Male-attracted lesbian better than being bi?

I get the impression 'born this way' was introduced as a defensive mechanism. Because of someone's been gay since conception then there's no way they can be a) blamed for it or b) justifiably punished for it. Effective way of getting the public onside, as we've seen repeated in the trans wossname.

On a personal level I don't like it, because I was not 'born this way'; as a victim of sustained sexual abuse from a young age I'm acutely and painfully aware of my experiences having informed my sexual and behavioural responses, at the same time as having been subjected to the same societal g-wording into heterosexual behaviour as every other woman.

But as I said, I see NonMum's point too. She doesn't want to become a subset of her own class, to have 'lesbian' split into bio-lesbian and political-lesbian. I'd feel hypocritical if I ignored that, given my stance on what's being done to the word 'woman' these days.

We really do need a word that just means "does not want to have sex with men".

There is already a term for bi women who only want to have relationships with other women - febfem (female exclusive bisexual female).

We really do need a word that just means "does not want to have sex with men"

Well, this is my point about not getting snotty about so called political lesbians and being naturally same sex oriented. I actually don't care how you got there, there is no orthopraxy of lesbian journey. In fact, as much as I can honestly say my sexual orientation has naturally been oriented towards women for as long as my sexuality has been present and mature, I find the 'born this way' slogan rather unhelpful, as there's an implication that it's an excuse. Like, I can't help who I am, as though I would obviously be straight if I could, which puts being lesbian as a second tier reality.

Well, fuck that. Being sexually oriented towards women is wonderful, I am actually lucky to have that attraction innately, and I will not begrudge any other woman who wants to be like me, even if she didn't start out that way.

Tabby it looks like you're having bisexuality retroactively applied to you. During those eleven years, you weren't sexually attracted to men, you didn't want to have sex with men? Then how can you be said to have been bisexual then?

I can see NonMum's point too, but I think the underlying point of disagreement is the orthodoxy surrounding sexual orientation ie everyone's born with a predetermined one that just might take a while to figure out. I can see a striking parallel with the gender identity concept there, actually. And the common underlying feature behind both orthodoxies is they're tailored around the experience of males raised under patriarchy.

We really do need a word that just means "does not want to have sex with men".

I have both male and female "parts" and do not currently identify with any gender. I was raised as a boy, because I had a penis. Then I started menstruating and all hell broke loose. I am a biological mother, but could also be a biological father. I am attracted to any gender, and I identify as pansexual when pressed to use a label. I get rejected by people of all genders if they do not get to know me well before they find out. I often have a difficult time not feeling like a novelty. All this bickering between lesbians and bisexual women tires me out. And, don't get me started on TERFS because I have no idea what friggin' toilet they want me to use. Why can't everyone just be who they are and leave others to do the same? Behaviors that are unacceptable can still be criminalized, but not people's identities.

And I see parallels in what happened to me in the trans thing, you're young, exploring your identity, not sure what you are, but encouraged by other members of that community, you feel as though you're at home and belong and it's great for a while, but then something makes you think hang on a minute, this isn't right for me, it's not all I am, there's something else, but now nearly all your friends are in that community and you know you'll be rejected by many of them if you express doubts, but don't feel people on the "outside" understand you either. It's a lonely place to be. At least now there is detransitioner support for women who want to change their mind in the trans situation, and things aren't so polarised in society now around sexuality as in the early 90s.

If I found out a supposed lesbian was actually a bisexual woman appropriating the term, I would want nothing more to do with her - not due to biphobia but because of the dishonesty and the appropriation.

That seems pretty harsh, particularly as I've posted about how distressing it was for me. I came out as a lesbian as a teenager after an abusive childhood and had no relationships with men for 11 years. I don't think that sexuality is that you are one thing definitely and certainly for your whole life, certainly not when you are younger and trying to work out who you are. It was also the 80s LGB didn't exist then, it was very firmly just l&g. There was a strong (in my social circles) political lesbian movement - that's not what I was, my desire was genuine - but there were lesbians who were encouraging women of all sexualities to not have relationships with men and to identify as lesbians.

Presuming you entered a relationship with a man because you were attracted to him, you weren't "being a lesbian" for 10 years - you were a bisexual woman in a relationship with a woman and/or hanging out in the LGB community. I accept a small minority of women may believe they are lesbians when they are younger and then realise they are actually bisexual but there are a hell of a lot of bisexual women appropriating and queering our language - and I find it even more frustrating when it is ones who are adamantly opposed to males identifying as women. A bisexual women identifying as a lesbian is an absolute red line for me - If I found out a supposed lesbian was actually a bisexual woman appropriating the term, I would want nothing more to do with her - not due to biphobia but because of the dishonesty and the appropriation.

I'm another old bones. I've known a lot of older butch lesbians, they were largely who were most kind to me as a youngster first going along to local groups. I haven't run into that stereotype either, although that obviously doesn't mean it doesn't exist: my personal experience doesn't dictate everyone's reality. I've never heard yet though of a group going underground and no longer able to advertise themselves or meet openly or welcome strangers because of the need to avoid older butch lesbians. I do know a number of lesbian and of other women's groups including health support ones specific to female only conditions that have been forced to do this because their initial attempts to welcome male people who wanted to join ended in the group becoming untenable for the women and the purpose the group was originally formed for.

In some of those cases the entry was openly hostile because of a desire to refocus and correct the group to a political version the new members thought more inclusive, by which they meant less hostile to male people and self identification. In others, it was simply what female people tend to experience in mixed sex spaces: that the amount of talking time, the agenda, the perspective, tends to become dominated by male people to the detriment of female people being able to be and do as they can in a female only space. Issues about pressure to date and to adapt definitions of personal orientation were involved.

I'm an older butch lesbian, young Banyantree, and I'll describe myself as I like. I'm not predatory and I'm not aware of the stereotype your refer to — which I presume is popular trope among homophobes and those who aren't keen on older, outspoken, confident women who know their own minds and say what they think.

I also eschew the LGBT+ takeover and used LGB and T. Because they are different and separate and no one in the LGB community was asked whether they wanted to be tagged with the other letters of the alphabet.

Odd, that, give the posters on MN are also out there living real lives.

but when one of the quieter and less confident ones is having a bad day and asks for a hand-hold or splits up with a girlfriend and is suffering, they're on her like flies offering a shoulder to cry on and sympathising and saying they'll pm her and arrange to meet up. They're looking for persuadable, confusable women.‘

Ah, the old ‘predatory butch lesbian’ stereotype had been replaced by the ‘predatory trans woman’ then instead.Got it. Thanks for the warning.
In the meantime, In the actual LGBT+ trans women in TL aren’t trying to force lesbians into anything.
I don’t recognise the TW I read about on MN as anything close to the TW I see in real life.

Thanks Shed, I understood the reasons for it in many ways, my feminist politics have never changed, but it was personally horrible.

That sounds awful, Tabby. I'm not particularly doctrinaire about these things (though I suppose I am when it comes to being gender critical: I'm really not interested in spending much time with non gender critical lesbians) but I know some women are.

anotheradulthumanfemale and of course, that means some people are actively turned off by performative femininity. Such people aren't going to be attracted to transwomen however they identify!

A male attracted lesbian is an oxymoron.

Sapphos, thank you for that. I'm not surprised but I suppose I'd hoped that in your neck of the woods things might be different — so I'm sad to hear your news.

If you frequent lesbian groups you'll know that there's quite a lot of mental healthy stuff going on (we can debate why another time) and I and some of the other older GC women I know are very worried by things we see and by the fact that we aren't able to protect vulnerable women. Even more troubling is the fact that some of the troubled and vulnerable women disappear from the groups once the transwomen have become involved with them. Whether they are persuaded into controlling relationships by men who don't want them communicating with their friends, or whether it's because something happens to make them want to back away from the group I don't know but I fear for them.

The good news is that one group that offered a warm welcome to transwomen has been overwhelmed by them and the novelty has worn off for a lot of the lesbian women. Even women for whom feminism is a dirty word are beginning to realise that there's something wrong going on. Eventually the trans-friendly groups will fizzle out. It's just very sad to think of all the damage that's been done in the meantime.

OP, sorry, there was something you said about wanting relationships with men and women I read as you wanting simultaneous involvement. That seemed quite a tall order to me!

Tabby, are you saying you dumped half of your lesbian friends because the other half of them didn't want to keep up with you?

No, but I was unable to go out in any group activities any more because of the people who wouldn't see me, so in the end most friendships dwindled, though I still have a couple. The man I was with ended up being really sexually abusive to me, but because I'd lost my friendship group and it seemed like I made a big sacrifice I stayed with him longer than I should have done and had a breakdown afterwards and struggled to go out at all for a while.

@Shedbuilder I owe you an apology as I have previously insisted on another thread that TW in lesbian groups are causing no issues and there is no harm including them.

I also insisted there were plenty of lesbian groups that didn't centre TW. I was wrong.

two FB groups I lurk on have welcomed transwomen and have attracted growing numbers of TWs. You can see the way they work quite clearly. They avoid the older, butcher, more outspoken women but when one of the quieter and less confident ones is having a bad day and asks for a hand-hold or splits up with a girlfriend and is suffering, they're on her like flies offering a shoulder to cry on and sympathising and saying they'll pm her and arrange to meet up.

Yup I've noticed this too. And now every other post seems to be from a TRA pushing trans activism or slagging off terfs.

Oh, and forgot to add, Tabby, that there are lots of older women who were attracted to women when young but made the decision to settle with a man for an easier life and kids and then, post divorce settlement and children having flown the nest, turn up in lesbian groups — but want to keep it a secret from the straight part of their life. I've never thought much about it and certainly not seen any antagonism shown them, but as one of those lesbians who's never been in a long-term relationship with a man and never had children and has suffered the stigma of being lesbian all my life perhaps it's not surprising that those women aren't among my close friends. We don't appear to have a lot in common.

Tabby, are you saying you dumped half of your lesbian friends because the other half of them didn't want to keep up with you?

The main issue I've noticed is lesbians worrying a bisexual woman would leave them for a man

When this issue was discussed in our campus women's group about a zillion years ago the main theme was that bisexual women were not 'real' lesbians and could more easily 'pass' as heteronormative. There was also a feeling that maybe some were just trying to be fashionable, and didn't really fancy women at all. But, as said, that was a zillion years ago - and so a very different climate.

I do recall that a draft of what was to become 'Male Lesbians and the Female Body' as published in Hypatia (Zita 1992) had just been circulated though (in hard copy - someone broght it back from a conference I think) so things were about to change. That was my first real sense that this was an issue.

Here's the publicly available abstract -

"This essay explores the criteria for lesbian identity attribution through the case study of “male lesbians”: biological males who claim to be lesbians. I analyze such sexlgender identity attribution through the lens of postmodernism, which provides a workable theoretical framework for “male lesbian” identities. My conclusions explore the historicity and cultural constructedness of the body's sexlgender identities, revealing the limitations of both “the postmodemized body” and “the essentialized modernist body.”

I didn't really understand it then and I don't now.

I do recall a sense of excitement though - as if this new philosophy might somehow release all women from bodily shackles :)

IME there are a lot of bisexual women who leave the community and closet that part of their sexual attraction, marry men, etc.

We leave the community, but the community also leaves us. When I started a relationship with a man after being a lesbian for 10 years, at least half of my lesbian "friends" stopped speaking to me. It was incredibly painful and I didn't ever want a rerun of that, so I never actively sought out relationships with women again.