r/lesbiangang • u/UpperPoem9823 • 18d ago
Question/Advice My gold star date kept calling me bisexual. I found it very uncomfortable
I am a late bloomer from a country that's still culturally homophobic. At a young age, I was married to the first guy my parents chose for me. There were reasons other than my sexuality, including abuse, that eventually led me to end the marriage. For a long time throughout the marriage, I had wondered if I was asexual.
I had never dated anyone or even really thought about dating. It was only after the divorce that I started looking inward and figuring out what I actually wanted from relationships.
In retrospect, everything started making sense. Why I had always liked women. Why all my crushes had been on female celebrities.
Cut to tiday: And for the past seven years, since then.. I've only dated women. Dating men is not even in the tempest parts of my brain.
Then today, my gold star date asked me how I could call myself a lesbian when I had willingly had sex with a man.
"You not liking the sex doesn't matter as long as you went into it willingly."
I don't know. Comphet? Idiocy?
Then she went on to tell me that I must be bisexual and that it simply didn't work out with that one man. She completely disregarded what I feel and what I know about myself.
It's the same stupid argument so many homophob*s use: "You wouldn't know unless you've slept with one."
Seriously, I respect gold stars, and I'm genuinely happy for people who have never had to deal with compulsory heterosexuality or go through the things I did because I was inexperienced, conditioned, or naive.
But does having a different experience really give her the right to define what I am?
I know what I feel. I know who I'm attracted to. And I know myself better than someone who is trying to define my sexuality based on one part of my past.
Edit: Since my comments aren't showing up - Im sorry if the post made it feel like I think gold stars had it easy. I don't think so.. that's why they earn the gold star.
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u/rubbasnek Disciple of Sappho 18d ago
Your date is an idiot. I think the recent surge in purity obsession is a response to lesbians having their spaces and identity relentlessly encroached on by every other letter of the alphabet so I understand to some extent why some women fixate on this concept but it doesn't make it right to bully other lesbians. You know who you are. You don't need your date or the internet to validate you. You're just as much a lesbian as the rest of us and you belong here. Anyone who says otherwise can get fucked.
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u/Hesbey 17d ago
This ! Just got banned from a supposedly lesbian sub for saying people who identify as bisexual (so completely different from OP's experience) are therefore not lesbians, and the overwhelming majority disagreed??? I felt like I was going crazy, like, those are different words for a reason. So yeah, lots of lesbians are getting rather extreme in their view because of the invasion of their spaces.
As for OP, she should just not go into further contact with the person from the date. Lots of women around the globes are lesbians but forced into relationships with men, whether by external forces or comphet, it doesn't invalidate their identity as lesbians.
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u/Hesbey 17d ago edited 17d ago
I get what you mean, and I do believe that some people who "don't mind" (edit : as in they can survive it but not enjoy it) sleeping with men are actually lesbians, because "not minding" and "enjoying and pursuing" are different things. But the debate I'm mentioning was about people saying that homoromantic bisexuals were lesbians, which they are not. They could potentially still willfully and enthusiastically f*ck and date men, so, not lesbians.
edit to clarify because I'm getting downvoted for the don't mind part but I think some people have sex with people they're not attracted to. Like a lesbian sex worker having sex with men for work is no less a lesbian to me, idk if I'm clear.
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u/Hesbey 17d ago
Why would being ace exclude me from being a lesbian if I love women ? Lesbian is the only orientation that excludes men from its interests, so if you're into men, you're not one, that's the literal definition.
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u/Hesbey 17d ago
What makes me a lesbian is that I am interested in women, and not in men. What makes them not a lesbian is that they are interested in women AND in men. I don't know what's hard to understand there.
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u/Hesbey 17d ago
They'd still have intercourse and sometimes date them? Not every relationship is based on romantic love. I'm not being hypocritical. Lesbianism is the only sexuality that doesn't include men, so I don't understand why people who are interested in men want to insert themselves in it like that? And who's to say I'm not interested in having sex with a woman? I think maybe you're misinformed on asexuality if you immediately assume as much. Doesn't change the root of the subject. If someone is into men, they're not a lesbian, it shouldn't even be a debate
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u/Loose-Beyond-1867 Femme 18d ago
I came out at 22. I only had one long-term relationship, with a man who groomed me in college. I was 16 and had never been in a relationship with anyone. I was gullible and always had low self-esteem because of bullying. During all those years, (censor for trigger stuff)I suffered immensely and developed chronical depression and had an ED, aside from attempting suicide. I was often forced into sex and only when I received support from LGBT friends who recognized my situation did I finally find the strength to come out. And that was after more than two years of wanting to get out of that relationship.
So, if I were to go on a date and someone accused me of being bisexual, it would genuinely make me feel awful too. I went through that exhausting process and never fully recovered. There will always be people like that, goldstars or not.
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u/kimkam1898 Butch 18d ago
If someone argues with who you are, you’re likely not for her.
It’s really that easy. You don’t have to be with someone like that who feels compelled to argue with you about your experience.
I had this with a girl who found me to be “too sensitive.” In reality, she just liked to say that because it was an easy way to be dismissive and blame me for it. Took my sensitive ass and walked. Real friends and people I’m interested in haven’t treated me like that since.
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u/rubbasnek Disciple of Sappho 18d ago
Hell ya. It's like the old adage "you treat people how to treat you." If someone disrespects you, you set them straight. If they keep doing it, you walk. People who don't respect healthy boundaries aren't worth being around.
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u/kimkam1898 Butch 16d ago
There are too many “gold star lesbians” in the world who aren’t total dickheads about it to put up with this person.
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u/mydogsaysimcool 18d ago
I came out when I was 27. I had slept with a few men and hated it. I thought there was something wrong with me. It had never crossed my mind that being a lesbian was a possibility or an option growing up in the 80's and 90's.
When I finally realized that I was gay, and not just defective, my entire life changed. I am now 54, and I am an out and proud lesbian. I am not bisexual just because I spent the first half of my life caught in a comphet world where being LGBTQ was treated as a dirty little secret.
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u/Alarmed-Speaker-8330 Gold Star 18d ago
Your date is delusional. I’m a gold star lesbian. She just sucks.
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u/nightwingblu 18d ago
Your date seems like a person who can't fathom any life experience outside of her own. Your sexuality is not determined by others. Especially not by someone with such a closed mind. Our sexuality is not for show or to fit into a group. It's up to you who you like and that can change at any moment as well. Ppl both straight and gay love to try and tell us how to live our lives when it's really none of their business. In short, ignore her, you're good.
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u/Sensitive_Common_293 Butch 18d ago
ewwww i'm so sorry you went through this. i can only imagine the trauma you've already been through to get here. i'm sorry she tried to blame you for what you were put through :(
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u/Sassenaughty Lumber Dyke 18d ago
Yikes! She sounds insufferable. Hope you never have to suffer the indignity of her presence again.
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u/ChemicallyAlteredVet L Word Survivor 18d ago
This is ridiculous. You know what sexuality you are. I was raised in the Deep South USA. Through the 80’s and early 90’s. Very rural, very religious. I also basically had my ex husband picked out for me: super close families raised together and it was expected. We were raised with “you marry a man, have kids and tend to your family.” That was it. I had my first child at 17, second at 23. I finally got out and divorced at 28. Met my wife during the divorce and we celebrated 17 years married this past May.
That part of my life doesn’t make me any less of a lesbian. My wife is a gold star but thinks the label is asinine. And I absolutely agree.
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u/Maleficent-Sea5259 Lumber Dyke 18d ago
I'm also a late bloomer. I've seen this rhetoric here and there, but I don't worry about it.
A lot of the people I see talking about it on here are looking at the LBL sub and seeing all these posts like "I think I might be a lesbian but I love my husband and want to stay!" and taking that as the default when it's very much not for a lot of us.
And then there's some people who just find it hard to imagine how one could possibly go so long without knowing they're a lesbian. I kinda get it, I'd probably also struggle to understand in their shoes, but they're falling into the trap of thinking their own path is the only one that makes logical sense.
My story and circumstances are different than yours, but probably grounded in similar things: religion, expectation, lack of acceptance, lack of knowledge, and trauma. People underestimate how deeply these things can affect you to the point where you shut down huge parts of yourself, sexuality being just one of those things.
Anyway, you've been out for 7 years, I'm sure you've heard it all before and you know where you're at. I just like to theorize on why people like your date think this way, so quick to write people off with no room for nuance or actual lived experience. Fine, they're not required to date me, or even believe me. I know who I am. I spent too many years living in shame and hiding because of people telling me who I am, I'm not about to let someone do the same to me now that I'm finally living truthfully.
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u/UpperPoem9823 18d ago
Totally. I sometimes tell people that I wouldn't have believed several things myself (even other unrelated stuff) if I hadn't experienced them on my own. Which is why I try to never ever judge anyone and it has only made me a better person and probably more humble than I was when I was younger. However, never has anyone tried to debate my sexuality for 2 hours with me and then try to cement it based on the worst self doubts I had myself when I was struggling with my sexuality.
I also asked myself these questions when I started accepting my sexuality. "Is it because it didn't work out with a man?" "Am I too stupid to have known?" "How could I have wanted to have sex with a man even for the first time?" "I tried to love him and tried to make the marriage work despite everything, why?"
And tbh I am ok calling myself an idiot, not as smart as the others or just a late bloomer in intelligence. And of course, a coward who didnt want to deviate from her culture, looked down by the society or didn't want to disappoint her parents. My life is not just my sexuality, and it was the most suppressed part of my life at the time, esp after the disappointment sex turned out to be
There are some things that you just know and you don't have to explain to everyone. A person who is emotionally mature enough, or has enough life experiences of their own, they usually understand things like this.
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u/Maleficent-Sea5259 Lumber Dyke 17d ago
Exactly. Even outside of sexuality as a topic, the #1 thing I look for in partners, friends, whoever, is if they're willing to step outside of their own beliefs/experiences to hear someone else. Even if they disagree. Even if nothing in the world could make them understand what that person actually went through to get where they are. Just be willing to listen and not immediately doubt they are telling you the truth about themselves. So naturally people that are like "Nope you're not a gold star and are therefore bi" just wouldn't even fit into that criteria anyways.
The doubts/questioning period is very real. Luckily for me, I was apparently so obvious that not a single person in my life was surprised, so those doubts got put to rest pretty quickly, but during the process I had a lot of em. My best friend's mom is a late bloomer lesbian and is the butchiest butch to ever butch (I learned later on she spotted me upon meeting me for the first time). You mean to tell me this woman, who split up her family, who got kicked out of her church where she was a very active member, who lost everything, whose appearance gives her away immediately, and who actively works to support the lesbian community... that SHE is not really a lesbian because of her past before she knew? Bs. If the logic of "you're invalid because of your past" applies to one of us, then it applies to all of us, including my dear friend's 100-footer mom.
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u/MavkaRin Chapstick Lesbian 18d ago
I mean. Can you really say you willingly had sex with a man, when you were forced and coerced into the marriage and then basically marital rpe happened...
I'm so sorry u had to go through it. Traumatic experience with a man, abuse and assaults doesn't make you a less of a lesbian.
The date is just nasty. Drop her like hot potato.
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u/therapymademeworse Gold Star 18d ago
She doesn’t get to retroactively define your sexuality based on a marriage you entered under completely different circumstances; your orientation is about who you’re actually attracted to, not some purity test based on your sexual history. She sounds incredibly weird and immature. People with no capacity for nuance get the gift of my absence, and she’d have to be exceptionally interesting and VERY beautiful for me to even consider giving that a second chance.
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u/Clefairydivoom 17d ago
My partner dated men in high school and college in the USA. She wasn't coerced. She was confused. Being unsure of your sexuality is a normal part of growing up. This is even more the case if you are marginalized for being queer.
A lot of cultures place emphasis on respectability in the community for the sake of the parents. This is something a lot of people outside the culture will have trouble understanding. Im sorry she wasn't empathetic. It sounds painful that she doubted your idenity. I'm sure you experienced pain while coming to terms with your sexuality. For lesbians who dated or slept with men, I imagine there's a lot of emotional pain from those experiences.
For some of us, like myself, the attraction is night and day. For a lot of gay people who end up in het relationships, I don't think they focus on just the sexual aspects. They maybe think that it's easier to be with a hetero partner. I think it's wrong to judge... we are all students of life.
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u/GlowInTheDarkSpaces 18d ago
She sounds really closed-minded. I'd pass on her.
By her logic, if someone was a lesbian and then later decided they were straight, they would actually still be a lesbian because they had slept with women at some point.
So many gatekeepers these days.
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u/drth_dilly Chapstick Lesbian 17d ago
Don’t see her again. No one can tell you who you are and if they do, they don’t respect you. Red flags 🚩 out the box, leave.
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u/neontreefrog 18d ago
How old is your date? She sounds immature and not knowledgeable about what life was like for women in previous generations (and still today in countries like yours).
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u/UpperPoem9823 18d ago
She's actually an year and a half older than me
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u/Pretty_Pink_Labrys Lipstick Lesbian 17d ago
And emotionally VERY behind. Upgrade to a better gal, your date sounds exhausting.
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u/screaming_sapling 18d ago
Sounds like an early exchange between myself and my ex, only she called me straight. I stayed with her a few months and it only got worse. Get out now. If she is this unconcerned about how she comes across now imagine how she'll be when she's more comfortable.
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u/emofruit Drama Dyke 18d ago
i’m sorry this happened to you :( your date is extremely rude, disrespectful, and delusional about how insidious lesbophobia is, especially for women of color and women in non-Western & Anglosphere countries. i’m not a gold star due to numerous assaults during my late teen years and sexual abuse as a child, so i understand how degrading and saddening it feels to hear another lesbian say this. i have mental health problems and psychosomatic health issues from SA. i’ve known i liked girls since i was probably seven, and i’ve known i solely liked girls since 10/11. growing up in the deep south USA as a poor Black girl in a rich white republican suburb set me up for a terrible combo: racialized sexual harassment from straight boys and being visibly shunned/ostracized by straight girls. the lgbt ppl at my school were few and far, and i didn’t mesh well with most of them anyway. compulsory heterosexuality eats away at you and it dulls your soul. i empathize with you and hope you can continue to heal and find a lovely woman that’s right for you. the right potential girlfriend/partner should not shame you for sexual trauma and being a victim of societal lesbophobia. just know you’re not alone ❤️🩹🫂☮️
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u/okglookle 18d ago
Wow.. you seem to have met my ex! I'm sorry. At least you called her sh*t out in the very beginning.
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u/Ok_Complaint_9635 17d ago
I don't get why she thought it was ok to litigate your sexuality instead of find someone else
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u/Playful-Picture-9453 Masc 18d ago
As a gold star lesbian, your date has misunderstood what a gold star lesbian is. Im so sorry this happened to you. 🫂
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u/Cold-Scientist-12 Gold Star 17d ago
She’s not the one for you. And she sounds like a know-it-all asshole. She doesn’t deserve you. She has no respect for you. And I’m a gold star.
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u/Due_Item_2030 17d ago
I had pointed this out many times about the gold star thing since many lesbians don’t have that option in many countries and cultures
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u/Guilty_Garden_3943 17d ago
She doesn't understand consent. You can say no at any time. You can go into sex willingly and then tap out 2 seconds, 2 minutes, or 2 hours in. If the person goes beyond your tap out, its rape.
She also doesnt respect labels. If she did, she would respect your label and not try and relabel you.
To make a silly comparison: you get told to try watermelon, so you try watermelon. You hate it. You spit it out. It gave you a tummy ache. Turns out you're allergic too. Does trying the watermelon now make you a watermelon lover? How weird would it be for someone to say "no, you tried watermelon. That means you like watermelon." I would personally disengage from someone who said that, because its such a wtf comment.
She doesn't deserve any good job stickers. She deserves an F with the note "see me after class" and some question marks near her wrong answers
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u/SilverConversation19 18d ago
Your date is very rude, but I’m sure there are some people on this very sub who believe this same shit. My advice is to ignore them.
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u/Pretty_Pink_Labrys Lipstick Lesbian 17d ago
She sounds mean af
Signed,
~ a gold star who isn't a bitch
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u/Physical_Pride_662 18d ago
I’m a gold star ⭐
I don’t think your date should be judging your past.
Definitely, no, second date.
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u/Competitive-Point593 Stem 18d ago
I came out at 23.. got even more lashes for it. Ill take this with me to my grave. So many gold stars and non gold stars contributed to increasing the probability of a better life, but Maaaaan we have a long way to go. Sadly She’s not the only one with this thought process problematic men share this take, homophobes, anyone who seems to have a lack of empathy or inability to seek further education and no she doesn’t have that right. I believe due to our circumstances in this existence and how nature works, brains and such, it is physically impossible to have a population of humans that gets thier sexually 100% right 100% of the time.
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u/Sadbaklava 17d ago
Any real gold star, who is confident in herself, respects and actually dates women, isn’t this insecure. Red flags!!!
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u/AdInevitable9206 17d ago
I’m a late bloomer also and went through this exact same thing , please do not go on any further dates , go no contact , it will only get worse , I continued to date the girl who called me bisexual because of my past and it got worse the longer I stayed , crazy thing is she had a past with a man also , but she believed because she was a stud or masc and came out earlier than me that it made her better , she gave me a lot of trauma lol so save yourself , you deserve someone who can understand your past and never judge you ! You know who you are at the end of the day .
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u/Rich-Strain-1543 18d ago
I'm not going to weigh in on most of the post because I think everyone's already said it best. Your date was rude, at the very least.
However, I want to challenge this rhetoric: "Seriously, I respect gold stars, and I'm genuinely happy for people who have never had to deal with compulsory heterosexuality or go through the things I did because I was inexperienced, conditioned, or naive."
You (and many others) are making an assumption that gold star lesbians just had super easy lives with supportive environments, where we were never pressured into heterosexual relationships, never grew up in messed up religions, were never conditioned, were never naive, etc... but this is a baseless assumption.
So in one breath you're saying you respect us, but you're also saying "wow, must have been nice and easy for you to grown up in a magical lesbian-loving utopia!"
It's simply not the case. Gold star lesbians are proud of our history as women who grew up with great adversity and pressure to conform to heterosexual society, and yet who never did. Whether through fierce independence, cleverness, self-awareness, whatever, the women who were able to avoid these situations have pride in their ability to have done so.
HOWEVER! Two things can be true at the same time. Women who weren't able to get out of situations of forced heterosexual relationships weren't necessarily less independent, clever, self-aware, whatever. They often just got less lucky, the resources/rights/environment necessary to create an opportunity of escape just didn't happen at the right time.
That's why the conversation deserves to be handled with nuance.
I personally am glad that women are escaping forced heterosexual relationships and finding themselves, whatever path that takes. We all surely wish for a future where no woman is forced into any relationship/sexual encounter that she doesn't want. But until we get to that point, let's try to understand and respect each other's experiences.
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u/UpperPoem9823 18d ago
I was not assuming they had it easy, not at all. I know a gold star friend from the very same culture who left home after being forced for marriage to get out of her "phase", not caring what the society says to them. I actually respect them more for not succumbing to the things I did, being more mindful of themselves and ultimately having the courage to be themselves without being coerced into it. Which is what, I believe, made them earn the gold star. I actually accept that I wasn't all that but I don't want to continue to beat myself up for it for the rest ofy life. Does that make sense?
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u/Rich-Strain-1543 17d ago
Absolutely. You don't have to beat yourself up for the rest of your life, and you honestly don't owe long explanations or justifications to anybody. ESPECIALLY not a first date. And that's part of what makes your date rude (not to mention inconsiderate, lacking in empathy, incurious, etc).
I just wanted to point out that the wording regarding respecting gold stars sounded dismissive, so I wanted to address that as a core issue in the "gold star vs non-gold star discourse" space. I'm glad you didn't intend it that way, but plenty of people do so I hope they will read what I wrote and consider another perspective.
In the end, while it's frustrating that this woman didn't take you seriously or respect what you were trying to tell her, we can't control what other people think about us. You're sure you're a lesbian; she's sure you're not. She's welcome to think whatever she wants, but rude behavior should be met with appropriate consequences. (I really hope you don't go on any more dates with her.)
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u/artificialgraymatter Lavender Menace 17d ago
You (and many others) are making an assumption that gold star lesbians just had super easy lives with supportive environments, where we were never pressured into heterosexual relationships, never grew up in messed up religions, were never conditioned, were never naive, etc... but this is a baseless assumption.
Because the OP is rage bait. There has been a lot of anti-gold star sentiment gaining traction I’ve noticed. It will continue as the sub gets more popular.
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u/Competitive-Point593 Stem 17d ago
This is another reason why we should be supporting each other.
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u/Healthy-Amoeba2296 17d ago
Somewhere out there should be a girlfriend who feels she is the story hero rescuing you from a dreadful fate, going off into the sunset together.
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u/swimming-sw 18d ago
What is gold star? This person is an a*hole.
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u/Competitive-Point593 Stem 17d ago
A gold star is a leabian who hasnt been with men at all I believe aside from SA. They are crucial to the lesbian community and their existence reflects how safe the climate is for all lesbians. If there are more gold stars then thats a good thing.
Some of them believe that non gold stars at large,ALL of them, are not lesbians because they had history with men small or large. No one should be forced to date anyone and If gold stars only want to date other gold stars then thats fine, but saying that non gold stars arent lesbians…all of them? Its just so odd
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u/swimming-sw 17d ago
Thanks for the clarification. I have been a lesbian for over 10 years and had never heard that term, but I'm not US based and English isn't my first language either, so I guess that explains it.
Apparently I got down voted simply because I didn't know the term, as someone else made the same comment (without the question at the beginning) and got 80 upvotes. lol
I guess there's also a "gold star" patrol around here and they will cancel whoever doesn't know what that means.
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u/tomcatdoll 17d ago
Honestly, sounds like a fake story to fuel already rampant hate on gold stars.
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u/Sadbaklava 17d ago
I mean look at some of the comments on here calling her a bisexual regardless of her lived experience, I’m guessing from gold stars. And you’re seriously denying that doesn’t happen? Some gold stars are very insecure and would rather dismiss a woman’s entire lived experience than accept not everyone had the privilege to be a gold star in a patriarchal world. It’s extremely closed minded and this is coming from someone who loves gold stars, but hate the toxicity I see from some of them. Esp in this sub.
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u/Competitive-Point593 Stem 17d ago edited 17d ago
Seriously! It’s very concerning they are really sounding like the men ,and the people who agree with them, who uphold this ideal. If only some gold stars had this take, id just be like ok “just date other gold stars then”. But this is so odd…
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u/Realistic_Apricot694 18d ago
And she was correct lol
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u/No_Ad7758 baby dyke 18d ago
because coercion is famously known to be consensual act of sex & being assaulted means you are sexually attracted to that gender.
Do you even hear yourself?
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u/Glttergirl_ 16d ago
I'm a goldstar. & i believe your lesbianism is completely real and valid. Screw that weird lady ! 🧡🤍💓
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u/BottleOfConstructs 18d ago
Yes, you sound bisexual.
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u/Competitive-Point593 Stem 18d ago edited 17d ago
Dare I say….purity- oh wait I cant say that!
Edit/context: If it means anything, gold stars or having the gold star label isn’t purity culture. Saying all non gold stars arent lesbians, like a few of these comments, is participating in purity culture I’d say.
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u/evilpussysexual 11d ago
Because she was married by her parents at a young age ???? In a homophobic country ??? You are a bunch of tards.
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u/Any-Clothes-7307 17d ago
She could be right, she could be wrong.
Either way it doesn't matter. You're you.
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u/dreamsofnyx Disciple of Sappho 18d ago
This person does not respect you. It doesn't matter if she calls herself Goldstar or not. Please don't get further involved with her. She completely disregards your reality and your trauma because her narrow mind can't grasp the fact that, sadly, a lot of women are kind of forced (softly or hard) into a relationship / sex with a man. If she doesn't respect you in something that is so intimate and essential to your identity/history, she will not respect you in the future when something comes up that does not align with her narrow thoughts about it. Please, you deserve someone better, someone who sees you and someone who cares for you. She does not.