why is Lilith sapphic?

What is FLINTA? · by Mira Iranpour

FLINTA is a German abbreviation that stands for “women, lesbians, intersex, non-binary, trans, and agender.” It’s often used to denote spaces excluding cis men. The term initially appeared in German spaces; however, recently both the concept and the term have been rapidly spreading to other countries, in a lot of cases mistranslated to “females, lesbians, intersex, non-binary, trans, and agender.”

There are also a lot of spaces that have the same concept but don’t necessarily use this word. In this post, when I say flinta spaces, I refer to them as well.

why cishet women in, cis queer men out?

There are usually two answers from the people who advocate for flinta spaces.

1. Cis men are not safe.

The idea that cishet women are inherently safe because they are cis women, but cis queer men aren’t because they are cis men, sounds very bioessentialist and ignorant of the complex layers of intersectionality. Why is a working-class cis gay guy seen as a potential threat, but a rich cis straight woman who centers men in her life considered a safe option to include?

Trans people have been experiencing a lot of aggression from cishet women too. The idea that cishet women are safe enough but a cis queer guy is not safe enough for a marginalized space sounds very strange to many trans ears.

Policing who looks like a cis man and cannot enter flinta spaces also makes non-passing trans women and transfems, and passing trans men and transmascs, as well as gender non-conforming cis women, extremely unsafe.

2. Queer spaces are dominated by cis gay men and we need a signifier to say this is not that kind of queer event.

Well, including cishet women doesn’t sound like a good plan to create a queer space in the first place. Secondly, while it’s true that a lot of queer spaces are dominated by cis gay guys, it’s usually easy to tell even before setting foot there. The people who organize those spaces, the DJs and performers they book, the media used to promote them, the wording — everything shouts that they center the space around cis gay guys.

However, there are multiple queer spaces where cis gay men are either in the minority or not present at all, mostly because they have their own spaces and usually won’t go to more inclusive ones, especially ones that are clearly not centering them. It’s fairly easy to have queer spaces that represent the more marginalized bodies of the queer community than cis gay guys, and to do that you don’t need to ban cis guys entirely.

And it’s fairly easy to tell if a queer space belongs to the category of “mostly cis gay guys” or “mostly other queers.”

transfems and “amab” non-binary exclusion

There have been multiple stories, from all over the world, of flinta spaces being extremely transmisogynistic and exclusive towards transfems and “amab” non-binary people.

From flinta spaces that require transfems and “amab” non-binary people to prove they are not cis men, to flinta kink spaces where putting out a vagina is ok but if you have a penis you cannot show your penis, to flinta spaces that deny entry to non-passing transfems and “amab” non-binary people who are not seen as valid because they “look like cis men” or don’t fit the transphobic “woman-lite” definition of non-binary held by a lot of vagina-fetishist pseudo-terfs.

You cannot run a flinta space whose premise is “cis man = danger” where either the organizers or the attendees won’t police who has the right to be there, who is the “secret” cis man here, and so on.

Flinta spaces are centered around the stereotype that “women-appearing” people of any gender are acceptable and not the perpetrators of violence, but that anyone more masculine-presenting is. Deciding who is “women-appearing” and who is not oftentimes leads to the exclusion of trans women, transfems and “amab” non-binary people, as well as gender non-conforming cis women and passing transmascs.

passing trans men and transmascs exclusion

Passing trans men and transmascs have also reported multiple instances of abuse and being kicked out of flinta spaces because they are perceived as cis men. Making a passing trans man or transmasc person out himself as trans in order to get entry to a “safe” space seems extremely ironic and contradictory.

A safe space where you have to out yourself as trans to be granted access is not really a safe space.

Passing transmascs who have had both surgeries and even look exactly like a cis man naked can also be scrutinized and humiliated while trying to enter such spaces.

While it is undeniable that transmascs have different privileges and experiences than cis men, for a lot of them being perceived as the “lite man,” the “quirky woman,” the “man without danger because he used to be a girl or isn’t really man enough,” has unfortunately been a common experience in queer spaces — one that can be reinforced even more in a flinta space. It makes a lot of trans men dysphoric and invalidated to be categorized differently than cis men in spaces like this.

are intersex cis men welcome or not?

Flinta spaces are always framed as places with no cis men. The whole categorization implies that intersex cis men do not exist. The erasure of intersex cis men and women has had a lot of negative consequences and needs to stop. If a flinta organizer believes intersex cis men exist, then the question that rises is: are they welcome? What kind of intersex person is valid in their eyes? There is no way you can decide who gets to come to a flinta space and who cannot without clinging to bio-essentialism.

it’s important to listen to trans voices

A big part of the trans and non-binary community has been talking about how flinta spaces, and the concept of flinta itself, have been making them feel unsafe and unwelcomed. However, these voices are usually either unheard or ignored.

Of course there are also trans and non-binary people who do not hold a negative view of flinta spaces or the concept. However, using them as tokens when discussing the safety of these spaces is not a solution, especially when oftentimes those particular trans and non-binary people are the ones who do not experience transmisogyny, or don’t belong to the groups of non-passing transfems and passing transmascs.

Now that flinta spaces are popping up all around the world and the concept is spreading despite the discomfort of a huge part of the trans community, the least that can be done is that this discussion be brought up for the community, and not just ignored as it has been so far.