Technology

We sometimes have to clarify that LGBT+ folk aren't particularly virtuous, just people, and like the rest of the population suffers from its own share of internal bigotry. The lesbian community is no exception.

Lesbians range from really rather bisexual to staunchly misandrist and there are different gatekeeping checkpoints, where some don't count trans women as lesbians to others that don't want to date a woman who's ever been with a man (which makes for a really small dating pool).

But this kind of exclusion is not about who these women date, rather who they allow into their community and are allowed to come to their potlucks and tea parties. Generally communities that are progressive and have experienced external oppression and dehumanization are glad to be welcoming and inclusive. Mostly. And I think this includes the lesbian community.

From my experience. I'll get to how that's tricky.

I've found the lesbian circles I've engaged with have been even more inclusive than the general LGBT+ community. They're actually really good about including bisexuals and trans women that are into women. However, this is partly due to the anthropic principle: Even though I'm enby I still have [M] on my state ID, look like a dude and have male parts, and have been completely forthright about this even in online circles (e.g. r/actuallesbians) where no-one would ever know I was really a cat. But this means that I don't get invites to circles that are more restrictive, since I'd be high on the no-admittance list.

But inclusive lesbians are not super fond of less inclusive ones, especially since human sexuality can change over time. The closet has multiple doors, and when your best friend who invites you to all the get-togethers is a women-only transphobe second-wave feminist (this was a thing), and suddenly you've been taking an interest in a special guy, you're going to keep your bi-curiosity hidden from your friend (or stop being friends). And as per the whole thing of coming out, the point of the LGBT+ community is being able to be who you are, and being accepted and validated.

So when I see a lesbians dating app that is intentionally looking to draw transphobes, it reminds me of those conservative dating apps to hook up men in the white power movement with trad-wife minded women, which is to say it's good they're over there and not trying to date people over here that they're ultimately going to disappoint and hurt.

Good point. I don't want to date trans people, but I wouldn't want to use an app that purposely excluded them. I'd rather occasionally have to go "oh sorry thanks for telling me" than restrict my dating pool to bigots.

I mean, isn't that also just true of anyone you've interacted with? Their point was that they never "found out" someone they were dating on there was trans, and everyone that dated from those apps who oc every discovered were trans were straightforward about it.

Why would you need or want to be that precise about your language?

Having known multiple trans people and heard them talk about the arguments for and against early disclosure: Fear.

1. They may not be public about their status, and fear exposure to family or coworkers seeing their public profile.

2. They may fear harassment from transphobes. This could range from DM accusations of pedophilia to religious screeds to doxxing to death threats.

3. They may be trying to avoid "chasers." There are some people for whom a trans body (particularly a transfem body) is a fetish, who don't actually care about the person inside. Plenty of transpeople don't appreciate that kind of attention.

4. Fear of rejection. They may believe that nobody will respond if they're open about not being cis.

Also two less fear-related (and less common) possibilities:

5. Ideology. To some people, specifying "transman" or "transwoman" reinforces a social distinction they find invalidating or don't accept. How many profiles have you seen that specify themselves as "cisman" or "ciswoman"? For these people, it's a way of rejecting cisgender normativity.

6. Maybe they just aren't ready to talk about their genitals yet, or have their first conversation be about their surgical plans or history. Not only can get really repetitive having that be the first conversation with every single match, it means they don't get any of the information they're looking for about a potential partner until much later in the process and have to invest a lot of their own time up front. Just like you want the salient information you care about early on, so do they.