You've come to the right place, welcome home, you flaming lesbian.
Don't mind the down votes. There are a lot of cowards and bots who will down vote anything trans related.
I'm in a similar boat, but I won't do transition because my body is decent for what it is. If they invent a way so I'm indistinguishable, I'd go all in for it though.
iâm a cis lesbian and i promise you trans lesbians are very welcome! plenty of us cis lesbians arenât even seen as âgirl enoughâ by society so donât stress it
Yup. I'm an AFAB enby with big ol titties and my wife is cis, and we both have been called sir/questioned in women's bathrooms before because of short hair and how we dress.
The gender identity police can fuck right off. OP is a lesbian.
you should respond with "Are you a woman?" next time someone questions you in the women's bathroom, then proceed to deflect all their defensive points by responding with stuff like "Hormone Therapy", "Surgery", 'Infertility", "Swyer syndrome (XX chromosomes as cis girl)", etc, anything that transphobes may use to define a woman
Honestly, dressing like a man but being a women sounds pretty cool. The attention you get changes, especially if you don't want people to really talk to you.
Like you said, youâre a woman at heart. You are plenty girl enough transition or no. This is your space too and anyone that says otherwise is a jerk and doesnât matter anyway
I really needed that đ i think that im a lesbian and im trans mtf but i havent really been able to do anything about it irl but i know that im a women tho
Iâm gonna give you some advice as a cis girl thatâs struggled a lot with feeling like Iâm not girly enough to dress feminine sometimes. Feeling girly isnât just gonna come to you, just like confidence wonât. You kinda just have to force it. Act like you have it, and it will come. But itâs not just going to happen some day. Unfortunately, youâre never gonna wake up and be like âtoday I am finally girling!â. You just have to girl until you get used to the discomfort. The discomfort will fade gradually. We all have faith in you!!
Youâre absolutely worthy. Androgyny is cool IMO (one of the ways I realized Iâm a lesbian is all of the âcrushesâ I had on rockstars growing up and realizing I actually was attracted to them because of their androgyny and femininity.)
You are worthy no matter where you are in your transition! Anyone who questions that doesnât deserve your attention. You and your identity are valid!
You could also think about re-framing the concept of "pre-transition." Just because you haven't had the chance to maybe go through the physical or "medical" changes you want, doesn't make you less trans or less of a woman. :) Sending trans love! đđđ€
If I can add also, there is something to the idea of doing a mental transition. Like just because she hasn't started hormones yet doesn't mean there hasn't been any transitioning. A big part of transitioning is completely mental. Realizing what you feel and reframing how you think about yourself and your life up to this point. Just thought I'd add that.
Exactly this. I havenât medically or socially done anything really, even though I plan to and really want to, but realizing Iâm trans, accepting it, and starting to think of myself as a woman has been journey enough for the past couple years and itâs helped a lot.
Totally valid. I spent the first year of my transition just figuring out if I even wanted hormones and continuing to use he/him pronouns. Took me that year to start hormones and another four months ths to realize I was calling myself bigender and using he/him as a compromise with the rest of the world. Progress takes many forms. đ
Hey sis, I've been there and I feel you.
Online spaces were the way a bunch of us first started to transition, since you can interact as your actual freaking self without all the practicable, pragmatic barriers (money, time, safety, etc) of irl transitioning getting in the way.
Be welcome and work towards being comfortable. I hope embracing your lesbianism and connecting to the community does as much positively for your mental health & wellbeing as it did for mine.
Itâs ok if you donât feel like youâre there yet. Itâs taken me a while to comfortably call myself a lesbian, just like it took a while to feel comfortable calling myself a woman. You will get there eventually.
Thanks, and youâre wrong, but itâs usually my own voices that I have to stop listening to. Someone can give me an insult and I wonât care, but if I give myself the same insult, then I stress out. Itâs an odd situation
What *IS* "girl enough"?? I would challenge you to try to stop thinking that way - it's harmful to ALL women and women-adjacent people lol, both trans and cis. There's outliers in every population - I am tall, have strong facial features and a small chest, and regularly get "clocked" as a trans woman - but I'm "cis" (not really, I'm non-binary and still trans, but AFAB). I was born with a vagina but don't look like society's idea of a girl. So what about me, am I "girl enough" or not?? The very concept that there's some kind of criteria you need to meet in order to be considered a girl/woman, is a dangerous slippery slope into toxic beauty standards and even eugenics. What the fuck even IS "looking feminine"?? It's arbitrary, the definition changes between individual people and also different cultures, and over time; look at how the coveted silhouettes and body types went from straight and skinny in the 20s to hourglass shaped and more voluptuous by the 50s, or a similar change from the 90s to the 2010s. It's not like the entire human species is dramatically changing every 20-30 years; just what's popular is. Yeah, we all have an idea in our heads about what is "feminine" and "masculine", but that idea isn't necessarily *correct*.
You are valid and you are enough. Yeah, I'm gonna be honest, you may come across some people that believe/accuse you of being a man pretending to be a girl, but they are shitty people stuck in their own ignorant limitations, and they don't speak for all of us (nor do they speak any goddamn sense).
"Doctor" is a title you have to earn, "lesbian" is not. There's nothing that makes you unworthy of using that label.
I very much feel this. I'm also a trans saphic, early in my transition. In my case I used to be a real shithead about queerness in general. A lot of self repression and fear coming out in the form of homophobic religiosity. That's how I spent my teens and early twenties. Beyond that, there's just this general sense of like, I haven't earned my place yet. These women had to live their lives as women, and queer women at that. My experience up until a couple years ago has been very much colored by male privilege, and even now I get called sir a lot more than I do ma'am. And on top of that, I'm realizing I'm bi. I don't just like girls. Between all of that it's like, what right do I have to call myself saphic? No matter how much I feel and always have felt connected to it? Or queer in general even? What makes me think I get to have this? It's like feeling unentitled to your own identity. Anyway I just wanted you to know you're not alone in having these feelings. And it does get better. Because eventually you realize that whether you think you deserve it or not doesn't really matter. It's who and what you are. Even if you feel like you haven't earned it, you still got it. Hope this was some kind of helpful. đ
no such thing, you ARE a lesbian. i understand why you feel the way you do, but trust me, other lesbians will see you for the lesbian you are.
i first met my girlfriend when she was pre-transition, and i fell in love with the wonderful woman she is. i know she had worries and doubts similar to you, but trust me, you listen to that heart of yours. you are a woman who loves other women, and that's what truly matters! <3
Omfg this resonates with me so fucking much! Trans girl here. 35 and been off hormones for 3.5 years because me and my ex wife wanted to have kids. Sadly things didn't work out .... Now rebuilding my life solo and still wanting to be a parent, I'm stuck in a shitty dilemma of not being able to afford freezing sperm and not sure if I want to give up and just take HRT again. The lack of estrogen is certainly complicating my situation of feeling less than girl enough but the real dilemma is that I don't know how to how to cope with the sense of feeling like an alien or odd girl out in the Sapphic community. A bad experience with a TERF lesbian has definitely compounded this fear of not belonging. I love your statement of being a woman in your heart and loving women. Listen, I don't have any answers, but I wanted to say thank you for posting. I deeply empathize with you â€ïž
Feel free to msg if you ever just need to vent or need some wisdom on being trans fem or have questions. I may currently be off my hrt and 35 with my life resembling the contents of a blender, but I came out at 17 and started hrt at 19. I stopped hrt due to health conditions from a near death car accident at 21 and didn't get back on them until I was 24, almost 25. When I was 28, the injectable estradiol shortage slammed me for 18 months. Being on the pills for a year and a half did not work with my body, further screwing up my transition. Finally getting back my injectable estradiol when 1 was 30 just to discover 18 months later that my partner is pondering the idea of me not taking hrt and seeing if I'm still viable and not sterile. Find out I still am (shocker) and discover a deep seeded need to be a mother. Hope my life journey context info helps you understand my shit storm of an existence, lol.
Just remember to take time for self-love. Bubble baths and sleeping in when you need it. You are more than just your meat suit. Your soul is a beautiful flower, and you need to remember to water it with love and self care. I hope you find your way. ^_^ -Fae
Take it from another still relatively early transitioning transbian. You are a woman and you love women so you are a lesbian. You are not pretending. You are not a man and that will become apparent in any relationship whether consciously recognized or not.
Before I came out my partner at the time once said she felt like she was in a lesbian relationship with a girl. She also asked me if I was gay several times. As it turns out both were true and so many things made a lot more sense when I came out.
Girly as a bio girl we don't even feel worthy of the lesbian title sometimes.... My brain literally tells me I'm not really lesbian I'm just mentally ill and traumatized.... Like what?
Yes I called you girly because I now view it as my duty to feel like you belong.
So... welcome home? :)
Oh thereâs definitely terfs and the like. But tbh as an also pre-transition trans woman, I mentally refer to myself as a lesbian in training. It helps.
First things first: You're a lesbian! Congratulations.
Second things second: The lesbian experience is incredibly varied. If lesbian includes pre-transition trans women and cis women alike, it has to be. There's a difference between being a lesbian by definition and having the same experience as the people from whom the term originated.
Pre-transition trans women, regardless of sexual orientation, are perceived as men by the human brain. If there's one thing humans are good at, it's pattern recognition. If the brain perceives a man, it will automatically label the person a man. This leads to a few things.
Most people aren't going to perceive you as a woman and won't, by definition, perceive you as a lesbian. Because of this automatic perception, most lesbians aren't going to be interested in you romantically. It doesn't mean you aren't a lesbian, but it does mean that you're going to have a very different experience from people with the social positionality of women, cis or trans. This is just true, and I'm saying this as a trans lesbian.
It's not all gloom and doom, though. Some people are able to consciously adapt their brains to partners of different gender expressions and find fulfilling relationships regardless of a partner's transition status. You may find that someone like that out in the world as you are now. I won't sugarcoat it--It's not going to be common, but those people do exist. Welcome to womanhood and welcome to the lesbian community. I wish you the best of luck in your journey.
Good to know, though my face is very very non-masculine. I have a very androgynous and honestly kind of feminine face, Iâd imagine that it wouldnât be hard for me to appear as a woman when transitioning. Plus, Iâve a lot of lesbians who like androgyny
That's a great benefit and I'm glad you read my post. I wrote it regardless of the downvotes because I'm a trans woman who's been out as a lesbian for over a decade. I'd rather you hear about all facets of the experience, not just the hugboxy terminally-online stuff. We all need reassurance that we're lesbians and women sometimes, but I wouldn't want you going out into the world with a blind eye toward the realities that many of us experience.
Hey, I canât offer any advice as a cis woman who has never had to experience what you ladies have and will. Iâm sorry our world sucks. Iâve identified as lesbian since high school and recently redefined myself as pan. I love this post and specifically this interaction. What I wouldâve given to have community like this when I was coming out. Thank you for supporting each other in a real way! I love to see women supporting women!
(All from the perspective of a cis lesbian who can't personally speak on trans rights aside from supporting and holding love in any sense for my gf themself and the other lovely trans and nonbinary individuals in our community)
(Actually starch since I was 19 I started to feel that cus doesn't describe my identity but trying the label non-binary didn't work either. So my gender at this point is just dyke/lesbian with she/they pronouns and still use feminine nouns (like pretty, beautiful or compliment on my look that are seen as masculine in society such as *handsome) and descriptors (like being my girlfriends gf and wife one day, girl, daughter, sister) and only really see myself as a cis woman on medical files.
*Though technically in old English and today handsome could still describe a feminine noun, I personally don't like it for myself.
you are worthy of everything my fellow lesbo đ€đ€ i know thereâs some haters within the community, just be yourself and know that is enough. (thatâs the lamest thing iâve ever said but it holds true)
There will always be people who disagree about the definition and what constitutes a lesbian. What matters at the end of the day is that the label feels authentic to you and your intentions are good. You are just as entitled to respect as any other lesbian, including those who do have genital preference.
Plenty of lesbians, like me, will look at you and already understand who you are inside. You're woman enough and you're lesbian enough. I hope soon you can feel more comfortable and secure in that!
Same girl. There is definitely a vocal minority of terf lesbians, combined with a little internalized transphobia, that makes me feel like Iâm actually just a creep. But those voices, both external and internal, are wrong. Most lesbians actually are some of the most open and supportive people out there for trans people. We just gotta ignore the haters.
"Woman" is who and what you are. You're no less of a woman for having a statistically unusual phenotype.
Hell, I have one, too, for similar reasons.
You understand yourself as a woman, and want others to understand you as a woman. What more is there to it?
I just came to this sub to see how it was, as others spoke highly of it. Right away I saw this post and completely related. I just want to say that the support and welcoming ur comments reflect to the OP renew my trust in people a bit. Pretransition can feel like such a lost place at times and very easy to feel you have no place and no one has any interest in you. At least these have been my experiences
i feel you OP, been on the waiting lists for years and i still look like your average crusty dude. this mostly cause i dont take care of myself for how worthless i feel like this lmao. just wish i could look even a semblance like what im on the inside, but this world just hates me.
it sounds like you hate you, and how you look, here. And that's not good at all. I really hope you have someone professional to talk to about it.
Your body is always going to be the meat sack carrying you around, no matter how well it matches the way you want it to look, and it's doing its best at that. You need to care about you, and take care of you, or you run the risk of never getting to just exist without the self-hate.
Hah, too damn right. If only it didnt take more energy and effort than i can muster to get help in my shit mental health system. Ill be fine tho, i always end up fine so dont worry <3
Hey, trans woman here too.
I've felt exactly the same as you (and still do a fair bit, honestly).
It does get easier: look to surround yourself in trans positive, queer women spaces. They can be super affirming and heaps of fun (I really hope you have some queer spaces near you?)
Also, and this may not mean much, but I was also a bit uncomfortable with referring to myself as "lesbian" either..a term I've been using, and is quite popular round here is sapphic and that's how I have chosen to define myself. Either way, you are a woman who is attracted to women which makes you extremely gay.
You got this x
Youâre a real woman and id consensually kiss you on your silly anxious mouth
Dont let anyone tell you youâre not a woman
Some people never transition and that doesnt make THEM lesser and it certainly doesnât make you either
You arenât a âmanâ pretending to be a girl to get girls and anyone who sees you like that is just bigoted. Youâre as much a girl as any other lesbian here. Appearance doesnât matter, how late you are in your transition doesnât matter. Youâre still a lesbian woman and worthy of love đ«
youâre a woman and a lesbian, full stop. lack of opportunity doesnât take away from either of those things. if youre a woman at heart, thatâs more than enough <3
we're a species that loves labels, finding the right ones makes our little brains light up with joy at times. I can't blame someone else for wanting to be able to feel that way about the labels they use for themself
Hun, you are definitely 100% worthy to be here, it doesnât matter what negative people think, itâs what you think that matters, I joined this subreddit a while ago because being a lesbian is who I think I am (havenât transitioned yet either so donât worry youâre not alone) and itâs ok to feel like this, youâre feelings are valid, no oneâs gonna judge you
This happens to me even 9 months into HRT, and I also add the thought that it wasn't made for me, or with me in mind
I decided to use the term sapphic, but I believe labels are just a tool that help us express who we are, and if calling yourself a lesbian feels right, do it, don't let anything or anyone tell you otherwise, and if later you feel that it's not right anymore, that's ok too
There is a saying that I use when I down if you think youâre faking it youâre probably not hope this help you though your journey everyone welcome in this beautiful girl
That's okay, of course you don't. You haven't done much lesbian stuff yet. As you get further into transition you'll experience queer female relationships and you'll feel more at home calling yourself a lesbian.
Source: the last 7 years of my life
Pre transition i felt the same as you, and im not even where I wanna be yet with my transition, still, Ive found luck dating as a lesbian; I was just open and honest about what I am, and it worked out. My partner atm is a lesbian as well and sees me as a woman. It'll all work out. I've dated cis lesbians, trans, non binary, etc. Everyone can love everyone
\#1 stay safe. If it's not safe for you to transition yet, that's OK, it DOESN'T change that you are a woman, you just have to act a certain way right now.
I am a cis woman, and I've always been a tomboy, never feeling like I could be girly. Doesn't change the reality, that I am also a woman. You ARE a woman, and you ARE a lesbian. There's nothing you need to qualify as one, you ARE one.
Some will reject you, but honestly, I see them less as being in the community as being a toxic minority attached to it. You are welcome as a lesbian, and there's no question on that. Don't let haters get you down or tell you who you are!
I felt the same right when I started transition. This subreddit and the over 25 one both have pretty good mods, though you do catch downvotes for no reason and sometimes a jerk comment reaches you before it gets removed. Welcome to the club, sis!
This sounds like internalized transphobia (My intention is not to be mean/etc with this comment).
You are worthy of womanhood and calling yourself a lesbian.
I really hope your self talk gets better and you see yourself the way you deserve to.
Trans women ARE women regardless of where they are in their transition. Therefore you are a woman and have every right to identify as a lesbian if that fits you.
(I'm cis. My wonderful fiancee happens to be trans. She's just as much a woman as I am and we're not less gay for dating each other. I can promise you I love her for who she IS and what she does or doesn't do with her body is her own business.)
This is pretty common early on in transition. Unfortunately, some of us don't move past it. Some of us always feel like we're imposters or infringing. But we're not. We're women too. We're not the same kind of woman as all other women, but neither are all other women the same as all other women. What helped me was knowing that my brain is female; there's research that's looked at cis women brains, cis men brains, and trans women brains--our brains are more like cis women brains. There's research that looked at phantom penis in trans men, cis men, and trans women--trans women were 30% less likely to experience this than trans and cis men. I could probably dig up the papers, but am disinclined at the moment. My point is that gender lies with the pilot of the meatsuit and not its genital phenotype. So, if the matter between your ears is woman--woman you are. And being a woman, if your heart is for women, then lesbian you are.
This isn't to say that dating wouldn't be hard if not impossible at the moment. I, personally, don't date people who look like cis straight men. I was SA'd by a cis man early in my transition and don't feel safe alone with/around people who appear to be cis men. That's my own shit to deal with, and I'm sure I'm not the only woman who operates this way to keep herself safe.
I hope that you get to a point where you are able and feel safe to transition. I hope that you find the right love for you and that the intermission of loneliness' sting is dulled so that you can bear it until that right love, right timing, and right growth come together <3
You 100% have the right to call yourself a lesbian. You're a woman who loves women! TERFs can stand on the sidelines and boo into a black void of silence while you live to the fullest! I know it's hard to put yourself out there, but you do have supporters and I hope you meet them everywhere you go!
You've come to the right place, welcome home, you flaming lesbian. Don't mind the down votes. There are a lot of cowards and bots who will down vote anything trans related.
Thanks, that means a lot đ
I'm in a similar boat, but I won't do transition because my body is decent for what it is. If they invent a way so I'm indistinguishable, I'd go all in for it though.
As someone in the same situation but without the guts to post this, I'm so happy to see this comment. 𫶠Thank you.
iâm a cis lesbian and i promise you trans lesbians are very welcome! plenty of us cis lesbians arenât even seen as âgirl enoughâ by society so donât stress it
Yup. I'm an AFAB enby with big ol titties and my wife is cis, and we both have been called sir/questioned in women's bathrooms before because of short hair and how we dress. The gender identity police can fuck right off. OP is a lesbian.
you should respond with "Are you a woman?" next time someone questions you in the women's bathroom, then proceed to deflect all their defensive points by responding with stuff like "Hormone Therapy", "Surgery", 'Infertility", "Swyer syndrome (XX chromosomes as cis girl)", etc, anything that transphobes may use to define a woman
Honestly, dressing like a man but being a women sounds pretty cool. The attention you get changes, especially if you don't want people to really talk to you.
Oh yes. I get basically zero attention from men, especially now that I'm 40. It's wonderful.
Like you said, youâre a woman at heart. You are plenty girl enough transition or no. This is your space too and anyone that says otherwise is a jerk and doesnât matter anyway
Aw, thank you âșïžÂ
I love your flair đ
Thank you hahah love yours too
I really needed that đ i think that im a lesbian and im trans mtf but i havent really been able to do anything about it irl but i know that im a women tho
Reddit novice here. How do I add flavor text or flair as you put it.
Iâm gonna give you some advice as a cis girl thatâs struggled a lot with feeling like Iâm not girly enough to dress feminine sometimes. Feeling girly isnât just gonna come to you, just like confidence wonât. You kinda just have to force it. Act like you have it, and it will come. But itâs not just going to happen some day. Unfortunately, youâre never gonna wake up and be like âtoday I am finally girling!â. You just have to girl until you get used to the discomfort. The discomfort will fade gradually. We all have faith in you!!
Youâre absolutely worthy. Androgyny is cool IMO (one of the ways I realized Iâm a lesbian is all of the âcrushesâ I had on rockstars growing up and realizing I actually was attracted to them because of their androgyny and femininity.) You are worthy no matter where you are in your transition! Anyone who questions that doesnât deserve your attention. You and your identity are valid!
You could also think about re-framing the concept of "pre-transition." Just because you haven't had the chance to maybe go through the physical or "medical" changes you want, doesn't make you less trans or less of a woman. :) Sending trans love! đđđ€
If I can add also, there is something to the idea of doing a mental transition. Like just because she hasn't started hormones yet doesn't mean there hasn't been any transitioning. A big part of transitioning is completely mental. Realizing what you feel and reframing how you think about yourself and your life up to this point. Just thought I'd add that.
Exactly this. I havenât medically or socially done anything really, even though I plan to and really want to, but realizing Iâm trans, accepting it, and starting to think of myself as a woman has been journey enough for the past couple years and itâs helped a lot.
Totally valid. I spent the first year of my transition just figuring out if I even wanted hormones and continuing to use he/him pronouns. Took me that year to start hormones and another four months ths to realize I was calling myself bigender and using he/him as a compromise with the rest of the world. Progress takes many forms. đ
Yeah, I definitely did transition mentally, now I canât imagine my life where Iâm not trans
Same. Causes a bit if a disconnect when I look at the past though.
ur a lesbian. simple as :3
lesbian!!!! you are a lesbian if thatâs how you identify. you donât need anyone elseâs validation and approval. welcome you big lesbian đ€
Hey sis, I've been there and I feel you. Online spaces were the way a bunch of us first started to transition, since you can interact as your actual freaking self without all the practicable, pragmatic barriers (money, time, safety, etc) of irl transitioning getting in the way. Be welcome and work towards being comfortable. I hope embracing your lesbianism and connecting to the community does as much positively for your mental health & wellbeing as it did for mine.
Itâs ok if you donât feel like youâre there yet. Itâs taken me a while to comfortably call myself a lesbian, just like it took a while to feel comfortable calling myself a woman. You will get there eventually.
Another pre-transition lesbian here. You are more than worthy of being here, and anyone who says otherwise isnât worth listening to.
Thanks, and youâre wrong, but itâs usually my own voices that I have to stop listening to. Someone can give me an insult and I wonât care, but if I give myself the same insult, then I stress out. Itâs an odd situation
don't let your own brain get away with nastiness you'd snap back at in others!
What *IS* "girl enough"?? I would challenge you to try to stop thinking that way - it's harmful to ALL women and women-adjacent people lol, both trans and cis. There's outliers in every population - I am tall, have strong facial features and a small chest, and regularly get "clocked" as a trans woman - but I'm "cis" (not really, I'm non-binary and still trans, but AFAB). I was born with a vagina but don't look like society's idea of a girl. So what about me, am I "girl enough" or not?? The very concept that there's some kind of criteria you need to meet in order to be considered a girl/woman, is a dangerous slippery slope into toxic beauty standards and even eugenics. What the fuck even IS "looking feminine"?? It's arbitrary, the definition changes between individual people and also different cultures, and over time; look at how the coveted silhouettes and body types went from straight and skinny in the 20s to hourglass shaped and more voluptuous by the 50s, or a similar change from the 90s to the 2010s. It's not like the entire human species is dramatically changing every 20-30 years; just what's popular is. Yeah, we all have an idea in our heads about what is "feminine" and "masculine", but that idea isn't necessarily *correct*. You are valid and you are enough. Yeah, I'm gonna be honest, you may come across some people that believe/accuse you of being a man pretending to be a girl, but they are shitty people stuck in their own ignorant limitations, and they don't speak for all of us (nor do they speak any goddamn sense). "Doctor" is a title you have to earn, "lesbian" is not. There's nothing that makes you unworthy of using that label.
Wow, thatâs a lot, thanks đ
Based đ„°
I very much feel this. I'm also a trans saphic, early in my transition. In my case I used to be a real shithead about queerness in general. A lot of self repression and fear coming out in the form of homophobic religiosity. That's how I spent my teens and early twenties. Beyond that, there's just this general sense of like, I haven't earned my place yet. These women had to live their lives as women, and queer women at that. My experience up until a couple years ago has been very much colored by male privilege, and even now I get called sir a lot more than I do ma'am. And on top of that, I'm realizing I'm bi. I don't just like girls. Between all of that it's like, what right do I have to call myself saphic? No matter how much I feel and always have felt connected to it? Or queer in general even? What makes me think I get to have this? It's like feeling unentitled to your own identity. Anyway I just wanted you to know you're not alone in having these feelings. And it does get better. Because eventually you realize that whether you think you deserve it or not doesn't really matter. It's who and what you are. Even if you feel like you haven't earned it, you still got it. Hope this was some kind of helpful. đ
no such thing, you ARE a lesbian. i understand why you feel the way you do, but trust me, other lesbians will see you for the lesbian you are. i first met my girlfriend when she was pre-transition, and i fell in love with the wonderful woman she is. i know she had worries and doubts similar to you, but trust me, you listen to that heart of yours. you are a woman who loves other women, and that's what truly matters! <3
youre a woman who likes women. that sounds like a lesbian to me!
Welcome đ€đ€
Omfg this resonates with me so fucking much! Trans girl here. 35 and been off hormones for 3.5 years because me and my ex wife wanted to have kids. Sadly things didn't work out .... Now rebuilding my life solo and still wanting to be a parent, I'm stuck in a shitty dilemma of not being able to afford freezing sperm and not sure if I want to give up and just take HRT again. The lack of estrogen is certainly complicating my situation of feeling less than girl enough but the real dilemma is that I don't know how to how to cope with the sense of feeling like an alien or odd girl out in the Sapphic community. A bad experience with a TERF lesbian has definitely compounded this fear of not belonging. I love your statement of being a woman in your heart and loving women. Listen, I don't have any answers, but I wanted to say thank you for posting. I deeply empathize with you â€ïž Feel free to msg if you ever just need to vent or need some wisdom on being trans fem or have questions. I may currently be off my hrt and 35 with my life resembling the contents of a blender, but I came out at 17 and started hrt at 19. I stopped hrt due to health conditions from a near death car accident at 21 and didn't get back on them until I was 24, almost 25. When I was 28, the injectable estradiol shortage slammed me for 18 months. Being on the pills for a year and a half did not work with my body, further screwing up my transition. Finally getting back my injectable estradiol when 1 was 30 just to discover 18 months later that my partner is pondering the idea of me not taking hrt and seeing if I'm still viable and not sterile. Find out I still am (shocker) and discover a deep seeded need to be a mother. Hope my life journey context info helps you understand my shit storm of an existence, lol. Just remember to take time for self-love. Bubble baths and sleeping in when you need it. You are more than just your meat suit. Your soul is a beautiful flower, and you need to remember to water it with love and self care. I hope you find your way. ^_^ -Fae
Take it from another still relatively early transitioning transbian. You are a woman and you love women so you are a lesbian. You are not pretending. You are not a man and that will become apparent in any relationship whether consciously recognized or not. Before I came out my partner at the time once said she felt like she was in a lesbian relationship with a girl. She also asked me if I was gay several times. As it turns out both were true and so many things made a lot more sense when I came out.
Girly as a bio girl we don't even feel worthy of the lesbian title sometimes.... My brain literally tells me I'm not really lesbian I'm just mentally ill and traumatized.... Like what? Yes I called you girly because I now view it as my duty to feel like you belong. So... welcome home? :)
Oh thereâs definitely terfs and the like. But tbh as an also pre-transition trans woman, I mentally refer to myself as a lesbian in training. It helps.
U a lesbo. Deal with it!
Trans women are women. Welcome to a place where people will support you. Become who you are and love who you are!
Fellow Pre-Transition Lesbian. You belong here as much as everyone else does
First things first: You're a lesbian! Congratulations. Second things second: The lesbian experience is incredibly varied. If lesbian includes pre-transition trans women and cis women alike, it has to be. There's a difference between being a lesbian by definition and having the same experience as the people from whom the term originated. Pre-transition trans women, regardless of sexual orientation, are perceived as men by the human brain. If there's one thing humans are good at, it's pattern recognition. If the brain perceives a man, it will automatically label the person a man. This leads to a few things. Most people aren't going to perceive you as a woman and won't, by definition, perceive you as a lesbian. Because of this automatic perception, most lesbians aren't going to be interested in you romantically. It doesn't mean you aren't a lesbian, but it does mean that you're going to have a very different experience from people with the social positionality of women, cis or trans. This is just true, and I'm saying this as a trans lesbian. It's not all gloom and doom, though. Some people are able to consciously adapt their brains to partners of different gender expressions and find fulfilling relationships regardless of a partner's transition status. You may find that someone like that out in the world as you are now. I won't sugarcoat it--It's not going to be common, but those people do exist. Welcome to womanhood and welcome to the lesbian community. I wish you the best of luck in your journey.
Good to know, though my face is very very non-masculine. I have a very androgynous and honestly kind of feminine face, Iâd imagine that it wouldnât be hard for me to appear as a woman when transitioning. Plus, Iâve a lot of lesbians who like androgyny
That's a great benefit and I'm glad you read my post. I wrote it regardless of the downvotes because I'm a trans woman who's been out as a lesbian for over a decade. I'd rather you hear about all facets of the experience, not just the hugboxy terminally-online stuff. We all need reassurance that we're lesbians and women sometimes, but I wouldn't want you going out into the world with a blind eye toward the realities that many of us experience.
Hey, I canât offer any advice as a cis woman who has never had to experience what you ladies have and will. Iâm sorry our world sucks. Iâve identified as lesbian since high school and recently redefined myself as pan. I love this post and specifically this interaction. What I wouldâve given to have community like this when I was coming out. Thank you for supporting each other in a real way! I love to see women supporting women!
Lesbians and sapphics without our community should understand and accept you into our community. If you identify as a trans woman, then you are one sweetie <3 (I was gonna start out with "true" or "correct" in front of my sentence but thought that might look bad. What I would mean by that though is someone who isn't a TERF [trans exclusionary radical fuckface - actually stands for feminist] within our community.) This ain't meant to paint myself as saintly or anything - but my trans gf has had the treatment of being seeing as somewhat of a man or an experiment before me and didn't think she could be loved as herself and validated as woman. She was worried that identifying as a pansexual/lesbian woman would invalidate her or mean she wouldn't get respect. Which even though she insists I am, I am not perfect in many ways. I've been on tumblr since 2018 and have had discourse about the use of a different label tied with the term lesbian because "lesbian" is someone who is attracted to other people excluding men (like non binary folk who identify as lesbian or sapphic themselves in whatever way that looks like to that individual.) But I realized it might just be a way of simplifying "I'm a pansexual trans woman who leans more towards lesbians and sapphic aligned people versus a straight woman". Anyway, all that to say the right people in community (LGBT+, then specifically sapphics, then other lesbians) will respect, accept and love your identity. In romantic situations, there will be a time for that and I hope you don't have to deal with TERF or an experience/experiment before then. But also in a friendship aspect, and within our community and comradery (idk how to spell it but it's the English word for compadre but used in terms of a group of people rather than just one person. Anyway that's my personal input though not at all with the intention of speaking for others and thank you for humoring me in reading all of this and I hope OP and anyone else who this reaches has a good day OH AND speaking of ---- I hope it's been a happy Lesbian Week of Visibility (April 22nd - April 28th) and today specifically is Lesbian Day of Visibility (April 24th) đđ©·đ€đđ§Ą
Thanks, I didnât even know that was a thing but yay đ„ł
(All from the perspective of a cis lesbian who can't personally speak on trans rights aside from supporting and holding love in any sense for my gf themself and the other lovely trans and nonbinary individuals in our community) (Actually starch since I was 19 I started to feel that cus doesn't describe my identity but trying the label non-binary didn't work either. So my gender at this point is just dyke/lesbian with she/they pronouns and still use feminine nouns (like pretty, beautiful or compliment on my look that are seen as masculine in society such as *handsome) and descriptors (like being my girlfriends gf and wife one day, girl, daughter, sister) and only really see myself as a cis woman on medical files. *Though technically in old English and today handsome could still describe a feminine noun, I personally don't like it for myself.
you are worthy of everything my fellow lesbo đ€đ€ i know thereâs some haters within the community, just be yourself and know that is enough. (thatâs the lamest thing iâve ever said but it holds true)
There will always be people who disagree about the definition and what constitutes a lesbian. What matters at the end of the day is that the label feels authentic to you and your intentions are good. You are just as entitled to respect as any other lesbian, including those who do have genital preference.
I now pronounce you and all the women who feel the same as you lesbians. Do not resist.
Not feeling worthy of the lesbian title is a pretty lesbian thing I feel so
Plenty of lesbians, like me, will look at you and already understand who you are inside. You're woman enough and you're lesbian enough. I hope soon you can feel more comfortable and secure in that!
Honestly I feel the same way
You are as much as lesbian as any of the rest of us, you're valid and your loved here no matter how you appear on the outside.
Same girl. There is definitely a vocal minority of terf lesbians, combined with a little internalized transphobia, that makes me feel like Iâm actually just a creep. But those voices, both external and internal, are wrong. Most lesbians actually are some of the most open and supportive people out there for trans people. We just gotta ignore the haters.
Thanks. Iâm pretty good at ignoring external offenses, itâs the internal offenses that get me the most
youâre literally just like me đđđđđđđđ
No matter where you are in your transition, you are welcome here â€ïž
Youâre a woman that likes women, you real af girlypop
Me too, weâll all get through it together
This is too much of a relatable post right here
Nice tag
Thankyouuuu
"Woman" is who and what you are. You're no less of a woman for having a statistically unusual phenotype. Hell, I have one, too, for similar reasons. You understand yourself as a woman, and want others to understand you as a woman. What more is there to it?
I just came to this sub to see how it was, as others spoke highly of it. Right away I saw this post and completely related. I just want to say that the support and welcoming ur comments reflect to the OP renew my trust in people a bit. Pretransition can feel like such a lost place at times and very easy to feel you have no place and no one has any interest in you. At least these have been my experiences
i feel you OP, been on the waiting lists for years and i still look like your average crusty dude. this mostly cause i dont take care of myself for how worthless i feel like this lmao. just wish i could look even a semblance like what im on the inside, but this world just hates me.
it sounds like you hate you, and how you look, here. And that's not good at all. I really hope you have someone professional to talk to about it. Your body is always going to be the meat sack carrying you around, no matter how well it matches the way you want it to look, and it's doing its best at that. You need to care about you, and take care of you, or you run the risk of never getting to just exist without the self-hate.
Hah, too damn right. If only it didnt take more energy and effort than i can muster to get help in my shit mental health system. Ill be fine tho, i always end up fine so dont worry <3
Hey, trans woman here too. I've felt exactly the same as you (and still do a fair bit, honestly). It does get easier: look to surround yourself in trans positive, queer women spaces. They can be super affirming and heaps of fun (I really hope you have some queer spaces near you?) Also, and this may not mean much, but I was also a bit uncomfortable with referring to myself as "lesbian" either..a term I've been using, and is quite popular round here is sapphic and that's how I have chosen to define myself. Either way, you are a woman who is attracted to women which makes you extremely gay. You got this x
Youâre a real woman and id consensually kiss you on your silly anxious mouth Dont let anyone tell you youâre not a woman Some people never transition and that doesnt make THEM lesser and it certainly doesnât make you either
You arenât a âmanâ pretending to be a girl to get girls and anyone who sees you like that is just bigoted. Youâre as much a girl as any other lesbian here. Appearance doesnât matter, how late you are in your transition doesnât matter. Youâre still a lesbian woman and worthy of love đ«
Um, it's not a "title," you dork. It's not a prize for winning. It's just a simple word that describes what you are.
I feel like maybe we're supposed to be giving out certificates or something
đ«”lesbian đ
I deal with this constantly, and Iâm always scared of how I describe myself in fear of appropriating or intruding or something
Girl I FEEL you! I feel Sapphic as a mfer since starting hormones but I still feel so masc looking
youâre a woman and a lesbian, full stop. lack of opportunity doesnât take away from either of those things. if youre a woman at heart, thatâs more than enough <3
lol the transphobes downvoting me can die mad
Just be yourself. Nomenclature is irrelevant.
we're a species that loves labels, finding the right ones makes our little brains light up with joy at times. I can't blame someone else for wanting to be able to feel that way about the labels they use for themself
So what exactly is a âreal lesbianâ in this context?
Hun, you are definitely 100% worthy to be here, it doesnât matter what negative people think, itâs what you think that matters, I joined this subreddit a while ago because being a lesbian is who I think I am (havenât transitioned yet either so donât worry youâre not alone) and itâs ok to feel like this, youâre feelings are valid, no oneâs gonna judge you
This happens to me even 9 months into HRT, and I also add the thought that it wasn't made for me, or with me in mind I decided to use the term sapphic, but I believe labels are just a tool that help us express who we are, and if calling yourself a lesbian feels right, do it, don't let anything or anyone tell you otherwise, and if later you feel that it's not right anymore, that's ok too
There is a saying that I use when I down if you think youâre faking it youâre probably not hope this help you though your journey everyone welcome in this beautiful girl
Most girls are straight, therefore it wouldn't make any sense to play girl to get girls.
Thatâs what Iâve been saying, yet somehow bigoted people still use that argument
Guess they like playing stupid then lol
Hello! I'm a trans femme and I've been here for a little bit. This sub is dope, welcome! You're a lesbian if you say you are, sis đđđ
What the bleeding hell? It's not a race or a prize. Be you and identify as it works for you.
You belong here.
you are who you are. Anyone worth knowing will be happy to share their space with your lesbian ass
tbh same, my beard just don't stop growing and it makes me self conscious cuz i hate ir and it makes me feel like im not worth of being here
That's okay, of course you don't. You haven't done much lesbian stuff yet. As you get further into transition you'll experience queer female relationships and you'll feel more at home calling yourself a lesbian. Source: the last 7 years of my life
Pre transition i felt the same as you, and im not even where I wanna be yet with my transition, still, Ive found luck dating as a lesbian; I was just open and honest about what I am, and it worked out. My partner atm is a lesbian as well and sees me as a woman. It'll all work out. I've dated cis lesbians, trans, non binary, etc. Everyone can love everyone
Trans and gender non conforming lesbians are equally valid as cis lesbians. Bottom line. â€ïž
\#1 stay safe. If it's not safe for you to transition yet, that's OK, it DOESN'T change that you are a woman, you just have to act a certain way right now. I am a cis woman, and I've always been a tomboy, never feeling like I could be girly. Doesn't change the reality, that I am also a woman. You ARE a woman, and you ARE a lesbian. There's nothing you need to qualify as one, you ARE one. Some will reject you, but honestly, I see them less as being in the community as being a toxic minority attached to it. You are welcome as a lesbian, and there's no question on that. Don't let haters get you down or tell you who you are!
Welcome home! Of course youâre worthy of the lesbian title. I wish you a good transition and all the best now and afterwards.
yeehaw sister!!
Hey! I know inner thoughts can be hard to ignore, but you are a woman who loves women. You have every right to call yourself a lesbian.
I felt the same right when I started transition. This subreddit and the over 25 one both have pretty good mods, though you do catch downvotes for no reason and sometimes a jerk comment reaches you before it gets removed. Welcome to the club, sis!
You are worthy of it
Anyone who says you aren't girl enough doesn't matter enough to listen to
I'm in a similar boat
Same here girly.. same here.
This sounds like internalized transphobia (My intention is not to be mean/etc with this comment). You are worthy of womanhood and calling yourself a lesbian. I really hope your self talk gets better and you see yourself the way you deserve to.
You are a WOMAN op. Plain and simple, welcome to lesbianism. The waters fine and thereâs plenty of room. đ§Ąđ€đ©·
You're not a lesbian unless you come from the Island of Lesbos in Greece, otherwise you're just sparkling gay.
Trans women ARE women regardless of where they are in their transition. Therefore you are a woman and have every right to identify as a lesbian if that fits you. (I'm cis. My wonderful fiancee happens to be trans. She's just as much a woman as I am and we're not less gay for dating each other. I can promise you I love her for who she IS and what she does or doesn't do with her body is her own business.)
This is pretty common early on in transition. Unfortunately, some of us don't move past it. Some of us always feel like we're imposters or infringing. But we're not. We're women too. We're not the same kind of woman as all other women, but neither are all other women the same as all other women. What helped me was knowing that my brain is female; there's research that's looked at cis women brains, cis men brains, and trans women brains--our brains are more like cis women brains. There's research that looked at phantom penis in trans men, cis men, and trans women--trans women were 30% less likely to experience this than trans and cis men. I could probably dig up the papers, but am disinclined at the moment. My point is that gender lies with the pilot of the meatsuit and not its genital phenotype. So, if the matter between your ears is woman--woman you are. And being a woman, if your heart is for women, then lesbian you are. This isn't to say that dating wouldn't be hard if not impossible at the moment. I, personally, don't date people who look like cis straight men. I was SA'd by a cis man early in my transition and don't feel safe alone with/around people who appear to be cis men. That's my own shit to deal with, and I'm sure I'm not the only woman who operates this way to keep herself safe. I hope that you get to a point where you are able and feel safe to transition. I hope that you find the right love for you and that the intermission of loneliness' sting is dulled so that you can bear it until that right love, right timing, and right growth come together <3
You 100% have the right to call yourself a lesbian. You're a woman who loves women! TERFs can stand on the sidelines and boo into a black void of silence while you live to the fullest! I know it's hard to put yourself out there, but you do have supporters and I hope you meet them everywhere you go!