To begin with I should say that I did not see the offending tweet, it was deleted before I caught wind of it. All I know is that a hacker who leaked the TSA’s No Fly List also had a tweet talking about being a bi lesbian, and this, it seems, made people mad. Teenage queers started losing their shit over this, as teenage queers are wont to do; I would be more harsh about that but the truth is I remember very well what it was like to be a teenager who got up in arms over the dumbest possible shit, so I can’t really judge them too hard.
I myself am not a bi lesbian, largely owing to the fact that “lesbian” has never really felt like an identity or a label that actually fit for me, but if you are, good for you. You feel like a dyke who is attracted to genders beyond just women? I love that for you. I hope you have a great time being in lesbian communities doing lesbian things while being attracted to whoever you want. It sounds like a delight.
It’s funny to me, too, that it’s always the bi lesbians who seem to make people mad. There are certainly bi men who are primarily gay identified, who largely spend their time in gay spaces and gay communities despite also having attractions that aren’t strictly gay, and no one really seems to give a shit. Alan Cumming seems like he’s probably one of them (did you forget that Alan Cumming is bi?) and if Lil Nas X has decided he is a little bi for really real, then he clearly seems like a gay-identified bi man too. I think the reason no one actually gives a shit about these dudes is because the going assumption is that they’re all actually gay and just in denial about it, so who really cares, you know? Whereas bi lesbians are… trying to get that hot hot lesbian cred I guess? I really don’t know what people think bi lesbians are trying to accomplish by adopting the label (other than “feeling seen”), though I suppose that like all the panics about bi women there’s this assumption that somehow bi lesbians are gonna bring men into the lesbian community, that somehow bi lesbians are going to force all lesbian lesbians to fuck men.
That’s what it is, right?
Anyway all of this — it’s so dumb, you know? People act like gay, lesbian, bi, straight, like all these words are something with Deep Meaning™️, like if you did enough research into the genome you could one day get some 23andMe results that tell you what your genetic coding says about your sexual attractions. Lesbians bleed this color and bisexuals bleed that color and godforbid you mix em up, you know?
But it’s just vibes, people. Bisexual, lesbian, gay, straight — sure, they mean something, and sure they shape your lived experience and all that, but at the end of the day it’s just language to express a feeling, an affinity. Just rough labels to help the world understand you better — to the extent the world ever could, you know? That’s all “bi lesbian” (or “he/him lesbian” or “non-binary lesbian” or what have you) is doing; it’s saying you are a person in community with the type of people historically referred to as lesbians, and that you are also bi (or he/him or non-binary or whatever else). It’s just a way of expressing your rough location in the world. It’s just a way of trying to find a precise point in the midst of what is, ultimately, the sea of chaos that is human sexuality.
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The "bi lesbian" thing really annoys me - it just feels very biphobic. Like, either you're standing up in your truth about being bi or you're not - and if you're not, you're passing for straight or lesbian. Which, fine, if you want to identify as lesbian even though your attractions are bi - your decision! But don't both sides it, because inherent in the idea of "bi lesbian" is the notion that bi women are not to be trusted, politically or in terms of relationship loyalty. Why would you say "bi lesbian" unless you were experiencing biphobia from the queer community?
I'm a little unclear on the exact definition of bi lesbian is but it seems like there ought to be a word for "bi woman who chooses to primarily date other women even though she's attracted to multiple genders". Seems like a more concrete thing to focus on than some vague sense of "identifying with lesbian culture".