Trying to understand and guess who will and won't be truly supportive of me as a lesbian, I ask why someone "accepts" and "supports" lesbians.

Even 20+ years ago there were some people who accepted and supported lesbians (and gay men) because they saw us as being as different to straight people as left-handers are to right-handers. We don't threaten their own identity, and they support us having equal rights to housing, work, marriage, and so on. They understand, respect, and have no issues with what makes us unique: females exclusively sexually oriented exclusively to other females.

But even 20+ years ago there were also people who accepted and supported lesbians (and gay men) because they saw us as another variety of "kink". If "lesbian" is another version of "kink", then being a lesbian isn't an innate thing - it's a behavioral thing, a personal expression of however one wants to express their sexuality. So, can a male be a lesbian? Of course! Can a heterosexual or bisexual woman be a lesbian? Of course! When we assert that "lesbian", then, is a term meaning "females exclusively sexually oriented to other females", we are threatening their reality and identity.

(Btw, this is not a condemnation of "kink". You do you. This is about how we are being defined by others whether we like it or not and what the consequences of that are. In the "old days", the whole point was "you do you", but with the assumption that you doing you wouldn't erase, marginalize, or injure me.)

There are so many examples. Just two:

• Back in the late 1990s I worked in a conservative office with a heterosexually married man who was "accepting" of me. However, he got really mad at me when I declined going with him and his wife to watch gay male strippers - which to him was kink. I said "You know I'm a lesbian. Why would you think I want to go watch gay guys strip?" He angrily replied as if it was obvious, "BECAUSE you're a lesbian!"

• Staring work in an office (not saying anything but I'm someone who all my life has been "obviously gay") and having several straight people who are into kink come up and announce to me all excited, "I'm queer too!" Then having them become rude and derogatory towards me after I didn't openly validate that we were the "same".

• Having straight and "supportive" family who let me know they support my "lifestyle" even though they aren't into kink (even though I'm guessing my sex life is far less interesting that theirs is).

These days people who instead assume any form of homosexuality is just like a left-handed sexual orientation stand out by not standing out or making me stand out. We come and go in each others lives without weird discussions or identity proclamations. People talk and ask about my wife in the same exact way they talk about my brother's wife. They assume I want the same kinds of things in life they want (safety, productive work, positive social interactions, taking care of family, etc). We recognize the difference in our sexual orientations - but in the same way we recognize the difference in our ethnicity: something that might be in a spotlight once in a great while for some specific reason, but never for anything that hurts or seems strange.

These latter are the people I invest my life in. Everyone else I avoid or gray-rock.