#i mean i have no issue w other men not acting traditionally masculine

[goldfizzle]

ugh i’m so fucking fed up i have exams approaching and i’m being held to extremely high standards for said exams bc i used to be rly clever but now i’m just regular clever and i try to complain to my friend abt how i’m never gonna meet the school’s expectations of me and she’s like “oh boohoo you’re predicted really high grades that must be awful 🙄😒” and i try to explain to her that i’m not predicted rly high grades i’m expected to get rly high grades (which i won’t) and i’m not upset about the grades i’m getting i’m upset about how i’m never gonna live up to expectations and even though i’m getting fairly good grades i’m still gonna feel like a disappointment and she gets mad (jokingly mad but still) at me for being upset and it’s honestly just making me feel worse abt it but idk how to tell her that i’m getting panic attacks over being a disappointment and literally all i want is for her to say “oh yeah that’s a bummer” or something like that just so i don’t feel like an arsehole for being upset abt this

[wigglecoin]

1/4 so, i get why h/h lesbians identify the way they do - pronouns do not have to always equal gender, it's a form of gnc, and they're uncomfortable with the concept of womanhood, as it's been associated with attraction to men among other things. correct me if i'm wrong. now, i support ppl who deal w gender issues, but i admit that it kinda rubs me the wrong when i look at the arguments people make about gender in relation to lesbianism specifically

2/4 i think the concept of womanhood should be redefined. it shouldn't mean any of those things it's been associated with. i'm sure that is what h/h lesbians are fighting for too, but I don't feel that using traditionally male pronouns is the way to go about it. historically speaking, women didn't use traditionally male pronouns because they wanted to, they did because they had to

3/4 what i'm saying is that the origin of h/h lesbians is rooted in the need to conform to social expectations of women and what it means to be one. so the way i see it, for us to do that today in a form of rebellion is doing nothing else but playing into those views that we want to get away from.

4/4 those are harmful ideas at the core and it makes me question what i support. is this a false sense of security that i'm encouraging by being accepting of people making their own choices in how they identify? so yeah :( i guess what i'm looking for is more insight on this? i want to understand. and if this made you uncomfortable then i apologize :(

ok so i read this over a couple times and i think i get what your trying to say? like, people shouldnt base their identity around some point they want to make about society is what im getting from your statements. that seems like a reasonable thing to be concerned about, something you should keep in mind though is that the revolution against gender roles is often only one of the reasons people are gnc. explaining the history of he/him lesbians is normally something we do as a form of trying to defend ourselves from people who try to debate our identiy, its also one of the easier things to explain about our identity to people. its a lot easier for people understand those things when the culture around it’s shape is so straight and narrow so to speak

the fear of lesbians treading so far from heteronormativity only to begin to achive the same end has been something people have thought about with the butch/femme dynamic a lot in i feel the same way you are viewing he/him lesbians, obviously no lesbians are ‘trying to be male’ but follow me on this thought train for a little bit

for a long time butches were seen as lesbians trying to be like men by the general public. as the times got more progressive this idea hasnt really changed for the most part in outer circles, its just been more accepted as how some lesbians are, which brings up questions of ‘if we’re acting straight so much why dont we just be straight?’  and ‘which one wears the pants in the relationship’, ultimately viewing lesbians to be like straight people but they’re both girls

but for the same reasons thats absolutely not true for butch women, it isnt going to be true for he/him lesbians, i understand the fear of playing into those views by taking more masculine traits and claiming them for wlw. but honestly. people who think that way in 2020 should start having smaller stuff explained to them first before they get to he/him lesbians. 

deconstructing gender roles was always going to get confusing at some point for everyone, so its nice to see people along for the ride even if they dont get it. and as a note for everyone to remember, there is no one way to break gender roles. just because what i am has that effect doesnt mean anyone has to be ok with using other pronouns to go against it