Stop Mocking 'Straight Girls' Who Hook Up With Girls

Photo: Adrianna Calvo

If you’re a part of the queer community, there’s no way you haven’t heard some joke or phrase mocking straight girls who hook up with girls. But it’s time to stop. I get why the impulse is there. Many queer women have experience with having their heart broken by a straight girl who had a secret relationship with her, and it’s something that definitely hurts. But are we really doing anyone a favor by making fun of girls who hook up with girls but don’t ID as queer? Who, exactly, are we helping?

So much of judging and mocking “straight girls,” too, is based in biphobia. Think about it: as a community, we regularly joke about girls who “were” queer, and ended up with a guy, thus giving away their queer card. But that isn’t how it works. Sexuality is more fluid than that, and when we say that women lose their queerness the moment they hook up with a guy, we’re denying fluidity as a reality. It’s not fair.

Don’t mock straight girls. Call them out. Make sure straight girls know that it’s not okay for them to mess around with you. But also recognize that coming to identify as queer is a process and that not everyone is as ready to identify as queer with pride. For some, it takes longer than others, and sometimes that public identification never happens. It’s an unfortunate truth.

But straight girls don’t owe us their sexualities. They don’t have to identify as lesbian or bi or pan or queer at all if they don’t feel comfortable with it, just like we don’t have to take them up on their offer to experiment. And if we do, and we end up broken hearted, can we really blame anyone but ourselves?