Bi/pan lesbian exclusionism

Bisexual and pansexual lesbian exclusionism, 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" or "pansexual 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 and 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. 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. 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 resurgence 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. This sparked backlash and harassment from exclusionists, who began to call for a "new" flag. One proposed design was a muted and flipped teal-goldenrod-orange tricolor made expressly for this purpose, 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) went viral, and exclusionary discourse became reignited.

"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). 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. 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. 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.

"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. 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.

"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, 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.