Maybe she isn’t but why can’t she help out the “cause”? Seems to me her friend is just a lesbian because she finds it cool or whatever, a bit of a bitchy thing to say IMHO
Except she’s not helping anything. If anything, she’s making a mockery of sexual identity. The whole, “I’m still a lesbian because I like girls! I’m just in love with, sexually desire and want to spend my life married to a man…No way I’m bisexual though” bit is something I find rather insulting.
Call yourself what you like, but publishing that sort of nonsense helps no one. Even if she said something like ‘I don’t believe in labels’, which I find stupid when people say, it would be forgivable. What she chose to do is simply nuts.
Stupid batteries in this ironyometer.
My thoughts exactly.
In my experience, more than a little. I’ve known lesbian women who hated, hated, hated bisexual women. One of them even told me “I can’t stand the fact that (my bisexual girlfriend) is dating you.” Well geeez, sorry I tampered with her, or whatever.
I think it is the suspicion that bisexual women dating men can “pass” in society as non-LGBT that is the cause of the upset. A gay man asked the same girlfriend why she didn’t openly come out as LGBT. My girlfriend didn’t think she needed to. I can see how that attitude could be infuriating, yes.
Because lesbian social circles are often deeply integral to the identity of people within them. That identification can be important to them having a clear idea of themselves and to having a space they feel safe and supported. It’s not about the taxonomy of proclivities. Lesbians have, in many ways, a culture.
This woman is saying her identification with that culture and identity is important enough to her that she’s willing to be at odds with certain elements of common linguistic usage. Calling that advertising her proclivities seems potentially a bit condescending.
But maybe she just really, really likes attention.
She can call herself whatever she wants, but she sounds like the only person she is fooling is herself.
I love this phrase. I want to snog this phrase with tongues.
Woman: But your online ad said you were a marathon runner in top physical shape.
Man: Yeah.
Woman: But you clearly haven’t left your couch since 2002 and you’re shaped like a donut.
Man: Yes, but my identification with that culture and identity is important enough to me that I’m willing to be at odds with certain elements of common linguistic usage.
Reporter: You said we’re going to bomb the bejasus out of Bagooberstan because they’re about to fire a squid gun at us.
President: You betcha.
Reporter: But Bagooberstan doesn’t have a squid gun.
President: Yes, but bombing the bejasus out of Bagooberstan is important enough to us that we’re willing to be at odds with certain elements of common linguistic usage.
I think the issue here is clearly different. A transwoman (like Manning) is not saying “I want to be called a woman while living as a man.” A transwoman is seeking to both live as a woman and be seen as a woman by other people. She wants congruity.
But the topic here is about a woman who wants to be identified as a lesbian while living in a heterosexual relationship.
Wait, lesbians are intolerant of bisexuals?
Hahaha, high horse back to earth.
You win the internets.
Part of that culture has to do with not being mainstream though. For a long time, lesbians didn’t get what other women got - a family that they could show up at PTA meetings with. Its better, but two moms still are going to get the fisheye a few times - except maybe in a few neighborhoods or a Unitarian church. The culture involves a trade, if you aren’t making the trade…
Besides, there are perfectly good words - she is queer or bisexual. If the lesbian community is worth its snot, it will accept and move on. As far as the activist group goes, if they need a lesbian on the board, they really don’t want the incongruity of “Beth lives with her husband…” in the bio. If they need a lesbian, its because of the cachet and experiences a lesbian brings - she isn’t having those experiences anymore, and she doesn’t bring credibility to the organization as a lesbian.
A friend of mine was a militant lesbian when I met her 30 years ago. She’s been married to a guy for 15. She doesn’t refer to herself as a lesbian (and sort of blushes if its brought up). Another friend of mine is male, and has been married for 30 years - but he’s definitely bi - and their relationship is open so this isn’t part of his identity he buried 30 years ago when he took his vows.
When I was in college, the term was L.U.G. “Lesbian until graduation.” They were surprisingly numerous.
That feels a little different than this.
And its really dismissive as well. A lot of the women I know who self identified as lesbians through college, but later moved onto a “heterosexual lifestyle” where they married a man and had kids - had been victims of sexual abuse as kids or raped as teens - there was a reason they didn’t trust men and chose female partners. Eventually, they learned to trust men - at least some men sometimes - and fell in love with a “traditional partner.”
Bravo, sir.
Didn’t someone coin the term “has-bian” for them?