Recently, I had the amusing spectacle of a tragically heterosexual woman talking to my wife
@GoldenRetrieverGF@blahaj.zone and me, and her relationship-role compass flipping wildly while trying to nail down who, between us, is "the man" in the relationship. Of course, the obvious point of a lesbian relationship is that *there is no "man"*.
That is maybe a bit too broad a brush, given the details of the
#lesbian umbrella that can span all the way to he/him-lesbians, and, indeed, trans men, if they want to include themselves. What is the defining trait of a lesbian relationship, then? That needs a closer look at queer labels, and the meaning of
#queer in general.
Let's start with an analogy, a pendulum. Simple string and weighted ball contraption, fixed at the other end to an anchor point. You set it in motion in such a way that seen from above the anchor point, it goes around in a circle. Now we change our perspective to look at it edge on from one side, and what we see is that the circular motion now seems like it's merely swinging back and forth on a line, and we don't see that "mid-swing" it actually is at two very different points.
What this illustrates is that your point of view makes for a projection that obstructs a relevant detail.
Going back to the lesbian relationship that means, however "unfeminine" you may view one part, that part does not actually need, in any way, shape or form, be or fulfill the role of "a man", just because you expect a relationship to have these set roles. But since that is your preset point of view on relationships, you still can't see anything but. A lesbian relationship doesn't need to follow your mental model, even if parts of it seem to follow that pattern.
In a more general perspective, this experiment sheds light on what queer means. It means "defying a general, set expectation". It means that your perspective is insufficient to describe it. When people deconstruct their identity into different labels, sub labels and micro labels, they may at some point swing back to the word "queer", not because all those observed aspects are wrong or don't have meaning anymore, but because they have made a development that you can't readily see from where you're looking. What seems a return to you might hide a movement in a direction that you have no idea of. And if your
#nonbinary friend grasps for words how they are not a man, woman, or something "inbetween", they are describing just that - a direction that you have no conception of, and can't be described in generally, culturally understood terms.
All that is to say, if a lesbian couple describes their relationship as lesbian, then you trying to frame it in heteronormative expectations is doomed to fall short.
