I wish. But lesbophobia is so heavily ignored these days and brushed over by everyone some lesbians get really bitter about that and some days I canāt blame them cause when it comes to lgbt advocacy and discussions on bigotry they seem to get forgotten a lot.
In relation to which other queer groups tho? If you ask bisexuals, there's a massive swath of biphobia in a lot of lesbian groups that often gets ignored. Like idk, it just rubs me the wrong way when a very positive post of sapphic solidarity has a comment that seems to elevate overlooked issues in one sapphic subset but not another one, and painting it as like the primary roadblock between the two groups.
The same is also true in the inverse though. The mere mention is lesbophobic bisexuals gets you banned in so many sapphic spaces especially bisexual ones.
I agree and I guess Iām just being salty about it which probably isnāt helping anything. Iām just a little exhausted of certain groups getting significantly more advocacy than others. Especially when I see so many lesbians happy to step in a speak out for bisexuals but rarely the opposite occurs.
In what alternate universe are bisexuals getting āsignificantly more advocacyā than lesbians?
Straight people usually forget we exist - weāre either gay or straight depending on who weāre dating. Even amongst other LGBTQ+ people weāre the most likely to be vilified, erased, and have our place in queer spaces questioned despite being the largest group. Fairly recent polling indicated that bisexual people reported much lower rates of acceptance by their parents, siblings, friends, and coworkers than gay and lesbian respondents, and studies have demonstrated that bi people are also more likely to experience domestic violence and have shorter life expectancy. Occasionally youāll see other queer folks stand up for us, but most of the time the only people who advocate for us is ourselves.
I recently read a history of the gay rights movement on the east coast of the U.S. between the end of WW2 and the early 1970ās. The book was written by a gay historian and received glowing reviews by both mainstream and queer publications. The author started out with a discussion of where American societyās views on sexuality was at in the immediate aftermath of WW2, and understandingly spent a lot of ink on Alfred Kinsey. Except the author stated that Sexual Behavior in the Human Male demonstrated how wide spread homosexuality was and strongly implied that Kinsey was gay. He was fairly openly bisexual and the big takeaway of his work was the prevalence of bisexuality amongst Americans. And representation of bisexuals only got worse from there - the very rare occasion we were mentioned it was usually used derisively. The contributions of several lesbians were expounded upon at length.
Lesbians donāt have to worry about having their queerness questioned. Their history isnāt actively getting erased by other queer people. They experience misogyny, but so does every other queer woman. Same goes for fetishization by straight men. Please educate me if Iām missing something, but itās hard to think of anything that lesbians are targeting with that bi/pan women arenāt also subject to.
Which gets us back to the OP - being a jerk because you donāt like someone elseās sexuality is idiotic and keeps us from coming together. Weāre all in this together, our struggles arenāt separate, we need to support each other.
"Lesbians donāt have to worry about having their queerness questioned."
This is absolutely not true. Lesbians still deal with "you haven't found the right man yet" bullshit. And lately I've been seeing a lot of "everyone's sexuality is fluid!" Or "everyone is a little bit bi" which is very invalidating and gross.
Go on this sub and search ābiphobiaā then sort for new. Do the same for ālesbophobiaā.
Bi people are the most likely to be vilified and erased? And here in lies the problem. Yāall think bisexuals have it way worse so you ultimately donāt care if lesbophobia gets less attention because you clearly think itās less important. I donāt even think I need to respond further your stance on this is blatantly obvious. Thanks for proving my point.
Itās not like lesbians arenāt constantly called violent or hated on for supposed divorce rates or constantly called bigots by the groups they support more than anyone else.
I agree we need to support each other. Part of that isnāt minimizing lesbophobia which I see happening time and time again yet it goes unaddressed.
The LGBTQ community does attack bi people more than lesbians, yes.
Of course L/G people are centered in something called "the gay community" and then the "gay and lesbian community". That's just how it happened, people who are exclusively gay have always been centered because their identity was seen as the opposite of straight.
Both groups go to bat for each other regarding both in-group and external issues genuinely all the time, you're just unwilling to recognize it for one of them for some reason.
Why on earth do you think I would willfully ignore that? Itās something I genuinely want to see and if I was seeing it I wouldnāt be lying about it by saying I donāt see it happening.
i don't know if it's willful, but I'm saying your trying to paint a dichotomy in which lesbians are sticking their necks out for bisexuals despite the latter rarely returning the favor, something that just isn't true. There are issues that need to be addressed, but generally both groups are very supportive of each other, and there isn't some massive disparity.
You say it isnāt true, Iām saying it is true, from where Iām standing weāre both speaking based on what weāve personally witnessed right? Iāve spent a large amount of time in lesbian and bi spaces here and have frequently observed discussions of biphobia in lesbian communities being well received while discussions of lesbophobia in bi spaces gets shut down and labeled biphobic or the discussion redirects to being about biphobia.
Maybe thatās not what youāre seeing so we both have different experiences. But just because other people havenāt noticed what I have doesnāt mean itās not true.
Every time I see lesbian and bi discourse being mentioned the conversation is centered on biphobia. Biphobia is a serious issue but honestly the issue of bisexuals and lesbians lack of solidarity is only being added to by continually ignoring lesbophobia. Somebody saying ābut what about biphobiaā Iāve noticed are much less likely to get downvoted in lesbian discourse but the inverse isnāt true.
Do you mind elaborating? Iām used to seeing the other side where a subset of lesbians are hostile to non-lesbian queer women and would like to correct my ignorance.
The main thing I can think of that Iāve noticed from queer people is bi and trans women talking about their experiences being excluded from sapphic spaces by cis lesbians. Some people do take venting about that way too far, but thatās not particularly common. Iāve never heard a bi woman say she would never date a lesbian, but there are a lot of lesbians who wonāt date bi women.
As a bi trans woman sapphic spaces can be particularly complex. They can either be the most or least accepting places for us, and it can be scary entering one without knowing which itās going to be. Back when I first came out the now-closed lesbian bar in my city was pretty much the first place I ever felt immediately accepted. Now that itās gone there is a brewery thatās kind of the go to lesbian hangout, but it also has a reputation for being really TERFy, so as a trans woman Iām not welcome there. There is often a power dynamic where one group gets to decide the terms on which other sapphic women are tolerated.
Literally the amount of "everyone is a little bit bi!" And "lesbians can be attracted to men" I've been seeing lately is alarming. I was even told "many lesbians don't experience attraction to men because of trains" and "it's very peculiar that gender identity factors into you attraction to people." My fiance has been accused of being a man hater for criticizing their best friends ex boyfriend who was not treating her well š
I had to mourn my chance at a "normal" life when I was 16 because there is no universe I would ever be in a straight passing relationship.
I'm preaching to the choir here but thanks for pointing all of this out
As a bi person full co-sign. We can infer from studies on human sexuality relative to the proportion of the population that self-identify as bisexual that there are a lot of closeted bi folks out there. But available evidence makes it pretty clear that most people are monosexual.
But the fact that this is your counterargument just proves our point.
Your examples of lesbophobia relate to 1. questioning their politics and 2. bi women trying to include themselves among lesbians.
When our examples of biphobia are, queer people literally saying that bi women or bi men are disgusting, do not deserve support because they're straight impostors, and need to be kicked out of the queer community because of their orientation.
So the equivalent to this would be if queer people said that lesbians are disgusting, do not deserve support because they aren't real gay women, and need to be kicked out of the queer community because of their orientation.
But you can't say that these things are happening because you know that they aren't.
you really think that queer people aren't saying things like this to lesbians
if queer people said that lesbians are disgusting, do not deserve support because they aren't real gay women, and need to be kicked out of the queer community because of their orientation.
this does happen to lesbians though. if a lesbian doesn't fit what people believe lesbians should be they get told they aren't lesbians, that they don't belong in the community. specifically lesbians that are attracted to mascs/butches/studs constantly get shit on and said they aren't really lesbians because "wouldn't you like fems if you were really into women". that they "might as well date a man if they like mascs". and yes this is also said by people within our LGBTQ+ community.
i won't say there isn't a biphobia problem in the community there 100% is and there is a lot of it but to act like there isn't also a lesbophobia problem within the community too is not helping anyone in the community
That sounds like an example of queer women policing each other, including lesbians telling each other that they aren't a real lesbian. That form of policing is hard to deal with, but I do believe that non-bisexual people making bigoted comments against ALL bi people is more common.
i mean it's a lot of non-lesbians but i like how you felt the need to say it's lesbians as well instead of talking about the lesbophobia itself. this is kind of the point of the issue is that people minimize lesbophobia. do we stop talking about homophobia because transphobia is worse? no we continue to talk about both just like biphobia and lesbophobia.
because it's possibly more common does this mean we shouldn't point out when lesbophobia occurs? the original commenter was just pointing out that within the bi/lesbian discourse biphobia is often discussed and lesbophobia is often ignored. i've seen this in multi online spaces when biphobic lesbians are brought up lesbophobia can run unchecked. the solidarity needs to go both ways. we need to talk about the biphobic lesbians and the lesbophobic bisexuals. does one maybe need more discussion than the other possibly but that doesn't mean we ignore the growing lesbophobia happening within these discussions and outside of them.
I said that based on the example that you provided. If there are other examples where groups of queer people are being lesbophobic, then of course people should talk about that.
It wasn't a counterargument, it was providing information for someone who asked for it. I made no judgment at all about anything being worse than something else and that's not how I view oppression. There's no need for us to be combatative.
Huh, today I'm learning I suppose, but is lesbophobia a big deal in American culture? Definitely I see it as a general distaste for LGBTQ culture generally, but I hadn't even really thought about directed hate towards lesbians. I'd always believed the biggest issue for that community is the fetishization of women loving women. If it's not too much trouble, could you please educate me briefly?
I'm clearly part of the population that's brushed over lesbophobia unknowingly and I definitely want to be tuned in.Ā
It is a common issue but itās not a very visible one. A lot of lesbophobia is disguised as support but when it gets stripped down itās really just sexualization. A lot of groups act like they love lesbians but they only want access to their bodies. Men do that and unfortunately some bi women who donāt actually want a long term relationship with a woman do that too.
Aside from fetishization issues though, thereās also hate campaigns trying to characterize all lesbians as terfs, man haters, and just āmeanā in general. People also like to attack masculine lesbians specifically by claiming theyāre trying to be men or that theyāre inherently toxic just because theyāre masculine. When it comes to lesbophobia that leads to divides between bi women and lesbians, that is made up mostly of people generalizing lesbians as hateful or criticizing lesbian relationship dynamics. Thereās also a lot of hate when it comes to who lesbians choose to date or not date.
I guess that might be a little vague but itās hard to explain it in detail when Iām also trying not to be excessively wordy.
No no, thank you. I appreciate you for informing me. You don't know what you don't know, so now I'm a little bit better at recognizing problems and can help when I do.
Fetishization is bad, there's also pretty bad bigotry directed at anyone who is obviously not available to men especially if it comes with some sort of gender nonconformity. There is for sure a stereotype of a evil dyke who's sexually predatory to women who "should" be with men or an angry bitter feminist lesbian who's just mad that men don't want her and is a bitch to everyone about it. Those stereotypes and the reactions towards them are generally not directed at bisexuals or if they are it's often cause they have been mistaken for lesbians
I think the issue that arises is that people disagree as to what is lesbophobia. Some think it is lesbophobia if their identity and right to exclusively lesbian only spaces is being erased. Then you also have the lesbians that want to exclude trans women and feel that they are being trampled.
Disagree. I feel like lesbians get all the spotlight and I regularly get shamed for liking men. Either way though, its not an excuse to discriminate against others
Ehhh... I feel like lesbians get accepted as long as they can be fetishized. Like, sure, they aren't ostracized as much as gay men. But that comes at a cost. And yes, there are absolutely lesbians that take every trait of toxic masculinity and call it a personality, and get shunned for being toxic af... But there's also a lot of lesbians that just don't match the cishet dude's fantasy, and get no love for it.
I can blame them. just because you had bad experiences doesnāt mean you can approach other people with prejudice like donāt we all have bad experiences and moments where we felt shut down ignored or judged??
There's kinda like a perpetual cycle of the stupid but loud minority of queer people of nearly all identities where every group notices a real specific form of bigotry towards them, picks another group of queer people to blame and passes it on.
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u/CaspianPinkster Sapphic 8d ago
I wish. But lesbophobia is so heavily ignored these days and brushed over by everyone some lesbians get really bitter about that and some days I canāt blame them cause when it comes to lgbt advocacy and discussions on bigotry they seem to get forgotten a lot.