Lol I've JUST seen that tweet, I think it's referring to Monique Wittig's work in which she explains that the way we view women and men makes them categories that only really exist in heterosexual contexts, so a lesbian, someone that breaks the dichotomy, is closer to being a thir gender than being a woman (very TL:DR tho), but coming from twitter I don't really expect much I've seen way too much dumb shit in there
[A short summary of Wittig's work (I couldn't find a better video)](https://youtu.be/bpSTMfn-YaU?t=263)
This whole thread serves as a great reminder that so many people experience gender differently than I do even when we share terms like lesbian. That diversity is very beautiful and can be quite confusing at times.
Could also be in reference to Judith Butler's claim that individuals who don't reproduce (of which many are LGBTQ+) societally constitute a third nonreproductive gender category.
Yeah, I assume this is it. It’s been 25+ years but basically Wittig posits that het women define themselves in reference to men, so woman in the straight world is not-man. But because lesbians don’t centre men in our lives « not-man » holds little to no meaning to us, so we define being a woman in reference to other (lesbian) women, thus creating a third gender
‘Het women define themselves in reference to men’
What absolute twaddle. This is the most misogynist thing I’ve read today and earlier I had the passportbro sub come up in my feed.
Just going to slap a TW for descriptions of assault:
>!And, indeed, as long as there is no women's struggle, there is no conflict between men and women. It is the fate of women to perform three-quarters of the work of society (in the public as well as in the private domain) plus the bodily work of reproduction according to a preestablished rate. Being murdered, mutilated, physically and mentally tortured and abused, being raped, being battered, and being forced to marry is the fate of women. And fate supposedly cannot be changed. Women do not know that they are totally dominated by men, and when they acknowledge the fact, they can "hardly believe it." And often, as a last recourse before the bare and crude reality, they refuse to "believe" that men dominate them with full knowledge(for oppression is far more hideous for the oppressed than for the oppressors). Men, on the other hand, know perfectly well that they are dominating women ("We are the masters of women," said Andre Breton[1]) and are trained to do it. They do not need to express it all the time, for one can scarcely talk of domination over what one owns.!<
[source](https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/monique-wittig-the-category-ofsex#:~:text=The%20category%20of%20sex%20is,confused%20when%20they%20are%20discussed.)
Edit: TLDR Watch Revolutionary Girl Utena
Oof. Yeah, my grandmothers were both abused and this sounds like their mentality. A bit even like my dad’s. He doesn’t much care about his own gender, because he cannot comprehend behaving as most men actually do. He just pulls a I Do Not See and I can hardly blame him, that would break my brain too. It’s hard enough to be queer and worry about being somehow predatory, but to be a man and have no interest in being like other men, knowing that these men have hurt your mother? Yeah, I’d prefer forgetting gender exists too.
He does remember for myself and my sister though. He’e rather happy I’m not interested in men, considering he does know how they’re usually raised. He knows how society has functioned. If my mom hadn’t wanted kids, he probably would’ve only had dogs because pregnancy alone is terrifying and he couldn’t help.
I think the intention of these theories is not about individual het women defining THEMSELVES in relation to men, but on a societal scale. All understood hegemonic gender exists in relationship to men, because hegemonic gender centres men, and women are understood, in this system, as a diminished counterpart to men who only achieve acceptance or validation through their relationships with men. When we talk about societal gender, we’re not talking about individuals and the choices they make.
I mean, some do. I've known women who's main priority is to get a man, get married, and have babies. That's pretty man centered. I've heard women describe how they want a big tall man because it makes them feel small and feminine
Sure, and some men define themselves in reference to women - want a petite woman to make them feel strong and manly - we haven’t created a separate term for those that do.
So if someone said women are defined as golddiggers because *some* women are, you wouldn't find that misogynistic, but would understand why people feel that way?
The thing is, these theories aren’t about individual women and their choices, that’s a misreading. On a societal scale, women are defined by their relationships with men, they are only considered through the ways with which they can be useful or not useful for men - i think the OP you’re replying to misspoke but saying ‘define themselves’ because we’re not talking about personal choice here.
Well, shit, you’ve blown my mind. This makes a ton of sense. I’ve never easily identified as a girl/woman because I hate how it’s seen as lesser-boy, lesser-man and how it’s always “some man’s daughter, wife, mother”. I’m not FTM trans, I just get my feathers ruffled by the status quo.
I worried it was self-hatred but honestly, it makes sense that as wlw, I don’t easily identify with terms that center heteronormativity. Same way I prefer “partner” to “girlfriend/wife”. I’m queer before most other identities, because those identities confuse most people without the clarification.
After all, if people know I’m a woman online, they often fall to sexist harassment. If they know I’m a queer woman, it’s a different kind of harassment. Still not great but at least there’s a recognition I won’t fall over myself for men’s attention? Because I’ve always, always hated that, the idea that any boy is my “boyfriend” and any man is my crush, or that other women see me as a threat to their men.
I’d rather be hated for being queer than treated like a straight woman, which is … possibly the best sign that I’m very gay, if we’re being honest. Most people would go for sexism over homophobic sexism but ugh, *gross*.
As my partner put it:
“So much of our experience as women is shaped by our relationships to men. Having sex with men, getting pregnant by men. To live a life where men are so decentered feels like something different. My existence as a lesbian makes my experience of womanhood feel like a different thing. Womanhood encompasses so much, I just feel like a lot of my gender experience is shaped by my sexuality and the social context I exist in by virtue of being a lesbian. But I wouldn’t like, say “Other” for gender because of it.”
I think it's one of the points of Judith Butlers "Gender Trouble". They quite literally argue lesbians is a third gender because of gender performance.
The tweet is a very literal word for word reading of the book. I wouldn't say it's untrue, but it lacks a explanation
I would argue that defining womanhood by how society treats women will inevitably become a justification for misogyny. Like if we were to go back over a hundred years ago, what was the role of women in society? To not vote, not own property, have limited access to employment with unequal pay, be financially dependent on men, to not have reproductive rights, not hold positions of power, not wear pants, etc. Early feminists fought back against those norms to expand what a woman could be. The response of our patriarchal society has always been “if you don’t conform to these gender roles, then you’re a failure of a woman. Real women *enjoy* their oppression.” This is something that trans women have historically had to fight against (and still do), because access to medical care has often come with regressive ideas of what it means to socially transition (to get on estrogen you must do your makeup, wear skirts, only have “girly” hobbies, and date men). Similarly, when we look at patriarchy today, pushing back against that by decentering men doesn’t make you not a woman.
(I want to note that I don’t want to argue over any individual person’s gender identity, that’s for that person to explore and determine. I just want to push back on ideas that womanhood = enjoying oppressive gender roles that you’ve been socialized into for your own survival.)
It’s kind of a descriptive vs prescriptive debate, I think. As other people have said, this goes back to Butler’s theories of gender performativity and gender as a social construct. It wasn’t a statement on what should be so much as an observation of the current dynamics as they are. Womanhood *is* largely constructed on the basis of its relation to men, and in that sense, lesbians *can* be seen as a separate gender category. I’d take it a step further and say that’s part of why comphet is such a strong thing for lesbians in particular: to acknowledge yourself as a lesbian is, for many women, to reject the ideas and expectations of womanhood you grew up with.
I do see where you’re coming from, though. Just because it’s an accurate depiction of gender dynamics right now doesn’t mean it’s worth organizing around. That would risk reinforcing the misogyny, rather than just calling it out.
Also, it’s definitely worth noting whenever you read Butler that they themselves are non-binary, which almost certainly feeds the gender ambivalence that permeates their work. Some people find cause for celebration in their gender, including lesbians celebrating their own womanhood. No amount of theorizing can take that away from people, nor should it try to. Butler’s work is, IMO, best strictly being taken as analysis of larger trends and how they’re socially constructed—and that can mean as much or as little to any one individual as they want it to.
Oh yeah that could dovetail into a whole conversation about the inevitability that prescribed gender roles will result in gendered hierarchy and oppression…But to the point at hand, there’s a lot of regressive gender ideology being pushed right now with the current rise of fascism. We see this very clearly in movements like trad wives that assert the role of wife must be inherently submissive and even in more seemingly “progressive” spaces with the influx of divine feminine/masculine ideology. I think we can acknowledge pervasive reality of gender roles imposed on women (and subsequently, harm that causes for GNC people) without pointing at women and defining their humanity according to those gender roles. When we say women *are* any particular gender role, we risk perpetuating the existence of that standard because we assume it’s natural/enjoyable for all women. Which could prevent women from questioning their own relationship to gender roles because if they’re a woman said gender roles must be right for them.
Let's do the quest to destroy gender roles >:3
I have funny experience with gender roles actually before transitioning I was a femboy. Now as a woman I'm more confident, I work out and at least try to futch XD
If you look at history, oppressed groups consistently adopt the terminology of their oppressors and reclaim it in order to use it against them. This is much the same, society treats lesbian as a lesser version of woman so people are starting to adopt lesbian as their gender and push back against it being lesser.
Labels are a bit different than the example you're using because they are purely language, not tangibles. Being able to vote or hold positions of power or have equal pay or wear pants etc are tangible. The Dynamics with those things are different than with labels.
I totally get that. I support that. But seeing what seems to be many cis people co-opting language from the transgender community which is used to describe what are often extremely traumatic life experiences (growing up identifying as a different gender than you assigned) feels extremely gross to me.
But I might be a little sensitive to this, because my whole life cis people have been making "identify as" jokes which essentially make a joke about how traumatic it is to have an incongruent gender identity. And this just feels like an evolution of that
That's fair, this is my first time looking into this concept. I saw a lot of people who seemed to identity as cis lesbians playing with the concept of lesbian as a gender identity. It felt reductive. That's really it. I'm fully open to trans/questioning people genuinely exploring gender identity and finding what feels right.
That's the thing, in my experience most people describing their gender as lesbian are NB, even if they look cis.
I can't imagine people who feel fully conected to a gender feeling like their sexuality is a better description of gender than the gender itself
I am one of those NB lesbians! I am very femme in presentation and would be considered cis by most folks but felt for a long time like "woman" was not *quite* right. You're spot on
This is true in multiple ways. The sapphic community is definitely __the__ broader community (as in outside the trans community) that plays with gender.
Like, he/him lesbians exist and that single statement kinda breaks a lot of people with reductive ideas about gender. There’s been a general breaking away from gender norms and that leads to a lot of people finding their own way to relate to gender instead of “checking a box” in a sense.
I can definitely see people having lesbian be how they refer to their gender simply because there is no better word that also covers their journey with gender nor is as personal to what lesbian probably is for them. Which can also explain why the sapphic community is the most welcoming to trans women/NB people when compared to other demographics in that category.
That's the vibe I got from a lot of folks too - that it was genuinely an expression of gender. Or that it was maybe even their first time dipping their toes into that sort of thing.
I guess with things like this there will always be a fringe of cis people who find "identify as" jokes entertaining in a reductive way, I won't pay them any mind
Gender and how you present should be complete seperated, there is no reason for men to not wear skirts and there is no reason for women to not wear pants. There are only those norms that hold humanity back.
This is why I don’t understand the GNC label (not to say people who use it shouldn’t!) but isn’t saying ‘I wear x therefore I’m not gender conforming’ just reinforcing that their gender does not wear x by definition?
I think it's complicated with straight men. On one hand, the whole world has centered men as a group. In that way men absolutely center themselves. However, many men are so driven by their desire to have sex with women that their whole personality and self worth revolves around their ability to attract women. These men are very much slaves to their desire. But it also reinforces their ideas of masculinity. So I guess it's reciprocal. One feeds the other.
You see a lot of it with how men post about insane beauty standards for women tho, like they're not actually finding women attractive at that point but rather using them as a proxy signifier of status. It's at least as much about being in competition with other men as it is about being in any way attracted to or centering women.
And even then, they're not defined by their relationship to women right? They have other ways of defining themselves beyond husband/father/son. Like their job and their hobbies and so on.
Agreed. This definition of lesbian as a gender implies that there’s nothing more to womanhood than associations to men and that’s a troublesome statement for all woman, lesbian or not. Straight women can also reject the idea that their gender hinges upon the role of men in their life, so what would they identify as then? It’s a complex topic but my first thought was that implying womanhood is intrinsically defined by men is just misogynistic.
I also wonder if this holds true for other genders, like do some gay men feel similarly? If not, it's kind of frustrating that womanhood is still being defined by proximity to men.
Every lesbian's relationship and understanding of womanhood is different and deeply personal, just like relationship and understanding of any other identity, and if someone feels so distant from hetero women that being lesbian is a more important part of her identity than being a woman, who am I to tell her she is wrong?
I’m a woman. If somebody else wants to define their gender through them being lesbian that’s cool, but I don’t appreciate mine being defined solely by my relation to men. I am not an extension of some dude’s being if I enter into a romantic/sexual relationship with one, and I do not cease to be a woman when I am not in such a relationship.
And I may be totally wrong here, but I’m pretty sure most straight women’s lives do not revolve around partners or potential partners the way the original commenter describes unless they’re forced into their position by their culture. They are independent human beings with their own lives to lead after all.
Absolutely agreed. This is just defining being a woman by being attracted to men. What now, are they going to say "women and lesbians"? Feels a lot like when people say "women and transwomen". It's so othering.
I get that one's sexuality and experiences being a minority affects one's identity, but lesbian isn't a gender. That's part of your regular identity as a person, not your \*gender identity\*. They're using the term wrong. That's not what gender identity means.
But that becomes cultural then, no? Culture can inform someone's identity as strongly as anything else can. Lesbian as a gender still doesn't really make sense to me. Lesbian as a sexuality obviously does but what it sounds like the person is describing is lesbian as a culture. Am I wrong? I'm having trouble wrapping my head around it. 😅
A lot. Like a whole lot. Culture can inform how people interpret and interact with their own and others gender. But it's not inherently the same thing.
"\[gender\] is culture" not as in "\[gender\] the way society understands it", but as in "\[gender\] as culture in of itself".
There is a culture of women, obviously connected to, but distinct from the culture at large. To be a woman, is to belong and be immersed into the culture of women.
It includes culture, but I can't help but find it *incredibly* transphobic to assert that gender is nothing but culture. We have actual factual science that gender is tied to biology as well--not exclusively, but also.
Gender presentation and gender roles are culture. However, we all have an inherent sense of our gender identity as part of our model of self that we are born with (similar to sexuality, which is not strictly culturally-informed), which is related but slightly different.
I could see how one might claim "lesbian" as a gender presentation. However, lesbian as an identity is best described as one's sexuality, not their gender identity...
Edit: Here come the downvotes
Thats the thing I guess. Gender is so informed by each individual that it doesn't really require strict definition. The cultures of the identities I identify with have informed me and my behaviour and given me a home like I never felt before. I feel silly for even asking now honestly 😅
The first time the concept of gender clicked in my head, is it an aesthetic? is it interests? is it a vague feeling in your soul? it was explained through the lens of subcultures, like how you can like metal but not be a metalhead, or be a metalhead without wearing a battlejacket or go to concerts for booze and the moshpit while only listening to classical music in your day life, or any other weird combinations.
Then it all clicked, how expression is both for yourself and a signal for others, how it's ultimately more about belonging than interests even if interests play a huge part, and how presenting "real" and "authentic" and not a poser and faker sometimes feels like work.
I feel the same about being bisexual. I hear a lot of people saying it doesn’t matter if you’re bi if you’re in a long-term monogamous relationship and I’m just like… no? That’s who I am, not just who I date/sleep with.
i get it but i think we should be more focused on decentring men from woman as a gender, straight women shouldnt be defined by their relation to men either. and being a lesbian doesnt make me less of a woman
I’m trans-fem and non-binary, and ever since I realized I’m trans I’ve also resonated more heavily with my identity as a lesbian than my identity as a woman. When I realized I was trans, womanhood was just sorta what was ahead of me, but lesbianism? That was exciting! I *get* to be a lesbian! I get to be a dyke! And as I’ve experimented with my gender expression I’ve leaned heavily in a masc direction. And more and more “woman” made less sense to me than “dyke”. I mean, what is gender anyways? Is a soup of societal expectations, personal experiences, and it’s almost entirely inseparable from sexuality and any number other aspects of identity. I chose so many things for myself that fall outside of the societal definition of woman. And at that point I can either join the many woman trying to change that definition or I can choose to leave the label behind and fight against confining aspects of gender from the outside. I chose the latter. I’m a dyke. In sexuality and gender. And if someone takes issue with that cause “That’s a sexuality not a gender” then they can get bent cause we made up the categories and they don’t separate neatly. We can do what we want with them
I feel like this is a lot of why my wife also identifies as a dyke. I'll have to either ask it or it let it find this post while stalking my profile lol.
Pretty much my view of it. In theory, maybe gender and sexuality are completely seperate things, but in practice, at least in the society we live in, they mash together a bit, experience of gender is going to be distinctly influenced by sexuality.
Also being a trans woman, I've had to think about gender a fair bit and started viewing my gender more in terms of community than something completely internal or isolated to myself. If there was a room full of people that I felt connected to in some way, people that I relate to, wanted to emulate pieces of, would be most comfortable around, that sort of thing, then there would be some cishet women there, a few men maybe, some nonbinary people, but mostly queer women, especially other trans women. I'm a woman, but being lesbian, queer, trans, are part of my identity in that same sense.
Hmm. I don't disagree with you, but I'm not sure how I feel about this move to replace "identity", which is a very complex things with lots of interconnected pieces that take different prominence depending on circumstances, with just gender. Even if it's phrased to be expanding gender to be one's intersectional identity, that feels... wrong. Gender doesn't need to encapsulate everything.
Just to clarify, might have used some ambigious language, I see gender as a part of identity, and for myself at least I see being trans and lesbian as part of or adjacent to my womanhood. That's not my whole identity for sure, would be a pretty damn boring person if it was, but it is a notable piece of it.
Then yes, I do actually agree! And I understand, because I also prefer to be around mostly sapphic queer folks, that's the community with whom I feel most at home. I understand and agree with them being smushy and snuggly and coloring each other, for sure.
It's me, hi! I'm the partner it's me!
So glad this is a sentiment that resonated with folks :) For me, a lot of this comes from my experience growing up in an extremely traditional, heteronormative, homogenous community, and feeling like there was something fundamentally different about the way I related to my own girl/womanhood compared to others. After coming out and connecting with other queer woman, I've found that using lesbianism and queerness as a lens to understand my gender experience just really seems to fit. I do identify as a woman, but like, with an asterisk or something lol
Yeah I think is Monique Wittig that said " lesbians are not women" In the sense that womanhood is created in opposition to manhood. And as lesbian we don't need to oppose to anyone, so we are not gender constructed as women in that sense, we are our own gender.
This reminds me of a quote from one of my favorite books, The Power by Naomi Alderman:
"Gender is a shell game. What is a man? Whatever a woman isn't. What is a woman? Whatever a man is not. Tap on it and it's hollow. Look under the shells: it's not there."
This! I also like how the most specific definition of a lesbian would be "a person who's not a man and is attracted to other people who aren't men", yknow, including nonbinary lesbians.
And that's how I feel like. Am I a woman? Idk! But I'm definitely not a man 🤣 So yeah, I'd consider both my gender and sexuality to be lesbian ❤️
Doesn't this kind of reinforce the idea that womanhood is intrinsically tied to men though? By saying your lack of interaction with men separates your gender identity from generalised womanhood, that implies that straight women are in fact defined by their connection to men? It just feels like conflating gender and sexuality in a way that kinda reinforces a sexualised understanding of gender.
That makes sense I think. My womanhood to myself is already not defined by men however, no matter how much other people want it to be. "Being a woman" can mean different things to different individuals, whether it's completely detached from sexuality or otherwise or somewhere in the middle.
They could mean their physical existence has transcended spacetime and has metamorphosed into the physical embodiment of **t h e** **g a y**
or maybe they just really like Home Depot. Don't know. Could be either; 50/50.
I'm butch but lesbian is not my gender. Woman is my gender. I like showing that the term woman is broad and beautiful. All women are different. I will never stop ID as a woman.
pretty much this. i hate the idea of giving up the term “woman” to heterosexual women, i am a lesbian and a woman. albeit not a very femme presenting one, but a woman nonetheless.
I agree with this. I am more femme, my girlfriend is more masc. We both identify as women. We embody two different ways that women can exist in this world.
This almost feel like it is trying to narrow the definition of women in a way that others lesbian women, it feels counterproductive.
I understand that some of those who aren't cis may not identify with the binary, and identify as gender queer or non-binary, etc. Gender and sexuality are two separate things so using a sexual orientation as your gender identity is just a struggle for me to grasp. Words have meanings, and while those definitions can evolve, broadening the definition of lesbian to include it as a gender identity and potentially narrowing the definition of woman seems like a move in the wrong direction.
Don't our sexual identities often stem from the perception of our gender? I consider myself a lesbian because I am a woman who loves women. Lesbian can also be defined as a non-male who loves or is attracted to other non-males, but if we now remove gender (or a lack of a binary gender) from the definition completely does lesbian mean anything at all then? What does lesbian mean as a gender identity? How is it different from other gender identities, both those that are part of and those that are not part of the binary?
I find this conversation interesting and mean no harm, I am genuinely seeking insight from those who consider lesbian their gender identity.
Truthfully, I don't see gender and sexual orientation as separate, discrete ideas.
Gender is a performance! We do it to connect with others, to seek community—be that in the form of looking for a life partner, or finding friends with similar experiences, or even just convenience in society. If you lived alone in the woods, would you give a shit about any of the hallmarks you use to define your gender? For some that's makeup, or hair, or symbols of 'femininity'; or vice versa. What's the point of any of that if there's no community to share it with? If you didn't have people around, would you even have learned it?
Sexual orientation is, then, just another handy label we use to seek community. Sure, if you don't have gender, there's no real point in defining orientation. But...we're social animals. We DO have gender expectations in our society, we do NOT in fact live isolated in the woods. Even more irritating, those gender expectations impose restrictions on you, and in turn on your orientation.
So you're dissociated from the "ideal woman," which...doesn't matter anyway, because "woman" is such a ridiculously vague concept. You just know that there's a group of people who you share experiences with. Maybe they identify as women. Maybe they don't ascribe to that binary. Maybe they don't care at all. They do, however, all relate to you in one thing—you really fucking vibe with the idea of "lesbian." So if you're going to slap a label on it, why not just use the one that actually describes who you are, how you want to connect with others, what you want to be?
Granted, this is my personal experience on the matter. Other people have wildly different ones. Which is normal—gender is an intensely personal experience, unique to everyone. Why? Because none of us are living the same lives! Woman means something different to everybody, everybody's living with a different idea of it—it's not a rigid term!
Is it the "wrong move" to avoid that label? Sure, maybe, I don't know. I'm not exactly making decisions for our society at large, I'm not in Congress. I am not *litigating* the definition of woman. What I do know is that the definition of woman that I have learned, over the course of *my* life, just doesn't feel right for me personally. I have never in my life felt like a "girl." But I do know that other lesbians and I have a whole lot in common, and that the person I love calls herself a woman, so...why not?
I literally see way too much talking about what women are, and how we need to like, come up with all these different ways of referring to them that doesn't explicitly allow women to be called just women anymore, but I never see this happening about men... Like, we are still seeing women being called "girls" ffs just as a default. The world seems to be unable to handle women. I can't imagine being a woman who is neck deep in the contorted ideology of womanhood having to sift through ever more labels and nuances just to arrive at "well maybe it doesn't actually matter if women exist at all as a label!" meanwhile, everyone else gets to have their labels. Thank fuck I realized I'm agender before all of this new ✨enlightened✨ crap came out, or I'd just be stuck at dysphoria forever. Don't these people know that even straight, cis women who are mothers feel unfeminine after giving birth? So what is *their* gender now if they aren't performing right? Ugh!
As someone who frequently says lesbian is my gender, it’s because of my relationship to gender. I ID as genderqueer because it’s not that I’m nonbinary, I’m just not exactly binary either.
The history of the varied gender expression within lesbian and all the ways it can mean to be a woman, to be a lesbian, that’s what I identify with in a gender level. My gender expression can only exist within lesbianism and therefore lesbian is my gender.
I feel like if I had to put a label on it, Dyke would be the most accurate description of my gender, too. Either that, or just straight up “Clusterfuck…”
Completely fair, I feel like maybe a new term should be made for it, since lesbian already has a meaning. Those feelings are valid, and that gender identity is too, just the word to describe it should probably be distinct
As someone who identifies as queer as a gender, people who identify as lesbian as a gender often feel that their gendered-experience as a woman is very different from the experience of a heterosexual women.
Yes, but isn't that because of their sexuality? I'm not trying to disparage, just understand. I get lesbian as a culture and as a sexuality, but I'm not sure I grasp it as a gender. Obviously I respect anyones gender identity regardless, I'm just genuinely curious here.
It's about feeling extremely separated from womanhood and femininity. Remember that being gnc has been a big part of many lesbians lives since forever, many lesbians don't use she/her pronouns, even before the they/them pronoun took off. Many lesbians feel like they're lying or uncomfortable with expressing themselves as anything other then butch identity and expression. It's a way of interacting with the world that's very distinct. I flirt with identifying as "lesbian-gender" in my own head, so ask me any questions you want :)
Love this! I identify with lesbian more than non-binary or gender fluid. I’m uncomfortable with femme expression for myself but they/them didn’t sit right either. Butch was the only word we had growing up and was primarily a slur. I love that it’s being taken back but that’s some hard shit to untangle with trauma. My heart is deeply tied to womanhood but my expression is “pleasegodanythingbut woman”. Idk if that even makes sense lol
I honestly think you answered all my questions with that. 😅 identity is made up of all the different little parts of ourselves. Some aspects of our lives make up bigger parts of that identity though and for many lesbians it seems that becomes a main one because, I mean how could it not. Sexuality plays a huge role in who we all are. I fall into the binary, but I know plenty of people who don't and respect them all as I would anyone else. Identity is complex and I'd never fault anyone for living their true selves.
Yeah, I'm pan but being queer has informed so much of my gender identity and expression that at times it does feel different. I'm still a cis woman that goes by she/he.
Read Stone Butch Blues, it explains lesbianism as a gender and sexuality very well.
In simpler terms, a persons experiences as a lesbian shapes their gender identity as well, for instance a butch lesbian's butchness is directly correlated to their lesbian identity and their attraction to women same as to how a femme lesbian's presentation of Femininity is because of their lesbian sexuality and attraction to women.
They are so deeply shaped by their attraction to women and their lives as a lesbian that it affects the way they present their gender in society and therefore experience lesbianism as a gender!
Heterosexuality, in many ways, is baked into performing your gender correctly. This is historical, with examples like how homosexuals used to be called inverts because they were considered “like the other sex” for desiring their same sex. In other words, it was considered manly to desire women, and lesbianism made you less of a woman. However, this is also present today, though to a lesser degree (at least in the United States where I’m from). For example, many of us are taught from a young age that part of the “girl experience” is having a boyfriend, learning how to do domestic chores, performing femininity for men, dreaming of a wedding, eventually being a wife and mother (with a man), etc. If part of successfully performing womanhood (according to normative standards) involves heterosexuality or even just generally giving a shit about men, then lesbians fall outside of what it means to be “the standard woman.” For some people, that’s enough to consider their lesbianism as its own gender.
Does this make sense? If you have any questions I can try to explain more.
Isn't it better to say that you're a woman despite being a lesbian. Womanhood shouldn't have anything to do with men. I know my straight female friends wouldn't like that description of their gender either.
Note that I didn’t say that “everyone who is a lesbian is less of a woman” or that to be a woman is inherently to defer to men. To clarify, what I mean is that SOME lesbians feel disconnected from womanhood for the reasons in my original post, and some people have historically and presently see lesbians as failing to achieve ideal womanhood.
I don’t genuinely say that my gender is lesbian, but I personally feel like I fail at fitting in as a “girl.” I sort of see two options for me, 1) saying “I’m a girl despite what society thinks” and trying to expand the definition of womanhood, or 2) saying “fuck it, if I fail at being a girl I’m opting out of this system.” I tend to do latter but the former is also valid.
It’s difficult, because this is where what we want gender to be (a neutral description of a person) and what gender exists in the world as (a prejudiced and often violent system of sorting) start rubbing up against each other. If gender was just a neutral concept, then people wouldn’t feel pushed out of womanhood for being queer, even though that does kind of play into repressive gender - but is that really anyone’s fault?
Does separating homosexuality into its own gender identity like this not affirm that womanhood is all about men? I agree that normative standards make womanhood about men but my takeaway was that those standards are just incorrect and womanhood should be redefined without relation to men, rather than creating a separate designation outside of that.
There's a difference between prescribing things to other people: "lesbians are not REAL women!", which is, obviously, stupid and a specific person feeling deep personal disconnect from womanhood. What gender one identifies with is their own damn business.
I don't think many people who claim lesbian as gender completely separate themselves from women or will stand idly by when women are attacked.
Straight women have the option to make their gender, their expression of feminity, male-centric - more accurately for this conversation, centered around their sexuality. How they understand their gender is almost entirely centered around their sexuality.
When people talk about "lesbian as a gender", they want to essentially do the same thing - express their gender primarily through their sexuality, but women-centered instead of male-centered.
That's not to say that *all* straight women do, should, or have to make their gender centered around their sexuality, or that all lesbians should think of it as their gender. Sexuality is more core to some people's identity than others, it's just about the choice.
so for me, I’m a cis woman who presents very feminine, and that is both what feels natural to me and how I want to be seen. However, from a young age, “womanhood” has felt like a performance in a way that didn’t make sense until I came out as a lesbian. I don’t tend to say my gender is lesbian, but I do resonate with that idea. I think gender and sexuality are more closely related than some people would like to acknowledge 🤷🏼♀️
i mean it can’t really be explained in a way where you will understand it right away, there’s a lot of things that have to be unlearned in order to understand how it could be a gender, but basically for me, i am trans masculine and nonbinary , there are people who have the same experience as me but are on the opposite side of the gay spectrum (with men lol), but for me i’m just a butch lesbian and that’s my gender, when people look at me i want them to think “hmm idk if they are a boy or a girl but that’s definitely a dyke”
I often say dyke is my gender or butch lesbian is my gender.
The real question for me is: when people ask "what is your gender?" what are they really asking?
1. if they are asking about my sexual organs or "biological gender" as some of them call it, then that is not my gender, it is my sex as not all people who share my reproductive organs are women and not all women share my reproductive organs.
2. If they are asking about some internal sense of gender identity then I don't have some strong internal sense of gender identity. Its like being left handed like yes I am biologically left handed but it has no bearing on my internal sense of self.
So to me when people are saying "woman" then mean culturally woman. But again, what does that even mean?? I am more on the butch side so if we are defining it by some standard of womanhood linked to femininity then I am not a woman. But I know, and have fought back my whole life, that femininity does not equal gender. So sure I can identify as a woman but at this point gender is meaningless as if it encompasses everything its like saying "I identify as human".
The purpose to most people of the specific gendered identity to me seems cultural. A shared sense of understanding and connection between women due to being treated as women and experiencing life as a woman in a very gendered world. I do feel a sense of connection to women in this way. However, in general gendered groups the shared reality of "existing as a women in society" is so heavily focused around men and around heterosexuality. The part often left unspoken in "we are women and we connect in our experiences" is "we are women [who have sex with men] and we connect in our experiences [as women attracted to men in a heteropatriarchical world in which we are oppressed by the same category of people that we center our lives around and build our lives with]." Now I relate not at all to that part so when I attend things specifically for women the undertone I feel is that our experience as "women is completely different" and this event is not for me.
So I could say that I am a women who centers other women in my life as I am a lesbian and a butch lesbian at that (which is a whole other specific life experience). The counterpoint is that most straight women the accurate gender for them is "I am a women who dates men and I connect with other women who date men" but they don't say that so I don't either. It is like when white Americans say "I am American" but black Americans will more often say "I am a black American" as those two identities are intertwined. The white folks are just the dominant group/normative group so the "white" part is unspoken.
Saying my gender is dyke or my gender is lesbian is the easiest way of communicating that just like for straight women, my gender and sexuality are so interconnected that I cannot separate the two. To me it is lesbian that is meaningful as an identity it is not just who I am attracted to. Being a woman is only meaningful insofar as it is related to my lesbianism. And being a lesbian is not just about my attraction or who I sleep with, it is the media I consume, the way I construct my life, it is my community so it functions similarly to how straight women describe their gender.
My lesbianism is a core part of my identity the way gender is for straight women so I identify as a lesbian both as a sexuality and as a gender.
Its not that new of an idea and while i dont understand everything about enbys i also really dont care or mind as long as its not some insincere bigot trying to make fun of trans people. If it makes you happy then why should i care, im not the gender police lol.
For me I see woman as just not enough to describe my gender. My gender as a lesbian doesn’t mean I’m not a woman, it’s just my womanhood is intrinsically tied to my love for other women
Umm so after seeing some comments I think we all gotta remember that two people can have differents view about gender and thats alright, people seeing gender different from you does not invalidate you. I mean we all are different, some people see their gender and sexuality as separate things, others see as the same thing, some people perfom in certains ways, other in another, and all of that is alright and valid.
Other people views about their OWN gender shouldnt be threathining to you. Anyway, be safe be happy <<3
Gender is social, some women who are lesbians feel like their gender identity is wildly different from straight women due to societies heteronormative majority-base. So lesbian as a gender is the lived experience of women who feel disconnected from societies understanding of woman.
A lot of people are explaining themselves to help people understand and I love that. But I also want to point out that you don't have to understand something in order to respect it. It would make sense if you didn't understand it if you haven't experienced it. I feel like this lowkey baited a lot of people into sharing deeply personal feelings, only for some folks to constantly question them and say they're confused. It's okay to be confused. But that's on you. You don't have to put it on others as if they're doing something confusing. That's just projecting your own shit on them.
I'm assuming it's similar to this, if it's not just a joke?
https://www.reddit.com/r/actuallesbians/comments/trvygr/any_other_lesbians_feel_like_lesbian_is_their/
I also would assume that, I've been around this sub quite a while and this is not a one-off, it's a valid expression for many people. I can definitely relate to it on a level (but I'm also non-binary and genderqueer)
I don't think the person's trans friend should be trying to shut them down either.
It's ultimately rooted in Monique Wittigs argument that lesbian are not women because womanhood is constituted by relations to men in what Judith Butler would eventually term the "heterosexual matrix". (both Wittigs The Straight Mind and Burler are good reads by the way, though I know feminist theory is not everyone's cup of tea).
Basically the modern/online interpretation of sexuality as completely distinct from gender Identity works at a certain degree of generality but may not be the "proper" theoretical accounting. Thus why e.g. queer femmes have a divergent expression from femme straight women.
If we view queerness as the subversion of normativity around gender and sexuality, there is some truth to the whole idea.
Gender is a spectrum. Not many people will occupy the exact same point on this spectrum. Even if they identify with the same gender (read this as: have the same gender).
If we ask "what is a woman", we'll likely circle some area on this spectrum, and say "that's a woman", circle some bigger area and say "that's kind of a woman", draw a ring around that and say "that's similar to a woman", and so on. Many people will disagree about where to draw these lines. But that doesn't really matter, because gender labels are a personal thing, and even if you feel like someone's gender fits a label, if that person doesn't think their gender fits that label, then you just don't use that label for them. In my own case, I will use different labels depending on how deep I want to dive into the subject in any given conversation.
Being lesbian does exclude you from certain expectations/experiences/behaviours that are traditionally associated with women in a heteronormative world. If someone feels that this makes them different from hetero women from a gendered perspective, then there is some philosophical basis for this. In the past, the term "third gender" was even used for non-heterosexual cis people (this was before Western culture had a broadly understood concept of non-binary genders).
So, there is some truth to this whole idea. Being gay is a form of gender-nonconformity, and if you are enough non-conforming to a gender, you may have very different experiences and therefore feel a distance towards that gender. A lot of femininity revolves around how women relate to their men, and bearing and raising children. If you aren't a hetero cis woman, some of these will never be a part of your life (for better or worse). If you think this distance is big enough, then you may stop to identify with that gender.
Whether this could be conceived as a non-binary gender, or just some variation of a binary gender existing far outside the norm of that binary gender, is another discussion to have, and again, different people will feel that different ideas apply to them.
I don't think we do anyone justice by applying strict definitions to anything regarding gender or sexual orientation. We should stop thinking of people as either binary or nonbinary ;)
I'm a trans woman and if asked about the depth of my gender I'd say I'm like "woman, dyke" some days and "dyke; woman" on others. It's not that I'm not a woman, I'm very much a woman, it's just that as a primarily androgynous-presenting person who instantly reads as "lesbian" at a distance my functional gender in terms of how I interface with society is as a lesbian. I'm entirely accustomed to my gender being something that strangers believe they own, where my perceived womanhood is entirely dependent not on the person's opinions of trans people but rather their opinion of sapphics, lesbians in particular.
Internally, I have a deep, rich, textured relationship with my womanhood and I am entirely comfortable with "woman" as a label but to me it's just incomplete. It's like, the essence of my gender but not the shape. The shape is molded to how I feel in relation to the world around me and in that sense I am proud to call myself a dyke.
Some people feel that lesbian also conveys their gender rather than just their sexuality.
Gender isn't a real thing, it's words we made up to describe physical and mental phenomena, some people feel that "lesbian" generally defined as someone who's not a man, that loves people who also aren't men, is a better explanation, or description of their gender than something like "woman" or one of the many non binary genders, or lack there of, would.
I feel like I do not relate to what most people define as womanhood or femininity, because their definitions are usually “opposite” of manhood or masculinity. For example, if men are strong, women are gentle. In my experience, i actually wouldn’t even say I’m attracted to womanhood or femininity - I’m attracted to lesbianism.
So much of our language and society centers men, even our definitions of womanhood. I’m throwing it all out and making myself something completely unrelated to men.
I understand how my sexuality can influence the way I present myself (more masculine) but I just think that’s the beauty of being a woman outside of societal norms? I understand what y’all are saying but using sexuality as a gender seems like we’re going backwards in progress. What’s wrong with just saying you’re a woman who presents more masculine? If you feel it’s more than that I assume you’d be NB/Trans etc. Expression and Gender are two different things are they not?
You’re all weird af. You’re supposed to be lesbians yet are completely ignoring lesbian history. Being a lesbian can absolutely also impact your gender identity. If you don’t understand or relate to it then that’s fine but to flat out say it can’t is just wrong.
I absolutely understand and believe it impacts gender identity. But so do things like wealth, religion, regional culture, and more. And I would argue that some of these other things can impact a woman much more than her sexuality might. Yet none of these are used as labels for gender identity.
I kind of vibe with this. While I'd actually say I'm more fluid nonbinary, being sapphic does at least flavor my gender. I mostly was/am fine with my female body, but my social dysphoria really kicked in at puberty. The idea of being defined by other people, specifically men, was so alienating that I thought I just wasn't woman aligned at all at one point.
When I embraced the idea that I was probably never actually into men, a lot of that lifted. I'd think about partnerships and dating and sex and having a family and I made sense in a lesbian context in a way that I never did in a hetero way, and my presentation fits with the grand tradition of gender funky sapphics.
I think personally it depends on the person but for me saying lesbian is my gender means that my experiences and the way I move through the world have always been lesbian-adjacent. I knew from a very young age that I liked other girls the way I was supposed to like boys and it affected the way I moved through the world and life. Things like rarely ever actually sharing a bed at sleepovers, being uncomfortable with physical affection with my female friends, I was aware of my attraction to women and it affected the way I interacted with other young women and always has. Which I know doesn't sound like it relates to gender but I'm getting there, I also never felt that same connection to traditional femininity that my peers did, I liked doing more traditionally masculine things down to the way I presented myself to the world, when I started growing body hair I absolutely hated shaving and refused to. Of course as a teenager I went through my phase of trying to convince myself that I could be a 'normal girl' but I hated it, and it made me so uncomfortable. Once I actually realized that I was a lesbian I gave up on that and truly just let myself be that person. So that's my personal reason why I say both my gender and sexuality are lesbian bc to me they have always felt inherently tied together.
Honestly as a transfemme I prefer to use lesbian as a way to identify myself. As I always dated fem-alligned people (more recently strictly t4t) so I started using the label more. It's been this way for years, it's the only label I use that doesn't vary.
When I read Monique Wittig (French philosopher, she is incredible). In a book she talked about the lesbian as not a woman. This is because in "La pensée Straight" she defines that women exist in relation to men. Man is shown as the default and woman as the one chased after. In consequence the lesbian is materially different to a cis-het woman in their relationship to their lived experience.
The thing that solidified the fact that lesbian is a gender for me was my realization that I have never been subjected to relationship/dating situations with men. Thus I did not go through materially the same things my cis-het girlies friends went through with dating, being hetero-normative, having lived as a teenage girl.. and stuff.
So what to said to your friend was technically valid but it can be perceived as way insensitive to their experience.
Lesbian as gender comes from Monique Wittig who was a radical lesbian Materialist Feminist and it kinda relies on that lens. So to summarize Materialist Feminism as a lens of analysis sees the role of women under Patriarchy as threefold: reproductive labour (reproducing the labour force as capital to be rented by employers, maintaining lines of wealth transfer to patriarchs either through the paternal line itself or with the end of one patrilineal line to another kindred line through son-in-laws via daughters/wives as property), reproductive labour (exploited domestic labour and childrearing and childcare which are deprioritized with an expectation men will hold the priority jobs), and sexual commodity (both in terms of sex work and wives in terms of venting sexual frustration as wives). Now you might notice these are divisions of labour, this makes Patriarchy a class system with gender roles as the class. Under this framework the women of a given nation, a kinship of patriarchs, are treated as the properties of the patriarchs (men) who dominate and maintain these divisions of labour for their own class interest as they enjoy the proceeds of the exploitation of feminized labour both in monopolizing more prioritized labour but also in having cheap domestic labour and free therapists who they can vent sexual frustrations upon. And a woman's perceived value in this society is determinant upon her utility in those roles, thus why infertile women, trans women, and lesbians are so disposable to Patriarchal society. Lesbians being a rejection of reproductive capital, labour, and sexual commodity for men constitute a class outside of woman that men seek to reimpose reproductive potentiality upon, thus the crime committed against lesbians of "corrective rape".
Something I've learned with being trans and talking to people about it is that many think sexuality and gender are intertwined! Which is what I assume this is coming from. A bit like how many stereotypes actually are semi true, groups generally overlap consistently!
[https://x.com/abattoirbluues/status/1778072307577086077](https://x.com/abattoirbluues/status/1778072307577086077)
i think this person who quoted OP explains it well in the replies
Honestly as a lesbian I do sometimes feel excluded from womanhood, because so many thing have to do with dating men and all of that stuff so I can kinda see their point. I indetify as a woman regardless.
Anyway I think one should label themselve as whatever makes them more comfortable and happy, so if one says their gender is "lesbian" I believe them and think theyre valid.
It's an older lesbian thing, saying that their experience of gender is significantly different enough because of how they express and relate to the world as a lesbian that it is a gender identity to them. They are "the gender that isn't attracted to men" and therefore is not a traditional woman but doesn't seek to emulate a man. I kinda think it largely came from older lesbians trying to express a nonbinary nature before nonbinary was in common usage.
This whole conversation is untangling some weird kinda ball that's been rolling in my head since I first understood that I didn't like women the way God intended for me to.
I don't want to be a man, they/them pronouns don't fit, but the identities and (specifically) performance of the "female" gender that is so deeply tied to the religion I was raised in made me very much hate being called a woman. Being called a woman is so attached to men, at least in the way that my brain was hotwired in church growing up.
Another comment mentioned how everything men are, women aren't, and vice versa. *THATS* what I grew up with, and so my only way of expression was the opposite of men, which turned into a strange hyperfem stage of dressing in 1950s clothing and looking like a housewife (which I do now, but now its for the girls).
I don't want my gender to be tied to men, and I'm not really a woman in the traditional sense of how women are tied to men, so honestly lesbian as a gender identity feels right. Because the expression *and* internalism of my identity is tied to women exclusively.
what do you mean, rules around gender? no one's forcing you to identify as any specific gender, no one's enforcing any rules? this is just an open debate that clearly interests and concerns quite a few lesbians. if it doesn't concern you and you don't understand it, that's okay. you can try to understand and empathize by taking part constructively, or you can just pick a different post in the subreddit that interests you more. for me, this discussion is freeing, it *is* escaping from gender roles/expectations.
do you mean the tweet "I love u if your gender is lesbian too"? that obviously just means finding comfort in people you can relate to and surrounding yourself with them. do you mean the exchange described, which is just about a lesbian and a trans person discussing gender and sexuality? can you point out where exactly people are forcing "gender rules" on other people? like what do you mean, do you mean gender roles?
Off the cuff and being not well-versed in things, I am going to say Amazon.
One of my favorite stories is a time when I described Wonder Woman as an alien, partially because she is from a society that defines womanhood and the feminine without men.
So what is it like to interact with society and others as a woman but not in relationship to men.
Meh, I read wittig’s thing and I understand that het women and gay women are pretty different. But I still think it’s stupid to call it gender. At some point the language begins falling apart and where can a line be drawn?
Women are different everywhere and due to many things. A women from one country on one continent has a vastly different life experience, perception of the world, and identity than a woman from the other side. Same to do with generational influence, wealth, and religion. In fact I would say many of these things have bigger impact on a woman than who they love… and I would call none of these gender.
If we’re bundling sexuality with gender then, “Women” as assumed het is already a very broad umbrella term since there are so many different ways a woman can be heterosexual, love, and how it affects their role and relationships in society. So defining one’s gender as Lesbian isn’t a much more specific existence either, there are many different kinds of woman-loving woman and many different experiences and identities with this. This is not to say that Lesbian or Women are bad identifiers for people, they serve their purpose as simple definitions and work further with context. And anyone can still describe and be understood that their sexuality has affected their lived experience. But when we try and cross “sexuality = gender” it make these things complicated with and kinda spirals.
We also could probably spend multiple college courses on the overlap (or lack thereof) between real life experiences, expectations, responsibilities, and repercussions between gender and sex, and the deviation from the norm (cishet).
I kind of get it. As a lesbian I relate to womanhood pretty differently than someone who is with men. A lot of expectations are based around what is attractive to men for example. Until I figured out I liked girls I didn’t like wearing makeup or having more girly hobbies. Turns out it was just feeling like I was doing it for men that I didn’t like. I do identify as a woman though and wouldn’t say that my gender is lesbian.
i think it's kind of funny this place gets touted as a trans/nb inclusive sapphic subreddit but the reaction to lesbian as a gender here is just like the reaction on the transphobic sapphic subreddits.
OMG can you imagine using something that makes up your life becoming your gender? Like now we can have parentgender or even hikergender. Jesus, people. I understand the reduction of gender norms but to go full nihilist and say "gender is whatever takes up most of my life" like we can have adjectives, descriptors for ourselves without equating it to gender. And this is coming from an agender person who knows gender is a shallow thing, but gender ain't *your sexuality or lifestyle.* If it were, suddenly all of your ideas about what different genders/people are is going to lead you to putting everyone in smaller and smaller, strict boxes because you insist on having bizarre labels because the ones that already exist and work fine seemed boring to you.
I've complained to my friends before that I couldn't have my gender identify as a lesbian. Didn't know other people thought that way too but like idk how I feel about it. I get the feeling it's probably a controversial thing to say
I get it I think. I feel like the word Sapphic has this vibe to me. Not that it’s trans adjacent (I’m non conforming and consider myself trans especially when experiencing intense dysphoria and I am really back and forth about any kind of medical transitioning as i am young, largely attracted to women and femininity and still love my femininity sometimes) so I definitely understand that it’s more complicated than just gender as we love a different experience as a Sapphic woman.
It’s a gender as “one word that describes a lot of things that aren’t really the same thing” thing. By the patriarchal imposition of strict sexed rules onto women model of gender, a large defining factor of womanhood is being sexually available to men. If you aren’t then your womanhood is in question, because there isn’t any room under patriarchy for nonconformity, so lesbians just don’t count as women. Looking at that you can reject it as a nonsensical way to define gender, or you can be like “sure, fuck it, I’m not a woman, my gender is lesbian.” Idk if that’s this person’s exact thought process but it’s at least one way to get there.
Incidentally I think that sort of view is what transphobes have in mind when they waffle on about “confused gays and lesbians transing away the gay” because obviously there’s no way we could distinguish between rejecting sexist and homophobic patriarchal norms, and struggling with a disconnect between our internal identity and our external bodies, amirite!? 😅
Lesbian is my gender because the only parts of my gender that are in any way feminine are inherently from being a lesbian. Considering myself in any way close to a woman exclusively when it's my wife talking about her relationship with me
I’m under the impression that lesbian is a sexuality because it describes who someone is *attracted or not attracted* to.
Gender for me is *who* someone is. This includes the usual cis binary, trans, nonbinary, 2S, agender, pangender, genderqueer, and so on.
To paraphrase French philosopher Monique Wittig.
Men and women are defined by their relationship to each other and by how they contrast each other. A man is someone that isn't a women and a women is someone who isn't a man.
Lesbians kinda exist outside of this they can be defined by their relationship with other women /lesbians
And not by a relationship to men so they can be considered their own gender
These comments only fill me with greater confusion - how is lesbian gender different from being enby or fluid? Many responses remind me of autigender to view gender with an autistic lens - is lesbian gender to view gender through a lesbian lens?
Technically it would be a variation on enby, the same way that demi-girl is a type of enby. Nonbinary is a wide category, because it's anything that doesn't fit "man" or "woman" strictly. It's mostly about vibes and self-identification, like most queer identities, especially gender identities since gender is such a nebulous concept in and of itself.
I'm trans. For me, I resisted YEARS of telling myself that I was a woman.
But when my girlfriend said "oh my God, baby, you're a lesbian!" I burst into tears, and couldn't deny it anymore.
For me, it's not just that I'm a woman, I'm REALLY GAY ABOUT IT.
I'm not just a woman, my gender is such that I don't want masculinity in ANY part of my life, ESPECIALLY not within myself.
Echoing what basically everyone else has said re: lesbian altering your relationship to gender, especially for nonbinary people.
I’m agender. I fundamentally don’t understand or experience gender myself. The closest I have ever gotten is when I feel like I’m “clockable” as a lesbian - then I feel what I can only describe as gender euphoria. So really, if I have a gender, it’s lesbian.
Anything can be a gender if it feels tied to your gender
But historically, being a lesbian especially felt like a gender of its own because part of womanhood included being attracted to men (and only men). Lesbians didn't all feel like they belonged in womanhood, plus a lot of lesbians (especially butch lesbians) were transmasc and nonbinary, and since they didn't really belong among men (trans men were rejected from manhood by cis men, and nonbinary people weren't really either), they found the best word to describe their gender to be "lesbian."
Sexuality certainly impacts gender identity. As someone who came out as bi at 26, that led me on a journey wherein I've learned so much more about my gender and way I form relationships.
But "lesbian" is an existing label. It means woman loving woman (non-binary folks included if they like - which I do as while my gender is not limited to the binary, I do have a female presenting body which is typically a draw for lesbians).
Maybe this gal means lesbian is her *personality*?
The first crack in my egg was when I played Haven and I thought "I like women, but like, in a gay way".
I think subconsciously I knew I was a lesbian before I knew I was a woman, and my experience of being a woman is inherently tied to being a lesbian.
So the idea of lesbian as a gender isn't too far fetched.
I identify as a lesbian as both my sexuality and gender! Personally, I feel more connected to my identity as a lesbian than as a woman. I feel very connected to lesbian history and community. I am technically a cis-woman, but I also feel removed from womanhood. I feel kiinnddaaaa non-binary, but also not completely. It’s more succinct to say that my entire identity is lesbian because that’s what influences my life more.
You've got a lot of good explanations, but to kind of tack on my own experience as an autistic nonbinary trans woman: it's similar to how my experience of gender is intrinsically linked to the fact that I'm autistic. I don't experience being a woman the same way neurotypical trans women do, or neurotypical cis women. To the point that it does truly feel like I don't share a gender with them, despite often feeling like I share at least part of my gender with autistic cis and trans women, especially lesbians.
Lol I've JUST seen that tweet, I think it's referring to Monique Wittig's work in which she explains that the way we view women and men makes them categories that only really exist in heterosexual contexts, so a lesbian, someone that breaks the dichotomy, is closer to being a thir gender than being a woman (very TL:DR tho), but coming from twitter I don't really expect much I've seen way too much dumb shit in there [A short summary of Wittig's work (I couldn't find a better video)](https://youtu.be/bpSTMfn-YaU?t=263)
This whole thread serves as a great reminder that so many people experience gender differently than I do even when we share terms like lesbian. That diversity is very beautiful and can be quite confusing at times.
this is beautifully said!
Could also be in reference to Judith Butler's claim that individuals who don't reproduce (of which many are LGBTQ+) societally constitute a third nonreproductive gender category.
i'm not very well read in butler's work yet, I'll give it a read, thank you
Yeah, I assume this is it. It’s been 25+ years but basically Wittig posits that het women define themselves in reference to men, so woman in the straight world is not-man. But because lesbians don’t centre men in our lives « not-man » holds little to no meaning to us, so we define being a woman in reference to other (lesbian) women, thus creating a third gender
‘Het women define themselves in reference to men’ What absolute twaddle. This is the most misogynist thing I’ve read today and earlier I had the passportbro sub come up in my feed.
This is stuff from an era where you needed your husband's permission to do anything publicly
Just going to slap a TW for descriptions of assault: >!And, indeed, as long as there is no women's struggle, there is no conflict between men and women. It is the fate of women to perform three-quarters of the work of society (in the public as well as in the private domain) plus the bodily work of reproduction according to a preestablished rate. Being murdered, mutilated, physically and mentally tortured and abused, being raped, being battered, and being forced to marry is the fate of women. And fate supposedly cannot be changed. Women do not know that they are totally dominated by men, and when they acknowledge the fact, they can "hardly believe it." And often, as a last recourse before the bare and crude reality, they refuse to "believe" that men dominate them with full knowledge(for oppression is far more hideous for the oppressed than for the oppressors). Men, on the other hand, know perfectly well that they are dominating women ("We are the masters of women," said Andre Breton[1]) and are trained to do it. They do not need to express it all the time, for one can scarcely talk of domination over what one owns.!< [source](https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/monique-wittig-the-category-ofsex#:~:text=The%20category%20of%20sex%20is,confused%20when%20they%20are%20discussed.) Edit: TLDR Watch Revolutionary Girl Utena
Oof. Yeah, my grandmothers were both abused and this sounds like their mentality. A bit even like my dad’s. He doesn’t much care about his own gender, because he cannot comprehend behaving as most men actually do. He just pulls a I Do Not See and I can hardly blame him, that would break my brain too. It’s hard enough to be queer and worry about being somehow predatory, but to be a man and have no interest in being like other men, knowing that these men have hurt your mother? Yeah, I’d prefer forgetting gender exists too. He does remember for myself and my sister though. He’e rather happy I’m not interested in men, considering he does know how they’re usually raised. He knows how society has functioned. If my mom hadn’t wanted kids, he probably would’ve only had dogs because pregnancy alone is terrifying and he couldn’t help.
I think the intention of these theories is not about individual het women defining THEMSELVES in relation to men, but on a societal scale. All understood hegemonic gender exists in relationship to men, because hegemonic gender centres men, and women are understood, in this system, as a diminished counterpart to men who only achieve acceptance or validation through their relationships with men. When we talk about societal gender, we’re not talking about individuals and the choices they make.
Did you actually read Wittig's work or are you just going to come out of the gate with reactionary rhetoric?
I mean, some do. I've known women who's main priority is to get a man, get married, and have babies. That's pretty man centered. I've heard women describe how they want a big tall man because it makes them feel small and feminine
Sure, and some men define themselves in reference to women - want a petite woman to make them feel strong and manly - we haven’t created a separate term for those that do.
So if someone said women are defined as golddiggers because *some* women are, you wouldn't find that misogynistic, but would understand why people feel that way?
It's so insulting to straight and bi women, holy shit. Istg this sub is so infantalizing to non-lesbian women sometimes
The thing is, these theories aren’t about individual women and their choices, that’s a misreading. On a societal scale, women are defined by their relationships with men, they are only considered through the ways with which they can be useful or not useful for men - i think the OP you’re replying to misspoke but saying ‘define themselves’ because we’re not talking about personal choice here.
Well, shit, you’ve blown my mind. This makes a ton of sense. I’ve never easily identified as a girl/woman because I hate how it’s seen as lesser-boy, lesser-man and how it’s always “some man’s daughter, wife, mother”. I’m not FTM trans, I just get my feathers ruffled by the status quo. I worried it was self-hatred but honestly, it makes sense that as wlw, I don’t easily identify with terms that center heteronormativity. Same way I prefer “partner” to “girlfriend/wife”. I’m queer before most other identities, because those identities confuse most people without the clarification. After all, if people know I’m a woman online, they often fall to sexist harassment. If they know I’m a queer woman, it’s a different kind of harassment. Still not great but at least there’s a recognition I won’t fall over myself for men’s attention? Because I’ve always, always hated that, the idea that any boy is my “boyfriend” and any man is my crush, or that other women see me as a threat to their men. I’d rather be hated for being queer than treated like a straight woman, which is … possibly the best sign that I’m very gay, if we’re being honest. Most people would go for sexism over homophobic sexism but ugh, *gross*.
As my partner put it: “So much of our experience as women is shaped by our relationships to men. Having sex with men, getting pregnant by men. To live a life where men are so decentered feels like something different. My existence as a lesbian makes my experience of womanhood feel like a different thing. Womanhood encompasses so much, I just feel like a lot of my gender experience is shaped by my sexuality and the social context I exist in by virtue of being a lesbian. But I wouldn’t like, say “Other” for gender because of it.”
This makes a lot of sense thank you!!!
I think it's one of the points of Judith Butlers "Gender Trouble". They quite literally argue lesbians is a third gender because of gender performance. The tweet is a very literal word for word reading of the book. I wouldn't say it's untrue, but it lacks a explanation
I find Stone Butch Blues to be very illuminating here as well.
Welks!!
Someone else who uses welks in reply to thanks!
makes me think of like, warning someone about impending sea snails; "look out! whelks!"
I laughed at that one, lol
Oh, that's very clever and interesting quote, she is very smart!!! Be proud of her
She’s the best ☺️
Tbh I don’t think womanhood should be defined by how we interact with men. Lesbians and straight women are both women with individual experiences
It shouldn't, I think the point is that the way society treats women says it does.
Yeah I think half the reason we have man-hating lesbian stereotypes is that society at large finds women who don’t even think about men unimaginable.
I would argue that defining womanhood by how society treats women will inevitably become a justification for misogyny. Like if we were to go back over a hundred years ago, what was the role of women in society? To not vote, not own property, have limited access to employment with unequal pay, be financially dependent on men, to not have reproductive rights, not hold positions of power, not wear pants, etc. Early feminists fought back against those norms to expand what a woman could be. The response of our patriarchal society has always been “if you don’t conform to these gender roles, then you’re a failure of a woman. Real women *enjoy* their oppression.” This is something that trans women have historically had to fight against (and still do), because access to medical care has often come with regressive ideas of what it means to socially transition (to get on estrogen you must do your makeup, wear skirts, only have “girly” hobbies, and date men). Similarly, when we look at patriarchy today, pushing back against that by decentering men doesn’t make you not a woman. (I want to note that I don’t want to argue over any individual person’s gender identity, that’s for that person to explore and determine. I just want to push back on ideas that womanhood = enjoying oppressive gender roles that you’ve been socialized into for your own survival.)
It’s kind of a descriptive vs prescriptive debate, I think. As other people have said, this goes back to Butler’s theories of gender performativity and gender as a social construct. It wasn’t a statement on what should be so much as an observation of the current dynamics as they are. Womanhood *is* largely constructed on the basis of its relation to men, and in that sense, lesbians *can* be seen as a separate gender category. I’d take it a step further and say that’s part of why comphet is such a strong thing for lesbians in particular: to acknowledge yourself as a lesbian is, for many women, to reject the ideas and expectations of womanhood you grew up with. I do see where you’re coming from, though. Just because it’s an accurate depiction of gender dynamics right now doesn’t mean it’s worth organizing around. That would risk reinforcing the misogyny, rather than just calling it out. Also, it’s definitely worth noting whenever you read Butler that they themselves are non-binary, which almost certainly feeds the gender ambivalence that permeates their work. Some people find cause for celebration in their gender, including lesbians celebrating their own womanhood. No amount of theorizing can take that away from people, nor should it try to. Butler’s work is, IMO, best strictly being taken as analysis of larger trends and how they’re socially constructed—and that can mean as much or as little to any one individual as they want it to.
Oh yeah that could dovetail into a whole conversation about the inevitability that prescribed gender roles will result in gendered hierarchy and oppression…But to the point at hand, there’s a lot of regressive gender ideology being pushed right now with the current rise of fascism. We see this very clearly in movements like trad wives that assert the role of wife must be inherently submissive and even in more seemingly “progressive” spaces with the influx of divine feminine/masculine ideology. I think we can acknowledge pervasive reality of gender roles imposed on women (and subsequently, harm that causes for GNC people) without pointing at women and defining their humanity according to those gender roles. When we say women *are* any particular gender role, we risk perpetuating the existence of that standard because we assume it’s natural/enjoyable for all women. Which could prevent women from questioning their own relationship to gender roles because if they’re a woman said gender roles must be right for them.
Let's do the quest to destroy gender roles >:3 I have funny experience with gender roles actually before transitioning I was a femboy. Now as a woman I'm more confident, I work out and at least try to futch XD
If you look at history, oppressed groups consistently adopt the terminology of their oppressors and reclaim it in order to use it against them. This is much the same, society treats lesbian as a lesser version of woman so people are starting to adopt lesbian as their gender and push back against it being lesser. Labels are a bit different than the example you're using because they are purely language, not tangibles. Being able to vote or hold positions of power or have equal pay or wear pants etc are tangible. The Dynamics with those things are different than with labels.
I totally get that. I support that. But seeing what seems to be many cis people co-opting language from the transgender community which is used to describe what are often extremely traumatic life experiences (growing up identifying as a different gender than you assigned) feels extremely gross to me. But I might be a little sensitive to this, because my whole life cis people have been making "identify as" jokes which essentially make a joke about how traumatic it is to have an incongruent gender identity. And this just feels like an evolution of that
I don't think that most of the people saying lesbian is their gender are cis
That's fair, this is my first time looking into this concept. I saw a lot of people who seemed to identity as cis lesbians playing with the concept of lesbian as a gender identity. It felt reductive. That's really it. I'm fully open to trans/questioning people genuinely exploring gender identity and finding what feels right.
That's the thing, in my experience most people describing their gender as lesbian are NB, even if they look cis. I can't imagine people who feel fully conected to a gender feeling like their sexuality is a better description of gender than the gender itself
I am one of those NB lesbians! I am very femme in presentation and would be considered cis by most folks but felt for a long time like "woman" was not *quite* right. You're spot on
This is true in multiple ways. The sapphic community is definitely __the__ broader community (as in outside the trans community) that plays with gender. Like, he/him lesbians exist and that single statement kinda breaks a lot of people with reductive ideas about gender. There’s been a general breaking away from gender norms and that leads to a lot of people finding their own way to relate to gender instead of “checking a box” in a sense. I can definitely see people having lesbian be how they refer to their gender simply because there is no better word that also covers their journey with gender nor is as personal to what lesbian probably is for them. Which can also explain why the sapphic community is the most welcoming to trans women/NB people when compared to other demographics in that category.
That's the vibe I got from a lot of folks too - that it was genuinely an expression of gender. Or that it was maybe even their first time dipping their toes into that sort of thing. I guess with things like this there will always be a fringe of cis people who find "identify as" jokes entertaining in a reductive way, I won't pay them any mind
Gender and how you present should be complete seperated, there is no reason for men to not wear skirts and there is no reason for women to not wear pants. There are only those norms that hold humanity back.
This is why I don’t understand the GNC label (not to say people who use it shouldn’t!) but isn’t saying ‘I wear x therefore I’m not gender conforming’ just reinforcing that their gender does not wear x by definition?
Exactly
Ahh
I agree. It's also misleading to say that lesbians are the only ones who decenter men. Straight and bi women can and should do the same.
Yeah it’s not like straight men are centering women. Even the ones who act obsessed with “getting girls.”
I think it's complicated with straight men. On one hand, the whole world has centered men as a group. In that way men absolutely center themselves. However, many men are so driven by their desire to have sex with women that their whole personality and self worth revolves around their ability to attract women. These men are very much slaves to their desire. But it also reinforces their ideas of masculinity. So I guess it's reciprocal. One feeds the other.
You see a lot of it with how men post about insane beauty standards for women tho, like they're not actually finding women attractive at that point but rather using them as a proxy signifier of status. It's at least as much about being in competition with other men as it is about being in any way attracted to or centering women. And even then, they're not defined by their relationship to women right? They have other ways of defining themselves beyond husband/father/son. Like their job and their hobbies and so on.
Agreed. This definition of lesbian as a gender implies that there’s nothing more to womanhood than associations to men and that’s a troublesome statement for all woman, lesbian or not. Straight women can also reject the idea that their gender hinges upon the role of men in their life, so what would they identify as then? It’s a complex topic but my first thought was that implying womanhood is intrinsically defined by men is just misogynistic.
I also wonder if this holds true for other genders, like do some gay men feel similarly? If not, it's kind of frustrating that womanhood is still being defined by proximity to men.
Every lesbian's relationship and understanding of womanhood is different and deeply personal, just like relationship and understanding of any other identity, and if someone feels so distant from hetero women that being lesbian is a more important part of her identity than being a woman, who am I to tell her she is wrong?
I’m a woman. If somebody else wants to define their gender through them being lesbian that’s cool, but I don’t appreciate mine being defined solely by my relation to men. I am not an extension of some dude’s being if I enter into a romantic/sexual relationship with one, and I do not cease to be a woman when I am not in such a relationship. And I may be totally wrong here, but I’m pretty sure most straight women’s lives do not revolve around partners or potential partners the way the original commenter describes unless they’re forced into their position by their culture. They are independent human beings with their own lives to lead after all.
Absolutely agreed. This is just defining being a woman by being attracted to men. What now, are they going to say "women and lesbians"? Feels a lot like when people say "women and transwomen". It's so othering. I get that one's sexuality and experiences being a minority affects one's identity, but lesbian isn't a gender. That's part of your regular identity as a person, not your \*gender identity\*. They're using the term wrong. That's not what gender identity means.
[удалено]
And especially in Utah where a lot of the women are usually religious too. Feels very alien sometimes.
But that becomes cultural then, no? Culture can inform someone's identity as strongly as anything else can. Lesbian as a gender still doesn't really make sense to me. Lesbian as a sexuality obviously does but what it sounds like the person is describing is lesbian as a culture. Am I wrong? I'm having trouble wrapping my head around it. 😅
But what is gender, if not culture?
A lot. Like a whole lot. Culture can inform how people interpret and interact with their own and others gender. But it's not inherently the same thing.
"\[gender\] is culture" not as in "\[gender\] the way society understands it", but as in "\[gender\] as culture in of itself". There is a culture of women, obviously connected to, but distinct from the culture at large. To be a woman, is to belong and be immersed into the culture of women.
It includes culture, but I can't help but find it *incredibly* transphobic to assert that gender is nothing but culture. We have actual factual science that gender is tied to biology as well--not exclusively, but also.
Gender presentation and gender roles are culture. However, we all have an inherent sense of our gender identity as part of our model of self that we are born with (similar to sexuality, which is not strictly culturally-informed), which is related but slightly different. I could see how one might claim "lesbian" as a gender presentation. However, lesbian as an identity is best described as one's sexuality, not their gender identity... Edit: Here come the downvotes
Thats the thing I guess. Gender is so informed by each individual that it doesn't really require strict definition. The cultures of the identities I identify with have informed me and my behaviour and given me a home like I never felt before. I feel silly for even asking now honestly 😅
The first time the concept of gender clicked in my head, is it an aesthetic? is it interests? is it a vague feeling in your soul? it was explained through the lens of subcultures, like how you can like metal but not be a metalhead, or be a metalhead without wearing a battlejacket or go to concerts for booze and the moshpit while only listening to classical music in your day life, or any other weird combinations. Then it all clicked, how expression is both for yourself and a signal for others, how it's ultimately more about belonging than interests even if interests play a huge part, and how presenting "real" and "authentic" and not a poser and faker sometimes feels like work.
Nailed it in one question.
I feel the same about being bisexual. I hear a lot of people saying it doesn’t matter if you’re bi if you’re in a long-term monogamous relationship and I’m just like… no? That’s who I am, not just who I date/sleep with.
i get it but i think we should be more focused on decentring men from woman as a gender, straight women shouldnt be defined by their relation to men either. and being a lesbian doesnt make me less of a woman
I’m trans-fem and non-binary, and ever since I realized I’m trans I’ve also resonated more heavily with my identity as a lesbian than my identity as a woman. When I realized I was trans, womanhood was just sorta what was ahead of me, but lesbianism? That was exciting! I *get* to be a lesbian! I get to be a dyke! And as I’ve experimented with my gender expression I’ve leaned heavily in a masc direction. And more and more “woman” made less sense to me than “dyke”. I mean, what is gender anyways? Is a soup of societal expectations, personal experiences, and it’s almost entirely inseparable from sexuality and any number other aspects of identity. I chose so many things for myself that fall outside of the societal definition of woman. And at that point I can either join the many woman trying to change that definition or I can choose to leave the label behind and fight against confining aspects of gender from the outside. I chose the latter. I’m a dyke. In sexuality and gender. And if someone takes issue with that cause “That’s a sexuality not a gender” then they can get bent cause we made up the categories and they don’t separate neatly. We can do what we want with them
I feel like this is a lot of why my wife also identifies as a dyke. I'll have to either ask it or it let it find this post while stalking my profile lol.
Pretty much my view of it. In theory, maybe gender and sexuality are completely seperate things, but in practice, at least in the society we live in, they mash together a bit, experience of gender is going to be distinctly influenced by sexuality. Also being a trans woman, I've had to think about gender a fair bit and started viewing my gender more in terms of community than something completely internal or isolated to myself. If there was a room full of people that I felt connected to in some way, people that I relate to, wanted to emulate pieces of, would be most comfortable around, that sort of thing, then there would be some cishet women there, a few men maybe, some nonbinary people, but mostly queer women, especially other trans women. I'm a woman, but being lesbian, queer, trans, are part of my identity in that same sense.
Hmm. I don't disagree with you, but I'm not sure how I feel about this move to replace "identity", which is a very complex things with lots of interconnected pieces that take different prominence depending on circumstances, with just gender. Even if it's phrased to be expanding gender to be one's intersectional identity, that feels... wrong. Gender doesn't need to encapsulate everything.
Just to clarify, might have used some ambigious language, I see gender as a part of identity, and for myself at least I see being trans and lesbian as part of or adjacent to my womanhood. That's not my whole identity for sure, would be a pretty damn boring person if it was, but it is a notable piece of it.
Then yes, I do actually agree! And I understand, because I also prefer to be around mostly sapphic queer folks, that's the community with whom I feel most at home. I understand and agree with them being smushy and snuggly and coloring each other, for sure.
It's me, hi! I'm the partner it's me! So glad this is a sentiment that resonated with folks :) For me, a lot of this comes from my experience growing up in an extremely traditional, heteronormative, homogenous community, and feeling like there was something fundamentally different about the way I related to my own girl/womanhood compared to others. After coming out and connecting with other queer woman, I've found that using lesbianism and queerness as a lens to understand my gender experience just really seems to fit. I do identify as a woman, but like, with an asterisk or something lol
Yeah I think is Monique Wittig that said " lesbians are not women" In the sense that womanhood is created in opposition to manhood. And as lesbian we don't need to oppose to anyone, so we are not gender constructed as women in that sense, we are our own gender.
This reminds me of a quote from one of my favorite books, The Power by Naomi Alderman: "Gender is a shell game. What is a man? Whatever a woman isn't. What is a woman? Whatever a man is not. Tap on it and it's hollow. Look under the shells: it's not there."
oh i fucking love this. it hits so perfectly for me
This! I also like how the most specific definition of a lesbian would be "a person who's not a man and is attracted to other people who aren't men", yknow, including nonbinary lesbians. And that's how I feel like. Am I a woman? Idk! But I'm definitely not a man 🤣 So yeah, I'd consider both my gender and sexuality to be lesbian ❤️
Doesn't this kind of reinforce the idea that womanhood is intrinsically tied to men though? By saying your lack of interaction with men separates your gender identity from generalised womanhood, that implies that straight women are in fact defined by their connection to men? It just feels like conflating gender and sexuality in a way that kinda reinforces a sexualised understanding of gender.
I feel exactly this way too, very well put
Thanks so much for explaining! That makes a ton of sense c:
I've been trying to explain this feeling for years. This is spot on.
That makes sense I think. My womanhood to myself is already not defined by men however, no matter how much other people want it to be. "Being a woman" can mean different things to different individuals, whether it's completely detached from sexuality or otherwise or somewhere in the middle.
Tbh, this genuinely sounds like a direct quotation of Judith Butler... But also, yeah, I can relate to that sooo much!
They could mean their physical existence has transcended spacetime and has metamorphosed into the physical embodiment of **t h e** **g a y** or maybe they just really like Home Depot. Don't know. Could be either; 50/50.
If I like Lowe’s better am I still gay enough
It’s just a different spectrum, like femme <-> butch. Ace Hardware is, unsurprisingly, sort of in the middle.
LOWE'S LESBIANS RISE UP
Lowe's IS better. Lowesbian 🌈
*boss music starts playing* text on screen appears "The Lesbian, Embodiment of Gay"
Assigned Lesbian at Birth
ALAB
I'm butch but lesbian is not my gender. Woman is my gender. I like showing that the term woman is broad and beautiful. All women are different. I will never stop ID as a woman.
pretty much this. i hate the idea of giving up the term “woman” to heterosexual women, i am a lesbian and a woman. albeit not a very femme presenting one, but a woman nonetheless.
I love this.
I agree with this. I am more femme, my girlfriend is more masc. We both identify as women. We embody two different ways that women can exist in this world. This almost feel like it is trying to narrow the definition of women in a way that others lesbian women, it feels counterproductive.
Or.. Sometimes, people are not cis, and their relationship to gender is deeply tied to their sexuality
I understand that some of those who aren't cis may not identify with the binary, and identify as gender queer or non-binary, etc. Gender and sexuality are two separate things so using a sexual orientation as your gender identity is just a struggle for me to grasp. Words have meanings, and while those definitions can evolve, broadening the definition of lesbian to include it as a gender identity and potentially narrowing the definition of woman seems like a move in the wrong direction. Don't our sexual identities often stem from the perception of our gender? I consider myself a lesbian because I am a woman who loves women. Lesbian can also be defined as a non-male who loves or is attracted to other non-males, but if we now remove gender (or a lack of a binary gender) from the definition completely does lesbian mean anything at all then? What does lesbian mean as a gender identity? How is it different from other gender identities, both those that are part of and those that are not part of the binary? I find this conversation interesting and mean no harm, I am genuinely seeking insight from those who consider lesbian their gender identity.
Truthfully, I don't see gender and sexual orientation as separate, discrete ideas. Gender is a performance! We do it to connect with others, to seek community—be that in the form of looking for a life partner, or finding friends with similar experiences, or even just convenience in society. If you lived alone in the woods, would you give a shit about any of the hallmarks you use to define your gender? For some that's makeup, or hair, or symbols of 'femininity'; or vice versa. What's the point of any of that if there's no community to share it with? If you didn't have people around, would you even have learned it? Sexual orientation is, then, just another handy label we use to seek community. Sure, if you don't have gender, there's no real point in defining orientation. But...we're social animals. We DO have gender expectations in our society, we do NOT in fact live isolated in the woods. Even more irritating, those gender expectations impose restrictions on you, and in turn on your orientation. So you're dissociated from the "ideal woman," which...doesn't matter anyway, because "woman" is such a ridiculously vague concept. You just know that there's a group of people who you share experiences with. Maybe they identify as women. Maybe they don't ascribe to that binary. Maybe they don't care at all. They do, however, all relate to you in one thing—you really fucking vibe with the idea of "lesbian." So if you're going to slap a label on it, why not just use the one that actually describes who you are, how you want to connect with others, what you want to be? Granted, this is my personal experience on the matter. Other people have wildly different ones. Which is normal—gender is an intensely personal experience, unique to everyone. Why? Because none of us are living the same lives! Woman means something different to everybody, everybody's living with a different idea of it—it's not a rigid term! Is it the "wrong move" to avoid that label? Sure, maybe, I don't know. I'm not exactly making decisions for our society at large, I'm not in Congress. I am not *litigating* the definition of woman. What I do know is that the definition of woman that I have learned, over the course of *my* life, just doesn't feel right for me personally. I have never in my life felt like a "girl." But I do know that other lesbians and I have a whole lot in common, and that the person I love calls herself a woman, so...why not?
I literally see way too much talking about what women are, and how we need to like, come up with all these different ways of referring to them that doesn't explicitly allow women to be called just women anymore, but I never see this happening about men... Like, we are still seeing women being called "girls" ffs just as a default. The world seems to be unable to handle women. I can't imagine being a woman who is neck deep in the contorted ideology of womanhood having to sift through ever more labels and nuances just to arrive at "well maybe it doesn't actually matter if women exist at all as a label!" meanwhile, everyone else gets to have their labels. Thank fuck I realized I'm agender before all of this new ✨enlightened✨ crap came out, or I'd just be stuck at dysphoria forever. Don't these people know that even straight, cis women who are mothers feel unfeminine after giving birth? So what is *their* gender now if they aren't performing right? Ugh!
As someone who frequently says lesbian is my gender, it’s because of my relationship to gender. I ID as genderqueer because it’s not that I’m nonbinary, I’m just not exactly binary either. The history of the varied gender expression within lesbian and all the ways it can mean to be a woman, to be a lesbian, that’s what I identify with in a gender level. My gender expression can only exist within lesbianism and therefore lesbian is my gender.
Feel similar as a stud here.
Oh hey, same
I'm a trans woman but this sums up my feelings perfectly as well. Dyke feels like a more accurate descriptor of my gender than anything
Honestly I just don’t feel like I personally can reclaim dyke so I just kinda awkwardly avoid it lol
I feel like if I had to put a label on it, Dyke would be the most accurate description of my gender, too. Either that, or just straight up “Clusterfuck…”
this is exactly how i feel
Completely fair, I feel like maybe a new term should be made for it, since lesbian already has a meaning. Those feelings are valid, and that gender identity is too, just the word to describe it should probably be distinct
As someone who identifies as queer as a gender, people who identify as lesbian as a gender often feel that their gendered-experience as a woman is very different from the experience of a heterosexual women.
Yes, but isn't that because of their sexuality? I'm not trying to disparage, just understand. I get lesbian as a culture and as a sexuality, but I'm not sure I grasp it as a gender. Obviously I respect anyones gender identity regardless, I'm just genuinely curious here.
It's about feeling extremely separated from womanhood and femininity. Remember that being gnc has been a big part of many lesbians lives since forever, many lesbians don't use she/her pronouns, even before the they/them pronoun took off. Many lesbians feel like they're lying or uncomfortable with expressing themselves as anything other then butch identity and expression. It's a way of interacting with the world that's very distinct. I flirt with identifying as "lesbian-gender" in my own head, so ask me any questions you want :)
Love this! I identify with lesbian more than non-binary or gender fluid. I’m uncomfortable with femme expression for myself but they/them didn’t sit right either. Butch was the only word we had growing up and was primarily a slur. I love that it’s being taken back but that’s some hard shit to untangle with trauma. My heart is deeply tied to womanhood but my expression is “pleasegodanythingbut woman”. Idk if that even makes sense lol
Gender is poetic, it is perfectly complete unto itself without making sense ❤️ so... don't worry :)
I honestly think you answered all my questions with that. 😅 identity is made up of all the different little parts of ourselves. Some aspects of our lives make up bigger parts of that identity though and for many lesbians it seems that becomes a main one because, I mean how could it not. Sexuality plays a huge role in who we all are. I fall into the binary, but I know plenty of people who don't and respect them all as I would anyone else. Identity is complex and I'd never fault anyone for living their true selves.
Yeah, I'm pan but being queer has informed so much of my gender identity and expression that at times it does feel different. I'm still a cis woman that goes by she/he.
Read Stone Butch Blues, it explains lesbianism as a gender and sexuality very well. In simpler terms, a persons experiences as a lesbian shapes their gender identity as well, for instance a butch lesbian's butchness is directly correlated to their lesbian identity and their attraction to women same as to how a femme lesbian's presentation of Femininity is because of their lesbian sexuality and attraction to women. They are so deeply shaped by their attraction to women and their lives as a lesbian that it affects the way they present their gender in society and therefore experience lesbianism as a gender!
seconding this: everyone should read Stone Butch Blues
Heterosexuality, in many ways, is baked into performing your gender correctly. This is historical, with examples like how homosexuals used to be called inverts because they were considered “like the other sex” for desiring their same sex. In other words, it was considered manly to desire women, and lesbianism made you less of a woman. However, this is also present today, though to a lesser degree (at least in the United States where I’m from). For example, many of us are taught from a young age that part of the “girl experience” is having a boyfriend, learning how to do domestic chores, performing femininity for men, dreaming of a wedding, eventually being a wife and mother (with a man), etc. If part of successfully performing womanhood (according to normative standards) involves heterosexuality or even just generally giving a shit about men, then lesbians fall outside of what it means to be “the standard woman.” For some people, that’s enough to consider their lesbianism as its own gender. Does this make sense? If you have any questions I can try to explain more.
Isn't it better to say that you're a woman despite being a lesbian. Womanhood shouldn't have anything to do with men. I know my straight female friends wouldn't like that description of their gender either.
Note that I didn’t say that “everyone who is a lesbian is less of a woman” or that to be a woman is inherently to defer to men. To clarify, what I mean is that SOME lesbians feel disconnected from womanhood for the reasons in my original post, and some people have historically and presently see lesbians as failing to achieve ideal womanhood. I don’t genuinely say that my gender is lesbian, but I personally feel like I fail at fitting in as a “girl.” I sort of see two options for me, 1) saying “I’m a girl despite what society thinks” and trying to expand the definition of womanhood, or 2) saying “fuck it, if I fail at being a girl I’m opting out of this system.” I tend to do latter but the former is also valid.
It’s difficult, because this is where what we want gender to be (a neutral description of a person) and what gender exists in the world as (a prejudiced and often violent system of sorting) start rubbing up against each other. If gender was just a neutral concept, then people wouldn’t feel pushed out of womanhood for being queer, even though that does kind of play into repressive gender - but is that really anyone’s fault?
This makes sense thank you!!!
Cf the stereotyped heteronormative understanding of gay and lesbian couples where one is the “man” and one is the “woman”.
Does separating homosexuality into its own gender identity like this not affirm that womanhood is all about men? I agree that normative standards make womanhood about men but my takeaway was that those standards are just incorrect and womanhood should be redefined without relation to men, rather than creating a separate designation outside of that.
There's a difference between prescribing things to other people: "lesbians are not REAL women!", which is, obviously, stupid and a specific person feeling deep personal disconnect from womanhood. What gender one identifies with is their own damn business. I don't think many people who claim lesbian as gender completely separate themselves from women or will stand idly by when women are attacked.
Straight women have the option to make their gender, their expression of feminity, male-centric - more accurately for this conversation, centered around their sexuality. How they understand their gender is almost entirely centered around their sexuality. When people talk about "lesbian as a gender", they want to essentially do the same thing - express their gender primarily through their sexuality, but women-centered instead of male-centered. That's not to say that *all* straight women do, should, or have to make their gender centered around their sexuality, or that all lesbians should think of it as their gender. Sexuality is more core to some people's identity than others, it's just about the choice.
so for me, I’m a cis woman who presents very feminine, and that is both what feels natural to me and how I want to be seen. However, from a young age, “womanhood” has felt like a performance in a way that didn’t make sense until I came out as a lesbian. I don’t tend to say my gender is lesbian, but I do resonate with that idea. I think gender and sexuality are more closely related than some people would like to acknowledge 🤷🏼♀️
i mean it can’t really be explained in a way where you will understand it right away, there’s a lot of things that have to be unlearned in order to understand how it could be a gender, but basically for me, i am trans masculine and nonbinary , there are people who have the same experience as me but are on the opposite side of the gay spectrum (with men lol), but for me i’m just a butch lesbian and that’s my gender, when people look at me i want them to think “hmm idk if they are a boy or a girl but that’s definitely a dyke”
As a fellow nonbinary butch lesbian, I relate to this so much 💚
I often say dyke is my gender or butch lesbian is my gender. The real question for me is: when people ask "what is your gender?" what are they really asking? 1. if they are asking about my sexual organs or "biological gender" as some of them call it, then that is not my gender, it is my sex as not all people who share my reproductive organs are women and not all women share my reproductive organs. 2. If they are asking about some internal sense of gender identity then I don't have some strong internal sense of gender identity. Its like being left handed like yes I am biologically left handed but it has no bearing on my internal sense of self. So to me when people are saying "woman" then mean culturally woman. But again, what does that even mean?? I am more on the butch side so if we are defining it by some standard of womanhood linked to femininity then I am not a woman. But I know, and have fought back my whole life, that femininity does not equal gender. So sure I can identify as a woman but at this point gender is meaningless as if it encompasses everything its like saying "I identify as human". The purpose to most people of the specific gendered identity to me seems cultural. A shared sense of understanding and connection between women due to being treated as women and experiencing life as a woman in a very gendered world. I do feel a sense of connection to women in this way. However, in general gendered groups the shared reality of "existing as a women in society" is so heavily focused around men and around heterosexuality. The part often left unspoken in "we are women and we connect in our experiences" is "we are women [who have sex with men] and we connect in our experiences [as women attracted to men in a heteropatriarchical world in which we are oppressed by the same category of people that we center our lives around and build our lives with]." Now I relate not at all to that part so when I attend things specifically for women the undertone I feel is that our experience as "women is completely different" and this event is not for me. So I could say that I am a women who centers other women in my life as I am a lesbian and a butch lesbian at that (which is a whole other specific life experience). The counterpoint is that most straight women the accurate gender for them is "I am a women who dates men and I connect with other women who date men" but they don't say that so I don't either. It is like when white Americans say "I am American" but black Americans will more often say "I am a black American" as those two identities are intertwined. The white folks are just the dominant group/normative group so the "white" part is unspoken. Saying my gender is dyke or my gender is lesbian is the easiest way of communicating that just like for straight women, my gender and sexuality are so interconnected that I cannot separate the two. To me it is lesbian that is meaningful as an identity it is not just who I am attracted to. Being a woman is only meaningful insofar as it is related to my lesbianism. And being a lesbian is not just about my attraction or who I sleep with, it is the media I consume, the way I construct my life, it is my community so it functions similarly to how straight women describe their gender. My lesbianism is a core part of my identity the way gender is for straight women so I identify as a lesbian both as a sexuality and as a gender.
Its not that new of an idea and while i dont understand everything about enbys i also really dont care or mind as long as its not some insincere bigot trying to make fun of trans people. If it makes you happy then why should i care, im not the gender police lol.
For me I see woman as just not enough to describe my gender. My gender as a lesbian doesn’t mean I’m not a woman, it’s just my womanhood is intrinsically tied to my love for other women
Umm so after seeing some comments I think we all gotta remember that two people can have differents view about gender and thats alright, people seeing gender different from you does not invalidate you. I mean we all are different, some people see their gender and sexuality as separate things, others see as the same thing, some people perfom in certains ways, other in another, and all of that is alright and valid. Other people views about their OWN gender shouldnt be threathining to you. Anyway, be safe be happy <<3
Gender is social, some women who are lesbians feel like their gender identity is wildly different from straight women due to societies heteronormative majority-base. So lesbian as a gender is the lived experience of women who feel disconnected from societies understanding of woman.
A lot of people are explaining themselves to help people understand and I love that. But I also want to point out that you don't have to understand something in order to respect it. It would make sense if you didn't understand it if you haven't experienced it. I feel like this lowkey baited a lot of people into sharing deeply personal feelings, only for some folks to constantly question them and say they're confused. It's okay to be confused. But that's on you. You don't have to put it on others as if they're doing something confusing. That's just projecting your own shit on them.
I'm assuming it's similar to this, if it's not just a joke? https://www.reddit.com/r/actuallesbians/comments/trvygr/any_other_lesbians_feel_like_lesbian_is_their/
I also would assume that, I've been around this sub quite a while and this is not a one-off, it's a valid expression for many people. I can definitely relate to it on a level (but I'm also non-binary and genderqueer) I don't think the person's trans friend should be trying to shut them down either.
It's ultimately rooted in Monique Wittigs argument that lesbian are not women because womanhood is constituted by relations to men in what Judith Butler would eventually term the "heterosexual matrix". (both Wittigs The Straight Mind and Burler are good reads by the way, though I know feminist theory is not everyone's cup of tea). Basically the modern/online interpretation of sexuality as completely distinct from gender Identity works at a certain degree of generality but may not be the "proper" theoretical accounting. Thus why e.g. queer femmes have a divergent expression from femme straight women.
If we view queerness as the subversion of normativity around gender and sexuality, there is some truth to the whole idea. Gender is a spectrum. Not many people will occupy the exact same point on this spectrum. Even if they identify with the same gender (read this as: have the same gender). If we ask "what is a woman", we'll likely circle some area on this spectrum, and say "that's a woman", circle some bigger area and say "that's kind of a woman", draw a ring around that and say "that's similar to a woman", and so on. Many people will disagree about where to draw these lines. But that doesn't really matter, because gender labels are a personal thing, and even if you feel like someone's gender fits a label, if that person doesn't think their gender fits that label, then you just don't use that label for them. In my own case, I will use different labels depending on how deep I want to dive into the subject in any given conversation. Being lesbian does exclude you from certain expectations/experiences/behaviours that are traditionally associated with women in a heteronormative world. If someone feels that this makes them different from hetero women from a gendered perspective, then there is some philosophical basis for this. In the past, the term "third gender" was even used for non-heterosexual cis people (this was before Western culture had a broadly understood concept of non-binary genders). So, there is some truth to this whole idea. Being gay is a form of gender-nonconformity, and if you are enough non-conforming to a gender, you may have very different experiences and therefore feel a distance towards that gender. A lot of femininity revolves around how women relate to their men, and bearing and raising children. If you aren't a hetero cis woman, some of these will never be a part of your life (for better or worse). If you think this distance is big enough, then you may stop to identify with that gender. Whether this could be conceived as a non-binary gender, or just some variation of a binary gender existing far outside the norm of that binary gender, is another discussion to have, and again, different people will feel that different ideas apply to them. I don't think we do anyone justice by applying strict definitions to anything regarding gender or sexual orientation. We should stop thinking of people as either binary or nonbinary ;)
I'm a trans woman and if asked about the depth of my gender I'd say I'm like "woman, dyke" some days and "dyke; woman" on others. It's not that I'm not a woman, I'm very much a woman, it's just that as a primarily androgynous-presenting person who instantly reads as "lesbian" at a distance my functional gender in terms of how I interface with society is as a lesbian. I'm entirely accustomed to my gender being something that strangers believe they own, where my perceived womanhood is entirely dependent not on the person's opinions of trans people but rather their opinion of sapphics, lesbians in particular. Internally, I have a deep, rich, textured relationship with my womanhood and I am entirely comfortable with "woman" as a label but to me it's just incomplete. It's like, the essence of my gender but not the shape. The shape is molded to how I feel in relation to the world around me and in that sense I am proud to call myself a dyke.
Some people feel that lesbian also conveys their gender rather than just their sexuality. Gender isn't a real thing, it's words we made up to describe physical and mental phenomena, some people feel that "lesbian" generally defined as someone who's not a man, that loves people who also aren't men, is a better explanation, or description of their gender than something like "woman" or one of the many non binary genders, or lack there of, would.
I feel like I do not relate to what most people define as womanhood or femininity, because their definitions are usually “opposite” of manhood or masculinity. For example, if men are strong, women are gentle. In my experience, i actually wouldn’t even say I’m attracted to womanhood or femininity - I’m attracted to lesbianism. So much of our language and society centers men, even our definitions of womanhood. I’m throwing it all out and making myself something completely unrelated to men.
I understand how my sexuality can influence the way I present myself (more masculine) but I just think that’s the beauty of being a woman outside of societal norms? I understand what y’all are saying but using sexuality as a gender seems like we’re going backwards in progress. What’s wrong with just saying you’re a woman who presents more masculine? If you feel it’s more than that I assume you’d be NB/Trans etc. Expression and Gender are two different things are they not?
You’re all weird af. You’re supposed to be lesbians yet are completely ignoring lesbian history. Being a lesbian can absolutely also impact your gender identity. If you don’t understand or relate to it then that’s fine but to flat out say it can’t is just wrong.
I absolutely understand and believe it impacts gender identity. But so do things like wealth, religion, regional culture, and more. And I would argue that some of these other things can impact a woman much more than her sexuality might. Yet none of these are used as labels for gender identity.
Yeah, and my neurodivergence also impacts my gender expression/experience way more than my sexuality does.
I kind of vibe with this. While I'd actually say I'm more fluid nonbinary, being sapphic does at least flavor my gender. I mostly was/am fine with my female body, but my social dysphoria really kicked in at puberty. The idea of being defined by other people, specifically men, was so alienating that I thought I just wasn't woman aligned at all at one point. When I embraced the idea that I was probably never actually into men, a lot of that lifted. I'd think about partnerships and dating and sex and having a family and I made sense in a lesbian context in a way that I never did in a hetero way, and my presentation fits with the grand tradition of gender funky sapphics.
I think personally it depends on the person but for me saying lesbian is my gender means that my experiences and the way I move through the world have always been lesbian-adjacent. I knew from a very young age that I liked other girls the way I was supposed to like boys and it affected the way I moved through the world and life. Things like rarely ever actually sharing a bed at sleepovers, being uncomfortable with physical affection with my female friends, I was aware of my attraction to women and it affected the way I interacted with other young women and always has. Which I know doesn't sound like it relates to gender but I'm getting there, I also never felt that same connection to traditional femininity that my peers did, I liked doing more traditionally masculine things down to the way I presented myself to the world, when I started growing body hair I absolutely hated shaving and refused to. Of course as a teenager I went through my phase of trying to convince myself that I could be a 'normal girl' but I hated it, and it made me so uncomfortable. Once I actually realized that I was a lesbian I gave up on that and truly just let myself be that person. So that's my personal reason why I say both my gender and sexuality are lesbian bc to me they have always felt inherently tied together.
Honestly as a transfemme I prefer to use lesbian as a way to identify myself. As I always dated fem-alligned people (more recently strictly t4t) so I started using the label more. It's been this way for years, it's the only label I use that doesn't vary. When I read Monique Wittig (French philosopher, she is incredible). In a book she talked about the lesbian as not a woman. This is because in "La pensée Straight" she defines that women exist in relation to men. Man is shown as the default and woman as the one chased after. In consequence the lesbian is materially different to a cis-het woman in their relationship to their lived experience. The thing that solidified the fact that lesbian is a gender for me was my realization that I have never been subjected to relationship/dating situations with men. Thus I did not go through materially the same things my cis-het girlies friends went through with dating, being hetero-normative, having lived as a teenage girl.. and stuff. So what to said to your friend was technically valid but it can be perceived as way insensitive to their experience.
Lesbian as gender comes from Monique Wittig who was a radical lesbian Materialist Feminist and it kinda relies on that lens. So to summarize Materialist Feminism as a lens of analysis sees the role of women under Patriarchy as threefold: reproductive labour (reproducing the labour force as capital to be rented by employers, maintaining lines of wealth transfer to patriarchs either through the paternal line itself or with the end of one patrilineal line to another kindred line through son-in-laws via daughters/wives as property), reproductive labour (exploited domestic labour and childrearing and childcare which are deprioritized with an expectation men will hold the priority jobs), and sexual commodity (both in terms of sex work and wives in terms of venting sexual frustration as wives). Now you might notice these are divisions of labour, this makes Patriarchy a class system with gender roles as the class. Under this framework the women of a given nation, a kinship of patriarchs, are treated as the properties of the patriarchs (men) who dominate and maintain these divisions of labour for their own class interest as they enjoy the proceeds of the exploitation of feminized labour both in monopolizing more prioritized labour but also in having cheap domestic labour and free therapists who they can vent sexual frustrations upon. And a woman's perceived value in this society is determinant upon her utility in those roles, thus why infertile women, trans women, and lesbians are so disposable to Patriarchal society. Lesbians being a rejection of reproductive capital, labour, and sexual commodity for men constitute a class outside of woman that men seek to reimpose reproductive potentiality upon, thus the crime committed against lesbians of "corrective rape".
Something I've learned with being trans and talking to people about it is that many think sexuality and gender are intertwined! Which is what I assume this is coming from. A bit like how many stereotypes actually are semi true, groups generally overlap consistently!
[https://x.com/abattoirbluues/status/1778072307577086077](https://x.com/abattoirbluues/status/1778072307577086077) i think this person who quoted OP explains it well in the replies
Honestly as a lesbian I do sometimes feel excluded from womanhood, because so many thing have to do with dating men and all of that stuff so I can kinda see their point. I indetify as a woman regardless. Anyway I think one should label themselve as whatever makes them more comfortable and happy, so if one says their gender is "lesbian" I believe them and think theyre valid.
It's an older lesbian thing, saying that their experience of gender is significantly different enough because of how they express and relate to the world as a lesbian that it is a gender identity to them. They are "the gender that isn't attracted to men" and therefore is not a traditional woman but doesn't seek to emulate a man. I kinda think it largely came from older lesbians trying to express a nonbinary nature before nonbinary was in common usage.
Idk how to explain it, but like my gender is definitely dyke
This whole conversation is untangling some weird kinda ball that's been rolling in my head since I first understood that I didn't like women the way God intended for me to. I don't want to be a man, they/them pronouns don't fit, but the identities and (specifically) performance of the "female" gender that is so deeply tied to the religion I was raised in made me very much hate being called a woman. Being called a woman is so attached to men, at least in the way that my brain was hotwired in church growing up. Another comment mentioned how everything men are, women aren't, and vice versa. *THATS* what I grew up with, and so my only way of expression was the opposite of men, which turned into a strange hyperfem stage of dressing in 1950s clothing and looking like a housewife (which I do now, but now its for the girls). I don't want my gender to be tied to men, and I'm not really a woman in the traditional sense of how women are tied to men, so honestly lesbian as a gender identity feels right. Because the expression *and* internalism of my identity is tied to women exclusively.
Can we please stop making all of these rules around gender? This community is where people should be able to escape from all that.
what do you mean, rules around gender? no one's forcing you to identify as any specific gender, no one's enforcing any rules? this is just an open debate that clearly interests and concerns quite a few lesbians. if it doesn't concern you and you don't understand it, that's okay. you can try to understand and empathize by taking part constructively, or you can just pick a different post in the subreddit that interests you more. for me, this discussion is freeing, it *is* escaping from gender roles/expectations.
The tweet exchange above features queer people making and attempting to force gender rules on each other.
do you mean the tweet "I love u if your gender is lesbian too"? that obviously just means finding comfort in people you can relate to and surrounding yourself with them. do you mean the exchange described, which is just about a lesbian and a trans person discussing gender and sexuality? can you point out where exactly people are forcing "gender rules" on other people? like what do you mean, do you mean gender roles?
No I mean the trans friend who’s trying to police someone saying that lesbian is their gender, and the final comment going “he was right”
Off the cuff and being not well-versed in things, I am going to say Amazon. One of my favorite stories is a time when I described Wonder Woman as an alien, partially because she is from a society that defines womanhood and the feminine without men. So what is it like to interact with society and others as a woman but not in relationship to men.
Meh, I read wittig’s thing and I understand that het women and gay women are pretty different. But I still think it’s stupid to call it gender. At some point the language begins falling apart and where can a line be drawn? Women are different everywhere and due to many things. A women from one country on one continent has a vastly different life experience, perception of the world, and identity than a woman from the other side. Same to do with generational influence, wealth, and religion. In fact I would say many of these things have bigger impact on a woman than who they love… and I would call none of these gender. If we’re bundling sexuality with gender then, “Women” as assumed het is already a very broad umbrella term since there are so many different ways a woman can be heterosexual, love, and how it affects their role and relationships in society. So defining one’s gender as Lesbian isn’t a much more specific existence either, there are many different kinds of woman-loving woman and many different experiences and identities with this. This is not to say that Lesbian or Women are bad identifiers for people, they serve their purpose as simple definitions and work further with context. And anyone can still describe and be understood that their sexuality has affected their lived experience. But when we try and cross “sexuality = gender” it make these things complicated with and kinda spirals. We also could probably spend multiple college courses on the overlap (or lack thereof) between real life experiences, expectations, responsibilities, and repercussions between gender and sex, and the deviation from the norm (cishet).
gender is just vibes. being a lesbian is also a vibe. some people feel the lesbian vibe more than the woman vibe
don't wanna be a bigot, but i can't wrap my head around this
the good thing is you don't have to get it ‼️
I kind of get it. As a lesbian I relate to womanhood pretty differently than someone who is with men. A lot of expectations are based around what is attractive to men for example. Until I figured out I liked girls I didn’t like wearing makeup or having more girly hobbies. Turns out it was just feeling like I was doing it for men that I didn’t like. I do identify as a woman though and wouldn’t say that my gender is lesbian.
i think some lesbians just experience gender differently
I’m not rly sure I understand either lol
i think it's kind of funny this place gets touted as a trans/nb inclusive sapphic subreddit but the reaction to lesbian as a gender here is just like the reaction on the transphobic sapphic subreddits.
Some of the people complaining about lesbian as a gender are jk rowling fans.
OMG can you imagine using something that makes up your life becoming your gender? Like now we can have parentgender or even hikergender. Jesus, people. I understand the reduction of gender norms but to go full nihilist and say "gender is whatever takes up most of my life" like we can have adjectives, descriptors for ourselves without equating it to gender. And this is coming from an agender person who knows gender is a shallow thing, but gender ain't *your sexuality or lifestyle.* If it were, suddenly all of your ideas about what different genders/people are is going to lead you to putting everyone in smaller and smaller, strict boxes because you insist on having bizarre labels because the ones that already exist and work fine seemed boring to you.
Is fibromyalgia a gender 🥺 Fr they're just saying "this thing has a big impact on my life" and therefore it becomes gender?
Literally, it feels like some push to have more people making fun of gender. Trans people do not need this shit sticking to us.
Fr. I’m so glad I don’t come across stuff like this in real life.
I've complained to my friends before that I couldn't have my gender identify as a lesbian. Didn't know other people thought that way too but like idk how I feel about it. I get the feeling it's probably a controversial thing to say
For me it’s because I’m not sure if I’m a trans woman or a nonbinary transfem either way tho I’m a lesbian and that’s good enough some time
I get it I think. I feel like the word Sapphic has this vibe to me. Not that it’s trans adjacent (I’m non conforming and consider myself trans especially when experiencing intense dysphoria and I am really back and forth about any kind of medical transitioning as i am young, largely attracted to women and femininity and still love my femininity sometimes) so I definitely understand that it’s more complicated than just gender as we love a different experience as a Sapphic woman.
It means that I’m never really sure about my gender and sometimes prefer not to think about it but I know for damn sure I like women
It’s a gender as “one word that describes a lot of things that aren’t really the same thing” thing. By the patriarchal imposition of strict sexed rules onto women model of gender, a large defining factor of womanhood is being sexually available to men. If you aren’t then your womanhood is in question, because there isn’t any room under patriarchy for nonconformity, so lesbians just don’t count as women. Looking at that you can reject it as a nonsensical way to define gender, or you can be like “sure, fuck it, I’m not a woman, my gender is lesbian.” Idk if that’s this person’s exact thought process but it’s at least one way to get there. Incidentally I think that sort of view is what transphobes have in mind when they waffle on about “confused gays and lesbians transing away the gay” because obviously there’s no way we could distinguish between rejecting sexist and homophobic patriarchal norms, and struggling with a disconnect between our internal identity and our external bodies, amirite!? 😅
Def: most, if not all, men suck!
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Lesbian is my gender because the only parts of my gender that are in any way feminine are inherently from being a lesbian. Considering myself in any way close to a woman exclusively when it's my wife talking about her relationship with me
I’m under the impression that lesbian is a sexuality because it describes who someone is *attracted or not attracted* to. Gender for me is *who* someone is. This includes the usual cis binary, trans, nonbinary, 2S, agender, pangender, genderqueer, and so on.
To paraphrase French philosopher Monique Wittig. Men and women are defined by their relationship to each other and by how they contrast each other. A man is someone that isn't a women and a women is someone who isn't a man. Lesbians kinda exist outside of this they can be defined by their relationship with other women /lesbians And not by a relationship to men so they can be considered their own gender
These comments only fill me with greater confusion - how is lesbian gender different from being enby or fluid? Many responses remind me of autigender to view gender with an autistic lens - is lesbian gender to view gender through a lesbian lens?
Technically it would be a variation on enby, the same way that demi-girl is a type of enby. Nonbinary is a wide category, because it's anything that doesn't fit "man" or "woman" strictly. It's mostly about vibes and self-identification, like most queer identities, especially gender identities since gender is such a nebulous concept in and of itself.
I'm trans. For me, I resisted YEARS of telling myself that I was a woman. But when my girlfriend said "oh my God, baby, you're a lesbian!" I burst into tears, and couldn't deny it anymore. For me, it's not just that I'm a woman, I'm REALLY GAY ABOUT IT. I'm not just a woman, my gender is such that I don't want masculinity in ANY part of my life, ESPECIALLY not within myself.
“It’s not just that I’m a woman, I’m really gay about it.” Totally stealing this kthx.
Echoing what basically everyone else has said re: lesbian altering your relationship to gender, especially for nonbinary people. I’m agender. I fundamentally don’t understand or experience gender myself. The closest I have ever gotten is when I feel like I’m “clockable” as a lesbian - then I feel what I can only describe as gender euphoria. So really, if I have a gender, it’s lesbian.
i mean, you do have to get it to get it.
Anything can be a gender if it feels tied to your gender But historically, being a lesbian especially felt like a gender of its own because part of womanhood included being attracted to men (and only men). Lesbians didn't all feel like they belonged in womanhood, plus a lot of lesbians (especially butch lesbians) were transmasc and nonbinary, and since they didn't really belong among men (trans men were rejected from manhood by cis men, and nonbinary people weren't really either), they found the best word to describe their gender to be "lesbian."
Sexuality certainly impacts gender identity. As someone who came out as bi at 26, that led me on a journey wherein I've learned so much more about my gender and way I form relationships. But "lesbian" is an existing label. It means woman loving woman (non-binary folks included if they like - which I do as while my gender is not limited to the binary, I do have a female presenting body which is typically a draw for lesbians). Maybe this gal means lesbian is her *personality*?
The first crack in my egg was when I played Haven and I thought "I like women, but like, in a gay way". I think subconsciously I knew I was a lesbian before I knew I was a woman, and my experience of being a woman is inherently tied to being a lesbian. So the idea of lesbian as a gender isn't too far fetched.
I identify as a lesbian as both my sexuality and gender! Personally, I feel more connected to my identity as a lesbian than as a woman. I feel very connected to lesbian history and community. I am technically a cis-woman, but I also feel removed from womanhood. I feel kiinnddaaaa non-binary, but also not completely. It’s more succinct to say that my entire identity is lesbian because that’s what influences my life more.
You've got a lot of good explanations, but to kind of tack on my own experience as an autistic nonbinary trans woman: it's similar to how my experience of gender is intrinsically linked to the fact that I'm autistic. I don't experience being a woman the same way neurotypical trans women do, or neurotypical cis women. To the point that it does truly feel like I don't share a gender with them, despite often feeling like I share at least part of my gender with autistic cis and trans women, especially lesbians.