RationalWiki:Articles for deletion/Bi/pan lesbian exclusionism

Bi/pan lesbian exclusionism | Result: Word re-re-defined

Bi/pan lesbian exclusionism (edit|talk|history|protect|delete|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Delete

1. Lesbians can not be bisexual but they can be Biromantic however they are not Bisexual stop redefining words. Aethieizt (talk) 16:15, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

   @DuceMoosolini has considered this article for deletion in talk page because most of inks are from social media and that nobody talks about it in real life −Aethieizt (talk) 16:32, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

   We cover the broad expanse of crank ideas. I highly doubt many people are talking about Clown World. We cover it because of missionality, not notability. The author on the talk page posts links to TERFs admitting that similar rhetoric started their journeys down the terf rabbit hole. Rhetoric matters, even online rhetoric. Carthage (talk) 17:11, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

2. Yeah, still not a fan. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 22:59, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
3. ←§ Reichtangle (talk) 18:31, 26 September 2023 (UTC)
4. Bearly (talk) 15:36, 1 October 2023 (UTC)
5. Being a bisexual lesbian like being a Vegan carnivore 123goaway (talk) 10:22, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

   And people still don't see how lesbian as a term was redefined by radfems in the 70s. This is a kneejerk response. We've already given our reasoning. "Being a bisexual lesbian like being a Vegan carnivore" is not a valid rebuttal, it's an assertion. Carthage (talk) 10:26, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

6. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 13:07, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

Keep

1. "Stop redefining words." Lesbian is more of an.... identity, perhaps? There's already a word for the sexual orientation: homosexuality. Words ultimately have contextual meaning. And besides, I think the article does a good job of defining why it matters:

   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.

   As for redefining the label "lesbian":

   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.[3] 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.

   And:

   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).[13] 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.[14] This kind of selective prescriptivism very closely resembles TERF arguments regarding the sex vs gender dichotomy.

   I think this article conclusively demonstrates that Atheeizt's main justification for this is without merit. Carthage (talk) 17:09, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

2. Although it's characterized as being a purely social media phenomenon, the page references the pre-Internet history of the terminology several times. The efforts of political-lesbians last century to turn "lesbian" into a political identity to the total exclusion of attraction to men was interesting. I get that this really challenges the currently popular definition of "lesbian", but that just goes to show that political-lesbians succeeded in defining the term (and in some ways the identity altogether), especially in the public consciousness, for their own purposes. I still don't even agree with using terms like "bisexual lesbian" because it's not useful language... but I don't need to. The page could perhaps include more charity to counter-arguments. I had an initial concern for missionality, but political-lesbianism is certainly a kind of crank idea, and this covers an aspect of it. Chillpilled (talk) 17:37, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
3. Although it could probably be streamlined and merged with something else, I oppose outright deletion. Plutocow (talk) 19:12, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

   let's mark this significantly problematic ←§ Reichtangle (talk) 10:57, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

4. As the original author of this article who spent weeks working on it in my spare time, no, absolutely not. I initially kept it in a notepad document before I even made a draft because I wanted to ensure it was fleshed out enough. I was genuinely afraid of provoking the exact kind of dismissive, knee-jerk reactions that I've seen elsewhere regarding this topic. I put it out there with the hope it would provide sone kind of reasonable pushback against this sort of divisive, unproductive discourse and rhetoric. I find it very heartening to know that the work I put in is appreciated in some capacity, so thank you. I'd have no issue with it being merged into another article, but the initial reasoning behind this deletion request definitely comes off like someone made up their mind before even reading the contents of the article. Mahboison (talk) 03:16, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

   It's always obnoxious to see people refuse to actually fucking review the content before making a comment on it. Plus for worse or for better rhetoric has an actual impact on meatspace events. QAnon started out on 4chan. Inceldom started out on Reddit. Carthage (talk) 03:22, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

5. As per above. A somebody. (talk) 19:30, 7 October 2023 (UTC)
6. Keep or merge. I can attest to knowing women who identify as lesbian (basically for sociopolitical reasons) while having engaged in homosexual and heterosexual sex at various times. Bongolian (talk) 20:10, 7 October 2023 (UTC)
7. Keep or merge. While this article could certianly use improvement, opponents of this article no valid reason to delete it. Their arguments consist of broad accusations and snide remarks which clearly demonstrates that they have not thoroughly read or interacted with this article prior to submitting a notion to delete. ^{— Unsigned, by: Floof37 / talk / contribs}

Merge/redirect

1. Merge into biphobia, cutting back the twitter-centric content. 𝒮𝑒𝓇𝑒𝓃𝑒 ^talk 20:58, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

Goat

From my perspective, possibly this article should be merged with biphobia and subsequently improved? BLERF / PLERF seems to be very much an online phenomenon with limited currency. But it seems to kind of fit into biphobia's duality of having both da HATERS from the homophobic cis crowd in addition to a number of people in the LGBTQ+ community (generally homosexual men or women) who still can't fathom the notion that bisexuality/non-binary/pansexuality/"we are our own sexual thing"/etc. actually exists. (Shame there isn't a catch-all term for this curious phenomenon that covers more than bisexuality though. It's for those who compartmentalize sexuality into two neat "boxes" in essence.)

For the little I've seen online, the seemingly contradictory term "bisexual / pansexual lesbian" basically is used to describe (as pointed out in the article) either a non-binary/gender-fluid person or a romantic vs. sexual attraction difference (eg "lesbian" romantic attraction, "pansexual" sexual attraction).BobJohnson (talk) 17:53, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

I wonder if the best solution wouldn't just be to create a lesbian page, then compress these arguments into a "terminology" section, leaving a redirect. I found it strange for a while now that lesbian just redirects to homosexuality. A page that by the way doesn't even have a lesbian section. If such a page existed on its own I would support this option, but it doesn't. Chillpilled (talk) 18:03, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

I've made Lesbianism. Although it could use more, maybe that merge idea is viable. Chillpilled (talk) 19:17, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

The keep side has given out detailed reasons as to why to keep this article. I'd like to see those yammering for "delete" to actually explain their reasoning. From the get-go the initial reason given for this AfD, which is "stop redefining words," suggests to me that "Atheeizt" didn't even read the article in question, which explains in detail the history of the terminology of Lesbianism (@Chillpilled did an excellent job on that BTW) and how radfems in the 70s redefined the word to mean exclusive attraction to women rather than inclusive attraction to women. If anything, bi and pan lesbians are reclaiming the word. This definitely seems to have an ideological as opposed to missional bias. And yes, crying about "Tumblrinas" is ideological. Shit that occurs on the Internet can easily spill over into meatspace. Rhetoric has power. This shouldn't be up for dispute. Carthage (talk) 03:30, 4 October 2023 (UTC)