Member-only story
One of the mistakes I made when I first came out of my dark, isolated gender closet was thinking the gay and lesbian community had very few layers.
Quickly I learned how wrong I was. In the male gay community, there were tops and bottoms, drags and bears just to name a few. Not to be undone, women in the lesbian community have butches, femmes, lipstick lesbians, gold star lesbians and baby dykes. Again just to name a few. Initially, I was confused by wondering how I fit in as a transgender woman, if at all.
Just as quickly I learned the male gay world was not for me. I tried going to male gay bars when I first came out and was roundly rejected. For the most part, the majority of the people thought I was a drag queen. Which of course I wasn’t. It didn’t take long for me to leave the gay scene for the most part and try new venues. About this time, two small lesbian venues opened as luck would have it, I was not accepted in one but had no problems in the other. The first one was a hard core biker dyke bar and they had no use for a trans woman on her own in their bar. Just to be a pain to them, I kept going back before I found other places to spend my money.
As I mentioned, the other bar was a direct opposite. I went often and ended up meeting several butch lesbians which were interesting. Ironically, it was not my first…
