r/rarelesbians

Please don't say "just ignore them lol" because these types of comments get 1k+ likes on Twitter/X, Instagram, tiktok, etc. So clearly it's a large swept feeling.

I'm early 30s, label hopped A LOT in my teen and twenties (thanks lgbtq-phobic orthodox Christian upbringing 😭 now a polytheistic pagan) before finally settling on aromantic asexual lesbian with a libido that seems to change everyday, throughout the day.

Life circumstances had me end up with a cis heterosexual polyamory (I'm also polyamory) man as my nesting partner and queer platonic partner. He's near my age, we share a lot of similar hobbies. An orgasm is just a way to make the biochemistry in my head go "brrrr happy endorphins brrrr". I've explained it to him and he's like "hey, I accept and am happy with that. We don't need to experience things identically". I say "he's my partner" in public because I don't need to explain my complicated life circumstances and history.

I dress for the girls. I love consuming girl-girl content (sfw content, not XXX stuff, so like high school romance shows/movies/manga/mawha, etc.; tumblr scrolling through girls holding hands kissing, laying side by side etc.).

Then I scroll through social media and I see comments all the time (many from younger queers, rad fems and/or strict gold keeper older lesbians) say things like "YOU CANT BE ANYTHING WITH A MAN OTHERWISE YOU'RE NOT A LESBIAN" or "SAYING YOUR A LESBIAN WHILE DATING A MAN PUTS US IN DANGER". or things like "your centering how you experience stuff around a man!"

And I'm just sitting there going "I love girls. Just because life circumstances happened in such a way that my nesting partner who is also my queer platonic partner is a cis dude doesn't change the fact that 💜I love girls💜".

I read lesbian and queer history stories all the time from the 1960-1990s (stone butch blues, the stonewall generation, etc.). It feels like so many people now are almost falling in the "gold star lesbian mindset" and it's low-key actively harming the LGBTQ community because they're deliberately ignoring so much of queer history, theory, philosophy that brought us here today to the 2020s 🫣

Ok so me personally, I support all lesbians and stuff, but I was wondering if anyone could give me an (easier) understanding of what lesboy and gaybian mean? I’ve seen a ton of different explanations- Wouldn’t gaybian just be similar to bisexual or pansexual? Would lesboy just be a butch lesbian? I sincerely apologize if this may be offensive.>!(Also- not to get into anything sensitive but, I have astigmatism and tics making it hard for me to read things. I also apologize if my writing is slurred, mixed up, or anything like that. :) !<

But yeah that’s all I need. Thank you!

My sister passed away and she has two kids. We have incredibly small family so I am now the one who will look after them. I don't really know what to do. I need a way to make money. I feel like throwing up. I am going to sell a lot of my clothes. Donate plasma. Reach out to churches but I don't even have money to get them food or anything. I don't even get paid from my job for 8 days which I don't know how.

If anyone can help me. $5 $20 I appreciate anything

I am located in glenshaw PA, pittsburgh area. zip code 15116

hey everyone! so ive been into girls since i was like 12 lmao. i identified as lesbian for a few years, then pansexual, and back to lesbian for a bit. only recently did i discover the label gaybian, and found it fit!

I started dating a girl a few months back, and everything was going great. I was head over heels, she was so gorgeous and sweet. I loved her a lot.

But after a few months i started to realize something. I couldn’t see myself dating her long term. and as more time went on, i wanted a gay (mlm) relationship desperately.

I broke up with her because of this. I suggested polyamory, she was monogamous so it wasnt gonna work. I wasn’t going to be in a relationship i wasnt fully satisfied in, and i couldn’t drag her along a relationship where her feelings weren’t fully reciprocated.

My question is, am i still a lesbian? i don’t think i could date a girl, but im still horribly attracted to them lmao. Im not monogamous, but it feels problematic to not be able to date a woman unless a man is in my life too? 😭

also i have lesbian merch,, (a ‘thats mister dyke to you!’ pin that i really wanna keep… but do i deserve?!?) do i get rid of that? help!

The thing is that I'm transmasc and in the situation where all the people who I was into as a "lesbian" also transitioned along with me, to the weird squishy space of kind of guy but kind of not and have this Experience that is very peculiar, like I was assigned dyke at birth and that was my Role and it was surprising when I tried dating men. I had to physically transition for my sanity and I've gotten what I wanted and I don't pass as a man most of the time, me and my trans man partner are usually taken as a lesbian couple in public (he also gets my identity and his experience is also a bit squishy and he has a desire To Be Understood among queer people which he doesn't often get). The closest description I've seen is fag dyke, and even if it's concise, I can't just say that in most places to most people. But something like that would clear so many things up, because there is this odd swirl of confusion around me even among friends.

I don't know, I'm babbling. It's tiring, though.

Basically another thing that caused me to write about postmodern lesbianism.

I went to this event, i believe it was called the Lesbian Festival of Athens 2024. The poster was a bunch of raised arms, of all sizes and races. And yet, at the events there i saw no BIPOC, fat or non-greek speakers in general. In fact, the entire event was in greek too. It specified that this event is for all lesbians, including trans ones, yet the poems they read were all by cis lesbians and specifically mentioned disgust for "the male body" and men in general, while praising "the female body". The event itself was at a space inaccessible for those who can't use stairs. And so i asked the team that organized it, the "lesbians of the fringe", what about their event was intersectional? What did a week of cis white slim able bodied speakers talking to the audience offer to us who view ourselves as voiceless?

And they ghosted me

I'm agender and trixplatonic which basically means I'm only platonically attracted to non-males.

I'm definitely sure I'm Sapphic; but I've noticed there's sexual attraction towards very feminine men or Nb people who might have a phallus as long as they're feminine presenting as well? I'm not sure what microlabel this might be under the lesbian/sapphic umbrella, so I'd appreciate some advice here, y'all!

Sooooo… this is gonna be a lot. If you aren’t ready to hear about self harm and accusations of sexual assault, you probablyyyyy should skip this. First of all, before I say anything, I just found this sub today, and I’m really grateful that it exists, thank you all so much. My ex broke up with me about nine months ago. She broke up with me for reasons that were unclear, and she only spoke on months later, but before we get to that part of the story, we need some back story about our relationship. Originally, when we got together, it was under the pretext of an open relationship, because when we had confessed our love, I was already in an open relationship with another girl at that point. This was fully agreed upon, and thoroughly talked through. Two months into our relationship, I take on another girlfriend who in order to differentiate, I will call Marnie. Now, it is important to note that Marnie attends the same school as me and my ex (who I will call Misty), but my other third girlfriend doesn’t (but she isn’t relevant to the story). As our relationship progresses, Misty’s mental health goes down hill. She has massive anxiety problems, and places an undue amount of importance on her school work. In order to attempt to recuperate her mental health, she neglects her work, which creates friction between her and her parents, and her and her teachers— worsening her mental health. She begins cutting, and attempted suicide multiple times. I stand by her in anyway I can, doing whatever she needs me to do. I’ve been woken up by midnight phone calls, and I’ve held her in my arms after she swallowed all of her pills, and was waiting to die. Flash forward two months. Misty finally breaks the news to me that a major factor in the decline of her mental is due to her jealousy of Marine, and that she never wanted to be in an open relationship, only she was afraid to say that. At this point, I have no fucking idea what I’m supposed to do. A month later, I’m talking on the phone with Misty, trying to calm her down as she survives the third failed suicide attempt of our relationship, and she’s ranting about how much she hates Marine, I send Marine a text breaking up with her to calm Misty down. In the text exchange that follows, I can clearly see that Marine is devastated, and she said that she knew I would pick Misty over her. I’m emotionally crippled for weeks afterward. I never wanted to break up with Marnie, I felt like I had to in order to spare the life of Misty. Five months later, Misty breaks up with me. She says that she hated me the whole time, and never loved me. Later on, she tells me I pressured her into sexual acts, when this is not true, and in fact I almost redundantly asked for consent every time we did anything, no matter how small. I’ve realized that, while I did in no way apply pressure for her to commit these sexual acts, and constantly asked for consent, her deeply rooted social anxiety prevented her from answering honesty, although I did not realize this at the time, and even after we broke up, this was not explained to me. When we broke up, she said we could still be friends, which I was ok with for some reason, even though she literally just said she hated me. Over the course of the following week, our ‘friendship’ quickly and quietly deteriorated. During this period, she would constantly eavesdrop on my conversations, and but in to berate me if she disagreed. She would constantly do this, dragging me into pointless, hour long arguments, where she constantly insulted everything I like and believed. In addition to this, she would whenever I tapped with my foot on the group during classes, or with my fingers (I have adhd), she would literally punch me to get me to stop. In addition to those things, she would constantly insult me at any chance she could, and explained that it was ok because quite “I don’t have feelings.” She did/ does constantly talk shit about me behind my back to anyone who will listen, including to my literally life long best friend of ten years, and though this, she has spread terrible rumors about me, not limited to me being a rapist. I told her I was sorry during this, and just ignored all this things as best I could, because all I wanted was to be left alone. How, where on summer break, and I haven’t seen her in over two months. A couple of days ago, she posted on her story about how much she hates me, and how she’s making a hate letter to give me before we graduate. I literally cried myself to sleep when I say that. I think it may have been inspired by the face I recently got back together with Marnie. I haven’t posted anything about it, and I’m not going to respond, I just want to be left alone.

I found out I’m a trans man after years of being in denial. Lesbian community was always so good to me and I… felt so bad to leave it.
I am not asking for lesbians attracted to typical feminine physique to find me attractive and date me, just to hang out with lesbians, because I like their vibe more than I like most cis men. Reclaim that one ounce of femininity I have. Idk, help me process stuff.
So thank you for not excluding me <3

Hi, I'm Jaime. Older trans woman who is post op and intersex. I'm from Southern Indiana. Looking for friends and eventually a love connection. I'm a musician, love my life now. Looking forward to getting to know you all.

I am a cis woman and i only feel attracted to men but i feel connection to lesbianism for a long time. I have a straight cis boyfriend and he likes me that i am a straight lesbian and accept me but i never told anyone about this. Am i valid

So I was talking to my therapist about same-sex attraction today, and she said I'm at the age where it's time I start exploring.

And I don't know. It just makes me feel guilty because it feels like I'm using people when I'm not, or at least that's not my intent.

I’m very much NOT attracted to males. So IDK. I’m either lesbian or aromantic. I’m like 80% I’m lesbian because of my lifelong strong romantic feelings for women.

But it feels like I'm just using somebody to explore my own sexuality when that's not my intent. My intent is to see if I can find a lifelong partner within women. If not romantic, then at the very least a platonic partnership.

I came out as lesbian very young, definitely knew I was into girls, and lived as a masculine presenting woman throughout my teens. But I decided to start testosterone at 21 as I could not live safely in my country as an androgynous person. I knew from a young age I wasn’t meant to be a woman, but I didn’t have the classic transsexual male experience of identifying as a boy from a young age. I suppose internally I felt sort of genderless, sexless. I tried briefly to live as non-binary and visibly androgynous, but found it was impossible to safely and effectively navigate a binary world divided by sex and gender.

I’ve reached a point where I find that presenting as a man in public has made me less visible to the queer women I want to date. And I’ve gone from feeling trapped in a female body, to feeling like I’m performing hypermasculinity rather than just being myself.

Sometimes I wish I had gone for a breast reduction instead of full top surgery. I don’t regret my hysterectomy, as I was born with anatomical issues that made me unable to bear children anyway. I kept my ovaries in case I wanted or needed to stop testosterone someday. My facial hair helps me pass, and I’m grateful for that in terms of safety, but it makes me feel dysphoric and unattractive. Internally, I think my true self is somewhere on the nonbinary spectrum, but were I to identify and present as visibly in between the sexes, I would be restricted to only certain cities and careers: the world, at least where I can afford to live, doesn’t really accept and integrate nonbinary people into normal society.

I’m interested to hear from butch and transmasc people who date femme women: how do you meet women who are open to dating someone that doesn’t present as a woman or identify with femininity? For those who can pass as male, or are mistaken for a man at times, do you alter your gender presentation, using small tells like painted nails or a rainbow bracelet, to stay connected and visible to the queer community?

I feel stuck in this in-between place where straight women aren’t interested because I’m not traditionally masculine enough and don’t have a penis, but lesbians and many bi women are looking for someone who still reads as and identifies as female.

Are contradictory labels not allowed