Evan Urquhart

We need to make some changes. We need to think about the needs of younger transmascs coming up, and let go of our side of the rope that's pulling them apart in this tug of war.

The lesbian side of the tug of war we all know. It's a small but very loud group of older dykes who've been complaining that transition is depleting the number of lesbians, butches are disappearing, girls are being transed, yadda yadda yadda.

TERFs are gonna TERF. We can't stop them from putting this guilt on young AFABs where they're accused of abandoning womanhood and lesbianism. We can say it's fucked up. We can say the last thing young queer people need is even more bullshit guilt. But we can't stop them.

But we CAN look to the transmasc side of things. Something I became aware of early in transition were negative comments about lesbians. Trans men saying "I don't pass I look like a lesbian," But in a very negative way, implying there's something wrong w how lesbians look.

And, we've got to come down harder on that shit. Normalize saying "I don't pass, I look like a woman in men's clothes". Leave lesbians and their style the fuck outta things.

Beyond that, we have the power to really make it clear to young queers exploring their gender that lesbians are loved and respected. That BUTCH WOMEN are loved and respected.

So. My take on this is that we could maybe do with distancing butchness from sapphic attraction. Before I really started exploring my gender identity from a trans perspective I was generally quite anxious about being assumed to be lesbian...

Not because being a lesbian was 'bad', but simply because it wasn't something I could identify with. I am bi, probably leaning more towards attraction to men/masc/gnc people but also trans masc/non-binary. Before doing a lot of self searching I didn't have an answer...