I feel like Trans Lesbians are houseguests within the wider Lesbian community.

So, this is long and I'm bothered by this so expect rambling thoughts and a slightly bitchy tone.

I follow a lot of Sapphic meme accounts mainly for memes for my girlfriend. I'm transgender, she's lesbian- we both identify as Sapphic- her as while she loves women, she's open to non-men, not exclusively women like myself- I use the lable because I use the split attraction method and also as labeling myself as a lesbian can be unsafe when you are openly transgender. Point being, lables are lables, use whatever you want to use.

Anyway, one of these accounts, on twitter, 'Sapphiccsworld', posted a version of the Maslov's pyramid meme. It was 'giving a girl hickies.' People, however, noticed that there was an odd space near 'girl' and a compression artifact. Turns out the same meme was posted earlier but with 'T-Girl' instead.

Weird; but okay, I don't care, its fine, but then people looked at what the account followed, and of the 100 or so accounts, there were a bunch of Radfem and TERF acclunts being followed, including one with the eye-roll-inducing, cringe-as-fuck username of 'SeperatistSista' who on top of dernaged and grotesque rsnts agaisnt 'Troons' and 'AGP', followed people with lovely headers like 'Abort Male Fetuses.'

People, almost all other transgender women, questioned the account as to why she is following TERFS- SperatistSister then decided to join in, and tag the account and telling other 'womin' to follow it as 'Angry and Entitled men who are pretending to be lesbians are attacking her.' Clearly, Sapphiccsworld saw this, as she has a low number of followed accounts. She said nothing, and blocked people calling her out. This whole interaction makes me sad, where a cute meme account is making or at the very least supporting grotesque viewpoints. Not a lot of places are safe.

Here comes to my point, I feel like a lot of Trans Women are tolerated into lesbian spaces and that is kind of that. We are welcomed, but as guests, we are told that most lesbians do not like penis, and fine, cool, whatever, I get it- and that we need to behave ourselves so to speak. I've noticed that line of thinking often in places like R///LesbianGang.

The only people, I noticed, who took issue with the account following terfs tended to be transgender women. Whenever transphobia rears itself in lesbian spaces, I feel like we often are on our own, we have to be the ones to face the brunt of it and fight back.

Yes, I appreciate the inclusion, and the validation. But at this point, there has to be more then, 'Trans Women are Women!' but more, 'Trans Women are Women and are safe around us. We will fight tooth and nail for you.' We are a heavily attacked group. We are the face of transphobia. We're trying to protect ourselves and we should find solace in groups dedicated to loving women.

I feel like cisgender people need to do more. This isn't about genital prefs, or refusing to date us, its fine, Idc. I care about us as people, as women, as lesbians or Sapphics, and part of that caring needs to be people speaking more about this, taking our concerns seriously.

We shouldn't be treated as second-class lesbians.