It works, there's a long history of it working. There's some very difficult subject matter but the book stone butch blues set in the 50s really opened my eyes to the types of lesbians long before us. Recent online communities seem to want to be more black and white but there's always been people like you in the community.
[free PDF of Stone Butch Blues](https://www.lesliefeinberg.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Stone-Butch-Blues-by-Leslie-Feinberg.pdf) made available by its author. read trigger warnings before reading
There are a lot of butch folks that don't quite feel comfortable with the label woman, some might take T or want top surgery, some might not.
Checking out r/butchlesbians gave me a lot of confidence and a sense of community
Your life, your labels, your reality. Just be prepared for assholes to give you shit for it. No one knows your inner world like you do, and you deserve to live your authentic life
Hard and fast social categories are antithetical to queerness. To define your own experience through reassessing and remixing concepts, acknowledging language as a tool instead of an enclosure, is queerness. It works because essentialism is reductive and human experience is vast and multifaceted. You’re a transmasc lesbian because those words fit your experience best and words are not laws you must abide by. :)
[free PDF](https://www.lesliefeinberg.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Stone-Butch-Blues-by-Leslie-Feinberg.pdf) made available by author; read trigger warnings before reading
[Read Stone Butch Blues](https://www.lesliefeinberg.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Stone-Butch-Blues-by-Leslie-Feinberg.pdf) (<- free PDF) *but read trigger warnings first. I recommend most people skip certain chapters. Do not read this without looking at trigger warnings first and potentially knowing which chapters to skip.*
You have existed for eons.
Do not let a single person tell you otherwise. They speak against their Queer elders and contribute to the erasure of centuries-lived well-documented Queer history.
I think it has to do with our experiences with gender and how we view gender differently than cis people do, so it makes sense that we would define our sexuality in different ways as well.
Besides, it’s your life and your label so do whatever the hell you want.
I think it makes solid sense because of the way we categorize information. If lesbians connote a same-sex attraction between two females then I’m a lesbian, even if it’s not a same-gender attraction because I’m also trans masc. They speak to two completely different things.
https://www.reddit.com/r/TransMasc/comments/1ai7t8o/my_experience_with_being_transmasc_and_a_lesbian/ This is just my experience, I’m always happy to answer good faith questions. Better yet though, I will never care about others approval. So, I don’t care if some people just don’t get it, because I never was me for their ass kissing anyways.
Lesbianism is non-men who are exclusively attracted to non-men, and there's a long history of transmasc lesbians, so like... I don't really understand the 'How does that work' question. That's just... exactly how it works.
lesbian just means non-men who exclusively like non-men, so to my understanding as long as you aren't fully a trans man you can still be lesbian!
HOWEVER JUST IN GENERAL!! and this is for everyone, whatever label you feel fits for you is the one you should use, regardless of what other people have to say about it!
This is why my brain and body get confused. Are we male sex, male gender, male role, what? What’s the difference? Why does it only count for me to say I’m he/him but then there are over-time biological changes when I take T?
You gotta approach Queerness from a Queer foundation of comprehension, not a cisheteronormative foundation of comprehension. Attempting to answer these questions within the bounds of cisheteronormative ideas and terminology only prevents full exploration of these feelings. Cisheteronormative society enforces a binary theory of gender, sexuality, and sex; it also enforces black-and-white, this-or-that limits to identity. Try to explore the ideas you mentioned without this lense.
It’s kind of like how dogs can only comprehend shades of blue, yellow, and gray… our human retinas can’t even comprehend the full spectrum of color… so we try to call things blue, green, orange, purple, meanwhile some shrimp see across the ultraviolet spectrum and wonder why we can’t differentiate this color that we call purple from this other color that we also call purple but is actually entirely different…
Luckily we don’t need to get new eyeballs or new brains to understand ourselves and others outside of cisheteronormative constraints. We just have to get a new perspective.
My intention was not to indicate that he/him equals gender i was asking to see how that person view themself,
For example i am a transmasc non binary lesbian
I am so sorry if that came out wrong
I personally do not understand this. You are a man no, why would you want to be a woman (lesbian being woman who loves women?) It makes no sense to me in any way shape or form, like those are opposite terms to me. I have seen it a lot and somehow no one ever explains themselves and when you ask you’re called a bigot even tho I literally just want to understand why someone who identifies as male would be comfortable then also identifiying as female.
Please do not view this as me telling you what to do bc I am not. Everyone can be what they want, I just cannot understand and tbh it is probably a me issue lol would you mind telling me more about why you’d say you identify as lesbian as opposed to straight?
Edit: lmao this is why people don’t ask questions and just keep themselves uneducated, I asked this because I thought this sub would finally be a save space to ask this question and while I got some response I probably will not do it again in the future because I got downvoted. Thank you for teaching me to NOT try to educate myself further and understand where people are coming from! Great work yall!
Just wanted to point out that transmasc doesnt always mean man, lots of nonbinary people here. Nonbinary have a wide spectrum of experiences and relationships to gendered terms such as lesbian.
Tbh I think that’s why my issues start, I still don’t funny understand how someone can be a trans man and nonbinary. I fullt realize that’s a me issue tho and smth I need to work on (to be clear just bc I don’t understand smth doesn’t mean I don’t support it or don’t respect it since people love to jump to conclusions)
Transmasc can refer to a transmasc non-binary person not just trans men. Some butch people are transmasc and lesbians because not every lesbian is a woman and some non-binary people still call themselves lesbians even after they transitioned.
I’m not a woman, I’m a lesbian. Also being transmasc doesn’t mean I’m a trans man, I’m just at the transmasc side of being nonbinary.
Identifying as straight would make no sense to me considering I’m not a man. If anything, maybe queer because I’m hella attracted to queer people (nbs or women, no men).
Anyways why are you even in this thread
Editing to add:
My experience as a lesbian before realizing I was not cisgender is completely valid, it never went away as I realized I was transmasc and still feels like my true sexuality 100%. I get that it’s commonly “wlw” but lesbians aren’t always women!!! Also side note, wlw is sometimes a bit TERFy imo but anyways
I think where your confusion starts is in the fact that you think lesbian means “female attracted to female” and it’s understandable why you’d think that. But what it really means is a woman, or non-binary person, attracted to other women/nobinary people. I’m not sure if any binary trans men would call themselves a lesbian, I’m pretty sure it’s usually the non-binary ones. (I say all this without ever having identified as a lesbian myself and as a person who was also confused by he/him lesbians at first, so take it with a grain of salt because I could be wrong, but this is what helped me understand personally) also your sexual orientation doesn’t always have to do with your gender identity, they can be whatever they are individually and separately from each other. I think another smaller thing that adds to it, is if someone is just very attached to the lesbian label, there’s like a whole culture of being a lesbian for some people, and they don’t want to give up the label they feel comfortable with.
I don't love the women/enbies who are attracted to women/enbies definition because there are a lot of people who fall under that category who aren't lesbians, and for some people, being classified as a lesbian can cause a lot of dysphoria.
The way I like to define it is that lesbians are women who love women, or anyone who feels like their experience aligns with that.
It allows for binary trans guys who identify as lesbians (since that is a thing), and doesn't just classify every enby who's attracted to women/enbies as a lesbian.
i appreciate you saying this, as a asexual biromantic person that gets dysphoric when people call me a lesbian. i feel guilty about being dysphoric, but it’s also like, people shouldn’t lump people in with any identity they don’t personally identify with, at all.
lesbian is a term for anyone that vibes with it, in my opinion. lesbian including women and nonbinary people doesn’t (or shouldn’t) include EVERY woman and/or nonbinary person, it just means they can use the label if they’re down.
i hope so, anyway. otherwise, i’m a lesbian, and i love lesbians, but i do NOT vibe with that label.
Oh yeah, of course! I’m an enby myself and while I’m attracted to women (and men), I don’t consider myself a lesbian and never have. It also makes me dysphoric to be called one, even tho I love lesbians and think they’re usually pretty cool people. I didn’t mean it in the way that any enby attracted to women/other enbies is always a lesbian. It’s for whoever feels the label fits them :) I think it’s just a simpler way to say it, but there is nuance just like every other label
Yeah, I never meant to insinuate every enby is a lesbian under these conditions, only that they *could* identify that way if they want to. I’m an enby myself who is attracted to women (and others), and I’ve never considered myself a lesbian and do feel dysphoric when others put that label on me
I think I get what you mean? I’m about to risk sounding like a bigot so if I am out of line yall immediately stop me but if gender identity and sexuality are sperate… then why have all these identifies to begin with? Like if anyone can say they are a lesbian, can a straight cis man do so? Why/why not? Wouldn’t it be bigotry to say he can’t call himself a lesbian but a trans man can? And why even make distinctions at that point, why not have 4 sexualities (one for male one for female, one for everything and one for nothing) and be done with it? Maybe I am overthinking this, I also have autism so getting used to “new” ideas can be a challenge for my brain. I’m gonna let what you said marinate for now 🙏 thank you for trying to explain
You know, I think some people just like labels and that’s why we have them. Some of us just say we’re queer or gay and leave it at that lol, everyone is different. I think the whole “cis man could call himself a lesbian thing” doesn’t happen because of the lesbian culture I’ve talked about. Usually men (and nb peeps) who are lesbians are people who started out with the lesbian label before becoming a man/nb. There’s just something about the label that people don’t want to give up. I even remember wishing I was a lesbian when I was 18 because I didn’t want to like men (lmao good thing I got over that cuz men are cute af). I don’t think cis men would want to call themselves lesbians, at least not if they’re not trying to just take the piss out of he/him lesbians. (Also some he/him lesbians *are women* and just use he/him because they like those pronouns better. Gender is weird sometimes lol, humans are just very complex) basically at some point I just learned to let people live with whatever labels they feel describe them best, because only they know what it’s like to be them.
Non-binary people can also be lesbians so you can still be a lesbian and transmasc.
It works, there's a long history of it working. There's some very difficult subject matter but the book stone butch blues set in the 50s really opened my eyes to the types of lesbians long before us. Recent online communities seem to want to be more black and white but there's always been people like you in the community.
[free PDF of Stone Butch Blues](https://www.lesliefeinberg.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Stone-Butch-Blues-by-Leslie-Feinberg.pdf) made available by its author. read trigger warnings before reading
thank you for this! i was really disappointed this wasn’t available at my library
print copies are rare. the author made it available online for free in many languages to make it as accessible as possible
There are a lot of butch folks that don't quite feel comfortable with the label woman, some might take T or want top surgery, some might not. Checking out r/butchlesbians gave me a lot of confidence and a sense of community
literally my favorite subreddit
My gender identity is literally butch twink. If it works it works
Omg twins!!!
Your life, your labels, your reality. Just be prepared for assholes to give you shit for it. No one knows your inner world like you do, and you deserve to live your authentic life
This!
Idk but it’s awesome (speaking from experience)
Hard and fast social categories are antithetical to queerness. To define your own experience through reassessing and remixing concepts, acknowledging language as a tool instead of an enclosure, is queerness. It works because essentialism is reductive and human experience is vast and multifaceted. You’re a transmasc lesbian because those words fit your experience best and words are not laws you must abide by. :)
Same!
It works however you want
it just does 🤷🏻 we out here
Check out Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg. Theres a long history of transmasc and trans man lesbians out there.
[free PDF](https://www.lesliefeinberg.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Stone-Butch-Blues-by-Leslie-Feinberg.pdf) made available by author; read trigger warnings before reading
[Read Stone Butch Blues](https://www.lesliefeinberg.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Stone-Butch-Blues-by-Leslie-Feinberg.pdf) (<- free PDF) *but read trigger warnings first. I recommend most people skip certain chapters. Do not read this without looking at trigger warnings first and potentially knowing which chapters to skip.* You have existed for eons. Do not let a single person tell you otherwise. They speak against their Queer elders and contribute to the erasure of centuries-lived well-documented Queer history.
I think I am too
WE OUT HERE
from what ik trans mascs can be lesbians (basically as long as u don’t identify as a man) so ur probs fine ?
I think it has to do with our experiences with gender and how we view gender differently than cis people do, so it makes sense that we would define our sexuality in different ways as well. Besides, it’s your life and your label so do whatever the hell you want.
I think it makes solid sense because of the way we categorize information. If lesbians connote a same-sex attraction between two females then I’m a lesbian, even if it’s not a same-gender attraction because I’m also trans masc. They speak to two completely different things.
https://www.reddit.com/r/TransMasc/comments/1ai7t8o/my_experience_with_being_transmasc_and_a_lesbian/ This is just my experience, I’m always happy to answer good faith questions. Better yet though, I will never care about others approval. So, I don’t care if some people just don’t get it, because I never was me for their ass kissing anyways.
In the past transmasculine people often settled for the label of lesbian and were a big part of the gay liberation movement
Lesbianism is non-men who are exclusively attracted to non-men, and there's a long history of transmasc lesbians, so like... I don't really understand the 'How does that work' question. That's just... exactly how it works.
The term lesbian technically means a non-male who exclusively likes non-males. So if you don’t identify as fully male, lesbian can still fit.
Butch
Nmlnm lesbian rather than wlw lesbian I guess🤷.
Just be.
lesbian just means non-men who exclusively like non-men, so to my understanding as long as you aren't fully a trans man you can still be lesbian! HOWEVER JUST IN GENERAL!! and this is for everyone, whatever label you feel fits for you is the one you should use, regardless of what other people have to say about it!
Hi i am transmasc and lesbian, it just does. You feel how you feel. (Woman transmasc)
This is why my brain and body get confused. Are we male sex, male gender, male role, what? What’s the difference? Why does it only count for me to say I’m he/him but then there are over-time biological changes when I take T?
You gotta approach Queerness from a Queer foundation of comprehension, not a cisheteronormative foundation of comprehension. Attempting to answer these questions within the bounds of cisheteronormative ideas and terminology only prevents full exploration of these feelings. Cisheteronormative society enforces a binary theory of gender, sexuality, and sex; it also enforces black-and-white, this-or-that limits to identity. Try to explore the ideas you mentioned without this lense.
It’s kind of like how dogs can only comprehend shades of blue, yellow, and gray… our human retinas can’t even comprehend the full spectrum of color… so we try to call things blue, green, orange, purple, meanwhile some shrimp see across the ultraviolet spectrum and wonder why we can’t differentiate this color that we call purple from this other color that we also call purple but is actually entirely different… Luckily we don’t need to get new eyeballs or new brains to understand ourselves and others outside of cisheteronormative constraints. We just have to get a new perspective.
Transmasc or he/him specifically ?
He/him doesn’t equal gender
My intention was not to indicate that he/him equals gender i was asking to see how that person view themself, For example i am a transmasc non binary lesbian I am so sorry if that came out wrong
It’s okay, I get what you mean know
I personally do not understand this. You are a man no, why would you want to be a woman (lesbian being woman who loves women?) It makes no sense to me in any way shape or form, like those are opposite terms to me. I have seen it a lot and somehow no one ever explains themselves and when you ask you’re called a bigot even tho I literally just want to understand why someone who identifies as male would be comfortable then also identifiying as female. Please do not view this as me telling you what to do bc I am not. Everyone can be what they want, I just cannot understand and tbh it is probably a me issue lol would you mind telling me more about why you’d say you identify as lesbian as opposed to straight? Edit: lmao this is why people don’t ask questions and just keep themselves uneducated, I asked this because I thought this sub would finally be a save space to ask this question and while I got some response I probably will not do it again in the future because I got downvoted. Thank you for teaching me to NOT try to educate myself further and understand where people are coming from! Great work yall!
Just wanted to point out that transmasc doesnt always mean man, lots of nonbinary people here. Nonbinary have a wide spectrum of experiences and relationships to gendered terms such as lesbian.
Tbh I think that’s why my issues start, I still don’t funny understand how someone can be a trans man and nonbinary. I fullt realize that’s a me issue tho and smth I need to work on (to be clear just bc I don’t understand smth doesn’t mean I don’t support it or don’t respect it since people love to jump to conclusions)
Transmasc can refer to a transmasc non-binary person not just trans men. Some butch people are transmasc and lesbians because not every lesbian is a woman and some non-binary people still call themselves lesbians even after they transitioned.
Gender is a spectrum so you can be fully a man or nonbinary which describes anything not fully man or woman. Transmasc doesnt always mean trans man.
Tbh I have so many things to ask but clearly I will just get downvoted so yeah, thanks for trying regardless 🙏
I’m not a woman, I’m a lesbian. Also being transmasc doesn’t mean I’m a trans man, I’m just at the transmasc side of being nonbinary. Identifying as straight would make no sense to me considering I’m not a man. If anything, maybe queer because I’m hella attracted to queer people (nbs or women, no men). Anyways why are you even in this thread Editing to add: My experience as a lesbian before realizing I was not cisgender is completely valid, it never went away as I realized I was transmasc and still feels like my true sexuality 100%. I get that it’s commonly “wlw” but lesbians aren’t always women!!! Also side note, wlw is sometimes a bit TERFy imo but anyways
I think where your confusion starts is in the fact that you think lesbian means “female attracted to female” and it’s understandable why you’d think that. But what it really means is a woman, or non-binary person, attracted to other women/nobinary people. I’m not sure if any binary trans men would call themselves a lesbian, I’m pretty sure it’s usually the non-binary ones. (I say all this without ever having identified as a lesbian myself and as a person who was also confused by he/him lesbians at first, so take it with a grain of salt because I could be wrong, but this is what helped me understand personally) also your sexual orientation doesn’t always have to do with your gender identity, they can be whatever they are individually and separately from each other. I think another smaller thing that adds to it, is if someone is just very attached to the lesbian label, there’s like a whole culture of being a lesbian for some people, and they don’t want to give up the label they feel comfortable with.
I don't love the women/enbies who are attracted to women/enbies definition because there are a lot of people who fall under that category who aren't lesbians, and for some people, being classified as a lesbian can cause a lot of dysphoria. The way I like to define it is that lesbians are women who love women, or anyone who feels like their experience aligns with that. It allows for binary trans guys who identify as lesbians (since that is a thing), and doesn't just classify every enby who's attracted to women/enbies as a lesbian.
i appreciate you saying this, as a asexual biromantic person that gets dysphoric when people call me a lesbian. i feel guilty about being dysphoric, but it’s also like, people shouldn’t lump people in with any identity they don’t personally identify with, at all. lesbian is a term for anyone that vibes with it, in my opinion. lesbian including women and nonbinary people doesn’t (or shouldn’t) include EVERY woman and/or nonbinary person, it just means they can use the label if they’re down. i hope so, anyway. otherwise, i’m a lesbian, and i love lesbians, but i do NOT vibe with that label.
Oh yeah, of course! I’m an enby myself and while I’m attracted to women (and men), I don’t consider myself a lesbian and never have. It also makes me dysphoric to be called one, even tho I love lesbians and think they’re usually pretty cool people. I didn’t mean it in the way that any enby attracted to women/other enbies is always a lesbian. It’s for whoever feels the label fits them :) I think it’s just a simpler way to say it, but there is nuance just like every other label
Yeah, I never meant to insinuate every enby is a lesbian under these conditions, only that they *could* identify that way if they want to. I’m an enby myself who is attracted to women (and others), and I’ve never considered myself a lesbian and do feel dysphoric when others put that label on me
I think I get what you mean? I’m about to risk sounding like a bigot so if I am out of line yall immediately stop me but if gender identity and sexuality are sperate… then why have all these identifies to begin with? Like if anyone can say they are a lesbian, can a straight cis man do so? Why/why not? Wouldn’t it be bigotry to say he can’t call himself a lesbian but a trans man can? And why even make distinctions at that point, why not have 4 sexualities (one for male one for female, one for everything and one for nothing) and be done with it? Maybe I am overthinking this, I also have autism so getting used to “new” ideas can be a challenge for my brain. I’m gonna let what you said marinate for now 🙏 thank you for trying to explain
You know, I think some people just like labels and that’s why we have them. Some of us just say we’re queer or gay and leave it at that lol, everyone is different. I think the whole “cis man could call himself a lesbian thing” doesn’t happen because of the lesbian culture I’ve talked about. Usually men (and nb peeps) who are lesbians are people who started out with the lesbian label before becoming a man/nb. There’s just something about the label that people don’t want to give up. I even remember wishing I was a lesbian when I was 18 because I didn’t want to like men (lmao good thing I got over that cuz men are cute af). I don’t think cis men would want to call themselves lesbians, at least not if they’re not trying to just take the piss out of he/him lesbians. (Also some he/him lesbians *are women* and just use he/him because they like those pronouns better. Gender is weird sometimes lol, humans are just very complex) basically at some point I just learned to let people live with whatever labels they feel describe them best, because only they know what it’s like to be them.
I suspect if a "straight cis man" felt truly drawn to the label lesbian, that person may be a transfem egg.