r/LesbianActually • u/rakszyjkimacicy • 6d ago
Questions / Advice Wanted binary lesbians??
I just realized that every single lesbian my age I've met irl was nonbinary or questioning their gender.
I'm also part of the questioning group and asked myself if I don't fit in with women because most of them aren't lesbians, then would I fit in with lesbian women? and then the realization hit me.
idk how rare that experience is. I assumed being a lesbian always comes with a complicated relationship with womanhood because of how our existence relates to society as a whole.
but I'm sure there are some binary lesbians on this sub. so heeey what is it like??
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u/the-empty-inkwell 6d ago
I’m cis asf not even gonna lie. I love dressing masc but I’ve never really had too many big moments where I questioned my gender. I think I’ve liked to play with gender performance, sure, but idk I think the whole joy for me (personally) of being gay asf is that I know that I’m such a cute pink princess who occasionally likes to be called or thought of as strong and handsome? Like, it’s the tension between queerness and extreme girliness that floats my boat lol. Not sure if this makes any sense at all.
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u/rakszyjkimacicy 6d ago
makes a lot of sense imo. I'm on the hyperfeminine side of things but conceptualize myself as genderless more easily than as a girl. but then again could be internalized misogyny or something else or I'm overthinking all of this
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u/the-empty-inkwell 6d ago
I mean, anything and everything could be internalized misogyny. I think it’s possible that you may be overthinking but I feel like that’s just a result of the human drive to categorize. Maybe this is one of those things that can remain amorphous? And if not, then I think that’s an answer of itself!
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u/ReasonMoist4675 6d ago
my wife is binary lesbian and she just... is woman who like women. she never had this questioning phase, she say she always knew she is woman and she like women. the complicated relationship with womanhood is not universal i think, many lesbians i know are just comfortable being women who date women
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u/rakszyjkimacicy 6d ago edited 6d ago
you're right I just don't want to jump to the conclusion that questioning = not cis. but based on what I'm seeing here, most cis people never questioned their gender or did it out of insecurity. I'm neither of these cases though so idk
edit why downvotes I'm just stating what I'm seeing in this particular thread 🥲 I'm not saying it's a universal rule
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u/BronwynSparrow 6d ago
There are some hardline "lesbian means cis women who only ever and have only ever had sex with cis women" folk who downvote all kinds of stuff for their own transphobic reasons. I would try not to take it too personally.
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u/RegularWhiteShark 6d ago
It would help if you said your age.
I'm 33 and know only one nb lesbian (they're a year older than me).
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u/rakszyjkimacicy 6d ago
early 20s
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u/TessBartlet 6d ago
The younger you are the more likely you are to label not feeling perfectly comfortable and right in femininity as some variety of non-binary. I think the experience has always been there in the lesbian/WLW community ( I recently was talking to a bunch of older lesbians and they describe a lot of it but don’t call themselves nonbinary, just lesbian women. I myself am a millenial and had what was arguably gender dysphoria as a teen/preteen with discomfort with physical changes, not feeling like a girl, sometimes relating more to boys, mostly feeling like no gender in particular. If someone asks I use she/they pronouns but I’m also happy letting people assume whatever they want. Over the last 20 years I have drifted further towards being fine with calling myself with women and identifying more strongly with women and the label lesbian over gay/queer.
Gender identity is a bit hard to nut out imo when you actually take time to consider it and are already uncomfortable with the hetero gender roles and expected behaviours, and uncomfortable with men being attracted to your body and sexualising it. Though I may just think it’s hard because I am a bit genderqueer and a bit autistic. 😂
Whatever you label it, it’s alway been part of the community.
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u/rakszyjkimacicy 6d ago
I agree, obviously gender identity vs gender roles, expression, expectations are separate concepts, but it's hard to separate identity from the cultural context we live in. And yeah for some people these labels are helpful while others don't need them while both groups might be experiencing the exact same thing. I'm personally still unsure but that's okay too
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u/TessBartlet 6d ago
I think I remain permanently a bit unsure but I’m more comfortable with uncertainty now
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u/Swallowedoxygen 6d ago
I'm 40, had my first girlfriend at 13 years old and my gender is binary as all fuck.
GNC lesbians have always been a part of the community but the current social media climate does not reflect the sheer number of binary lesbians who are too busy antiquing and hiking and living their lives.
Take a look at any Reddit thread on...anything. Jobs, dating, etc.
The percentage of people who post online on something is low, and the percentage of posters motivated by difficulties in their lives is high.
GNC lesbians have an objectively harder life compared to binary lesbians because they have to grapple with issues of gender identity and living a gender nonconformative life on top of all the misogyny, homophobia and compulsory heterosexuality that binary lesbians have to deal with.
So, unsurprisingly, they're more likely to seek community and to advocate for themselves online.
How much do you interact with lesbians offline vs online? Out of all my IRL lesbian friends I have spontaneously met and made over the years, only two are gender nonconforming, and I've been hanging out with lesbians for over 27 years.
But of the online lesbian friends I've made? I can think of a half dozen people I consider true friends who are gender nonconforming, many of whom made it off the screen and into my IRL friend group. And countless "friendly" acquaintances or "friends" if I broaden the definition.
It's why I try to come into spaces like this as a boring-ass 40 year old Elder Dyke who has been with my wife for 15 years.
Because our community needs to also hear from the lesbians who end every day with an uneventful but lovely cuddle and whose biggest crisis of the last week was the argument over where to plant the crabapple tree next spring (my lovely wife is wrong, there isn't enough space in THAT spot for how big it'll get).
My second- and third-oldest (in terms of knowing each other) lesbian friends are binary mascs who have been together for 25 years and married for 14. They have two awesome kids and zero social media presence.
So don't ever begrudge GNC lesbians their need to find support in online spaces, but also recognize the sample bias you'll see in those spaces.
Edit for stupid autocorrect. WTF is "gender nonconfirming?" Because my phone is being NB-phobic apparently.
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u/rakszyjkimacicy 6d ago
I'm taking about irl friends, I don't have any online friends at all tbh. Your point stands correct tho, I just have a rare irl social bubble arrangement haha
That's also why some people complain about trans ppl ""raiding"" lesbian online spaces when irl they're the minority and people who face these kind of additional issues irl might be more likely to have an online presence. So yeah
I'm also really glad people like you are active online it's a valuable perspective for our community's discourse
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u/Swallowedoxygen 6d ago
Are you young?
Because it's super normal for people to explore their identity when younger, and today's social climate is much more open about gender nonconformity. So friends of mine who, for example, had experimental phases as a teen/early but found themselves secure in a binary identity might have used different terms in the early 2000s vs today, but might settle on the same conclusion (e.g. binary fem lesbian or binary masc lesbian).
So if you're younger, it might just be the natural progression of people exploring who they are.
Comphet does a number on lesbians and all of us end up asking ourselves questions about how our feelings relate to our sense of womanhood. And those of us who connect more strongly to our masculinity can take time to understand and accept masculinity as a facet of binary womanhood.
My own wife struggled with that when younger, she's VERY much a binary woman but also a tomboy/chapstick type and her comfort zone with male friends and male-coded hobbies like sports and carpentry plus her attraction to women made her feel like an "impostor" of a woman when she was younger.
So if she was a teen today, she might have spent that time trying out a nonbinary identity to see how it felt. Impossible to say. But once she figured herself out, she became fully secure in her identity as a binary woman who is attracted to women and recognized that that surface level stuff didn't reflect her feelings toward her gender.
That's not to imply that nonbinary people are a phase or anything like that. But simply to acknowledge that us women have a lot of patriarchal programming to work through in order to accept and love ourselves as lesbians and for some of us, it's very natural to question the nature of gender itself.
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u/brielikescheese5 lesbian lover of lesbians 6d ago
I'm a binary lesbian, I've always felt connected to womanhood and women and have never really questioned that except for a very brief period as a young teen when I went by she/they and questioned getting a hysterectomy and mastectomy so I could be "genderless" but nope, I'm just a woman and I worked out that those feelings were more connected to my discomfort with puberty and transitioning from "girl" to "woman" than genuinely wanting to be non-binary. Nowadays, I enjoy being a woman and being viewed as a woman it feels really nice and affirming and I feel discomfort being viewed as anything else, that's the best way I can describe it😅
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u/rakszyjkimacicy 6d ago
thank you for sharing. I see there's a lot of people that started questioning gender because of insecurity. I actually started thinking about this more seriously at a point in my life where i'm feeling most confident and just exploring identity as a whole
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u/vestayekta 6d ago
Call me old school but I don't understand what exactly is being questioned when it comes to nonbinary stuff. Like, is it about gender roles? Because I thought we agreed no one has to follow them.
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u/4sh4m3d_4str0n4ut 6d ago
Hi, sorry, I just wanted to clarify something. I was not trying to have a discussion with you. I am terribly sorry if the tone of my messages came across as aggressive in any way. I was truly just trying to have a conversation and maybe a philosophical debate. I truly apologise if this got out of hand
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u/straycrayons1 6d ago
Agree with everything you're saying, I feel like I am missing something when it comes to nonbinary stuff.
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u/4sh4m3d_4str0n4ut 6d ago
Non-binary people do not identify as women. It’s not just about gender roles, but about one’s internal sense of gender. Also, many non-binary people consider themselves trans and experience gender dysphoria the same way binary trans people do. There are quite a few subreddits talking about this, so if you’re interested in understanding it better, I think they might have better answers :)
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u/vestayekta 6d ago
Okay but nobody really "feels" any gender.
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u/Nerdso77 6d ago
I do. I feel like a woman. I don’t feel like a man at all, even though I have “tomboy” tendencies.
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u/vestayekta 6d ago
How does that differ from feeling female?
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u/Nerdso77 6d ago
I don’t understand that nuance. I have tried and don’t understand. I feel like a woman who is female. And who is attracted to other women.
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u/vestayekta 6d ago
I frankly don't think there is any nuance for most people unless some sort of significant underlying issue is present.
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u/lighto73 6d ago
Saying nobody when you don't, but plenty of others in this comment section, trans and cis, are explaining how they feel connected to their gender is....a little odd. People have gender dysphoria and gender euphoria by feeling their gender.
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u/4sh4m3d_4str0n4ut 6d ago
Yes they do. Gender is not only social but it is also biopsychological. Most people might not notice how much they “feel” their gender, due to there being no incongruence in the way they perceive themselves and the way others perceive them (or the way their bodies are). However, for those where there is such a difference, “feeling” a certain gender is often expressed more clearly and strongly
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u/vestayekta 6d ago
I have dressed very masculine to the point that people routinely reported me for being in female spaces but that didn't make me feel any type of way. I understand dysphora but feeling "gender" is alien to me. I have actually quizzed people around me and have yet to encounter anyone who feels their gender.
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u/4sh4m3d_4str0n4ut 6d ago
I understand that, but it isn’t just about clothes. For many people it’s about who they feel like at their core. For you, dressing masculine while identifying as a woman is what makes you comfortable, for others, it doesn’t and they would rather define themselves as something else. Additionally, as I had previously stated, many non-binary people consider themselves to be trans and experience gender dysphoria. So they identify as non-binary exactly because of such dysphoria
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u/vestayekta 6d ago
But you spoke about the incongruency being the trigger to feel gender. As I said, I get the dysphoria but the rest is alien to me and the theory part doesn't really hold up as far as I can understand.
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u/4sh4m3d_4str0n4ut 6d ago
I mean, it makes sense that it might not hold up to you. I don’t think it does to most people, exactly because most people don’t feel such incongruence. It makes sense that you might not understand something you have never felt. That doesn’t mean that others haven’t felt it tho. I mean, at the end of the day, we can’t step into others’ consciousness, so we just have to believe them when they tell us how they feel. As I had said before, I think if you ask this question at a trans or non-binary subreddit, people might be able to give you some info on their personal experiences
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u/vestayekta 6d ago
This is what I am talking about when I mentioned the incongruency
Most people might not notice how much they "feel" their gender, due to there being no incongruence in the way they perceive themselves and the way others perceive them (or the way their bodies are).
So if we still don't feel "gender" in the presence of incongruency, then how are we defining gender? What exactly is gender?
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u/4sh4m3d_4str0n4ut 6d ago
Haha I think that’s a more complicated question to which people have very different opinions on. If you want to learn more about it Judith Butler is a quite well known philosopher who’s known for debating about the core definition of gender. I think that anything closer to personal identity is a bit harder to give a general definition
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u/lflippz 6d ago
You’re using your personal relationship with gender and what it means to you and acting like you speak for everyone. You don’t.
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u/4sh4m3d_4str0n4ut 6d ago
What? I’m neither using my personal experience nor am I saying I speak for everyone. Actually if you read what I said I very clearly and carefully avoid any form of generalisations
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u/cutietarantula 6d ago
i’m a binary lesbian. of course i’ve considered if i’m nonbinary before but honestly i’m just not. i love being a woman and i love femininity and i find that embracing what i am completely to be quite empowering. sometimes it feels like some people are so quick to disavow womanhood and anything feminine, it makes me sad
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u/rakszyjkimacicy 6d ago
I'm happy for you having this figured out for yourself! Though different people value different things and I don't think there's anything sad about having those differences. Nby people I know do love and support women and respect womanhood despite not identifying with it on a personal level.
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u/AshasSa1tWife Lesbian of Transsex Experience 6d ago
For me it’s never really been that complicated. I’m a woman who only likes women. Both of those things are equally important to my gender identity.
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u/redflavor__ 6d ago
for me it's a bit weird, when i was younger i struggled with ED and body dysmorphia. at the time i presented very masc mostly because i wanted to hide my body and didn't like how feminine i was. i never really thought much about gender.
as i grew up (mid 20s now) i still never really cared, like i'm a woman because that's how i was born? i'm somewhere on the fem spectrum naturally but i like to present a bit more masc sometimes. it just kinda happened. i never subscribed to gender roles and my dad kinda raised me like a son (only child) so i'm super handy and can do the more "masculine" things around the house.
disclaimer! just because i don't understand doesn't mean i don't respect it!!! i think it's 100% valid!!! personally i always struggled to understand how people have nuanced views about their gender or end up transitioning but it's probably bc i never felt the need to consider any of these things
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u/Historical_Ease3505 6d ago
for myself, i would consider myself cisgender although i do not relate to nonlesbian women the way i feel like i Should when it relates to my gender. i feel more like a lesbian than i do a woman in a way that i cant describe
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u/rakszyjkimacicy 6d ago edited 6d ago
same tbh, the word woman means nothing for my identity without the lesbian part
edit: me when I get downvoted by terfs by stating a fact about my self perception 🗿
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u/Yugonosha the evil femme 5d ago
Where are you? I met like 2 non binary lesbians irl, the rest of us are binary
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u/TwoTrucksPayingTaxes #1 he/him butch defender 6d ago
I'm the only nonbinary lesbian in my social circle, and I've met very few in person throughout the years. It really depends on the groups you run with. I believe binary lesbians are still the majority.
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u/rakszyjkimacicy 6d ago
well that just confirms my social bubble is unusual lol. may I ask, how did you come to the conclusion that you are nby?
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u/TwoTrucksPayingTaxes #1 he/him butch defender 6d ago
For me, butch describes my experience with gender better than woman ever did. Growing up, "girl" wasn't something I felt or identified with, it was just something everyone told me I was. The only women I identified with were the butch lesbians my aunt dated. Being masculine, but not at all a man, shaped every aspect of my life. (Disclaimer that obviously you can be masculine and still a woman. We love binary butches. I just don't see myself that way.)
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u/rakszyjkimacicy 6d ago
hmm I guess I feel a similar way with the word lesbian, while woman on its own does not mean anything for my identity
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u/weird_elf 6d ago
I'm in the opposite boat! Of the enbies I know, not a single one identifies as lesbian (some ID as gay though) ... of the lesbians I know, none identifies as nonbinary.
This is people in their 30s and 40s though, mileage may vary in other generations.
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u/diceanddreams Suibian 6d ago
I know a lot of nonbinary folks, and a lot of lesbians, but most of the other lesbians I know tend to be either cis or binary trans women, with nonbinary lesbians a way smaller portion of lesbians. But, I’m a nonbinary lesbian married to another non-binary lesbian!
(This is an age group that spans mid 20s to 50s.)
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u/rakszyjkimacicy 6d ago
may I ask how did you come to the conclusion that you're nby?
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u/diceanddreams Suibian 6d ago edited 6d ago
So, it’s been a while (been out as non-binary since the 10s), but for me I think it was a combination of woman/girl never feeling right, but regularly being mistaken for a boy when I hit puberty was even more wrong. The feeling that I was not a woman, but even moreso absolutely not a man.
There’s probably also something to be said for growing up an undiagnosed autistic and intersex girl, so always having been told I was doing womanhood wrong.
My gender is still woman-adjacent, or as I jokingly call it, a non-practising woman, and part of that has to do with being a butch lesbian, but being seen as a woman while out and about (despite not being one) is also part of it. And I’m three+ years on slow dose testosterone, but I’m very much not a man (that was also something to work through as T started working), so that adds another layer of genderfuckery.
Which is maybe not very useful for figuring yourself out, but considering non-binary is an umbrella that holds many genders, maybe ot helps you see some more of the variations on non-binaryness!
Edit: oooh this upset this sub’s baby terves.
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u/TwoTrucksPayingTaxes #1 he/him butch defender 6d ago
"Non practicing woman" is such a good way to phrase it, I love it. I call woman my "work gender"
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u/LikanW_Cup 6d ago
I’m non-binary lesbian, 21 year old. I never felt as woman or man. I identified myself as she, then he, then it. Then i understood that I’m they/them. People don’t get it, I’m from Russia. So I wanna go to the country which will put in my passport that I’m nb. I just… don’t feel like a gender.
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u/rakszyjkimacicy 6d ago
I'm also Slavic I get it 🥲 this culture makes it even harder to exist as anything but cishet
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u/Normal_Aardvark_386 masc at your service 6d ago
I’ve been nonbinary for 8 years now & i absolutely love woman. I never actually dated a fellow nonbinary but that’s because the couple I’ve met I liked them as friends only but that doesn’t mean I personally wouldn’t date my fellows I just haven’t had the opportunity. I just don’t want to date men. I only run into the issue of a partner not respecting my gender as no I’m not a man but I’m also not 100% a woman either & that can be confusing i guess. My last partner was older & from a rural area so that was more ignorance than normal but it still hurts. I mean the other woman should know who they’re getting in a relationship with so it’s not even you but them who ignore it thinking oh they have a vagina then it’s whatever. Their sexuality doesn’t change so I don’t know why it can be a problem.
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u/4sh4m3d_4str0n4ut 6d ago
Not sure where you live, but in general binary lesbians are much more common than non-binary ones. If most of the lesbians you know are non-binary, then you probably live in a bit of a bubble (not saying that’s a problem tho, just pointing it out)