BuzzFeed article on the oppressive roots of lesbianism

Me too. I think of my friend from school who's one of those boring "assimilated" lesbians they laugh at -a happy 40something with a wife and kids and who lives in jeans and looks like everyone else. That normality was very bloody hard-won. She went through the experience of being a gay teenager in a provincial town in 80s Ireland and could only really be herself when she left. It took years before her family really accepted her. How dare those little shits think she's not worthwhile because she's "unversed in queer politics"? They aren't fit to clean her shoes.

I find these articles more upsetting than perhaps I should.

No they aren't lesbians, but they want to "reclaim" the word lesbian and make it something it isn't. They feel they can redefine it.

Although the article is mostly gibberish so I may have misunderstood something.

(Typo I meant "not to be unversed")

Wankers, yes, but as the rest of the article shows, also not actually lesbians. So lesbian culture and history isn't about them because they're not lesbians.

As pointed out many times in the comments, thank god.

But WTF is going on with the blatant homophobia? What is driving it? Yes, ageism but it is beyond that.

And those older lesbians that they mock...maybe their lives are too full of work and family and real genuine activism, to be "immersed in queer politics", y'know like ADULTS.

Some years ago, a close friend and I developed a not-so-subtle code for queer women too basic for our tastes: We’d make an “L” with our thumbs and forefingers against our foreheads, like the loser sign that was popular when we were in middle school. In this case,^ the “L” stood for lesbian^.

We, too, were lesbians—generally speaking. But the women my friend and I mocked (and trust, I am duly shamed by this memory) were what we’d call “capital-L lesbians.” We were urban-dwelling and queer-identified and in our 20s; the other women came from the suburbs, skewed older, and were, we presumed, unversed in queer politics. We traveled in circles of dapper butches and subversive femmes; the other women either easily passed as straight or dressed generically sporty in cargo shorts and flip-flips. A woman in this category was clearly down with the assimilationist, trans-exclusive politics of the likes of the Human Rights Campaign. She was the kind of dyke for whom the laughably niche Cosmopolitan lesbian-sex tip “tug on her ponytaill^” might actually apply.

Err, doesn't this actually make you and your friend utterly massive wankers? I'm not sure why the need for all the navel gazing that follows.

It's more ageism, isn't it? Boring old women, what would they know? It seems to be an acceptable prejudice like no other.

There was also this article, along similar lines:

www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2016/12/20/young_queer_women_don_t_like_lesbian_as_a_name_here_s_why.html

Milliepede Ditto

That article is utter, utter bollocks. What the actual fuck is going on with the way some people think? They seem so monumentally unaware of what they are actually saying. They need to give their heads a wobble, or get them out from up the TA arses.
I have two DD and am utterly despairing of what they might have to deal with as they get older. God forbid they should have preferences about who they sleep with, FFS.

I had to stop and scrape my jaw off the floor at the comment that suggested a lesbian wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a "real" and a surgically created vagina (if only they'd open their minds enough to try!)

The only vagina I have any experience with is my own, and I am still 99% sure I could tell the difference.

Perhaps they mean "vulva". I suppose surgery could construe a vulva that, at first sight, looks nothing out of the ordinary - one with no visible inner labia, of course. That might be possible. It is all normal skin, after all, and I suppose they shave off the pubic hair anyway, so the lack of that wouldn't give it away.

But the vagina? Nope, nope, nope. A lesbian would know at first touch, and I am pretty sure any woman who isn't too prudish to wash her private parts would notice something off.

They also claim gynecologists wouldn't notice. Yeah, right. Perhaps male gynecologists who willfully ignore everything that makes a vagina different from a "front hole". But unlikely.

I find this whole attack on lesbians bizarre. I don't understand how people are ignoring the fact that people with penises are singling out women! I haven't seen any of these articles / youtube videos demanding that men submit to the cock.

PS Cao, I like your nn.

It's precisely because of things like this that I have "reclaimed" the word lesbian to describe myself. I used to pussyfoot (if you will excuse the pun!) around the word, saying I was "queer" or "identified" as a lesbian. Now I say it like it is. "I'm a lesbian". I'm afraid the term is going to disappear into the PoMo morasse.

Let's remind ourselves of a couple of transwomen facts. The majority of transgendered people are Mtf. LESS THAN 30% of these go on to have bottom surgery. Most transwomen are white men who transition later in life and seem to work in STEM industries (l'll see if I can dig out the citation).
It's the poor souls who go ahead and get themselves surgically castrated, have their penis inverted, requiring lifetime dilation of this artificial hole that I feel deeply sorry for. They are clearly mentally ill.

I had to stop and scrape my jaw off the floor at the comment that suggested a lesbian wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a "real" and a surgically created vagina (if only they'd open their minds enough to try!)

What they utterly fail to understand is that creating a vagina, for them, is purely so something can be put into it. Let's face it, they're not creating it in order to bear life or menstuate.

They can't understand why a lesbian doesn't have the same attitude. Lesbians are attracted to female genitalia, yes but it's more the whole woman. The way women smell, the things they have in common, as women. The same lived experience. The same female problems. The same socialisation.

And, surely they are even appropriating their own kind, in that the ones who have a vagina, will probably only be interested in men.

They are using those trans-women as justification for forcing lesbians into sleeping with those who don't have surgery.

And in terms of transmen. I think a lot of them are lesbians. But the story of that recently detransitioned transman struck a bell. She said she wanted to escape her gender because of all the sexism coming her way. The reason, I think, why so many teens are doing the same.

But when she transitioned to male and therefore hung around with more men, the gloves came off and the sexism, although not directed towards her, was even worse. Her disillusionment was palpable. The very last thing she wanted to do was try and force herself on them in the way tranwomen do.

It's just that gay men aren't into women, and FtT still have enough female socialisation to respect that. Or simply not enough upper body strength to think it a good idea to tell a gay man that he should go die in a fire.

I suspect you might be right; maybe trans men don't have the sense of entitlement that comes from being originally socialised as a male.

Okay, I've read the article and some of the comments. I had to stop and scrape my jaw off the floor at the comment that suggested a lesbian wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a "real" and a surgically created vagina (if only they'd open their minds enough to try!) I find that very hard to believe.

"Transmisogyny" is the new word for "misandry", is it? Not going to fool me. Same old shit, different spelling.

"Or do trans men face the same rejection and just not complain about it?"

Likely that.
While many FtT are lesbians, not all of them are. As evidenced by couples that consist of an MtT and an FtT.
I'd assume that many FtT would be very happy indeed with a feminine gay man who doesn't threaten their masculinity but does have all the physical traits they desire.

It's just that gay men aren't into women, and FtT still have enough female socialisation to respect that. Or simply not enough upper body strength to think it a good idea to tell a gay man that he should go die in a fire.

The author could have used far fewer words and just written that they are a huge fan of conversion therapy.

Sad how homophobia is so accepted among a particular sector of the young these days.
They dress it up in all kinds of wordy justification but ultimately it is still homophobia.
Kudos to those who see it for what it is. The comments are heartening and it's great to see they come from all ages, millennials included.

Oh I am so fucking shit of this bullshit. Fucking stupid pricks. .

Fuck lesbians. No one cares what you think as long as you shag a man who feels like a woman.

Idiots. How can they not see what they are saying.

So what's the deal with gay men and FTTs? I've never heard about a male equivalent of the cotton ceiling thing. Is it because trans men tend to be attracted to women? Or if they want to have sex with men, are gay men generally up for it? Or do trans men face the same rejection and just not complain about it?

Sorry if this is addressed in the article. Buzzfeed always makes me feel like my brain cells are dying, so I have yet to summon the will to read it.

I think of the gay men I know and try to imagine their reaction to a Riley-type attempt to make them sleep with women