#nf posts

Countless times I’ve experienced non-gay people trying to tell me, an actual homosexual person, what homosexuality is. This happens in so many different ways, but today it came in the form of a straight person lecturing me that no one is “100% gay.” I then defined what homosexuality is -- exclusive attraction to the same sex -- and was dogpiled by, yet again, non-gay people desperately wanting to push the idea that gay people are not “100% gay.” They told me that I was “factually incorrect.” 

For context: I see this every time a small corner of, like, fandom internet wants a pair of female friends in a movie/show to be girlfriends, and I see this when GNC straight/bi women (often radfems but not always) talk about how there’s no representation for them. So often they say things like “let women be friends!” (as if there are more lesbian couples depicted in media than female friendships?) or they complain that unfeminine female characters are “always” lesbians. Often their arguments imply that movies/shows are just brimming with butch lesbians. 

Save the ire for male-dominated Hollywood, save the ire for sexist patriarchal expectations that women must be feminine and that the main goal for women should be to partner with a man -- extremely rare lesbian characters aren’t the problem!! 

Additionally, please direct me toward this supposed bevy of representation of butch lesbians because I haven’t found it despite looking for it. Butch lesbian characters are so damn rare, and it’s even more rare to find ones who aren’t demonized or mocked. Most lesbians in media actually are very feminine. Even the few lesbian-focused shows such as The L Word and Lip Service are full of feminine lesbians with only a couple of exceptions. 

Countless different experiences have inspired the feelings behind this post, but today it was specifically inspired by reading some reviews for a documentary I watched about gay/lesbian characters in movies since the beginning of motion pictures. Honestly most of the reviews were really nice to read, but a few were just so obnoxious. No, this documentary from the ‘90s is not oppressing you because it didn’t include you. It didn’t include you because it wasn’t about you, and that’s okay. We can all have our own things. This raging entitlement that various “queers” display every time gay/lesbian people create something for ourselves is astounding. I can’t relate to it -- I wouldn’t dream of complaining that a documentary about, say, bi characters in film history didn’t feature me.