#zie has lesbian thoughts

[elliesbelle]

hi!! no hate at all, i was just a bit confused on how ur live-in ex can be a he/him lesbian? i thought lesbians could only be classified she/her or they/them (or mixed pronouns! just not strictly he/him). i hope this sorta makes sense, i really hope this doesn't come across as hate!! im genuinely curious, have an amazing day and i lit can't wait for the next chap of ncty <3

you have it a little mixed up lol, my live-in ex-girlfriend’s pronouns are she/her, soulmate ex’s pronouns are he/him.

both my exes are transmasc butch lesbians. they both have a complex relationship with gender, and they reject femininity and embrace masculinity. this is and has been a common practice for butch lesbians since the dawn of time.

soulmate ex goes by he/him pronouns, live-in ex got top surgery, both only wear clothes made for men and also go by more masculine-leaning names that they chose and that they were not assigned with at birth. this does not mean they’re men or trying to be men. masculinity is not exclusive to men, and someone’s presentation (whether it’s their pronouns or their physical appearance) does not necessarily equal their gender identity.

the gender roles we are assigned to at birth can be extremely restrictive, so in order to feel more comfortable, butch lesbians will often do what they can in order to reject femininity in their own way (one of which is using pronouns that are not the typical feminine she/her pronouns). this isn’t a new thing at all, butch lesbians have been doing this forever (leslie feinberg, for example, who is the author of the historic novel “stone butch blues” went by zie/hir pronouns).

hope that answered ur question!

[strawberry-dykery-blog]

I Reserve My Right To Be Complex

Before reading this post, I recommend you read My Gender is Dyke [1] by Alexandria Jaurez. I will reference it frequently throughout this post, and credit entirely as the work that made me feel like I was able to question my gender identity. I first read it when I was sixteen: questioning my gender but feeling a strong attachment to my identity as a lesbian. This article allowed me to accept that there are no rules when it comes to identity. It allowed me to feel seen. To know that there were other lesbians who did not feel like a woman.

Disclaimer: this post will not debate the existence of non-binary lesbians, and will not tolerate any discourse on their validity in the comments. There is already to much discourse and invalidation in identity politics. Plus, they have to be real, there is one writing this!

So, What is a non-binary lesbian? Non-binary is an identity that falls outside of the typical male and female gender binary. Whilst it is common for non-binary people to use They/Them pronouns, there are many other pronouns people outside of the binary use. Non-binary is a rejection of the gender binary, and so is not as simple of being thought of as a third gender.

Lesbian is typically understood to refer to women who are exclusively attracted to other women. So how can a someone who explicitly identity as not a woman claim this identity? An alternative definition of using the term "non-man" has been suggested, however faces criticism [2] for centring female attraction around men.

These definitions give us a broad understanding of the term non-binary lesbian: someone who relates to the experience/identity of being a lesbian, whilst falling outside the gender binary.

In my Gender is Dyke, Juarez makes the claim that "many non-binary lesbians are non-binary because of their lesbianism". This claim many initially seem somewhat contradictory, particularly as gender and sexuality are often thought as operating in different spheres, and having little baring on each other. To refute this claim, I will make reference explicitly to the work of Monique Wittig [3], however there are many more radical feminist theorists who share this viewpoint.

Wittig claims that not only women are subject to oppression, but that the very concept of what it means to be a woman is created by her subordinate status to men. Her existence is defined purely in relation to a man: she is a daughter, a bride, a mother. She is never her own person. Girls are taught from a young age to romanticise marriage and reproduction. Wittig placed lesbianism as existing outside the bounds of what it means to be a woman. By rejecting heterosexuality, lesbians abandon their societal decided role. She is no longer defined in relation to a man, and no longer fits into the understanding of what it means to be a woman. She is something else, something outside of conceptualised gender binary.

Furthermore, Wittig herself defines lesbianism as something far more than a sexuality, she acknowledges lesbianism as an exploration outside the bounds of what it means to be masculine and feminine [4]. It is therefore understandable that many lesbians no longer feel connected with being a woman, and place themselves outside the gender binary.  Wittig, just like Jaurez, recognises and validates the relationship between lesbianism and feeling estranged from binary gender roles and identity. I disagree with Wittig's claim that all lesbians feel like this, and that all lesbians intrinsically fall outside the gender binary. There are many trans and cisgender lesbians who feel secure in identifying as a woman. Likewise, labels and identity are not universal, and this of course does not explain every non-binary lesbian's lived experiences. It does however do a good job and explaining mine.

Finally, I want to highlight another genderqueer lesbian, Leslie Feinberg. Zie was a self described "anti-racist white, working-class, secular Jewish, transgender, lesbian, female, revolutionary communist" [5], and a prominent activist in the New York LGBT community. Zie is most known for hir autobiographical novel Stone Butch Blues [6]. This book, and Feinberg's work as a while, contributed heavily to understanding the intersect between lesbianism and gender identity. It is a somewhat difficult read, both stylistically and content wise, and does feature heavy and potentially distressing subject matter. However, I believe it is an essential read for understanding critical lesbian and gender identity studies. A free PDF is available on hir website, as well as other works and further information on Leslie and hir activism.

Leslie Feinberg and life long partner Minnie Bruce Pratt: The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photography (1993) "Minnie Bruce Platt and Leslie Feinberg. Jersey City, NJ" [Photograph] New York Public Library Digital Collections. Available at LINK

Without meaning to devalue the experiences of present-day gender-queer lesbians, I have found a large amount of reassurance and comfort in exploring the historical basis of my identity through older theory and literature. Genderqueer lesbians exist. They have existed before me and will continue to exist after me.

I strongly recommend you read this interview between Leslie Feinberg and Kevin Horwitz from 1993 [7]. In this dialogue, Leslie shares hir experiences of growing up and grappling with hir gender identity. Some of the language may be outdated and certain concepts may differ from current understandings of transitioning and medical transitioning, however the insights into hir experiences remain valuable nonetheless.

Issue #23 of FTM International published in May 1993

“You're more than just neither, honey. There's other ways to be than either-or. It's not so simple. Otherwise there wouldn't be so many people who don't fit.” ― Leslie Feinberg, Stone Butch Blues, P.218

[sheathandshear]

the older I get, the more I hate the whole "lgbtq+ narratives must always be #ownvoices and people can only write their own identities because anything else will be fake and fetishizing and can never capture the True Lived Experience of being xyz” because like. look. setting aside all the many, many other problems about that: this may be uncomfortable to hear if you’ve built your sense of self out of hyperspecific pride flags, but identity is subjective, and identities change. if you equate “immutably are” with “identify as at the moment of writing a thing”, then over the course of 15+ years of writing I’ve ‘been’ at various times straight, bisexual, gay, lesbian, queer, grey ace, ace-aro; femme, androgynous, cisgender, transgender, female, genderfluid, nonbinary, and now some kind of masc; she/her, zie/zir, they/them, he/him... my identity has been fluid and evolving, and at the same time, absolutely nothing fundamental about me has changed. my life experiences aren’t retrospectively radically altered the moment I change the pronouns on my twitter bio! the person writing that transmasc character six months ago is the same one writing that transmasc character today, and yet because my labels changed, the piece produced six months ago is fake but the one produced today is legit? should I be backdating my authenticity? hmm, the publication date of this fic is 21 march 2013 and at the time I thought I was entirely straight and cisgender so that queer nonbinary character is offensive appropriation; however, by 18 june 2014 I was still IDing as cis but now queer and having tentative gender feelings so was it #ownvoices then? or not officially awarded that designation until 28 aug 2015? the lesbian character written on 4 dec 2009 was #ownvoices but this was retroactively rescinded on 30 nov 2010 when I determined that I was bi... it’s silly! lgbtq+ identities are not species classifications! many people -- yes, including the ones who eventually determine themselves to be cishet -- move through different explorations and ways of understanding themselves & their relation to others, and this siloed, #HashtagIdentity way of determining who is allowed to write what manages to encourage infighting & identity policing AND squash empathy & solidarity between people with similar but not identical experiences AND erase all nuance and complexities of the lives of people whose voices it supposedly boosts so like... great job yall, definitely creating a quality environment for everyone here.

[citypoplovers]

i saw @pumpkinships do a little list of lgbt headcanons he has for his f/os and i wanted to do da same bc i thought it was supah cute :’) so here’s my list!

- ema is a trans fem nonbinary lesbian! she uses she/her and zie/hir pronouns :)

- franzy is a lesbian! i care deeply abt lesbian franzy… very important hc to me

- mia is bi and trans! i was hesitant to put the trans hc on here but… i’m very fond of it !

- fujiko is bi! i think that might be canon but ummm don’t quote me

- THENA TRANS LESBIAN!!! i loves her. another hc i hold dear

[fairplayforwomen]

  Last week I read a post on MumsNet that is so good it just has to be shared. Lesbian erasure is real. As a lesbian myself, I’ve noticed friends who of course want to be LGBT friendly and show their solidarity by sharing LGBT links. But without knowing it they are sometimes inadvertently sharing and supporting an ideology that is contributing to the erasure of my own lesbian community. This guest post is a must-read for all lesbians and anyone who cares about us. 

Nic Williams.

  Guest post by Iwantmycommunityback

I’ve been thinking a lot over the last few days in particular about transactivism and lesbians and thought I might try to put some of it into writing, partly to try to make sense of it and partly because I still keep seeing people refer to the ‘LGBT’ or ‘LGBTQ’ community and equating transactivism with lesbian and gay rights.

I think the most obvious impact of transactivism is on young lesbians being encouraged to identify as heterosexual transmen and to subject themselves to damaging medical treatment, the effects of which they will have to deal with for the rest of their lives. I think Janice Turner’s article in the Times already covers that issue very well (here).

One of the problems for young lesbians (in addition to the rise in lesbophobia particularly among the young) is that, when they reach out to ‘their’ community, eg join an LGBT group for support, what they get isn’t their community at all but something very hostile.

Gender critical feminists will be familiar with the idea of trans-identified males co-opting women’s identities, women’s rights, women’s spaces etc for their own ends but there are other forms of appropriation going on, particularly in the (former) LGBT ‘community’ (including transsexuals themselves having been co-opted by people who don’t have body dysphoria and who marginalise them as ‘truscum’) . For lesbians, in addition to the appropriation of womanhood, I think the two main additional identity appropriations that cause problems are:

  Transbians

These are heterosexual biological males who identify as women and, therefore, as ‘lesbians’ and have hijacked our community (support groups, social groups, bars, forums, you name it) and believe that lesbians should be open to having sex with someone with a penis if they ‘identify’ as a woman (see ‘the cotton ceiling’). This group has widened further e.g. including ‘transfeminine men’ and men who identify as a woman part-time (so get to walk through life as a heterosexual man but just ‘identify’ as a lesbian for a few hours to access a lesbian group or lesbian club night where they are of course the most oppressed person ever and must be centred at all times).

As well as being included in our groups, they are held up as examples to us. For example for International Women’s Day one group had a talk from an ‘inspirational woman’ who was a biological male, who hadn’t had any surgery, was dressed as a bloke (not that that should make any difference.), had a bit of stubble going on and identified as non-binary (pronouns something like ‘zie’) not as a woman. Like, not only could they not find an actual woman who was inspirational enough to fill that spot, they couldn’t even find a man who was prepared to say they were a woman. Stuff like this is being funded by charity grants intended for women and for lesbian and gay people.

Don’t quite believe it? Here’s just a random selection of biological males who identity as women found on the lesbian section of some well known on-line dating sites…..

‘Queer’ straight trans allies

This is pretty much a consequence of the above. For those who don’t know, queer is now used as an all-encompassing term for anyone who doesn’t identify as a heterosexual “cis” person. However, it is also preferred by certain people over terms like lesbian, gay and bisexual because it does away with what are considered the rigid boundaries of ‘gender’ and sexuality e.g. Homosexual, lesbian and gay meaning being attracted to the same sex, bisexual as being attracted to ‘both’ sexes. This allows people to reject these categories and the idea that there are two sexes.

Take, for example, Lily Madigan who is a biological male who has now come out as a lesbian and is dating a woman. Let’s presume for a moment that this woman (let’s call her Chloe) is a) a biological female b) and a passionate trans uber-ally. Chloe is a bio female who is dating a bio male with a penis who wears a pink hoodie and identifies as a woman. Say, before that, Chloe was dating a bio male with a penis who wears a blue hoodie and is, therefore, a man. Maybe in her next relationship, she will date a bio male with a penis who has purple hair and identifies as ‘genderqueer’. Therefore, Chloe can now say that she dates men, women and genderqueer people, including both cisgender and trans people. Therefore, she is a queer or pansexual woman.

Along with the transbians, these ‘queer’ woman become involved in what was formerly the lesbian and bisexual women’s community. However, these trans uber-allies have a lot of views that are contrary to the interests particularly of lesbians. They believe that lesbians have ‘cis’ privilege and also that lesbians (along with gay men) are the most privileged people in the LGBT community. They believe that lesbians are narrow-minded and transphobic for only wanting to date other biological women and oppress transwomen who can’t break through the ‘cotton ceiling’ of their underwear.

I’m not even sure when this stuff started because, like most of us, due to the blurring of the meaning of words, I just didn’t see it happening. A lot of the main online websites, blogs and forums for lesbians started to change, with different women running them and, over time, a shift in the tone – lots about trans inclusion and more references to being ‘queer’ and open to relationships with anyone, about how some people (the lesbians) had privilege in our community and should prioritise these other people, less representation of butch women (despite the talk of blurring of gender boundaries/genderfluidity) etc.

It was only years later, when someone who knew the women who had been running one of these websites was talking about who they were and who they were in relationships (bio females in relationships with bio males, basically) that the penny finally dropped with me.These were straight women appropriating our identity and lecturing at us and marginalising us in our own community.

This blurring of the language enables them to do it – but even in cases where you can see it for yourself (e.g. if you are looking at what is clearly a straight couple, who you know will be read by everyone they meet as a straight couple, even if the guy is wearing a bit of eyeliner) you couldn’t say anything because now it would be transphobic to say that he wasn’t a woman (or genderqueer or whatever).

      Why aren’t lesbians speaking out more?

It’s no always easy to spot what’s happening

Firstly, I think it takes a while to see what is going on. This for a number of reasons including the deliberate blurring of language, the shutting down of any discussion or even thought on the issue through the repetition of mantras such as transwomen are women and the misrepresentation of this issue in what we consider to be ‘our’ trusted (LGB) news outlets, organisations, websites etc. We also might be relying on our positive experience of and friendships with traditional transsexuals without understanding how much the trans movement has now changed (traditional transsexuals are often demonised in this new world order too and called truscum). There is also the tendency to conflate trans with gay issues when they are not the same at all. From my own experiences of coming out and being oppressed on the basis of being different, I know its so easy to automatically feel solidarity towards and feel angry about any oppressed group, especially if you are being told that other views are ‘anti-LGBT’ and coming from ‘anti-LGBT’ organisations.

  Many lesbians aren’t aware things are different now

Some lesbians aren’t really that involved any more so aren’t aware of what is going on. Many lesbians will have accessed the LGB community, lesbian support groups, lesbian/gay bars when they first came out, when they were looking for a relationship, in times of difficulties etc but are now happily settled in a relationship and don’t feel the need to access those resources. They will still have their lesbian ‘community’ but that will mean texting their friends Sarah & Jo and Claire & Debs and arranging to meet up at their (straight) local pub for the evening. Any involvement with the wider LGBT community will be more minimal like maybe watching the Pride Parade once a year or occasionally reading something on an LGBT website about some awful transphobes who are attacking the LGBT community. They will think back to the transsexual people they knew 10 – 15 years ago who were nice people who just wanted to get on with their lives.

  Young lesbians have no where to go

3) Young lesbians these days are more likely to be identifying as transmen rather than as lesbians.  For the few who do, they lack access to a real lesbian community which could introduce them to an alternative to the current discourse. They have little opportunity to discuss shared issues, learn from others’ experiences and have other lesbian women on their side. Young lesbians who aren’t accepted or feel isolated in their school, family, community etc will seek out an LGBT youth group and this community they reach out to will heavily endorse the transactivist agenda as part and parcel (and absolutely central) to their identity. Where else do they go and how do they know that there is anything else?

  Nobody listens to lesbians anyway!

4) The low status of lesbian women within the LGBT community also stops some speaking out.  I don’t think people outside are really aware of how much misogyny and in particular hatred of lesbians there is from some gay men.

  There’s a big personal cost to speaking up

There are big risks to speaking out for women. These risks are increased if you are a lesbian as it is coming from your ‘own’ community and being a lesbian puts you under suspicion of being trans-exclusionary (ie penis-exclusionary) anyway. If you run a lesbian business or events, you can’t risk being anything other than pro the trans agenda or they will destroy your livelihood. And I’m sure most of us have seen the threats and actual violence meted out to those who dare to disagree. There’s also a fear about just broaching the subject with another actual female lesbian because you don’t know how many of you are onside so it’s a risk. From tentatively raising the issue with a select few, I do know lesbian friends who have got concerns about this but we are very cautious and tentative about saying anything to other women because of the risk. The bigger stories like the closure of MichFest and the men wielding baseball bats to keep the lesbians in check on Women’s Marches and Pride Parades are just symbols of the way we are being policed. This is now what happens to what is left of lesbian events, lesbian-run businesses etc, if we don’t keep in line.

    Our lesbian voice has been diluted from within

Finally, simply, as I’ve explained above, another reason some of ‘us’ don’t oppose or seem to actively support transactivism is that not all of ‘us’ are actually ‘us’. As lesbians step away from the LGBT ‘community’ and more ‘lesbian and queer women’ emerge from the two groups referred to above, an increasing proportion of ‘us’ are actually a subset of heterosexual men and women who loathe lesbians and support the transactivist agenda – but, because of the way language is being twisted, you’d never know that.

    Lesbians are an endangered species. I want my community back! Last week I read a post on MumsNet that is so good it just has to be shared.

[bharatiyamedia-blog]

9-year-old who defies labels helps train educators about queer youth

http://tinyurl.com/y5y4lhz7 (Reuters) – When a third-grade instructor from Texas requested her largely 8-year-old college students what they wished to be once they develop up, one in all them wrote on the white board: “drag queen.” That response got here from Keegan, now 9, a “gender artistic” child, in his mom’s phrases, illustrating simply one of many challenges dealing with educators as they accommodate the vary of gender identities that college students may categorical. Reuters has agreed to not totally establish the household and faculty at their request to guard them from potential harassment. Educators who for hundreds of years have divided college students into girls and boys at the moment are determining higher methods to handle college students who’re nonbinary, gender fluid and gender nonconforming, along with transgender youngsters, whose gender identification differs from the one they have been assigned at start. By one survey practically three % of youth in Minnesota fall underneath these classes, figuring out with neither gender, or each, or trans, or simply defying a standard male/feminine binary choice. Some faculty districts in the US are utilizing extra gender-neutral language, addressing college students by their most popular pronouns, which will be “they,” “them,” “theirs” for a person, or the invented “zie,” “zir,” “zirs,” that are used instead. Some faculties additionally permit college students to simply change their most popular identify or gender identification. The diploma of acceptance for such college students can actually be a matter of life and demise, specialists say. A nationwide survey of 34,000 LGBTQ youth aged 13 to 24 launched final week discovered 39 % critically thought-about suicide prior to now 12 months, as did greater than half of transgender and nonbinary youth, in line with the Trevor Venture, a pro-LGBTQ group targeted on suicide prevention. One other examine, printed within the Journal of Adolescent Well being in 2018 and based mostly on a cohort examine of 129 trans and gender nonconforming youth aged 15 to 21, discovered that suicide makes an attempt plummet 65 % and melancholy signs fall 71 % if they’re allowed to make use of their chosen identify in school, residence, and work, and with pals. The problem comes up lengthy earlier than adolescence as gender identification usually manifests itself in kids by kindergarten. “What’s at stake is nothing lower than the longer term lives of those kids and personal well being as a society,” stated Eliza Byard, government director of GLSEN, a nationwide advocacy group for lesbian, homosexual, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) college students. “We nonetheless dwell in a world the place probably the most marginalized should not receiving the help and affirmation that they want with a purpose to obtain academically and thrive personally. And all of us will profit when that’s true,” Byard stated. STONEWALL LEGACY Transgender rights have risen to the fore in recent times and as LGBTQ folks put together to mark the 50th anniversary because the Stonewall rebellion of June 28, 1969. The protests by patrons of a New York Metropolis homosexual bar, who fought again towards police harassment, is taken into account the start of the fashionable LGBTQ rights motion. Keegan, 8, who identifies as gender artistic, drag identify Kween-Kee-Kee, poses for {a photograph} after finishing his first drag efficiency through the Austin Worldwide Drag Competition 2018 close to Austin, Texas, U.S., November, 18, 2018. REUTERS/Amanda Voisard Keegan is one pupil who has benefited from the Stonewall legacy. (GRAPHIC: STONEWALL 50 – tmsnrt.rs/2X5X2Q4) He performs soccer and video video games and likewise likes to decorate as a woman, utilizing the identify Kween-Kee-Kee when in drag, his dad and mom say. Amongst his mentors are a pair of real-life grownup drag queens. He normally goes by the pronouns “he,” “him” and “his.” Keegan has discovered acceptance and help at his faculty in a conservative, Christian suburb exterior of Austin, Texas, his mom stated. “We anticipated a number of pushback from the varsity and we anticipated some intolerance, however we’ve been very stunned,” stated Keegan’s mom. Keegan’s instructor paid shut consideration through the lesson on monetary literacy, when different college students aspired to be medical doctors and dentists and Keegan wrote “drag queen.” “One of many college students requested, ‘What’s that?’ and Keegan type of stated ‘I don’t know’ and moved previous it,” stated his instructor. “However I do see little, like, hints of him attempting to make folks conscious that that is one thing that he’s, one thing that he does.” Neither Keegan’s instructor nor his principal stated they obtained any formal coaching on educating gender nonconforming college students and have labored with instinct and statement. The instructor desires to let Keegan deliver up the topic “at his personal tempo.” His dad and mom, too, have wished to “let Keegan be himself” and never impose any norms on him. They stated they have been stunned on Friday when, 5 years after he first began sporting attire and a full yr after they started cooperating with a photographer on this mission, he stated he was homosexual. Minneapolis Public Faculties in Minnesota provide among the most intensive pointers for academics, college students and oldsters as a part of its Out4Good program supporting LGBTQ kids, outlining polices developed over 20 years on names and pronouns, gendered actions and amenities, and security and bullying, stated Jason Bucklin, the Out4Good coordinator. Some 2.7% of Minnesota highschool college students establish as transgender or gender nonconforming, in line with a 2017 College of Minnesota examine. A gender-inclusive curriculum can stop the type of bullying that usually begins in grade faculty and might evolve into homophobia by center faculty and sexual harassment or relationship violence by highschool, Bucklin stated. Slideshow (27 Pictures) “It isn’t simply in regards to the transgender college students,” Bucklin stated. “It’s about bringing everyone into the classroom and being able to really feel profitable.” For picture essay see: reut.rs/2XVJ3ts Reporting by Daniel Trotta; Further reporting by Amanda Voisard; Enhancing by Frank McGurty and Grant McCool Our Requirements:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. Source link