i struggle with being in online wlw spaces these days. the rise in brutal hostility towards bi women/nb people who label themselves as butch and femme even tho we’ve been doing so for literal decades, since the terms’ inception, has been a bit intimidating. more than a bit. i did actually shrink away for a while. disappear, licked my wounds, tried to sort through the trauma involved with being told i’m not allowed to take part in my own culture and history.
but, that’s why i’ve come back. that’s why i’m visible now. it’s important for us bi and nb femmes, bi and nb butches to be visible and to educate others onto why this ‘lesbian only’ discourse is so harmful to us, and the community as a whole.
people always accuse me of hating lesbians, but i actually love lesbians. lesbians were the ones who gave me the strength to put the femme label on myself. lesbians were the ones to assure me that my trauma with the slur, dyke, is valid enough for me to say it without censoring it. lesbians were the one to encourage me to do my own research, do my own reading, and come to my own conclusions about this.
i do not hate lesbians. i hate exclusionists. i hate separatists. i hate people who continue to take history out of context, ignore whole chunks of culture and history, for their own agendas. i hate people who continue to harass and bully us into silence.
but i am here. i am bisexual. i am non binary. i’m a fierce, sensitive, strong femme. no one can take that away from me. i will no longer let them. no one can tell me what i am and what i’m not allowed to do with my own trauma, with our shared trauma.
while i do not reclaim dyke for myself, i will not censor it when speaking on my experiences and trauma with it. i refuse to. you can’t make me. not anymore.
