Reports from the underside of Pride Month
It's Pride month, so let's check in with lesbian and bisexual women in the LGBTQ community. We asked: What do you wish you could say about your experiences as a woman in the LGBTQ community?
Here's some of what we've heard:
"I feel forced to lie again, about an obvious truth, or lose the friends I love and the community I spent years finding... I feel like I'm right back to that childhood trauma: lie, or lose everything. Be complicit in your own abuse. How is that ok?"
"I fear advocating for myself as a woman because I have been labeled a TERF for doing so. I've lost friends and received rape/death threats. I'm scared of the homophobia directed at my lesbian/gay brothers and sisters for being exclusively same-sex attracted."
"I feel so alone because the people around me either think that I am going to Hell for being attracted to other women, or that I am just not trying hard enough to be attracted to males. I don't know what to do."
"the rampant misogyny within trans rights activism is genuinely terrifying and every attempt to shed light on it is inevitably met with derision and scorn and “die you terf cunt”. female class consciousness is being eroded..."
The "'community' that should have made me proud of myself has me feel incredibly ashamed and lonely... I sometimes really wish I was born in another time, because as hard as it would be at least there would be a language to name problems and nobody would deny their existence."
"If you wish for female-only spaces in the LGBT world, that's a major cause for alarm all of a sudden... I hate how wanting female connection and female spaces in LGBT contexts is suddenly this massive red flag for people, and not allowed."
"The changes that the lesbian community has suffered lately makes me feel sick... for many years my Christian family has tried to make me like men , theoretically putting a penis in my mouth... and now the same community that made me feel safe when I was a minor , telling me I wasn’t wrong for loving a woman it’s doing the same to many women , making us feel guilty with the same tactic that our families have been using for years ."
"I came out to [two friends] in a time where lesbians were more accepted... Now they've decided my homosexuality is violently transphobic & abandoned the friendship. I've been lonely for a few years since I have a hard time making friends. I honestly wish I had stayed closeted."
"i wish that i could just exist as a lesbian woman without having to change the language i use to describe myself to make others comfortable. i want to be a homosexual in peace. i want to be a woman in peace. i am tired of others trying to change what that means"
"I'm a CSA survivor as well as a lesbian, and every time I see people coercing or otherwise manipulating lesbians to be sexually attracted to penises, I'm reminded of being abused. I don't feel safe in LGBTQ spaces anymore because of it."
"I'm not queer. I'm a lesbian. It took me twenty years to stop hating myself for being this way, to stop looking in a mirror and hearing queer, abnormal, freak in the back of my head. I will never let anyone call me that word again."
"The community seems to emphasise and perpetuate gender stereotypes... Many people apparently believe that femininity is innate to women and if you don't want to engage in it you aren't a woman. Which as a lesbian, seems utterly contrary to all feminist and lesbian history"
"I'd really really like, as a lesbian woman, to no longer be surrounded by transwomen who parrot the same talking points and shame tactics used, nearly word for word, by the youth pastor that tried to help me "pull away from sin""
"I wish I could say LGBT spaces made me feel more at ease but it's the opposite. As a lesbian I just find it distressing. Can't have anything that's "women only" without getting hate."
"When I was suffering an identity crisis and personal trauma, I was manipulated into changing my name, wearing a binder, and pretending to be a man. In reality, I’m just a lesbian with autism."
"I didn't want to be called queer, so people took it on themselves to explain why they were going to call me queer anyway. I wanted to meet other lesbians, and I didn't understand why that made them so uneasy."
"It’s so alienating. I can’t do anything that centers females, or fuck, even that shitty vague nebulous concept of “woman” anymore without getting put down. I’m so sick & tired of this community. Get the L out because you all hate us until you want to be us, and I’m sick of it."
"there is nothing wrong with women who are only attracted to the female body."
“I was raised in a very patriarchal religion (Mormonism) where women are subservient in every way that matters. We are allowed to have no leadership positions without the permission or surveillance of men, even in our own organizations… Just like my old religion, you aren't allowed to question the ideology (in this case transgenderism) without being ostracized. Even dating apps specifically for lesbian and bisexual women do not have the option to filter males out of our dating pool. Just like my old religion, men's feelings and sensibilities must be taken into account in everything that women do.”
"I feel a lot of the time like I have no community, or no lesbian community at least. I’m afraid to speak freely because my opinions on anything including lesbian-only issues will be scrutinized by the whole LGBT community. I have no home in the LGBT community, no support."
"You know nothing about being a woman, and you never will. It hurts so much to have to pretend that you do."
"I can no longer discuss my own experiences, my own journey to accepting myself w/o someone saying it sounds "terfy" & transphobic... B/c somehow, their experiences are more important than ours. I never thought I would have to defend my sexuality against people in the community."
"The most male thing about transwomen is the rage they have over being told No... I didn’t go through everything I went through to date someone that’s biologically male. I’m not attracted to men. I don’t have to have a reason to say no."
"I wish people would stop insisting that my girlfriend is a man because she isn't feminine"
"The muting of women speaking up about their experiences with their bodies and misogyny and the push for constant gender neutral language have gone too far. I want to be able to talk about menstruation and birth control without censoring my words for someone’s discomfort."
"I want to go back to when lesbian meant females that are only attracted to females, not "non-men loving non-men" or whatever bullshit they're pushing today"
"As a lesbian I can't relate to the majority of the western queer movement - it's too far removed from my real life experiences. I feel solidarity with other lesbians and gay men but that's about it"
"I have to hide my sadness about GNC women renouncing womanhood. I am silent on the subject, it is the safest way to be."
"I am a survivor of domestic abuse at the hands of a male partner. I was assigned a male caseworker at the women's centre.When I requested a female caseworker he pushed against that boundary. It was retraumatising. It took such strength & courage for me to re-assert my boundary."
"Feeling alienated by femininity is a near-universal female experience, especially for gay and bisexual women— not something that means you’re not a woman at all."
"I also mourn the loss of our young butch lesbians to surgeries and life-long dependence on dangerous hormonal drugs."
"I came out expecting to find community and instead I have been rejected and confused about where my community and peers truly are."
"He stole my identity and I was helpless to confront that. Heterosexual males are not women and they will never be lesbians."
"I am sick of feeling like I am not a proper lesbian for being homosexual. The new definition of “lesbian” means “bisexual.” This is erasure of a sexual orientation. This is erasure of culture. This is males forcing themselves into female spaces."
The LGBTQ community has "become just another space that centres and uplifts abusive males in the name of “inclusivity”
"I'm not welcome in my own community because I refuse to conform to the Orwellian double think. Putting on a dress and makeup doesn't make you a woman same as me cutting my hair short and wearing a suit doesn't make me a man."
"I hate that I’m constantly guilted into validating other people. Please let me have normal relationships with other LGBT people without forcing me into the role of validation dispenser."
"I feel as a lesbian my name and image is being used to further an agenda that harms young lesbians more than anyone else... I do not consent to this theft of my identity as a lesbian or a woman."
"I forced myself to date trans women because I was made to feel like I was a bigot for not being attracted to them as a lesbian. It was incredibly traumatic and I was treated like utter crap. I hate that other lesbians are being put in the same situation..."
"I feel like I'm losing ground I probably never had... I feel like I can't go into offline spaces as a GNC woman without qualifying myself with 20 hyper-specific labels first. There's no space to just be a masculine lesbian anymore."
"I just want to be a lesbian who doesn't have to pretend to like transbians and not like transmen in order to be accepted"
From Singapore: "A law still exists to criminalize gay male sex, L & G couples are banned from affordable housing, & widespread media censorship & discrimination still exists, yet our largest 'lgbt' organisation, Pink Dot, posts endless on FB on trans issues..."
"I embraced myself as a butch lesbian & I wanted more then anything to go be with other lesbians. I wanted community more then anything. But there isn’t a place for me anymore... I can not express how painful it is to not have a place to belong."
"I'm frustrated by... the fact that as same-sex attracted women the attraction we feel toward other women and their female bodies has somehow become taboo again... The female body is one of the things I love about women."
“There is no such thing as LGBTQ, and the + makes it even more ridiculous— “+” can encompass literally anything and anyone, and now it does... Honestly I felt safer and more at home in the community 20 years ago before we had any legal rights."
"I'm very angry about what the lgbt community has become, and I haven't been quiet about it. I didn't start angry, but I'm furious as a result of being alienated, threatened, silenced, exposed to coercive lesphobic rape rhetoric, and called a bigot for stating facts... Some of the conversations I've had with trans activists have been flooring. I find myself unable to digest the level of reality denial and delusion, or how they expect you to harm yourself and community to uphold this delusion."
"I want to talk about the incredible setbacks we've made in both women's rights and same-sex rights without people threatening to beat, rape, or kill me"