There is nothing hateful about being a lesbian. There is nothing hateful about being female. There is nothing hateful about being homosexual. And there is nothing hateful about using the correct terminology to articulate lesbianism–female homosexuality–to differentiate it from other sexual orientations. Yes, even if it hurts your feelings because you feel left out.
According to a poll on @lesbian_herstory, which has currently been up for an hour, 89% of lesbians have been made to feel hateful for being a female homosexual (80+ lesbian respondents).
I want basic human rights for everyone on Earth (besides rapists, including pedophiles). But sex isn’t a human right. Access to a sexual orientation that does not describe you is not a human right. Guilt-tripping lesbians to expand lesbianism’s definition by preying on the female-socialised, misogynistic expectation that we be accommodating and kind at all costs is not a human right. It’s predatory.
Fellas, is it hateful to be female and homosexual? Or is it only hateful when we say it out loud? According to Hannah Ruth, Lesbian Lifts, female homosexuality is a “dogwhistle.”
Her post on X read: “lesbian herstory posted a new blog today where they used the phrase “female homosexual” throughout the blog and i just want to remind you all that that is a TERF dogwhistle and you all should not be following them. (lesbian_herstory on Instagram).”
This presumably university-educated ex-teacher surmised from our article on the authoritarian expectation that lesbians be politically identical that it must have been about transgender people… who were not mentioned once. Continuing the hate campaign–which has already been going on for months now–on her other social media platforms, she chose to paraphrase parts of the article out of context, filling in the gaps with her own vendetta, and demanding people unfollow Lesbian Herstory for saying female homosexual.
In the article, we discussed how homosexual people are expected to assimilate under heteropatriarchy. But because heterosexuality and homosexuality are sexual orientations rather than two sets of political beliefs or stereotypes, the assimilation looks a lot more like unwanted sex with the opposite sex to pretend you’re straight than conforming to “heterosexual politics” – whatever that means. I referred to this as the mass-raping of homosexual people (at the hands of heteropatriarchy), and Hannah decided it was another “dogwhistle.” Apparently it’s transphobic to discuss heterocoercion now.
There’s a lot of love and attention that goes towards lesbians like Hannah, who act to legitimise the war against lesbians who discuss their sexual attraction to the female body and sexual repulsion for the male one. That’s why she can have her face and name attached to what she’s saying, but if anyone at Lesbian Herstory did, we’d lose our jobs and gain a set of real-life stalkers who feel justified in harming us. Hell, she can pretty much identify the gym and Trader Joe’s she goes to without fear. But lesbians talking about female homosexuality is equated with fascism, so killing us is not off the table.
Female homosexuality is not hateful. I pity anyone who prioritises external validation–the following, the compliments on your physical appearance, the praise for being a good dog–over what’s right, real and true. I don’t need to hide the like count on posts that don’t gain traction because I love myself without needing to be told I’m worth loving. The bullied often become the bully. Once again: lesbianism means female homosexuality. As Fiona Apple would say, kick me under the table all you want. I won’t shut up.
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