Lesbian Visibility Week; or, Oops, I think I'm a Lesbian?
Thursday, 23 April 2026 11:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crashmarguliesI heard it's Lesbian Visibility Week!
![The lesbian flag with seven stripes, often known as the sunset flag. It has meanings corresponding with each color stripe. From top to bottom, Dark orange = gender non-conformity. Mid orange = independence. Light orange = Community. White = Unique relationships to womanhood. Light pink = Serenity & peace. Mid pink = Love and sex. Dark pink = Femininity.](https://i.postimg.cc/50pp8Hcp/GENDER-NON-CONFORMITY-480x480.webp")
A version of the "sunset lesbian flag" with meanings for each color.
This one is interesting for me. I came out/was outed as bisexual when I was 12 and 13 and have used the label alongside "queer" ever since. I have had affairs and relationships with people across the gender spectrum. Partners have transitioned while dating me. My own gender identity has even shifted from "cis woman" to "trans, as in nonbinary, as in a gender; my gender is no."
I identified as bisexual for almost all of that, except for an extremely brief time in high school when I tried out the label "lesbian." I was even married to a straight cis man for about two years.
A couple of years ago, when I lived at my previous apartment, my now-wifedawnsupernova and I were talking about identities and labels. I was explaining to her that I was "about half and half;" that I'd had feelings for and affairs with a relatively equal number of men and women, with some nonbinary folks tossed in.
But as I was taking the tally, something interesting occurred: we realized that a bunch of the people I had been used to tallying in the "male / masculine" column had since come out as trans women and trans feminine and begun transitioning in various ways. While there where also trans masculine people, these folks tended not to identify as binary trans men and tended to also date other trans people and/or cis women.
I had known this vaguely, but when I went over it with Dawn, it made my mental infographics shift pretty seriously.
I also don't think I can ever date a cis man again, for about 200 different reasons, the 2025-26 Epstein & related revelations included.
So, suddenly I've found myself in a sexual/romantic ecosystem that is mostly (though not exclusively, because gender is fluid and nonmonogamy is neat) non-men dating other non-men.
Uh, whoops, I think I'm a lesbian! Probably a queer, T4T agender lesbian; and yeah, genderqueer, transgender and -sexual, and masculine lesbians have existed for a long time. Not here for an argument about this, please go elsewhere.
I don't exactly identify as a "late blooming" lesbian by any means, as I've had queer relationships all my life, but it's rad to have some realizations and make some decisions--including marrying a transgender nonbinary lesbian!--that make me feel less unstable in my queer identity. Some of that instability is definitely from the rampant bi/pan-phobia found in both straight and queer spaces; but perhaps some of it was just not fully accepting that straight/cis men are inherently unsafe and incompatible with me, whether they mean to be or not!
I hope to read and learn more about the historical lesbian movement, especially where it intersects with political choice and feminism/gender politics. I won't deal with overtly TERFY stuff (though I recognize older literature may be more gender-existentialist than I 'd like) and my cognitive capabilities are variable, trending low at the moment, so it may take me a lot of time to get to any media recommendations if you leave them.
A version of the "sunset lesbian flag" with meanings for each color.
This one is interesting for me. I came out/was outed as bisexual when I was 12 and 13 and have used the label alongside "queer" ever since. I have had affairs and relationships with people across the gender spectrum. Partners have transitioned while dating me. My own gender identity has even shifted from "cis woman" to "trans, as in nonbinary, as in a gender; my gender is no."
I identified as bisexual for almost all of that, except for an extremely brief time in high school when I tried out the label "lesbian." I was even married to a straight cis man for about two years.
A couple of years ago, when I lived at my previous apartment, my now-wife
dawnsupernova and I were talking about identities and labels. I was explaining to her that I was "about half and half;" that I'd had feelings for and affairs with a relatively equal number of men and women, with some nonbinary folks tossed in. But as I was taking the tally, something interesting occurred: we realized that a bunch of the people I had been used to tallying in the "male / masculine" column had since come out as trans women and trans feminine and begun transitioning in various ways. While there where also trans masculine people, these folks tended not to identify as binary trans men and tended to also date other trans people and/or cis women.
I had known this vaguely, but when I went over it with Dawn, it made my mental infographics shift pretty seriously.
I also don't think I can ever date a cis man again, for about 200 different reasons, the 2025-26 Epstein & related revelations included.
So, suddenly I've found myself in a sexual/romantic ecosystem that is mostly (though not exclusively, because gender is fluid and nonmonogamy is neat) non-men dating other non-men.
Uh, whoops, I think I'm a lesbian! Probably a queer, T4T agender lesbian; and yeah, genderqueer, transgender and -sexual, and masculine lesbians have existed for a long time. Not here for an argument about this, please go elsewhere.
I don't exactly identify as a "late blooming" lesbian by any means, as I've had queer relationships all my life, but it's rad to have some realizations and make some decisions--including marrying a transgender nonbinary lesbian!--that make me feel less unstable in my queer identity. Some of that instability is definitely from the rampant bi/pan-phobia found in both straight and queer spaces; but perhaps some of it was just not fully accepting that straight/cis men are inherently unsafe and incompatible with me, whether they mean to be or not!
I hope to read and learn more about the historical lesbian movement, especially where it intersects with political choice and feminism/gender politics. I won't deal with overtly TERFY stuff (though I recognize older literature may be more gender-existentialist than I 'd like) and my cognitive capabilities are variable, trending low at the moment, so it may take me a lot of time to get to any media recommendations if you leave them.