stuffulcourse:

you know ive been thinking on the whole nonbinary lesbian thing and like… my question to people who oppose that label is: what’s a viable alternative? what else can we call ourselves that is simple and cohesive and respectful to lesbian history (and lgbt history as a whole)?

like, im not bisexual. i’m not “gynesexual” (which is gross and fetishistic as a term but that’s a different can of worms). i love women, and as far as my social and political classing goes… i’m grouped with women in most situations because nonbinary identities have been so far removed and erased from my home country’s overarching culture that we have no power as a collective. but the fact that our histories have been erased and our power removed doesn’t change the fact that we do exist. we must just generally “pick a side” of the binary to associate with in the absence of broad recognition.

my gender is essentially “butch.” i call myself a lesbian because of how that word relates me to my partners. this has been a relatively common phenomenon within butch-femme culture for decades (i suggest looking at the work of the late Leslie Feinberg). it’s not a newfangled or particularly complex concept. what it boils down to is “the role and identity i take on within society is separate from the heteropatriarchal construct of womanhood” or beyond that “the role and identity i have is separated from eurocentric definitions of gender” in the case of nonbinary lesbians of color.

people who vehemently oppose the idea of nonbinary lesbians and actively ignore our rich history of trans identity and gender nonconformity pretty much… just hate lesbians existing as lesbians. we have always had complex relationships with gender.