Bi/pan lesbian exclusionism

Bisexual and pansexual lesbian exclusionism, also known as mspecMultisexual attraction spectrum lesbian exclusionism, and often shortened to bi/pan lesbian exclusionism, is a form of LGBT exclusionism. It is aimed at a fractional minority within the community who identify as either "bisexual lesbian", "pansexual lesbian" and other types of mspec lesbian for a myriad of reasons:
* They may experience attraction to women and non-binary people (using "bisexual" to mean "attraction to the same gender and a different gender" rather than "attraction to men and women").
* They may experience no romantic attraction but still experience sexual attraction to men (cis, trans, or otherwise), while also experiencing both romantic and sexual attraction towards women (again, cis, trans, or otherwise) and nonbinary people.
* They may be sexually and romantically attracted to men as well as women, but consider "lesbian" a term that includes any woman attracted to women, not just homosexual women.
* It more accurately expresses their sexual and romantic preferences than simply identifying as bisexual or pansexual.
* They may have a multi-gender or genderfluid identity, such that one or the other label applies in different situations.
It has parallels with and even connections to trans-exclusionary radical feminism, asexual exclusionism, and those who insist that "queer" is a slur. Bi/pan lesbian exclusionism is another pointless, counter-productive wedge issue meant to undermine queer solidarity and cause infighting to distract from actual bigotry, be it prejudice against bisexuals and pansexuals, transphobia, and enbyphobia within the community or from homophobes outside trying to trample on LGBT rights. Worse, it can serve as a dogwhistle and a jump-off point for normalizing more extreme exclusionist views to younger, impressionable members of the queer community. Opponents to this kind of bullying have coined the acronyms "BLERF" and "PLERF" to describe people who subscribe to these views, both of which fittingly read kind of like the sound of someone retching.
==History==
Bi/pan lesbian exclusionism has its origins in the rise of the political lesbian movement in the late 70s and early 80s, which asserted that to be lesbian is a purely conscious choice.Straight from the horse's mouth. (archive) Following that logic, many political lesbians aggressively pushed to make the word "lesbian" a purely monosexual term, meaning only (cisgender) women who are attracted to (cisgender) women. (archive 1); (archive 2). Aside from the obvious transphobia (which political lesbianism is often a breeding ground for) and erasure of non-binary lesbians, this push alienated many bisexual women and non-binary folks who had often casually self-described or were perceived as lesbian up until that point. As a contrast, there has seldom been any notable pushback against queer men and non-binary folks who wish to self-describe as bisexual or pansexual gays.
During the resurgenceGoogle search trends related to various forms of LGBT exclusionism between 2009 and 2019 of TERFs and acephobia on Tumblr, Tiktok and other social media in the 2010s, bi/pan lesbian exclusionist rhetoric also gained new life, primarily among younger crowds.
===Pansexual flag discourse===
One example of the resurgence in exclusionism takes the form of the so-called "new" pansexual flag. In June of 2020, Jasper, the creator of the original magenta-yellow-cyan tricolor pansexual flag, expressed support on Twitter for bi/pan-lesbians.Archive, taken 27 May 2021 This sparked backlash and harassment from exclusionists, who began to call for a "new" flag.Archive, taken 28 Aug 2020 One proposed design was a muted and flipped teal-goldenrod-orange tricolor made expressly for this purpose,Archive, taken 25 June 2020Archive, taken 26 June 2020 which at the time did not find much success. However, the exclusionary teal-goldenrod-orange design gained a resurgence in visibility in 2021, when several Twitter threads bringing up Jasper's bi/pan-lesbian support (as well as support for kink at Pride events)An Inclusive Space for Pan Folks, "So I'm not trying to start anything with anyone...", Tumblr went viral,Archive, taken 1 June 2021Archive, taken 3 June 2021 and exclusionary discourse became reignited.Reddit thread referencing Tiktok trend
==Rhetoric==
===Pedantry and pseudolinguistics===
===="Lesbian means women who love women, not men and women!"====
Even putting aside the aforementioned push by political lesbians to make the term "lesbian" exclusively monosexual and the bigotry associated with it, for most of the history of the English language lesbian simply meant a woman who experiences attraction to other women. The word is recorded being used in such a way as early as 1732 (to describe a bisexual woman no less).(archive) At no point until the 1970s is there specific emphasis or regard to whether or not lesbians can be attracted to people of other genders. This kind of selective prescriptivism very closely resembles TERF arguments regarding the sex vs gender dichotomy.
===="The word sapphic already exists! Just use that!"====
Indeed, the word sapphic does exist. However, it is nowhere near as recognized in the public consciousness as the word lesbian.Google search trend data for the terms "sapphic" vs "lesbian" from 2004 to 2019 Sapphic also fell out of popular use in the mid-1800s in favour of lesbian, and saw renewed use in the 2000s as LGBT slang, and is still relatively obscure.Google books frequency data for the word "sapphic" between 1800 and 2019Google books frequency data for the word "lesbian" between 1800 and 2019 Whether someone wants to refer to themselves as sapphic or some form of lesbian is their personal choice and not something someone else gets to dictate.
===Allegations of lesbian erasure===
===="Lesbians aren't into men!"====
Even if we follow this strangely male-centred definition of what it is to be lesbian, there remains a very important question that oft goes unanswered in these discussions. What is a man in this context? What makes someone a man? Who gets to decide who is and isn't a man? All of these questions highlight the inherently binary nature of this line of argument. When this question is raised, the responses are often simple deflection at best and downright transphobia at worst.Not only does this entail misgendering trans women and transfeminine people, but alienates some trans men and transmasculine people who continue to identify as lesbians after transitioning, often because of continued ties to lesbian communities. In addition, someone being bisexual or pansexual doesn't necessarily imply attraction to men.
===="Lesbians don't like penises!"====
The debate of genital preference is a hot one, but in many instances someone using this as an argument is more often than not indicative of underlying transphobia, transmisogyny, enbyphobia, or any combination of the above. This exact same argument is often repeated by TERFs. In both cases, there are massive assumptions being made about other people's bodies, with a complete disregard for their gender identity. In addition, the assumption that someone is less of a lesbian because they don't really concern themselves too much what's between their partner's legs (for example, a cis lesbian dating a trans lesbian who hasn't had bottom surgery) is just another form of pointless gatekeeping and thinly-veiled transphobia that only serves to alienate other queer folks.
===Allegations of transphobia===
===="Bi/pan lesbians were made up by TERFs!"====
As mentioned in a previous section, bisexual women self-describing or being described by others as lesbians is a concept that has existed since long before the 1960s when TERFs started to become a serious problem. It is true however that some TERFs (incorrectly) claim that cis lesbians who date trans women are bisexual because they see everything through the lens of what's supposedly between others' legs, but seldom do they use "bi lesbian". Most TERFs actually despise when people self-identify as bi or pan lesbians,A Twitter thread with a lot of screenshots of TERFs, in their own spaces, vehemently denying the existence of bi lesbians (archive) since one of their main deals is excluding anyone who doesn't fit their very narrow criteria for womanhood and being lesbian.
==Bottom line==
How people personally identify their sexuality is up to them, not other people, and certainly not strangers with a penchant for gatekeeping. Sexuality can also be fluid, changing with one's personal experiences and not necessarily well-defined by any particular label; getting "close enough" is fine. Lesbians almost all have the commonality of being women and nonbinary people attracted to other women and nonbinary people, regardless if some of them like men too, and that should be a point of solidarity. Bisexual and pansexual lesbians are real, valid, and deserve to be accepted in the LGBT community just as much as trans and ace people do. You don't get to determine how someone else identifies, and it's not really your problem anyway.
==External links==
*Your carrd has been declined: debunking the justsaidsapphic carrd (archive), a debunk of a commonly-linked bi/pan-lesbian exclusionist "carrd" blog that addresses most of the arguments specific to this topic.
**Debunking Exclusionists (archive) An extensive resource by the same author that deconstructs and debunks many exclusionist arguments. Not solely limited to this topic. Fair warning: Also has many, many screenshots and archived links of exclusionists going mask-off and just generally being awful people.
*Google image search for dachshund puppies in case you decided to look at the previously mentioned screenshots and archived links.
*A series of excellent quotations from numerous bisexual woman authors, including academics, regarding the struggles for bisexual womens' inclusion in the WLW community in the 80s and 90s
*Further evidence (archive) of bisexual lesbians' struggles with inclusion long prior to the advent of the internet
==Notes==
==References==
Category:Sexuality
Category:Gender
Category:Transphobia
Category:Discrimination
Category:Identity politics