Reclaiming Lesbian Pride

[Medusa]

Originally Posted by ScandalAndy

I'm a lesbian, I'm proud to be a lesbian, and I'm a little tired of the last few threads I've checked out being turned into a discussion of what "lesbian" means, followed by lots of people trying to reinvent the wheel by asking "well what about this situation? Do they count?". What the heck? Why is that necessary? I want to come here and support others and feel supported, not questioned.


Is it very difficult to accept that the identifier of "lesbian" can apply to many different people with different interpretations, and that we can all find community with one another, even if we don't share the same definition of the word?


I'm so frustrated with the threads right now and I personally feel like we can't get more than two or three people together without it somehow turning into a need to have a debate or prove a point. I really want BFP to be a place where I can find support and community, and lately I feel like all I find is another opportunity to get really defensive. Maybe I'm just having a bad day, but maybe it's more than that.

I interpreted this thread as Kobi's attempt to say "hey, I'm here. Anybody else?" without the drive to have a big analytical debate. I"m seeing a lot of posturing and defensiveness and that makes me really sad. Why is this happening?


Again, let me reiterate that this is my personal opinion, you can agree or disagree with me as you see fit, and I respect your right to do so.

This post really spoke to me.

ScandalAndy - I'm going to use this as a bouncing off point!

Folks, here we have a person who is fairly new to our community who has demonstrated something I think we need to be reminded of. I think many of us are skilled at diving deep within an issue and teasing it out because we have been doing it for a long, long time. We have a certain level of dialog in this community that is sometimes very process-y, sometimes very abrupt. I think that can look and feel really off-putting to people who are new to this space.

Especially people reading a thread title, thinking that the thread is going to be go the direction of the thread title, and then once they enter the thread, seeing that people are arguing or debating over minutiae. I am not saying that type of micro-processing isn't a good thing but I want the "big picture" of the thread to be honored.

Some of us have been super pissed off about the erasure of women with the Butch Voices thing going on. I think that type of marginalization can echo in threads like these where "Lesbian" is being defined for the purpose of the thread as "women into other women" and all of the sudden we are discussion bio men, gay men, Butches who identify as men, trans men, etc.

Not at all saying that men or male-identity issues need to be parsed completely from this discussion. Not into that kind of separatism, but I do think we need to be focusing on "women into women".