Disabled sapphic people exist. You know this, I know this, but sometimes it feels like the greater book community does not, in fact, know this. We love, date, build relationships, and navigate intimacy in ways that deserve space on the page.

Romance as a genre has not always made room for our stories.

Many books still center on able-bodied characters. And while there is nothing wrong with that, when disability does appear, it often shows up as something to fix, overcome, or use as emotional motivation for another character. Disabled characters become symbols instead of people.

I'd love to see the focus shift to something different.

Stories where disabled sapphic main characters hold agency, desire, complexity, and full lives. Stories where disability shapes the relationship without reducing the character to it.

Moving beyond harmful tropes

A few patterns show up again and again in romance.

The cure narrative treats disability as a temporary obstacle. By the end of the story, the character improves or is “fixed,” often through love. The way I wish love could cure my chronic illness or disability.

The inspiration narrative turns disabled characters into lessons for others. Our role centers on teaching resilience rather than living a full life.

The caregiver dynamic creates an imbalance. One partner exists to provide care, while the other becomes dependent in ways that remove autonomy.

Desexualization appears often. Y'all disabled people FUCK. Disabled characters rarely receive the same level of desire, attraction, or explicit intimacy as able-bodied characters.

These patterns limit storytelling. They flatten characters and reinforce harmful assumptions about disability and worth.

Stronger stories move in a different direction.

They allow disabled characters to want things. To make decisions. To be messy. To experience joy, frustration, attraction, and connection without being reduced to a single trait.

Disability and autonomy

Autonomy should sit at the center of disabled sapphic romance.

Seeing characters navigate questions around independence, support, and control over their own lives. These questions can shape how relationships develop.

A partner may offer help. The key question involves how that help gets negotiated.

Does the disabled character maintain control over decisions?
Do they set boundaries around what support looks like?
Does the relationship respect their independence rather than override it?

Good romance pays attention to these dynamics.

Support does not mean taking over. Care does not mean removing agency. The relationship works because both people respect each other’s boundaries and needs.

For readers, this often leads to more grounded and intentional relationship development.

Disability and intimacy

Romance often relies on narrow ideas about intimacy. Fast pacing. Physical attraction that follows predictable patterns. Assumptions about what bodies should do and how.

Disabled sapphic romance can and should challenge those assumptions.

Intimacy becomes more intentional. Characters communicate clearly about needs, comfort, and limits, and tbh this isn't any different than how it should be with able-bodied characters either. Physical connection may look different from mainstream portrayals.

Some stories focus on slower pacing. Others show adaptive approaches to physical intimacy. Many highlight emotional connection as central rather than secondary.

These shifts do not reduce the romance. They deepen it.

Desire remains present. Attraction remains central. The difference lies in how characters express and negotiate that connection.

The role of communication

Communication carries more weight in these stories.

Characters talk about access needs. They discuss boundaries. They name what works and what does not.

This creates a different type of romantic tension. Instead of relying on miscommunication or avoidance, these stories often build connection through honesty.

Vulnerability becomes part of the relationship from the beginning.

Readers get to watch two people learn how to understand each other in real time. That process often leads to a stronger emotional payoff.

Intersectionality matters

Disability does not exist in isolation.

Race, class, gender identity, and culture shape how disability gets experienced. Access to care, community support, and safety vary widely depending on those factors.

A disabled sapphic character who is also a person of color will navigate different challenges than a white disabled character. A working-class character will face different barriers than someone with financial stability.

Stories that acknowledge these layers feel more grounded.

They show how systems intersect. They also show how community, culture, and identity shape relationships in complex ways.

What meaningful representation looks like

Readers often ask how to identify strong representation.

Look for characters with full inner lives. They have goals, fears, desires, and flaws that extend beyond their disability.

Look for relationships built on mutual respect. Both partners hold agency. Both contribute to the relationship in meaningful ways.

Look for stories where disability exists as part of the character’s life, not the entire story.

Look for joy. Disabled characters deserve happiness, pleasure, and connection without the narrative framing those experiences as rare or surprising.

When possible, look for authors with lived experience. That perspective often leads to more nuanced and grounded storytelling.

Where to find these stories

Disabled sapphic protagonists appear across genres.

Contemporary romance often explores chronic illness, mental health, and day-to-day access needs.

Fantasy and science fiction create space to imagine different bodies, different abilities, and different systems of care.

Historical fiction can explore how disability was understood and navigated in earlier periods.

Speculative fiction often pushes these questions even further, asking how societies might function if access and care looked different from the start.

An invitation to read with intention

Disabled sapphic romance expands how we understand love.

It shows relationships built through communication, respect, and adaptation. It challenges narrow ideas about desirability and intimacy. It reminds readers that care and autonomy can exist together.

These stories deserve attention.

If you have read a disabled sapphic romance that stayed with you, share it. If you want to see more of these stories, talk about them. Recommend them. Support the authors writing them.

What you read and what you share shapes what gets visibility.

And these stories deserve to be seen.

Here are a list of a handful of sapphic stories that I have read and enjoyed, and some on my TBR!

The Unbroken by C.L. Clark

Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant

The Never Tilting World by Rin Chupeco

Thirsty by Jas Hammonds

Treasure by Rebekah Weatherspoon

Cleat Cute by Meryl Wilsner

Nine of Swords, Reversed by Xan West

Ascension by Jacqueline Koyanagi

I just saw a post on threads that got me so riled I had to come here to write about it. Meryl Wilsner posed a question: Queer folks, what’s something romance books and/or romance fans do that alienates you as a queer person? To which someone responded: Refusing to read M/F sapphic stories. And of course you know me, so I had to respond. I said: This is not a thing. The story can have a sapphic character but if both aren’t sapphic, it’s not a sapphic story. Words have meaning. And she respectfully disagreed.

You cannot disagree on facts. They aren't up for debate; words have definitions.

Words carry meaning. Language holds culture, history, and boundaries. When meaning dissolves, the people behind those words lose ground.

Sapphic describes women (and women-aligned/nonbinary people) who love women, et al. The word traces back to Sappho and the island of Lesbos, to poetry about women loving women, to centuries of writing, and to a community built by women who loved other women. The definition sits in plain language. Open a dictionary. The entry reads women loving women.

This idea that words shift to accommodate anyone who feels drawn to them ignores the purpose of language. Words describe reality. Words protect communities. Words create shared understanding. When every label stretches to include anyone who asks, the label stops describing anything at all.

Sapphic spaces exist because women et al., who love women, carved out room for themselves. They built culture, art, literature, relationships, and political organizing around their lives. Those spaces did not appear by accident. Women et al. created them because the wider world ignored, mocked, or punished them.

So when someone claims the word sapphic while identifying as a man, the anger bubbles over for a reason. The word centers women. A male identity contradicts the definition. This does not erase anyone’s identity. Many labels exist for different experiences. Language already holds terms for queer men, bisexual men, and other identities. The problem begins when male identity pushes into language created for women and demands recognition there.

And this problem shows up in books in a way that hits hard.

When authors within the community start calling M/F stories' sapphic,' the damage spreads fast. Readers rely on labels to find themselves on the page. A sapphic tag signals safety, recognition, shared experience. It tells a reader that the relationship centers women. When that label is applied to a story about a man, it breaks trust.

You search for yourself, only to be handed something else.

You expect to see women loving women and instead watch a man take up space in a narrative that was supposed to belong to women. That disconnect is not small. It erases visibility. It muddies representation. It pushes actual sapphic stories further into the background. This doesn’t mean that M/F stories aren’t queer, or that if the woman is bi/pan that she herself isn’t sapphic, it DOES mean that the story itself isn’t sapphic.

Publishing already sidelines sapphic authors. Algorithms bury them. Marketing budgets skip them. Shelf space shrinks for them. When M/F books start taking up the sapphic label, those limited slots get filled by stories that don’t even center sapphic relationships. That is displacement.

And it also rewrites what sapphic means in the public eye. New readers learn from what they see marketed. If M/F stories get labeled sapphic, then the definition shifts in practice, even if the dictionary stays the same. Over time, the word loses its anchor. The community loses a clear way to name itself.

That erosion carries real impact. Fewer accurate stories reach readers. Fewer authors get visibility. The culture that women built for themselves gets diluted until it barely resembles its origin.

And yes, anger fits here. Feminine rage grows from exhaustion, even from me, a nonbinary person. Women fight for scraps of space and language while the world asks them to step aside again, even inside their own communities.

Another question arises in the middle of this conversation. Why the desire to enter every label built for women? Why the insistence on standing inside every space women create? Why the expectation that women must widen every boundary? Because … men.

The truth is simple. Women deserve words that describe their lives. Women who love women deserve language rooted in their experience.

Men cannot be sapphic. M/F stories are not sapphic. Not because exclusion feels good. Because words hold meaning. Because language describes reality. Because readers deserve honesty. And because women deserve at least a few words in this world that belong to them.

Words carry meaning. Language holds culture, history, and boundaries. When meaning dissolves, the people behind those words lose ground.

Sapphic describes women (and women aligned/non-binary people) who love women (et al.). The word traces back to Sappho and the island of Lesbos, poetry about women loving women, centuries of writing and community built by women who loved other women. The definition sits in plain language. Open a dictionary. The entry reads relating to sexual attraction or activity between women. Has the definition of women expanded, yes, but NOT TO MEN

This idea that words shift to accommodate anyone who feels drawn to them ignores the purpose of language. Words describe reality. Words protect communities. Words create shared understanding. When every label stretches to include anyone who asks, the label stops describing anything at all.

Sapphic spaces exist because women who love women carved out room for themselves. They built culture, art, literature, relationships, and political organizing around their lives. Those spaces did not appear by accident. Women created them because the wider world ignored, mocked, or punished them.

So when someone claims the word sapphic while identifying as a man, or says that a male/female relationship can be sapphic, rage spews from me for a reason. The word centers women et al. A male identity contradicts the definition. This does not erase anyone’s identity. Many labels exist for different experiences. Language already holds terms for queer men, bisexual men, and other identities. The problem begins when male identity pushes into language created for women and demands recognition there.

Women et al. spend their lives pushed out of space. Workplaces, politics, art, history, medicine. Now even language built by women for women faces pressure to expand until the original meaning disappears. That pressure fuels a burning rage in so many of us, I know I'm not alone.

And yes, rage fits here. Feminine rage grows from exhaustion. Women fight for scraps of space and language while the world asks them to step aside again.

Another question arises in the middle of this conversation. Why do men, and some women who want to include men in the term sapphic, want to enter every label built for women? Why the insistence on standing inside every space women create? Why the expectation that women should widen every boundary? I'll tell you ... men.

Women deserve words that describe their lives. Women who love women deserve language rooted in their experience.

Men cannot be sapphic. Not because exclusion feels good. Because words hold meaning. Because language describes reality. Because the dictionary is free for anyone willing to open it. And because women deserve at least a few words in this world that belong to them.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

Sapphic Speculative Fiction Expands the Imagination

Many people approach queer romance through familiar frameworks. Modern settings. Recognizable social rules. Families that resemble the structures most of us grew up around. I wrote about this a week or two ago, about looking beyond contemporary romance for great sapphic stories.

Those stories matter. They reflect lived experience and present-day struggles.

Yet some of the most thought-provoking sapphic stories appear in places where the rules look completely different.

Speculative fiction offers writers a simple but radical tool. The ability to ask what happens when the world operates under different assumptions?

What happens when gender does not function the way our societies expect?
What happens when colonial hierarchies collapse or never existed in the first place?
What happens when family and community follow different structures?

Sapphic speculative fiction thrives in these questions.

What counts as speculative fiction?

Speculative fiction serves as an umbrella term for stories that imagine worlds different from our own.

Fantasy explores magic, mythology, and alternate societies.
Science fiction looks at future technology, space exploration, and evolving social systems.
Alternate history reimagines historical timelines.
Dystopian and utopian fiction examine political systems taken to extreme outcomes.
Magical realism blends ordinary life with elements that challenge reality.

All of these genres share a common feature. They build worlds where the assumptions we treat as natural begin to shift.

When those foundations move, storytelling changes.

Reimagining gender systems

Many speculative worlds question the rigid gender frameworks common in contemporary culture.

Some settings include fluid understandings of gender. Others remove the strict gender hierarchy. Some societies organize identity through entirely different categories.

When gender works differently, relationships evolve as well.

Characters express attraction without the scripts that dominate many romance narratives. Partnerships develop around compatibility, trust, or shared goals rather than predetermined roles.

For readers, this shift opens new ways of thinking about identity and connection.

Challenging colonial power structures

Speculative fiction often explores empire, conquest, and resistance.

Many worlds center characters fighting against oppressive systems or rebuilding communities after political collapse. Some stories draw inspiration from Indigenous traditions or non-Western perspectives to imagine societies structured around different values.

Within these settings, sapphic characters frequently appear as leaders, rebels, scholars, or explorers. Their relationships unfold inside larger struggles over power, survival, and cultural memory.

Love does not exist in isolation. It grows alongside questions about justice, resistance, and the future of entire communities.

Rethinking family and community

Another striking feature of speculative fiction involves how stories approach family.

The nuclear family model rarely stands as the only option. Characters often live within chosen families, cooperative communities, traveling crews, or political alliances.

Romantic relationships exist inside these broader networks of care.

Two people falling in love may also share responsibilities to their crew, their village, or their resistance movement. Partnership becomes part of a wider web of loyalty and support.

For many readers, this structure feels both imaginative and deeply familiar.

Common tropes in sapphic speculative fiction

Speculative fiction combines romance with adventure and conflict. Certain narrative patterns recur.

A princess guarded by a loyal warrior or knight who begins to question her duty.
Rival soldiers from opposing factions are forced to work together.
A scholar and a fighter navigating a dangerous quest.
Political enemies are forming uneasy alliances during a rebellion.
Explorers encounter unfamiliar worlds and build trust through survival.

These tropes create tension, intimacy, and emotional growth while the larger story unfolds.

Why these stories expand the imagination

Speculative fiction does more than entertain. It shifts perspective.

When readers step into worlds built on different assumptions, the systems shaping their own lives become visible. Gender roles, political hierarchies, and family structures reveal themselves as historical constructs rather than permanent truths.

Sapphic speculative fiction takes this imaginative shift even further.

Queer women appear not as side characters but as central figures in the story of the world itself. They lead revolutions. Build communities. Explore unknown territories. Fall in love while reshaping the societies around them.

These stories ask readers to imagine something larger than representation.

They ask us to imagine entirely different ways people live together.

An invitation to explore

If you have not spent time with sapphic speculative fiction, consider this an invitation.

Explore fantasy worlds where magic reshapes power.
Read science fiction that questions identity in future societies.
Look for stories where love grows alongside resistance, exploration, and discovery.

These books stretch the imagination in ways that linger long after the final page.

I am especially interested in reading more sapphic speculative fiction this year.

Which books expanded your worldview?
Which stories stayed with you long after you finished them?

Here is a list of books I've read and books on my TBR!

Ok folks, a little late, but better late than never. I'm participating in the trans rights read-a-thon this week and here is a list of 66 sapphic books you can choose from. I'm going to try and read five or six this week depending on time and work schedule!

Are you participating?

Book recommendations shape reading culture. A short list of titles moves across social media again and again. The same names appear under every post asking for sapphic romance. You know the list before you open the comments.

For a reader who loves sapphic stories, the pattern feels exhausting.

When we ask for sapphic book recommendations, the responses flood in, but they are all the same popular trad-published books over and over again. A handful of authors dominate the conversation. Many write great books. Many deserve praise. The problem lies in the repetition. A small circle of names ends up standing in for an entire community.

Sapphic romance holds far more than a short list of recommendations.

Women and femmes write across genres, identities, and cultural experiences. Black lesbians write stories about joy, and culture. Disabled sapphic authors write romance where access and care sit at the center. Trans women write stories about desire, transformation, and belonging. Indigenous writers explore land, language, and kinship through queer love stories. Immigrant authors write about diaspora, family pressure, and found family.

Many readers never hear about those books.

Algorithms reward repetition. A recommendation culture built on repetition erases huge sections of the sapphic reading world. The cycle tightens and visibility shrinks.

Look at how requests often appear online.

Someone asks for a sapphic fantasy. The replies list two or three titles - The Priory of the Orange Tree and The Jasmine Throne. Not that those books aren’t epic, but there are so many more out there. The Curse of the Goddess by C.C. Gonzalez, The Balance of Fate by Raquel Raelynn, or The Fall that Saved Us by Tamara Jeree are three incredible fantasies I never see talked about.

Someone asks for a sapphic sports romance. The replies list the same two authors Meryl Wilsner’s Cleat Cute and maybe a YA author or two? What about The Baton Rougue Bayou Series by Aricka Alexander or Love and Sportsball by Meka James, Half Court Shot by Kimani Mae or Summer Breakdown by J.S. Jasper.

Someone asks for historical sapphic romance. And all we get are Olivie Waite and Sarah Water’s recommendations. What about That Could Be Enough by Alyssa Cole or A Million to One by Adiba Jaigirdar.

Each time you recycle a recommendation, hundreds of other stories remain invisible.

Those missing books carry different bodies, different cultures, different kinds of love.

Some focus on working class lesbians navigating economic pressure like Make Room for Love by Darcy Laio. Some center queer women of color building community like in the Peach Blossom Series by Karmen Lee. Some explore late in life love between older women like Margin of Error by Rachel Lacy. Some tell stories about trans lesbians finding joy in their bodies. Some focus on femmes who resist narrow beauty standards. Some step outside Western settings. Some challenge the structure of romance itself.

When recommendations are narrow, readers lose access to those stories.

A wider approach to recommending books shifts the entire reading experience.

Start by asking a different question before recommending a title. Instead of asking which book is most popular (because chances are they have already read it), ask which voices rarely appear in the conversation. Search for small press releases. Look at anthologies. Follow reviewers who focus on marginalized sapphic voices.

Your recommendation list will change quickly.

You’ll go from a list of five repeating titles to a long list of hundreds of stories. Different cultures. Different genres. Different forms of desire. Different visions of queer life.

Both you and other readers will benefit from that shift.

Someone searching for a sapphic book deserves more than the same three answers. They deserve access to the full range of queer storytelling.

Recommending widely changes how communities read.

One new recommendation introduces a reader to a writer who rarely receives attention. That reader shares the book with friends. A book club picks it up. Another reader writes a review. The story moves further into the world.

Visibility grows through intentional choices.

If you love sapphic books, think about your next recommendation. Look past the familiar titles. Search for authors whose stories expand the picture of sapphic life.

Your next recommendation might introduce someone to a story they never knew existed.

That’s what I try to do here, push readers beyond the books that traditional publishing think are marketable to the stories that deeply shape our community.

Romance readers often treat genres like a set of tidy little boxes. Contemporary romance sits in one place. Fantasy in another. Science fiction in another. Mystery somewhere else. If you walk into most bookstores, those sections all have their own shelves and places in the store.

Sapphic romance does not follow those rules.

One of the strangest things I hear from readers is this sentence. “I want sapphic romance but I cannot find any good ones.” I hear this from people who read ten or twenty romances a month. At first, I thought the problem involved visibility. Publishing. Marketing. Recommendation algorithms.

Then I started looking at reading habits.

A lot of readers search for sapphic books only within the contemporary romance category. That search misses a huge portion of what sapphic writers are doing. Many of the most interesting, delicious, beautiful sapphic love stories live inside fantasy, science fiction, historical fiction, mystery, and other genres.

So I want to spend some time wandering through those shelves with you.

Not as a definitive guide. More like a curious reader poking around and asking questions.

Contemporary sapphic romance

This is the shelf most people check first. Contemporary romance focuses on modern life. Workplaces. cities. small towns. messy families. dating apps. community spaces. awkward first dates. soft domestic moments.

Many contemporary sapphic romances center on identity. Coming out. Chosen family. Learning how to communicate needs. Learning how to exist in a world that does not always recognize queer relationships.

The setting remains familiar. The emotional stakes stay grounded in everyday life. That familiarity makes the love story feel immediate.

You watch two women/femmes try to build something steady while dealing with family expectations, career pressure, and their own emotional baggage. Sometimes the most satisfying stories come from watching people figure out how to care for each other better.

I love contemporary romance for this reason. You get to watch people grow. But honestly, it’s my least favorite subgenre of romance. I couldn’t tell you why, but I end of gravitating to fantasy and science fiction more and more these days.

Fantasy sapphic romance

Fantasy takes the rules of this world and throws them out the window.

Instead of navigating modern society, characters deal with magic systems, political alliances, ancient curses, rival kingdoms, and magical creatures who probably have opinions about the situation.

The love story takes place in a world that operates differently from ours.

Fantasy creates room for authors to reshape gender roles, social norms, and power structures. Some worlds hold no rigid expectations about gender or sexuality. We diverge from heteronormative and ciscentric ideologies. Others still contain those systems but allow characters to challenge them directly.

You might see princesses falling for rival generals. Court mages quietly falling in love while the kingdom teeters on the edge of collapse. Two warriors on opposite sides of a war slowly realizing they care about each other.

The stakes feel large. The feelings still remain deeply human.

Science fiction sapphic romance

Science fiction pushes things even further.

Instead of medieval kingdoms, you get starships, distant planets, artificial intelligence, time travel, or societies built around entirely different ideas of family and partnership.

Science fiction often asks strange questions about identity.

What does gender look like in a society that evolved differently from ours?
How do relationships function in a space colony where survival depends on cooperation?
What happens when technology changes the body itself?

A sapphic love story in that context forces readers to rethink what love even looks like.

Sometimes two characters fall in love while exploring alien worlds. Sometimes they meet across timelines. Sometimes they exist in a future where the rules of society look nothing like the ones we inherited.

And I find that deeply fascinating.

Historical sapphic romance

Historical romance does something equally important. It looks backward.

For a long time, people acted like queer women barely existed in earlier centuries. That claim collapses the moment you start reading historical fiction written by people who actually researched queer history.

Queer women existed in every time period. They wrote letters. They formed partnerships. They built quiet communities. They hid. They resisted. They survived.

Historical sapphic romance brings those lives into the foreground.

You often see secret relationships. Hidden meeting places. Social rules that force characters to move carefully. Sometimes the tension of those restrictions makes the romance even more intense.

Two people trying to love each other inside a world designed to prevent exactly that.

There is something powerful about reclaiming those stories.

Then there is the Bridgerton effect: historical romances that rewrite history to be more accepting. Romances that focus on classism or struggles of living off the land in a wild frontier, rather than on love being forbidden.

Mystery and thriller sapphic romance

Then you have romance that develops while people solve crimes or try to stay alive.

Mystery and thriller plots create immediate pressure. Two characters investigate a case together. They share danger. They rely on each other under stressful conditions.

Trust develops quickly in situations like that.

Detectives who start as reluctant partners. Journalists uncovering corruption together. Investigators who slowly realize their professional partnership has turned into something much more personal.

The emotional tension grows right alongside the plot.

And honestly, forced proximity during a murder investigation remains one of my favorite romance setups. In my opinion, there aren’t enough of these. I want psychological thrillers with sapphic subplots and women who fall in love with the serial killer they are hunting.

Why this matters

When readers only search for sapphic romance in one genre, they miss most of the field.

Sapphic writers tell love stories in every genre imaginable. Some focus on soft domestic intimacy. Others build entire worlds around queer relationships. Others explore history or future societies.

Genre shapes how these love stories unfold.

Fantasy allows writers to imagine entirely new social systems. Science fiction questions the very structure of identity. Historical fiction recovers erased lives. Mystery places love inside moments of danger and urgency.

All of those approaches expand how we think about queer relationships.

And frankly, they make reading more fun.

Your turn

I want to hear from you.

Which genre holds your favorite sapphic romances?
Which genres do you want to explore more this year?
What books would you recommend to other readers who want to branch out?

I am also asking this question for a practical reason.

This year I want to read widely across genres, especially speculative fiction. If you know a sapphic fantasy or science fiction book that rearranged your brain chemistry in the best possible way, please tell me about it.

Your recommendation might end up in the next review, the reading challenge, or even a future Sapphic Sunday book club discussion.

Next post will include some book recommendations from each of these sub-genres that I have read and loved, and some that are on my TBR.

I want to share an update and bring you into the process a bit.

The book box is still happening. Frankie and I chose to move in a new direction and keep it separate from The Tenth Muse. The focus is still, obviously, sapphic. The covers WILL BE NSFW. The vision feels clearer and more aligned with what we want to build.

We are deep in planning mode right now. Brand direction. Artist outreach. Book curation. Community pieces. All of it. The goal is to build something that feels intentional and worth your time and money.

I also want your input. What do you want more of at this tier?

Talks on deconstruction
Sex Ed stuff
Short form videos
Thoughts on current book space discussions
Exclusive essays or reading guides
Live chats
Discord discussions
Sneak peeks of upcoming boxes

I have a lot I could offer. I want to focus on what feels valuable to you. Tell me what you would be excited to see and what would make this space worth staying in.

Long time no talk, but I have been busy building a sapphic empire. I will talk about that this week. I have been mulling over the anti-intellectualism conversation moving through social media and had thoughts, but I recently picked up ten client,s and the last two weeks have been busy. Here I am on sapphic Sunday with two quick things before I get into it. Book club is tonight at 7 pm on Discord. Even if you did not read the book, come hang out and get to know people. I am also working on a schedule so I show up here more consistently.

There has been a lot of noise about a rise in anti-intellectualism in online book spaces. That claim needs care. People often use it in ways that slide into ableism by equating intelligence with academic language, formal education, or a narrow reading culture. Many readers engage deeply through romance, lit fic, non-fiction, fan spaces, and community-driven recommendations. Those are valid forms of connection and learning. Dismissing them limits who gets seen as thoughtful or informed.

At the same time, fear of knowledge creates real harm. When people are taught to distrust history, journalism, and critical thinking, power concentrates. Disinformation spreads. Simplistic narratives replace complex truth. Attacks on libraries, educators, and marginalized voices follow. Access to knowledge is tied to the health of any democracy. We are currently seeing its fall in real time with the defunding of libraries, the banning of books, etc.

Algorithms also shape what we see. Platforms reward straight, cis, white, western beauty standards and quick, polished content. The tropification of books as reviews, belittling deeply romantic and beautiful stories to one-liners like “Where is my wife?” Creators who fit those expectations get more visibility. The shorter, flashier, and more outlandish a video is, the more it gets engagement. The books pushed in those spaces often feel safe, familiar, and forgettable. Visibility gets mistaken for quality. That narrows the range of tastes and limits exposure to voices that challenge readers.

The response is not gatekeeping. The response is expansion. Follow disabled creators. Follow queer and trans reviewers. Follow Black, Indigenous, and global readers who bring history and lived experience into their analysis. Seek people who name power, context, and impact. That builds perspective and keeps the book space alive and relevant.

I recently read an ALC of Was That Racist? By Evelyn Carter. This is also where that book fits. The book works as an entry point for readers who want to understand racism as a system, not only as overt harm. It explains how Whiteness functions as a standard and why many White readers have not been socialized to recognize bias in the same ways people of color often must. The tone is gentle and inviting, keeping readers engaged rather than defensive.

Readers already immersed in anti-racism work will recognize much of the material. The strength lies in delivery and in the personal stories. The examples show how bias shows up in everyday moments and how unlearning requires attention and accountability. The author names her own bias, reinforcing the idea that everyone carries learned patterns.

This is not a theoretical text. It is a practical tool for conversation, reflection, and early learning.

The broader goal is not to win debates online. The goal is to widen what people read, who they listen to, and how they think about knowledge. Curiosity and critical thought protect communities. The book space has a role in that work. Showing up, reading widely, and amplifying voices outside the algorithm’s comfort zone matters.

Comfort over truth

White supremacy culture prioritizes comfort, especially white comfort. This shows up when tone becomes more important than content. It shows up when anger, grief, or directness from Black and Brown women is labeled as unsafe, aggressive, or inappropriate.

Comfort over truth sounds like:
Can you say that more nicely.
I agree, but the way you said it was harsh.
I am open to feedback, but not like this.

This shifts focus away from harm and toward managing white emotional experience.

Reflective journaling:
How were you taught to relate to anger or strong emotion, especially from women of color.
What messages did you receive about politeness, niceness, and being likable.
How has that shaped whose emotions you take seriously.

Intent over impact

White supremacy culture teaches individualism and defensiveness. Many white women are taught to focus on intent. If harm was not intended, then harm feels up for debate. This moves the conversation away from the person harmed and toward protecting white identity.

Intent over impact sounds like:
That was not my intention.
I did not mean it that way.
You misunderstood me.

Intent does not erase impact. Accountability asks for attention to what happened, not just what was meant.

Reflective journaling:
What happens in your body when your impact is named.
What stories do you tell yourself to feel less responsible.
What would it feel like to stay with impact without explaining.

Tone policing and emotional control

White supremacy culture values emotional restraint and control. Black and Brown women are often punished socially for expressing anger, urgency, or pain. White women are often rewarded for calmness and softness. This creates a dynamic where white women feel entitled to set the emotional rules.

Tone policing sounds like:
I would listen if you were calmer.
I agree with you, but you are being too intense.
Let’s keep this productive.

This treats emotional expression as the problem instead of the harm being named.

Reflective journaling:
Who taught you what emotions are acceptable.
Whose emotions feel threatening to you and why.
How do you benefit from being seen as calm or reasonable.

Moving Toward Accountability and Relational Repair

Shifting these patterns requires more than intellectual agreement. It requires nervous system work, relational skills, and a willingness to tolerate discomfort without centering yourself. Accountability asks white women to build capacity for staying present when feedback feels activating.

This means learning to notice defensive impulses without acting on them. It means resisting the urge to correct tone, explain intent, or manage your image. It means staying focused on the harm named, even when your body wants to escape, justify, or shut down.

Practically, this can look like.
Listening without interrupting or correcting.
Naming impact before intent.
Saying, “I hear you. I caused harm,” without adding explanations.
Asking what repair would look like.
Sitting with discomfort without making it someone else’s problem.

This is not about perfection. It is about practice. Each moment of staying with impact builds capacity for real relationship. Each time you choose accountability over comfort, you weaken the systems that depend on white emotional centrality.

This work is not abstract. It shows up in friendships, workplaces, therapy spaces, activism, and family systems. It shapes who feels safe to speak and who feels pressured to stay silent. Choosing truth over comfort is a daily practice. It is relational. It is embodied. It is ongoing.

White Women. Pause Before You Speak.

When conversations about safety, harm, or oppression come up, many white women/femmes feel an immediate pull to respond. The response often feels caring, protective, or helpful. Underneath that urge, white supremacy culture often shapes what feels normal, responsible, or polite and we don't even realize it.

Tema Okun’s work on white supremacy culture names patterns that are baked into institutions and relationships. These patterns are not about individual morality. They are about systems that train white people, especially white women, to center comfort, control, and emotional safety in ways that silence or override Black and Brown women.

Decolonized therapy and healing justice frameworks add an important layer. These are frameworks I use in my own therapeutic practice. They remind us that harm is not only interpersonal. Harm lives in systems, bodies, and histories. Healing is not only about insight. Healing is about changing how power moves in relationships, whose nervous systems are protected, and whose pain is taken seriously.

Pausing is not passive. A pause is an active disruption of systems that reward speed, reassurance, and control.

Why the pause matters.

White supremacy culture often teaches urgency. Urgency pushes fast responses, quick fixes, and immediate reassurance. In conversations about harm or safety, urgency often serves white comfort more than Black and Brown safety.

Urgency sounds like:
I need to respond right now.
I should fix this.
I need to explain myself before I am misunderstood.

Healing justice asks whose nervous system is being prioritized. Decolonized practice centers the people most impacted by harm. A pause creates space to ask who benefits from speed. In many cases, speed protects white emotional comfort and social standing, not the person naming harm.

Reflective journaling:
What emotions come up when someone names harm connected to race or safety?
What do you feel pressure to protect in those moments. Your image. Your relationships. Your sense of being good?
Where did you learn that being quick and calm equals being safe?

Stay tuned because I have a LOT more on this to come.

Also check out the source material https://www.whitesupremacyculture.info