i’ve taken almost a week off of this site after what happened to me, and i feel prepared to express some of the pain i’ve been in and the honest to god truth about what it’s like being an out lesbian on the internet, so here goes nothing.

if the LGBTQ+ community is all about inclusivity and validation like everybody insists, then why is it that almost every lesbian I’ve ever spoken to has been made to feel completely demonized on the very specific basis of speaking out against lesbian-related issues?

an entire group within the community is hurting and being iced out, and the really twisted thing is, there have been times when other groups within the LGBTQ+ community have felt the same and rightfully, we care. a group says “this definition is wrong” and it’s corrected.

group says “this is how we feel” and you listen. when it comes to lesbians, we NEVER get that kind of respect or genuine care. you take our labels and change their definitions, you minimize our pain, and you call us names and degrade us for speaking up.

i have been out as an LGBTQ+ person online since 2016 WHILE being VERY outspoken regarding activism, even getting involved in discourse, and until i identified as a lesbian, i never received this amount of constant harassment and invalidation.

so many lesbians have had to fully leave online spaces, including myself, because the backlash is constant. even the creator of the lesbian FLAG was pushed off of this platform for talking about lesbian-specific issues. this issue is pervasive.

the latest turn of LGBTQ+ discourse has been specifically aimed at the lesbian community and it’s been truly excruciating to watch my community crumble under the incessant violent rhetoric that the meaning of our language is up for a debate where we ourselves have no say.

if you’d told me 3 years ago that saying “lesbian attraction doesn’t include men” would land me and the lesbian community as a whole in a hot seat, i would’ve been shocked. i think we all would’ve been. stop and realize for a moment about how backwards this all is.

we all know deep down that claiming lesbians should include trans, cis, or non-binary men is so objectively wrong, that it’s textbook homophobia, but the new insistence of full-coverage inclusivity in context of any label has taken a very lesbophobic turn.

just because a word used to cover a variety of experiences BEFORE there was more diverse terminology doesn’t mean it was an umbrella term. bi activists worked their asses off for their own terminology and community. one of the first pride parade’s organizers was a bi woman.

lesbians are also having our label broken down by the SAM for the sake of this discourse to the point where we’re being called “homosexuals” again, the MEDICAL term used to regard being gay as an illness that needs treatment. lesbians are speak out about that and are ignored.

you can do no right online as a lesbian unless you are silent. i’ve only been an out lesbian online for a couple months and in that span of time, i have been called a TERF, a Nazi, a bitch, a gatekeeper, an exclusionist, and more, just for standing up for my community.

to make matters worse, BECAUSE i’m a lesbian, even when i stand up for other communities (like bi and trans people) my opinion is immediately disregarded and i am viciously attacked. i am tired of the eggshells i have to walk on. i am tired of the paranoia this induces.

i am tired of trying to convince people to respect my existence. lesbians talking about issues that greatly affect our community is minimized to “irrelevant discourse” and it’s exhausting. it shouldn’t be controversial to talk about my experiences, opinions, and feelings.

lesbians cannot help that the nature of our attraction and identity is somehow the antithesis of what it means to be queer now. we are not fluid in our attraction and our terminology is not meant to be vague or all-inclusive.

however, if lesbians themselves say that, we’re being hateful and regressive, so i’m done speaking on it, and in turn, making this break from twitter a very long and indefinite one, which makes me deeply sad, as this space has come to mean a lot to me for a variety of reasons.

i don’t know if i’ll ever be active on here again, i really can’t foresee a future where our community actually respects lesbians. our community is getting tired. we’re hurting. we’re being silenced and sometimes it feels like we only ever hear each other.

fortunately, because of this we’ll always find each other, no matter what happens. the experience of lesbianism is beautiful, filled with nuance and love and freedom. i will not compromise the liberation i feel as a lesbian by trying to force people to see me.

my visibility comes from my own reflection and what this identity means to me, from my partner, and the lesbian community. if you’re reading this as a non-lesbian in the LGBTQ+ community, you might wanna dismiss this thread as just another mean angry dyke screaming into the void.

if that’s the case, please do some reflection if that’s the case and see that this attitude the internet has towards lesbians is the problem. hopefully you aren’t thinking that, and if you not, thank you for caring about us during a time when it feels like almost nobody does.

it’s sad to say, but lesbians being defended by nonlesbians within the LGBTQ+ community means so much to us because at times, it’s the only instance where we’re heard. allyship is incredibly important, and at the same time, it can’t be the only reason lesbians are respected.

finally, if you’re a fellow lesbian reading this, listen. i love you. i’m so sorry that this is what the discourse has come to. your experience is real. your identity has meaning. you have an entire community of lesbians behind you. your voice will always matter to us.

if you’ve thought about leaving too (which a lot of you have come to me about) but don’t want to lose your connection to our community, reach out to me again and i’ll make sure you still have connections to safe online spaces. there are many, and they’re better than here.

i want to say that it’ll get better for us, but at this point, i can’t even be sure. all i know is, twitter has been an amazing space for me up until i started talking about the lesbian experience, and that’s when things went south. sadly, my story is not an uncommon one.

regardless, thanks to everyone who’s been so supportive and kind. during my time away from this website, i hope we can all learn to do right by one another so that everyone can feel respected in the spaces we’re meant to feel safe, seen, and heard.

with love always,
jules

(p.s. rereading this thread and findings lots of little typos and grammar issues. please excuse those. this open letter is fairly long, and i only proofread it a few times over, but thanks for reading.)

To be clear, I am talking about same-gender attraction in this thread. Trans women are real women and I strongly denounce any rhetoric that insinuates otherwise.

TERFS and Transphobes DO NOT interact with this thread. Trans activism does NOT threaten the lesbian community.