#i wanted to experiment with the lesbian label but the lines around womanhood are very restrictive

[ispyspookymansion]

kora if u feel comfortable could u talk about ur gender journey and relationship w lesbianism bc sometimes im like that tweet that's like. im probably trans but i have a job so idrc about that but. ough it's scary and confusing. what if im just butch.

oh wow! well let me think. going to put this under a cut because its longish

it was a much harder path for me to get to lesbianism than to get to Gender. i had a really hard time accepting that for some reason, it took a lot of agonizing, a lot of intentional repression, a lot of misery and wallowing around words and labels and avoidance and definitions. so by the time i got through that it then opened up some gender doors for me because lesbianism is inherently disruptive of the cisheterosexual matrix, but i really, really didnt want to go through that misery again, so i just decided it didnt matter what i was as far as gender and what mattered was how i felt and what made me happy. i only became confident in calling myself trans in the last ohh i dont know, 6 months? and yet ive been on T for a year! for me the actions came easier than the wording. i tried not to stress about what i was doing and whether it was or wasnt aligned with lesbianism. i trusted in our history of transness and masculinity and found a lot of comfort in talking to other butch and transmasc lesbians about their experiences and feelings, and found such a range of experiences that felt very relevant to me

ultimately, i feel like a lesbian. i knew that and i continue to know that. the way that i feel about the people im attracted to and the kinds of relationships i want to have is what connects me to lesbianism. i dont feel like lesbianism is my last thread to womanhood. it isnt a thread to that at all. theres too rich a history of gender defiance and creation to simplify it like that, so i dont let it be that for me. i dont feel dysphoric about being a lesbian even if cis(het) people might not understand me as being transmasc as well. + butch and transmasc arent exclusive and are often beautiful beautiful copilots in dykery !

i also find pursuing what makes me feel good matters a lot more than finding exact words for it. im not really sure what my gender is honestly? it took me a long time to get comfortable/feel like i was allowed to call myself lesbian, trans, and butch too honestly. but i went through a lot less misery when i took actions First to figure out what felt right and then accepted the words that naturally followed After. am i trans or am i not trans stressed me out much more than do i want to bind or not? do i want my voice to be lower or not? do i want to try a different name and pronouns or not? and then my answers to these led me to actions and opportunities that got me to feeling comfortably trans, without putting so much questioning strain on the lesbianism i felt at my core.

+ the opposite is helpful. crossing off what am i Not and what i dont want can be a lot easier than what Am i. woman has always been absolutely not right. trans took longer to feel right which is silly versus logically if i wasnt cis, i was trans, but i had to go in steos

i guess just remember that theres not a really hard line between butchness and the transmasc umbrella (other than personal definition obviously) and you can be one or both or one now and then later realize the other feels better. try to read about butches and he/him lesbians and transmasc dykes and talk to them where you can and enjoy the range of answers and identities and give yourself grace to explore that without so much pressure on whether its one or the other. youre still you regardless of what words to use to describe it so take your time figuring out what you want before you worry too much about what that means you “are”

ALSO you dont have to be butch to be trans and still a lesbian or vice versa you can be nonbinary or genderqueer or agender or genderfluid or etc etc etc and consider those under the label Trans and also be butch! or you can be those things but Not butch and still a lesbian! you can do whatever forever!

[starry-eyedmoony]

I have, perhaps too many thoughts about gender/sexuality. And does it mean much ultimately? Some of it, but some is also semantics and I need to chill. It’s been a while since I’ve had a whole essay to scream into the void with on this website. Time to break this blog in with some unneccessary oversharing lmao

I’ve known I’m nonbinary for 5 years now, so gender feelings are not new. Contending with those has been fraught and difficult, partly because I’m not really that connected to my body and because binary genders just don’t make any fucking sense. A lot of my newer thoughts about my feelings around gender ultimately come down to various times that I’ve felt connected to my body and able to actually feel the pieces of gender dysphoria in bigger or different ways. I definitely don’t feel a connection to whatever womanhood and manhood are, but there are things about my physical self that literally don’t make sense in my head. And it should have been clear and obvious -- I mean the feelings have been on the horizon but I just really don’t want to fucking deal with it. I want to just force myself to be okay with things the way that they are, but that has historically been a really poor move. It’s not even a change in identity, just a shift in how I understand it and what to do about it (possibly embracing the label of trans masc more, but nonbinary and genderqueer are definitely still great -- my current concern is more about medical possibilities)

Sexuality has popped into this as well for a few reasons. It’s only been like two and a half years that I’ve begun to actually unpack comp het and see that the relationships that I’ve been in with men weren’t authentic. And the overwhelming majority of men are just probably not going to be an actual option -- hence, identifying as a lesbian. However, what in the fuck even is gender? How do you discount a whole ass gender? Especially when people do it so differently -- some people can even feel the same way about it and use totally different words. What is the point of drawing the lines there? Don’t get me wrong, the number of cishet men I would be interested in is a one-person long list and even that is *severely* limited. In general, all traditional masculinity is just kind of repulsive honestly. But there are a lot of people who do masculinity very queerly! My thoughts on that have been “oh well maybe my sexuality is the most expansive definition of lesbian” because the men that I did find myself with little crushes on tended to be nonbinary men. But certainly there are likely binary men who present very queer that would fit into the parameters that I have found attractive. (Even with these feelings, the question of how to decipher what is gender envy vs attraction is there, even if I have parsed a fair amount of it apart... though there’s also the question of why do I feel the need to make sure that every single fucking thing I feel is ValidTM, like can’t I just live -- wtf is my brain. This is an embarassingly large part of my problem, I think).

Furthermore, how different would some of my thoughts be if I were being perceived genuinely as not a woman in that relationship dynamic -- if it was seen as an actual queer interaction? Looking at my experience, the glimpses that I’ve felt of that genuinely make that seem like a possibility. I’ve been with a guy while out as nonbinary, but we were perceived by a lot of people as a straight couple and he wasn’t out. While he did try to be affirming, there was still a lot there that wasn’t -- which wasn’t really his fault but it was what it was. So far as actual attraction goes, that was very limited to those select times where he really did express the queer parts of himself and interactions where it did feel queer. So there’s the question of would a queer relationship with a very queer/not very masculine-presenting man be within the realm of possibility for myself? I don’t know, maybe. I really really don’t know about cis men (and how much of that is because of the traumatic experience of forcing myself into these relationships -- I also don’t know. Like in most cases I can see myself doing monogomy potentially in the future, even if I’d prefer polyam now -- but absolutely not with a cis man. Is that ~the gay~ or is that the trauma? The world may never know. I’m inclined to think the answer is both. A bit part of this might also be my hesitance to assume that a cis man would see me as anything but a woman on a certain level). 

Is it worth fretting over the semantics?.... maybe not. Queer is *right there* and I already use it and really love it. Gay is also technically accurate regardless and I use it already as well. But it feels like such a big deal I think because of how fraught coming to the conclusion that I was a lesbian was. The process of recontextualizing attraction to what I want, rather than what I can tolerate was so essential and huge. Lesbian seems to be one of the few things that would really acknowledge that. Plus the fact that it (and queerness generally) wasn’t available to me when I was younger, when I could have figured it out -- that definitely contributes as well. And I would feel another kind of guilty about the relationships I had with men that were products of comp het, which is probably very silly of me. 

ANYWAYS if anyone actually reads to the bottom, thanks for coming to my Ted Talk I guess. It’s a mess here. 

[kuromichad]

different subject that’s heavy on my mind rn but since i’m already being harsh let’s get into it. i wish it wasn’t automatically presumed to be some kind of truscum attitude when someone tries to express that different parts of The Trans Community have like, different needs and different risk levels and different experiences and that we have the ability to talk over each other, harm each other, etc... like when i put it that way people generally are like ‘of course that’s true!’ but is it ever really understood in practice? a number of people (not a large enough number, but still) are able to loosely understand ‘you can be trans and transphobic’ when it’s applied to the matter of transmisogyny but when a trans person tries to express distrust of or frustration with afab nb people due to how common it is that that category of person will, despite being trans/nb, espouse bioessentialist, anti-medical-transition, radfem-adjacent if not outright cryptoterf rhetoric, suddenly ‘trans people can be transphobic’ gets applied to... the person with a complaint about transphobia. 

because he’s clearly an evil truscum man! regardless of if the person making the complaint is a trans man or trans woman, oops, lol. he’s a bad person who is attacking and invalidating and totally hatecriming the heckin’ valid, equally at-risk transgender identity of “an afab woman who isn’t a woman except when she pointedly categorizes themself as a woman because being afab makes them a woman who is ‘politically aligned’ with women but she’s not an icky unwoke cis woman because they don’t like being forced into womanhood although Really When You Think About It 🤔 all women are dysphoric because obviously the pathologized medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria in transgender people is something that equally applies to cis women just default existing under patriarchy 🤔, and no, equating these things totally does not imply anything reductive about or add a bizarre moral dimension to the idea of being transgender, whaaaaat, this woman who isn’t a woman doesn’t think there’s anything immoral or cowardly or misogynist or delusional about being transgender, they would never say that because THEY’RE transgender, except when she feels it’s important (constantly) to make clear that she’s Still A Woman Deep Down Inherently Despite Not Identifying As One, and none of this ever has any effect on how they treat the concept, socially and politically, of people who actually wholly identify with (and possibly medically transition to) a gender different from the one they were assigned at birth, be it ‘the opposite gender’ or abstaining from binary gender altogether or ‘politically aligning’ with the ‘opposite’ gender from their asab. never ever!”

and like maybe that sounds like a completely absurd and hateful strawman to you! but in that case you’re either like, lucky, or optimistic, or ignorant. i’m literally not looking at random nb people and declaring that in My Truscum Opinion they’re ‘really a woman’ just because they’re not medically transitioning or meeting some arbitrary standard of mine. i am looking at self-identified afab nb people, who most often use she/they because, y’know, words mean things, especially pronouns, so people who are willingly ‘aligned with womanhood’ typically intentionally use she/her (sorry that i guess that’s another truscum take now!!! that pronouns mean things!!! the bigender transmasc who deliberately uses exclusively he/him wants it to invoke a perception he’s comfortable with!), who actively say the things listed above (in a non-sarcastic manner). 

like, the line between a person who says “i don’t claim to really not be my asab because i know no one would ever perceive me as anything else” because theyve internalized a defeatist attitude due to societal transphobia, and a person who says that because they... genuinely believe it’s impossible/ridiculous/an imposition to truly be transgender (in the traditional trans sense, beyond a vague nb disidentification with gender) and are actively contributing to the former person’s self loathing... is hard to define from a distance! i think plenty of people who are, in a sense, ‘tentative’ or like ‘playing close to home’ so to speak in their identity are ‘genuinely trans’ (whatever that may mean) and just going through a process. they might arrive at a different identity or might just eventually stop saying/believing defeatist stuff, who knows. but there are enough people saying it for the latter reason, or at least not caring if they sound that way, that it’s like, dangerous. it is actively incredibly harmful to other trans people. and it’s fucking ridiculous that it’s so difficult to criticize because you’ll always get the defense of “umm but i’m literally trans” and/or “well i’m just talking about ME, this doesn’t apply to other trans people” when it’s an attitude that very clearly seeps into their politics and the way they discuss gender.

because it’s just incredibly common for afab nb people (most typically those that go by she/they! since i’m aware that uh, i am also afab nb, but we clearly are extremely different, so that’s the best categorization i’ve got) to discuss gender in moralized terms, with the excuse of patriarchy/misogyny existing, which of course adds another difficult dimension to trying to criticize this because it gets the response of “don’t act like misandry is real” (it’s not, but being a dick still is) and “boohoo, let women complain about their oppressors” (this goes beyond ‘complaining’). a deliberate revocation of empathy/sympathy/compassion from men and projection of inherently malicious/brutish/cruel intent onto men (not solely in the justified generalizations ‘men suck/are dangerous’, but in specific interactions too) underpin a whole fucking lot of popular posts/discussions online, whether they’re political or casual/social, and it absolutely influences how people conceptualize and feel about transness. 

because ‘maleness is evil’ is still shitty politics even when you’ve slightly reframed it from the terf ‘trans women are evil because they’re Really Men and can never escape being horrific soulless brutes just as women can never escape being fragile morally superior flowers’ to the tumblr shethey “trans women who are out to me/unclockable are tolerable i guess because they’re women and women are good; anyone i personally presume to be a cis man, though, is still automatically evil, and saying trans men are Just As Bad is progressive of me, and it’s totally unrelated and apolitical that i think we should expand the concept of afab lesbianism so broadly that you can now be basically indistinguishable from trans men on literally every single level except for a declaration of ‘but i would never claim to be a man because i’m secure in the Innate Womanhood of the body i was born into, even as i medically alter that body because it causes me great gendered discomfort.’ none of this at all indicates that i feel there’s an immense moral/political gap between being an afab nb lesbian vs a straight trans man! it says nothing at all about my concept of ‘maleness’ and there’s no way this rhetoric bleeds into my perception of trans women and no way loudly talking about all this could keep trans people around me self-loathing and closeted, because i’m Literally Trans and Not A Terf!”

again, if that sounds like a hateful strawman, sorry but it’s not. i guess i’m supposed to be like ‘all of the many people ive seen saying these shitty things is an evil outlier who Doesn’t Count, and it’s not fair to the broad identity of afab shethey to not believe that every person who doesn’t outright say terfy enough things is a perfectly earnest valid accepting trans person who’s beyond criticism’ but like. this cannot be about broad validation. this can’t be about discarding all the bad apples as not really part of the group. we can’t be walking on eggshells to coddle what are essentially, in the end, Cis Feelings, because in the best cases this kind of rhetoric comes from naive people who are early and uncertain in their gender journey or whatever and are in the process of unraveling internalized transphobia, and in the easily observable worst cases these people are very literally redefining shit so that ‘actually all afab women are trans, spiritually, all afabs have dysphoria, we are all Equally oppressed by Males uh i mean cis men <3’ because, let’s be honest, they know that the moment they call themselves trans they get to say whatever they want about gender no matter how harmful it is to the rest of us. and those ideas spread like wildfire through the afab shethey “woman that’s not a woman” community that frankly greatly outnumbers other types of trans people online, because many of those people just do not have the experiences that lead you to really understand this shit and have to push back against concepts of gender that actively harm you as a trans person.

like that’s all i want to be able to say, is Things Are Different For Different Groups. and a willful ignorance of these differences leads to bad rhetoric controlling the overall discourse which gets people hurt. and even when concepts arise from it that seem positive and helpful and inclusive, in practice or in origin those ideas can still be upholding shit that gets other people hurt. like, i don’t doubt that many people are very straightforwardly happy and comfortable with an identity like ‘afab nb lesbian on testosterone’ and it would be ridiculous and hypocritical for me, ‘afab nb who wants to pass as a guy so he can comfortably wear skirts again,’ to act like that’s something that can’t or shouldn’t exist. it’s not about the identity itself, it’s about the politics that are popular within its community, and how the use of identities as moral labels with like, fucking pokemon type interactions for oppression effectiveness which directly informs the moral correctness of your every opinion and your very existence, is a shitty practice that gets people hurt and leads us to revoke empathy from each other.

like. sorry this is all over the place and long and probably still sounds evil because i haven’t thought through and disclaimered every single statement. but i’m like exhausted from living with this self-conscious guilt that maybe i’ve turned into a horrible evil truscum misogynist etc etc due to feeling upset by this seemingly inescapable approach to gender in lgbt/online circles that like, actively harms me, because when i vent with my friends all the stuff i’ve tried to explain here gets condensed down to referencing ‘she/theys’ as a category and that feels mean and generalizing and i genuinely dislike generalizations but the dread i feel about that category gets proven right way too often. it’s just like. this is not truscum this is not misgendering this is not misogyny. this is not about me decreeing that all transmascs have to be manly enough or dysphoric enough and all nbs have to be neatly agender and androgynous or something, i’m especially not saying that nb gender isn’t real lmao or even that it’s automatically wrong to partially identify with your asab; this is not me saying you can only medically transition for specific traditional reasons or that you don’t get a say on anything if you aren’t medically transitioning for whatever reason, now or ever. i just. want to be allowed to be frank about how... when there’s different experiences in a community we should like. acknowledge those differences and be willing to say that sometimes people don’t know what they’re talking about or that what they’re saying is harmful. without the primary concern being whether people will feel invalidated by being told so. because these are like, real issues, that are more important than politely including everyone, because that method is just getting vulnerable people drowned out constantly.

[lesbiankermit-moved]

as a butch lesbian, how does someone tell the difference between actual body dysphoria (hating my secondary sex characteristics in a trans way (?) versus body dysmorphia (hating them because they don't conform to society's expectations of me as a woman/the male gaze? I've been thinking about binding, but i'm not sure how that fits into my butchness/womanhood? This is a lot of questions that you don't have to answer I just really connect with the way you present and communicate your ideas. Thank!

(im v tired so lemme know if this is too rambly or messy to understand by the end eeeee)

it’s hard to define, especially for me as an outsider to your personal experience, because there isn’t yknow.. a Trans Test. there’s no right or wrong answer to the way you interpret your feelings and choose to label them. we all just out here tryna survive the bullshit that is Gender. and i don’t think dysphoria is necessarily a trans specific experience either, there are a LOT of women/lesbians and especially butches who experience dysphoria because of the trauma and hardships of living as a woman, living as a lesbian, etc.

and it’s not mutually exclusive either since yknow, there are a lot of butches who currently or formerly identified as trans, trans ppl who currently or formerly identified as butch, there’s butches who consider themselves nonbinary, or on the line btwn considering themselves exactly butch or exactly trans. there’s often a huge amount of overlap for our communities, and even the phrase “cis butch” still surprises me to see at times bc it’s just so far away from how i and a lot of other ppl conceptualize butchness. and i think it’s kind of a recent terminology too. like dysphoria and alienation from womanhood are like uhh butch staples tbh, and we don’t experience womanhood the same way feminine women do a lot of the time.

but yes yeah. the expectations of womanhood are a very odd, alienating thing when you’re butch/gender non conforming, and when you’re a trans masc/trans guy, or nb. if you do choose to bind your chest, that definitely “fits” with butchness and gnc womanhood though. there have been butches binding and taking hormones and getting top surgery and transitioning to varying degrees for a long time! you won’t be kicked out or anything for doing so. and if anyones ever a dick over it, they’re just not worth having around.

that being said! definitely make sure you research binding before you start, if you do end up doing it!. don’t use duct tape or ace bandages, get a proper tanktop style binder (i recommend gc2b or underworks), don’t sleep or exercise in it, don’t wear it longer than 8 hours, give yourself breaks and let your body rest.

the other thing i rec too is researching in the sense of like, even when binding safely, it’s still not a Safe thing to do exactly. it can have long term effects on your breast tissue, some people lose feeling, it can fuck up your back, etc. it’s generally not the most comfortable thing physically, esp if you have other health issues. it’s like a good tool if your dysphoria is so bad you can’t do things without it, or if you absolutely need to pass as male for smth.

but also there’s nothing wrong with seeking out other means of dysphoria management too - personally i’ve been working more on the mental side lately and like practicing self love and self healing and self care.. like when i was always binding it kind of made it worse for me, bc i was used to that image of myself, so when i wasn’t binding i felt even more dysphoric if tht makes sense? but now i just try to focus on like, adjusting myself to the reality of my body, letting myself exist, reminding myself i don’t need to be perfect or skinny or appealing to men; my body is just a home and i should appreciate being it.

this might be dorky but i think a lot about the mary oliver quote “let the soft furry animal of your body want what it wants” and it kinda grounds me n reminds me like.. i’m just an animal! i don’t need to be “feminine” or “womanly” or anything at all, i can just Be.

sorry this went REAL long n longer than i meant it to but aaaa i hope this was at least kinda helpful!! hfjf

[lesbiansforboromir]

hey! one of my best friends is a baby butch and questioning their gender and the lines between gnc and genderqueer and i was wondering if u had any advice for her? im nb so i can kind of relate but a lot of her experience is very tied up to her identity as a lesbian so i’m a bit out of my depth

Man I’m equal parts delighted and nervous that people are beginning to consider me a potential source for queer wisdom but I’m absolutely happy to give it a shot, even if I can only speak to what I’ve seen and my thoughts and feelings, all my love to your friend btw

So the way I’m working through this is first getting down to the bare bones of the thing. Why do I need to figure this out? What does it mean for me in life? 

Well! We have labels for many good reasons and they’re very important to specifically queer activism and safety. If you can define who you are (within society) to another person in a way they’re familiar with and understand, it just makes life easier. Dating, community, and everything else around it. 

So, in my life, for right now, I only want to love and date and have sex with women. I identify most with the butch lesbians I’ve seen and heard talking about their feelings and experiences. But I also have this complex relationship with my womanhood, I don’t really want to be seen as a ‘girl’ as I know them and what I associate with that word in this culture I’m living in. But I’m not a man in that respect either. So being nonbinary and using they/them pronouns just works best for me and how I want people to perceive me. 

I want to kinda... to be clear? I haven’t read a lot of proper literary discussions on lesbianism and gender, nor do I have any kind of experience within butch lesbian communities and spaces outside of the internet. And if your friend is a baby butch I imagine she doesn’t either. So in an ‘easier said than done’ piece of advice... getting into lesbian communities is really good for this too. If you’re in a community, it’s much easier to realise how you want to exist and be within that community. I hope your friend isn’t chronically ill or otherwise disabled and unable to go and find those communities but if so... god speed comrade lmao we’ll get through it.

I think this is much more intellectual than you perhaps needed and HELL if it didn’t take me like a MONTH to finish this in my drafts but... Here it is and I hope it helps and ur friend’s got all my love and empathy and support, keep at it

[stretchjournalemerson]

Girlhood: The Forgotten Céline Sciamma Film We All Should Have Seen

By Ivy Miller

It is not a hot take to question the usefulness of queer films that seem to insist on being white, old and reminiscent of each other. In fact, when Potrait of a Lady on Fire came out, and I told my gay friends about it, they practically rolled their eyes. Many of my friends who happen to be young, queer, and women of color, were understandably not going to scramble to applaud another white woman for making another film about white women—even if these ones were in love.

What may have surprised my friends however, as it certainly surprised me, was to learn that the director behind Potrait of a Lady on Fire had made very different films prior to her lesbian period piece. In fact, Céline Sciamma made three coming of age queer films all before Potrait of a Lady on Fire, and the last one in particular stands far apart; Sciamma’s Girlhood is everything that Potrait of a Lady on Fire could never be. Girlhood (2014) is about a young black adult named Marieme growing up in the suburbs of France. We follow Marieme as she confronts issues with race, gender, poverty and sexuality alike, all while finding joyous moments with her friends that strike just as genuine a chord.

Girlhood starts with a montage of people playing American football who we can’t tell are girls until they victoriously take off their helmets in a group huddle, and we see their proud wide grins as they shout to each other. While some of the girls are revealed to be wearing eyeshadow and lipstick, and sporting long hair under their helmets, others are shown to wear black streaks as their only make up and display nearly shaved heads. This small detail becomes increasingly relevant throughout the film; it's as if the masculine football armor—with room for a plethora of identities underneath it—foreshadows the fact that our lead Mariame will continuously change her clothes and hair as she tries to discover where both her power and comfort lies. At one point Mariame exactly mirrors the friend group she makes, and wears a stolen tight dress and shimmery makeup after all the girls have dressed up altogether in a modest hotel room. This scene is arguably the most fun we see Mariame and her friends have on screen—which is only fair considering Sciamma makes the conscious choice to cut the playful montage to the entirety of Rihanna’s “Shine Bright Like a Diamond.” At the start of the song the girls have gotten to know each other a bit, but by the end of the song we are convinced of the magic of a girls night in to cement a group of girls together as true friends.

Mariame makes friends and she makes mistakes. For instance, it is hard not to wince when we hear Mariame’s younger sister accuse Mariame of becoming just like their older, and abusive, brother. Furthermore, when Mariame seems to be leaving one dangerous situation only to “escape” to another, we root for her friends when they try to attempt to forbid her from doing so. However, only moments after the harsh exchange takes place, Mariame says simply to her friends: “make me laugh.” In response, her friend Adiotuo looks briefly right into the camera —and thus intimately into our eyes—right before she tells us and Mariame that the charismatic leader of the group, Lady, is actually named Sophie. This exchange is exemplary of what Girlhood does so well: it lets its characters be vulnerable, and even miserable, but it is never too long before they are funny, caring and defiant once again.

Before allowing Adiotou to say her “real” name, Lady says a very important line: “my name’s Lady, it’ll be on my grave.” In this sense Lady will not be defined by her birth given name, instead the only name that matters is the one she chooses to die with. As the captive audience, we know Lady’s real name is Lady because we have watched her friends and her world use that name, just as we will stand with and recognize Mariame when she starts to look a bit different. Towards the end of the film, we see Mariame wearing a binder and with very short hair. It is unclear if this outfit is for her physical protection against the seemingly violent men she works with, or is reflective of what Mariame feels her true form may be. When we then watch Mariame slow dance with a girl we are reminded of the deep loyalty and fondness that she once had for her old friend Lady, and we wonder if the friendship we had witnessed earlier carried a different kind of love than just platonic.

These are questions that Girlhood doesn’t answer. Admittedly, this can be frustrating, as sometimes as a witness to Mariame’s life we want her to answer our questions. Especially by the end of the film one may find themselves expecting Mariame to define herself to us—and more importantly to those around her. As I watched Girlhood, I waited for a dramatic monologue: a moment in the film devoted to Mariame telling her world who she is and who she isn’t. It is not a spoiler to say that this moment does not come. Mariame does not tell us—or her friends, or the men she works with, or her first boyfriend, or her family— who she is, but perhaps this is simply because Mariame does not know yet. Meaning, Girlhood’s nuance in its exploration of gender and sexuality seems to lend to a larger truth. The truth being that Mariame is still growing up, she’s still finding out who she is, and the film won’t announce or clarify an answer that Mariame hasn’t discovered for herself.

There is beauty in this nuance, and for many queer individuals alike, there is also a universal truth in addition to Mariame’s personal one. Just as Mariame does not have the words, or space, to verbalize her being yet, many queer youth may take comfort in watching Mariame and knowing they are not alone in not being able to define themselves. I watched Girlhood on a couch next to my dad and his girlfriend, both of whom know I am a lesbian. What they may not know however, is that sometimes this label feels inadequate in explaining how I feel about my sexuality and particularly how I relate to my gender. What a personal relief it was then, to watch a film called Girlhood that had no interest in prescribing to a definition or experience of womanhood that I—and so many others—have become increasingly severed from.

However, Girlhood tells the intricate story of a Mariame, a black woman, growing up in a community that is deeply affected by the product of France’s racism. Mariame and her friends all live in public housing and, through the lens of the film, it appears as though there are no white people who live in these apartment buildings. Furthermore, Mariame, although certainly not defined by her world’s limitations, undoubtedly has to deal with the intersection of racism and sexism throughout her daily life. In this crucial way most of Mariame’s experience of “girlhood” is nothing like mine— but that shouldn’t make this film any less meaningful to me. Often I hear people like me who are white and queer equate how much they like a film to how much they relate to it; but how can we push for diversity and at the same time only desire to watch films that tell the stories of people who look like us. Of course there were still moments and scenes in Girlhood where I “saw myself” in the characters, but I ask again: why is seeing yourself in a film more meaningful than being able to see someone else?

After I watched Girlhood I called my friends and told them they had to watch it. I did not promise them that they would love it, but I was able to promise them that it wasn’t another film about white gay women for white gay women. I was also able to promise them that the film wasn’t a period piece. I told them what I will, in a sense, tell you: while Girlhood and its beautifully portrayed Mariame may have not made it to the big screens in 2014 like its younger and estranged sister, Portrait of a Lady on Fire did in 2020, the film and Mariame deserve a place on your screen at home and, if given, they will likely find a place to stay in your mind long after.

Where to Watch: Hulu (with premium subscription), Amazon Prime ($2.99 to Rent), Youtube ($2.99 to Rent), Itunes ($4.99 to Rent), Apple TV ($4.99 to Rent).

Acknowledgements

Before writing this piece I had never written a film review. Of course I had watched films, analyzed films, texted my friends and family to demand they watch a film, but writing a review is a different story. To write a review of a film is in a sense to quantify its value, and to be honest I never felt I was worthy of doing this. Who was I, as a nineteen year old, to think my opinions on a film should matter to anyone? However, as we entered the “Literary Review” Unit of Research Writing I realized that this would be my opportunity to write a review for a film that I felt had been looked over by mainstream audiences and critics alike. I may not have felt worthy of writing a review of Girlhood, but I knew the film was worthy of a better review than I had been able to find scouring on the internet. I would like to thank my professor Livia Meneghin for encouraging me each step of the way, and for helping me to create a review that I think reflects the beauty and importance of Girlhood.

[caesuralesbian]

My friend brought up a really good point about "femmephobia" We were talking about a mutual acquaintance who pushes femmephobia politics despite being a pretty androgynous person who admits to wanting to present more masculinely and generally being a person with complicated feelings towards their own femininity. This acquaintance had told me that their main reason for not presenting more masculine is that they're scared to bc they hate men and don't want to be isolated from women. They essentially felt that if they were too masculine they'd basically be a man. Or too close to a man for women to be comfortable around them. All I could think in response was well fuck. Masculinity =\= men and femininity =\= women. That's one of the underlying problems in this whole femmephobia idea. Being masculine doesn't make you unlike women or a threat to women like this acquaintance seems to believe. My friend pointed out that the acquaintance tends to use the term "femme" almost defensively: Always being sure to call themselves femme and loop themselves in with the other "femmes" (read: women. or on occasion anyone who's not a dangerous man). Making jokes about how they're super femme and love "femme things" like makeup and clothes (basically things that are loosely attached to femininity but not really part of the definition of "femme" or in opposition to other identities) I said I think it's weird how so many people whose experiences are clearly erased and ignored by femmephobia politics support them anyway (I've witnessed many butch and stud lesbians support it as well as GNC women and androgynous NB folks and I just couldn't understand) My friend suggested that femmephobia has gained traction with a number of these folks (folks who are androgynous or masculine to some degree/ not male aligned/ excluded from universal femininity and lumped in with universal masculinity) bc the politics of it feel the same as the homophobia and transphobia these folks have experienced particularly at the hands of straight women. Most of these people who are isolated by femmephobia but support it anyway are LGBT+ women or trans folks. People who have already been taught that they have to be careful not to be predatory and toxic. People whose attachments to masculinity or androgyny or disconnects from femininity have already been used to label them as unsafe and threatening. Most of the people I see talk about femmephobia are afab feminine presenting nonbinary people. Idk their motivation and I won't try to guess. But the next biggest group (and the one that pushes it the hardest and cheers the loudest behind it) is cishet women. Pushing the idea that feminine presenting women are under attack by some universal "masculine" force. (Including butch women and androgynous nonbinary folks and others.) Which sounds awfully familiar. Like straight women who acted like they were unsafe changing around me in the locker room. Or straight women who suddenly wanted more distance in our friendship after I came out. Straight women who felt threatened by me just bc I as a bi (at the time I came out) woman no longer fit their idea of womanhood. I was suddenly too much like a man. How much did this amplify when I stopped shaving and didn't wear makeup as often and started to dress more androgynously for my comfort and came out as a lesbian? When I distanced myself from this incorrect idea of universal femininity and rejected the label femme (not bc I'm opposed to it in any sense but bc it doesn't fit me) In straight women's eyes, femmephobia is just LGBT+ people catching up to what they've always believed: that LGBT+ women are predatory and creepy and scary. That straight women's own fragile femininity is more important than other women's safety and comfort. I do think femmephobia stemmed from a place of trying to describe the experiences of NB people who didn't fit our current model of gender dynamics. I think it had good intentions. But somewhere along the line, a bunch of people who experienced gender and gendered oppression very very differently tried to define all of their experiences the same way. And now we've got a word that implies that GNC men, trans men, all NB folks, gender conforming women, and actual femmes are all oppressed in exactly the same way-- by cis men and gender conforming men and studs and butches and GNC women. And now a bunch of straight women are co-opting the idea to reinforce their lesbophobic ideas of GNC womanhood. Anyway femininity vs masculinity is a really lazy and inaccurate way to talk about gender and privilege bc not everyone fits those descriptors and they mean different things to different people and we all experience gender differently based on our various intersecting identities and that is all thank you

[jasonhaw]

How ‘Jane the Virgin’ gets Bisexuality Right

Spoiler alert: If you have not been updated on Jane the Virgin, update yourself first then read this article.

Even with the assumption that mainstream media is becoming more and more “liberal,” LGBT representation in American media is still very poor. The latest Studio Responsibility Index from LGBT media monitoring organization GLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation – but the acronym is now being used to stress the inclusion of bisexual and transgender people) gave “Poor” and “Failing” ratings on all major Hollywood studios.

Minority representation is important for many reasons. Sociologist Eric Anthony Grollman, in his personal blog, summarizes the reasons very neatly: it gives minorities a voice, makes them more visible, and validates their identity. When you see someone on TV or the movies that you identify with, doesn’t it get you excited? Doesn’t it make you feel like you’re not so alone after all?

This TIL post dissects the latest episode of the CW comedy Jane the Virgin. I’ve recommended this show in a previous blog post (which you can read here), but fundamentally the show is a meta-telenovela – it takes on every telenovela trope in its plot and makes fun of it. It also injects socio-political commentary on topics such as immigration, religion, and the family. My personal favorite episode is Season 3, Episode 3 (Chapter 47), when she finally loses her virginity, and the way that the show portrayed it is probably the best sex episode I have ever watched anywhere. There’s a great Vox article, and many others, that analyze this episode, so I won’t touch on it anymore.

But my second favorite episode would have to be this week’s episode – Season 4, Episode 5 (Chapter 69). The show’s producers probably wanted to talk about sex because of the chapter number but I did not expect that they would touch on something that still is invisible even within the LGBT community – bisexuality.

Some (spoiler) context: Adam is Jane’s newest love interest. While he’s a new character on the show (he was introduced in the Season 3 finale), he’s not a new character in Jane’s life. When they were teenagers, they planned on getting hitched, much to the disappointment of her mother Xo and grandmother Alba. The wedding never pushed through because they discouraged Adam, and Jane and Adam never saw each other again until Adam found a letter by Jane’s ex-husband Michael (May he rest in peace!). By this latest episode, they have been dating together for quite some time, Adam has warmed up to Jane’s son Mateo, and Adam has already turned down a major career offer, which would have demanded him to move, to be with Jane. So they’re really in love at this point.

But from a plot perspective, there’s this gap between Adam and Jane as foolish teenagers and Adam and Jane finding each other again. The show is starting to fill in the gaps, and this episode gave us the reveal that Adam is bisexual. His coming out process to Jane is beautifully portrayed, and I want to spend a lot of detail how Jane the Virgin gets the portrayal right.

I split the post into headers – which I will call the three stages of the bisexuality coming out process. The process works both ways – for the person coming out, which is Adam in this case, and for the person accepting the news, which is Jane in this case.

 Stage 1: Adam: Embarrassment Jane: Reflex Acceptance

Jane (J): So you’re bisexual?

Adam (A): If you’re into labels.

Here, Jane clarifies Adam’s sexual orientation. Adam gives an answer that is both clear and vague at the same time. It is clear in the sense that he is not straight, but vague in the sense that he does not definitely confirm that his “official” sexual orientation is bisexual.

Jane’s question insists on a label. Some bisexual people may want to identify themselves as “bisexual,” but a lot also want to define bisexuality as a rejection of the notion that one has to play for only one team. I like to define bisexuality as one that transcends the need for gender to be a definitive criterion for choosing a romantic partner.

J: Do you date men and women?

A: I had a boyfriend in our school when everyone was experimenting, and another in Fort Green, when everyone wasn’t.

J: Cool. It’s just that we’ve had so many long talks. How come you’ve never mentioned this?

A: It just didn’t feel that relevant.

Narrator (N): I mean, more relevant than who’d win in an epic battle between Batman and Wolverine, which has been discussed at length.

Here, Jane demands an answer why she was not informed about this. Adam’s response is an insistence that he does not want to be defined by his sexual orientation alone. While it is understandable for Jane to be entitled to intimate details about her romantic partner, it is also Adam’s prerogative when he wants to reveal those to Jane. As a comic book graphic artist, Adam would rather have a lengthy discussion about a hypothetical battle between Batman and Wolverine than have a lengthy conversation about why he is bisexual.

A: And I guess I was… nervous. It’s become an issue with people whom I’ve dated before.

J: Well, you’ve never dated me before… Okay, you have… Not recently. My point is… is… I’m totally okay with it. You have exes, I have exes, everybody has exes!

And these two lines really define what Stage 1 is really about. Adam is really embarrassed to come out to Jane because he knows that to a lot of women (and even the gay guys he has dated before), this is a relationship deal breaker. Adam knows that Jane is entitled to know about his sexuality, and he has been probably planning when to tell her since that fateful night he delivered Michael’s letter. But he also needs to be comfortable in coming out – that his coming out should not also mean the end of their relationship. Because such a dichotomy is not fair, and a problem that most bisexual men encounter on a regular basis. Most bisexual men self-select the women they date because if they feel that a woman is not open to begin with, then the whole thing is really a non-starter.

Jane’s response is very interesting because it reflects every self-proclaimed liberal who grew up in a very Catholic (read: conservative) environment. A lot of Ateneans would love to identify as liberal (as the Jesuits are the most “liberal” Catholics!) but I have come to realize that their self-proclaimed liberalism has gone unchecked. I know this for a fact because I went through a series of stress tests when I was living in Washington DC for a year. And Adam’s coming out is that kind of test for Jane. In her head, she knows she should be okay with it, so her reflexive response was that. But as we move on to the next stages, we realize that she is totally not okay with it.

 Stage 2: Adam: Disappointment Jane: Paranoia

(Lunch date)

Male waiter arrives with their orders

Waiter: Here you go… (Looks at Adam) Nice tats.

A: Oh, thanks.

Sexy, romantic music plays in Jane’s head as she thought the waiter was flirting with Adam and Adam is flirtatiously smiling back, then the waiter flirtatiously winks and leaves.

J: So, is that… your type?

A: What?

J: Just asking.

A: If I’m into the waiter?… I didn’t notice ‘cause I’m with you.

J: (whispering) Right. (nods) Sorry. I’m acting weird. I’m just trying to wrap my head around it because I’m not into women.

A: Maybe… or maybe you just haven’t explored that side of yourself?

…

A: Hey, look, is this something that’s gonna get in our way?

J: What? No.

A: ‘Cause you seem so pretty hung up on it

J: Honestly, I’m not

(Scene changes to Jane talking to her mom Xo)

A: I’m completely hung up on it! And I don’t wanna be.

Xo (X): Well, it makes sense that you are

A: Yeah because it took him so long to tell me and because there’s a double standard, you know. When women hook up, it’s looked at as sexy, but men are immediately marginalized because our whole culture revolves around the male gaze.

X: I’m not exactly following all that, but I hear you about the double standards (changes topic)

Jane was paranoid during their lunch date. She was paranoid even in a later scene, where she wondered if Adam hooked up with one of his friends, and Adam called her out on her paranoia, disappointed. The waiter was attractive, so he probably is someone’s type, but the possibility that it could be Adam’s type puts her on edge. Up until this point, she has not expressed jealousy in any of her relationships (case in point: she was never a jealous lover when the romantic plot of the show revolved around her love triangle with Rafael and Petra). This suggests that as a woman comfortable with her womanhood, she need not be jealous of other women coming near her lovers. But she is not comfortable with her personhood, that it could be the primary object of desire for Adam. She thinks of other men as competition she cannot compete with, because she cannot give what a man can. Adam loves her as a person, who just happens to be a woman. This is the fact that she needs to reconcile with herself as the show progresses.

Jane starts to realize that her reflexes were not reflective of what she truly felt about the situation. And Adam is very clearly disappointed about it. Adam knows that this is something that is going to take some time for Jane to process, but the subtext of his lines suggest that she should not have given him false hope that she was okay with it.

I appreciate Jane’s self-awareness in the scene with her mom. In the earlier episodes of the show, she was a graduate student in literature and her thesis adviser on her novel was a well-respected authority on gender studies. So she understands how the male gaze is applied to Adam’s context, and she also understands how her upbringing has prevented herself from straying away from the male gaze. She begins to struggle with her principles and how she applies it in real life. Xo not understanding how the male gaze applies to Adam’s context but applies to her own (she’s trying to convince her husband Rogelio to get a vasectomy) is a reflection of a bigger societal incompetence – not being able to wrap their heads around the concept of bisexuality.

 Stage 3 Adam: Acceptance Jane: (True) acceptance

(During Lina’s bachelorette party – Lina is Jane’s best friend who is about to get married.)

Lina (L): And you’re the longest relationship I’ve ever had (context: She just realized she was marrying the male version of her best friend Jane)

J: And you’re the longest relationship I’ve ever had

L: I love you Jane

J: I love you too

(sexy music comes on, Jane tries to kiss Lina)

L: What the hell, were you gonna kiss me?

J: What? No, don’t be ridiculous! I mean… Yeah I was…

(cut to commercial)

J: I’m sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking

Narrator: Seemed like you were thinking of making out with your best friend

(Lina chuckles)

J: I guess I’m still a little freaked out by Adam big bisexuality reveal.

L: Well, a pretty smart friend once told me, “You fall far who you fall for”

J: Yeah, but this is different. I’m not freaked out by his sexuality. I’m freaked out that he kept it from me.

L: (rolls eyes) Hmm…

J: What?

L: As your best friend in the world, and the person you just tried to make out with, that’s a bunch of crap.

J: Excuse me?

L: Don’t try to make this about him hiding. Figure out what is really going on.

J: (exhales deeply) Well, I guess it’s because…

L: Lady, tell him, not me… because it’s my freaking bachelorette party…

This is my second favorite scene of the episode. First, Adam’s suggestion that Jane explore her “bi” side really got to her and so she tried to experiment with her best friend. Second, Lina called her out on her bullshit (which is what best friends are really supposed to do) that her issue was about the timing of the reveal, when in fact it is really about Adam being bi. This show has always been reflexive, and I’m glad that they have remained consistent with the self-awareness plot device.

(later that night, back in Adam’s apartment)

J: Can we talk?

…

J: So yeah, it wasn’t that you waited a long time to tell me, it was what you told me. Which became pretty clear after I tried to kiss Lina

A: What?

J: I know. That was a momentary lapse of judgment. But you’re obviously right. I did freak out. I guess, I… I just have questions, which are silly and stupid.

A: Go on, ask me.

J: Is being bisexual a stop on your way to coming out as gay?

A: Definitely not. It just means I am open to a connection with a man or a woman. What else you got?

J: Well I guess I feel a little insecure, you know. It’s not like I can give you what a man can.

A: Yeah, you’re right. You can’t. But you can’t give me what another woman can give me either. But it doesn’t matter, because I choose to be with you. I don’t want to be with anyone else, regardless of gender.

A: Yeah, really. We’re in a monogamous relationship, which means that you’re not allowed to kiss anyone else.

J: (smiling) I know, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. If it makes you feel any better, she hardcore rejected me.

A: (smiling) Well then, she’s an idiot…

(Kiss scene)

A: (joking) Oh, Bob. (Jane gasps, laughing). I’m kidding, kidding, it’s Jim, right?

Now, this is my favorite scene, and the first time I watched it, I was in tears because Adam said the perfect words to Jane. Jane’s admission of her biases is a relief to Adam, because he knows that she is now along the road of true acceptance. Her embarrassment in asking questions is also another societal representation – our friends would love to accept us, but they are not educated about it. But they are afraid to ask.

And if there is one thing that you would pick up with this 2000 word blog post, it is this: 

The best way to make your LGBT friends know that you accept them for who they are is when you ask thoughtful questions. 

Don’t be afraid to ask, as long as you are not coming from a position of condemning your friend. Of course you are ignorant – you’re straight and you do not have the capacity to understand what non-straight people experience on a daily basis. It’s the whole idea about being with the “other” – we can never know what others are truly experiencing, but we can journey with them.

The two questions Jane asked are probably the top two questions everyone asks about bisexual people, and I promise you 100% of your bisexual friends are going to answer the exact same way that Adam did when you ask those questions to them. These questions are not intrusive – in fact, it’s an admission of your biases that allow your bi friends to accept you also as part of their journey. It means that you are open to being informed, changing your opinion, or even join them in fighting for their rights. It wasn’t just Jane accepting Adam for who he is, it is also Adam accepting Jane as a woman capable of understanding what he is going through. Let’s go back to what Adam said – he knows that his sexual orientation has been a deal breaker before, so naturally he will be skeptical when he has to come out to a new person. But Jane’s openness has allowed him to be accepting as well. He’s changing hearts one person at a time.

If you haven’t watched Jane the Virgin, then please do. And if you want talk more about bisexuality, leave me a DM at @mockingjason on Twitter. Let’s have a thoughtful and informed conversation.