What Makes a Lesbian?
November 17, 2006 | 
Pop Culture, Sex
Originally published in Dykewrite, 6 January 2004
My local hometown paper just happens to be the internationally-known Washington Post, which is recognized as a quality newspaper of a rather liberal persuasion. While browsing through this past Sunday’s issue, I turned to the Style section and was confronted with a large headline:
Partway Gay?
For Some Teen Girls, Sexual Preference Is A Shifting ConceptObviously, this caught my attention immediately. I’d just been reading [Dykewrite's] forum thread on bisexuality, and last February I wrote a journal entry on the concept of lesbians becoming bisexual. So I read the Post article, by Laura Sessions Stepp, with keen interest.
Keeping in mind that I am a firm believer in the fluidity of human sexuality, I’d like to explore the possibility that lesbians are a dying breed. With the rise of hasbians, LUGs, lesbisexuals, and heteroflexibility, it seems anyone can be a lesbian - even if they’re not lesbians in the traditional sense of the word. According to the article, the word itself is being redefined to include any female who has remotely sexual contact with another female. The article says “[these] girls pack Ani DiFranco concerts and know tATu lyrics by heart.” First of all, Ani DiFranco is bisexual herself - and the girls of tATu aren’t even gay, although they like to pretend for the sake of male fantasy. Which is another thing the article mentions - apparently some girls at high schools in the Washington, DC area make out with each other and sell tickets to boys! It’s obviously cool to have same-sex contact these days, although only for girls - the article does mention that boys don’t practice these experimental activities nearly as much as girls do.
“Experimental” is the key word. I suspect that the vast majority of these girls, once they grow a little older, will fall into traditional heterosexual relationships not because they love women less, but because it’s what society expects them to do. Supposedly these girls are flaunting society, claiming they don’t have to follow societal rules, that society’s vision of sexuality doesn’t apply to them. To that I say: bullshit. Right now, it’s cool to be lesbian. (Being bisexual is hip too, but it’s better if you show off the girl-on-girl action.) I think the major difference between these girls and how I usually define “lesbian” is political. Gays and lesbians continue to face discrimination, abuse, and trauma in the United States just for being who they are. These girls are unaffected by this (with the possible exception of Stephanie Haaser) because they are lucky enough to live in an area where they can express themselves freely. And although the article doesn’t mention butch/femme issues, I suspect the majority of these girls are femme - simply because butch lesbians are easier to identify and therefore discriminate against. (Cary Trainor, a college sophomore quoted in the Post article, is pictured in the print edition and fits a traditional butch look; also pictured are Chandra Harris, who looks more femme, and Chloe Root, who has a sort of androfemme look.)
Maybe in ten years, when these girls are old enough to get married and settle down, gay marriage will be legal in the United States and marrying a man will no longer be the “safe” choice. If that happens, these high school girls will be free to continue their current sexual expression. But as long as they’re expressing the view that sexual orientation doesn’t matter, they probably won’t be part of the gay and lesbian community and can’t serve us in political causes. Self-identifying as lesbian or bisexual may not be enough, and telling people (or showing them for $10) may not be enough. Solidarity is essential to the continuation of the lesbian community.
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Another perspective? To add to the Herstory? Hope you don’t mind. *smile*
In the 1970’s “Lesbian,” was considered a Political Identity, “Feminism is the Theory, Lesbianism the Practice,” and many women, heterosexual and bisexual women, began to have “lesbian,” relationships as a political act, “to stick it to the man,” so to speak. This group of women, known as “women loving women,” who were basically the rulers of the separatist women’s communities, along with the middle class homosexual females of the Daughter’s of Bilitis crowd, basically, emphasized the love, the almost “sisterly love,” of woman/woman relationships, basically, because, they weren’t homosexual. The homosexual females of the Daughters of Bilitis crowd, basically believed that if they distanced themselves from the “sex,” aspect of homosexuality, it would gain them acceptance faster as they wouldn’t be seen as a threat, etc. Other homosexual females, androgynous dykes, butches and femmes, etc. who wanted to participate in the “women’s communities,” generally had to follow strict rules of conduct, including giving up their gender, as well as much of what we consider to be sex.
When I came out, ((in Canada)) in the early 1990’s it was the middle of the Lesbian Sex Wars (when homosexual females basically walked out en masse from the women’s movement, over disagreement on how to deal with issues of sexuality, violence, etc. and joined homosexual men in what is now known as the modern day GLBT movement) Dildoes, were still basically outlawed in ‘acceptable,” lesbian feminist space. Finger fucking, let alone fist, vegetables, anything of any insertation into the vagina, rough sex, fucking let alone BDSM, anything other then gentle, loving, stroking and lapping of the pussy, was enough to get you socially ostracized from the “women’s communities.” Which, many people were.(I notice you’ve written about that lower down. LOL so You know what I’m talking about. *smile* The “dress code,” of androgynous haircuts, jeans, t-shirts and flannel, were a way to identify the Lesbian Feminist Separatists ((which was the majority)) to each other and the heterosexual community.
One of the cornerstones of Radical Lesbian Feminist Ideology, was: Gender, “Masculine and Feminine,” is a patriarchal construct created to oppress females, thus, both must be destroyed. All dykes, once forced to enact the Gender Roles “Butch/Femme,” happily shed these roles and became their androgynous selves or “gender benders,” to fit into the Women Loving Women community. Which was THE community, at the time, the main shelter from homophobia.
But some females, felt their masculinity or femininity was not mannerism, behaviors, or roles, but rather, was what they were, like being left handed, they were born inately masculine or feminine as born homosexual, and couldn’t change it, they couldn’t “pass.” The females, noticed that one found Butch and Femme, or Masculine and Feminine (regardless of sex partners) in all homosexual cultures, male and female, in the WORLD. Thus, they argued, Butch and Femme were not roles or mannerisms, but Homosexual Genders equivalent to the Heterosexual Genders Woman and Man. (back then sex:male, female, intersex and gender:masculine, feminine, androgyny were considered totally separate, which is why in gay society, one has always had masculine males and females, etc.) At the time, Butches and Femmes, along with Transexuals and Transvestites, etc. started a movement, known as “The Transgendered Movement.” Which, is quite different then today’s modern form.
Heterosexuals eventually confused homosexual women in that group with the “women loving women,” the Political Lesbians and eventually, in the Het World, “Lesbian,” became, in the heterosexual world, the mainstream word for “homosexual female.”
But in the queer world, I can tell you, as a Femme, it has a much different meaning, denoting women who have come to have love/romance relationships with women/females through Feminism. As a Political Statement. “Lesbian,” is considered a Political Identity, not, within the queer communities I grew within and still am in, a “sexual orientation.”
Confusion abounds because of the two very different definitions. (we like to do this for some reason. LOL)
Lesbian:
1. synonym - homosexual female
2. Political Identity - “feminism is the theory, Lesbianism the Practice.” 1970 Feminist/Lesbian Feminist Ideology.
The arguement over whether a Lesbian can be heterosexual or bisexual is an old one which has been going on since the 1970’s because of the using the word, originally, as a Political Identity. Many homosexual females, especially of my age (37) and older, do not identify as “Lesbian,” because of the negative connotations and political connotations it implies. I am a femme, (a LIpstick Lesbian, is historically, a Political Lesbian, who enjoyed some of the visible aspects of femininity, like makeup), other homosexual females identify as “gay,” or “homosexual,” or “butch,” or “dyke,” etc.
I personally only use “Lesbian,” to mean “homosexual female,” when I’m talking to straights because, it’s just toooo confusing for them, to understand that it has different meaning within the Queer World. Not worth the time to explain it all to them. If you’re talking a Political Identity, then any woman can be a lesbian. Which is why, Andrea Dworking once identified as a Lesbian for example, because politically it was about LOVING women, versus LUSTING after the female body.
If one is using Lesbian to mean “homosexual female,” then no, a bisexual female, etc. cannot be a lesbian. A “Bisexual Lesbian,” would be a bisexual female with a Political Identity of “Lesbian,” and this was quite a big debate during the first wave of the modern Bisexuality Movement. Back when I came out, before “B” and “T” were added to the GB I’m meaning. Mid 80s to early 90s depending on whether U.S.A. or Canada. I have been out as a homosexual female for 14 years and never, once, in all that time, have I identified as a “Lesbian.” Because of the political connotations, the very negative connotations for me that word, that Identity has.
As a Femme, who has been out as a Femme, since she came out. Who was accused of “supporting the patriarchy,” was called “breeder,” and “traitor,” when she walked into the “Lesbian,” bars of her day, was told by “Lesbians,” that they would fuck her but not walk down the street with her in public, because they were afraid of what other lesbians would think of them, if seen with her…The whole, “these women are femme,” is incrediably insulting, and shows a real lack of knowledge about our gender, (which….sadly, is the norm, in “Lesbian Communities,” in north america. Due to the rewriting or complete erasing of our herstory, etc.
Femmes of the 1950s (all this refers to the white queer world by the way) generally lived their lives Out, walking down the streets with Butches in the 50’s and 60’s and routinely got raped along side them in the bars, as well as, herstorically, we have a proud tradition of workin in the Sex Trade to support our Butches who couldn’t find work because of their Gender Variance. Butches and Femmes also, generally, herstorically, came from the lower classes while the ‘Lesbians,” were of the upper classes. The ones who went out in groups with gay men, as “dates,” so they could date other females safely, had Lavender Lesbians, and in the 50’s with the Daughters of Bilitis, believed in assimilation, wearing dresses, having “girl jobs,” etc. in order to be more acceptable to heterosexual society.
The women you are talking about I would say, are modern Political Lesbians, and, they have a long, long history in “women’s communities.” Whether they are kissing a woman for political reasons, to “stick it to the man,” or “entice the man,” the point is, in my mind, they have relationships with women as a reaction to men/patriarchy. They might LOVE women, they might even be women or feminist identified. But Men play a huge part in their desire of the female, versus for us homos…it’s the female body we lust over. It’s the Sex! *grin*
Hope you don’t mind my sharing. Not trying to lecture. Sorry if it comes out that way. Stumbled across your blog while doing a search for my own blog. *smile* It’s new, but feel free to browse. http://www.sexability.blogspot.com I’m going to link to you. Hope you don’t mind. *smile* Post on my site if you do.
November 24th, 2006 at 5:10 am[...] I’m posting to call attention to a comment I got from Playful Fairy a little while back. I didn’t realize that my cyber-dyke.net e-mail address was broken, so I wasn’t getting comment notifications (it was my own fault!) until yesterday when I fixed it. Playful Fairy posted this comment on my “What Makes a Lesbian?” post, which I had originally written for Dykewrite a few years ago. She gives a different perspective to my post, and I think it’s definitely worth a read. [...]
November 27th, 2006 at 7:35 pmHi hi, I’m Chloe, the (then college sophomore) self identified bi girl who was interviewed for the Washington Post article (the one who you reported as having “a sort of androfemme look”). I just wanted to point out that my friend Cary and I agree that the reporter who interviewed us misrepresented both of us in the way she quoted us and used our statements out of context to support her points (although it’s still not completely clear what those points were supposed to be). Four years later, both of us are still living as out and queer and were not part of the high school crowds that “know tatu lyrics by heart” (not to hold anything against those that were - it just seems like there was a conflation of subcultures there - we both have been known to help “pack Ani DiFranco concerts”), and were both weirded out by the idea that our sexualities were being held up as evidence of a fad or trend, just because we don’t have traditional or rigid views of sexuality. Since we were never afforded a chance to respond to this offensive misuse of our words (and representation of our lives!), I wanted to respond in a space where I thought it might matter some. I’d also like to state that my comment about some of my lesbian friends having had negative experiences in relationships with men was taken completely out of context and was not meant to be used as some sort of explanation for their sexuality. It was a response to a leading question that was unrelated.
Thanks for reading and giving me the opportunity to respond,
March 15th, 2008 at 4:40 pmIn solidarity,
Chloe Root