In a move that made the sapphic internet briefly explode, Doechii updated her personal Instagram bio to include the word “lesbian” this month.
Then on February 11th, TikToker Malavika Kannan (@literarymal) posted that Doechii had called her Substack essay “powerful” before coming out.
Which she did, in a now-deleted comment:
And then the sapphic internet exploded again, because the essay in question is titled “Lowkey, I Chose To Be a Lesbian” and it is about being attracted to men and simply choosing not to date them, but calling yourself a lesbian anyway.
Before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s note that Doechii has already addressed the controversy and distanced herself from the essay.
I want to gently clarify something. I read this Substack essay a while back and had honestly forgotten about it until recently. After rereading it, I realized there are quite a few things that don’t align with my own views or experience and never did… I don’t support any rhetoric that could feel/be harmful towards the girls.
If you only take one thing away from this article, I’d like it to be Doechii’s response. I prefer hearing about her identity and experience in her own words. Also, she is so cool and it made me happy to hear that she came out as a lesbian, so I selfishly don’t want people to be mad at her. Sorry for being a fan. It will happen again.
So, with the knowledge that this essay wasn’t all that relatable to Doechii, let’s talk about why it was controversial. Kannan’s piece was first published on Autostraddle, and then published again with further annotations on Substack (where it caught Doechii’s attention). I’ll be talking about the annotated Substack version because I love a primary source and letting people speak for themselves.
Let me start with a controversial statement: I agree with Malavika Kannan’s essay. Partially.
I wouldn’t call anyone who finds men attractive a lesbian, BUT I’m overjoyed to see non-lesbians, as Kannan put it, “refusing to negotiate with terrorists” and choosing to stop dating men.
If you can’t be bothered to read Kannan’s essay, here are some highlights:
- She talks about being queer as long as she can remember, with her first crushes being on boys but eventually having interest in people of many different genders.
- Shortly after Roe v. Wade was overturned, she experienced a pregnancy scare, and decided that sex with men was no longer worth the risk.
- She describes the people she’s interested in now as people who “exist in opposition to patriarchy,” regardless of their gender or sex.
- For both bisexual and heterosexual women, she encourages them to consider consciously choosing to no longer date men, in order to align their lives with their values.
- Towards the end, she also gives a nod to being tired of talking about this shit (discourse about who can call themselves what), because we have bigger fish to fry.
I’d argue this last bit could be a false dilemma, because people can care about more than one thing at a time. But for what it’s worth, I agree that disagreements on terminology aren’t the most important issues in the LGBTQ community. However, the topic of whether or not sexuality is changeable is important. The backlash towards Kannan’s essay is probably motivated more by the implication that gay people could choose not to be gay.
Personally, I believe I was born this way. Kannan’s essay seems to be coming from a position that sexuality could be changeable. But note the “could” in the quote below:
I understand why people are often outraged at the idea of “choosing” your sexuality. For a long time, gay people were criminalized and ostracized (we still are), and the way you’d insist you were still worthy of care and protection was by claiming you couldn’t help who you were. “Born this way” discourse had its moment, but I think it frames queerness as an unhelpable accident of your birth and not a wonderful, principled choice you could make for yourself. I choose to loudly and decisively align myself with other women, because I think it helps all of us, especially straight women. Far from gatekeeping, I want to open the wide house of queerness to them.
Malavika Kannan (emphasis added)
This is where I think we might be blowing things out of proportion: I don’t think Kannan is denying that some of us are innately, unchangingly gay, bi, or straight. To me, it sounds like she’s arguing for people like herself – who are attracted to cisgender men – to choose to stop dating and having sex with those men. In my terminology, that would describe a bisexual living a political lesbian lifestyle. In her terminology, the word lesbian includes the bisexuals choosing not to date men.
It’s a seemingly small difference, but I do think we’re best off with a distinction between political lesbians and, in Kannan’s words, “O.G. lesbians out the womb.” Some of us are just not attracted to men, period, and that can’t be changed. I call those people lesbians.
As for the bi women who are attracted to men, but choose not to date them, I call them cool. I’ll see y’all at the club. And the straight women who aren’t dating men either – very, very cool. I’m happy to see you looking out for yourselves, because you deserve way better.
But most importantly… all hail our sapphic swamp princess!
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