How do you know if you're a lesbian?

[OdeToDiazepam]

I've had 2 children (young) and been single for a while now after a really bad time with my ex.

Is it normal to realise you might be gay later in life? I'm 26. I feel like I have very little interest in men at all. Next to none. And thinking about women more and more and have been looking it up.

Does this mean I might be a lesbian? I've even been trying it out with friends and family kind of joking about it but I'm actually inside wondering if it's true.

If it normal to have children and straight relationships before thinking like this?

You don't have to be either straight or a lesbian. You can just fancy who you fancy and not worry about which box you fit into.

You might be gay. You might be bisexual. You might just have hit a seam of particularly unattractive men.

You don't have to decide either way. You are still you, whoever you find attractive.

Oh I'm not worried about it. I don't care what people think and I have no issue with it if I am I'm just curious!

How do you know? How do you go about it? It's weird to suddenly have a big shift about who you might be

I've tried dating men and it always crashes and burns and I end it

I don’t think there is a eureka moment it’s just about who you are attracted to.

I’m bisexual. Realised in my mid 20s that I was attracted to the person not the genitals.

If you think you might like women go out and see where it leads. Nothing ventured nothing gained

One of my closest friends didn't really realise until she was in her mid twenties, she's mid forties now and been with her female partner for 13 years, and had only female relationships for a while before that.
She has a daughter, and granddaughter.

I think many people, especially women, are at least a little bisexual.

As for how you go about it? I suppose change your online dating profile "interested in" to women or men and women. Or just live life keeping an open mind and an eye out

I know I'm younger, but I found it took me quite a while to figure out exactly where I feel like I fit within the spectrum of sexuality. For a long time I identified myself asexual, and then possibly bisexual with a preference for women, but it didn't really fall into place until I fell in love with my friend, a genderqueer butch lesbian, and it was only then that I realised I fit within a very similar category. If you want to explore attraction to women I'd recommend the app Her, which serves as a social media site for queer women of all creeds. It can be used for dating but there's a wide community that can be used to ask questions to other LGBT+ women and figure yourself out. I've found a lot of support and friends on there and it's a very open place to explore aspects of your identity without having to push yourself to explore offline before you're ready

Oh ok thanks nbartist that's really useful I'll check it out I do feel quite attracted to butch women and that's what I've been looking at online a lot

Can I ask what does gender queer mean?

It means you're more special and interesting than boring old men and women

No problem, I'm glad it's something you might find helpful!

And Ozzybobgoblin, no need to be embarrassed, I'm more than happy for people to ask questions! Genderqueer falls under the more generic category of gender non-conforming or non-binary. For me it means I don't feel like I fit within the categories of gender and I also experience mild sex-dysphoria. I like when people use they/them pronouns for me but it's not something I expect of people or explain unless anyone goes out of their way to ask. If you'd be interested to read more, especially if you're interested in the intersectionality between butch and genderqueer, I'd recommend Leslie Feinberg's 'Stone Butch Blues' which is available for free online

I think sexuality is more fluid that people think. In that you can find men attractive, then women, then back to men. I think its not unusual for this to happen at all.

So nbartist is a butch lesbian necessarily genderqueer or gender non conforming? Can't a butch woman just be a woman? If being butch makes a woman genderqueer, then does that not then make non-butch lesbians all girlie and "feminine"?

Why the need to define biological women as feminine as defined by heterosexual men? I consider a butch woman to be feminine. Just not a flowery, swishy-long haired, dress-wearing type of feminine. She's doing feminine her way.

I really don't get it. But I'm glad you found a place where you feel you fit in. That's all most of us want anyway!

All I know is I’m not. I always assume lesbians know they are in the same way as I know I’m not. I think if you feel comfortable at the thought of being intimate with a woman, you are likely at least bisexual. As a straight woman (who is pretty experimental sexually) I really don’t like the thought of being intimate with a woman. A lesbian must feel the same about a man.

I don't think you definitely do know.

I also don't think that women are 'more gender fluid' or whatever bullshit is peddled in the media, nor do I believe lesbians 'know just the same way straight women do!"

Currently, and despite huge progress in this area over the past few decades, lesbianism is not the norm and most adults have not grown up with the expectation that gay relationships are standard. That means it's very understandable that a lot of people will not consider the possibility of being attracted to someone of the same sex until quite late on.

The important thing is to be quite honest with yourself and everyone else. You don't know who you're attracted to. That's fine. You can take your time to figure it out. Some people won't like this, but you don't need to worry about them.

FWIW, I came out in my teens, and then spent years dating men and married to a man. I came out again in my early 30s. Lots of people have always said I couldn't know I was a lesbian and lots of people still say that. You know what? It doesn't matter. No one who's good enough to date you will care, either.

Do you like fannies?
Therein is your answer

axil, honestly, I can't speak for everyone. Not every butch is genderqueer and not every genderqueer person is butch. It's a very personal aspect of identity where gender and sexuality get all tangled up and hard to pick apart, different people find different ways they feel comfortable describing themselves. I've met people who use butch, stone butch, drag kings, soft butch, boi, tomboy lesbian, lumberjack lesbian and all sorts of variations as a shorthand to summarise the complex relationship between gender presentation, gender identity and sexuality. On the other hand you have femme lesbians, including those who use lipstick lesbian, hard femme, and stone femme. I definitely consider butch women to be inherently women and inherently feminine, just not stereotypically feminine. At the same time, I appreciate that presenting as typically masculine is an important part of the identity of a lot of butch lesbians and I know people who want to acknowledge that as a part of being butch. A lot of the personal specifications within butch communities stay fairly internal and there are some who identify with ideas of gender and some who eschew it entirely regardless of politics. Being butch is already fairly politically iffy, but it's something I respect because of its important to lesbian culture and because I do identify with that. I prefer to use genderqueer to describe myself as well as butch as a way to alleviate my dysphoria on an emotional level but not everyone with dysphoria would want the same. It's not something I discuss outside of conversations about being LGBT+ so while it is important to me, it's rarely relevant to anyone outside of my close friends or any partner I might have.

Female sexuality is very fluid. Enjoy who you are and don’t worry about labels. These days I just see myself as “sexual”. No prefix.

nbart, I wonder (and excuse me for commenting, as I am not butch nor genderqueer, and because I imagine you know a lot of this, though others may not) whether this is a generational issue of communication?

I know Feinberg's work, and I know the work of Jack Halberstam that did a lot to draw out what Feinberg's text suggests. I think their work speaks very strongly to people who feel as if their sexuality is unintelligible because their gender presentation is so stigmatised, and they do a hugely important job of showing that lesbians might present as butch for really vital reasons. They push back against the idea that being butch is just a coincidental identity that some lesbians adopt because they don't know any better. That argument was put forward by (broadly) middle-class feminists who simply did not recognise or accept butch/femme culture as anything more than an imitation of male/female relationships.

I see the value in that.

But I also think there the language of 'presentation' and 'identity,' which is so central to these arguments, can be a bit dodgy. Sexual identity isn't only 'personal'; it is also political. We don't (on the whole) have free choice to 'present' in a certain way and be read that way - we're read in ways we don't choose. And being butch is not necessarily about being dysphoric. It can be as simple as feeling that you are comfortable in your skin - indeed, that you're wonderful - but that the world needs to change, and needs a political intervention. There's limited potential for that idea within the Feinberg-style ideology, I think.

I hope you don't mind me posting. I am thinking this out loud, mostly, and it's something I almost never get to discuss with people.

Female sexuality is very fluid.

No, it isn't, and this is a misogynistic and homophobic stereotype.

Can you explain please Sarah?

People do change, i think. I'm 32 and felt my first sexual attraction to a woman a few weeks ago. I do not think i am a lesbian, or even bi, its just 'one of those things', you like the person not the genitals. So its not as simple as 'do you like fannies' lol

"you like the person not the genitals"

This.

Though how it's acted on depends on conditioning, to a large extent. Happily married to a man but ran a mile from some encounters I wanted to be open to, many moons ago.

I always (probably naively) thought you’d just know if you fancied men, women, both or not. I don’t and never have been attracted to a woman, I doubt now I ever will. I have no attraction to female genitals (I know most people say you fancy the person not the genitals but for me the genitals are part of the whole package - my fanny is the only one I want to have to get intimate with)
I can appreciate broader aesthetics without fancying someone, so I can look at people and think they’re good looking without having any kind of crush like emotions or even attraction. I always liked the idea of being more flexible but without attraction for me it just will never happen and owning a boaby and men’s clothes I find attractive. Yeah I often find the clothes more attractive than the person.

Never say never schlerp! I would have said exactly the same 2mo ago

I was 27 when I came out last summer but known for years .

Had crushes on various females for years - teachers , tv characters, celebrities ... I then fell in love with my best friend in my late teens , realised then that this wasn’t just crushes as I’d always tried to convince myself - I actually wanted a sexual relationship with her and loved her to bits in a way beyond friendship . I never did tell her !! She’s now living with a man so I suspect the feeling wasn’t quite as mutual as I hoped .

I have feelings for women I’ve never really had for men at all - both romantic and sexual (so erm yeah, fannies). I don’t know why , can’t explain it easily just that those feelings I only associate with women . I’ve never fancied a man or even thought about it . Idea of having sex with a man is awful .

Didn’t tell anyone though until after my granda died - he was v v religious and told me if I ever came home and said I was gay I’d no longer be welcomed . Still haven’t told all my family yet , not worth it .