Lesbians Exist

Lesbian erasure is at an all time high, in this modern age where homophobia is rampant, and you're not cool if you're not telling a lesbian she's a bigot for her exclusive same sex attraction. On this first episode, we explore the new threat against lesbians and why it is so important to have lesbian community and content and media made for lesbians by lesbians. 

To read MC's personally essay, visit her SUBSTACK

For lesbian book reviews, check out MC's TIKTOK

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Transcript

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Lesbians are facing a new virulent strain of homophobia. And what's especially nefarious about it is that it's not coming from our traditional adversaries. No, this modern homophobia is being perpetuated by large organizations who previously fought for same-sex attraction rights like Stonewall and GLAD. And it's coming from members of the Rainbow Acronym. I'll be frank, I feel absolutely betrayed by what's been allowed to happen over the last decade. A community that I once thrilled to be a part of has morphed into something I don't really recognize and want absolutely nothing to do with. Now, many lesbians feel the same as I do. And that's probably why if you go up right now, you'll see fewer and fewer millennials and Gen X and boomer lesbians out there engaging with the LGBTQ collective or celebrating pride. Like I've read several of articles right now where a lot of people are like, Where are all the gay people at pride? Right? Well, here's the thing: we want to distance ourselves from the acronym because it isn't what it used to be, and it's essentially embraced homophobia by forcing the change of language, eradicating sex from sexuality to swap it with the nebulous concept of gender. Now, lesbians are exclusively same-sex attracted women. Gay men are exclusively same-sex attracted men. And the play to switch sex with gender is incredibly concerning. Lesbians and gay men, we we're not validation tools. And anyone calling us bigots for our refusal to engage romantically with the opposite sex, well, they are the actual bigots. I cannot believe that in 2026 lesbians get bullied and harassed for attempting to host events for lesbians. This is where we're at. I cannot believe that lesbians are getting doxxed and threatened for asserting our boundaries. I cannot believe that the founder of the popular lesbian dating app, her, which is the platform where I met my partner on, has declared that there is no such thing as a real lesbian. To make matters worse, her regularly boots lesbians who assert that they are in fact lesbians from the app. But this is the world we live in. And this is why it is more important now than ever for lesbians to create content that is for us and made by us. My goal with the Lesbian Take Podcast is to be the voice of reason and to be that safe space for lesbians. This podcast will address many topics and themes of interest to lesbians. And my promise to you is that there will be no pandering or pick-me behavior because I'm not part of it. Me, I'm just a lesbian. And my hope is that lesbians begin to organize more professionally so that we can too lobby for our interests, which are in no way related to the aims of the LGBTQ collective. For now, I have aligned myself with the LGB Alliance, whose mission is to protect the rights of same-sex attracted individuals, and it maintains that biological sex is the basis of our attraction. But I really think that lesbians sit at a very unique intersection of misogyny and homophobia. And so we can only advocate for ourselves. So lesbians need to start advocating for our interests. At the end of the day, I wouldn't have an issue with gender ideology if it wasn't being forced on me and on the world and compelling speech. I think the overreach will have dire consequences for me, right? Like even for me, given that I've been forced teamed into the LGBTQ acronym, despite my attempts and me voicing that I've opted out of it. I think that the UK decision is the first of many to come. I think the court in Australia will take on the Giggle versus Tickle case. And from there, there's likely going to be a similar precedent set to the UK decision. Because the general public is waking up to what has been passed in law right under their noses, and the public is not happy because the public has not voted for this. It took lesbians and gay men decades to change hearts, to sway the public to change their minds about us and to change their minds about same-sex marriage. But the progress we have made can be repealed and is at risk of being repealed because of the very unpopular agenda to demote sex or even eradicate it. The adverse impact to women, lesbians, and gay men as a result of this trend is probably wider than even I can grasp. But my hope is that with all the rework women and same-sex attracted individuals are being forced to do, we will move back to a place where rights and dignities of all people are balanced. I think we can all agree that so long as an individual is not causing harm, they should be able to present as they choose and not be discriminated against in protected areas such as employment, housing, and public services. But the right of one person, in my opinion, to express themselves ends the moment another person, whether it is for religious reasons or for same-sex attraction-based assertions or rationale, right? If they assert their boundaries, that's where it ends. And we need to go back to respecting boundaries because that is how we move forward. On this first episode, I want to share a personal essay that I wrote and posted on my Substack. Give me a follow on Substack, you know, and it speaks to my personal experience as a masculine lesbian. So anyone who looks at a picture of me can probably tell that I'm very masculine leaning. You know, for years, I couldn't even use women public restrooms because I looked like a little boy. And so I knew I'd made people uncomfortable. So I just chose not to use those spaces. You know, that is how masculine I looked before I got my dreads, right? Just to make it clear. But where I'm concerned, I reject gender ideology, and this essay speaks to that. It's just not a belief I hold, similar to how I don't believe in a god. And I hope you enjoy this personal essay that I wrote. I wasn't born in the wrong body, but the world keeps telling me that I am. How lesbian fiction helped me find my true self. I do not believe in gender ideology, despite being the target demographic for transitioning. Yes, I am the kid who grew up hating being a girl and wishing I was a boy. Between maybe ages six and nine, I played pretend as Zach. He was my alter ego that no one knew about. Zack had all the coolest toys, like Tonka trucks, transformers, and Legos. Zack was great at kickball, and he had a cool gap sweater. I made him up to escape the social expectations, slapped on me the moment I was born a girl. A trillion times, my mother told me I wasn't ladylike. And to this day, she berates me. In my youth, I was constantly scolded for sitting with my legs open. I was constantly reprimanded for how I walked with a swagger. My Jamaican mother was so fed up with me not being the quiet and demure daughter she expected me to be. Even though we struggled financially, my mother was set on putting me on the right path. And so she enrolled me in ballet classes. Ballet, me, never. I rebelled. I got kicked out of my first three classes. And then I never went back. In my eyes, I won. In my mother's eyes, I was a failure. There's freedom that comes when you get money. At 12 years old, I started delivering newspapers. To this day, I think it's the hardest job I've ever had. But walking out into minus 20 degree weather in Canadian winter was worth it because I could finally afford to buy a real disguise. At 12 years old, no one could tell I was a girl. I dressed like a rapper, a baggy white tee with Jordans on my feet, and a black do rag. I wasn't calling myself Zack anymore, but I probably looked like him. Girls kept complimenting me, and I loved it. They told me I looked like little Romeo, and they truly didn't believe I was a girl. All was good until puberty crashed into me like a bullet train. Reality, it flattened me, and safe and self-hate, it boiled up inside me. I hated my boobs, I hated my period, most of all, I hated my hair. My clothes got baggier and baggier. I wanted to be shapeless. If I could fool the world, maybe I could fool myself. But the mirror never lied, so I stopped looking below my face. I couldn't bear to see the rest. My female body disgusted me. I thought, who will love me? I thought, I'm going to die alone. In high school, girls started pairing up with boys. Everyone was having sex. I had a cousin who had a diary where she listed all the boys she'd hooked up with. Beside each name, there was a star rating. Back then, I'd been drawn to my cousin because I think she was a bit like me. I don't think she actually liked boys. We went about it different ways though. She snuffed that part of herself out. Me? I let the feeling simmer, but I refused to analyze it. However, I made up my mind that I would rather be lonely forever than kiss a boy. My family is Jamaican. From a young age, I was taught that the worst thing I could be was a sodomite, so not only was I gonna die alone, but when I finally departed, my destination was sure to be hell, even if I never acted on my feelings. At 16, I got a job at an ice cream shop and hit it off with a new worker. She was much older than me. Of course, much older back then was four years my senior. She had a crude humor, and so did I. She loved to read, and so did I. She only liked women, and so did I. Ice cream girl, she gave me a book. It was called Tipping the Velvet. That book, it changed my life. Even though Nan was a white woman born in the industrialization era of London, I saw myself in her. A light bulb went off in my head. Before tipping the velvet, I never saw lesbian in a positive light. I never thought a masculine woman could be an object of desire, a catch worth spoiling and pandering. I wanted to be Nan King. I wanted to be a beautiful masculine woman too, which meant a lot would need to change. Now, beautiful in my eyes meant having abs. A late night infomercial promised that insanity would get me ripped in two months. I bought the DVDs. I worked out for two months straight, which turned into a year. I was obsessed with working out. If I missed a date, I felt sick. Sure, I had to tighten the strings on my sweatpants, but if insanity was working, I couldn't tell. I went about fitness all wrong. I never weighed myself and I couldn't stomach protein shakes. I was always tired. Almost two years in, and I didn't have popping abs. I was a little devastated, but I decided to move on to step two of my makeover. Something needed to be done about my hair. All my confidence collapsed when it wasn't cornroad, and that was a problem. I decided that I wanted dreads because Whitney on the real L word was the type of masculine lesbian I wanted to emulate. I thought she was so beautiful. I found a lactation in Toronto. She was white, and my family had a problem with that. You need to go to a black hairdresser, they all told me. But I spent hours researching, and all the black hairdressers only did sister locks. In my mind, I had a very clear vision of what my locks needed to look like for me to be happy. And the white loctitian promoted the back home style I wanted. The first time I met white loctitian, I was awed. Her nickname was changed from white loctitian to scary hairdresser. It wasn't that she was actually scary, it was more that she was intimidating. She had such a cool, edgy look, and she just seemed so worldly and knowledgeable. She had an air of, this is me, so get used to it. I wanted to be like her. I wanted not to care what anyone thought of me. Like tipping the velvet scary hairdresser changed my life. I was reborn when I got my dreadlocks. New confidence shot through me. I was one step closer to being the person I was meant to be, and I finally spoke my truth out loud. I was a lesbian, and people just need to get used to it. Next step in operation become a hot masculine woman, get rid of the baggy clothes. Tipping the velvet drilled into me that clothes can make a person. Beautiful people have beautiful clothes. At this time, I was a broke university student on a budget. Growing up, I was told that Tommy Hillfigure hated black people, but they were having a sale and I liked the shirts on display. Walking inside, I yanked a pair of size six jeans off the rack and went to the change room. I was shocked to see how loose the jeans were. They fit me like sweatpants. And it was there, in that Tommy Hillfigure changing room, under the harsh fluorescent lighting, that I finally looked at my body. No, I wasn't ripped, I didn't have abs, but I was skinny. And not the wind is gonna knock me down, kind of skinny. I was tone skinny. For the first time ever, I didn't totally hate what I saw. I had a super cute face and my collarbones poked out. My shoulders were strong, my stomach was flat, and my hair, it was awesome. With a new wardrobe, a barren minerals makeup kit, and a makeup forever eyeliner pen in hand, I left the mall ready to see if my hard work paid off. I needed to know if I was desirable. First time I went out on a date, it was to meet a black bisexual woman at Toronto's only lesbian bar, Slax. It's closed now, but she was pretty, but I didn't feel attracted to her. And that probably had more to do with the fact that I was deep in Lin Red's for a friend, and I knew I could never have them. Slax was dead, so after we finished our beers, we left and walked down the street to Cruz and Tango's. Cruz is a staple drag bar that is still around today, but I keep hearing it's on a block they want to develop. But I keep hearing it's on a block they want to develop. Anything and everything gets developed into a condo or a shopper's drug mart these days. It's annoying. Anyways, Cruz felt like home. I instantly hit it off with a group of successful gay men. They showered me with compliments, and one of them told me about a lesbian event that I needed to check out called Toaster. Now, I think it was at Toaster that I met S. She was a pretty tomboyish lesbian. Back then, chapstick is what we'd called someone like her. She wasn't androgynous enough to be called Andro, and she wasn't masculine enough to be a butch like me. S and I made plans to hang out. I was somewhat interested in her, but I don't think it was mutual. We went to a Blue Jays game together and a Hunter Valentine concert. She was solidifying herself as a good friend. Early on in my party days, though I had read books like Stone Butch Blues and knew trans men existed, I'd never seen one before. There were Butch, Soft Butch, and Andrew women, but never any trans men at the lesbian parties. Mostly the demographic was fan and chapstick. A black butch, I also used stud. Lesbian like me stood out, but it was kind of a good thing. I'd been validated. All the work I put in paid off. I was still deep in limerence, so had yet to make a real connection, but I had a new date almost every week. Not only was I desirable, but I had made a new friend, like S. Pride 2014 was around the corner, things were good. I think I was close to happiness. S changed, and I knew it immediately. It didn't have anything to do with the fact that she chopped off all her hair. She just stood smaller. She took up less space in the lesbian party, as if she didn't belong. I remember offering to buy her a drink, and she declined, saying that with the new meds that she was on, she couldn't drink. My spidey sense tingled, and I don't know why my mind went to transition. Maybe it's because I'd been asked several times if that was something I'd consider doing whenever chats ventured into territory about labels, masculinity, and feelings. At the time, I'd always voiced how I felt that I'd been born the wrong sex, but I also can't imagine anything worse than being 4'11 and looking like a man, but not actually being one. I think S had heard me say that once, and maybe that's why he ghosted me after he transitioned. Pretty much all the Butch lesbians from my party era have transitioned. I've wondered a lot about why I never succumbed to the pressure to transition, especially since it wasn't until I was in my early 30s that I shed the skin of my internalized misogyny that gripped me so tightly for so long. But I think it's because I read Tipping the Velvet at such a crucial time in my development as a person. That book, it changed my perspective. It made me want to be a masculine woman. In reading Sarah Waters' words, I moved away from aspiring to be someone I could never be, Zach, and I started laying the bricks to become a version of Nan. My journey was years of unwinding societies and my mother's expectations of what womanhood is supposed to look like. My journey was about finding a way to resolve my body dysmorphia. My journey was about finding a way to love myself despite being a very masculine gay woman. Now, I think too many people look for quick fixes to change their reality. Me, I sat in my discomfort for years. I observed it, I questioned it, I weighed the pros and the cons. What I kept landing on is that I wanted to be like Nan, even if that meant being judged everywhere I went. I do not believe in gender ideology because sexist stereotypes, they put me in a box that made me hate myself. Gender stereotypes are why I was gifted Barbies instead of Tonka trucks, transformers, and Legos that I wanted. I was shoved into ballet and humiliated because of gender stereotypes. I was forced into a dress for my uncle's wedding and I wanted to cry all day because of gender stereotypes. Gender stereotypes are why my mother is constantly disappointed in me. Gender stereotypes are why I thought I would die alone. Gender stereotypes are why I wanted to be Zach instead of myself. No, I was never born in the wrong body, but the world told me I was. My point, you can be a masculine woman. Society just doesn't like it, which is why a stance like mine will be unpopular. But I think it's worth stating because I know there are little gay girls out there who are just like me. All they need is time to grow and to learn to love themselves. Now, people want to rage at me for advocating for authentic lesbian voices and stories, but my personal lived experience tells me that it is important. Tipping the velvet, it changed my life. And my goal is to now write stories for lesbians that show them that they are deserving of love and self-acceptance. MC Hudson. Now, I hope you enjoyed my personal essay. I hope my reading of it wasn't uh so horrible, but it sort of gives you my point of view, you know, and I think we're in a very odd time. There's a lot of peer pressure going on, and I think there's a lot of lesbian erasure that's going on. And so I think it's really important for lesbians, especially the lesbians who grew up in a time before all of this lesbian erasure to speak up and be that place and voice of reason. We need to build community amongst ourselves, because that's the only way we get out of this. That's the only way we heal. So hope you enjoyed that essay. My books, if you want to check them out. If you're looking for messy lesbian drama, okay, like a messy slow burn romance. You can check out French Press Love or Slow Cooked Feelings. If you're more into enemies to lovers, okay, lots of action and dark themes. You can check out Born of Blood and Magic, which is a fan favorite. I definitely recommend the audiobook, which was narrated by Laura Horowitz. Very good audiobook reading for Born of Blood and Magic. But yeah, that's what this podcast is going to be. The lesbian take is going to be about lesbian issues. Probably will also let you know about some lesbian books that I'm reading. I've been reading a lot of feminist books, talk about some pop culture moments too, but that's the gist of it. Thanks for listening and see you next time.