let's retire the tomboy stereotype

submitted by fckme from self.Lesbians

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[–]writerlylesbian 12 insightful - 3 fun12 insightful - 2 fun13 insightful - 3 fun -  (13 children)

I feel like the 'performative queers' for want of a better phrase still are frequently a bit 'off'...Like, their body language is often really...submissive, for want of a better way of putting it. Lots of deference, lots of apologies and qualifiers in how they speak, not acting comfortable in their own skins. And then a lot of them go on about dating men, so that's a bit of a giveaway (but some of them inexplicably still insist they're lesbians. Come across a few like that. What even is this timeline?)

[–][deleted] 9 insightful - 3 fun9 insightful - 2 fun10 insightful - 3 fun -  (11 children)

Maybe they should “perform” having a spine until they find one

Our generation couldn’t get away with that type of weak shit

[–]writerlylesbian 12 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 0 fun13 insightful - 1 fun -  (10 children)

Oh I know. The trial be fire stuff certainly separates the homos from the posers! They're there crying over not being 'centred' in every discussion and I'm like...Yeah, when we were your age, my friends and I were fighting actual gay bashers in the street. Just grow the fuck up.

[–][deleted] 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I was literally fighting gaybashers, especially in defence of wee gay men. These ppl have no idea

[–]writerlylesbian 13 insightful - 1 fun13 insightful - 0 fun14 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

The town where I came out was mostly working class, and pretty tough. There was one mixed GL gay bar, in the bad part of town. Or maybe worse part of town, since the whole place was kind of the bad part of town, lol. Going into that gay bar usually involved negotiating drunk men, sometimes quite a lot of them, all deliberately loitering around outside jeering and throwing projectiles like beer bottles etc. Sometimes looking for anyone who they thought they could pick off and take away for a good beating/raping/who knows what else.

Like...In those days we really had to look out for each other and defend each other. From actual physical harm. And now pronouns kill people.

[–][deleted] 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yeah, I had to threaten the COPS to make them stop gay bashing my gay male friends. Those same cops said I was “cute” and they would “do” me. If we didn’t stick together the gay men would have gotten beaten, easily.

When the TRAs say words are literally violence and they are being killed and erased and don’t exist because of TERFS, it’s a piss-off for me.

Sounds like your town was worse than mine, though it was also working class.

[–]reluctant_commenter 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

I know. The trial be fire stuff certainly separates the homos from the posers!

I don't want to minimize what you and other members of the older generation have gone through. But, is that really how it should be? You could say that the younger generation of lesbians/queer people have the "luxury" of being able to be insecure about their sexual orientation and work through their self-doubt. But, if they never had the chance to do that, then I bet a bunch of them might have ended up living their whole lives as "straight" when they are not actually straight, out of fear. Maybe most have not faced actual violence (though I think violent homophobia is still surprisingly prevalent-- I have an IRL lesbian friend who was threatened with a shotgun over being gay, for example). But, who's to say who's a poser and who's not? I feel like we should be allowed to have room to be insecure like straight people do.

They're there crying over not being 'centred' in every discussion

This bothers me a lot, too. I agree that there is often a lack of perspective in these sorts of conversations.

[–]writerlylesbian 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

Yes, absolutely the next generation should have it easier. Fighting for legal rights as well as cultural acceptance was the point of the movement. And in a lot of ways, I don't think the young LGB, especially the young L's, do have an easier or better time, which sucks. There's still the old conservative homophobia in many places, as well as the progressive new homophobia that is destroying the movement from within and completely changing the message from self-acceptance as a same-sex attracted person, to you're wrong and you must change in some way (presentation/identity/preferences etc).

The type of 'posers' I was talking about are those like Fox and Own Fisher, heterosexuals who have an edgy fashion sense and odd identities and think that gives them the right to come in and start presiding over the gay movement and telling us what to do. Not young gay people who are still coming to terms with themselves. The truth is, if things ever did go pear-shaped with gay rights, all those trendy straight hangers-on would not be able to distance themselves fast enough and blend right back into the dominant culture. And they are often the loudest voices who are complaining that same-sex people expressing their attraction is bigoted violence etc.

[–]reluctant_commenter 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

Thanks for clarifying, I really appreciate it. I agree, it does seem like there is homophobia coming from both sides now, as opposed to in the past where essentially all of it originated from conservatives. I don't want to devalue the stuff going on before, I admire the bravery of people (like you and others in this thread, for example) who stood up for who they were. Just, I worry if we look down on the younger generation because they went through less physical violence, then they might stay in the closet longer, feel more shame, etc. I have seen a few people my age start a "my trauma is worse than YOUR trauma" game, similar to "trans discrimination is WAY worse than gay discrimination", so I am very sensitive about that sort of thing.

I looked up Fox and Owl-- it's pretty crazy, they actually think nonbinary people are a very large percentage of the population. Like, a guy on a British talk show was like "99.9% of people are happy with their gender assigned at birth" and Fox was like "But I saw a statistic recently saying 12% of the population is LGBT!" Which is probably an accurate number of LGBT but LGBT != trans, lol.

[–]writerlylesbian 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Interestingly, back in the 90s and early 2000s, the LGB movement (as it was back then) used to claim that about 10% of the population was LGB. No one was really collecting those statistics back then, so they basically just guessed, and made the number 10% because having a bigger number was better from the perspective of political lobbying.

Actually, once more accurate statistics began to be collected via surveys or other methods, the numbers that emerged were more like 5% for gay men and 1-2% for lesbians. Not sure about the B's. Those numbers are not necessarily completely accurate, of course, because people might not want to identify themselves or whatever, but it's still rather smaller than the 10% that was originally claimed.

So if there ARE 12% of the population who are trans/non-binary, then they greatly outnumber the LGB population, and one wonders where they have all come from so suddenly, when there has never been evidence for such a population before. (Appropriating GNC same-sex attracted people from history doesn't count).

[–]reluctant_commenter 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Actually, it turns out the 10% ballpark may have been pretty close! Even though it was derived from Kinsey's work (which was a little scientifically questionable): https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/apr/05/10-per-cent-population-gay-alfred-kinsey-statistics

This 2018 Gallup survey found that 8-9% of millenials identify as LGBT. The overall population estimate was 4.5%, but that's being weighed down by very low rates of identification in the oldest generations. I would bet that's a major underestimation, even among millenials. https://news.gallup.com/poll/234863/estimate-lgbt-population-rises.aspx

But that doesn't mean they're all nonbinary or even trans, lol. It's still a ridiculous conflation of groups.

[–]writerlylesbian 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I agree the Gallup one was pretty bad, lumping everyone in together. How many people identify as 'lgbt' is fairly useless, in terms of having actual interesting and meaningful data.

I must admit I'm also pretty miffed at what is obviously a lot of bi and straight women experimenting getting lumped into the 'female same sex experiences' category which is what seems to have happened in a lot of the studies the guardian talks about. Because that still doesn't really tell us much about lesbians as a stand-alone population.

[–]reluctant_commenter 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yeah, I am a big fan of statistics because they can approximate the truth, but if they are presented improperly it can convey anything BUT the truth. It is frustrating. At least Gallup does try, unlike many organizations.

Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised that many are experimenting. But I also wonder at the other side of the coin: how many are actually gay, but say they are straight or bi on the survey. I myself used to identify as bisexual, before identifying as lesbian, because I heard a ton of lesbophobic stereotypes growing up. So so so many. I would bet anything that a bunch of these women feel bad about their attraction and are undermining it, even if there are a few trying to be "trendy". I think the shame is a stronger motivation than the trendy factor, personally, but I could be wrong. Who knows, hopefully we will have a better sense in the coming decade :)

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

YES IVE NOTICED THIS TOO