He/Him Lesbians are harmful - A Thread.

(Side note, i’ll be focusing mainly on the trans aspect of this as i’m not a lesbian and do not particularly understand lesbian struggles aside from some history (which i’ll likely address), if you’re a lesbian and have some info pls add!)

so, let’s start with the obvious - pronouns.

he/him lesbians are a subgroup of lesbianism who identify with, you guessed it, he/him pronouns.
the main justifications for this are history and “pronouns don’t equal gender” (will address that part later.)

historically, lesbians identified with he/him pronouns (as male) to protect themselves and their partners, much in the way that closeted trans people would identify with their agab in unsafe environments.
this historic use of pronouns is often used to say “well THEY did it first”

not only is this a really strange reason, but it’s also disrespectful to lesbian history and progress

“someone did this for safety, so i will do it for fun”

if you truly believe someone using (pronouns) to keep themselves safe means you can do it for fun, you’re privileged.

using lesbian history as a reason to justify the use of he/him pronouns for comfort is like saying

“well, i am a trans man, but because closeted trans men use she/her, i’m gonna do it for fun!”

that sounds stupid, right? so why doesn’t the other half sound silly too?

“you do this to keep yourself safe, and because of that i will do it for fun”

why not instead celebrate the growth of the times (meaning you don’t need to use he/him for safety), instead of disrespecting history?

let’s move on.

next, i want to talk about the sort of language hesbians use to justify their use of pronouns, how this language is harmful to trans people, and why it should probably change.

“pronouns don’t (always) equal gender”
this is... just a transphobia thing, if pronouns didn’t equal gender then trans people GENUINELY wouldn’t care which pronouns they used. the concept that the pronouns you use shouldn’t equate your gender was first used by TERFs to harm us

“they just have a unique experience with womanhood”
...and? they’re still women, right?
again, this idea genuinely rooted from TERFs, basically saying trans men were just confused butch lesbians with “unique” experiences with womanhood.
unique does not equal man.

not to mention, this implies that people who don’t conform to what a woman is societally (gender norms) are LESS female than other women are.
“you act/dress/ect this way, so you have to identify differently to us”
i don’t see anyone telling feminine men to identify as women-

-unless they’re being homophobic/transphobic/sexist.
why doesn’t that apply here?
why is it implied that to be a gender nonconforming woman, you have to give up your identity as a woman? i think that’s awfully unfair, and awfully sexist.
ladies, break gender norms!! you don’t-

HAVE to identify as a man/with masculine pronouns/whatever to be a unique, gender nonconforming woman. you can identify with she/her and still be butch (if you’re a lesbian)

you don’t need to identify with different pronouns to break gender norms, because in the end all this is-

-doing is circling back to the idea that masculinity = male

and that harms EVERYONE. nonbinary people, trans people, women AND men, all of us.

alright, back to the point, i might as well address this before i get anyone trying to pull it.

“read stone butch blues!”

...god. really? do you REALLY want to lever your whole movement on a semiautobiography that has r*pe in it? really? SBB is genuinely a disgusting book-

-the main character in that book was genuinely predatory, she/he/they (i don’t remember) didn’t identify as a woman in at least part of that book JUST to get with a straight woman, if i’m remembering correctly.
why would you want to associate ANYTHING with that?

awful.

alright, breaking off that, i want to explain a little how this has personally affected me as a transgender person. ahain, i can’t speak for lesbians and i cant speak for everyone’s experience. this is mine.

i’ve always struggled a little with my identity.
i’ve identified as a man for a solid few years, it took a lot of work for me to come to terms entirely with it, and it took even more for me to accept myself and be comfortable in that identity.

even now, after years, i struggle with understanding myself, and i struggle with showing any open pride at all.
and this movement? it isn’t helping.

it took me so long to realise that he/him were the right pronouns for me, it took me so long to become comfortable even after that

but now, whatever relief, comfort, safety, whatever i felt in my identity and pronouns is being taken from me.

he/him, my whole life, meant man, it meant male and that was what i was so happy about because it was all i WANTED to be

but now that he/him are slowly, slowly-

-becoming associated with being female, being a woman, being a lesbian, i’ve lost all that understanding of who i am.

all it tells me is that i’m just. a confused lesbian who’s running away from that.

and that hurts me a lot, because im not, im not a lesbian, nor a woman.

i’ve been fighting back that self doubt for a long while, and even so i’m not over it.

this idea that suddenly “he/him” means a unique experience being female is only telling me that i, a trans individual who wants to be seen only as male, can and will be labeled otherwise.

i’ve been labelled a confused butch lesbian in the past and i dont want to go there again, but this movement continues to imply that because these women seem to believe their comfort is more important than the history and existence of others.

i cant speak for everyone, but as a trans person, im becoming more and more uncomfortable with my own existence simply because my existence doesn’t feel male anymore.

all these “meanings” for words i always thought meant one thing are conflicting, he/him isnt male. it’s confused

at least, that’s really how it feels to me.

thank you for reading if you got through all this. i’d like to hear your thoughts :) and sorry if it got a bit sad and messy at the end, this subject tends to make me very emotional.