A He/him
lesbian is a
lesbian who uses he/him pronouns despite the two concepts conflicting with each other. Many
will claim this is because he/him lesbians feel a sense of disconnect from womanhood/femininity, or more commonly, "pronouns
don't equal
gender." However, this statement is incorrect due to the fact that pronoun variety exists for the sole reason of indicating gender identity in the context of a conversation. If pronouns were only meant for specifying a person completely outside of gender, then this variety (he/him, she/her, they/them, etc) simply wouldn't exist, and there would only be
one universal set of pronouns.
Another way people attempt to justify he/him lesbians is by using examples of he/him lesbians from the past, in which the historical context has been adapted and altered, for their convenience. Historical he/him lesbians did not use he/him pronouns because they preferred it that way, but rather they did this as a safety mechanism. This is because, in more
homophobic times, lesbians would commonly have
one partner present as male in order to appear as a heterosexual couple, as to not get hate crimed out in public. This wasn't a form of self-expression, this was a safety method.
In
short, he/him lesbians are harmful to lesbians as they suggest that lesbians can be attracted to
men if they are attracted to he/him lesbians (who literally call themselves "he", a male pronoun).
Person A: "I'm a he/him
lesbian."
Person B: "So you're a woman......who goes by he/him?"
Person A: "Yes."
Person B: "But he/him suggests the user is male, that's why it's a set of pronouns. It's for male-identifying people."
Person A: "Pronouns
don't equal gender."
Person B: "So then why have different pronouns at all? There are different pronouns because they were made to represent different genders. If pronouns
don't include gender than why isn't there just
one universal set of pronouns? It doesn't make sense."