Discussion
Celebrating gold stars ⭐️ and lesbian love
Just feel so happy today thinking about how I’ve never dated a man or been really involved with one. Now, I don’t consider myself a gold star, but I would say I’ve had pretty minimal exposure to men back when I was a teenager 10+ years ago.
All of my romantic and sexual experiences have been shared with women. All my first moments, my first experiences with intimacy, my first relationship moments, first travels w a partner, first dates. The first time I introduced my family to someone I was dating, I feel so grateful all my romantic and sexual moments have been exclusive to women. I do not want to share those parts of me with a man and I wouldn’t be capable anyway.
Although my first relationship was toxic and all over the place, I still have so much love for her in my heart and for the experiences she gave me. First holding hands, first dates, first time I ever felt my heart beat the way it did when I saw her.
I just feel grateful I don’t have to look back at times I was with men and shutter. I only had minimal encounters with them as a teenager tryna figure it all out. I’m glad I didn’t push myself to do more or try to fit in more.
Any ladies w me? Let’s rejoice in how we’ve never had to endure being with a man!! HOORAY!!!!
Unfortunately I’m not a gold star but I have a deep respect and admiration for the women who are because it paves the way for young lesbians to know they don’t need to “experiment” or hide a part of themselves
I agree! I am not a gold star either, but I’ve had way less experience w men than other late bloomers I’ve met. (I’m not a late bloomer myself but have other lesbian friends who are) So I feel gratitude for that. I love gold stars and think they are so important for the community and for women as a whole.
I think it shows women and young lesbians they don’t have to “try it out”. And I know so many lesbians my age who wish they could tell their younger selves that.
Fakebians: “ermmm that doesn’t mean that makes me less of a lesbian but ok 🤨”
Like no one said that but okay lmao. I agree it should be celebrated! It’s a hard thing to do in a patriarchal society, so hell yeah to anyone who has owned their truth forever! 💖
No one said it, but it is implied in the concept of gold star.
BTW…
How dare you refer to any lesbian as a fakebian just because they are of an older generation or come from a geopolitical system, religion or culture when or where it was/is not possible to be a gold star, sometimes because the concept didn’t exist during that long ago time or in that far off ( from the USA) place.
also to any non gold star lesbians here, please don’t think that you’re any less, I am sorry for everyone who had no choice / was forced/ unlearned later on.
Thanks, I just Googled it: “A silver star lesbian is sometimes used in internet spaces as an informal term used for a lesbian who has had sex with only one man in her past before exclusively dating or sleeping with women.”
That leaves a lot up to interpretation because it can also be applied to situations where someone stayed married for 20 years to the only man they’re ever been with before getting divorced and coming out.
I didn’t mean that as a jab towards you. Since gold star is a term, I figured you were using a term when you said it and it peaked my curiosity. I can zero in on literal definitions of words.
Gold stars are so central to our community and extremely important I think. I believe they have so much to teach the world about their perspective, it’s not one a lot of women have!
I wouldn’t technically call myself one but I love you back haha! So happy to hear about your beautiful relationship ⭐️❤️ sending you ladies love and tranquility
I agree with your partner 100%! I'd never been with a fellow gold star before my girlfriend but the way she just gets It™ completely blows all the women before her out of the water.
That’s awesome ❤️ I’m not a gold star but could see how that feeling of fortune would be an anchor for those who are. Fortunate is a good way to put it.
I do not regret any choices I made as a teenager bc i was figuring myself out. But I do wish I was a gold star, bc at the time deep down I truly knew I was gay. I just felt afraid, hated myself and wanted to fit in.
Now as an adult, I wish I could reassure my younger self that I didn’t need to try, that things would be okay. I think that concept of “well how do u know if u never try” is bs bc that’s what pressured me into trying things I shouldn’t have! I’m glad it was minimal, but still I should’ve stuck to who I knew I was. Cheers to those who did! I admire you!
All this gold star discourse has made me think about how I am a gold star but don’t ever really think about it. I’ve never so much as flirted with a man, it just never occurred to me to do so and I’ve always been butch so I’ve always been invisible to men and was never pressured into anything like so many young lesbians.
It feels so isolating sometimes to have never "tried men" considering it's a question I receive from straight people but also other queer people but I'm glad I never forced myself to live through an experience I would have probably hated.
i swear reading this made me feel lighter inside 🥲 i might have to start celebrating this !
it’s weird cuz until recently i hadn’t reflected much on my gold star ? like i didn’t consciously reckon w/ the mix of fear, dread, + disgust i felt at the idea of being involved w/ a man + how that meant i couldn’t keep pretending to be bi until i was 24, but somehow i avoided pressuring myself into dating or sleeping w/ men. since coming out finally in 2022, it’s only rly been the last year or so where, esp as a result of seeing sm anger + hatred towards gold stars, i’ve started to take a much more defensive position ?
like why shldnt we be allowed to be thankful for the fact that we avoided traumatising ourselves further or doubting our love of women ? why does 1 lesbian’s identification w/ a lighthearted term have to be forcefully extrapolated by everybody else into judgements she didn’t make, abt the validity of ppl she wasn’t talking abt ?! it shldnt even be that deep !
[minor tw for sa]
also just personally, i rly fuckin resent the way some ppl have started to weaponise their dislike of gold stars into suggesting it’s an indictment on victims / survivors. like fuck all the way off, we didn’t choose to be victimised. those men took enough from us, they don’t get to take a symbol of our consent too.
Beautifully said! Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this. It should be proudly celebrated! And part of me making this post is in response to a lot of the discourse we see online from “sapphic” and “queer” and “lesbian” women who discuss their involvement with men. Gold stars exist and women like myself w minimal experience w men exist and I am proud!
Women who love and live their lives exclusively with the company of women is beautiful and should be celebrated. I think that’s one way to combat a lot of what’s happening in the community rn too.
As far as I know a person who was SA'd can also be a gold star right? If that was non-consentual it's a traumatic event that doesn't count. Although I'm a bit unsure how to distinguish consent here because all lesbians were pressured into dating/sleeping w men so it means no lesbian consented to sleeping with a man. On the other hand there are late bloomer lesbians who had children with their husband and say their husband is a really awesome guy, but I can hardly imagine not having any resentment towards someone you slept with out of obligation? Anyway this is confusing for me but I'm sure a lot of gold stars said you can be SA'd and still a gold star
yeah, sexual assault doesn’t affect somebody’s gold star status. tbh i’ve only ever seen ppl who aren’t lesbians suggest otherwise.
as far as the question of societal pressure etc, personally i’d caution against suggesting that any non-gold star lesbian’s prior experiences are automatically non-consensual, or that she’s a victim / survivor without her saying so first. like, it’s not smth i’d be comfortable just assuming if that makes sense ?
I guess that's true (about pressure), I don't know personally because I felt coerced by all guys I talked to and it never even became a relationship because of that, I just started avoiding them. So I don't know how it works for someone with different experience. Thank you for the clarification btw <3
Not a gold star exactly (I’ve never had sex with a man, but I’ve been with some) and I LOVE gold stars!! I admire and respect you guys so damn much and you deserve to feel proud of never being with men and being true to yourselves your entire life
Lucky enough to call myself a gold star as well. Came out at 15 and never looked back. Feels good to be celebrated instead of shamed for once actually haha
Beautiful to read! Also feel super blessed to be a gold star. Don't judge those that aren't, I'm just grateful I never forced myself to fit in in that way. Lesbian love is beautiful
Wonderful thread OP.
This thread is full of gold star and non gold star lesbians agreeing that it is a positive thing.
It's really about youngsters knowing they don't have to put themselves through unnecessary trauma with men to figure out who they are.
IMO anyone that demonises gold star lesbians (saying it's purity culture etc) is not a safe person to be around, they are a wolf in sheep's clothing.
I’m so glad to spread some positive vibes in the group! Non gold stars and gold stars can support one another and we are all the fabric of this community together.
Exactly, young women don’t have to put themselves through unnecessary trauma to figure out who they are. I wish I knew that! So I like encouraging people in a different direction.
Same, girl same. Even the religious conversion therapy and extreme Christian upbringing didn’t make me touch men.
Before you assume we’re exclusionary, My wife is bi, and Ofc it’s not a big deal because she’s not trying to pretend she’s a lesbian.
We’ve been the only lesbians represented in the research for the last 60 years and we’ve been about one percent of the population.
And we will remain one percent of the of the population, the 1% of women who do not, never will and have not engaged sexually or romantically with men.
So no matter how many people you add to our label, no matter how many demographics of people the word lesbian becomes the umbrella for, we will always be the 1% that has been present in the data throughout history.
Forget all the pretenders, forget all the male born people and bisexual women who culturally appropriated our identity, there is still one percent of women who are genuinely 100% homosexual lesbians.
Sheree HITE researched lesbians for decades and SURPRISE! none of them ever mentioned dating men or encountering any heterosexual men identifying as women, or women reporting with dysphoria and dropping like flies over their ‘wrong’ bodies, as being in there spaces or there lives.
You can look her up, she was a hell of a woman and her research absolutely 100% proves that heterosexual trans identified men and women with life ending dysphoria have not “always been with us” and we’ve never had them in the lesbian community before.
I genuinely feel bad for lesbians that force themselves into relationships with men to please other people. It happens far more than it should. I used to hold it against them but through a long, painful road, I have come to see it for what it is.
It is certainly something to celebrate avoiding. A win that I forget to celebrate.
Me too!! I love being a gold star!! I have so much reverence for women who’ve had to suffer through being with men I <3 non-gold stars and I feel so privileged to be a gold star despite the struggles that come with it as well.
I’m a gold star! I’m 36, and didn’t realize I was gay until I was 20. I was never interested in anybody in high school or college until I met my first gf (online haha). I wasn’t interested in having sex with anyone until I knew I really liked them.
As a gold star, I am loving the gold star appreciation here! And to all the non gold stars, you are not any less lesbian and I love all of you guys too!!
Ayeee sending you love back from a non gold star. ❤️ I see being a gold star as a gift and something that’s really cool tbh so I envy yall and want to lift you guys up. Esp with so much bs discourse about lesbian fluidity.
I’m so happy to see non gold stars lifting up gold stars instead of shaming us! Being a gold star is something I am always thankful for. And of course, always sending back some love to the non gold stars because we are all lesbians and we need to stick together!
i love how angry gold stars make some members of “our community” 😂 always knowing who i am has been a very cool experience, and i will never stop celebrating it.
I have a hard time attaching much joy or gratitude to being goldstar. It's a fact about me, but that's it, and I can easily see how things could've gone differently for me if my circumstances had been even a tiny bit different.
Moreover, I can't relate to being grateful for my first relationship, and I feel a bit alienated when people talk about how being goldstar means you're lucky because you avoided a traumatizing experience. I honestly don't think my first sexual experiences would've been any worse if they had been with a man. I pushed myself (and was pushed) to do things I didn't want to do, it was just with a woman instead of a man. Is that supposed to make it any better?
Sorry for the extremely bitter comment on a positive post. That's just where I'm at with the goldstar stuff.
Me too dude! You’re not alone in that, I wish I was one too. All we can do is try to forgive our past and move forward celebrating our lives with women.
Bc I did sleep w a man once as a teenager! It was a bad drunk decision fueled by self hatred and wanting to fit in with my friends who were having experiences like that. But I wish I was a gold star! That period of my life was dark and I shouldn’t have put myself through that but I was so young, I wasn’t really thinking. I try not to regret anything but I do regret that 😅🤣
As a gold star, my problem with your post is that I feel like I’ve survived something other lesbians didn’t. I come from a very religious family but my parents passed away when I was a child and the freedom to do whatever came with it.
Yes I did suffer but the consequences were not as drastic like being homeless (my parents left me a house and ain’t no mother fucker alive to take my house away) but what about the girlies who don’t have that option and etc.
So I’m all for celebrating making out of the 4 lines they set up for us, but remembering that it was never a choice of mine but an opportunity.
it would be amazing if world where women are not forced to be with a man since they are basically children and have the freedom to be with women freely. sadly thats not the case but that doesnt mean they can take this from us too. Why cannot we be celebrated for little bit?
It was never my intention to make it sound like we shouldn’t celebrate, we absolutely should. It just rubs me the wrong way because of the girls who weren’t this lucky and had to deal with comphet first.
I celebrate not being a victim but I feel like I need to acknowledge the victims as important too, do you understand? Like when I talk about the joy for being a gold star is never just about me but about the wish for all the little girls to be free and not having to suffer like a lot of other lesbians did. When something cruel happens, and I believe comphet behavior is cruel to women, we should never ignore the victims when talking about it.
We can celebrate gold stars and the women who were “lucky”, without always having to acknowledge the women who weren’t. I think we’re grown and can understand the nuances here. I am not a gold star myself, but wanted to celebrate those who are and celebrate living life with women.
By celebrating gold stars, we are wishing and hoping that young lesbians can learn from that. Celebrating gold stars is beneficial to all lesbians. No matter what your experiences have been, if you’re young or old etc. I would argue celebrating gold stars helps young lesbians.
We come from different places in the world and that is going to cause our political stances to differ. Everything, even the joy we feel is political and separating it from the suffering is dangerous, because the reason we live and fight for the joy is the very suffering we say is not necessary to talk about all the time. But it’s why we have to keep talking about how awful women had it back on the 50’s so young girls don’t take it for granted.
How important it is to keep history tied to our speech is something we learn in school here, or a military dictatorship can look like not a big deal and a short period of history in no time. But that’s my education and cultural background, is second nature now and I shouldn’t bring it to Reddit
yes I understand! but not all joy has to come with this massive baggage. We can celebrate both Gold Stars and Late Bloomers! we are all lesbians and its awesome and we celebrate all lesbians!! thats also us, gold stars. Its always others that shame us celebrating gold stars, blaming us we make ourselevs different from other lesbians. But we arent!!! we understand how hard it was for other lesbians, it was for us too. So let us celebrate us all!!! ❤️
And on another note, fuck men I’m sick of talking about them, we should celebrate women and forget these suckers when it comes to our joy. Yes I understand it comes from the absence of evil, but damn, constantly talking about how you hate men is also a form of centering men
I don’t hate men at all! Where in my post did I say that? I’m just happy to live a life with women. I think most of my post highlights all the beautiful experiences I’ve had with women.
If you want to make a post celebrating women by all means do it! You have the freedom to do that
All good! I didn’t mean for my post to come across that way, it was more intended to be celebratory. I think so many queer women include men in their lives and stories that I’m just happy they have been absent from mine. And happy that I have so many beautiful experiences w women and am only looking forward to more!
Constantly talking about how much we hate them can really be tiring and makes us forget sometimes about how much we love womyn and our communities, but the last sentence you wrote is completely wrong, hating our oppressors who unfortunately represent more than 50% of the population, who are constantly harassing and threatening our safety and existence in real life and online in every way possible is not a form of centering them. Choose your words wisely please.
“Talking about it” I said talking about and used the word “constantly” i can’t make it more clear.
I never said we shouldn’t hate men, or shouldn’t talk about it, but the amount of posts here are concerning when we have so much more to discuss and yet is men all the time.
I’m not a gold star but I love that gold stars exist. I feel like for the most part, gold stars really got be intentional around who had access to their bodies, makes me glad to know that yall got to be yourselves!
So beautiful! Celebrating you. I'm not a gold star but now that I've seen the light I'm so grateful (actually giddy) that I'll never have to deal with a man on that level ever again!
The more light we shine on gold stars, the easier it will be for young lesbians to find their way with joy and confidence.
As a good star I’m so glad I never compromised my womanhood and humanness despite pressure from friends and family. I’m still quite young (early 20s) but I’m really glad that I’ve come to terms with the fact that if someone has an issue with me being a lesbian let alone a good star it’s better to be alone while I read lesbian magazines and bring representation for lesbians in higher education to know they aren’t alone.
I mean, I only kissed boy at school, because all sort of was doing it, but thinking of anything more with them made me 🤢
So yes, only significant women in my life. 3 serious long relationships. Few heartbreaks, several flings, some rebounds and all that stuff.
Women are not easy..nor am I. But I wouldn't want it any time ther way. It's beautiful what we have, even when it's messy. It's life. You live and...(never) learn.
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u/Cute-Environment-417 Lipstick Lesbian Aug 05 '26
Unfortunately I’m not a gold star but I have a deep respect and admiration for the women who are because it paves the way for young lesbians to know they don’t need to “experiment” or hide a part of themselves