I agree with your comment. Also the whole topic is so tired. The bottom line is that it’s completely okay and fine to have any boundaries. Some of us are okay with dating bi women/(other) late bloomers and some aren’t. Some of us were with men (or men and women) before we came out as lesbian and some of us weren’t. Some of us are okay with women who currently only date women (as long as that pattern is expected to last permanently) calling themselves lesbians despite any prior history and some aren’t.

The whole obsession with whether or not someone “felt attraction” as a way of labeling them is also ahistorical. Women in history who only dated other women going forward (even if they dated men initially or in the past) were called lesbians. This whole obsession with “secret hetero attraction” is not reflective of the way that women identified themselves or others as lesbians in human history until the “purity of thought” culture of liberal feminism. It also makes the assumption that sexuality is 100% inborn and genetic which was not how sexuality was conceptualized in the past. If anything, it’s a product of pharmaceutical marketing. Now every trait, sexuality, thought pattern, and personality is considered crystallized from birth because “genetics”. That’s why most western societies are also pill popping cultures is that people have been brainwashed to believe the environment has zero influences on how they turn out and what they can do to change.

I’ve seriously thought of deleting my account and never commenting here again just because of how tired this topic is to keep reading about. Like you said it’s just detrimental to some of our mental health to keep hashing and rehashing the same obsession on whether or not any past thoughts, feelings, and behaviors “actually” contained some type of genuine heterosexuality/bisexuality or not. Who cares? Not me. I’m too busy enjoying the rest of my life dating women. I’m not attracted to men and have zero interest in dating them.

If the 110% “always knew i was a lesbian and literally never felt confused” lesbians don’t want those of us here who had a more difficult and winding road here, I’m happy to leave at this point. I’ve never lied to any friend or girlfriend about my past and always volunteered info about my past on the first date usually, actually, and the same is true for every single other late bloomer that I know. I’m pro boundaries too. I’d always defend lesbians who only want to date or associate with other “guaranteed” lesbians even if it means they shun me for my own past.