I tried to explain to my straight friend why entering the women’s bar was going through “the magic door.” She didn’t understand what made the bar different from a bar that included men. I explained, I could let my guard down. I said, When a man comes into a room, he dominates the space. She didn’t get it.
What are some possible explanations for why there are fewer lesbian spaces now than in the past?
1. The internet- the advent of the internet and online dating allowed queer people of all types to meet and date without gathering in cities or in a small selection of urban bars and clubs.
2. Women’s economic rights (ie the right to own property and have a line of credit without a man’s signature), same-sex marriage, and advancements in reproductive technology and accessibility= more same-sex couples are starting families and living in the suburbs, etc. Thus, not really showing up to spend money in bars/clubs/queer spaces.
This one I know from personal experience. I know tons of lesbians and I met them all at the park because we’re a bunch of moms now.
3. Lesbians, on average, tend to be less likely than some gay men to have open relationships and therefore are less motivated to go out to bars/clubs and spend money to keep those places profitable once they are in a committed relationship.
4. Unlike the rest of queer culture, lesbians haven’t adapted their spaces to grow with the times. Being a Drag Race fan myself, I’ve watch Ru Paul go from insisting a drag queen can only be a gay cis man to embracing trans and non-binary queens as well as a lesbian drag queen. The art of drag has only become more profound and inspiring due to this evolution of inclusion. Drag queens have also embraced straight cis fans. Yes, they have boundaries and rules for how the performers are to be respected but they are still profitable because they don’t insist on everyone in the space sharing their exact identity. Not only that but they have become ambassadors of love and inclusion, helping queer kids of all types learn to love themselves and reaching out to the rest of the world in the name of LGBTQ rights.
All of these are reasons you all could’ve considered before jumping directly to trans and biphobia.
You also could’ve considered that the only reason we enjoy the rights we have now is that many trans women and gay men put their lives on the line to fight for us and alongside us. And dykes used to fight right alongside gay men. In fact, lesbian women organized blood drives and became legal caretakers for gay men who were dying of AIDS in the 80s. So this myth or fantasy that we were all completely exclusionary is incorrect.
Right now, our trans sisters and bothers are under attack. They are being arrested for using the bathroom. And instead of rallying to defend the other letters in our rainbow family, I am so disappointed to see that you all are choosing to spend your time and energy on lamenting the lack of public spaces where trans and bi people are further discriminated against.
In my 20s, I used to go to lesbian summer camps for adults. Trans women and men and nonbinary people attended as well. Many of them are still friends of mine because you don’t have to share every single identity marker with someone to learn from them or work with them or organize with them or have conversations about what it is like to live in this world as a queer person.
Since joining Substack, I am very disappointed to see that many lesbians have lost the art of being an ally.
Supporting other people and listening to other people doesn’t mean that your voice can’t also be heard. Sharing space doesn’t diminish your identity. You are no less of a lesbian if you are dating or friends with trans and bi people. You are still a lesbian no matter what space you are in, so if you want to be seen, show up. Show up without demanding that everyone in your vicinity be exactly like you.
And don’t tell me that it is more dangerous for you to be in spaces than it is for a trans woman.
White feminist started out wanting to exclude lesbians and women of color from their movement. It was wrong then and it is still wrong now.
Everyone gets to choose who they date, who they welcome into their homes, who they consider family, but in public spaces there will always be the need for inclusion.
You don’t need more echo chambers where you are around people who agree with you. You need to go out into the world and widen your circle.
Before you continue to spread this toxic rhetoric, go out and listen to the people you are trying to exclude.
Ask not what your queer community can do for you, but what you can do for your queer community.
Because right now, we need a real butch. The kind of butch who is strong enough to hold her dying gay friend in her arms and know that her fight for him only makes the world better for us all.
I discovered your substack and it has been a pleasure to read your essays to find someone who articulates so clearly and passionately what has happened to the lesbian scene in the last few years. It has been devastated by gender ideology, in fact, I think the new ‘lesbians’ want lesbians to get the hell out. And I do feel that the word lesbian has been taken (and dyke too)and we might even need to find a new descriptor for ourselves.
My background - I’m old now (66) a London lesbian who didn’t know what she had in the 80’s, My partner and I have been together in a loving relationship for 42 years, we went to clubs and socialised every week there was always something going on at the weekend in the 80’s/early 90’s. You know how thrilling and beautiful it can be to enter a lesbian (or at least a women’s space) and the vibe it has. Totally unlike anything else. Things were moving forward, it seemed like things would just keep on getting better and better and easier and easier to be a lesbian.
Events weren’t entirely lesbian but they were women only and that was respected. If men tried to come it was usually straight drunk ones and they would be prevented by the women on the door. Men who thought they were lesbians just did not exist. In the early 80s I went to a weekly group called Deptford Dykes which was a talking, chat group to discuss issues and problems and also meet other lesbians in a space that wasn’t a bar. It was held in the local women’s centre. None of those now.
It’s very sad to me that it’s women who have ushered this in, and police it. I’m not really aware of what the youngsters are doing now, but I know that they don’t want the word lesbian and call themselves non binary most of them. It seems to be a flight from womanhood itself and also a protective shield to keep men away. Lesbian is a porn category and is seen as exclusionary and as we know everything has to be inclusive to everyone now.
We know what we are - same sex attracted - we are only attracted to other women. LGB Alliance in the UK has started to organise friends groups around the country for people to meet and socialise, and maybe that’s what lesbians need to do too. Start from scratch - small groups, invitation only to new members, just to socialise and talk and organise and have a clear NO. Small seeds… There’s also a lesbian strength march, started up in Leeds, UK which I have not got to yet but will do next year. Proper lesbians too! Not your anyone can be anything dyke march.
The young ones I think want what we had but most of them have swallowed the idea that they have to include everyone or they are being mean, or bigoted. And believe me, I would be afraid too, to lose my friends and peer group - it’s one of the hardest things anyone has to go through. So they can’t say NO, and as we know, if you can’t say no, and have boundaries - well you will lose what you have and people just walk all over you. The young dykes need the older generation to be visible, an example of how you could be. To give them the courage to start to create their own communities, with clear boundaries, and learn to say NO and keep it saying it. Even to their friends and people they care about.
You hit the mark on this one. It's hard these days to have this conversation because so many in the lesbian community feel pressured to embrace anyone and everyone who wants to be under the LGBTQ+++ umbrella. We must all have our sacred spaces, especially lesbians. We will be erased if we don't push back, which is a hard act inside a pressure cooker.
Excellent writing! Great layout of how we have lost our right to gather. A basic and understood right in the US. We lost them to any male who at any time can say they are trans women. We are being attacked for being exclusionary. The exclude is no males in female spaces. Such a simple concept.
No, everyone is not a lesbian. Bi lesbian, non-man loving non-man. I’m am enraged by that and that a non-binary male is now a fucking lesbian. I’m fine with the concept of a transbian but that doesn’t mean they have to be invited to every single thing. Now any male can be a lesbian and we aren’t bitches, TERFs, transphobic for wanting to even have an event for ourselves. I’m well part the point of playing nice. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
>“Wlw”, “sapphic” or “queer women” spaces are all about “aesthetics” and presenting lesbianism as an hyper-feminine, soft thing.
YES, THANK YOU FOR SAYING THAT. When I identified as bi, I had many doubts about my attraction to females, because I also couldn’t relate to that vision of female homosexuality - or be attracted to hyper-feminine women, or find all women attractive (as many bi women say). I couldn’t embrace aesthetic stereotypes of how bi/les women look like, which many young women implemented in their life and proudly showed on social media (subculture dresscode?). With transgender option on the table, I thought I’m just bi man and I’m attracted to masculinity, because I admire more masculine women.
(Embarrassing anecdote: not so long ago I was looking at photos of young Angela Merkel and omg she was so hot, instant crush. But I spiraled into thinking that I’m not attracted to women if I’m into masculine woman. Then occurred to me that Angela Merkel has a husband and to literally everyone who isn’t infected with queer ideology she’s clearly a woman.)
I have experience from the other side; maybe the only conclusion of my comment will be that there’s harm caused by experimenting with labels by youth. Anyway I used to identify as bi for ~10 years (until this year, I’m 29) because - among many issues - I knew I felt attraction to women and wasn’t sure what is sexual attraction anyway, how I feel about men (I got into 4 years of desexualised relationship with a man). My social circle was progressive left, very online, but offline as well. Lesbians were my outgroup, as they were mostly militant about uniqueness of lesbian experience - which caused either their exclusion of the community, a lot of vitriol or aura of inaccessibility. I haven’t met many inclusive types and inclusive types also played idpol game, treating lesbianism as another league, highest status (however they were friendly and had appropriate politics). As result I couldn’t relate to lesbians, couldn’t think of myself as a lesbian and *really* didn’t want to be one. And it’s sad. Because, what I realized, a lesbian is a female attracted exclusively to other females, not subculture - so I belong there by default, whether I like it or not.
I haven’t been in lesbian-only space ever. When I searched for ANYTHING in Poland in 2024, I couldn’t find it, literally no initiatives aimed at lesbians. I don’t even know whether I want to attend L-only events, because currently I’m too exhausted for attending LGB events, nevermind LGBT/queer. I don’t want to have queer community in my life anymore, at any dose, without them I feel so much better. Excellent point about their immaturity.
I’m back with more rambling to clarify: I’m not mad at lesbians for gatekeeping (tbh I never was), I’m bitter that lesbian and gay rights became subculture devoid of homosexuality. I wish I could just connect with lesbians as young adult, but I encountered people fluent in millions of lgbt+ labels, idpol status games and gender.
Pat Califa was a big butch dyke, 3rd wave feminist, who wrote fascinating works on hardcore lesbian sex. Some of your writing reminds me of hers.
“butch/femme as a viable language of lesbian passion instead of as an embarrassing anachronism eschewed by enlightened modern lesbians. And casual sex! And dildos! And..well,”
About her first book on lesbian sex.
“These early publishing experiences taught me several things. First of all, I found out that the dyke on the street wanted to talk about sex. She might have a lot of questions, she might want to argue about whether or not it was okay for women to use pornography or tie each other up or strap it on. But she was willing to talk about it. And she most definitely did not want feminist newspaper editors or bookstore owners telling her what she could and could not read, think about, talk about, or perform as a sexual experiment. Women did not want to be protected from controversy or from new ideas. Most lesbians were really clear that sex was an important part of their lives, and they were happy to hear anything that would make sex easier, more fun, more available, and less terrifying.”
Or
“While coming out as an S/M dyke and looking for kindred souls, I found out that lesbian life was a lot more diverse than the stock portrayals of our community in the lesbian-feminist fiction of the '80s. There was no such thing as a typical or average lesbian. There were bar butches, femmes who came out in the '50s, lesbian sex workers, couples, who had been monogamous for forty years, bikers and their babes, girls whose sex partners outnumbered the population of Alaska, […] lesbians in cross-generational relationships, and a hundred more "types." We came in all colors, classes, ages, and physical (dis)abilities. This rich, complex body of interlocking social networks never got portrayed in print because, I believe, our writers were ashamed of us.”
And
“Even in the '80s, many lesbian authors, in bids for literary legitimacy, chose to remain closeted and write about things other than their own lives. Even novelists, journalists, and academics who were ostensibly out of the closet could only bear to write about lesbian reality in sanitized, strained, and compartmentalized ways. It was almost as if on some level they were still hoping to have Mom or the parish priest pat them on their heads and say, "There, there, I understand now. Being a lesbian is a good thing. You're not a sexual misfit. You're a freedom fighter."
And
“Many of the women whom this assimilationist literature rendered invisible were the most visibly lesbian members of our community. Most of them had never had to come out because people had started telling them they were queers when they were just little kids. They could not and would not hide their dyke identities. They were committed to living in the company of and for the good of other women. They had kept a lesbian community alive through very hard times. They defended the bars where women's-studies majors who despised them went cruising. Their physical and emotional scars from those battles frightened middle-class white girls who formed their lesbian identities over books by Ti-Grace Atkinson, Kate Millett, and Shulamith Firestone. But Amazons always have scars. It drove me crazy that these women, who were my ancestors and heroes, were being written off and ignored. Not only did they get beaten up, ridiculed, and pathologized by straight society, but their own elite, their own intelligentsia, wanted to deny them a place in our history. It was plain wrong.”
And
“Rich's essay is a brilliant explication of the way our society denies, punishes, and ruthlessly eliminates lesbianism. But she seems every bit as afraid of lesbian lust as the people and institutions who hunt us down. Why can sexual preference be dismissed with the adjective “mere"? Is it such a little thing to know in every fiber of your being that only a woman's touch will ignite your body and heart and make your life whole? Why can't sex be honored for its own sake, instead of being prettified by the euphemism "the erotic" and blurred with human experience…”
Exuberant would be a word for her early writing, but within it lay a seed of challenges. She never fully appreciated the need for realizing a female-only lesbian world to explore the possibilities of love and sex she wrote of. That the forces of misogynistic men were fairly insidious, innocuous, “marginalized” at first, and would gradually refuse to admit the existence of lesbians altogether, that the appropriation pf female would grow into a refusal to admit women existed too.
Dystopia:
There emerged somewhat recently a class of older bulldyke or butch or stone butch lesbian who suddenly decided to appear as male, and used chemistry or surgery to remove what they felt was female from their bodies. One of those was Pat / Patrick.
When I found out I was flummoxed.
Your writing gave concrete form to the disturbance and surprise I had.
Straight females and males often remark how great it is that gays and lesbians are “accepted”, and there is no more “need” for gay or lesbian bars.
My comment was always “it’s not that we needed protection from police, it’s that we needed protection from precisely that sentiment”.
"The mental fragility knows no bounds: nobody has a real job...." Man oh man I've been saying this for ages!!!! The stupid is at Max level and I just cannot deal!!!
There is something to be said for Western obsession with navel-gazing because no "real" problems to worry about and its even more heightened amongst so-called marginalized communities whereby tacking on another victim-card is a sure-fire way to win the oppression Olympics.
As for "mean dykes..." being bodyguards....I naturally gravitate towards protector role BUT I am no longer willing to pay a high price. I am not altruistic except for me and mine and babies.
Sometimes when I'm indulging in hope/fantasy, I imagine small pockets of lesbian resistance whereby there are tests/deeds that must be done to prove that you deserve entry and of course checks and balances to hold all accountable. But what would that look like in reality.....?!
Excellent writing as always!!! I feel the same as your fiancee when I occasionally attend events out of loneliness. I always leave feeling even more lonely and isolated and I live close to a metropolitan city. I miss Sisters before it became fully colonized. Thursday nights were awesome!
You are right to say that the victim card is often played by those who have no real problems, often as a way to gain sympathy. Victimhood is a huge currency in our present culture — the more you can get, the more attention you receive...
I am discussing the issues with access to lesbian spaces & what we could potentially do about it in part 2, which I am releasing tomorrow — hope to see you there.
Sisters was a club back in the day in Center City Philadelphia. On Thursdays, it was $5 entry after 9pm and there was always a nice buffet of free hot food to eat and cheap drinks all night. Plus karaoke and two floors. It was a haven, especially for young'uns.
This is incredible! You always knock it out of the park with your writing.
Emotionally immaturity is a common theme of experiences in the modern "queer" scene. I feel it's a perfect description, but I can't articulate what exactly is emotionally immature.
There are above average cohorts of both autistic & personality disorders in this identity group. Autistic people are perfect targets for narcissistic abuse & manipulation, (a documented phenomenon). I'd say majority are also undiagnosed. Abuse, particularly in the form of gaslighting/reality manipulation, is normalized & canonized via a culture wide belief system & value set, from which there is NO dissent lest you be instantly & permanently ostracized. Its not an accident these mental health issues are so predominant. Predatory & machiavellian types have a unique opportunity in claiming the new completely undefinable and therefore optional marginality because it provides both a bulletproof cover and a rich selection of potential supply/targets.
You're spot-on. There are a lot of bad actors/personality disorder types in the queer cult.
Lesbians are already a vulnerable minority. A lot of the ones who get trapped in these circles seem to be also autistic, which makes for double danger to manipulation & predation.
Immaturity is perhaps a problem of our society at large, but I found it very accentuated in the queer cohorts. From my perspective, it has a lot to do with the inability to think critically, withstand criticism, cries of victimhood and so on.
I tried to explain to my straight friend why entering the women’s bar was going through “the magic door.” She didn’t understand what made the bar different from a bar that included men. I explained, I could let my guard down. I said, When a man comes into a room, he dominates the space. She didn’t get it.
Oh, wait, I missed one.
5. Gen Z drinks less (cannabis legalized, alcohol health concerns, and isolation due to online distractions).
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2025/03/gen-zers-dont-know-how-to-go-to-bars-are-lesbian-bars-in-danger/
What are some possible explanations for why there are fewer lesbian spaces now than in the past?
1. The internet- the advent of the internet and online dating allowed queer people of all types to meet and date without gathering in cities or in a small selection of urban bars and clubs.
2. Women’s economic rights (ie the right to own property and have a line of credit without a man’s signature), same-sex marriage, and advancements in reproductive technology and accessibility= more same-sex couples are starting families and living in the suburbs, etc. Thus, not really showing up to spend money in bars/clubs/queer spaces.
This one I know from personal experience. I know tons of lesbians and I met them all at the park because we’re a bunch of moms now.
3. Lesbians, on average, tend to be less likely than some gay men to have open relationships and therefore are less motivated to go out to bars/clubs and spend money to keep those places profitable once they are in a committed relationship.
4. Unlike the rest of queer culture, lesbians haven’t adapted their spaces to grow with the times. Being a Drag Race fan myself, I’ve watch Ru Paul go from insisting a drag queen can only be a gay cis man to embracing trans and non-binary queens as well as a lesbian drag queen. The art of drag has only become more profound and inspiring due to this evolution of inclusion. Drag queens have also embraced straight cis fans. Yes, they have boundaries and rules for how the performers are to be respected but they are still profitable because they don’t insist on everyone in the space sharing their exact identity. Not only that but they have become ambassadors of love and inclusion, helping queer kids of all types learn to love themselves and reaching out to the rest of the world in the name of LGBTQ rights.
All of these are reasons you all could’ve considered before jumping directly to trans and biphobia.
You also could’ve considered that the only reason we enjoy the rights we have now is that many trans women and gay men put their lives on the line to fight for us and alongside us. And dykes used to fight right alongside gay men. In fact, lesbian women organized blood drives and became legal caretakers for gay men who were dying of AIDS in the 80s. So this myth or fantasy that we were all completely exclusionary is incorrect.
Right now, our trans sisters and bothers are under attack. They are being arrested for using the bathroom. And instead of rallying to defend the other letters in our rainbow family, I am so disappointed to see that you all are choosing to spend your time and energy on lamenting the lack of public spaces where trans and bi people are further discriminated against.
In my 20s, I used to go to lesbian summer camps for adults. Trans women and men and nonbinary people attended as well. Many of them are still friends of mine because you don’t have to share every single identity marker with someone to learn from them or work with them or organize with them or have conversations about what it is like to live in this world as a queer person.
Since joining Substack, I am very disappointed to see that many lesbians have lost the art of being an ally.
Supporting other people and listening to other people doesn’t mean that your voice can’t also be heard. Sharing space doesn’t diminish your identity. You are no less of a lesbian if you are dating or friends with trans and bi people. You are still a lesbian no matter what space you are in, so if you want to be seen, show up. Show up without demanding that everyone in your vicinity be exactly like you.
And don’t tell me that it is more dangerous for you to be in spaces than it is for a trans woman.
White feminist started out wanting to exclude lesbians and women of color from their movement. It was wrong then and it is still wrong now.
Everyone gets to choose who they date, who they welcome into their homes, who they consider family, but in public spaces there will always be the need for inclusion.
You don’t need more echo chambers where you are around people who agree with you. You need to go out into the world and widen your circle.
Before you continue to spread this toxic rhetoric, go out and listen to the people you are trying to exclude.
Ask not what your queer community can do for you, but what you can do for your queer community.
Because right now, we need a real butch. The kind of butch who is strong enough to hold her dying gay friend in her arms and know that her fight for him only makes the world better for us all.
“The saddest thing about this is the complicity of lesbians.” No lie. Especially the ones controlling the institutions.
This is exactly what I mean when I say that biphobia and transphobia go hand in hand. Congratulations for being a case study
I had to go to the comments because this is what I was thinking halfway through and I am so glad I found one oh my god.
I am a he/him lesbian dating a bisexual. If I were not allowed in lesbian spaces with my girlfriend I would be sick.
Biphobia and transphobia have no place in lesbian spaces, just as much as men have no place.
Spot on !!! Thank you
Dear Critical butch,
I discovered your substack and it has been a pleasure to read your essays to find someone who articulates so clearly and passionately what has happened to the lesbian scene in the last few years. It has been devastated by gender ideology, in fact, I think the new ‘lesbians’ want lesbians to get the hell out. And I do feel that the word lesbian has been taken (and dyke too)and we might even need to find a new descriptor for ourselves.
My background - I’m old now (66) a London lesbian who didn’t know what she had in the 80’s, My partner and I have been together in a loving relationship for 42 years, we went to clubs and socialised every week there was always something going on at the weekend in the 80’s/early 90’s. You know how thrilling and beautiful it can be to enter a lesbian (or at least a women’s space) and the vibe it has. Totally unlike anything else. Things were moving forward, it seemed like things would just keep on getting better and better and easier and easier to be a lesbian.
Events weren’t entirely lesbian but they were women only and that was respected. If men tried to come it was usually straight drunk ones and they would be prevented by the women on the door. Men who thought they were lesbians just did not exist. In the early 80s I went to a weekly group called Deptford Dykes which was a talking, chat group to discuss issues and problems and also meet other lesbians in a space that wasn’t a bar. It was held in the local women’s centre. None of those now.
It’s very sad to me that it’s women who have ushered this in, and police it. I’m not really aware of what the youngsters are doing now, but I know that they don’t want the word lesbian and call themselves non binary most of them. It seems to be a flight from womanhood itself and also a protective shield to keep men away. Lesbian is a porn category and is seen as exclusionary and as we know everything has to be inclusive to everyone now.
We know what we are - same sex attracted - we are only attracted to other women. LGB Alliance in the UK has started to organise friends groups around the country for people to meet and socialise, and maybe that’s what lesbians need to do too. Start from scratch - small groups, invitation only to new members, just to socialise and talk and organise and have a clear NO. Small seeds… There’s also a lesbian strength march, started up in Leeds, UK which I have not got to yet but will do next year. Proper lesbians too! Not your anyone can be anything dyke march.
The young ones I think want what we had but most of them have swallowed the idea that they have to include everyone or they are being mean, or bigoted. And believe me, I would be afraid too, to lose my friends and peer group - it’s one of the hardest things anyone has to go through. So they can’t say NO, and as we know, if you can’t say no, and have boundaries - well you will lose what you have and people just walk all over you. The young dykes need the older generation to be visible, an example of how you could be. To give them the courage to start to create their own communities, with clear boundaries, and learn to say NO and keep it saying it. Even to their friends and people they care about.
Best wishes & keep on writing, Nel
You hit the mark on this one. It's hard these days to have this conversation because so many in the lesbian community feel pressured to embrace anyone and everyone who wants to be under the LGBTQ+++ umbrella. We must all have our sacred spaces, especially lesbians. We will be erased if we don't push back, which is a hard act inside a pressure cooker.
Hi Kay, thank you for your thoughtful comment.
It's a hard conversation to have indeed. But I think - if we don't do it, who will?
Excellent writing! Great layout of how we have lost our right to gather. A basic and understood right in the US. We lost them to any male who at any time can say they are trans women. We are being attacked for being exclusionary. The exclude is no males in female spaces. Such a simple concept.
No, everyone is not a lesbian. Bi lesbian, non-man loving non-man. I’m am enraged by that and that a non-binary male is now a fucking lesbian. I’m fine with the concept of a transbian but that doesn’t mean they have to be invited to every single thing. Now any male can be a lesbian and we aren’t bitches, TERFs, transphobic for wanting to even have an event for ourselves. I’m well part the point of playing nice. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
>“Wlw”, “sapphic” or “queer women” spaces are all about “aesthetics” and presenting lesbianism as an hyper-feminine, soft thing.
YES, THANK YOU FOR SAYING THAT. When I identified as bi, I had many doubts about my attraction to females, because I also couldn’t relate to that vision of female homosexuality - or be attracted to hyper-feminine women, or find all women attractive (as many bi women say). I couldn’t embrace aesthetic stereotypes of how bi/les women look like, which many young women implemented in their life and proudly showed on social media (subculture dresscode?). With transgender option on the table, I thought I’m just bi man and I’m attracted to masculinity, because I admire more masculine women.
(Embarrassing anecdote: not so long ago I was looking at photos of young Angela Merkel and omg she was so hot, instant crush. But I spiraled into thinking that I’m not attracted to women if I’m into masculine woman. Then occurred to me that Angela Merkel has a husband and to literally everyone who isn’t infected with queer ideology she’s clearly a woman.)
I have experience from the other side; maybe the only conclusion of my comment will be that there’s harm caused by experimenting with labels by youth. Anyway I used to identify as bi for ~10 years (until this year, I’m 29) because - among many issues - I knew I felt attraction to women and wasn’t sure what is sexual attraction anyway, how I feel about men (I got into 4 years of desexualised relationship with a man). My social circle was progressive left, very online, but offline as well. Lesbians were my outgroup, as they were mostly militant about uniqueness of lesbian experience - which caused either their exclusion of the community, a lot of vitriol or aura of inaccessibility. I haven’t met many inclusive types and inclusive types also played idpol game, treating lesbianism as another league, highest status (however they were friendly and had appropriate politics). As result I couldn’t relate to lesbians, couldn’t think of myself as a lesbian and *really* didn’t want to be one. And it’s sad. Because, what I realized, a lesbian is a female attracted exclusively to other females, not subculture - so I belong there by default, whether I like it or not.
I haven’t been in lesbian-only space ever. When I searched for ANYTHING in Poland in 2024, I couldn’t find it, literally no initiatives aimed at lesbians. I don’t even know whether I want to attend L-only events, because currently I’m too exhausted for attending LGB events, nevermind LGBT/queer. I don’t want to have queer community in my life anymore, at any dose, without them I feel so much better. Excellent point about their immaturity.
I’m back with more rambling to clarify: I’m not mad at lesbians for gatekeeping (tbh I never was), I’m bitter that lesbian and gay rights became subculture devoid of homosexuality. I wish I could just connect with lesbians as young adult, but I encountered people fluent in millions of lgbt+ labels, idpol status games and gender.
Excellent writing! Very condense yet so much thought provoking!
100% Brilliant Piece
I got a Christmas card from “Patrick” Califa today
How she looks I won’t say
I just saw “The Substance” then read this
We are in the dystopia we’ve seen and read
It will change.
Fight.
Thank you for your comment.
'Dystopia' is the perfect word to describe what we're discussing.
Who is Patrick Califa?
Someone who transitioned decades ago.
Pat Califa was a big butch dyke, 3rd wave feminist, who wrote fascinating works on hardcore lesbian sex. Some of your writing reminds me of hers.
“butch/femme as a viable language of lesbian passion instead of as an embarrassing anachronism eschewed by enlightened modern lesbians. And casual sex! And dildos! And..well,”
About her first book on lesbian sex.
“These early publishing experiences taught me several things. First of all, I found out that the dyke on the street wanted to talk about sex. She might have a lot of questions, she might want to argue about whether or not it was okay for women to use pornography or tie each other up or strap it on. But she was willing to talk about it. And she most definitely did not want feminist newspaper editors or bookstore owners telling her what she could and could not read, think about, talk about, or perform as a sexual experiment. Women did not want to be protected from controversy or from new ideas. Most lesbians were really clear that sex was an important part of their lives, and they were happy to hear anything that would make sex easier, more fun, more available, and less terrifying.”
Or
“While coming out as an S/M dyke and looking for kindred souls, I found out that lesbian life was a lot more diverse than the stock portrayals of our community in the lesbian-feminist fiction of the '80s. There was no such thing as a typical or average lesbian. There were bar butches, femmes who came out in the '50s, lesbian sex workers, couples, who had been monogamous for forty years, bikers and their babes, girls whose sex partners outnumbered the population of Alaska, […] lesbians in cross-generational relationships, and a hundred more "types." We came in all colors, classes, ages, and physical (dis)abilities. This rich, complex body of interlocking social networks never got portrayed in print because, I believe, our writers were ashamed of us.”
And
“Even in the '80s, many lesbian authors, in bids for literary legitimacy, chose to remain closeted and write about things other than their own lives. Even novelists, journalists, and academics who were ostensibly out of the closet could only bear to write about lesbian reality in sanitized, strained, and compartmentalized ways. It was almost as if on some level they were still hoping to have Mom or the parish priest pat them on their heads and say, "There, there, I understand now. Being a lesbian is a good thing. You're not a sexual misfit. You're a freedom fighter."
And
“Many of the women whom this assimilationist literature rendered invisible were the most visibly lesbian members of our community. Most of them had never had to come out because people had started telling them they were queers when they were just little kids. They could not and would not hide their dyke identities. They were committed to living in the company of and for the good of other women. They had kept a lesbian community alive through very hard times. They defended the bars where women's-studies majors who despised them went cruising. Their physical and emotional scars from those battles frightened middle-class white girls who formed their lesbian identities over books by Ti-Grace Atkinson, Kate Millett, and Shulamith Firestone. But Amazons always have scars. It drove me crazy that these women, who were my ancestors and heroes, were being written off and ignored. Not only did they get beaten up, ridiculed, and pathologized by straight society, but their own elite, their own intelligentsia, wanted to deny them a place in our history. It was plain wrong.”
And
“Rich's essay is a brilliant explication of the way our society denies, punishes, and ruthlessly eliminates lesbianism. But she seems every bit as afraid of lesbian lust as the people and institutions who hunt us down. Why can sexual preference be dismissed with the adjective “mere"? Is it such a little thing to know in every fiber of your being that only a woman's touch will ignite your body and heart and make your life whole? Why can't sex be honored for its own sake, instead of being prettified by the euphemism "the erotic" and blurred with human experience…”
Exuberant would be a word for her early writing, but within it lay a seed of challenges. She never fully appreciated the need for realizing a female-only lesbian world to explore the possibilities of love and sex she wrote of. That the forces of misogynistic men were fairly insidious, innocuous, “marginalized” at first, and would gradually refuse to admit the existence of lesbians altogether, that the appropriation pf female would grow into a refusal to admit women existed too.
Dystopia:
There emerged somewhat recently a class of older bulldyke or butch or stone butch lesbian who suddenly decided to appear as male, and used chemistry or surgery to remove what they felt was female from their bodies. One of those was Pat / Patrick.
When I found out I was flummoxed.
Your writing gave concrete form to the disturbance and surprise I had.
Straight females and males often remark how great it is that gays and lesbians are “accepted”, and there is no more “need” for gay or lesbian bars.
My comment was always “it’s not that we needed protection from police, it’s that we needed protection from precisely that sentiment”.
Always odd faces.
Thanks.
"The mental fragility knows no bounds: nobody has a real job...." Man oh man I've been saying this for ages!!!! The stupid is at Max level and I just cannot deal!!!
There is something to be said for Western obsession with navel-gazing because no "real" problems to worry about and its even more heightened amongst so-called marginalized communities whereby tacking on another victim-card is a sure-fire way to win the oppression Olympics.
As for "mean dykes..." being bodyguards....I naturally gravitate towards protector role BUT I am no longer willing to pay a high price. I am not altruistic except for me and mine and babies.
Sometimes when I'm indulging in hope/fantasy, I imagine small pockets of lesbian resistance whereby there are tests/deeds that must be done to prove that you deserve entry and of course checks and balances to hold all accountable. But what would that look like in reality.....?!
Excellent writing as always!!! I feel the same as your fiancee when I occasionally attend events out of loneliness. I always leave feeling even more lonely and isolated and I live close to a metropolitan city. I miss Sisters before it became fully colonized. Thursday nights were awesome!
Thank you for your comment!
You are right to say that the victim card is often played by those who have no real problems, often as a way to gain sympathy. Victimhood is a huge currency in our present culture — the more you can get, the more attention you receive...
I am discussing the issues with access to lesbian spaces & what we could potentially do about it in part 2, which I am releasing tomorrow — hope to see you there.
PS: what is 'Sisters'?
Sisters was a club back in the day in Center City Philadelphia. On Thursdays, it was $5 entry after 9pm and there was always a nice buffet of free hot food to eat and cheap drinks all night. Plus karaoke and two floors. It was a haven, especially for young'uns.
Looking forward to part deux!
Not sure what else to say but Yup!! Love seeing acknowledgment in the wild.
This is incredible! You always knock it out of the park with your writing.
Emotionally immaturity is a common theme of experiences in the modern "queer" scene. I feel it's a perfect description, but I can't articulate what exactly is emotionally immature.
There are above average cohorts of both autistic & personality disorders in this identity group. Autistic people are perfect targets for narcissistic abuse & manipulation, (a documented phenomenon). I'd say majority are also undiagnosed. Abuse, particularly in the form of gaslighting/reality manipulation, is normalized & canonized via a culture wide belief system & value set, from which there is NO dissent lest you be instantly & permanently ostracized. Its not an accident these mental health issues are so predominant. Predatory & machiavellian types have a unique opportunity in claiming the new completely undefinable and therefore optional marginality because it provides both a bulletproof cover and a rich selection of potential supply/targets.
You're spot-on. There are a lot of bad actors/personality disorder types in the queer cult.
Lesbians are already a vulnerable minority. A lot of the ones who get trapped in these circles seem to be also autistic, which makes for double danger to manipulation & predation.
Thank you for your comment! Much appreciated.
Immaturity is perhaps a problem of our society at large, but I found it very accentuated in the queer cohorts. From my perspective, it has a lot to do with the inability to think critically, withstand criticism, cries of victimhood and so on.