hiii!!! so uh, this is sorta about 'contradicting' (?) identities in general, but i only recently found out about, like, lesboys and gaygirls and all of that, but what is it exactly? like how does it work? or is that weird to ask? i'm trying figuring myself out but a lot of stuff i've seen doesn't exactly... explain it (or explain it well), and while i guess i do get why, it's just kinda hard to understand it myself for my own identity
also, probably a question you get a lot in a hating way, but isn't the definition of lesbian nonman loving nonman? so then how does lesboy work? like is it for people with more complicated gender identites, like fluctuating genders and bigender? just genuinly confused, my apologies...
sorry for not getting to this sooner- been busier lately and didn't have the time to collect everything I needed to respond!
About what it exactly means to be a lesboy or a gaygirl ('turigirl' is the more common term, 'turi' meaning turian, another word for gay attraction to men. so I'll be referring to it as that from now on), there isn't exactly....one right way to call yourself such. it really depends on the person, but I can give you a basic definition and a list of common reasons someone may call themselves such
im gonna put a read more because this ended up being super long so sorry
lesboy is a term for any lesbian who may have a connection to manhood and/or masculinity. turigirl is just the opposite of that, a gay person (mlm/nblm) who may have a connection to womanhood and/or femininity. common reasons I've seen are:
being multigender or genderfluid
being cusper/in between trans and cis gnc (in between trans man and cis gnc woman, in between trans woman and cis gnc man)
being a system who uses lesboy/turigirl as a collective identity or when identities blur together
a person who uses man/boy or woman/girl as a means of masculine or feminine gender expression but not actually identifying as such
being a trans man/ftm or a trans woman/mtf who still identifies as lesbian or gay for personal reasons
those are far from all the reasons, everyone has their own unique experiences, but the gist is these people may have some sort of connection to manhood/womanhood while still having a queer attraction. personally, I'm multigender, genderfluid, and transmasc. lesboy I find is a nice label to express being both my bigender self and being a lesbian, as it forces people to acknowledge both without separating the two. it's cute and makes me feel validated!
as for "nonman attracted to nonmen" definition of lesbian......it has its issues. it's received criticism all around from all sorts of lesbians in the community. this definition is very new - it emerged only in the recent years, and someone on twitter had date searched it and found it didn't even really exist before 2019. and having that as the one and only official definition that every lesbian has to abide by, when lesbian is a centuries old word with so much history behind it, is a bit ignorant. people who are multiple genders or ftm or bi being lesbian is not even remotely new, going back decades upon decades, and it never stopped existing too. It's a bit weird to have a whole new definition that doesn't include all sorts of lesbians that have been here for so long and just tell them they're not welcomed anymore, right?
that's not even close to the only issue there is with it. it's been disliked for centering lack of attraction to men, or defining lesbian in relation to men, rather than who we're actually attracted to. putting nonbinary people in a new binary of either being "men or nonmen," which not all feel comfortable putting themselves into. especially when considering a definition of gay being "nonwomen attracted to nonwomen," man-woman bigender people are simultaneously excluded from being both lesbian or gay. It inherently overlaps with mspec identity ("attraction to nonmen, which is more than one gender" and "any orientation that involves attraction to more than one gender" kinda obviously overlap), despite people insisting that a lesbian can never be mspec. people have found multiple loopholes in it, (which I can elaborate on if someone wants me to, for the sake of trying to make this as short as possible), and lastly, and term "nonman" (and nonwoman) were found to have existed before to describe the degendering of black people in society. this isn't the only source I've seen for this, but sadly I can't exactly find it (or find it without going back to that hellsite called twitter and I'm not doing that to myself)
oh and as the link points out, defining lesbian by these words also ends up excluding a lot of two-spirit people from ever identifying as lesbian, myself included. which is also really racist. I don't know how you're gonna end up excluding a whole cultural gender that's common for indigenous americans to describe themselves with and try to prove it somehow isn't racist, to be honest
and lastly, some surveys/polls have shown that the definition isn't the most widely accepted by lesbians as people make it out to be. there's this simple poll that someone posted asking how lesbians felt about the definition that received 1,529 responses, and 61.1% of voters said they disliked it. comments gave lots of reasons I've stated already. there was another survey put out that received 211 responses that for any lesbian who had a genderqueer or unique relationship with gender, and one of the questions asking opinions on the "nonmen loving nonmen" as a definition. the average among the group was slightly negative (average 2.838), and reported that the group who tended to feel the most positively about it didn't consider themselves to be trans, with the other positive leaning group considered themselves to be somewhat cis. the group that felt the most negatively sometimes considered themselves to be trans. and of the multigender participants, the average opinion was 2.255 (more negative than the overall average). When concluding, the original poster stated, "When divided by gender, the only groups to feel positive about this definition were "not trans" and "somewhat cis" participants. Multigender participants felt especially negative about this definition"
all of this shows that this definition isn't nearly the best for everyone who considers themselves a lesbian. I know it's been a way to include nonbinary people who are lesbian in it's definition, but I think it really misunderstands why nonbinary people are included in lesbianism in the first place, and just assumes that all nonbinary people aren't men and fails to recognize that multigender/genderfluid people are nonbinary too. and it's not like lesbian has to only have on definition- it can definitely have multiple and depend on each person's experience with it. if someone personally defines them being lesbian around being a nonman attracted to nonmen, and takes pride in not being attracted to men, that's totally fine. what becomes a problem is forcing all lesbians to define themselves like this and make it the standard, or else they're "not real lesbians." it is ahistorical and ignorant to require this or else you'll strip them of their lesbian status, and is really at the end of the day, lesbophobic. especially as a requirement that primarily exists in online spaces. im sure the lesbian who is not at all connected to these circles doesn't particularly care about strict requirements or whether someone is a "nonman" or not. in conclusion, it is not the best nor most accepted definition of lesbian, and deciding which lesbians are valid or not based solely on that definition is pretty exclusionary and ends up policing a lot of lesbians, myself included
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Here we go. It’s a long one.
My aunt is dying. Any day now, her son told the family. So, everyone flocked to see her, including mom, which entailed a 17-hour train ride from San Diego to Sacramento. My brother and I usually meet up in Bakersfield to deliver the momster because she refuses to fly and now refuses to take the train. Of course, doing the Bakersfield thing is a pain, especially if you’re not a morning person because I have to leave by 4:30 am to make sure I’m in Bakersfield by 10. Now, really, I’m glad for it in the end because I’m back home by 2:30-3p.
This time around, mom had to take the train because she was afraid her sister would die before she got to see her. So, mom was insistent she had to leave asap, which meant no Bakersfield trip since my brother and I had to work.
Easy-peasy.
That is, except this last weekend. Mom arrived Friday night near midnight (17-hour train ride, remember?). The next day we see Auntie Sally. That night, I go to the birthday celebration for me, the kid, and grandkid. Mom didn’t want to go.
Anyway.
I assumed my brother and I would meet up in Bakersfield the following weekend, which is a-ok. I have plenty of time to rest and mentally rev myself for the trip, which is something I need to do. Otherwise, without this precious time, I don’t handle it well.
Guess what? Mom wants to leave the next day. I’m like, wait, what? But, I just say ok and quietly freak out inside. This really changes everything. I tell my granddaughter, who is staying the weekend with me to shower at night, that all she has to do is roll out of bed the next am and get in the car where she can sleep.
Easy-peasy, right?
Except, when we arrive in Bakersfield, my brother is not at our meeting place. He’s always there first - always. The guy is an extreme morning person, up every day by 4am. In fact, I thought it was weird that he didn’t call once asking me for an update of my progress.
Long story short. I know, too late.
He thought the mom delivery wasn’t taking place until the following weekend. I was thinking, ok, we’ll head back home and try this again next weekend. But mom? No way. She refuses to go and suggests I leave her there to wait for my brother. Really? Like, I’d do that, and she knows I’d never do that.
So, after drinking a lot of beverages, shopping at WalMart and Nordstrom’s Rack, my brother arrives. He must have booked it because what’s usually almost a 5-6 hour drive, he made it in 3.
The grandkid and me were home by 6:30. I apologized to her for how the day went. She said, what a day! I agreed. We really didn’t get to spend quality time together. I was supposed to take her home that night, but I was so exhausted that I asked if the kid could take her instead, which she did.
The last-minute trip was hard on me. I remember the days when I could drive in a pinch no problem! Those days are gone. I missed work on Monday to recuperate. Ya, this old gal ain’t what she used to be.
And now, I need to get ready for work.
Thx for reading.
Have a good day :)
Toods!
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@allvalley100
Prompt: Breathing Room
Pairing: Hawkmetri
***
It’s beyond Demetri how he ended up slow-dancing with the boy he’s been in love with since age 8 at the senior prom. He keeps expecting someone to shake him awake.
He breathes in Eli’s cologne, trying to turn off the eternal worry and live the moment. Follow the same advice his prom date gave him what seems like an eternity ago.
Maybe they wouldn’t last through college. Maybe Eli could still change his mind.
All Demetri knows for certain is that a year ago—or ten—he’d have given everything for this.
It turned out he didn’t need to.
***
And I’d give up forever to touch you
‘Cause I know that you feel me somehow
You’re the closest to heaven that I’ll ever be
And I don’t want to go home right now
And all I can taste is this moment
And all I can breathe is your life
And sooner or later, it’s over
I just don’t wanna miss you tonight
And I don’t want the world to see me
‘Cause I don't think that they’d understand
When everything’s made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am
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