Concept of ‘exclusively same sex attracted’

[aseriesofstillimages]

I have seen various people on this forum say that to be gay or a lesbian is to be ‘exclusively same sex attracted’, and that therefore, for example, a woman who is attracted to or in a relationship with a trans woman cannot correctly describe herself as a lesbian.

Setting aside the problems with presuming to correct another person’s understanding of their own identity, I can’t see how this absolutist approach is logically sustainable. If I am a non-trans woman who has only ever - to my knowledge - been attracted to other non-trans women, but then am attracted to and get off with a woman in a bar who I subsequently find out is trans, do I immediately stop being a lesbian? What if I don’t stop finding the trans woman attractive after learning that she’s trans? What if I never find out she was trans - is it the case that I have ceased being a lesbian, but will never know this?

Well, I wouldn't walk up to her and say 'You're not a lesbian': not my place to do. But ...... I don't think that she's a lesbian

Same here.

Thank you. This is exactly me but I couldn't find a way of saying it that sounded nice enough 😊

The only reason people would point it out is if a bisexual woman's (or a bi/heterosexual male's) perception of themselves as a lesbian encroached on things actual lesbians needed for themselves, or it was becoming damaging to actual lesbians to have people who clearly either weren't female or exclusively same sex attracted using the word about themselves. See the vegan analogy.

And if you don't eat it they may report you for a hate crime, and you should learn to overcome your meat based prejudices and learn to cope with eating it.

Pointing out that you really don't want to, it's your body, you have very strong feelings about this and a right to choose for yourself, and wtf is this abusive behaviour all about will just result in screams of abuse.

Blimey @aseriesofstillimages Rather than accepting that questions of sex, gender and sexuality are complex and that language and identity categories in this area often don’t have a single, universally agree definition'

Most people are quite happy with male/female (yes, including all people with DSDs, don't other them by pretending they're a 'third sex') and opposite sex attracted/same sex attracted/bisexual categories.

You know, the reality-based categories, not some weird made up gender identities that seem to multiply by the day. Not many people actually believe in this rubbish.

Stop pretending it's all so 'very complicated', when it's really not.

I agree with pp that those who don’t meet the criteria of a given group such as female homosexual can’t just decide they are going to say they are and it’s rude/hurtful/literal violence to disagree with them. It’s so ridiculously Pomo, this “I identify as…and therefore I am.’

Its narcissistic bollocks dressed up as social progression.

And of course, even if lesbians conceded the word lesbian to those who ‘identify’ as it but don’t meet the definition we currently use and female homosexuals then decided their new name was something else then you would then have transwomen identifying as that new word.

Because it’s not about individuals having a right to self identify. It’s about TW being validated as women and there is no way they can let women have something that doesn’t include them.

What the motivation behind this post? An enjoyment of debate for debate's sake? Or an annoyance that women can choose to sleep with who they want and call that what they like (which excludes males).

What the motivation behind this post? An enjoyment of debate for debate's sake?

I think it's the thing that some particularly toxic men do when women say no to them... they start arguing and trying to find flaws in whatever reasons the woman gave them, if she was foolish enough to give them a reason. They often appear to believe that if they win the argument they've overcome the "no."

Just adding this: "Woman Assaulted At Pride March For Saying Men Can't Be Lesbians"
reduxx.info/woman-assaulted-at-pride-march-for-saying-men-cant-be-lesbians/

Option C: I’m clearly a masochist

Seriously though. There are plenty of things that GC people say that I understand (even when I don’t agree). But I really struggle with why GC people would want to tell a woman - a lesbian - who is in a relationship with a trans woman that they are wrong to consider themselves a lesbian. It feels a bit like when people used to tell me I wasn’t bisexual because I hadn’t yet had a serious relationship with a woman. Or when people now say that I’m a lesbian because I am in a very long term relationship with a woman.

Or I guess I do understand deep down why it is - GC people don’t consider trans women to be women, so no one else is allowed to.

Least of all other women, and especially not lesbians.

A 'non-trans woman'.... Jesus wept

"But I really struggle with why GC people would want to tell a woman - a lesbian - who is in a relationship with a trans woman that they are wrong to consider themselves a lesbian."

Are you being purposely obtuse?

Gender-critical people don't believe in gender as anything other than socially constructed nonsense. They do not believe in gender ideology. They don't believe that a trans-identifying man is a woman. Ergo, the woman in your scenario is in a relationship with a man (regardless of how he identifies or whether he might, after several significant cosmetic surgeries, thousands of doses of synthetic hormones, and hours practicing a coquettish head tilt, manage to appear female at a glance to some casual bystanders).

A lesbian is a woman who is sexually attracted to other women.

Since we have established that the GC view is that your friend is in a relationship with a man, then she is not a lesbian.

To force a GC person to call her a lesbian is to force them to tacitly state that trans-identified men are women. Which they are not. That's literally the entire foundational point of this entire debate.

How can you possibly struggle with that?

It feels a bit like when people used to tell me I wasn’t bisexual because I hadn’t yet had a serious relationship with a woman. Or when people now say that I’m a lesbian because I am in a very long term relationship with a woman.

Haven't you just answered your own question there?

And basically by your rules we are all bisexual, but some of us just need persuading or haven't found the right person to convert us.

I have seen various people on this forum say that to be gay or a lesbian is to be ‘exclusively same sex attracted’

Not just on this forum. That's just what "gay" and "lesbian" means - same-sex attracted. If you are also attracted to people of the opposite sex, however they identify, then you are bisexual. That's how definitions work.

I don't believe it's possible for a woman to sleep with a transwoman and not realise that they aren't female. I just don't believe it's possible. So your "thought experiment" falls down at that point.

GC people don’t consider trans women to be women, so no one else is allowed to.

Only a minority of the world do consider transitioned males to be women though.

Your point is that the huge majority of people don’t consider transitioned males to be women, but you do, and you want people to change definitions of words to suit your belief. When it harms females to lose the words used to describe themselves exclusively.

Why should you get to choose the language that sets laws and policies over other females who want to maintain meanings that have been established for decades? Because you support the destabilisation of language?

All because a minority, a small minority at that, choose to force destabilisation of language rather than create their own to suit their needs.

It seems like a transwoman "passing" to a lesbian is like the ultimate boss at the end of a video game in which a man wants to be validated as a woman. But this is a false level they'll never win as the lesbian will know.
Why can't women have anything just to themselves?

But I really struggle with why GC people would want to tell a woman - a lesbian - who is in a relationship with a trans woman that they are wrong to consider themselves a lesbian.

Because words mean things. And because there is a long, long violent, misogynistic, homophobic history of men saying that lesbians really need dick in their lives - including corrective rape, or porn where two "lesbians" having sex is just a warm-up to a man joining them for the "real thing", or pressure from family to get married to a man, or asking a lesbian couple "which one of you is the man then?", ad infinitum. For a woman in a relationship with a male, however they identify, to describe both themselves and the male as lesbians is an active danger to real lesbians.

Yes this is the crux for many Transwomen who truly believe they are more of a woman than so many real biologically born women. But it's so superficial with the hair and clothes and mannerisms (See the earlier awful comment on female body builders). They find it hard to understand that it's not appearances that make a women - we come in all shapes, sizes, styles, likes and dislikes. It comes back to truth and reality. Transwomen are free to live their lives but please don't assume others wish to be part of it.

No, I don't consider TW to be women, I consider them to be male. I perceive them as male. I always will.

As has been repeatedly explained now for seven pages, you and other TQ+ queer ideology people are free to believe and consider whatever you feel like considering, diversity of belief is great. What you're not entitled to do is require that others agree with you and service someone else's belief against their own. Particularly when it involves requiring them to service that belief with their body, which ought to be obvious in its issues.

But considering that people have been patiently trying to explain all this for about seven pages, I'd guess we're all wasting our time. You're just going to be left permanently baffled and disappointed as to why women won't just do what you tell them to.

Go well OP.

TW aren’t women. People attracted to men aren’t lesbians.These are my legally protected beliefs.

Lesbians need a word to describe themselves, women need a word to describe ourselves. People co-opting these words and trying to make them meaningless are harming lesbians as a group, and women as a group.

This is all very simple. Anyone who affects to be confused by it is probably wilfully confused, because they are benefiting from the harm that is caused to women and lesbians.

GC people don’t consider trans women to be women

Nor do most people, when it comes down to it. A "trans woman" is simply a male person who has declared that they are a woman. Based on what? Why would people consider them to be women?