seems as accurate as ever: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVncpZkleFc
Love your reply, Kayla.
Weird coincidence that the only sexuality that excludes men is the only one everybody else feels completely entitled to break apart, dilute, and undermine until it’s available to men again.
Also really interesting how the only people denied a say in what “lesbian” means are “women who are exclusively attracted to women”.
I just don’t understand why it’s so important to our “allies” to sell us out like this without even having the cop-on to look embarrassed about it. Doesn’t it register with you what you’re doing? What other groups do you do this to? Would you do this to ethnic minorities, people with disabilities? Are Black people “gatekeeping” Blackness, are Deaf people “gatekeeping” Deafness?
“But even as a famous person, I don’t think Tricia owes us an explanation of her marriage, her sex life, and how her identity sits inside of this marriage.”
My favorite quote of this article. Thanks, Kayla <3
I remember when Cynthia Nixon came out as a lesbian and all these people put pressure on her and demanded she should identify as bisexual. I don’t know if that contributed to her as stating she was queer later, but it is a shame that people have the audacity to tell others how they should or shouldn’t identify. That is toxic as shit. When people are policed for their emotions/experiences, many become silent. Is that what some here in this comment section want? How many of you have felt like you are not queer enough at one point or another?
It is really messed up to do this to people.
In the end, the queer scene is losing out by members having more shame, less courage, less self-confidence, less happiness, less presence.
Love this response you gave, Kayla! I love nuance!
There are also lesbians who start affairs and relationships with non-binary people, trans men, trans women… And then some would surely argue they should not call themselves lesbians any more… Identities are complex. We all contain multitudes. Gender is a construct. Sexuality and romantic feelings can be complicated and not easily fit into a box. Sure for some they do fit into a box that can be easily checked. But for others, it is more like a scale or spectrum.
If folks want respect for themselves, for example for being a lesbian, it would stand to reason to extend the same form of respect to others. My family could easily say to me (if I was still in contact with them): “No you are not a lesbian. You looked to sweet when you were a child/teenager!” And that is bullshit. It is also bullshit to say to someone else: “No you are not a lesbian because you had/have an ex-boyfriend/ a male lover” …
It doesn’t seem like this question is really about women who are interested in non-binary or trans people, as these dynamics obviously flex the labels we have for queer identity and relationships. And it’s not about women who were “sweet” as children (plenty very sweet lesbians, and plenty feminine lesbians if that is what you meant) or even those who had relationships, even long ones, with men in the past. That is quite common. The question seems to concern women who are now presently happily in relationships with cis men and are attracted to their partners, and for whom these relationships are not a result of pure financial desperation. So I guess my question would be, if you’re attracted to cis men as well, what’s wrong with bisexual? What’s wrong with pan? I’m having a hard time understanding how this isn’t an obvious case of internalized biphobia. What is it about lesbian that attracts that person – the purity associated with the label, the community one gains access to, the history? Accusations of gatekeeping can function to shame and divert discussions about how we define our community and how history, experience, and identity come into play in how we recognize each other (I think we all learned with with Rachel Dolezal). That’s not to say that many don’t gatekeep in a putative way. But I guess I’m just wondering sincerely about this phenomenon of lesbian-currently-attracted-to-men because it seems like there are much better labels available and the response doesn’t really clarify it.
True, the original question here was not about non-binary and trans people, but it brings up a number of questions. I do wonder what some commentators’ ideas are here on being a lesbian as a non-binary_trans person, or being a lesbian while dating a trans_non binary person… given how many people in the comment sections of other AS articles regularly say transphobic shit. I wonder how many people here have an understanding of a lesbian as a cisgender woman and believe in biology and a binary system of men and women and someone not fitting neatly into one box as not eligible to identify as a lesbian.
Some people’s comments here strongly remind me of comments such as “no you are not non-binary because of your body, you are a woman.” Denying someone’s identity on one hand (someone who identifies as a lesbian) and prescribing identities on the other (“you are ___ because of biology”).
So yeah, the discussion here raises questions beyond the OG question.
@ AnnaM – Who says it is not allowed? You are doing it. Other people in this comment section and plenty of other places are doing it. There is no law prohibiting it. Doesn’t mean people cannot disagree.
(Couldn’t reply to that comment directly, no reply button anymore)
Its pretty simple logic. If lesbians with “exceptions” exist, then those of us actually homosexuals are being stripped of language to describe our identity. Those of us that actually exclusively love women are being erased by people nominallh in the lgbt community who should be on our side.
We are a tiny minority, we want to be respected, and people cannot help but drag hetero situations into lesbian spaces language all the time. It’s simply a matter of respecting 1 exclusive sexuality and not trying to argue men into every. single. thing. If you can’t see why lesbians want to be afforded this small bit of respect for our identity and language, I can’t help you.
I think part of the point is, what does it mean to “exclusively” love woman? What if you have a queer chosen family of various genders who you want to grow old with (though you only fuck women)—are you still a lesbian? What if you marry your queer male best friend for a visa because you’ll get deported otherwise (and you love him deeply!)—are you still a lesbian? What if your butch dyke girlfriend realises they’re actually trans masc—are you still a lesbian? Are you only a lesbian if you immediately dump them? What if they think for a while they’re trans masc but then realise they’re actually they are a butch dyke after all—did you stop being lesbian for that interim period and then start being lesbian again?
Or does is make more sense to say people’s identity labels are something they should be able to decide for themselves and not something that should be imposed on them by other people?
Excellent questions
See JustVisitmg’s reply below, much better said than I could have.
Reading some of your replies here, this never gets old: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVncpZkleFc
I had an exam once on the discourse of lesbians having sex with a man according to TV examples – Go Fish was one of them. Many of you here sound very much like the accusatory lesbians who act like a trial (at least in Daria’s mind) in the video I transcribed for said exam.
What do you think you‘re doing?
Makes me sick!
Daria: Does it make you sick or does it just scare you?
Just don‘t call yourself something that you‘re not
Daria: If you‘re talking about me calling myself a lesbian, that‘s what I am
My definition of lesbian does not involve men in any way
How are we supposed to establish some form of identity if lesbians go around having sex with men?
Maybe… (a few simultaneously)
Wanna get out and get some dick?
Daria: And we‘re not talking life commitment here, it was sex, just sex
There‘s no thing as „just sex“
If you sleep with men, I want to know it before I sleep with you
Daria: So you‘re not having sex with women who had sex with men?
We‘re not talking about the past, we‘re talking about now
Daria: What is the exact amount of time that has to pass before I regain my lesbian status?
I don‘t have sex with women who have sex with men
Yeah, did you have safe sex?
Yes, when was the last time you did?
Daria: The last time I had sex!
Anyone else?
You can‘t just do that!
Daria: Oh come on, he‘s a friend of mine, what is the big fucking deal? Women are my life, I love women.
But you just cam‘t stay away from that dick
Daria: Fuck you
I‘d like to hear her say why she did it
Daria: Oh I just forgot for a minute that Big Sister was watching
I don‘t see what‘s so bad about it.
Yeah, maybe she considers herself bisexual.
Well, then she should say that.
Daria: Well, I don‘t. I‘m a lesbian who has sex with a man.
No such thing.
Daria: I had sex with one man! You know, if a gay man has sex with a woman, he was bored, drunk, lonely, whatever, and if a lesbian has sex with a man, her whole life choice becomes suspect. I think it‘s bullshit, I think you‘re giving it way too much ? –
I think you‘re making up a bunch of excuses to hide your desire for men. Why don‘t just live the life you want and don‘t call yourself a lesbian.
Yeah, no one would care who you have sex with as long as you call yourself what you really are
Daria: Why don‘t you all clue me in on what I really am and I‘d be happy –
I think you have to have sex with a man for a certain number of times over a period of time to have your identity as a lesbian questioned
I think it‘s a question of how you do it
I don‘t think she‘s really a dyke
I don‘t think she‘s strong enough to be a dyke
No, it‘s cool for her to do what she wants but I wouldn‘t date her
Daria: I wouldn‘t want to date anyone that close-minded
You mean you tell everyone who you sleep with how many men you had sex with and how recently
Daria: No but I probably had sex with more women than anyone in this room and I‘m not saying that quality – quantity is quality, but it‘s a lot harder to keep your identity as a single lesbian than some woman who‘s been in a homie little relationship for twelve years
Then the women you do have sex with don‘t know what they‘re dealing with
Daria: Well, what‘s the likelihood of a woman I meet tonight coming home to me if I said: Listen, I thought you should know but I had recently sex with a man
Very slim
Daria: Exactly
Exactly what. It would be dishonest of you not to tell her
Who the hell wants to think of all the people a person you‘re having sex with had sex with
I don‘t know! Some people get off on that
No the point is: she‘s cute enough, but if I thought she would have a sudden urge to have sex with a man while I was dating her, I‘d say: forget it
Daria: If you and I were in some committed relationship I wouldn‘t be having sex with anyone but you
But who is to say this little whim won‘t pop up again
Daria: I don‘t cheat on people
Why is everyone acting like it‘s the end of the world for her to have sex with one stupid guy
I hate to picture having sex with a guy
If it means so little to you, why are you acting so guilty?
Did you enjoy it?
Daria: It wasn‘t bad
Did you come?
Daria: No
But I bet he did
Daria: I wasn‘t in it for the orgasm
What were you in it for
Daria: Sex!
I’m a man, attracted only to women. I’m a lesbian too! Don’t tell me I can’t be, identity is complex. So I guess I’m part of the rainbow community now, I’m a marginalized person.
That is the logical conclusion of this nonsense lol
This comment is in two parts for legibility.
Part 1: Commentary on Kayla’s response
I’ve compiled a list of rhetorical strategies Kayla used in their reply, which I believe ultimately serve to imply the person who asked the question is either projecting or confused. There’s no direct engagement with the premise, only soft straw-manning, strategic reframing and semantic diversion. That said, I don’t think the question or the response were offered in bad faith at all.
Where the response disappoints is here:
1. Personal anecdote as universal principle
“Once upon a time, I was a lesbian with a boyfriend.”
This normalises contradiction through relatability. But personal experience does not equal logical argument. The issue isn’t ‘can someone feel lesbian while dating a man?’ The issue is: does it preserve the definition of the word to call that lesbianism?
2. Defensive tone as rhetorical shield
“I don’t owe anyone a perfect explanation.”
Agreed, no one owes a public explanation of their personal life. But if you publicly claim an identity that contradicts your relational reality, others are within reason to discuss what that means for the label itself. This isn’t about you. It’s about language.
3. Appeal to complexity to avoid precision
“Labels are personal, complex, and subject to shifts.”
True of many labels. Not all. ‘Lesbian’ is a sexually exclusive orientation, not a poetic mood board. It’s not complex to say someone who is attracted to men is not a lesbian. It’s linguistically consistent.
4. False reframe of the concern as ‘fear’ or ‘heteronormativity’
“That fear is rooted in heteronormative language.”
No. It’s rooted in lesbian history, one of the only identity spaces that structurally excludes men. Wanting to preserve that isn’t internalised patriarchy. It’s a refusal to re-centre men.
5. Smuggling in ‘queer’ as a default framework
“Queerness to me… rejects binaries altogether.”
That’s fine, for queerness. But ‘lesbian’ is not synonymous with ‘queer.’ One is a specific sexual orientation, the other is an umbrella term. Conflating the two is either intellectually lazy or deliberately obfuscatory.
6. Pivoting away from the question entirely
“Is there another question beneath your question?”
This is classic rhetorical deflection. It reframes the asker as emotionally confused rather than intellectually observant. I found this implication perhaps the most troubling of all.
Part 2: On the question itself
The ‘Black Lives Matter’ vs ‘All Lives Matter’ debate offers a structurally identical analogy.
‘Black Lives Matter’ is not exclusionary. It identifies a specific, marginalised group and asserts the need for focused language and attention. ‘All Lives Matter,’ while seemingly inclusive, erases that focus and recentres dominant norms. It strips the original phrase of its force and clarity.
The word ‘lesbian’ operates similarly. It refers specifically to women who are exclusively romantically and sexually attracted to other women. It articulates an experience that excludes men, not in theory or sentiment, but in practice.
When women in romantic and sexual relationships with men call themselves lesbians, they aren’t expanding the term. They’re hollowing it out. If ‘lesbian’ includes women in long-term, intentional relationships with men, it no longer communicates anything specific. It becomes the sexual identity version of ‘All Lives Matter.’
This isn’t about ‘policing’ people. It’s about linguistic coherence. If anyone can claim any label, regardless of whether they meet its criteria, then labels cease to function. This isn’t an argument against identity fluidity, people can and should use terms like bisexual, queer, questioning, or non-labeled if that’s what fits. But lesbian is not a vibe or a mood. It is a specific, exclusive category.
Kayla’s anecdote, while honest, conflates subjective experience with objective meaning. Feeling ‘lesbian’ while dating a man might be emotionally true for them, but if the word is to retain meaning in a shared language, it cannot stretch to include that context. Identity can be personal; language must be shared. If a word no longer refers to a concrete reality, it refers to nothing at all.
Queerness may reject binaries; lesbianism does not. Queer is expansive. Lesbian is specific. To collapse that distinction under the banner of inclusivity is to erase what the label was created to protect.
Historical claims that the meaning of ‘lesbian’ has always been fluid often ignore the necessity of internal coherence. Definitions evolve, yes, but through refinement, not contradiction. You don’t say a triangle is now a square because it wants to be. As the saying goes: a word that means everything means nothing.
As for edge cases (visa marriages, transitional partners, past relationships) these are not what’s under discussion. The issue is when women are currently and intentionally in romantic and sexual relationships with men, with no plans to leave and still claim the lesbian label. That’s not nuance, it’s basic redefinition.
It isn’t gatekeeping to uphold a definition, it’s preservation of meaning. Those who insist that anyone can be a lesbian if they ‘feel’ like one aren’t challenging oppression, they’re ensuring that lesbian identity, one of the very few categories that structurally excludes men, cannot meaningfully exist.
Bravo!
Wow. I am stunned with the brilliance of this reply and rebuttal. Perfectly said, thank you so much for taking the time to write this. Lesbian is an identity that deserves to be respected.
Lol omg you guys!! This shit doesn’t matter!! fascism is all around us, protestors and migrants are being kidnapped and sent to concentration camps, trans rights are being systematically ground down, democracy is falling… and y’all are up in arms about what some rando calls herself? Focus!!! We need you!!
I know you probably mean well with your comment, but your argument only works if you believe language isn’t infrastructure.
But it is.
Language shapes perception, policy and power. The reason fascists attack identity, rewrite history and suppress categories is because control over definition is control over reality. For example’s sake: If the word ‘lesbian’ stops meaning anything specific, if it becomes whatever anyone wants it to mean, it loses political utility. It can no longer describe a class of people with distinct needs, rights or risks. That’s exactly how minority identities disappear under pressure.
It’s possible to care about multiple issues at once, necessary, in fact. You don’t protect against fascism by abandoning clarity or indulging outrage and fear against monolithic forces. You protect against it by knowing exactly who you are, what you’re defending and why the definitions matter. 1984 is a great illustration of this, worth re-reading now.
So nah, this isn’t a distraction, in a lot of ways this is a frontline, a fantastic exercise in critical thinking. Letting THAT muscle atrophy is the real terror!
JustVisiting, you just don’t miss <3
Homoflexible types existing isn’t what makes entitled people entitled. Even if everyone in the world believed that all lesbians were 100% Kinsey 6s with zero ambiguity, guys who want to aggressively hit on a woman who they believe to be lesbian-identified would justify it to themselves with the idea that maybe this particular woman is actually in denial that she’s something else. And that’s a thing that happens to people sometimes! I’m a bi trans guy who once thought I was a lesbian.
Maybe this would’ve been less likely to happen if there was less intolerance and better education about how it might feel to be trans and how lots of bi people are not actually capable of being straight-passing (I was attracted to men but felt too dysphoric about being treated as a woman by men to want to date them), but also sometimes people just don’t know themselves very well and sometimes life is stupid. Sometimes you fall for a gay or straight person while questioning your gender and you really want the answer to be the thing your crush would like. Sometimes you have a mental health thing going on where it’s more difficult to know how you’re feeling. Sometimes your family was homophobic and that makes it much harder to approach your sexuality in a less black-and-white way, even as it becomes more and more obvious that this isn’t how it works for you as an individual.
I stopped calling myself a lesbian when I realized I wasn’t one by any reasonable definition, but according to the logic that homoflexible lesbians are hurting the image of lesbianism, wouldn’t I be doing that as well by having publicly identified as a lesbian and then gone “wait, I am actually bi”? There wasn’t even a guy involved apart from myself, but does that matter if people might assume there was some dramatic sexual encounter that “flipped” me? If somebody wanted to believe that some lesbian they know might be open to sleeping with men, wouldn’t my story bolster that too? Whether or not people are strict about the definition of lesbian, there’s no way to have a world with no lesbian-identified people who are at least a little into men, because there’s no way to have a world where people perfectly understand themselves. Sexual orientation as observed in the wild is going to be squishy not because all individuals are squishy, but because humanity as a whole is.
Personally I think the “default” lesbian should be a woman who does not sleep with men, but language is complicated enough to allow the default of a concept to be one way while nondefault examples of this concept also exist, especially if they’re going to anyway.
I’m still flummoxed that there’s a human being this bothered about how a casual acquaintance describes her own experience in this world that she had to seek comfort at the bosom of an Agony Aunt. Like, sis. Have you considered minding your own business?
Y’all met ONCE. You have no connections otherwise. Have you considered getting a hobby?
A thing about this discussion that I find super interesting is that, in many ways, I simply do not care. Personally, unless I were to find out more about the nitty gritty of this woman’s life, I don’t believe you can build a portion of your life around a romantic and sexual relationship with a man and still be a lesbian, so she wouldn’t fit my personal definition. Do I find it annoying? Yes! Do I wish more people in this position would read Rachel Kincaid’s you need help on lesbianism vs bisexuality from 2018? Definitely! (Enjoy, you guys, it’s a great read https://develop.autostraddle.com/you-need-help-am-i-bisexual-if-it-really-is-just-this-one-guy-430024/ )
But the bigger question of “does this materially impact my life and my activism” is a resounding no. As long as there’s a patriarchy, there’s gonna be men who assume a woman has just not met the right guy yet. It’s in the same way that I personally don’t wear makeup and I think there is really no feminist argument for wearing it, but I don’t begrudge the fact that women do it, because ultimately we all live in a society and a bunch of women choosing not to wear makeup won’t magically topple male supremacy. The kinds of men who say “you’ve just not met the right guy” are not backing this statement up with comments from their good pals Tamsyn and Tricia, they’re saying it because they’re raging misogynists who won’t engage with intra-community lesbian discussions except as terrible trolls, and they’re happy to passively benefit from patriarchy. Blaming a handful of women for the continuation of this stereotype when society as a whole is SO misogynistic right now seems profoundly unuseful, and doesn’t pinpoint where the problem is.
I think the different ways we label our different experiences is a REALLY interesting discussion – I know some bisexuals who will never date a man again who call themselves lesbians because it’s a more useful description of how they actually live their lives, and others who won’t call themselves lesbians because it feels like a form of erasure, and I think both arguments are solid. I knew one lesbian who hooked up with a cis guy friend for a bit because she felt lonely and just wanted a sense of companionship, even if the two of them weren’t experiencing any sort of mutual attraction. I knew one woman who called herself a lesbian despite being in a long term relationship with a man because she was effectively waiting until it was kind to leave (he was recovering from a serious illness, and she still cared for him deeply as a friend, so didn’t want to cause too much disruption by leaving at such a delicate time). Until you know all the reasons why a person has chosen the words they’ve chosen, you can’t really confirm or deny whether it “works” per your definition of what it means to be a lesbian, and this is why I feel like it’s not a hugely material issue from an activism point of view.
This is also why I find it such an interesting discussion, because in many ways it’s low stakes enough that it’s almost a nice break from some of the larger more horrible issues facing women and lesbians as a group right now. Basically, I think in the absence of further information, this woman is using lesbian incorrectly and it’s annoying. But “it’s wrong and annoying” is really the worst thing I can say about the impact of this sort of discussion at this specific point in time, so I’ll never prioritise this stuff in my personal activism, because ultimately who cares if some random woman is wrong? People are wrong all the time about much worse things with much greater impact, maybe we should focus on them.
I agree with what you’re saying about picking your battles based on actual harm reduction, but why are you dragging Tamsyn Muir into this? I know there’s been some controversy about her identifying as a lesbian while being married to a man, but she herself is not doing any of the things relevant to this discussion. They’re both superfans of an absurdist sci-fi story with alien platonic marriage and they decided to do an alien platonic marriage in real life. They were from different countries, so making it legally official was probably what made it possible to do it at all. This is just weird nerds being weird nerds, not any of what’s being talked about here. (I think she would have the right to do what’s being talked about here without getting dogpiled for it, but that just isn’t even what’s happening.)
Honestly? Didn’t know the intricacies of Muir’s marriage and just picked the two most high profile examples I could think of that had been discussed in this comment section. The point of those two names was to make fun of the absurdity of assuming that misogynistic lesbophobic men are citing lesbian artists married to men as examples for why lesbians “just haven’t met the right guy yet” – they’re getting this idea from dominant heteronormative culture, not because they’re watching/reading niche lesbian art by lesbians married to men. Wasn’t a comment about the legitimacy of Muir’s situation, just a comment about the absurdity of blaming lesbians married to men for lesbophobic culture as a whole. I hope that clarifies my intentions a bit!
Also, posting this during lesbian visibility week is pretty foul. What do we want to talk about lesbians being visible for? Marrying men! I know this site has shifted away from much actual lesbian content but this is just another big dissapointment.
Point H in Autostraddle’s comment policy might be of interest to you because it illustrates the problem of linguistic identifiers and attempts to solve it with necessary pragmatism. Check it out :)
staying with a dude for financial reasons or cultural reasons and not love reasons feels pretty exploitative
&
also ’70s brought us “political lesbians” – a trend where women would fuck women not because they love the person or even enjoy the sex, but instead were hella obsessed with optics
i dunno, it all seems like bad boundaries & excuses to not be single
Sorry, but hard disagree with the author here. I do take her point about “Financial reasons, cultural reasons, [and] logistical reasons” that an out lesbian might be married to a man – I’ve seen enough heartbreaking posts in the actual lesbians subreddit from women in other countries being forced to marry men against their will to know this is true.
But, the question behind the question here isn’t about the specific set of hypothetical logistics that would explain the stranger this letter submitter met – it’s: who gets to claim a label, and who doesn’t? And the broad answer is: words mean things. We cannot be everything in this life, we cannot claim every identity we want to claim, even/especially when we don’t match up to its material definition. All of life is opportunity cost, and it IS deeply harmful for women who are consistently attracted to men, want to fuck and date and marry men, to claim to be something in diametric opposition.
Lesbianism isn’t just a desire to fuck women, it’s a political rejection of heteronormativity and of the patriarchy – and I cannot blame lesbians for feeling protective of the identity, because everyone forgets about the latter and focuses on the former.
Can someone explain to me why/how lesbians who want to keep lesbian for actual lesbians who are being lesbian are “rooted in heternormativity” but we’re unwilling to assign that same heteronormativity to a woman married to a cishet man which is absolutely one of the most heteronormative things that anyone can do?
Yes, it’s getting completely offensive & ridiculous. If it carries on like this I will cancel my subscription. We need to vote with our feet.
Right? I feel like the reply was just buzzword soup to try and shame lesbians for having boundaries around our identity. We don’t need to be guilt tripped about how our sexuality doesn’t include men from inside the community, we get enough of that from homophobes as it is.
That girl is not a lesbian Period. I’m literally sick and tired of the fact that lesbians literally get zero respect everyone either takes and takes and takes basically like parasites and lesbians just like oh yeah anyone can join no. Especially in these times girl come on what are we doing here also and lesbian visibility week anyways, this website has gone down.
Autostraddle’s language policy (comment policy point H) actually offers a perfect illustration of the tension I’ve been trying to articulate: Schrödinger’s Lesbian.
In point H, there’s an acknowledgement that ‘lesbian’ is the only word with a specific definition—exclusive attraction between women—which is precisely why Autostraddle uses it for SEO and search clarity. At the same time, they broaden the term internally to include any dynamic involving two women, regardless of the individuals’ orientations.
That dissonance is at the heart of this conversation: the word ‘lesbian’ is relied on for its specificity, while its meaning is increasingly treated as flexible or symbolic. It’s worth asking: if a word defined by exclusion is stretched to include its opposite, what remains of its meaning?
This isn’t about gatekeeping personal identity, it’s about whether shared language can still do the work we need it to do. If a term like ‘lesbian’ is expected to be both precise and porous, it becomes harder to use meaningfully in political, cultural or relational contexts.
As an aside, It’s great to see such an active conversation happening on here; this question (and response) seems to have been coloured by many divergent thoughts; and that’s always going to produce some lively banter.
just a fun little reminder for everyone that “lesbian” was originally a term that was inclusive of any women who loved women before a concerted campaign by bigoted radfems specifically, who went as far as attempted to literally rewrite history to try to pretend it was always like that :)
if anyone’s feeling like being ridiculous about how other people identify, be very aware of exactly who you’re throwing your lot in with
People can call themselves whatever they want, that doesn’t make it right or moral. Women like this give credence to corrective rape theory and embolden misogynistic views against real lesbians and bi erasure. Pout and cringe about “people aren’t cans” and “labels shouldn’t matter” but they do, when people walk around saying “I’m this” but live their life the exact opposite way it matters.
Imagine a person proudly screaming they are vegan, they can’t go anywhere without shoving veganism in everyone’s faces. Then imagine they gleefully cut into a steak at every meal, while staring you in the face saying they are still vegan. Yeah that person is an idiot but now everyone they know and everyone they meet will think veganism doesn’t exist or all vegans just crave a good steak.
They’re pulling a Dolezal of sexuality and expect everyone to just get on board with the inherent bigotry of that stance.
absolutely haunting to think Em here is just out in society walking around and everyone who sees her thinks they’re looking at a person
What a disgusting comment. Dehumanized anyone who disagrees with you. Lesbians don’t want to date men and you can take your bigotry and shove it.
I am partners with the person you’re replying to and the thing she’s mad at was specifically the trivialization of rape.
Well your partner needs to learn how to interact with people because suggesting someone is not human and a dangerous lunatic for pushing back against lesbophobia is beyond disgusting. I don’t think it at all trivializes rape to understand how cultural lesbiphobia contributes to that rhetoric.
you’re a sick joke. like Em wasn’t being unforgivably dehumanizing by implying corrective rape is the fault of lesbians who have one male exception and don’t want to discard a label that makes them feel like they have a home? funny how it’s never on the person who originally said the disgusting unforgivable thing to be polite, but only on the people pushing back against them. she LITERALLY THINKS THAT CORRECTIVE RAPE IS THE FAULT OF SLIGHTLY BI WOMEN WHO DON’T WANT TO GIVE UP A LABEL THAT FEELS LIKE HOME TO THEM. she does not see literally anyone who isn’t exactly like her as human and as such she has utterly discarded her right to BE seen as human.
frankly, all your comment does is expose that you’re exactly like her, because you see no problem with her absolutely monstrous modcall-worthy comment, but got all in a huff when someone told the truth about it afterwards.
neither of you are people and i’m more than happy to say it.
Replying to myself instead of to you because the site doesn’t allow comment chains this deep.
I think people who blame confused bisexuals for lesbians getting correctively raped are the ones who were rude first. If you think that is okay, that says a lot more about who YOU do and don’t consider to be human, which was my partner’s point.
Do you think that corrective rape only happens to lesbians, and never to masculine-of-center women of other orientations, women of other orientations in serious relationships with women, or trans people of various sorts? Do you think that people who commit corrective rape are in the habit of checking whether the person they’re correctively raping definitely identifies as a woman and would never voluntarily have sex with a man?
People aren’t getting correctively raped because of bi people misidentifying as lesbians. I’m not saying you can’t be annoyed by the things you’re annoyed by, but this is not why people are getting correctively raped. “Some people who say they’re lesbians are actually bisexual” does not naturally lead to “so it’s okay to rape people to get them to sleep with you”, much less “so it’s okay to punish people for sexual noncompliance with sexual violence”.
Veganism is a terrible comparison for this because a typical vegan is only different from the average person in what they don’t do, while a typical lesbian is different from the average person both in what they do and what they don’t. Why did you pick a metaphor that flattens bisexuality and heterosexuality into the same thing?
Well I am really glad that you all feel so comfortable stripping humanity from anyone who doesn’t fall in line with your bigotry and lesbophobia. Usually I have to rely on the conservative homophobes to do that, now I can find it here too! Great work.
Because how dare we connect the dots between lesbophobic thetoric and the violence we face. Nope, everyone’s else use of our identity is more important than us. Lovely. Bisexuals and heterosexuals do have something in common. Neither are lesbians.
I won’t stoop to your disgusting level and say you’re not human. You are. But you’re incredibly bigoted and lesbophobic humans. Yuck.
I disagree with the response. Words have meanings! I do understand that the queer community is a community where lots of people make very different experiences and some just feel more comfortable with a certain label even if it doesn’t 100% reflect their actual behaviour, that’s just what humans are about and that’s okay. But I do think it is lesbophobic and biphobic to a degree to include men in the definition of lesbianism. Words have meanings! Lesbians are (and I know historically the term included bisexuals as well but that’s no longer the case in general) women who are exclusively attracted to men and there is another term for people for whom this is not the case (bisexual!). What is wrong with the word bisexual? It’s a materially different experience of sexuality. I say that as a bisexual person who identified as a lesbian for a looong time. Like, for years. And I was not “confused”. I genuinely believe that during the time that I identified as a lesbian I genuinely was not attracted to men in any way. But that changed. I now also date men. I had never expected that to happen, I was repulsed by men for a long time, but it happened, I don’t know why but turns out sexuality changed for ME. That does not mean it changes for everyone but unfortunately, it’s something that lesbians get told all the time by homophobes: “It’s just a phase, you need to find the right man, don’t you miss men?” and I got told the same by homophobes when I still identified as a lesbian. It’s invalidating. I wonder if the urge by some people who are attracted to men but identify as lesbians to keep identifying as lesbians is rooted in the very real experience of invalidation of women’s sexuality being focused on other women and excluding men. When our lesbian experiences and relationships are constantly presented as the “lesser” option, are never taken seriously, are always belittled, we might cling very strongly to a label that semantically excludes the “man” option, the option that societally threatens the validity of our attraction towards women even more: as in “oh you don’t believe my attraction to women is real or valid? but I’m a lesbian and even if I notice I am attracted to men as well, I want to center women and I want you to realize that I center women”. In that analysis of the phenomenon, I can empathize heavily with the people who cling to that. Even though I am bisexual , my experience of mostly dating women, and being constantly belittled and invalidated for that, might mean that the label lesbian is a way for me to (re)claim my attraction to women. BUT, when we properly analyse that phenomenon and if we are truly honest with ourselves as bisexuals, I do think that this behaviour is rooted in internalized biphobia. The fact that homophobes (and some lesbians) consider “bisexual” to be some kind of “heterosexual lite” or accuse us of faking our attraction to women for male attention, even if we are mostly attracted to women, should not be our responsibility to bear by choosing a label that we think is less “invalidating”. Especially as someone who gets their attraction to women constantly invalidated, and even lived through this while genuinely not feeling attracted to men, I don’t want lesbians in my life to think that I don’t take their sexuality that excludes men seriously. There are differences, material differences, in how we experience attraction. If you are not attracted to men as a woman, in this society, you get punished for that, and you are traumatized in many ways by compulsory heterosexuality (I knew I was when I still identified as a lesbian, and my first sexual encounters with men were motivated by homophobic pressure I felt to at least try to be attracted to them. That this now has changed for me, and that I now genuinely am attracted to men, makes me bisexual. For lesbians, this pressure to be attracted to men is still very real and it can lead to violence and trauma. It’s a disservice and disrespectful to continue using a label for myself that semantically excludes men when I don’t exclude men from my sexual life anymore, because it invalidates all the experiences actual lesbians have for whom men will never be an option and for whom the suggestion of dating and finding “the right” men has always meant oppression, violence, pressure, and trauma and who will never be able to at least appear more palatable to society, even if we bisexual people also rightfully experience that “palatability” as invisibility and erasure of our sexuality when we are in seemingly straight relationships. But this is due to patriarchy and attraction to men being seen as the “better option” in it. I can be proudly bisexual while still honoring that my attraction to women as just as valid and beautiful as my attraction to men).
‘lesbians are women who are exclusively attracted to women of course is what I meant to say)
I am giving you a round of applause for this wonderful, thoughtful comment! Lesbian and bisexual are both beautiful identities and neither is “better” in any way. However, as you stated, they do communicate important differences in material realities! And flattening those differences does a disservice to both groups and muddied the water when discussing axis of oppression. Not every thing is for everybody and that is ok. Sincerely, thank you, from a lesbian :)
The comments on the Instagram post helped me maintain my sanity because what even is this article? Somehow it’s both lesbophobic AND biphobic. Glad I canceled my A+ subscription. I knew it was getting rough here, but I really didn’t expect a whole article arguing for lesbian erasure and the inclusion of men in yet another thing during les visibility week. Yikes.
Famous lesbian Annemarie Schwarzenbach was married to a man – will the majority of the commenters here now claim that she was bisexual?
Its so funny how so many people come on here with 0 reading comprehension and make arguments. A 2 second search showed me her husband was gay. Two opposite gender homosexuals marrying for convenience/safety in times gone by is very different from a woman marrying a man she is attracted to in the modern day. And even if Schwarzenbach was bisexual, what’s so wrong with that? So many people in these comments are treating the definition of lesbianism like some superior, exclusive club they’ve been denied access to. Why do you all hate and want to erase the bisexual identity too?
Please be respectful when you disagree with people. Kayla wrote about a number of reasons like cultural, logistical and financial reasons for a lesbian to get married to a man. And Jane posted the question what it means to “exclusively” love women – what about a visa situation? Annemarie Schwarzenbach married this man for visa reasons during WWII. So it applies very well to the topics discussed here.
Also, there is nothing wrong with being bisexual. Who in this comment section do you personally know so that you would have any real knowledge if they hate and would want to erase bisexual identity? This is your projection, it has nothing to do with me.
What I find problematic in this thread is people telling others how they should identify according to their own beliefs – without any knowledge of the person they speak about, their experiences, reasons, inner lives. There are those lesbians who are like “Yes, I am a lesbian, but for x reason/time, I am with this man and by the way, I’m not bi.” They exist, whether you like it or not. And they will keep existing, despite your opinion of them. Loved Kayla’s sentence: “In reality, I don’t owe anyone a perfect explanation of that time in my life and of my decision to come out as a lesbian even when I had a boyfriend.“
Also, solidarity to all bisexuals who get so much crap from lesbians.
Sure, and of all those cultural, logistical, and financial reasons, none are “attracted to a man” (as stated in the letter!!!), which falls outside of lesbianism.
Sexuality is not just black and white. Lots of people think they are bi but actually really they are a lesbian or vice versa and I absolutely abhor the transphobic idea that trans lesbians don’t exist and the extreme focus on genitalia etc but I do think it is harmful for women who are married to men because they are actually sexually or romantically interested them to identify as lesbians. It does feed into the idea that lesbians just need to meet the right man and it will happen eventually etc. You don’t have to use labels if you don’t want to but if you are going to use them, bisexual and pansexual are right there. I hope I am articulating my point correctly.
Lesbians do not want to marry men. Yes, there are lesbians who have been coerced or otherwise pressured into being with men, but no lesbian ///wants/// to be married to a man. This website is truly not a safe space for women who are exclusively attracted to women. We just get talked down to and scrutinized for who we are.