Day & Night

Chemistry: Soap bubbles in frozen CO2

Original gifs and their close up

Source: Mr. Hacker on YT

gnc/butch woman literature masterpost (work in progress)

As a gnc woman and lesbian, the near complete lack of people like myself in media can be really alienating and disheartening. Whereas normally its pretty easy to find recommendations for helpful/enjoyable/interesting books of certain types,  i noticed tht i found it kinda difficult to get recommendations of books about being a gnc woman/ books with gnc lesbian protag/ lesbian fiction in general tht doesnt objectify Lesbian women etc, aside from constantly harassing friends for advice and scouring the corners of the internet/stalking people blogs.

Ive compiled a (somewhat short, but hopefully helpful!) list of books that deal with this subject matter, in hope that someone might find it helpful. Idk maybe this is stupid and nobody will even care but i know as a teenager i would have rly appreciated finding smth like this, so I’ve provided some recommendations for lesbian books, with an emphasis on butch/gnc representation, along with some notes n stuff. Enjoy! :D

DISCLAIMER i havent read all of these but ill take full responsibility for anything bad tht ive inadvertently mentioned here. If u think theres smth on here tht shouldnt be, pls msg me and hopefully ill get rid of it.

without further ado;

LESBIAN FICTION-

Stone Butch Blues -Leslie Feinberg. Amazing, beautiful book, and mandatory reading for any lesbian women who haven’t already experienced it  (seriously it might change yr life). [pdf]

Crybaby Butch - Judith Frank

Far from Xanadu Julie Anne Peters

Persistent Desire Joan Nestle

Annie on my mind- Nancy Garden

Keeping you a secret- Julie Anne Peters

Leaving L.A.- Kate Christie

Me and you and daisies- Lily R. Mason

The world unseen- Shamim Sarif

Wildthorn- Jane England

Tipping the velvet- Sarah Waters

Dare truth or promise- Paula Boock

And Playing the role of herself- K.E. Lane

Hunter’s Way- Gerri Hill

Ash- Malinda Lo

The price of Salt- Patricia Highsmith

Patience & Sarah- Isabel Miller

The Gravity between us- Kristen Zimmer

Her name in the sky- Kelly Quindlen

Taking the long way- Lily R. Mason

Fingersmith- Sarah Waters

Everything Leads to You - Nina LaCour

She’s My Ride Home - Jackie Bushore

NONFICTION-

Our Right to Love: A Lesbian Resource Book by Ginny Vida

Lesbian/Woman by Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon

Family Values: Two Moms and Their Son by Phyllis Burke

Inseparable: Desire between Women in Literature by Emma Donoghue, (Knopf)

My Lesbian Husband: Landscape of a Marriage by Barrie Jean Borich

Butch is a Noun, by S. Bear Bergman.- a collection of essays written by the author exploring what it means to be butch

Dagger: On Butch Women, edited by Lily Burana and Roxxie Linea Due.

The Persistent Desire, A Femme-Butch Reader, edited by Joan Nestle.

Persistence: All Ways Butch and Femme, edited by Ivan E. Coyote and Zena Sharman

Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America, by Lillian Faderman

Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold- Elizabeth Kennedy & Madeline Davis

COOL WEBSITES:

Lesbian Herstory Archives - this is the coolest website ever for browsing stuff about lesbians in history 

(and Here’s a link for the Lesbian Herstory Archives’ audio tapes collection, its really cool check it out! Great for finding interesting stuff if u dont know what to read/listen to and would like to kill some time :D !)

The Lesbrary - super cool blog dedicated to lesbian literature

Good Lesbian Books-  cool website. Heres a link to their list of Free Stuff :)

Books to watch out for - lesbian book reviews and literary news

Lesbian Fiction Review 

Lesbian Science Fiction

Sistahs on the Shelf - Cool site dedicated to Black Lesbian fiction. Reviews, News, Recommendations, Authors n more

Canadian Lesbian Book Blog

Biblioteca Feminista - Books/ book recommendations in Spanish, English, French, Portuguese and Italian 

List of Lesbian Authors’ sites 

Lesbian full-text works on the web - list of lesbian content available for free on the web. Mostly older works

LGBT books for teens

UK Lesbian Fiction

Women and Words - site devoted to bringing news, interviews, writing tips, giveaways and more

The Book Dyke blog

LGBT Romance Novels

Lesbian History Bibliography

Bella Books

reblog to save a life lol

plz by all means add to this if u have anything i didnt mention! hope this was helpful <3

When I was in school, one of my art teachers used to say “this world needs more creators. There’s more than enough destroyers in the world today.”

Just a reminder, if you create anything–art, writing, food, machines, ideas, equations, knits, tools, gardens–the world needs you.

You know what’s messed up? People make fun of women for reading romance novels in which men are kind, chivalrous and sexually generous to the women they love, but men watching violent hardcore porn where women choke on dicks is considered normal, and ‘shaming’ someone for it is considered more taboo than the porn itself. And women reading romance novels has certainly yet to lead to a culture where men are considered lesser if they don’t emulate the men in the pages. I wonder the fuck why.

know what’s wild? that the trope of like “my father always wanted a son so he treated me, his daughter, like a boy” is so popular and like lowkey loved, but if you ever saw a mother who talked about how much she wanted a daughter instead of a son, or if she treated her son like a girl, like??? people would think she’s awful and that poor boy??

damn wonder why that is 😒

You know what’s cool? Butch lesbians

I love girls who are proud and uninhibited about their intelligence and will brag about their accomplishments and take no shit from pretentious boys who look down on women in their field. girls who are outspoken and a bit arrogant and ambitious in a world where we are told that we must hide our intellect and to always put the needs of others (i.e. men) in front of our own are amazing

#look at her #she was so happy

Compulsory Heterosexuality 101

If you’re currently wondering if you’re bisexual or if you’re actually a lesbian, then welcome! Hopefully this will be helpful.

Compulsory heterosexuality describes the societal and internalized pressures and influences on lesbians (as well as gay men and some bisexual women, but that’s for a different post) to be heterosexual, or at the very least present and act heterosexual, and the way those influences and pressures affect our perception of our own sexuality. Compulsory heterosexuality makes us believe that we are attracted to men when that attraction is actually not genuine, and not knowing whether what we’re feeling is genuine or not can be extremely confusing when trying to figure out what our sexuality is.

The important thing when questioning if your attraction is genuine is to figure out what the root of your feelings are. Genuine attraction and compulsory attraction, when broken down, are polar to each other. The following are examples of what genuine attraction might feel like vs. what compulsory attraction might feel like. Keep in mind, these are generalized and not universal or flawless! Attraction is different for everyone. But hopefully these should help to provide a framework to start distinguishing between genuine and compulsory experiences of attraction:

Genuine attraction: The attraction you feel happens of its own accord, it develops naturally and without your control or external manipulation. It is rooted in what you want and what you feel instead of what the other person wants or feels. You aren’t only interested because they showed interest first, or because you need their attention or validation. It feels overall pleasant, comfortable, and right to you. You might get nervous around the other person or feel butterflies, but this is more of a rush and an excitement than it is uncomfortable, if it’s uncomfortable at all. You would enjoy acting on your feelings if the right opportunity presented itself. You hope that the other person would want to reciprocate, and that they feel the same way about you as you feel about them.

Compulsory attraction: The attraction you feel exists out of a feeling of pressure or responsibility. You feel or think as though you “should” be attracted to them, as if under obligation to. You don’t mirror the other person’s desire and attraction at all, you are merely the receiver of it. You feel nervous around them because being the focus of their attention makes you uncomfortable. You might like them as a friend or as a person but when it comes to feeling anything romantic or sexual for them there is a disconnect. You have no real desire to take things further with them, but are simply following the script of the relationship.

Ways compulsory heterosexuality can manifest: (I’ve taken many of these from other sources, not all of them are my original experiences! This list is by no means complete or perfect, this is simply a collection of experiences that can be common to lesbians experiencing compulsory heterosexuality).

General:

I like men, I’m just very picky/my standards are very high

I like men, but I have no interest in ever being with one

I like men, but only fictional or otherwise unattainable men are attractive to me

I like men, I just strongly prefer women, to the degree that my attraction to them in comparison to my attraction to women is close to zero

I like men, but I would never sleep with one

I like men, but I would never date one

I like men, but my attraction to them is unpleasant/burdensome

I like men, but I wish I didn’t

I like men, but if I had the choice to rid myself completely of my attraction to them I would, because I would be much more happy/myself that way

When considering relationships with men, it is more about a sense of duty in my mind than enjoyment. Whether or not I’m happy in the situation doesn’t matter

I can’t imagine feeling about men the way I feel about women, it feels impossible to ever love a man the way I love women

I feel attraction to men in hypothetical situations, but when those situations become real or attainable I lose all interest

I feel like my attraction to men ultimately gets in the way of me enjoying life/enjoying my sexuality. I feel like if I were rid of it things would make much more sense to me

I have ID’ed as things other than lesbian before, but those labels always felt dishonest

The attraction I feel toward men is never carefree or enjoyable. I don’t enjoy experiencing it

I could probably tolerate being with a man, therefore I must not be a lesbian

I could put up/cope with having sex with a man, therefore I must not be a lesbian

Hypothetically, in a distant future, there might someday exist a man who I can fall in love with, therefore I can’t be a lesbian

I want people to see me as something other than a lesbian, but I don’t want the expectation or pressure of being with men to be put on me

Dating and flirting with men always feels very robotic and scripted to me

I want to be able to devote 100% of my time and attraction to women, but I feel unable or unallowed to

I hate it when men show interest in me, it is always unwanted

I crave male attention but the moment I receive it I hate that I have it

I get uncomfortable knowing that a man has a crush on me, or that he feels attracted to me in any way

Crushes:

I develop crushes on men by picking and choosing beforehand who I will have a crush on. They never develop naturally

I develop crushes on men after being informed by a second party that I have a crush on them (through teasing, insisting, prodding, etc)

I develop an attraction to men only after they’ve shown that they’re attracted to me

I develop a crush on men only after I am aware that they have a crush on me

I develop crushes on men in some circumstances, but when I do they cause me anxiety/distress, or make me uncomfortable in some other way

My crushes on men require “upkeep”

The crushes I develop on men feel nothing like the crushes I develop on women

The crushes I develop on men feel very performative and/or scripted

Fantasies/dreams/sexual stuff:

My fantasies involving men focus on their pleasure in the situation, not mine

My fantasies involving men always involve an imbalance of power dynamics, e.g. there is coercion or force used and I am not the one in control

I have had sex dreams involving men, but always wake up feeling gross or upset (or both)

The men in my fantasies are always faceless or blank-faced

I am completely lost as to how to interact with a man sexually, whereas with women it comes naturally to me

Men’s bodies look and feel physically “wrong” to me, as in it doesn’t feel how it should/how I expect it to. Everything is the wrong shape and smell and texture

Note: This post is still a WIP! I will most likely be coming back later and updating parts here and there, but I didn’t want to wait any longer to post so I put it up as is. Hopefully this was a helpful starting point for you guys! If you have any feedback let me know, I’d love to hear it :).

ellen and portia calling out kate mckinnon ( dressed as ellen ) to close out the show