I'm tired that no matter what as a woman, no one ever really believes you're not attracted to men. And I'm beginning to feel that way even in the spaces that were originally a safe haven from that.

I recognize and understand that there are issues with the oxymoronic 'bi lesbian' label. But I feel like there's this overzealousness to rigorously questioning every young woman's sexual history, and a line of misogyny in that we just can't trust someone is gay, the assumption is always bisexuality, even with celebrities like Chloe Grace Moretz who don't really have significant (if any) public relations with men.

I remember being 14 and already being labelled as a basic straight girl by the gay men and one lesbian (now TIF) in our little nerd clique. I had no relationships with anyone, and frankly nor did they, yet.

They would make fun of how 'straight' girls would make out with other girls at parties, and how attention seeking that was and how annoying it was for 'straight white women' to pretend to be oppressed like them. Why would I ever offer up that my only kissing experience was with a girl? I was too focused on being one of the good ones to them. I was already fighting off the crime of being more 'basic' because my parents weren't cool or cultured, the clothes they bought me were generically kiddish girly clothes and of course I didn't have a gloatingly obnoxious amazing atheist phase or write gay fanfiction (because I didn't care about men...ironic). Part of why it did not occur to me that I might be gay was them, it wasn't just the influence of heterosexual society, but that in gay spaces it was already a faux pas to be associated with basic womanhood.

And then when I came into admitting I liked women, eventually, bisexual women were especially the butt of the attention seeking joke. And in some ways now I get it, because I constantly see arguments from women who don't date women or don't think of women about how their invisibility is a peak sign of oppression. But in other ways this turned into a source of pressuring me to go on (always disasterous, always only one or two) dates with men because 'theres nothing wrong with him, he's nice.' I feel like people don't see the association because you can choose as a bisexual woman to not date men anyways, but it's different to be gay. When people think you're just choosing not to date men, mens longing for you, men crushing on you, 'give him a chance' isn't an offensive suggestion. But for me it was an unnamed churning and a desperation to get out of the situation.

I just see these constant comments, that Chappell Roan or Renée Rapp aren't gay, and you can tell me here that it's about these young women dating and giving up on men briefly and maybe for some I believe it, but for others it becomes ...well she likes drag, well she dresses this way and talks about sex. And it brings me back to that space where filling the woman role expected of me made people assume and feel like I couldn't be gay, to a degree that pushed me into these uncomfortable situations with men in the first place.

I feel like I come to this realization constantly and yet there's always a new depth to it when I look back at my experiences. I've never liked a man, but I'll see a joke about how women who post the 'oh I love to braid my girlfriends hair and do facials' thing are fake lesbians and it'll bring me back to square one. I'm tired of having to prove that not having, idk, shirked all female socialization successfully, doesn't make me straight. People don't get it but when you make people believe that they become a part of the force pushing lesbians into traumatic experiences with men.