Nonbinary Lesbian Answering Questions

[ash2301]

Hi- I'm a nonbinary lesbian teen, and I want to help answer parents' questions about their LGBT+ kids/any other questions you have. Please be respectful, but there's no such thing as a stupid question

What is your biological sex

I feel the need to label myself because otherwise people would just refer to me as a girl exclusively and that feels wrong. I find that I have to explain it fairly often because it's not a very well-understood thing

@TERFisNotAnInsult I completely agree. I asked the OP how she could be both on the first page, but she's not actually answering the questions.

Female means to identify as a girl/woman.

No it doesn't. That is not the meaning of the word 'female'. You can't just make up your own definitions for words.

But as you are biologically female you are in fact a lesbian. If you don't date men.

I don't see why it has to be so complicated.

I often wear jeans and a tshirt with boots. No make up. I don't feel like a man. I'm just a woman in those clothes

I think all this stuff is because these kids are the offspring of 80’s/90’s teenagers. They have little to rebel against as we’re less likely than our parents to freak out about the usual piercings and haircuts and clothes so they’ve had to take it all a bit further.

Each generation pushes a bit more against the previous one. ‘‘Twas ever thus.

It’s what kids do.

I am taking a break from answering questions on this thread for now. I would like to publicly state that this is because it gets very emotionally taxing to read the less supportive comments, not because I am a coward. I will check in and answer any new, constructive questions some time tomorrow.

Can you not just identify as a tomboy?

I feel the need to label myself because otherwise people would just refer to me as a girl exclusively and that feels wrong.

But you are a girl. You can't expect the whole world to deny reality by referring to you as something that you are objectively not.

I understand that you might not be comfortable with being female, especially as a teenager. So many of us have been where you are. But you are a girl.

Female means to identify as a girl/woman.

I don't think most women 'identify' as female, they just are. It is very, very common to feel unhappy with rigid gender stereotypes. The desire to dismantle Gender is a very common theme on MN.

You haven't answered any questions to begin with.

So your genitals were observed at birth, and they presented as female, so you have been 'assigned' female at birth - what are the chances you're not female? What's the likelihood that you have a Y chromosome? This is what sex means. Not gender.

Would you date and have sex with a transwoman who had not had genital surgery? To be clear, this would mean penis in vagina sex.

Actually hearing people use she/her for me is triggering and can cause panic attacks When did this start? Presumably you weren't having panic attacks aged 3 when someone referred to you as she? Was the onset of panic attacks a gradual thing or did you just wake up one day and from that day forth every time someone called you 'she' you had panic attacks? (I appreciate that may sound goady but it's a genuine question, I'm struggling to get my head around it).

Hello @ash2301. I’d like to ask how you are feeling about the responses on this thread, are they what you expected? Are they similar or different to what you come across in real life?

I think all the condescension is a shame. I’d like to understand more about your feelings and experiences which are quite different to mine.

What has your parents reaction been like? Friends?

Ash it's not about not being supportive.

Lesbians have fought for visibility for years

We are gay women.

We are not attracted to non binary folks or transwomen with penises. We are attracted to women.

You can't come in and tell us that lesbian is now open to a whole host of genders and sexualities.

It isn't.

It is about women loving women.

If you don't want to be in that category then class yourself as non binary bisexual or pansexual if that's your gig.

I assume you would date another non binary biofemale? So how could you class yourself as lesbian if neither of you are women in your eyes

Is this like when everyone started putting jedi down as their religion?

OP - do you not think we’re all a bit “non-binary”?

What exactly is non binary?

Not feeling like a woman.

What is a woman?

Are you talking about stereotypes of women? So if you don't wear make up and high heels one day you aren't a woman?

Because plenty of women have never worn either of those things in their lives and are very much women.

I think you need to do some research on gender stereotypes and maybe just break away from them and understand that we as people are bound to any particular set of clothes, colours or indeed gender based obligations.
Maybe you could enjoy yourself and your body as a woman without any of those pressures?

We ARE NOT bound* sorry

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3621239-Being-a-homosexual-female-in-a-community-of-queer-people-transbians-and-penis-inclusionary-lesbians

Hey OP, you should read this thread ^ It could be enlightening

Genitals are observed, but sex is assigned because it's a meaning that we add to those genitals.

I would have said sex describes what genitals and other biological characteristics you have eg xy or xx chromosomes, height, muscle strength etc. Gender is the meaning added to sex.

Most women don't like many aspects of being female/a woman - of the top of my head: the gender pay gap, female circumcision, toxic masculinity, male violence and male sexual harrassment, everyday sexism, period pain, giving birth, sore boobs once a month and the menopause. That doesn't have any bearing on our sexuality or our identity.

The only thing you could possibly identify as is a biological female who is sexually attracted to other women i.e a lesbian. I'm a gender non comforming female in that I work in a very male dominated area, am very technical, don't wear dresses, am financially independent and drink beer. I also like handbags, wear makeup and have children and am good at Englishtl.and talking to people. I have been called "half bloke", "honorary man" "geezer bird" etc at various points in my life and so could probably call myself 50% male, 50% female, under your system. But none of this makes me anymore or less a woman and I am biologicaly female. So I would only ever describe myself as a heterosexual, commmon or garden, woman.

The rest is woke youth navel-gazing I'm afraid. We've all been there, once you have more pressing/important things to worry about I'm sure thats how you'll see yourself in time as well.

You haven't answered any questions to begin with.

I think OP has tried a lot harder than most who come here to make a similar case. The fact that she can't provide objective justification for saying she's non-binary is a limitation of her position, not her good will.

I'd like to see the discussion continue gently, just in case this really is a teen girl who is struggling with these issues.

OP I am a lesbian. I’ve always rejected girly things. I spent my childhood and adolescence being told I couldn’t do certain things because of my sex. I was obsessed with football, obsessed with guitars and basically nothing like the majority of my female peers. I was very confused, I thought there was something wrong with me.I hated attention from boys and men, and as you well know as a female you get lots of it.I was sexually assaulted several times and a boy tried to rape me when I was 12. I was depressed, anxious, mixed up and miserable.

I’m 37 now and I’m still in no way a stereotypical woman. I have a child, who was conceived to the man who I married because I was brought up around homophobia, both in the family and in wider society. I didn’t dare express my attraction to females because I would have genuinely been in danger.

Do you not feel that you are letting down women like me when you choose to opt out of being a woman? Women like me had to fight to be who we are in the face of genuine danger, threat of physical violence and rejection by our own families. I’ve been repeatedly accused of wanting the return of section 28, but I grew up under that. My school wouldn’t even tackle homophobic bullying because they weren’t allowed to portray being homosexual as in anyway positive or defensible.

My older lesbian and feminist sisters fought for me to be who I am and women and lesbians my age fought for you. Now we see you’re rejecting all the work we did because you personally feel different/unique. Do you not think we all feel different and unique?

Why are you abandoning the fight with all your sisters, especially lesbians in favour of this ultra individualistic identity politics? Wouldn’t you be better off, and ultimately more effective if you joined your sisters in fighting for the right for females to be who they want, how they want, without all the damaging stereotypes and male violence society subjects us to?