Can girls be gay?

Are we gay? Are we straight? Are we bi?
Who the fuck cares!

Seriously. I never thought I’d be writing about this, but after a conversation I had this past week, I felt the need to address this.

And, yes, it is a feminist issue. I shouldn’t need to explain that at all, so I won’t.

Here goes.

Girls can be gay. (I’m using girls as a generic term – replace it with whatever word works for you…I just always use girls and guys as my terminology.)

I can’t believe I had to post that.

Just in case you missed it, tho…

Girls can be gay.

Why did this even come up?

Well, twice in the same week, it was brought to my attention that some girls call other lesbians “fake” if they are trying to insult them, and a guy asked if a teenager I knew was “really gay” or if she just “thought she should be.”

Yup.

Why the hell would someone call someone else’s sexual orientation fake? Do we run up to straight people and be like, “OMG! You are so not a heterosexual! Stop pretending!” (Okay, to be fair, sometimes we do, like when we have a friend who is in the closet and afraid to come out, and we’re trying to be supportive in a totally unsupportive way…) But, in general, we wouldn’t think of accusing someone of pretending to be straight as an insult.

And why the hell would a girl be a lesbian because she “thought she should be”? Who thinks they have to be gay? Was there some sort of indoctrination meeting I missed? Should I also be pretending to be gay so I can fit in and be cool? Why would I pretend that? So I can get discriminated against? So I can worry that my friends and family will reject me? So I can wonder if I can walk safely down the street?

Look, guys – and girls – I hate to break this to you, but some girls like other girls. And some girls like both girls and guys. And some girls like guys. And it’s all good, and it’s all okay. What’s not okay is to question someone else’s sexuality. It’s not good to ask if someone is faking their sexual orientation.

So, the take away from this blog?

Stop being a douche. If someone tells you their sexual orientation, tell them, “Oh, okay,” and go on with your lives. It doesn’t matter, and you don’t get to judge.