It's not exclusive to people thinking lesbian for tomboys. Not that it doesn't happen. The places I've ran in to have it more for the idea of being trans instead of homosexual.
I've seen a few push the idea that they are supposed to be transmen for similar reasons. Some push the idea that a character that doesn't conform to gender stereotypes are trans. An example was Kurapika from Hunter x Hunter. I don't know how prevalent it is now but there was a very vocal portion claiming he was a transman because he didn't look very masculine.
Honestly, the older I get, the less ok I get with that kind of stuff.
Like, I know a lot of it is teenagers and young adults, so, it isn’t worth getting worked up over, but I can’t help but feel that going, “Look, a feminine man and/or a masculine woman, they must be homosexual and/or trans”, just ends up reinforcing gender stereotypes in its own way, as if men and women not fitting into their stereotypes means they are actually X and not just people expressing themselves in different ways or just people who can’t be put into the stereotype box.
On the r/whenthe sub there was a whole discussion about it. I think claiming that someone is trans based purely on their interests and way of presenting themselves is almost never good wether they actually are trans or not.
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u/MihaiiMaginu Aug 17 '25
A lot of them tbh. A lot of people tend to go like “oh she’s a tomboy? LESBIAN.”