Non Threatening Boys*: The Rise of the Lesbian BF
Words: Isabella Greenwood
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A new archetype is surfacing in queer and pop cultural discourse: the girlfriend who embodies the boyfriend. Circulating through TikTok captions, memes, and fan edits, the “GF BF” — or “lesbian boyfriend” — flips the heteronormative script, reclaiming the traditionally masculine-coded figure of the boyfriend and queering it into a space of play, camp, and utter devotion.
The GF/BF is less about substituting one gender role for another than about bending the frame altogether: a girlfriend or a partner who assumes the gestures, postures, and rituals once coded as masculine, from carrying the bags to buying the flowers. What emerges is a collapse of femme/masc markers into something more fluid, and resistant to fixed definition.