Male-attracted lesbian better than being bi?

The lesbian circles I'm actively involved with are GC and don't admit TWs. We have increasing numbers of women who previously called us terfs asking to join as the penny drops. We're not obsessed with what anyone has in their pants. We just know we're exclusively attracted to women and don't want to get involved in validating any male fantasies, so you have to be vouched for before you can get involved.

OP, sounds like you want simultaneous relationships with men and women. Probably best to look for another bi women, I can't imagine many lesbians wanting to get involved.

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

Yes, this is the reason many lesbians are reluctant to date bisexual women, as many (not all) do eventually settle down with men because it’s an “easier life”. It’s certainly been my experience with the bisexual women I have known and dated, the vast majority were also closeted with no intention of ever coming out. Dating women seemed to be about curiosity and about sex, whereas, dating men was about settling down and love.

People like to accuse lesbians of being bigoted for having a preference for lesbians over bi women (and I’m sure some lesbians are bigoted), however, in my experience it’s almost always due to very negative experiences, often multiple, and a deep insecurity about men being able to offer something we can’t (biological children, an easier life etc).

I imagine that because TWAW, lesbians who are actually on the bisexuality spectrum, feel more able to explore the male attracted part of their sexuality whilst it's still a female space. But that a lot of the lesbians will also be gender critical as with women across the board. I mean, their are certainly gender critical trans women because no community ever agrees on everything, just not Many who are willing to be vocal about it.

IME there are a lot of bisexual women who leave the community and closet that part of their sexual attraction, marry men, etc. Because of comments about 'Katy Perry' types and not being lesbian enough. I have been victim to it and I am not alone. It does happen. I am sure there are lesbians who are attracted to men some of the time. But again, they closet this part of themselves for belonging. I'm not really sure how this plays out with the trans community now and the gender fluid, queer etc. But I think lesbians mostly do this to protect themselves and their community. They don't want to be a circus attraction, basically. They mostly want to find fulfilling relationships with other lesbians. I think there is an idea of some people being more lesbian than others.

'it's not actually acceptable to be homosexual '

We know how the exchange goes:

Rebrand lesbian/gay/queer/whatever to be inclusive and kind
Accommodating women say "Why not let them have this word? It's just a word."
Us: "So what word are we using for same-sex attracted female humans?"
TRAs: "How about bigot?"
Cue lengthy argument about how anyone advocating for a word that means 'not attracted to your dick' is a genocidal fuckhead.

I've never been pressured to sleep with a transwoman (except rapist number 2, obviously) but I've heard plenty of lesbian women say they have. And I'm not in the habit of disbelieving women when they say they've been pressured for sex. Just because not every lesbian has experienced it doesn't mean it never happens.

I could re quote your whole post, Elsie some really interesting points there.

This is the problem for the original indigenous group when their term is appropriated and 'rebranded' for the personal use of those who like the identity or the implications or what using that term offers them. You see their point. But the appropriation distorts and damages the term for those who originally had and needed it.

So cool to be queer is now leaking over into 'and it's not actually acceptable to be homosexual'.

I do t care what anyone shouts about on Twitter, in RL no-one is making us lesbians sleep with anyone we don’t want to

I've never been mugged, nor been present to see anyone being mugged, so it's never personally hit my reality.

Would that suggest mugging doesn't actually exist and is just a silly rumour to scare people? Or would that suggest that things happen to other people that I've been lucky enough not to experience personally?

I’m a lesbian, have been in a long term relationship for the past five years, and things have obviously changed since then, but my lesbian friends who are still “on the scene” tell me they’ve never had any pressure to sleep with trans people. The only pressure they have to sleep with anyone is from heterosexual men and their bisexual partners (which was the same experience I had). Not saying it doesn’t happen, but I really don’t think in real life it’s as prolific as people are assuming based on what they see online.

As for why are women saying they’re lesbian when they sleep with trans women, well personally, if someone has a male body and you’re attracted to that then you’re not a lesbian imo, however, if they’re post op and they appear female, then I wouldn’t say a women is not a lesbian for being attracted to them. Apparently with some post op trans women their long term partners can’t even tell they are biologically male (Nikki tutorials for example), so I don’t think that has much bearing on your sexual preferences if you didn’t even know they weren’t a woman without them telling you.

The major bug bear for me at the moment is people saying gay is an umbrella term for anyone who is not “cis het” and the rebranding of lesbian and gay to become “queer” which covers a wide variety of “gender identities” and not just sexuality. I do feel like this is largely due a number of mostly young people who want to feel a part of an oppressed group when they actually face no oppression, and it gives them some kind of platform to talk about our issues (which don’t affect them anyway). I would prefer to do away with the term queer entirely, as the last thing any lesbian needs is people assuming if she just “tried harder” or wasn’t so “bigoted” she could be attracted to and have sexual relations with men, I thought we had moved past this by now, but with all this “rebranding” I can see us heading back to those times.

Never can quite get over the simultaneous claim that coercion to accept TW as lesbians doesn't happen to lesbians and the accusation that if a lesbian is a lesbian she's obsessed with what's in a TW's pants.

newsyoucanuse one week ago I would have wholeheartedly agreed with you and truly believed the obsession with lesbians being pressured to sleep with trans women was all here on mumsnet.

Having seen a couple of trans women in my local lesbian group call women 'trash bags' for not dating them, as well as the only safe LGBTQI I know being overrun with a TRA agenda I'm now feeling a little jaded.

Well I'd hope so, because that would be rape, wouldn't it?

We’re A lot less obsessed with what trans women have in their knickers too than some people on these boards.

Yes....because biological reality means nothing, does it? Honestly, you might as well have gone the whole hog and called us hysterical.

I read here in MN the outrage about lesbians being forced and told they have to sleep with trans women. And I’ve said before - this just IS NOT true. I do t care what anyone shouts about on Twitter, in RL no-one is making us lesbians sleep with anyone we don’t want to, and that includes trans women. We’re A lot less obsessed with what trans women have in their knickers too than some people on these boards.

Lesbian here, I have never heard any gay woman talk about bi women like that. I do know some gay women who would prefer a lesbian over a bi woman ( in theory) but like most people gay women fall in love with the person not the label. When I was younger I would definitely have preferred ( I. Theory) to date a lesbian over bi but I did fall in love with a bi girl and had a relationship with her and I also had a few flings with straight women too...
As for the, why do some lesbians date trans women - it’s because they fall for the person not the label and accept the trans woman as a woman. Trans people are much more accepted by the rest of the LGB community than they are here in Mumsnet. I don’t think someone dating a trans woman would be so hung up on what they should call themselves now and you’d probably find that a lesbian open to dating a trans woman would also have been open to dating a bi woman and not have that prejudice that your friend seems to have come across where bi women are somehow considered ‘dirty’.
Back in the day bisexual women were treated slightly suspiciously in my lesbian circle because of the fact they could ‘pass’ as straight when with a man and avoid the homophobic abuse and prejudice that we lesbians encountered all year round. But when I had a bi girlfriend I realised that it really wasn’t her fault if she got less hassle holding hands with a guy than with a woman. We broke up when she wouldn’t let me met her family after a year together - her next boyfriend was at her sisters wedding as a plus one within a month of them getting together.

Oh yes, Dennis with the old 'take your time to heal and work through your trauma at your own pace' schtick, clearly implying that disclosing sexual trauma is necessary and the only reason allowed to, temporarily at least, say no to male bodied people.

It was a real eye opener listening to Riley Dennis and Rachel McKinnon as TW, informing lesbians that they could and should 'learn to cope with' sex with male bodied people as some form of social duty.

Just a natural part of women’s natural duty to obey men. It’s good of RD and RM to make this clear, in case any of us had delusions of freedom or equal rights...

I'm bi and not came across the attitude of "disgusting", "contaminated", "dirty" from lesbians. I know of many lesbians not interested in bi women, which is fair enough imo.

Most of the women I know of who date TW are either young or very into the whole queer community and 'TW are women'. I don't think it's about a shame of being bi.

OP, I've been out in lesbian social circles for 40 years and I've never heard any lesbian talk about bisexual women as contaminated, dirty or disgusting. So many women come out as lesbians later in life having been married and having children and I've never heard any lesbian I'm aware of criticise or question them for this, either.

There may be some rancour from an individual lesbian who has embarked on a relationship with another woman only to be dumped for a man. Feeling used and sexually experimented with can bring out the worst in anyone.

I really don't think that saying you've come across 'quite a lot of dislike' of bi women in the lesbian community and then saying 'obviously not all lesbians are like that' is helpful. 50% of lesbians aren't like that? 20%? 90%? It makes a massive difference. It feels like a slur to me.

I don't think your theory about lesbians and transwomen holds much water. Lesbians support and may even have relationships with transwomen for all sorts of reasons.

To be cool and gain virtue points and kudos with their peers: because they're vulnerable and are coerced into it: because they're rescuers: because they're the kind of woman who gets a kick out of breaking rules and boundaries: because they've been brainwashed by identity politics into believing that there's no such thing as sex: because they have internalised homophobia and so having a relationship with someone with a male body solves that problem. That's all I can think of for now.

Also I image many lesbians who say they would, never actually have and would consciously or subconsciously find other reasons why they just aren't attracted to any given TW .

I imagine this is the case too. Hence the 'cotton ceiling'.

I've heard lots of trans women say lesbians aren't interested in dating them.

Interesting conversation.

I'm a GC bi woman. I don't think that lesbians who would date trans women are bisexual. They might have a definition of woman that I disagree with but as long as they keep it to their sex life and not try to erode my sex-based rights then its no business of mine who they are attracted to or why.

I guess I think of it as there are lots of reasons why I am attracted to a person - I like tall men, men with beards, those who can hold intelligent conversations, i like my women curvy, I'm particularly attracted to brunette women and whilst I'm not in the slightest attracted to trans women (uncanny valley freaks me out and entitled male behaviour is a total turn off), I have to say that in all honestly genitalia is pretty low down my lists of what makes a man or a woman attractive to me. So I do kinda get it, if you believe that TWAW and you were attracted to feminine attributes rather than what's in her pants, then sure why wouldn't somebody be a lesbian who dates trans women?

Also I image many lesbians who say they would, never actually have and would consciously or subconsciously find other reasons why they just aren't attracted to any given TW .

Also also (!) I imagine many women who think TWAW assume that they've all had or will have GRS.

I've heard quite a bit in recent months. Not directly to my fave, but in online forums women saying they wouldn't want to go down on a bisexual woman because they wouldn't want their mouth to go where a penis had been because tgat eould be disgusting and how they wouldn't trust a bisexual woman not to leave them for a man or cheat on them.

Never in all my many years as a lesbian have I heard bi women called contaminated, dirty or disgusting.

No, tbf, neither have I, at least not from anyone who was L or G. (Well, actually I did know a gay guy at uni who was fond of exaggeratedly calling anyone who was sexually active filthy, but that's not the same thing). Heard it plenty from varying shades of religious folk, but not lesbians.

Never in all my many years as a lesbian have I heard bi women called contaminated, dirty or disgusting.

I have heard them called 'greedy' but it's said fairly affectionately.

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

I've often heard it said 'bisexual men end up with men and bisexual women end up with men.'

If a bisexual woman wants children then it's simpler with a man.

I actually think bisexual women are being given a bit of a break at the moment, haven't heard any biphobia in ages IRL or online.