This, for me, is the essence of what makes their relationship ring true as a lesbian one.
Belated comment from a trans perspective: it doesn't sound like they ever talk about wanting to be men except in the context of wanting to marry/seduce each other, and it also doesn't sound like they ever talk about being unhappy about being women. There's no dysphoria. So I'd agree with your assessment, especially now that I've encountered some unambiguous transmasculinity from around the same time (Charlotte Charke's memoir, the letters of Karoline von Günderrode). There's always going to be a bit of a blur between "the mannish woman" and a transmasculine person, especially in the days before the Great Male Renunciation when masculinity was not so rigorously differentiated from femininity, but Alithea and Arabella seem pretty firmly on the lesbian side of the line.
no subject
Belated comment from a trans perspective: it doesn't sound like they ever talk about wanting to be men except in the context of wanting to marry/seduce each other, and it also doesn't sound like they ever talk about being unhappy about being women. There's no dysphoria. So I'd agree with your assessment, especially now that I've encountered some unambiguous transmasculinity from around the same time (Charlotte Charke's memoir, the letters of Karoline von Günderrode). There's always going to be a bit of a blur between "the mannish woman" and a transmasculine person, especially in the days before the Great Male Renunciation when masculinity was not so rigorously differentiated from femininity, but Alithea and Arabella seem pretty firmly on the lesbian side of the line.