I feel like you've been inside my head. Only you said it a lot better than I could have. I was born In Bi Land but I reside in Lesbia where the inhabitants don't much like my country of origin and never fail to let me know that. It's kind of off putting and makes me sad. Now I sit in the weird borderlands where the weirdo's go who don't fit anywhere. I can see inside the shop windows but I can't seem to sell enough matches to buy anything.
Ah, I'm sorry to hear that. I have to say that I have found the Lesbyites very friendly, but I perhaps that's because as a member of a long-term committed gay relationship my bi-ness is invisible.
I hope you find your place. Back in Bi Land, maybe? We're awfully friendly there...
Really interesting post. I pointed out to a friend of mine who is on a research sabbatical this year studying gender study programs. She is really questioning all of these identities and labels right now. So, yeah, right up her alley. Thanks.
And Happy New Year Wishes to AQ and you. May you both have a good year in the land that you inhabit.
I really like your metaphor. I'm pretty uncomfortable with trying to police anybody else's sexual identity, though, so I think it's generally best just to take them at their word. If this JoAnn Loulan person says she's a lesbian, who I am to argue with her? I can actually see why, if she's 99.9 percent attracted to women, she would keep the lesbian identification, even while she's fucking the .01 percent of the male population that appeals to her. Especially if she was deeply involved in the lesbian community, and being lesbian is a big part of her self-image. To use your metaphor, if she's been a model resident of Lesbia all these years, it seems unfair for the bureaucrats to revoke her citizenship now.
It's difficult especially for women of Loulan's generation, whose lesbian identity was about so much more than being emotionally, sexually and romantically attracted to women. Being a lesbian was about making a commitment to women as a people and to lesbians as volunteer members of a purely feminist culture. Lesbian feminism was about rejecting the compromises implied by alliances with men (and non-lesbians). If Loulan has spent all these years being true to herself and to her politics, finding herself wanting to commit herself in marriage to a man does call her life's work into question, in part because lesbian feminism was about choosing women, especially other lesbians, and rejecting the privileges of heterosexual partnership. Now, I don't really get to make a call on any of this, being a lifelong fence-sitter myself, but if Loulan's commatriots are looking askance at her decision, I can see their point.
Oh, and I'm not saying that in marrying a man, Loulan is being untrue to herself. It is in fact because she has to be true to herself that she married the person she loved. But it does complicate things that it happened to be a man, and that complexity should perhaps be addressed in her work, if it hasn't been already. It does seem like a copout to say "I'm a lesbian who married a man." Her generation's brand of lesbianism was about seizing the right not to marry a man, even if that man was a "beard," and demanding the right to live as lesbians without men. If things are different now, maybe it should be talked about by the women who created lesbian feminist culture in the first place. I'd be interested in a deep analysis of that nature.
Oh, I certainly understand *why* people are upset, I just tend to think the way forward is through maximum acceptance of people's various self-chosen identities and affiliations. My mind jumps easily to situations like the controversy surrounding transwomen at the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival, where the right and wrong of it is clear at least to me. Imposing labels on people causes a lot of hurt: I think generally they should get to pick their own, even if it's not the ones we would have picked in their shoes.
I even just had a little conversation inside my head where I reductio ad absurdum'd myself: Are you sure, Shannon? What if somebody declared themselves a hedgehog, would you consider yourself bound to accept their self-definition? And then I thought Well what about the furs and the otherkin? If somebody tells me they're a centaur trapped in a human body, who am I to gainsay it?
So, yeah, I'm on the side of self-definition, and maximum acceptance of those self-definitions.
Comments 52
Only you said it a lot better than I could have.
I was born In Bi Land but I reside in Lesbia where the inhabitants don't much like my country of origin and never fail to let me know that. It's kind of off putting and makes me sad.
Now I sit in the weird borderlands where the weirdo's go who don't fit anywhere. I can see inside the shop windows but I can't seem to sell enough matches to buy anything.
Reply
I hope you find your place. Back in Bi Land, maybe? We're awfully friendly there...
Reply
Reply
And Happy New Year Wishes to AQ and you. May you both have a good year in the land that you inhabit.
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
I even just had a little conversation inside my head where I reductio ad absurdum'd myself: Are you sure, Shannon? What if somebody declared themselves a hedgehog, would you consider yourself bound to accept their self-definition? And then I thought Well what about the furs and the otherkin? If somebody tells me they're a centaur trapped in a human body, who am I to gainsay it?
So, yeah, I'm on the side of self-definition, and maximum acceptance of those self-definitions.
Reply
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment