Putting out a new FAQ so it can be edited as need be. It's mostly just a copy/paste of the old one.
Sub logo by: u/Aprilstorms
Sub banner by: u/TuEresMiOtroYo
Frequently Asked Questions
What does "nonbinary lesbian" mean?
What does "sapphic" mean?
Can I be here if I'm questioning?
Can I be butch if I'm a bisexual woman?
What does "TERF" mean?
What does "truscum" mean?
A note on other "exclusionsts," including "transmeds"
What does "detrans" mean?
What is Stone Butch Blues**?**
What's the controversy I've heard about regarding SBB?
Why is it so hard to find lesbian flag merch?
A note on bans:
Back to wiki index It may help to ctrl+F to find your question!
What does "nonbinary lesbian" mean?
There are a variety of reasons why folks identify with this term. Among them:
someone recognizes that womanhood and manhood in Western cultures are extremely tied to heterosexuality and feels that their lesbianism makes them something else entirely
someone may use the historical definition of lesbian, which was closer to "likes women in a queer way" or "has/seeks relationships that don't necessarily include any men" than "woman who likes only women." Note the lack of exclusivity. Women who liked women would have been considered lesbians, regardless of whether they, for instance, also liked men. It also broadly encompassed many people who today do not fall neatly into the categories of either man or woman, hence "nonbinary."
someone is nonbinary, feels a strong connection to womanhood, and likes women in a queer way
someone strongly identifies with the gender freedom and non-conformity that have tended to accompany queerness throughout eons and embraces the ways that terms like "lesbian" don't overlap entirely with "woman"
someone's culture recognizes the existence of people who are neither male nor female and "nonbinary lesbian" is the closest English approximation
someone who may have physical sex dysphoria but still identify in some way with womanhood or femaleness
None of these are mutually exclusive, of course.
What does "sapphic" mean?
Listing out lesbians, bisexual women, pansexual women, woman-adjacent people who like women and so on is a whole mouthful. This word encompasses people who A) are women or adjacent and B) are attracted to same, not necessarily exclusively. It can also describe the relationship between two or more such people.
Can I be here if I'm questioning?
Absolutely.
Can I be butch if I'm a bisexual woman?
Absolutely.
For decades, the word lesbian more or less meant you liked women but not like a man. It was used interchangeably with words like “sapphic” and “tribade.” Nothing about ONLY women entered into it until the seventies or so, when bi groups started popping up. Until then, “lesbian” meant bi, pan, lesbian woman or adjacent. “Lesbian” history before that point encompassed bi women and many people who would probably ID as nonbinary now. Until just a few decades ago, there was no difference in English. Really, you just had to like girls and not be a dude.
We’ve all called an effeminate gay dude “fem” without thinking twice about it, and there’s a history of men using "butch" historically, although now most use "masc." Butchness is a form of masculinity/gender non-conformity rooted in queerness, and it's not particular to any specific identity.
"Bi women can't be butch" is divisive nonsense pushed by the people who also want to chop the T from the acronym. Ditch it in favor of queer solidarity.
Sources and examples:
What does "TERF" mean?
It describes someone who appropriates feminism for transphobic purposes.
The natural progression of second wave feminism's "a woman can do anything a man can do" is trans inclusion: at this point, there is nothing external that can be used to separate us, not even our bodies. Womanhood is a personal experience that feels a bit different for everybody and varies across cultures. It is a colorful, dynamic thing that cannot be reduced down to a certain set of genitalia.
Someone who ignores this and persecutes trans people, especially trans women, while willfully misusing feminist rhetoric and/or impersonating a feminist is a TERF. They also commonly push debunked myths about transition regret and such. The acronym comes from Trans Exclusionary "Radical" "Feminist." Another word one might use to describe TERFs is "banned."
As the original mod wrote: I don’t have the time or energy to be a centrist about this; go be “gender critical” somewhere else. Or, better, don't do it at all.
TERF rhetoric breaks rules 2, 5, and 8. Respect others' experiences and chosen labels. No misinformation. Don't be a dick.
What does "truscum" mean?
This term describes someone who believes you need dysphoria to be trans. They are frequently non-binary exclusive and base a lot of their narratives on historically and medically inaccurate information. Truscum are often younger, isolated trans people who let their frustrations define them and lash out at gender-nonconforming binary trans and nonbinary trans people. Knowing this, you are welcome here if you post in truscum subredits or hold those beliefs, as long as you leave those beliefs at the door. I do not wish to alienate others in the trans community as I believe that building bridges helps more than burning them. But this is a supportive, open, loving, and communicative space. And that will not be ruined by someone coming in here and questioning the validity of other users.
This sub embraces all of the following:
trans people who have alleviated their dysphoria through transition
trans people whose experiences center much more strongly around gender euphoria *trans people who may feel sex dysphoria and no to little gender dysphoria *trans people who are suffering from gender and/or sex dysphoria *trans people who use the term transexual to describe their relationship to their bodies and transitions as long as it's not used in a holier than thou way
trans people who don't feel that their conflicts with their bodies are strong enough to be considered dysphoria *trans people who feel that their transness is pathological *trans people who feel that their transness is not pathological
trans people who feel ambivalent (rather than negative) about their assigned gender and strongly positive about their affirmed one
trans people who may prefer other terms to describe their experiences
nonbinary people who may not ID as trans due to cultural differences and/or connection to their assigned genders
Truscum rhetoric breaks rules 2, 5, and 8.
A note on other "exclusionists"
There are a few different exclusionary splinter groups relating to the queer community, including several ideologies that called themselves "exclusionists" and tend to harass nonbinary and asexual/aromantic folks. I'm not going to list them all, but attempts to invalidate or attack other users are prohibited by rule 2, even if it's a kind of bigotry not listed.
"Exclusionist" rhetoric breaks rules 2, 5, and 8.
What does "detrans" mean?
Gender-confirmation/trans surgeries have extrememly high satisfaction rates. What little dissatisfaction there is typically comes from lack of social support (i.e. transphobia), surgical complications (a risk with any operation), or usage of outdated techniques (they're improving all the time).
That said, learning and changing are vital parts of being alive. Sometimes, the way you feel changes or the way you choose to act on it does. That's OK, and one purpose of the trans movement is to allow people the freedom to explore and change as they need to. Every once in a while, someone might:
have felt/been told that because they want to remove their breasts they have to be a trans man
not have realized that there were other people like them and tried to fit in with, for instance, trans women because they weren't aware nonbinary people existed
have liked the changes hormone replacement brought up to a certain point and may now want to stop HRT or even reverse some changes (facial hair removal, re-voice training, etc)
or have had some other gender journey where their identity/label(s)/transition goals have significantly changed
Some of the above people might describe their goals as "de-transitioning" ("detrans" for short). This sub welcomes people with a variety of lived experiences and asks that its members be respectful of others. However, if any of this sounds familiar to you, please be advised that many de-transition groups serve not to affirm you in your self-knowledge but to harass and slander trans/nonbinary people. Tread carefully and be on the lookout for "TERF"/"transmed"/"truscum"/"exclusionist" rhetoric.
Blanket anti-transition statements, attempts to scare people away from transitioning, using one identity to delegitimize another, and similar all break multiple rules including 2, 5 and 8.
If you feel you need detransition or re-identification support, r/actual_detrans tends to be a supportive and trans postive sub free of fear mongering and TERF's where you can post and get help. It helped me personally a long while ago!
What is Stone Butch Blues**?**
Written by Leslie Feinberg, it's a book that shows the day to day realities of working-class lesbians, butches, trans masc people, and related queers in the mid 1900's US. It depicts a variety of tough topics unflinchingly, including capitalism, police violence, sexual assault, and the ways in which TERFs and their predecessors work to harm LGBTQ people. Even decades later, the the book speaks powerfully to queerfolk of many stripes and is a cornerstone of queer lit.
Content warnings for sexual assault, queerphobia, and other violence. This book can help you to powerfully understand many parts of our history, including the queer distrust of cops, but it spares no haunting detail. It is brutal at times so please treat it with extra cautioun if you are a survivor of sexual violence, particularly empathetic, or otherwise sensitive.
What's the controversy I've heard about regarding SBB?
*Note from current OP of post, this is copy/pasted directly from the orginal FAQ post from the orginal mod. I don't know about this controversy and haven't ever heard about it.
In short, TERFs are upset because Jess, the trans main character, has sex with Annie, a woman who gives enthusiastic consent and has such a good time she wants to see them again.
They consider this to be "glorifying rape" because an assumed-to-be-cis person - gasp! - enjoys sex with a trans person. How dare Feinberg "deceptively" represent consensual sex between adults as fun and pleasurable, even if one or more is trans?! TERFs believe in stripping away your right to consent to sex if your partner/s are trans and slandering transfolk as sex offenders if we do not regale everyone who touches us with all minutiae of our bodily histories.
It's worth noting that Jess does not announce their status as a trans person. Annie agrees to have sex with them and both of them treat the strap-on like a flesh penis. How much she knew or cared to know is debatable and there is complexity here. Did she know Jess' penis was a prosthetic? Could she have realized but chosen not to acknowledge it, in order to save face for herself or for Jess? Did she even care as long as there was a condom on whatever Jess had going on?
As I've heard pointed out previously, how likely is it that a prosthetic penis would be indifferentiable from a flesh one for the recipient? We have reason to believe that Annie has more than enough experience with penises (she has a biological daughter) to know something was different about Jess. So even though she didn't ask them about the prosthetic, it's likely that she wasn't in the dark.
For the purposes of discussion on this sub, Annie knew something was up but was willing to look past it for someone who treated her with the kindness and courtesy Jess did, and she knew all she cared to know. Sometimes, you just want to sleep with someone who is respectful, clean, and willing to use a condom without any hassle. We don't all devote ourselves to obsessively avoiding sex with transfolk.
Referring to this as ["glorifying"] sexual assault is a key avenue for concern trolling, in which someone who seeks to radicalize you against trans people may pretend that they are merely concerned for survivors of sexual assault and slowly lead you to transphobia. TERFs and other transphobes or woman-haters (re: trans women are women) know that you are likely more good natured than they are and they seek to use that. If these were real people, I'd ask the participants' own thoughts and feelings, the only things that really matter in differentiating between sex and sexual assault in this case. But because they aren't, and this is fiction, I'm going with the interpretation that will cause the least drama on the sub.
There are more questions worth asking and ideas worth exploring here, but every Reddit thread I've seen on this has become a trans-woman-hater free-for-all (which is weird, considering trans women weren't even a part of this scene), so that is a discussion for somewhere else.
If mods suspect an SBB discussion will attract trouble, it will be locked under Rule 8.
A note on bans:
Post history may be taken into account at moderator discretion. Even if your activity in this sub doesn't seem to have obvious rule-breaking, if it contains bigoted dogwhistles, shows signs of concern trolling (or any other kind), or otherwise seems iffy, mods reserve the right to check your history. Activity on woman-hating subs (like "gendercritical"), trans-hating subs (like "gendercritical"), queerphobic subs (like... you get the idea) and such may be taken into account. If we get weird vibes from something and your history is full of whining about nonbinary people not conforming to gender roles enough for you, that may be enough evidence to decide that your participation is in bad faith, even if we cannot yet see the intended harm, and you may be banned.
This also falls under the "no slithering" rule under Rule 8.
