people struggle to understand * why* a trans man would want to identify as a lesbian, but i feel that the issue comes from a misunderstanding of terms like “straight” “homosexual” and “queer”. straight is derived from a sexual identity that fits the norm. queer is anything that deviates from the norm. is a trans man who only loves women homosexual? no. but we don’t have a good inclusive term to recognize queer love between a man and a woman.
I have no authority because I'm a trans woman, but I feel transmasc people, even those who register to others as male, struggle to benefit from the patriarchy as much as they are harmed by it. For that reason, they don't have a risk of being a negative presence in lesbian spaces unless there are transphobes there that create conflict. That concern also ignores that many transmasc lesbians were once identifying as women in those same spaces, so they understand what makes it function as a safe space and how not to breach that.
We can’t police what people identify as, though in our community we often do.
I am transmasculine and nonbinary (take T, not a man) and I’m wary of spaces that are “women + nonbinary folks,” because they often mean WomenLite and don’t respect the masculine or AMAB part of the spectrum. I’ve also struggled with how to identify in my sexuality because I am gender expansive in my attraction but part specific (stock or custom is fine). Does this make me queer, sapphic? I was also raised as AFAB and socialized as such— and still identify with many lesbian things. But am I lesbian? I don’t personally use the term.
I’ve noticed how exclusionary the lesbian community can be, too. They clutch to things and often repeat TERF rhetoric and deepen biphobic harm. Not everyone, obviously, but enough folks that it’s a noticeable problem.
Our community (LGBTQIA+) is still a minority that finds ways to continue to “punch down,” in an effort to carve out “sacred space.” Gay men exclude. Cis lesbians exclude. Biphobia runs deep. Even trans folks exclude nonbinary folks.
At some point I hope we remember who the enemy really is, and stop pointing to one another. Extensive and complex history aside: isn’t diverging from the societal norms the point? Why then police and build boxes within our own community?
I lived as a lesbian for 10 years - all of my 20s, and had many serious relationships with queer women, a couple of whom I considered marrying. It turned out this was just a stop on my long journey of self-discovery - I ended up learning I was neither a woman, nor materially attracted to women, and I now much more authentically identify as a gay man.
But I had formative experiences in the wlw community; it allowed me to explore masculine expression and queer love. Most of my ex-girlfriends are still close friends, and I did/do genuinely love them even if the sexual element ended up not being as real as I thought. Still, I recall feeling incredibly out of place in a community of women who loved me in part for my womanhood, which was a major crack in my proverbial egg lol. I was relieved to “leave” this community I did not relate to. Most of my close friends had been gay men anyway, even during that time. But I understand that some (usually straight or bisexual) trans men feel strange disconnecting from their lesbian community. Socially, I don’t think they should feel like they have to. There’s no reason they can’t still be part of primarily lesbian friend groups. That said, they may not be welcome in lesbian bars or other exclusively female spaces - and while that takes adjustment, it really could be seen as gender-affirming in a way rather than a bad thing, and perhaps an opportunity to make some male friends and bond with other men socially.
I also get the desire to still see one’s romantic relationships as queer rather than straight. I think that’s valid in the same way that a bisexual person’s relationship with someone of another gender can still be and feel queer, because that person isn’t straight even if their relationship appears straight. Prior to transition I had a relationship with a heterosexual cis man, and despite that I still felt my love for him was queer, and would have felt that way even if I had been cis. These things are more complicated than we think.
As you, I’m not trying to police others’ identities, but I do have my own thoughts.
Gay man loves gay man = gay men
Lesbian loves lesbian = lesbians
Trans man loves gay man = gay men
Trans man loves lesbian…seems like they ought to qualify as a straight couple, but where does that leave the lesbian part of the equation? Is she still a lesbian? Is she bi? Is she now straight?
The same questions of course apply in reverse when we consider trans women.
Labels are always tricky, and of course it’s no one’s business how any of us live our lives, unless we choose to invite them in.
All that said, if a trans man is living his authentic life as a man, then I don’t think that he belongs in a lesbian bar or club. We have so few places of our own that it feels to me like an intrusion; a man entering a space that is intended for women.
Stone Butch Blues is terrific. It was the first gay-themed books that I read when I came out in my late 30s. Hope you enjoy it.
They’re becoming a rarity these days but I feel like going to an irl lesbian bar makes things like this a lot more intuitive. It’s important to note that the breadth of gender nonconformity in lesbian spaces can be very wide but when you see it in person it just makes sense somehow.
In the mid 1970s I came across the book Lesbian/ Woman by Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon. If memory serves, it had one sentence about transmen. The difficulty for such people convinced me that I was going to remain a lesbian. In the middle of a military hitch that was hard enough. Due to a repressive upbringing, I had never realized that being a lesbian was a thing until I joined the military. But that one sentence ringing bells in my mind caused me to recognize the term as me, what I truly was.
Some decades later, I had finally recognized that most of my failed lesbian relationships were due to my responses, being basically the same responses one would get from a male. In my experience, lesbians want emotional support after a rough day. As a Tmale, my support consisted of: sorry you had a rough day. Do you want to talk about it? … Let me tell you how to fix that. It was not emotional support they expected from someone in a female body. The initial perception of my body shaped all their thinking. Even when I explained that all else was masculine, they never really accepted that they were getting a male with a female. But that eventually was the reason for several breakups in my life. So to me, appearing as a female always presented problems. As they say, initial appearances count. Another issue was (at least in those decades) the growth of feminism had several lesbian people pretty vocal about Tmen being very unwelcome in lesbian groups.
I hope you enjoy Stone Butch Blues. It was rather eye opening for me.
people struggle to understand * why* a trans man would want to identify as a lesbian, but i feel that the issue comes from a misunderstanding of terms like “straight” “homosexual” and “queer”. straight is derived from a sexual identity that fits the norm. queer is anything that deviates from the norm. is a trans man who only loves women homosexual? no. but we don’t have a good inclusive term to recognize queer love between a man and a woman.
This is one of the best takes I’ve seen on this subject.
I have no authority because I'm a trans woman, but I feel transmasc people, even those who register to others as male, struggle to benefit from the patriarchy as much as they are harmed by it. For that reason, they don't have a risk of being a negative presence in lesbian spaces unless there are transphobes there that create conflict. That concern also ignores that many transmasc lesbians were once identifying as women in those same spaces, so they understand what makes it function as a safe space and how not to breach that.
“Both are valid.” — that’s exactly it.
We can’t police what people identify as, though in our community we often do.
I am transmasculine and nonbinary (take T, not a man) and I’m wary of spaces that are “women + nonbinary folks,” because they often mean WomenLite and don’t respect the masculine or AMAB part of the spectrum. I’ve also struggled with how to identify in my sexuality because I am gender expansive in my attraction but part specific (stock or custom is fine). Does this make me queer, sapphic? I was also raised as AFAB and socialized as such— and still identify with many lesbian things. But am I lesbian? I don’t personally use the term.
I’ve noticed how exclusionary the lesbian community can be, too. They clutch to things and often repeat TERF rhetoric and deepen biphobic harm. Not everyone, obviously, but enough folks that it’s a noticeable problem.
Our community (LGBTQIA+) is still a minority that finds ways to continue to “punch down,” in an effort to carve out “sacred space.” Gay men exclude. Cis lesbians exclude. Biphobia runs deep. Even trans folks exclude nonbinary folks.
At some point I hope we remember who the enemy really is, and stop pointing to one another. Extensive and complex history aside: isn’t diverging from the societal norms the point? Why then police and build boxes within our own community?
This is such a smart and nuanced take on this.
I lived as a lesbian for 10 years - all of my 20s, and had many serious relationships with queer women, a couple of whom I considered marrying. It turned out this was just a stop on my long journey of self-discovery - I ended up learning I was neither a woman, nor materially attracted to women, and I now much more authentically identify as a gay man.
But I had formative experiences in the wlw community; it allowed me to explore masculine expression and queer love. Most of my ex-girlfriends are still close friends, and I did/do genuinely love them even if the sexual element ended up not being as real as I thought. Still, I recall feeling incredibly out of place in a community of women who loved me in part for my womanhood, which was a major crack in my proverbial egg lol. I was relieved to “leave” this community I did not relate to. Most of my close friends had been gay men anyway, even during that time. But I understand that some (usually straight or bisexual) trans men feel strange disconnecting from their lesbian community. Socially, I don’t think they should feel like they have to. There’s no reason they can’t still be part of primarily lesbian friend groups. That said, they may not be welcome in lesbian bars or other exclusively female spaces - and while that takes adjustment, it really could be seen as gender-affirming in a way rather than a bad thing, and perhaps an opportunity to make some male friends and bond with other men socially.
I also get the desire to still see one’s romantic relationships as queer rather than straight. I think that’s valid in the same way that a bisexual person’s relationship with someone of another gender can still be and feel queer, because that person isn’t straight even if their relationship appears straight. Prior to transition I had a relationship with a heterosexual cis man, and despite that I still felt my love for him was queer, and would have felt that way even if I had been cis. These things are more complicated than we think.
As you, I’m not trying to police others’ identities, but I do have my own thoughts.
Gay man loves gay man = gay men
Lesbian loves lesbian = lesbians
Trans man loves gay man = gay men
Trans man loves lesbian…seems like they ought to qualify as a straight couple, but where does that leave the lesbian part of the equation? Is she still a lesbian? Is she bi? Is she now straight?
The same questions of course apply in reverse when we consider trans women.
Labels are always tricky, and of course it’s no one’s business how any of us live our lives, unless we choose to invite them in.
All that said, if a trans man is living his authentic life as a man, then I don’t think that he belongs in a lesbian bar or club. We have so few places of our own that it feels to me like an intrusion; a man entering a space that is intended for women.
Stone Butch Blues is terrific. It was the first gay-themed books that I read when I came out in my late 30s. Hope you enjoy it.
They’re becoming a rarity these days but I feel like going to an irl lesbian bar makes things like this a lot more intuitive. It’s important to note that the breadth of gender nonconformity in lesbian spaces can be very wide but when you see it in person it just makes sense somehow.
In the mid 1970s I came across the book Lesbian/ Woman by Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon. If memory serves, it had one sentence about transmen. The difficulty for such people convinced me that I was going to remain a lesbian. In the middle of a military hitch that was hard enough. Due to a repressive upbringing, I had never realized that being a lesbian was a thing until I joined the military. But that one sentence ringing bells in my mind caused me to recognize the term as me, what I truly was.
Some decades later, I had finally recognized that most of my failed lesbian relationships were due to my responses, being basically the same responses one would get from a male. In my experience, lesbians want emotional support after a rough day. As a Tmale, my support consisted of: sorry you had a rough day. Do you want to talk about it? … Let me tell you how to fix that. It was not emotional support they expected from someone in a female body. The initial perception of my body shaped all their thinking. Even when I explained that all else was masculine, they never really accepted that they were getting a male with a female. But that eventually was the reason for several breakups in my life. So to me, appearing as a female always presented problems. As they say, initial appearances count. Another issue was (at least in those decades) the growth of feminism had several lesbian people pretty vocal about Tmen being very unwelcome in lesbian groups.
I hope you enjoy Stone Butch Blues. It was rather eye opening for me.