#if everyone you dislike is barred from club lesbian of course there won't be any lesbians

[sagevalleymusings]

Responding to "Lesbian is a Powerful Word:" With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility

So I wrote the bulk of this essay in February of 2020 when the original article I reference came out. Then… I dunno, something happened. And I forgot about this in the face of… well, you know. Everything. But I think it’s still highly relevant, so I’ve wrapped up the ending, cleaned up my sourcing, and am setting it loose on the world. Enjoy.

A while ago, AfterEllen published an article by Claire Heuchan called “Lesbian is a Powerful Word: Here’s Why We Will Always Need It.”

This bothered me a lot, not because I disagree, but because I felt like the argument being made was disingenuous at best. The author assumed that their definition of lesbian (a biological female who is exclusively attracted to other biological females) is the only valid definition, then proceeded to use this assumption to explain why lesbian identity needed to be protected from modern queer politics or risk erasure.

I wouldn’t just disagree, but would counter-argue that Heuchan is pushing a dangerous false narrative, one that misses a huge swathe of discourse around how the term lesbian can and does fit into non-binary spaces.

But what struck me the most was that the argument itself was poorly constructed. There were multiple instances where I didn’t just disagree, but didn’t think that the argument even made logical sense. For example, at one point Heuchan cites three articles about how modern lesbians dislike the term lesbian. But there are two issues with this: the first is that two of the three articles are joking listicles with no real substance which of course could be torn to shreds with the most basic of counter argument, but the second issue is that Heuchan constructs this as an attack on lesbians by non-lesbians when in fact these articles were about how lesbians themselves feel about the term for their own identity. Not only that, but the only article of substance wasn’t provided a link for, so by lumping that article in with these two joking listicles, and then on top of that falsely claiming that these listicles were written by non-lesbians, Heuchan has literally constructed a strawman argument that non-lesbians are trying to tell lesbians not to use the term because it has too many syllables or sounds like a disease (a point made, ironically, by lesbian icon Ellen, who AfterEllen gets their name from).

I was so frustrated by this lack of well-constructed argument that I did some research, and I discovered that self-proclaimed radical feminist Claire Heuchan has a blog where she made a much longer, more nuanced version of this argument. And although I still disagree with the premise, I think it’s important to acknowledge that for me to respond purely to this AfterEllen fluff piece without an acknowledgement of the fantastic work Heuchan has done on black feminism on her award-winning blog would be as disingenuous as failing to include an intersectional perspective of lesbian that is trans-inclusive in an argument about where the term lesbian fits into modern queer rhetoric. Because not only is it the case that lesbian can fit into modern queer rhetoric, it’s a conversation that is happening in trans-inclusive spaces.

But Heuchan’s accomplishments as a black radical feminist don’t change the fact that she’s a radical feminist, and only the briefest dissection of her six-part series on sex and gender does legitimize my concern that this means that Heuchan is a trans-exclusionary radical feminist. And on some level, I have a hard time taking trans-exclusionary arguments seriously, because they so frequently construct a false narrative. Heuchan’s argument assumes that all lesbians agree with her definition of lesbian, because in her world, a lesbian is a cis woman attracted exclusively to cis women, and anyone calling themselves a lesbian who doesn’t fall into that category is contributing to lesbian erasure. 

It’s a winner-take-all argument that allows for absolutely no middle ground, because all dissent is just considered oppressive patriarchy. Heuchan doesn’t believe in gender. At all. She believes that gender is a tool by the patriarchy to keep women (and by women she means people with vaginas) oppressed. So any argument that I attempt to make about queering lesbianism to include trans women or non-binary folks is stopped before it even gets to the discussion stage because the premise that people can identify as women at all is considered invalid.

If I were to make a counter-argument to the AfterEllen article, it would be to say that “lesbian” does have a checkered history of transphobia which means that lesbians like me have trouble relating to it. So do I stop identifying as a lesbian because it feels like other lesbians are trying to push me and the people I love out? Or do I try to open it so that more people can be included? The argument I would make is that lesbian fits into modern queer politics better by opening. Lesbian used to be defined as an attraction to women in general (fellow queer tumblrina star-anise has documented this extremely well), not an exclusive one, and that older definition is very compatible with modern queer politics. A loosening on the reigns of lesbian would allow non-binary folks and trans women to find acceptance of the very real experience they have. And although trans-inclusive rhetoric can get pretty aggressive, at times complaining that lesbians refusing to date trans women is itself transphobic, I think there is a place in the middle where we can acknowledge that trans lesbians and cis lesbians who date trans women exist, while still allowing for preference, much like anything else. No one is forcing transphobic lesbians to date trans women. This point even gets brought up in the much longer discussion Heuchan is encouraging on her blog, when she talks about the “cotton ceiling.” But the way in which it’s brought up here conflates the argument in a disingenuous way, not only by pointing out that the cotton ceiling was coined by a trans woman but then not providing links to the original conversation, but then also by dismissing the entire argument of the cotton ceiling and by extension the trans activist’s extremely valid point that cis lesbians are bad at talking about trans inclusion. 

I want to add a sidebar here to say that actually I think I can understand why Heuchan didn’t cite the original cotton ceiling discussion. It’s poorly archived. I am not the only person who has looked and failed to find the original source. Wikipedia doesn’t even cite the original source - they cite an academic article citing a blog that no longer exists. The oldest sources I can find are trans exclusive radical feminists tearing into it as early as March 2012, but none of them screenshot the original tweet (it is implied it’s a tweet). If it weren’t for the fact that I have heard other trans activists use the term, I would almost say it was made up whole cloth. At the very least I think it is telling that the term traveled through Heuchan’s spaces far more than it did trans activist spaces - potentially an example I see not infrequently of radical feminists blowing a bad take out of proportion and treating it as representative of trans perspective as a whole. 

To go back to my point about Heuchan’s premise, there is a counter-argument being skirted around that seeks to incorporate lesbianism into modern queer politics. The problem is that Heuchan’s argument doesn’t allow for this possibility at all, doesn’t even acknowledge it, because from a trans-exclusionary radical feminist viewpoint, lesbians who have sex with trans women are no longer lesbians and therefore do not get a say.

Another way to construct this argument would be to say that Heuchan is arguing that lesbians who think lesbianism includes dating trans and non-binary folks are themselves contributing to lesbian erasure, and that trans-exclusionary lesbianism is here to stay. But phrased this way, the argument sounds a lot less defensible. Because from that perspective, the trans-exclusionary stance is one that stands against other lesbians specifically. 

And yeah. It does.

Lesbian is a powerful word, and I want it to be here to stay. But it’s hard to advocate for a term when so many people have tried so hard to link the term lesbian with transphobia. And this especially hurts when… it’s just not true. 

In March of 2023, the LGBT+ youth charity Just Like Us published an early report on their survey on trans inclusivity among LGBT young adults. They found that of the over 3,000 LGBT+ young adults surveyed, lesbians were the most inclusive orientation, with a staggering 96% saying they were supportive or very supportive of trans people. 

Queer folk are more supportive than the general populace, but 96% is unreal. And yet, those numbers back up my own experience in lesbian spaces. Almost all of us are supportive or very supportive of the trans people in our lives. 

Lesbian does not necessarily just mean “female homosexual.” It can be a cis woman attracted to femmes. It can be a non-binary she/they. It can be a he/him butch. Hell, believe it or not, some trans women are also lesbians. 

Lesbians aren’t being erased. It’s just that a lot of the people calling themselves lesbians now are people you disagree with.

Welcome to the club.