Yah you’re right “labels” was a bad word to use. I get what you’re saying but ultimately the reason it is important to me to not put barriers on which wlw can call themselves what is that it further divides our community and turns us against each other, and ignores the fact that not everyone knows what their exact sexuality is, and you can centralize your life around your love for women without being positive you’re a lesbian. At this point in my life I’ve just given up on trying to explain my complicated relationship with my sexuality with people and call myself a lesbian, but I think a lot of that stems from trauma and some days I wake up and I really feel like I made a mistake and should actually call myself bi. But if I were to change that (ultimately arbitrary) label it wouldn’t change my lifetime of experiences with lesbophobia in any way, it just might change my future romantic prospects (and in my case it wouldn’t even change that, because there are, as a matter of fact, bi women who center their lives around their love of women due to preference, trauma, etc. but still feel comfortable identifying as bi.)

Focusing your identity around potential future relationships is a black hole that leads absolutely nowhere. If a bi woman ends up in a relationship with a man she can just… stop using those labels. It’s not an all-or-nothing deal. But as long as a bi woman is in a committed relationship with another woman and faces all the stigma that accompanies that, why shouldn’t she be allowed to express herself with the same labels as her lesbian peers?