A response I’m getting over and over about my position that a trans person should disclose to potential dates:

“Well, I think transphobes should be the ones who have to disclose!”

There seems to be wide agreement that lesbians who won’t date males are transphobes.

These trans extremists are making my point for me. Anna was fine with the date, but, if she hadn’t, she’d be considered a transphobe.

THAT is my issue.

Lesbians are not permitted to come to their own authentic comfort level on these things. When it comes to whether we’ll date the male sex, there is ONE correct answer for us, and if we choose “wrong,” we are shamed, and ridiculed, and ostracized.

The many lovely comments I received all echo the same sentiment:

There are good lesbians and bad ones, and Anna is a good one, because she’ll date both sexes.

Every woman in our community is under constant pressure to be a good lesbian by dating men.

Fuck that.

They claim this is what the good lesbians authentically want - without addressing the fact that there is punishment awaiting any lesbian who doesn’t fall into line.

When there’s only ONE answer that doesn’t cost you your friends, community, safety - that is sexual coercion.

I honestly don’t care that some women who identify as lesbians date men. What I care about is people using those situations as examples the rest of us narrow-minded women need to live up to. I care that dating men has become a barrier for entry into lesbian communities.

I care that actual homosexuality is being erased, and that, to live as a lesbian today, you have to also be willing to be hated by the people who once would have been your primary sources of support. I care that so many women are being hurt and left behind.

And I care that affirmative consent and protection from rape culture only seems to apply to straight women.

I care that a pronoun licenses a man to cross our boundaries and treat us with flagrant disrespect.

I’m damn disappointed by what feminism has become.

“I am a lesbian” is a statement of a sexual boundary.

Telling lesbians they should date males is telling them you don’t respect their stated boundary.

This is so simple.