lesbian loneliness in fandom, cultura y identidad

Written by Ivana Florian

Spring is starting up again, and so are sports! With the return of baseball season from spring training leagues games, from the 2026 World Baseball Classic to Opening Weekend, this is a season in which I get to openly admire my favorite baseball players, my knowledge of baseball grows, and my love/hate relationship with the New York Yankees continues. Before it all began, a big epiphany hit me: I am a lesbian. But Twitter might think I am not, based on the way I react to aforementioned baseball players.

Let me explain: if a lesbian thinks you are beautiful, that is the highest compliment you could ever receive. The first true celebrity figure I stanned was Justin Bieber. I did in fact contract Bieber Fever, and it lasted for three years (from the My World to Believe eras). I was obsessed and I was dubbed as‘ Mrs. Bieber' before I was ' Mrs. Harry Styles’ by family and friends. One Direction was the first group I stanned. They were my universe during my preteen and most of my teenage years. I can recall telling my aunt about my wedding with Harry on a slight humid summer night in Santo Domingo. 

At fifteen years old, I updated my label from bisexual to lesbian. It’s a label I have grown to love as I became more comfortable in my skin. It is cuter and more direct than gay, you know. Fifth Harmony came into the mix, at a time when I’d never felt more comfortable expressing my sexuality because they were girls and I was surrounded by and mostly interacted with queer girls. Thanks to them I experienced my first and second loves at fifteen and seventeen, respectively. When K-pop came into and slowly went out of my life, I was really intrigued because I needed my girl group fix after Fifth Harmony’s ‘indefinite hiatus’ announcement. TWICE was the first group I fell for, and being in the fandom had the same effect as stanning Fifth Harmony did. I branched out to MAMAMOO, I-DLE, DREAMCATCHER, and many others. (Fun fact: DREAMCATCHER was the first K-pop concert I have ever attended. Them doing fan service with each other and with the crowd, got me.)

Then…Stray Kids happened. On October 7, 2022, YouTube recommended that I watch the“ CASE 143” music video. I knew of them because of“ God's Menu”, and it wasn’t that I’d sworn off boy groups, I just preferred girl groups. Stray Kids was a different story. I went down a rabbit hole and started learning about them. They were the first boy group I’d stanned since One Direction. Bang Chan (or Chris/Christopher) was my bias. I related to him being the oldest in his group and out of his siblings. He was easy on the eyes, too, I must say. In case you didn’t know, being parasocial is highly normalized in K-pop culture. Back then I wrote about meeting Bang Chan and the group for one of my graduate courses assignments, and it was very fan fiction coded. Thinking about it now, it was the public persona he portrays, and his story, that attracted me to him. Not him. I mean I do not know the guy. I never will.

I completely left the K-pop fandom space by 2024. I was about to retire with a nice pension on my fangirl life, but then the 2024 World Series happened, and it was the New York Yankees’ first World Series since winning in 2009. It was important. The whole state and of course the Bronx were tuned in. I watched that mostly disappointing five-game series and decided promptly after that I was going to follow along their journey. I found myself watching TikTok edits of the players. I also came across Kait Maniscalco's Baseball for Baddies TikTok series. I was focused on getting to know the 2025 Yankees and watching 162(+) baseball games. I was hiding, reading postgame Reddit threads before drawing a step closer to the light by consuming MLB/Yankees content on Tumblr by the summer. Honestly, it’s my favorite community I have ever been a part of, and Twitter was a distant second. 

Ben Rice (Arroz) and Jasson Domínguez captivated me; it was a different level of parasocial attachment. Rice is from the Northeast (Massachusetts) and can speak Spanish and Domínguez is Dominican. It’s a cultural thing for me. I would also join in on the“ Aaron Judge is hot” train, because he is. I admit I do get self-conscious when I gush about my favorite baseball players and interact with thirst tweets/content on them;I have a lesbian symbol in my Twitter display name, and often think:“ Am I denying something? Am I fitting in with the crowd because I have not found a solid sapphic circle within this new fandom?” I love my straight and sapphic girls who like men down, but I cannot help feeling lesbian loneliness. I can attest to it while being in male figures fandoms. Everything about it is borderline male-centered, which makes me feel closed off when I read things I would not do or agree with because they are men. I feel like I am the only lesbian within every small space I am in, and it is frustrating to say the least. I do not even feel-good complimenting their looks because I do not want to perpetuate the compulsory heterosexuality narrative from the controversial“ Am I a Lesbian?” Masterdoc. There are no emotions from me when I do anyway. This is part of the biggest epiphany I mentioned in the beginning. I just like it when the players do their jobs right, when they don’t make me want to throw my remote control at the TV screen every time they commit errors and/or leave men stranded on base in crucial moments. 

I simply do not see myself with a man. I have never been emotionally or romantically connected to them. Women are better lovers. Men can never give me what women are already natural at. 

My name is Ivana Florian, and I am a first-generation Dominican American. My parents are older than most, and I was raised knowing that one day I would find a compañero, an equal. As I was growing up and recognizing my own signs of queerness, I became less inclined to wanting a husband. The men I did assign as husbands were unattainable and famous. I came out to my mother three times in my life: before turning fourteen, at fifteen and at nineteen. Two of them were through letters that she still has stuffed inside her top nightstand drawer. My fifteen-year-old self in a tumble said those three words. I got my phone taken away for over a week because I typed a speech on the Notes app and I experienced my first sapphic heartbreak not too long after. I already have a complicated relationship with my mother, so her rejection only made the breakup harder to get through. 

The letter I wrote at nineteen was for both my mom and my dad, but my mom did not give it to him to read because she told me it would devastate him (I am his youngest daughter) and he would not accept me. She refuses to acknowledge it thereafter and says male pronouns when referring to my future partner. I am not the only queer person in my family. One of my cousins is and the last time I saw her was at our late grandmother’s wake in 2023 with her non-man partner. She has been ostracized for it and not taken seriously because of her perceived character.  My loneliness stretches a bit more, because of my gender identity and preferred pronouns.

Pronouns: they are not woke agenda propaganda, they are a useful identity indicator. I have identified as she/they and genderfluid for several years now. I bite my tongue when I am only named in feminine terms because I do not like confrontation. It makes me uncomfortable because I consider myself more neutral than feminine. My gender identity and pronouns are another part of my lesbian loneliness experience, because I rarely see people like me around. I am not overly feminine or masculine. I like the mix because both styles for me are on the same level, not in competition. What can I say? I am multifaceted.

From being a multi stan to having multi-identities, the concept of lesbian loneliness is not talked about in way too many spaces. If a man is tolerable to look at, that does not mean I want him. Culture and identity can amplify how disrupting societal norms feel scary and brave. Lesbian loneliness does not mean I am forever alone; there is a non-man for me — a friend or a lover (or something inbetween).