Reclaiming Lesbian Pride
 

I'll be back in the morning, after some coffee...but, yes... :)


I see being a lesbian as one small facet of the complex person that I am...and that living my own life, as my authentic self, undefined by others...is immense. :rrose:

Welcome clay! The labels can be a little confusing for sure. I'm still trying to figure out what a FIB is.

Plain ole proud lesbian works for me!

FIB=female identified butch

FIB is a term I only seen when joining online communities FIB equated to woman identified butch... There seemed to be a need to separate them from MIB (male identified butch). What I mean by separation is online there seemed to be this need to distinct one from the other. I had a hard time learning the verbiage since where I came from or grew where butch equated woman period.

I think the internets introduced us to many gender, label, identity forums discussions and threads such as this. It's a hard road when dealing with all the new verbiage out there and yes sometimes it feels we (women) are continuously put in the back burner. I think threads like this and the discussions being had will not let that happen:)

I always read it as FBI.

Welcome Jo! I hear you. It struck me odd as well.

Then again, we all had different experiences, opportunities, and needs in developing our own unique "queerness". These are reflected in so many different ways in our lives and identities these days.

The complexities to which I am exposed to via the internet never cease to amaze and confuse me. I like simple. Then again, my definition of simple may not be the same as someone else's.

I have always been comfortable with lesbian. It seems the more accurate description of my reality and experience. I have tried adding qualifiers to it but they just don't feel right/accurate and they can feel very confining to me. Using lesbian, to me, gives me more freedom to express who I am without being locked into anything or pigeonholed into anything. It's liberating.

Thank you for bringing up WI (not Wisconsin). I dont know if there is a difference between WI and FI - I'm pretty sure someone knows but it sure as heck isn't me. LOL.

I'd like to see more activity in the lesbian zone. I'm just not sure what direction it should/could go in. Have any suggestions?

Some people regard the term female = sex and woman = gender.

There are definitely butches who define as female, but not as women. I defined that way for many years and know quite a many butch who still does. Here the term woman is seen as being connected to a social construct, rather than it being connected to one's biology.

(Hope you were actually asking the question?)

SRSLY? Those are known, culturally-shared distinctions? Isn't it awfully easy for people not versed in it to screw it up?

Hey, tapu. Yes, and yes! :-) Identifiers are like that.

I am going to step out of the lesbian zone. I am not looking to have a discussion on this, I was only looking to answer the question, as I think that Kobi was sincerely curious.

Have a good day. :hangloose:

Well... there's a real difference between the kind of identifiers you are listing and the set of widely used identifiers of gender and sex in our culture.

If this isn't the place to go into it, though, I'm fine with that.

Thanks DB. :)


ER... Wait a minute. You seem to have edited your original post on this. I've been responding to the original, where you listed more configurations of gender/sex identifiers.

Ah! Kobi has the original post. Now I don't sound quite so stupid....

Yes, I edited b/c I felt like I was throwing too much info. out there when I really didn't want to get into a discussion about it. I felt that I was already being intrusive by writing in the lesbian zone, so I was seeking a way to give Kobi a short answer without having discussion follow. I did not want to say anything that would derail from any direction you all might have wanted to take this thread.

Three for the price of one. That sounds like quite the deal, indeed.

Reclaiming it? I don't feel like I ever lost it.

For the sake of clarity, and in the the spirit of reclaiming lesbian heritage and grammatical correctness - neoPolitical Correctness be damned (I never signed on for that, anyway):


female/woman (noun) = sex/biology
male/man (noun) = sex/biology

lesbian (noun) = a woman of same sex, sexual orientation

feminine/masculine (adj.) = gender

femme (noun) = female lesbian
butch (noun) = female lesbian who expresses female "masculinity"

transgender (verb) = moving along a gender continuum.

transgender person (noun) = a person of either sex, who may be lesbian, gay or straight.

Using adjectives as nouns is not good grammar, nor is it good politics. It just muddies the water. Non-lesbians, who lay claim to lesbian descriptors, are the ones obliged to clarify through expanded labeling.

Damn. You're good. :)

I'd object (mildly) to your adj/noun edict on a number of grounds--most notably, that you blur the distinction while making it--but I think this is nicely laid out.

Question: Sex = gender? They were distinguished above, I believe, at one point, but (without doing any research) I think they do equate.

Well, I am not an English Major or writer nor do I know much about grammatics or being politically correct for that matter, but I don't agree with a couple of the items. So, maybe I will say this is how they are for me.

An adjective modifies a noun or a pronoun by describing, identifying, or quantifying words. An adjective usually precedes the noun or the pronoun which it modifies.

A noun is a word used to name a person, animal, place, thing, and abstract idea.

In that light, both Butch and Lesbian are adjectives for me as they describe parts of me, not all of me....Butch Lesbian Woman

Hey! Is that a new acronym? BLW? Cool beans:)

I am not trying to derail the thread but...

Transgender is an adjective, not a verb. People aren't transgendering.

Also, people aren't transgendered even though it is used all the time. i have even caught my self using it early on and still catch myself using transgendered at times. It can be insulting to many people within the transgender community.

It may seem like semantics but it is important.

I entered this discussion this morning as a moderator because we had a community member ask us to keep an eye on the conversation for fear things might get a little heated. I say that because I want to be clear that I do not identify as a lesbian. Even when that was the community I felt was a "best fit" for me, I was not able to embrace that particular identity. I tried, but I knew it was not an authentic reflection of who I was as a person.

So in coming here to catch up on things this morning, I read the post quoted above and am curious, Chazz, if you pasted this information from somewhere else or if this is how you see things?

Like a few others have stated, some of the information is in conflict with my own definitions. For example, the first two entries... I see male and female as biological sex assignments, but I see woman and man as gender identities.

It seems important to acknowledge that most of us here will have our own little spin on how all these terms and the grammar of it all......as well as the politics.......play out and, hopefully, we won't let those differences be a barrier in reclaiming lesbian pride (as the title suggests).

Thinker (entered as a moderator but posting as a member) :)

Good Morning Kobi, I'm sorry you are feeling some frustration this morning regarding how you are not being seen.. How can we help you not feel this way? What is it you have envisioned for this thread? Are you seeking women with lesbian being their only identifier? How can we help you not feel so alone?

You aren't there's lots of lesbians here I'm sure soon this thread will be full of women embracing their pride right along with you! :)

Lesbian is a weird word. I don't mean the semantics of it, and how we're trying to define or understand it. I mean orthographically. You just don't see the letter l, s, b together in a word much. I remember how, right before and after I came out, my eyes would dart to words like Lebanese and Lisbon in the news or wherever. It's a stand-out letter sequence for me.

When I first started claiming my identity, I said I was gay. I was a gay woman. (I was not, however, a gay, which I think is derogatory, but is becoming more neutral in the plural, e.g., "Gays today want....")

There are still one-off situations where I balk at saying lesbian. Like, to an elderly person. Or too-loudly in a cafe. I don't know whether I don't want to ruin someone's lunch or what, and while I think I should analyze that fear in myself I don't much feel like it right now.

Well, those are my thoughts, and nothing more, about being and calling myself a lesbian. Thanks for a forum where I can explore it.