In Defense of Masc Lesbians

Maybe I’m a bit too chronically online, and I might be the only one who knows about this, but recently, there has been a debacle in the lesbian TikTok community. A lesbian creator, @another.rando2.0, who is known for creating thirst traps and queer content, posted an innocent video of her in a short wig, and was faced with immense backlash. Her comments were flooded with fans begging her to grow it back, telling her how horrible it looked, and overall acting extremely judgmental. No matter that all of these people were complete strangers, assuming their opinion mattered, it wasn’t even real! Yet, it points to a bigger issue. Masculine-presenting women are overly criticized and have always been subjects of discrimination, even in their own community. 

Masculine lesbians have always experienced the brunt of oppression amongst lesbians, due to their queerness being more easily identifiable. Almost all scrutinizing language towards lesbians was directed towards masculine-presenting ones. Instead of tearing them down, we should be uplifting them and keeping the LGBTQ community protected.

I need to clarify that not all masculine-presenting women are queer. An issue I recognize often amongst straight women who simply do not adhere to traditionally feminine roles is that they are automatically deemed gay, even if they state multiple times that they are not. Do not get me wrong, I am not defending straight women who queer-bait; instead, women who don’t fit into society’s idea of a “straight woman”. Of course, this again is buried deeper into gender roles and sexuality, two things which exist separately, but somehow are decidedly one to a majority. No one should be telling anyone how queer or not queer they are; in fact, I think everyone should just mind their own business.     

Masc lesbians seem to be the brunt of a lot of jokes. Even using stereotypes like the “toxic masc” or calling someone a “hey mamas” inadvertently leads to a negative perception of masculine women, and builds more stigma around them altogether. 

 I’m a huge lover of reaction videos. The other day, I was scrolling through ones on YouTube, and I came across a video titled “Lesbian Reacts to Cringy Lesbian Thirst Traps.” I was interested, so I watched it. I noticed that the creator continued to heavily criticize and ‘cringe’ at all of the videos made by masc lesbians, yet when they were fem, she wasn’t fazed. These girls were all making the same sort of videos, just lip syncing and slightly attempting to seduce the camera, yet of course, it was only the masculine ones that were attacked and laughed at. Even other queer people choose to break apart these women when instead they should be protecting and lifting them up. 

Queer people cannot turn against their own community. No one is going to give you a pat on the back for bashing other queer people, and it only fuels homophobes and weakens the queer community as a whole. Masculine women deserve better treatment, and they should be protected instead of mocked.

• lesbian
• lgbtq
• masc
• women