being a lesbian (and bi, pan, etc.) woman can be so hard and lonely because women specifically in our current culture are socialized to be very physically intimate with each other.
growing up my girl friends and i would shower together and cuddle and hold hands and do each other’s makeup and link arms when we walked down the street and share food.
and some women are on different levels of comfort and intimacy with each other, like maybe no shower-sharing or hand-holding etc. But on one level or another, we are raised to be physically affectionate and it’s normal.
and once we realize we’re not straight, suddenly people around us are scrutinizing us. anything we do with out friends must be because we’re attracted to them. so we start becoming afraid to interact platonically with women at all.
even if our friends reassure us they trust us and don’t feel that way, we hear other people saying shit like “what? you shower with her at the gym? you let her sleepover in your bed???”
“that’s like doing that with a guy, isn’t it?”
and we know that every single second of our time spent with straight women is spent being studied through a microscope by other heteros who see as as predators. It’s heartbreaking.
And if we don’t have great friends, because hey, when you’re younger sometimes your friends aren’t always great, we end up with no reassurance and we start worrying maybe we ARE crossing boundaries when we tell a best friend “you look hot in that dress” when we just meant it as a normal compliment, so we isolate ourselves from female friendships.
it’s sort of like a joke I hear a lot, “why do so many gay/bi/etc. girls have all guy friends?”
but the truth is actually really sad bc we’re afraid to interact with women because of the scrutiny we face in our every word, expression, and gesture.
if you’re straight and your girl friend isn’t, here’s something to know: it is impossible for me to exaggerate how much it means to me when my straight friends normalize physical intimacy with me in front of judgmental people.
When my straight friends hold my hand in the mall or link arms with me, or when they help me fix my hair or ask me to fix theirs, when they ask me to help them put on a necklace or unzip a dress, etc.
I know these all seem like little gestures but there are so many things I miss about “straight friendships” because I didn’t realize I liked women until I was 19, and some of my friends started acting different around me, stopped touching me, didn’t want to share beds, etc. and now I’m hyper-aware of my interactions with straight women to the point of misery.
So when you bridge that gap in the little ways, saying you don’t care and you trust me and love me and don’t see my any differently, it means the world tbh.
And if someone says something like “you do X around her??” Tell them “yes, I do, because she’s my friend. It’s not the same as a straight cis man, and if you have a problem with the way I interact with her, you don’t have to be around us at all.”
Stand up for your friends!!
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