I am a 24 year old woman and I came out about a year ago. My age group grew up with burgeoning social media and the birth of woke culture. I had always known I was a lesbian for a litany of reasons, but for some reason I just didn’t want to be. I dated men and found myself miserable the entire time. While going through the motions of these relationships, I felt comfort in knowing that if I did come out, I would not be met with any sort of anger or hate. Well, after almost getting married, I finally came out as a lesbian. It was nice, all I did was tweet it. My friends were all supportive and I received some very kind texts. For the few exes I did not end on bad terms with, I called them and told them as well. It was a nice experience. I was happy to finally have at least a small corner of my life know that I was a lesbian woman.

Then, I joined dating apps.

I was living in a fairly progressive city, so I downloaded two separate apps. Boy, was that a mistake. One of the apps is well-known, and instead of seeing lesbians (or bisexual) women on my feed, all I had was couples seeking a third and TIMs. The few solo women I did see on the app were all straight and looking for friends.

I went over to the other app, a lesbian/wlw focused one, hoping to have more luck.

Nope.

Now, I’m a decent-looking woman. I don’t have the prettiest face, but I take care of my body and skin and I dress nice so I can appear attractive and feel good about myself. On this app, you can see people who “like” you and you are given the choice to “like” back and begin a direct message.

Within an hour of setting up this profile, I had over 20 notifications. At first, I was really happy to have so many women interested in me. But it was not women, it was TIMs. All of them. A majority of them not making any effort to pass and featuring some truly vile fantasies in their biographies, along with almost pornographic photos. I was disgusted, but I felt bad for feeling that way. After all, I did grow up seeing myself as “woke” and “accepting” of all people so long as they weren’t hurting anyone with their choices. I chose to air my frustrations to a popular lesbian subreddit that I assumed was run and used by women. Nope. It took my post a few minutes before it went down, and in those few minutes I received some of the worst messages I’ve ever read. I deleted the account as a whole and blocked all lesbian subreddits.

I have yet to date since coming out and I have made zero lesbian friends. I am so angry that all of these women spaces are now controlled by the feelings of mentally unwell men. I know coming out was good for me, but sometimes it feels like it was just a big waste of time.

Sorry this is so long and doesn’t really have any purpose apart from getting my feelings out there. I’m just grateful I finally found a community where I can say this.