God I can't believe we still have to do this exclus discourse again but here it goes:

Of all the exclus I've come across, I've really mostly encountered 2 types. Type 2 is less common--the mastermind. These are knowingly anti-LGBT people who push their propaganda onto LGBT people. They're TERFs. They're aphobes. They could be many things. But they all have 1 goal.

They don't support LGBT people, so they spread anti-LGBT messages to LGBT people in the hopes that they're turn more of them anti-LGBT. This is where mantras like "Lesbians don't like men" and "X identity is invalidating" come from. They *want* us to fight each other.

At the same time, they try to gaslight you. First, it's "I'm not transphobic, trans people are valid but lesbians means women only so trans men can't be lesbians." Then it's "the trans agenda is stealing away lesbians" or outright admitting they're transphobic and proud of it.

Some of them run fake accounts as "inclus" but post anti-LGBT content to convince you that A: They are -insert LGBT identity they hate- and B: being anti-LGBT is actually pro-LGBT and you should hold the sacred gates

This makes their lies that "it's not TERF rhetoric" more believable, and makes you more likely to accept even more openly anti-LGBT people as 'correct.'

It can be hard to identify whether an account is a sock puppet too. Because Twitter is constantly banning the anti-LGBT shit, and actual LGBT people, mostly children, are dodging the bans and making new accounts all the time.

Which brings us to Type 1, the much more common one. Children who have been misled by the anti-LGBT people in Type 2.

They're the target audience for the Type 2s. They're vulnerable, abused survivors of everyday homophobia who easily rebound into 'pro-LGBT' homophobia's arms.

Many of them went through their own struggles with coming out. They're either finding or have already found an identity that fits them and makes them feel safe and secure. But they're not okay, and they feel like they need to justify their existence to people for it to be real.

Society has taught these kids that they have to be straight and that they should constantly doubt their own queerness. And their response to that has been to be loud and proud about it--"I'm x and I like x and there's nothing you can do about it!" Which is great

I am so glad and proud that our LGBT youth are finding who they are and being able to voice it. That's the brightest future we can have and it means everything we and all the queers before us have been fighting for.

But it makes those kids incredibly vulnerable to anti-LGBT propaganda. Speaking from my own experience for a moment, I was a queer kid too once (I know, shocker).

And when I was coming out, I wasn't always sure who I was or who I was into. Those doubts were everywhere because society said if you weren't 100% sure, you couldn't be at all. And it wasn't healthy. So yeah, I screamed to the world I was queer. I was trans. I was a lesbian.

But I know I wasn't just telling the world that. You don't shout at the world when you feel secure in your identity and who you love. When you're okay, and you're really empowered, nothing can touch you. You don't feel the need to just tell people--you can BE gay.

Broadcasting your gayness to the world isn't an announcement, it's an affirmation. You're telling yourself you're gay because you feel insecure about it and you don't want to think about the doubts. Trust me when I say you don't need those doubts.

Those doubts about your identity are lying to you. You've proven it already by pushing yourself to announce it in the first place. You're gay. You're queer. And that's awesome. No one can take that away from you. And the sooner you believe it, the sooner you'll be okay.

But these kids *are* still insecure. The world has been telling them 'you can't be gay, you can't be gay' their whole lives and it's gotten to them. And being loud and proud is just their way of masking it.

When they're insecure like that, *everything* different than them looks like a threat. *They* fought for their queerness and *you* just want to take it away from them. They think you're "invalidating" them because they don't fully believe they're gay and you're opening the gate.

"How do I know I'm a lesbian if it's okay for a lesbian to like boys?" "How can she be a lesbian if she's not like me?" These thoughts are swimming through their heads, and their doubts are telling them "You're not a lesbian, you don't only like women, you must like men."

They see their doubts challenging them and think it must be that bi lesbian who caused it. She told them lesbians can like men! So she's suffering from comphet/supporting heteronormativity/causing men to make advances on lesbians!

It's easy to see how quickly those walls get put up, and how easy it is to pile on more. "You have to be a lesbian in the same way as me! Bi lesbians are lesbophobic!" "You have to be bisexual in the same way as me! Pansexuality is biphobic!" and the Type 2s take advantage of it.

Wonderful, great young queers with bright futures ahead of them get turned into hateful anti-LGBT cops because they haven't gotten the support they need and they still feel insecure.

But the thing is, those questions they're so worried about-- "How do I know I'm a lesbian if it's okay for a lesbian to like boys?" "How can she be a lesbian if she's not like me?" etc, they have answers.

It's not your distaste for boys that makes you know you're a lesbian. You know you're a lesbian because you can *feel* it, and when you shout it to the world, it feels right! Every time you yearn for a girlfriend, all the times you checked out other girls, that's how you know.

Not liking boys is just the thing that woke you up to it. It's not what defines you. It doesn't shape you. And it's not why you're a lesbian. You're a lesbian because you can feel it. And so are the other ones, even the ones who like boys. Even the ones who love nonbinary people.

Even the trans men and trans women, the aspec lesbians, all of them. They're all lesbians too and that's okay. We're all lesbians together and it's our label that binds us. Not our borders. Not our gates. Not 'the definition.' It's our love. It's our identity.

And no one, not ever, can take that away from you. Mspec lesbians don't invalidate you. Aspec lesbians don't invalidate you. Trans and nonbinary lesbians don't invalidate you. Not even male lesbians can.