Why and how "Lesboy/Lesbian Man/Male Lesbian" is a harmful label.

Summary: The lesboy label and all of its meanings are harmful and contradictory to lesbianism. The label reinforces misogyny, transphobia, lesbiphobia, and compulsory heterosexuality.

What is a lesboy?

A lesboy is an individual who identifies as a boy or a man in someway, that also identifies as a lesbian. This label includes multigendered people, butch/gnc lesbians, transmascs, trans men, he/him lesbians, etc.
This label, however, is very flawed in several ways. I will explain how.

What exactly is harmful about it?

Contradictory to lesbianism

The term lesbian is defined as a woman or someone with a feminine or neutral aligned identity (aka nonbinary individuals) who is exclusively attracted to women and people with feminine or neutral aligned identities. The term lesboy attempts to include men in the lesbian label, which is harmful as it allows men to invade lesbian and sapphic spaces.

Reinforces Compulsory Heterosexuality

Compulsory Heterosexuality (aka comphet) is a lesbian-exclusive experience in which lesbians are accustomed to the idea that they have a requirement to be attracted to or please men. Comphet is a subcategory of heteronormativity that relates to the patriarchy, and makes people feel like they have a requirement to please men. The patriarchy makes lesbians feel as if there is an obligation to feel attracted to men due to how society centers around them.
The term lesboy, as well as other terms like mspec lesbian,* reinforces this idea. It reinforces the idea that lesbians are required to have attraction to, or date men regardless of their own identity. It also comes off as very misogynistic.

Transphobia

The lesboy label includes transgender men and women, which is transphobia. It directly invalidates both identities by calling transgender women boys, and transgender men lesbians.
During the "womyn-born womyn movement", transgender men were grouped together with butch lesbians since they were only seen as "women acting masculine." To include them in the lesbian label directly reinforces transphobia. And during the same movement, transgender women were excluded by TERFs due to not being born women.
If a transgender man does not feel misgendered or invalidated when using the lesbian label, and if a transgender woman doesn't feel invalidated when being called a man, they are experiencing internalized transphobia.

Arguments

"Lesbian spaces have always included men"

The "men" in question are always described as he/him lesbians, butch lesbians, gnc lesbians, transmasc lesbians, and other masc presenting lesbians. They were all considered men because of their appearances, but that doesn't mean they were genuinely men. And the ones that claimed to be men lied so that they could be with their female lovers.

"Saying that men can't be lesbians is TERF rhetoric"

This argument is built off of the idea of the men in this context being trans women. If you hear "lesbians can't like men or be men" and the first thing you think of when men hits your ear is trans women, then you might need some reevaluating to do. You're reinforcing TERF rhetoric yourself by including them in the lesboy label, since it is built off of the idea of trans women not being real women.

"Calling multigendered people neutral aligned is invalidating"

This is based on the fact that several multigendered identities can include male alignment, which would be true. However, for most of these identities such as genderfluid, male alignment is not a requirement to identify as such. They remain neutral aligned as female alignment and/or male alignment are not requirements to be multigendered, which is why they are included in the lesbian label.

"Trans men have experienced womanhood"

The "experience of womanhood" argument was created specifically to exclude trans women from lesbian spaces during the womyn-born womyn movement because they "haven't experienced womanhood." They dumbed the lesbian term down to afab loving afab which is why straight trans men were referred to as lesbians, mixed with a fact that this was during a time where trans men were simply called "masculine women" and grouped with butches.

"Transfem lesbian eggs"

An egg in this context means that this is an individual who hasn't discovered their trans identity. Aka, they haven't "hatched" yet. This reasoning is borderline transphobic; this hypothetical transfem egg would not know she was a woman, therefore she'd be male-aligned when identifying as a lesboy.

"Cuspers, Solarian Girls, and Lunarian Boys"

If you want to know what cusper means, it means you are on the "cusp" of being trans and being GNC but cis. In this case, the examples include being a cusper between a transgender man and a cisgender butch lesbian, or between a transgender woman and a gender non-conforming cis man. Solarian means a male-aligned nonbinary person and lunarian means a female-aligned nonbinary person. Solarians and lunarians come from the galactian system. Nevertheless, these people would still be male-aligned in a way, meaning they can't be lesbians.

"Lesbiangender, Sapphicgender, or Sapphogender Men"

If these individuals were any of these genders yet also male-aligned, then they should still refrain from using the term lesbian in any capacity. I should also add that only people who actually fit on sapphic and lesbians as sexualities (people who aren't male-aligned) can use lesbian and sapphic as gender identities.

"What about those with queer attraction to women and nonbinaries?"

Use the term sapphic or neptunic. Sapphic includes QLW (queer-loving-women), and Neptunic includes anyone with queer attraction to non-men. Better labels exist, you just don't want to look for them.

"Lesbian has multiple meanings"

Yes, it does. However, those meanings have always related to women exclusively loving women. There's no point in using the label if you're simply going to bend its meaning to your own liking, that's not how English works.

"b-b-but... queer history!!-"

queer history contains a lot of transphobia and things that would seem unusual because back then people had no fucking common sense
its not because they were "iNcLuSiVe" they were just fucking stupid lmao. also choosing to use an outdated definition with no significance to modern society just because you believe its "woke" is fucking stupid you're stupid and you are anti-common sense

Important Notes

It is very important to note that the lesboy label and the term "lesbian man" does NOT include;

  • transmasc lesbians
  • butches, studs, etc.
  • he/him lesbians
  • trans women and transfems
  • lesbians who also use the term "boy" in a way that is disconnected from actually identifying as a boy/man

These individuals are not men. They are valid and are a very treasured part of the lesbian community.

Final Note

Men cannot be lesbians, lesboys are not valid.
Stop intruding on lesbian spaces.

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Pub: 26 Nov 2024 19:41 UTC

Edit: 06 Nov 2025 18:16 UTC

Views: 232