@asterisk as i have seen it used, “transbian” usually signifies that the people the transbian finds attractive are significantly (altho not necessarily exclusively) also trans. it often appears in the plural; e·g “transbian couple” = couple of t4t lesbians
“trans lesbian”, in contrast, makes no claim as to the cis/transness of the desired partner. in fact i think a large part of the popularity of “transbian” as a term is to counter the (TERF) assumption that trans women are only interested in cis women partners
so yes, the terms are not equivalent. but not in a malicious way, i don’t think
@asterisk i worry that i made my point too subtly so to be more explicit: i think it’s entirely okay to consider oneself a “trans lesbian” and not a “transbian”. those are not necessarily equivalent terms. but i want to acknowledge that this also goes the other way, and there are people for whom the latter term is the one they identify the most strongly with. when they are talking about their communities and culture, they don’t have to be talking about you
@Lady agree with all of this. but sometimes they are in fact talking about the actual me or the hypothetical me
@asterisk it is important to remember that many young trans women have not had good exposure to real (queer) lesbian spaces and that their most significant encounters with cis lesbians have probably been witnessing vocal TERFs. transbianism is a form of lesbianism which is explicitly not cis. that is why the term gets used