What to think about "straight" lesbians?

[sistawendy]

I had a fine time at the Girl4Girl Pride party last night, mostly. Yes, dancing, cute queer girls, and even a yodeler. I met up with two other women through meetup.com - thanks to xaotica for the tip - and got to talking. One of them is a very short, very New Jersey woman who rolls her own cigarettes and credibly claims to be a hippie.

Jersey Girl is refreshingly in your face, which one doesn't see much in Seattle. How could I not like her? Eventually, however, she said, "I'm not going to sleep with you. I'm a 'straight' lesbian."
Uh huh. "Do you have any friends who might sleep with me?"
"Uh..."
"How about friends of friends?"

There you have it, folks. There's a term for lesbians who aren't attracted to trans women: straight lesbians. Not only am I queerer than they are; sexual contact with me would make any of them queerer than the rest of them. I'm about three parts amused to one part pissed off by this.

(Before you pity me too much, I should say that my night wasn't frustrating. Yeah, I'm that girl, but I was far from alone in that. Absence of dudes seems to dissolve queer women's inhibitions.)

It turned out that Jersey Girl & I parked very near each other, a couple of blocks away, in the unusually broad alley or nameless street behind the businesses between 1st Ave. S and the port, so we walked together. When we got there, though, my car was the only one there. We got to chill out for half an hour after 1:00 AM while Jersey Girl ascertained that her car had not been towed, but stolen. The SPD came out, took a report, and drove JG home to the outlying parts of Renton, somewhat to my relief. Yeah, I like JG, but that's a long damn way even by my warped east side standards.

On my way home, I took a detour to the south. The Year of the Monkey Asian antique store has gone out of business. How sad. Its sign absolutely must stay where it is, or the Monkey Loft, which is one of my favorite venues for small shows, won't be the Monkey Loft anymore.

Comments

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

I know a couple of other straight lesbians.
That seems really ... arbitrary.

[sistawendy.livejournal.com]

Well, de gustibus non disputandum, but she put it pretty abominably.

[dymaxion.livejournal.com]

While I've run into the type before (and, shrug, whatever, if they want to be homophobic, it's kind of their problem), that phrase makes me want to puke.

[sistawendy.livejournal.com]

Yeah, how she said it is much worse than what she said.

[entelein.livejournal.com]

Yeah, being bi, I can relate. I am always flummoxed and irritated when I run up against this issue.

[macabre0.livejournal.com]

Years ago when I was very active in the queer community (back in the mid-90's) there was so much arguing about what constituted "a woman" in the lesbian community. Back then the dick-in-the-drawer rule was pretty popular, which excluded any pre-op trans women.

We've come a long way from there, but it's clear we still have a ways to go. While I understand on some level that lesbians see trans women as "other," I still find it so curious. As I've said before, anyone courageous enough to go through the process of transitioning (AND surgery, in your case) clearly identifies as a woman.

Of course, being bisexual has it's own problems in the lesbian community (shhh...I might leave them for a man!). Sorry to see that prejudice is still alive and well, even in 2012. You and I both know there are plenty of women out there who could care less whether you are cisgendered or not. Hopefully more of those will pop up at these events in the future.

[schmi.livejournal.com]

The straight lesbian thing is... nuts. :|

[serpentmoon.livejournal.com]

huh, interesting. Never heard of that!

Well, I guess it's not too different than being too fat, too skinny, too flat, too short, too tall, too white, too brown, too whatever... You're just too XY, I guess. If we could only be wanted for who we are inside! :)