[*Anya*]

Originally Posted by Martina

i am too tired to make sense. But i will try.

Whenever someone talks about defending an identity, they are in deep water. Basically, it's a battle already lost (to mix my metaphors).

Think of people in France who are fighting for a French identity that does not include women wearing the niqab. Or again the French trying to protect the purity of their language and culture. Did that work? No. It never works.

Problems with that mode of discourse:

1) You are framing it as a conflict rather than a change or evolution. You are creating two sides when there may be many or none.
2) It tends to have an agenda that is in part reactionary. France's is an anti-immigrant racism lurking behind that pride in French culture. Here? Who knows? Probably some transphobia.
3) It never works.
We can't look at it as reclaiming and defending without becoming reactionary. It's inevitable.

My suggestion is that we show up as we are and love ourselves. If it's a political setting with a specific goal, then politicize the debate. But be careful about how we define ourselves.

There are lesbians here who aren't "women loving women." They are living with and loving men. They are lesbians. I myself feel liberated by that. It means there is more room for me to breathe. It means i have new sisters and brothers.

I do not mean this in a hostile, angry manner but truly do not understand the definition of a lesbian if one is in a love, sexual relationship with a man.

I am also of the Meg generation and have no problem admitting that. I guess we all can have a different definition of the same word but I would not have been disowned by my family if I had brought home a man. My parents screamed lesbian at me as though it were a filthy, ugly word and they seemed to know what a lesbian was.

Re: children. I married at 18 and 2 babies by the time I was 21. I could not admit to myself I was gay until my mid-20's. Many women come out in later life and live with women the rest of their days.

The whole trans issue confuses me. The new gender spectrum confuses me. It was not a part of my world until the planet. I may not understand it but I would defend to the end anyone's right to live their life their way. Not understanding is not the same as transphobia! The only phobia I have in my life is claustrophobia.

My definition of lesbian is as I see it for myself as I posted it and I believe that I have the the right to call it as I see it for myself in a specifically lesbian thread, or don't I? Did that change too?

I have stated before and will again: I always do my best to make "I" statements when I post.