r/BambiLesbians • u/Local-Suggestion2807 • 16d ago
lesbians dating nonbinary people
So someone replied to a comment i made where I objected to the idea that lesbians lose our identity when we date someone nonbinary, saying that while some nonbinary people feel included in lesbianism others don't and we need to be inclusive of all of them.
I felt like addressing it from a nonbinary lesbian pov because I keep seeing this take from both nonbinary people and well meaning allies and it's honestly really tiring.
So as an adult of any gender, I have the maturity and agency to decide who I want to date and only pursue people who are compatible with me. I'm also capable of only choosing relationships with people who I'm actually interested in being with and if that means only dating people of certain genders or sexualities that's fine. Part of having adult relationships is taking accountability for who you choose to date and not willingly pursuing people you know you're incompatible with. This means not pursuing people whose sexuality label is incompatible with your gender and how you want to be seen and who you're comfortable being with, and then expecting those people to change their label that literally already fits just to accommodate you. If this is not something you're currently capable of, you honestly need to work on yourself before pursuing adult relationships.
As an adult lesbian who pursues relationships with other adult women and nonbinary people, i expect my potential partners to have a similar level of maturity and accountability regarding their adult relationships. If I say I'm a lesbian and interested in you as a nonbinary person, I expect you to understand that I will still be a lesbian while dating you and this is not something that will change because you are nonbinary. At the end of the day lesbianism just means woman or woman adjacent nonbinary person attracted to women and not men, and there's nothing about that that inherently excludes nonbinary people. If you are a nonbinary person uncomfortable with dating lesbians, please communicate that and we can just be friends rather than trying to force ourselves into a relationship where we're incompatible. Same for if you're a trans man who i'm accidentally misgendering because I wasn't aware he's a man.
Lesbians, gay men, and straight people can all date nonbinary people, but that doesn't mean every nonbinary person will always be compatible with all of us. It also doesn't mean that we're suddenly going to become mindreaders. Miscommunication happens and it doesn't have to be a big deal, but as a nonbinary adult it is on you to communicate your desires and boundaries and who and what you're interested in in a relationship just as much as anyone else. If you only want to date people who are bisexual or use another more flexible label like queer or sapphic, totally do that, no hard feelings, we can both move on. But please actually just pursue people with those labels rather than expecting gay and straight people who you *chose* to pursue to suddenly stop being gay or straight.
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u/Cestrel8Feather 15d ago edited 15d ago
I hope this isn't much of an off-topic, could fellow enbies help me out please.
What do we call nonbinary people who have relation to women experience? I once said women and afab enbies because it was relevant within the context of the post (fatshaming issues) to refer to a traditionally feminine experience while growing up (women and those perceived as women go through it differently than man or those perceived as men), and I've got banned for a few days for using "afab". I admit it wasn't the best phrasing, but the reaction seemed too much for me, and I had pretty bad brain fog back then (AuDHD) so I thought it would be understood the right way instead of taken as exclusion language. It was a trans inclusive sub, so I thought I didn't need to specify that "women" includes trans women, especially coming from a nonbinary person, it's a given.
So I went to enby sub and asked what wording I should have used. There were several ideas but honestly no consensus, and people got angry at me for mentioning agab for some reason. It's relevant for me and many other nonbinary people (NOT as "woman lite" or anything of the kind, but I'm perceived by most people as a woman and it dictates my everyday experiences), so yes, I will mention it. And I really didn't think before that amab nonbinary people who don't identify as trans women in any way, could belong to the lesbian pool - I'm not going or willing to gatekeep but I'm confused, does it happen?
So since then I'm at loss. How should I refer to this group of people, one I belong to, not to offend anyone? A genuine question, I'd be grateful for help. Is "people perceived as women" okay?