Okayyyyy so let's talk for a minute about the discourse that continues to cycle around about who, exactly, is responsible for men thinking they have sexual access to lesbians, or that lesbians can be "converted" to heterosexuality by men.

CW biphobia, transphobia 1/

Back in the early 90s, when I was a teenager struggling through being partially out in a rural (and frankly really fucking dangerous for queers) area, I heard a lot of the following:

2/

*[your orientation at the time] makes men think they can have access to lesbians
*[X] is harmful to lesbians because...
*You shouldn't identify as [X] bc it's harmful to lesbians, you should identify as [y] instead, and if you can't, just admit you're really straight.
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*I mean, MOST women who ID as [X] are INVOLVED WITH MEN, so they're really harming the community by making men think they can have access to us!
*[X] can't be allowed into community with us bc they harm us by exposing us to men.

And on and on.
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It bears noting that this ALSO happens to bi mlm & that in the early 90s, TIME Magazine explicitly blamed bi mlm for the transmission of HIV in the Straight community.

I know that these things all sound EXACTLY like the bi/pan lesbian discourse of 2020, but in the early 90s...5/

This was all about bisexuality! Bi AFABs were explicitly blamed for "exposing" the lesbian community to men. There were long debates on whether lesbians should date, or even hang out with bi women, bc bi women would just "infect" them with het cooties, and leave them for men.
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If this sounds BLATANTLY biphobic and like bi women are being blamed for the actions and activities of men, rather than those men being held responsible, you are right! That's exactly what's happening.

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This is an extension of the political lesbian ideal that women should "choose" the "more pure" relationship with women, regardless of their actual sexual orientation, and that extension ALSO cloaks domestic abuse in the wlw community bc it presumes only men abuse partners. 8/

And let's be clear: even if no one EVER identified as a bi lesbian or a pan lesbian or even bisexual EVER AGAIN, even if we all went back to using lesbian and ONLY women who met the horrific "gold star standard" called themselves lesbians...
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... and the rest of us: non-binary lesbians, trans lesbians, bi/pan lesbians, bi AFABs of all identities, all just VANISHED INTO THE ETHER...

The remaining lesbians would not be ONE BIT SAFER FROM MEN THINKING THEY'D BE SEXUALLY AVAILABLE.

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Why?

Because it isn't about the actions of other women, it's about the patriarchal assumption that women (remember, in this fantasy only the cis lesbians are left!) exist to be sexually available to men.

That doesn't stop when we censor the actions of other lesbians. 11/

That isn't a feminist approach to the problem. It's the same approach to assault that says "well, what were you wearing?" bc it makes victims and marginalized genders responsible for guarding themself and changing THEIR behavior rather than demanding men stop being creeps.
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Further, this is the exact same approach to the problem that gendercrits take to their safety, by holding trans women accountable for men who assault women. It's the EXACT SAME "wolf in sheep's clothing" idea that paints a bi woman as an invading cishet...

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... just the same as trans women are painted as invading men in dresses, and not legitimate members of the community of women.

The problem is not, and never has been, bi people, whether they call themselves bi, bi lesbians, dykes, queers, or any other label.
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The responsibility for sexual assault does not lie with the victim or with an unrelated third party whose only crime is identifying in a way that doesn't please the Political Lesbian Discourse.

It lays, solely and only, forever and ever, with the assaulter.

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And let's be clear: this bright dividing line, that the only lesbians who are REALLY lesbians are those who fully reject men, have always rejected men, find men repugnant, have never touched a penis, etc., is not based around women or an embrace of Sapphic love...
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... it's still based AROUND MEN. When your entire identity is not based around an embrace of the positive, it still centers what it focuses all its energy on rejecting.

Men remain at the center of this philosophy, even in the negative.
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And that suits the patriarchy just fine, because then they can put us all in neat little boxes and say "oh yes, the ONLY way for a woman to not be with a man is if she JUST CAN'T BEAR being with a man."

It's the same sort of transphobic mindset that demands dysphoria...
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...as the heart of the trans experience, as if the ONLY WAY for someone to NOT BE CIS is if being cis is just TOO PAINFUL. And it centers the pain of trans people and lesbians, allowing cishets to emphasize that being what we are is PAINFUL and, essentially, deviant & wrong. 19/

It makes our lives about our pain, rather than our joy. It continues to center men and cis people in our lives, rather than allowing us to exist as fully realized humans whose self-definition is not reliant on cishet approval or existence.
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It is not a healthy mindset, or a feminist mindset, or a sustainable mindset for a community. It is an essentially self-cannibalizing mindset, in which lesbian and bi communities eat their young and destroy themselves, blaming each other rather than cishets for our pain. 21/

And who benefits from that?

Well it sure as hell isn't us.

The only structure that benefits from that is the cishet majority, who get to continue to paint us as essentially fucked-up and self-destructive, bc we keep hurting each other on their behalf.
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And besides which, how someone identifies really isn't up to you. At all. It's just not your business.

They're going to continue to be who they are, with or without your say-so.

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You don't get to choose or enforce someone else's sexual or gender identity any more than someone else gets to choose yours and declare you straight!

The only thing YOU get to do is decide whether your reaction builds community to sustain us, or destroys community...
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... just like the cishets would really, really love you to.

Your choice, I guess. I've been in this community for 30 years. I know what I choose, and it's building up others, not ripping them down in service to the patriarchy.
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Addendum: Please don't try to debate with me on this if you're a minor. I do not argue with kids. I just don't.

And spamming my replies with kpop gifs will only get you blocked when I bother to sweep through and do a mass block. I won't even see them in my mentions.

https://twitter.com/vaspider/status/1063910324292780033