Now Lesbians Sleep with Men. It wasn’t like this in my Day…

I often wonder why I don’t take part in the trans/ LGBT / Queercommunity. But every so often I pop out of my little lair and venture into the that community, and I realise how little I have in common with them. Then I go back into my world. Recently I popped over to Matt’s Blog , I thought I might have something to offer the original questioner, whose relationship may break down through no fault of her own.  She had asked whether she could still be a dyke if she was dating a trans guy.

I said that it was likely that a trans man would not want to date a lesbian, so the relationship may be doomed. I wouldn’t want to date a lesbian.  Dating a lesbian is not something men do, it’s not part of the social role expected of men, much like wearing high heeled shoes to work in an office. If men date lesbians or wear high healed shoes to  it doesn’t mean that they’re not men, but it does mean that they are transgressing the male social role. I also ventured to offer that most lesbians wouldn’t want to date men. One of the responses was that plenty of women labeled themselves as lesbians and still dated men, I had no right to challenge this because everyone had the right to label themselves.

Does everyone have a right to label themselves?

I can label myself as a man because I know that I am a man. But I can’t label myself as cis man, because I am not a cis man. It would be lying. When it comes to gender we in the trans community take the fact that yes, everyone has a right to label their gender. But my colleagues who work in gender reassignment don’t take this as a right, they expect trans people to have adopted the social role of the opposite sex prior to surgery and hormones.  I’m not sure whether I agree with my colleagues or other transpeople. Which is why I don’t get involved in that sort of work.

But we don’t have a right to label ourselves anything we please. For instance I might wish to declare that I am a vet, and start treating animals. But as it is I am not qualified to be a vet, and don’t know how to treat animals, so I can’t label myself as one because it is not true.Now back in my day lesbian, gay and bisexual was a label that described who you wanted to sleep with now and in the future. Lesbian women were women who slept with women and not men, when women realised that they were lesbians and came out they would often end their relationships. Now it seems that’s something different is going on. Now it seems that you can identify as a lesbian and still sleep with men. Apparently lots of lesbians do this and I am out of touch for not knowing this.

That may be true but if lesbian is a political identity and not a description of who you sleep with then several things happen:

• - It means that the label lesbian is actually something you choose. This will really confuse people who you have told that it’s something you can’t change.

 

• - More men are going to make sexual advances at lesbians. At the moment most men don’t make a sexual advance towards a woman who has told them that she is a lesbian. Now if it’s known that some lesbians choose to sleep with men then some men are more likely to make sexual advances towards lesbians.

 

• - It has medical implications. The international society of lesbians hasn’t told doctors of this change in definition. So most doctors will assume that lesbians don’t sleep with men, so are unlikely to ask if you are on contraception or at risk of pregnancy. I’ve seen lesbians who were really offended when I double checked that they couldn’t be pregnant before giving drugs or radiation that would harm a foetus. There are a number of drugs that are contraindicated in early pregnancy, and when they are given to women of childbearing age they have to be on reliable contraception. And that doesn’t mean condoms. I would insist that a heterosexual woman was on proper contraception, I wouldn’t insist that a lesbian woman was. I would assume that if a woman told me that she was a lesbian she was unlikely to have an accidental pregnancy. She may choose to get pregnant,but she is really less likely to be accidentally pregnant. If you are going to identify as a woman who is a lesbian, but sleeps with men then please do tell your doctor without being asked. Most doctors aren’t queer, and aren’t going to be aware of the change in definition of lesbian.

So it seems that the queer world has changed since I left it. Sexuality is about identity, not who you go to bed with.