#validity discourse

[moonlightsapphic]

Reasons why someone may identify as bi lesbian (a valid identity!):

a bi woman who experiences rare attraction to men but never enough to date one.

a bi woman who was attracted to a man only once in her life, so he is like an exception.

a woman who is bisexual but monoromantic towards women, or biromantic but monosexual towards women.

a bi woman who doesn’t date men and doesn’t intend to ever.

a lesbian who formerly was bisexual and now her identity has shifted, and she wants her label to reflect both.

a late-in-life lesbian who is married to a man but is comfortable staying with her husband because of their unique love/companionship.

a poly lesbian whose partner’s partners (whom they may rendezvous with) may rarely include men.

a lesbian who does not identify as “monosexual” or “monoromatic” despite only being attracted to non-men, since she feels that she is attracted to multiple non-men genders.

a lesbian in a relationship with a trans man.

a transmasc lesbian who dates other transmascs as well as women.

An older bisexual woman who moved through pre-separatism lesbian circles (back when “lesbian” was used by all sapphics as an umbrella term!)

… and many more!

*I use “woman” and “she/her” but this may apply to any genderqueer sapphic as well!

Yes, many of these experiences can be described by using one of “bi” or “lesbian”, rather than both in combination. Lesbianism includes many non-men genders and trans women! Bisexuality includes all genders including trans folks! Lesbianism is considered monosexual identity, but also in some ways multisexual, and “bi lesbian” is often used by those who strongly identify with being mspec. Labels are for our comfort in identifying ourselves and our lived experiences, as well as to accurately communicate our identities to others. We shouldn’t police them! Queer people are deviant and complex by nature! Rigid rules are for the patriarchy, not us. Labeling conventions are fully arbitrary and we should prioritise what will maximise queer folks’ happiness.

Folks spend a lot of (misplaced) energy hating on the label “bi lesbian” and want to eradicate it by claiming it is TERF propaganda—however that’s not very nuanced (there are queer elders who use this term—should we really have the audacity to tell them how to live?), and ironically it’s gender essentialist in and of itself to try to put people in a box. We should remember that bisexuals and lesbians originally were all just “lesbians” (ie in the same way we use “sapphic” as an umbrella term today), and it was TERF rhetoric in second-wave feminism that resulted in lesbian separatism. A simple label used by a tiny minority can’t cause all kinds of scary lesbophobia, biphobia, and transphobia (as it is, endosex allocishetero people can barely tell bisexuality from lesbianism anyway and don’t know a thing about trans people either ;n;)—If it is a possibility, that’s our job as a community to fight back misinformation. :)

[chaos-in-one]

It's so funny to me when people yell & make entire posts about how xyz identity isn't valid

Like, okay? You saying that doesn't stop anyone who labels that way from existing, or continuing to use that label. Your opinion on the "validity" of someone else's identity means very little- at the most it'll just make someone who labels that way feel like shit for a bit.

But generally? Our identities don't rely on your validation. You saying that my, or anyone else's identity "isn't valid" doesn't make it go away. I'm still going to be exactly who I was before you said that. That identity is still going to be a part of me. It doesn't just disappear the second someone doesn't believe in it.

[vignetterose]

We can talk about anti-trans legislation AND make sure bisexuals feel valid.

[stukid-rat]

ok so basically these are just all my hot takes that would probably get me burned at the stake on main. expect cringe discourse taken completely seriously. if you send me asks i will debate with you. if you send me harassment i will make fun of you.

[transsexula]

As a trans man, I've been followed into the men's bathroom. I've had coworkers stalk me in the bathroom and report back to my manager. I've been harassed in men's bathrooms. I've been harassed in women's bathrooms (before I came out). I've almost been assaulted in public bathrooms.

"Men's bathrooms aren't policed like women's bathrooms" is straight up a fucking lie. Using the bathroom as a PASSING trans man is unsafe. Can't piss standing up? Ever heard a cis man loudly comment about you pissing sitting down in a public restroom?

Again, bathroom bills may SEEM targeted, but it hurts us all. Trying to force trans men into women's bathrooms, to cut them off from men's restrooms- it does a lot of the same shit it does to trans women.

Except now no one wants to consider this. At most even other trans guys will make the joke "oh so you want a big hairy buff trans man going to the women's shitter?" No. Actually. They WANT more of a reason to beat me into the tile floor. These laws are used to make that easy to sweep under the rug.

[anti-endo-help]

you are not a system without trauma.

your system did not form for any reason other than trauma.

"non-traumagenic" isn't a thing.

"traumaendo" isn't a thing.

trauma survivors shouldn't have to clarify that they're "traumagenic" because people want to roleplay on the internet.

go fuck yourself if you think that "endos" are valid. my trauma isn't a label you can wear.

you can not be a system without trauma.

you can not be a system without trauma.

you can not be a system without trauma.

[ID: STOP! this blog is a strictly anti-endo space! pro-endos and endo neutrals, shoo! shoo shoo!]

[smellslikeyuri]

we have literally been saying this for years but ok..

we've been saying "if you dont want proshippers to interact dont interact with us" and antis stole it? js admit its a good argument

plus no proshipper is desperately wanting to interact with ur corny vent videos

[muwwwsky]

interesting

[fazmid]

it's very clear why aphobia is one of the gateways to wider queer exclusionism when you have to witness these types like, make up a guy to get mad at. "what if there was a guy that was straight in every way except he was ace/aro/demi/whatever" yeah man what if? who cares? then you realize the real question being asked is "are queer people still valid if I can't tell they're queer by observing them and need to be told directly?" and it's like yeah I see why you also have weird ideas about bi/pan people and anyone else that doesn't fit your mental image of what a queer person should look like. if your basis for queerness is whether someone appears sufficiently queer to others, you cannot construct a meaningful definition of queerness that doesn't exclude some queer people. no wonder you have to keep throwing more and more people overboard to keep your narrow definition of the queer community afloat in your mind. is the next discourse going to be that happily single lesbians with boring gender-conforming taste in fashion aren't really queer? come off it

[the-agent-of-blight]

also, i really find it interesting how people can genuinely go about saying "Well this group isn't attacked for their identity so they can't be queer " while then turning around and. attacking said group. for their identity. and exemplifying classic __-phobic tropes. It's really dumb. You are being the thing that you claim does not exist

[darci-tbh]

everytime I see antis call themselves punk I lose hope in the internet again

I don't know how to say this but policing people's right to create and consume any fiction they want AND advocating for the corporal punishment of "thought criminals" cannot and will not ever be punk. shut up

[imjunebitch]

i think that some people in the queer community need to learn the difference between tolerance vs. acceptance/support.

a lot of the sentiment "in support" of weird queers is really just tolerant of them. idk how many times ive seen posts like "lesboys/multigender folks/people with neopronouns/whatever might be cringe, but they're better than exclusionists! let kids be cringe!" and like. you have to see that this isn't actually supportive. it's tolerant, sure, and that's better than outright exclusion but... ok.

I don't think any of those groups are cringe. i think they're wonderful and beautiful.

i think it's awesome that transmasc folks can hold on to the label of lesbian if they like. he/him lesbians have been around for a long time. historically, some lesbians have taken testosterone, used nonbinary and masculine pronouns, preferred masculine terms... that isn't gonna stop because some people decided it's specifically cringe when transmascs do it! im mostly sapphic, and I'm fucking proud to stand with my sapphic sisters, brothers, and siblings!

multigender and genderfluid people are awesome as fuck. therians are cool as fuck. i love boygirls and fagdykes and girlfags and girlboys and genderfuckery of all kinds. don't let people treat you like a kid for wanting an identity of that kind. fuck em, you're great.

neopronouns are cool as fuck too. i keep hearing people saying that everyone who uses them is a kid, and that's sinister shit. you hear it on both sides too. exclusionists say it derisively, and people who think they're being supportive say it to defend them... but it's really, genuinely cool. people want to act like being nonbinary is only one experience, and that we have gone from there being only two genders to there now being a third gender, which is called nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns. but hey, fuck that sentiment in particular. gender is a spectrum, and it makes total fucking sense for people to want to create pronouns and terms to describe their own experiences! hell yeah!

you hear a lot of "well, these people are just kids, we should give them a space to learn," or "they're not doing anything wrong i guess," but these are not genuinely supportive statements! so how's this: I fucking love all of these people, and i hope our community gets more of them. I pray for a day when they outnumber the grim, humorless exclusionists who want to gatekeep acceptance by the thousands. fuck exclusionists, pride is for everyone.

(pre-emptive note: no this post isn't for MAPs or radqueers or anyone like that, obviously, grow up. hurting and preying on defenseless people/animals is obviously not a valid identity, don't even try to compare those things.)

[who-always-pays-their-taxes]

Why do you (as in the royal you) as a member of a fandom,, seem to believe that things need to be,,, canon??? in fanfiction??? why would? that ever be? if you wanted to read pure canon, you could,,,, idk,,, read canon? pick up the source material,,, and if you wanted to read pure canon fanfiction just search the ‘canon compliant’ tag. that’s how ao3 works. so silly.

[entirely-strange]

"it doesnt matter if its fictional or not!" then whats the difference? why isnt the police investigating r34 and ao3 the same way they investigate dark web sites? why is it wrong to hear someones trauma and then say "this is just like that one anime"?

[imperial-cat]

Reading Orym discourse on twitter is kinda funny, "it's unfair that he has a trump card and can shut down any conversation with it", like, I don't know but, if I don't have a counter argument in a discussion, maybe this means the other person has a valid point?

[kaeyaswifefromsnezhnaya]

"fiction affects reality", then what about fiction about good? If we start creating content about a better life, will it change anything in reality? It would be nice

But I doubt it