low level lesphobia

[Northerngay]

Not even sure lesphobia is a word 😂 but anyway.
I’m a lesbian, a ‘femme’ so to speak. I’m very secure in this after a few years of figuring it out.
I work in the NHS with a close team, great and supportive no issues there but I have one male, gay (not sure of relevance but adds context) friend. I suspect him to have ASD (I myself am ND).

Anyway, he is a very nice person but I’ve noticed a low level of lesphobia. ‘I need to find you a man’ ‘a man to tame your views’ (I’m very left wing and a feminist) ‘trying to impress the men’ ‘trying to attract a boyfriend’. ‘too pretty to be a lesbian’ ‘too skinny to be a lesbian’

I do not tolerate it, I bite back with girlfriend women not everything is about men why are men so offended by women being attracted to women *why is everything about validation.

When I bite back hard he is very sensitive and apologises for a week. Again I kind of cba with this. I don’t mind banter but he literally doesn’t seem to have anything else. I now just do girlfriend women *woman when he says BF/man and move on.

but yeah, any advice. I have to work closely with this person and in many ways he is a great friend.

My * girlfriend hasn’t come through very well

Start telling him you need to find him a nice wife to settle down with

Why are you even discussing your sexual preferences with him?

Tell him that it is completely inappropriate and if he doesn't keep matters/conversation professional you will be reporting him to HR.

I think the word is lesbophobia.

But anyway. Those conversations are not for the work place.

Or turn it back on him and tell him he just needs a decent woman/ to cute to be gay etc.

So other PPs are wrong sorry but
I'd you have told your work colleague multiple
times that you are a gay woman (tbh honest even the once should have been enough) then whaaat?

And he still insists on saying about finding you a good man etc over and over, then he is being a discriminatory douche bag and beaching at least one provable HR boundary

You describe impact on you a bit . Get better at saying so pls

You can report his discriminatory behaviour upwards

Tell him to f**k off! Too cute & skinny to be a lesbian? What a discriminatory thing to say. Honestly next time use a firm tone and say ‘Stop! You know I’m gay! As you should know, gay people are as diverse and various as straight people so please stop making those comments.’

or a simple ‘would you mind leaving the jabs about my sexuality out? It’s getting tired.’

Advice? You speak to HR about homophobia and request that they take action to stop it.

You have every right to not put up with bigotry or prejudice at work and what he’s doing is a very, very long way over the line.

I believe her @Vikinga

What you describe is not low level. It's totally unacceptable. Whether ornnotbhe is ND is irrelevant.

Tell him it's unacceptable and if it persists speak to your line manager/HR

I don't think it's lesophobia, I think it's misogyny.

He doesn't think you're fine as you are, and you need a male presence to validate your existence.

I had one male gay friend who was an absolute git, in a similar way. I was confused because he was gay and, therefore, I made a massive assumption (as have the troll hunters on here), but it's entitling possible for a man to be gay, and misogynist.

Distance yourself, he's not a friend. It sounds a bit like dead- naming someone. It's so amusing to keep ignoring who you are, and dress it up as friendly banter.

I suspect you wouldn't accept this from a straight male friend.

This. What he’s doing is not ok, not legal and grounds for (very highly deserved) disciplinary action against him.I’m sorry you are having to deal with it.

I disagree that it’s misogyny, though that comes into it. It’s definitely lesbophobia. I had this once, working in an environment where I was the only lesbian among a lot of straight people and gay men. I slowly came to realise that being a gay man was considered totally acceptable but being a lesbian made me the butt of endless jokes and ridicule. It wore me down eventually, though I only realised how much after I’d left. Definitely don’t stand for it - I’d go to HR. I have never been able to work out why, but for some reason ‘lesbian’ still evokes sniggers from people in a way that gay man doesn’t. Perhaps it is misogyny after all. Solidarity.

Tell him it's not appropriate and you will go to HR if it continues. Keep a record of each comment.

This. The minimising and dismissal on this thread is awful,

Have you told him directly to stop or are you laughing along? If it’s the latter, the. Do the former. If he still continues then tell him you will get hr involved if it continues…then do that.

A lot of gay men hate lesbians for some reason. Have never understood that.

Is he thinking he's being amusing and he thinks it's just a bit of an "in-joke" between two gay people, I wonder?
Have you tried a proper talk with him about how it's actually offending you?
If he isn't very good at social interaction, perhaps he thinks it's a bit of a game where he pokes you and you bite?
Clutching at straws, and only you can decide if its a friendship worth fighting for, or whether this has become intolerable.

As a lesbian I have experienced crap like this from gay men - a LOT.

Likewise - I’ve experienced this from gay men too.

Gay men are often misogynistic. Why wouldn’t that extend to lesbians?

People who don’t think it does are being naive.

My adult dd is a lesbian. She thinks men in general don’t like lesbians (aside from a lot of straight men fetishisation of lesbians) because they don’t like that lesbians are not men focused in any way.

She also feels Gay men can be a lot worse, because they don’t even have the ‘lesbian fantasy’. She says that straight men still find a way for lesbians to ‘serve’ them in some ways due to their fantasy and through porn, so they don’t feel as excluded by lesbians as gay men do.

She has suffered far more homophobia from biological males in the LBGT community than she has from straight men.

She thinks lesbophobia is rife amongst gay men.

I bet you're a joy to work with

Most colleagues are more open with each other than their real life friends!

Some men find the idea of women who don't have any use for men at all in their lives very threatening. And if this man has ASD I suspect the filter that many people have is missing. But yeah, the equivalent, which I presume he'll find equally insulting and irritating, is to reply that all he needs is the love of a good woman. Hopefully that shuts him up!