"Your duty as lesbians within the queer community . . . .

[lesbotronic]

(Preamble:  We've received more email in response to this and this and initial posts in this section.  We're offering zero guarantee of a personal reply to anyone sending questions via email, especially non-members.  But if we get same or extremely similar more than a few times, we might write about them here just so we can point to this section as a broader reply.

Questions in quotes were asked via email unless otherwise credited.  Some are approximate with same meaning, as we standardized the language and removed some profanity and a few words many consider slurs for clarity, plus a bit more politeness.)

 

"Your duty as lesbians within the queer community . . . .

. . . is to accept trans women and male lesbians and genderqueer males unconditionally, support them emotionally, and validate them sexually.  Lean in or be left out!"

 

We've been told, yes.

And that's why it's the opposite of the pick-me-try-hard-cool-girl thing to say . . . because while it's not "kind" in the postmodern sense that "kind" means total agreement that XX lesbians exist for no reason other than to unconditionally support XYs . . . 

. . . we think it might be kind in a more practically helpful sense to let you know that from our perspective, according to our experience as lesbians, plus reading all the profiles submitted here, plus which demographics tend to interact with who according to the board stats package, plus what we've been told colloquially and individually regarding who started relationships with who else here as well . . .

 . . . that's not happening.

At least, not very often. Not for most.

 

Are we saying most trans women calling themselves lesbian aren't attractive to many XXs, including many who consider themselves "queer?"

Nope!  It's our experience many are considered attractive by XXs!

 

Are we saying trans women calling themselves lesbian haven't found XXs to date right here on this website?

Nope!  They certainly have!

 

We're saying if affirming you includes dating you, trans women and male lesbians and genderqueer males are aiming at the wrong target.

Lesbians aren't likely to affirm you if affirming you requires dating you.  

The trans women we're aware have generated interest here, it always with women identifying some variety of bisexual.  No, that hasn't changed recently or with younger women, nope.

 

 

"You're not allowed to gatekeep lesbianism away from any lesbian just because she has a penis!"

"Lesbians already know how to be lesbians from a very young age because they were allowed to be little girls without interference!  You're basically required now to help trans women catch up by affirming and feminizing them.  If you really wanted to serve the queer community, you'd tell other lesbians too!"

"You should help those most in need, put your energies where they'll do the most good!  Lesbians should go where they're most needed (supporting their queer sisters with an outie down below) or it's like they're not even serving their community at all."

 

We're not gatekeeping anybody.  We do allow members to gatekeep themselves just exactly like we do for ourselves via our search criteria?

Also "gatekeeping yourself" is the same as "consenting adult who can say yes but also no whenever she would like" more or less?

 

If you're running around demanding XX serve you in various ways for no reason other than you're XY and they're XX somehow within your "community," that's sexist.

And yes, everyone still knows who is XX and who is XY, obviously.

If you ever doubted that, look more carefully at who is mansplaining and to whom it's directed.  

Watch who's allowed to say no to "gender ideology" without getting bullied or shamed.

It'll be obvious, and you'll now see all you need to see to clearly identify the sexism.

 

. . .

Down Girl:  The Logic of Misogyny by Kate Manne

"Some men, especially those with a high degree of privilege, seem to have a sense of being OWED by women in the coin of the associated personal goods and services . . . "

"Misogyny also subjects women to what I have come to think of as a kind of tyranny of vulnerability - by pointing to any and every (supposedly) more vulnerable (supposed) person or creature in her vicinity to whom she might (again, supposedly) do better, and requiring her to care for them, or else risk being judged callous, even monstrous.  Meanwhile, her male counterpart may proceed to pursue his own "personal projects," as the English moral philosopher Bernard Williams called them (1981), with relative impunity.  She is, in view of this, subject to undue moral burdens."