Lesbian = Nonbinary?
While scrolling through Instagram on Gay Pride Day, I came across a photo of an attractive young woman holding a cardboard hand-lettered sign that read “I WAS a nonbinary CHILD.” She was smiling and obviously having a good time proclaiming her identity during the 2023 NYC Dyke March. What was odd, I thought, is that the photo was promoted on the Instagram account of Lesbian Herstory Archives, a respected and renowned organization known for preserving the stories and artifacts of women who identified as lesbian. Puzzled, I commented under the photo: Nonbinary = lesbian?
My question prompted a flurry of comments on lesbian identity and sexual attraction. I have abbreviated each person’s Instagram handle to protect their privacy –
CIN (ME) – Nonbinary = lesbian?
DJBZ @CIN– why is a Catholic account questioning a lesbian account?
CIN@DJBZ – I’m a lesbian. Out since 1980.
DJBZ@CIN– understood – just feeling sensitive to seeing religious accounts commenting on pride posts this year. And yes some lesbians are non-binary!
STT@DJBZ – sorry, but to be a lesbian is to choose. No nonbinary lesbians can exist by definition. A woman who is romantically and sexually attracted to another woman is a lesbian. If you aren’t a woman then no, nope, you cannot be a lesbian. And if the Lesbian Archives cant handle that it should call itself something else. Because lesbians who actually helped to create our herstory will not donate herstorical item’s because why? It wouldn’t make any sense
DJBZ – trans and non-binary lesbians exist and are very hot and cool. Get over it : )
MT@DJBZ – straight men aren’t lesbians and never will be. Non binary is just “not like the other girls”.
MT@DJBZ – lesbian = homosexual woman
STT@DJBZ: nope you are just confused, and have way too much time on your hands
DJBZ – your opinions are ahistorical. Don’t follow a herstory page if you don’t like or understand herstory!
DJBZ@MT– you are wrong. Hope that helps!
CBF@CIN – Yes. We have much work to do in 2023. Paraphrasing Karl Marx (a dude) The point isn’t a naval gazes and police gender expression and identity at a dyke march – the point celebrate Dykes in a rainbow of expressions self-definitions and political power.
CIN@CBF – With all respect, that is your opinion. We live in a free country and we are all free to do and say as we think. I am clear – my sexual and emotional attraction is to women born female and who identify as female. Period.
GBG – hi queer as hell woman here. Maybe you should stop telling other people what their definitions are or should be. We are not being erased. The definition is changing as we grow. Happy Pride! 
CBF – And that’s wonderful. We have lots of precedent to look at within the feminist tradition and within the lesbian tradition What happens when people start challenging others authentic relationship to being in our space. It is an approach that leads to division it is an approach that leads to bad politics. It is an approach that leads to alienation and a lack of constructive engagement. It is an inward cop-like attitude towards members of our community instead of linking arms with the broadest possible grouping in the LGBTQ spectrum and fighting against discrimination and injustice. Your approach and it’s legacy have been toxic for our community. And frankly it has no place in the modern LGBTQ community. Nothing but love for you but these politics and viewpoints are antithetical to building a movement that can successfully defeat the bigots who are organizing to harm us
STT@GBG – maybe you should pay attention. Why bother using any words at all? Words are precisely for ‘definition’ to help people navigate. When lazy people such as you decide nothing matters, then leave our defining term alone, it HAS meaning and you are being a mouthpiece for the patriarchy by saying anyone can be anything AND use a term that means something. Go get an education
DJBZ – dear terfs – misinformation is an illness. Get well soon!!!!
I checked the Lesbian Herstory Archives Instagram account about an hour later to find the moderator had erased the entire exchange, including my initial comment – Nonbinary = lesbian? Only one comment was kept: the scold by DJBZ: “dear terfs – misinformation is an illness. Get well soon!!!!”
So, I decided to reprint the exchange for posterity. DJBZ, CBF, CBG and others like them don’t have a modern sensibility—they are turning the clock back to the 1950s lesbian pulp fiction. Those paperbacks were usually written by men pretending to be lesbians. The same thing is happening today.
November 12th, 2023 at 4:29 pm
Thank you for putting up with my blathering.
I can’t speak for you, but I have had enough of the whole transgender thing. They have their own spaces, online and off; why do they have to invade yours?
Don’t get me wrong. I am all in favor of the right of adults to modify their bodies as they see fit. But that’s the thing.
People who presented with gender dysmorphia were predominantly middle-aged males (think of the former Bruce Jenner). Now there’s been a surge of adolescent girls who have been encouraged by social media influencers to see themselves as trans: ‘If you think you are, you are.’
Most of these are gender-divergent in behavior or presentation, neurodivergent, or are otherwise dissatisfied with their bodies. They may even be suffering from internalized homophobia. No matter. They are encouraged to see themselves through the transgender lens. Worse, they are encouraged to employ emotional blackmail–such as threats of suicide–on their parents to sweep aside all caution and undergo ‘treatment’ with powerful drugs to suppress puberty. These have little-known long-term side effects. The effects of surgery to remove perfectly healthy gonads is obvious. “First, do no harm” seems to be the first thing that went out the window.
In Britain and Scandinavia, the whole transgender bandwagon has come to an abrupt halt. In Britain, the Tavistock Clinic’s Gender and Identity Development Service was shut down by the NHS after an inquiry raised questions about how they were they were referring minors for life-changing drugs and surgery, sometimes only after a single consultation, and without any attempt at differential diagnosis.
There are already cases of people who ‘transitioned’ via drugs and surgery at a young age who are ‘detransitioning’ back their original gender. Easier said than done.
The whole sorry tale is profiled in the book, “Time to Think: The Inside Story of the Collapse of the Tavistock’s Gender Service for Children” by BBC correspondent Hannah Barnes (available from the U.S. Amazon site). The author is not some right-wing harpy and the book is not an anti-trans screed. Barnes includes the stories of teenagers who benefited from their interactions with GIDS as well as those whose experiences proved catastrophic.
I predict that we may well be on the verge of a marked reconsideration of the contemporary transgender phenomenon. No doubt this will be hastened by the trial lawyers, who will feast like vultures with their malpractice suits.
As usual, in the United States, the lawyers have the last word.
Thanks for letting me blow off some steam.
November 13th, 2023 at 7:35 am
I don’t think transgender women or transmen have an automatic entree to sex with lesbians. I don’t think ANYONE has an automatic right to sex with anyone. I would be happy to be friends or socialize with trans people, but I have ZERO interest in having sex with any of them. I enjoy the company of men, but I also have ZERO interest in having sex with them. This is because I’m a LESBIAN. You cannot be a lesbian if you were not born female–sorry, but that’s the way it is. Some lesbians may chose to sleep with bisexuals, men or women, trans people, men or women, or even men, especially if they are married to one to be in the closet, but ultimately, sex and passionate love are directed to other women and their bodies. Trans bodies are not the same, no matter how much some loud voices on social media want you to believe that ideology is a substitute for desire.I agree with your statements – no way would I permit any kind of “gender affirming” care to anyone under 18. The parents need to be involved. Most of these kids need heavy duty therapy and counseling to see if they need support in coming to terms with homosexuality; or if they are other body issues or mental issues where they need counseling and support.
November 14th, 2023 at 3:54 pm
I am sorry if my post was only tangentially related to the points you made both originally, and in your reply.
More to the point, for a transperson to persist in afflicting lesbians (or anyone else) with unwanted sexual advances is sexual harassment. I can only ascribe it to their essential masculine nature leaking out ;>)
Janice Raymond was more right than she knew when she characterized transsexualism as an “empire” almost 45 years ago. It imperiously tries to take over lesbian’s and heterosexual women’s spaces. It threatens and defames anyone with the least question about it, or its tactics. It has also taken over mainstream gay and lesbian organizations with which it had little to do, logically or historically. (Gays and lesbians came out of the closet–not the operating room. And as a fraction of one percent of the population by best estimates, transgenders were of minimal material help.) They seem to me to have only been hitchhikers aboard the larger movement for gay and lesbian rights.
But I’ve said quite enough on this topic, and will not return to it. Thank you again.