I consider myself an omni-lesbian. I'll explain a little about what that means to me.

Lesbian

To me, a lesbian is a person who is not a cis man and is attracted to people who are not cis men. That's an inclusive definition--not an imposed one. In other words, I don't expect everyone who is not a cis man and experiences such attraction to identify this way, and I won't use this term for those who feel it is not appropriate for them.

Trans men are men, and while they are welcome to identify as a lesbian, it is also very understandable if they choose not to. After all, a term so strongly associated with womanhood could cause dysphoria or otherwise be uncomfortable. Also, if someone is attracted to a trans man, they are attracted to a man, and there is nothing inherently un-masc about that attraction. Whether or not the relationship is identified as a lesbian one is up to the people in that partnership, and doing so does not detract from the manhood of the trans man.

I also want to clarify that I mean attraction in a broad sense as well. There are many kinds of attraction: aesthetic, sensual, romantic, sexual, etc. Lesbian is not an inherently sexual term. Finally, "attracted to people who are not cis men" does not mean exclusively so. If someone is attracted to cis men, but also attracted to people who are not, the umbrella can include them too.

So why all the nuance? There are historical reasons for those of us who are not cis men unifying under the banner of lesbian, and no one should be pushed out of the community just because it defies people's expectations--defying expectations is at the heart of being queer. Many trans men still identify as lesbians today and many date lesbians, and they belong in the community if they choose it.

Me, personally: I am a trans woman and I find myself attracted to people of all genders in various ways. Most of my relationships have been with women, particularly trans women, and thus I ended up being drawn to the lesbian community. As I have grown and learned more about my attraction and found myself attracted to other genders as well, lesbian remains an important label for me. Not just as an umbrella, but also because of the subversive nature it implies. While I have found that I can be attracted to cis men, I am not interested in a romantic relationship with any. "Lesbian" communicates this very effectively.

Omni

Omnisexual and omniromantic are part of the multisexual/multiromantic spectrum (m-spec, for short). That is, they fall under the bi umbrella of attraction--people who are attracted to more than one gender. Many people have heard of bi or pan, but omni is less common so I'll explain why I chose it. The way that pan is usually defined is "attraction regardless of gender". Under this definition, pan means that you can experience attraction to people of any gender and gender does not factor significantly into your attraction.

After discovering that I was m-spec, I wrestled for a long time with what specific label might fit me best. I didn't like that bi merely implied attraction to more than one gender. I know plenty of people who experience attraction similarly to the way I do and choose to identify as bi, and I don't have any issue with that, but it just didn't feel like the best fit for me. As I came to understand my attraction better, I found that I could be attracted to people of any gender, and I wanted a label that expressed that definitively.

But for me, pan didn't quite work either because gender does factor into my attraction. I find getting familiar with someone's gender--how they feel about it, how they express it--super attractive. It's part of what opened the door for me into realizing I could be attracted to more than just women and fems. Although I know not everyone who uses "pan" adheres strictly to the most frequently given definition, the fact it was usually expressed that way bothered me.

So one day I finally decided to sit down and see if someone had come up with a term that fit what I was looking for: attraction to people of any gender where gender does factor into attraction. Lo and behold, omni was already there waiting for me.