For a little over two years, ever since I decided to stop pursuing men romantically, there’s been a question that has popped into my head every so often: am I… a lesbian now?
I mean, as a woman who is only interested in dating other women, the label would seem to fit. And lots of women are realizing they’re lesbians now. It also would feel, in a way, like fulfilling a long time prophecy: people have been calling me a lesbian since the age of six*. And yet, every time I ask myself this question, the answer that comes back is, definitively, “Absolutely not.”
It’s not that I think there’s anything wrong with being a lesbian**. And it’s not that I think my history of dating men, or even being bisexual, excludes me from the category: plenty of bisexual women proudly claim the the “bi lesbian***” label, and I salute them. I just… am not one of them.
But why?
On its surface, “lesbian” is a simple concept: a woman who is exclusively attracted to, or chooses only to pursue, other women is a lesbian. Full stop. Yet spend even the slightest amount of time amidst Lesbian Discourse™️ and it becomes clear that there’s something more to “lesbian” than simply being a woman who loves women. How else do you explain the fact that people who are emphatically not women also see themselves as lesbians: if lesbianism is solely about ladies loving ladies, then why do we have, not just bi lesbians, but non-binary lesbians and he/him lesbians defending their claim to the lesbian mantle?
I mean, I think it’s pretty obvious. “Lesbians” are not simply girls who bang girls. They are members of subculture, dare I say, a community, one with cultural affiliations and signifiers and rules****. In my youth, I used to chafe at this: why did being attracted to women mean I was expected to play softball and listen to folk music and wear flannel and drive a Subaru (or, if I rejected these things, do it with the intent and purposeful style of a high femme)? Why did lesbian bars and get togethers so very often feel like places where I simply didn’t belong*****? Why did the very word “lesbian” feel like I request that I stay away?
For a long time, I had an obvious answer: I wasn’t a lesbian because I was very obviously bi, and not simply in my attractions. I was actively dating men, had mostly dated men, currently wanted to date men in addition to being a women loving woman. Clearly, that barred me from identifying as a lesbian. But as that rationale began to fall away, the cultural barriers became more clear to me. I had grown up surrounded by messaging that told me that if X, then Y — if woman loving woman, then an affinity for, a connection to, a specific community and a culture. And yet. Here I was, a woman loving woman, and so much stuff labeled “lesbian” still screamed that it was simply not for me. I am not a lesbian, bi or otherwise. That’s just the way it is.
I thought about this recently after a brief chat with another bi woman after she’d posted on Lex****** wondering if other bi women had difficulty dating in queer spaces. When I reached out to her to provide some solidarity, she mentioned that on another app*******, it felt like everyone else presented themselves (and expected others to present themselves) as either butch or femme, whereas she simply felt like… herself, and thus neither. I certainly don’t mean to imply that all lesbians neatly fall into butch or femme, or identify as either (I mean again, non-binary lesbians exist), and yet it is undeniable that these concepts are embedded in lesbian culture and identity, that to be a lesbian is to understand these concepts as part of the whole package.
Are there lesbians — in the sense of women with exclusive attraction to other women — who don’t feel like lesbians in the sense of being a part of a community? Probably! As footnote number four points out, there are many men who have sex with men (and sometimes exclusively) who reject both “bi” and “gay” as labels for their own various and sundry reasons; it’s not hard to imagine that there might be a female equivalent. Are bi women more likely to feel this disconnect? I don’t know — though I do know there are many bi women who don’t feel this disconnect, hence the very existence of bi lesbians, the category I now keep circling around without ever feeling a part of.
Will I ever stop asking myself this question? I mean, probably not, since I have obsessive-compulsive disorder, and part of my entire deal is constantly asking myself the same question even after it’s already been answered********. But I also know that as many times as I ask it, the answer is going to come back the same: I’m a woman whose current behavior, whose attractions, could certainly qualify her for the lesbian label. And yet I am not a lesbian. It’s just as simple as that.
[UP TOMORROW: If lesbians have a culture, and gays have a culture, do the bisexuals have a culture too?]
* Well, some people. A first grade classmate, the girl in high school who prompted my bi awakening, my abusive ex-boyfriend…
** Some of my best friends are lesbians, etc; if you’re reading this, Debra, this is me giving you a shout out
*** It has been argued that even Sappho, the Alpha Lesbian herself, might have been bi, in which case bi lesbians are the most valid lesbians. I said this once on Twitter, as a joke, and immediately got dog piled by angry lesbian teenagers. Very fun day.
**** And it’s not just the lesbians; there’s a reason why “men who have sex with men” is a broader and often more useful category than “gay men,” and it’s not just because of bi dudes.
***** Cue the traumatic memory of the queer writer who wrote a lightly fictionalized version of hooking up with me for one of her columns and said that I was straight
****** If you don’t know Lex it’s a text-forward queer dating/community app that I honestly hate but cannot quit because I’m single and it seems to be… where the queers are
******* HER, formerly known as Dattch
******** Therapy has done wonders for me though!