Lesboy
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Lesboy or boy lesbian (Boysbian) refers to an individual who identifies as both a lesbian and a boy/man/male in any capacity, so anyone who is a man/boy who has a gay/queer attraction to women (lesbian):
This can include:
- an individual who is cusper/evenic between transgender man and a cisgender butch lesbian. Essentially an individual who feels as if they are on the boundaries or are ‘on the cusp’ of being either transgender man and cisgender butch.
- An individual who feels they are in between being a trans woman and a gender non-conforming cis man.
- An individual who is cusper/evenic between (lesbian) transgender woman and gender non-conforming cis man.
- A cross-aligned lesbian, such as a man-aligned/solarian girl or a woman-aligned/lunarian boy. Essentially one whose gender alignment doesn’t match their actual gender/gender experience.
- A multigender individual or an individual who otherwise identifies as male and female simultaneously and feels attraction to women.
- An individual who is genderfluid and identifies as a lesbian, even when they are male.
- A centrigender individual experiencing a gender in between fiaspec and miaspec while femaric.
- A lesbiangender, sapphicgender, lesbiagender, or sapphogender man or masculenby/enboy.
- Anyone else who is in some way a boy/man and feels their attraction to women is gay/queer.
The term is useful for pleonotic boys, who aren't always essentially or entirely male. However, the term is also used by lesbian men and male lesbians.
History
Much of lesboy history exists in butch and transmasculine history. The idea of being both a lesbian and a man emerged around the same time as the term 'butch'. While scholars cannot pinpoint an exact date, there are many surviving testimonies from lesbian men, particularly those who are ftm or transmasculine in some way.
An early example is the 1997 book "Butch/Femme: Inside Lesbian Gender (Lesbian & Gay Studies)" by Sally Munt:[1]
"Hausman is saying that the true disruption of gender lies not in some free-play of signification, a proliferation of genders, some utopian world populated by (in Halberstam's words) 'guys with pussies, dykes with dicks, queer butches, aggressive femmes, F2Ms, lesbians who like men, daddy boys, gender queens, drag kings, pomo afro homos, bulldaggers, women who fuck boys, women who fuck like boys, dyke mommies, transsexual lesbians, male lesbians'. For Judith, all this gender freedom on the frontiers brings forth the 'more general fragmentation of the concept of sexual identity' - that's why she thinks - or at least thought, because I've heard she's publishing again on the topic - we're all transsexuals."
Leslie Feinberg, at the same time, was publishing papers and books on transmasculine lesbians, including the book Stone Butch Blues. In hir book "Transgender Warriors: Making History from Joan of Arc to Dennis Rodman", zie would state:[2] [3]
"And our female-to-male transsexual brothers have a right to feel welcome at women's movement events or lesbian bars. However, that shouldn't feed into the misconception that all female-to-male transsexuals were butches who just couldn't deal with their oppression as lesbians. If that were true, then why does a large percentage of post-transition transsexual men identify as gay and bisexual, which may have placed them in a heterosexual or bisexual status before their transition? There are transsexual men who did help build the women's and lesbian communities, and still have a large base of friends there. They should enjoy the support of women on their journey. Doesn't everyone want their friends around them at a time of great change? And women could learn a great deal about what it means to be a man or a woman from sharing the lessons of transition."
In 1998, "Transgender Butch" by J Halberstam included statements about transmasculine lesbians:[4]
"However, these transsexual men do articulate one very important line of affiliation between transsexualities and lesbian identities. Many transsexual men successfully identify as butch in a queer female community before they decide to transition. Once they have transitioned, many transsexual men want to maintain their ties to their queer lesbian communities."
The 2003 book, "Self-Made Men: Identity and Embodiment among Transsexual Men" by Henry Rubin included a testimony from a lesbian trans man named Mark: [5]
"Well I said that I identify as a dyke. And as a gay leather top man who happens to be into girls. Which is a bit of a twist and a bit of a tweak. But also in terms of gender stuff, I identify as ninety percent male and ninety percent female. So, I don't see that as a paradox."
Many other books and papers containing discussions of lesbian men were created at this time, including "Labeling" by Leanne Franson in 2004, "Tommy Boys, Lesbian Men, and Ancestral Wives: Female Same-sex Practices in Africa" by Ruth Morgan and Saskia Wieringa in 2005, and "The Lives of Transgender People" by Genny Beemyn and Susan Rankin in 2011.
On December 20th, 2020, the lesboy flag was created by Tumblr user beyond-mogai-pride-flags. It was almost immediately adopted by the lesboy community and is generally considered the "official" lesboy flag.[6]
A website was created in 2021 with personal testimonies from those who identified as lesboys. These included:[7]
"I was raised to feel ashamed of my attraction to women and my lesbianism. As I got older and started figuring myself out more, I realized I could be a boy, I could be a trans man. For so many this means abandoning their lesbian identity, but for me it meant embracing it! I may not be a girl anymore, but I still feel a connection to lesbianism and womanhood. I'm a lesbian and a trans man, not in spite of my manhood, but because of it!" -Ry
"I'm a trans man, and when I first realized I was trans I had already been identifying as a lesbian for several years. I was also in a lesbian relationship at the time. when I realized this I talked to my partner about it, we both agreed that even though I am a man we wanted to stay together. I was still very connected to my lesbian identity as well and after how hard I had fought for it when I was a woman I did not want to give it up, so I kept it. no part of my sexuality really changed, only my gender. I had always been a lesbian, I was just a lesbian and a man." -Apricity
"When I came across the term “lesboy,” something in me clicked. My genderfluidity consists of nonbinary femininity on one end of the spectrum, transmasculinity on the other, androgyne/intergender on the leaning sides, and agender/neutrois square in the middle. Because of that, I identify with being both WLW and MLM; my attraction to women is just as beautifully queer as is my attraction to men. It also helps that I’m a system, and saying this about myself helps my alters feel validated about their identities rather than dysphoric." -Azure
Similar Terms
Term | Relationship | Description | Difference |
---|---|---|---|
Turigirl | Opposite | This refers to an individual who in some way identifies as a girl/woman/gal that is gay for men. | Lesboy is the opposite of Turigirl. |
Sub Terms
Term | Prefix/Suffix | Description | Flag | Coiner |
---|---|---|---|---|
Demilesboy | Demi- | Demilesboy is a term for individuals who identify as 'partially' or 'half' a lesboy. | thenelsonsystem[8] |
Gallery
Resources
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20240820002430/https://lesboys.carrd.co/assets/images/gallery26/7cbf7da0_original.jpg?v=dc868dfb
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20240820003647/https://lesboys.carrd.co/assets/images/gallery11/9c2dc757_original.jpg?v=dc868dfb
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20240820003748/https://lesboys.carrd.co/assets/images/gallery11/7b657cc2_original.jpg?v=dc868dfb
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20240820003316/https://lesboys.carrd.co/assets/images/gallery25/9c516c7a_original.jpg?v=dc868dfb
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20240315084536/https://lesboys.carrd.co/assets/images/gallery23/6fa52f88_original.jpg?v=dc868dfb
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20210722080847/https://beyond-mogai-pride-flags.tumblr.com/post/638068368080076800/lesboy-pride-flag
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20231127144917/https://lesboys.carrd.co/#page6
- ↑ The Nelson System. "Demilesboy". Tumblr, 10 Nov. 2021, https://web.archive.org/web/20211128183811/https://thenelsonsystem.tumblr.com/post/667489445703008256/demilesboy. Archived on 28 Nov. 2021.