Reclaiming Lesbian Pride

[Cin]

I remember a thread on another forum about if a man has the right to identify as a lesbian, a male lesbian. I believe I posted something or other about how I believe everyone has a right to identify however they chose.

If someone, who looks like just some guy to me, says he identifies as reptilian and believes he is a python then I guess I will try to honor that, although I won’t understand it since he doesn’t appear to me to be a snake at all.

But I think when people embrace an identity, yet do not fit the definition of that identity, then it is okay to ask them why they believe that identity is valid for them. When a group of people assign an identity to another different group and the definition of the assigned identity clearly doesn’t ring true to the defined group then I think it is okay to ask questions.

My experience has been that people don’t really care for that. It feels intrusive I guess. But adopting an identity that isn’t a traditional fit can feel invasive to some who share that identity. Just like insisting on giving others, despite their protests, an identity that doesn’t work feels, at the very least, dismissive. I don’t think an explanation is too much to ask. I think it is okay to wonder and to ask why someone feels a particular identity encompasses them when they do not fit the traditional definition as with lesbian. I think it is logical to ask why someone will insist on defining you using an identity that does not work for you as with cis-gendered. And clearly insisting that Adult females ARE woman erases and discounts the identities of those who FEEL differently.

I think lesbian for someone who sleeps with women as well as men fits better than cis-gendered fits for someone like me. At least they encompass part of the definition of lesbian. I have no clue what it would be like to live in a place where my gender is remotely similar to, or congruent with, society’s definition.

I really don’t believe anyone can or should try to define someone else. But it happens. However, I think if we chose an identity for ourselves or for others (as in the case of cis) that doesn’t really fit the widely accepted definition and/or upsets the other you are naming then we should take responsibility for explaining our choices. We should also be willing to listen to what the other has to say about how your decision effects them.

It seems that people often feel it is an imposition to explain themselves. Some feel they have a right to never be challenged. When asked why, I notice people often give some version of “because” for an answer. The version of “because” people most often use is “it’s my opinion”. People seem extremely adverse to explanations, especially ones that are, at least partially, rooted in fact or reality. And it is even worse when the challenging questions are directed at an oppressed group or a member of an oppressed group. If one chooses to go there, one risks the likelihood that one will be accused of being some sort of -phobe or bigot.

To me reality does matter and facts are important. A common language and a shared understanding of what a word means is necessary for communication. If we want to change that, such as claim for ourselves a not so traditional definition for lesbian, define an entire group of people as cis and paint them with the same brush, decide we are female but not woman, or appropriate an identity such as reptilian, then we are responsible for explaining our choices. Conversations may seem endless but dialogue in cases such as these are invaluable. Words are all we have to make our actions and beliefs comprehensible to others. To stop talking, to cease explaining ourselves, our reasons, our feelings, is to close the door on understanding.

I also think that explaining things brings a degree of clarity to the person doing the explaining as well. It’s a form of self-exploration I think. Unfortunately people are not always interested in engaging in that way. They may feel they have done it enough already or just don’t trust the process or, and perhaps especially, the person questioning them. Or maybe they don’t even trust the question. Sometimes they think there is no answer it just is what it is. I encountered this quite a bit when I try to engage people who identify as female but not as women. I want to understand what it is about woman that is so different from female. What is it about female that is more acceptable, more palatable? Is it society’s definition of woman that makes it so hard to own? Or is it something else?

Attempting to understand others’ reasons for how they feel about an identity, whether it ends in clarity or not, shouldn’t negate anyone’s right to identify how they chose or to define an identity to their own personal satisfaction. Attempting to understand others is always priceless no matter the result. I think of attempting to understand others or putting oneself in someone else’s place and imagining how it feels, to be the sort of thing that one gets better at with practice. I think of understanding and empathy as muscles that are directly connected to our ears and indirectly to our hearts and like most muscles grow proportionally to the exercise they receive.

[Slater]

Originally Posted by Chazz

HOLY COW ! ! ! ! In one swipe of lexical incohesion, I lost my butch womanhood.

Ummm, no. Nowhere did I say that the identity of butch woman was not also valid. This One True Way thing is your mindset not mine.

Originally Posted by Chazz

No, Slater.... Adult females will always be women.

If all the word "woman" means is adult female, then yes an adult female is always a woman. But the word woman is used to describe a gender/gender role. For instance, why would Cheryl and Heart have been concerned earlier in this very thread that the elimination of genders would eliminate the category of women entirely.

I would argue that the what makes it seem like adult female = woman is that gender roles were so strictly and inexorably tied to sex that they were regarded as equivalent. The words sex and gender are used interchangably in society as though they are the same. How many forms ask for gender when really what they are asking for is sex? I can not even begin to imagine how you can suggest that the conflation of sex and gender is a recent development.

Your worldview is as nonsensical and unpersuasive to me as mine is to you. Neither of those seems likely to change.

[Kobi]

The individualization of identity is a very complex thing. Yet, it has an impact on a broader scale. That concerns me greatly because the potential political ramifications are frightening.

I am a lesbian i.e. a female homosexual. I dont think even OED has changed that definition. If people who do not fit "female homosexual" start claiming lesbian, it impacts my personal identity as well as lesbians in general. It renders lesbian to mean essentially nothing.

And that is supposed to be ok with me? I dont care who anyone sleeps with but when what it is called impacts me, I care a lot.

Part of why this bothers me is, it is someone else's circumstances that have changed not mine. But, there is the presumption that I have to make adjustments to accomodate their changing circumstances. In essence, to me, it is someone else deciding they have the right to change things to suit themselves without regard as to how it affects others. I have a real problem with this kind of thinking.

On a larger scale, gay rights, in part, has used the paradigm that our gayness is an inherent part of who we are. Our minority status is from our gayness being something we have no control over. It is not a choice per se, it just is.

Now we are muddying the waters by saying we are lesbians who sleep with men? Either we have control and make a conscious decision or we dont. And there is no political implications to this?

Another part of gayness being something we have no control over is the fight we have with religious fruitcakes ( ok bad choice of words) who say we can change our behavior and become unsinners. They can deprogram us. Well, lesbians sleeping with men gives them a wee bit of ammunition on that one.

Someone posted somewhere that in Iran or Iraq, they would rather perform sexual reassignment surgery than have homosexuals in their midst. Do you really think this doesnt matter?

Feminism is predicated at its simplest level on a male versus female paradigm. Gender theory, at its simplest level is masculine versus feminine. Wow, that blows the binary to pieces eh? There are very real, very everyday implications inherent in this for every single female and women. And our response to this is to argue about the definition of woman? Does that strike anyone as odd?

Sometimes I read this thread and I dont know which is worse...the flashbacks to Anita Bryant's antigay stuff or the ones of Phyllis Schafly arguing against the ERA.

[CherylNYC]

Originally Posted by Miss Tick

I remember a thread on another forum about if a man has the right to identify as a lesbian, a male lesbian. I believe I posted something or other about how I believe everyone has a right to identify however they chose.

If someone, who looks like just some guy to me, says he identifies as reptilian and believes he is a python then I guess I will try to honor that, although I won’t understand it since he doesn’t appear to me to be a snake at all....

A man who IDs as a snake is never going to be allowed to live in the reptile enclosure at the zoo. No, I don't feel compelled out of politeness to humour that man, or the man who IDs as a lesbian. Why would I? Why should I?

As Kobi explained above, there are real repercussions to us, (lesbians), when we allow the word that describes us to become meaningless. Go ahead and call me a bigot.

[atomiczombie]

Originally Posted by Kobi

The individualization of identity is a very complex thing. Yet, it has an impact on a broader scale. That concerns me greatly because the potential political ramifications are frightening.

I am a lesbian i.e. a female homosexual. I dont think even OED has changed that definition. If people who do not fit "female homosexual" start claiming lesbian, it impacts my personal identity as well as lesbians in general. It renders lesbian to mean essentially nothing.

Hmm. This kind of reminds me of the right-wing arguments against same-sex marriage. If gays can marry, they say, that changes the definition of marriage and therefore impacts their straight marriages. Same logic going on.

[Chazz]

Originally Posted by Slater

Ummm, no. Nowhere did I say that the identity of butch woman was not also valid. This One True Way thing is your mindset not mine.




If all the word "woman" means is adult female, then yes an adult female is always a woman. But the word woman is used to describe a gender/gender role. For instance, why would Cheryl and Heart have been concerned earlier in this very thread that the elimination of genders would eliminate the category of women entirely.

I would argue that the what makes it seem like adult female = woman is that gender roles were so strictly and inexorably tied to sex that they were regarded as equivalent. The words sex and gender are used interchangably in society as though they are the same. How many forms ask for gender when really what they are asking for is sex? I can not even begin to imagine how you can suggest that the conflation of sex and gender is a recent development.

Your worldview is as nonsensical and unpersuasive to me as mine is to you. Neither of those seems likely to change.

And your use of the English language.....well, never mind.

SEX (biology) = female/male, woman/man, girl/boy (nouns)

GENDER (a cultural construct based on sex) = feminine/masculine, womanly/manly, girlish/boyish (adjectives)

[Jess]

I think and have always understood the definition of lesbian to be a word of action. Lesbians "actively" ( vigorously and lovingly) have sex with other women.

There is another word for women/ females who actively have sex with women AND men. That word is bisexual.

Most folks I know who engage in sex with women, men and trans-persons call themselves "queer" or "pansexual".

This makes sense to me. I get it. I honor it. I respect it.

What is beginning to bother me a great deal, is that all of the sudden I feel like being bisexual is bad. Or being queer is bad or pansexual. Why not use the words already there? What is wrong with being bisexual?

I don't have issue with how anyone else decides to id themselves. I ain't sleepin with ya, so why should I care? Except, in the realm of issues Kobi mentioned above. On a personal level, call yourself avacado if you so desire, but on a political level, can we please decide on which version of the English language we are going to use? It would just help in the long run.

[Heart]

Kobi - I'm a lesbian because I sleep with women, but I have also had erotic and sexual relationships with men. So, as I've been told, I'm not a "goldstar" lesbian. In your view, in order to be able to identify as a lesbian without somehow muddying the waters or detracting from your lesbianism, or threatening gay rights, does one have to be "goldstar?"

Also, I don't happen to be one of those that essentializes my lesbian identity. Meaning, its not as simple as "I was born this way." I think I was actually born with the capacity for a fluid orientation and I have landed on lesbian at this point in my life for a whole host of reasons. (And I don't happen to think that it not being a choice will in any way protect us from religious fanatics or anti-gay zealots). So, in order to support your status and rights as a lesbian, does one have to believe that it's not a choice?

I see that I am now basically asking the very same question that SA asked. "Am I lesbian enough for you?" Ironic.

[Thinker]

Originally Posted by Chazz

And your use of the English language.....well, never mind.

SEX (biology) = female/male, woman/man, girl/boy (nouns)

GENDER (a cultural construct based on sex) = feminine/masculine, womanly/manly, girlish/boyish (adjectives)

Chazz,

We have received yet another report of one of your posts for what is deemed intentional rudeness. There really isn't a good reason why you can't engage with other members here, even ones with whom you disagree, in a more respectful manner.

You're obviously intelligent. It's not necessary to put others down in order to prove that, so refrain from doing so.

Consider this a warning. If you continue to make it a point to demean others, you will be put on a timeout.

If you have any questions, you may contact me, the Admin, or any other moderator in private.

Thinker (moderator)

[Martina]

Lots of lesbians have slept with men -- by choice -- pretty much as long as we've been free to live as lesbians.

Sexuality is like that. People do the unexpected where sex is concerned. Trying to argue about who people will fuck and what that means is not going to get us far.

[citybutch]

*sigh*

I am going to post this one more time and then I give up... LOL... Been making the same point for oh so many years and it just gets lost...

Anyhoo:

"Woman
From the Old English "Wyfmon," meaning, "wife.""

http://www.westegg.com/etymology/

I dunno ... the roots of words matter to me... It's why in so many ways I love to reclaim the words like Crone... which they believe comes from early dutch for "old ewe"... To Crone means to "pick out and reject the old ewes from a flock" according to the OED. Subsequently applied in a derogatory sense to old females (and in the patriarchal way.. old women). To ME this is a reclaimable word.... or Hag (oh, Hag is MARVELOUS!), "1....an evil spirit, demon, or infernal being in female form; applied in early use to the Furies, Harpies, etc.... 2.... a witch.." OED. There are so many entries on Hag!

My friend Mary was so into reclaiming these words... and made magic out of them. They came alive with her....

Originally Posted by Chazz

SEX (biology) = female/male, woman/man, girl/boy (nouns)

GENDER (a cultural construct based on sex) = feminine/masculine, womanly/manly, girlish/boyish (adjectives)

[Chazz]

Originally Posted by Kobi

The individualization of identity is a very complex thing. Yet, it has an impact on a broader scale. That concerns me greatly because the potential political ramifications are frightening.

I am a lesbian i.e. a female homosexual. I dont think even OED has changed that definition. If people who do not fit "female homosexual" start claiming lesbian, it impacts my personal identity as well as lesbians in general. It renders lesbian to mean essentially nothing.

And that is supposed to be ok with me? I dont care who anyone sleeps with but when what it is called impacts me, I care a lot.

Part of why this bothers me is, it is someone else's circumstances that have changed not mine. But, there is the presumption that I have to make adjustments to accomodate their changing circumstances. In essence, to me, it is someone else deciding they have the right to change things to suit themselves without regard as to how it affects others. I have a real problem with this kind of thinking.

On a larger scale, gay rights, in part, has used the paradigm that our gayness is an inherent part of who we are. Our minority status is from our gayness being something we have no control over. It is not a choice per se, it just is.

Now we are muddying the waters by saying we are lesbians who sleep with men? Either we have control and make a conscious decision or we dont. And there is no political implications to this?

Another part of gayness being something we have no control over is the fight we have with religious fruitcakes ( ok bad choice of words) who say we can change our behavior and become unsinners. They can deprogram us. Well, lesbians sleeping with men gives them a wee bit of ammunition on that one.

Someone posted somewhere that in Iran or Iraq, they would rather perform sexual reassignment surgery than have homosexuals in their midst. Do you really think this doesnt matter?

Feminism is predicated at its simplest level on a male versus female paradigm. Gender theory, at its simplest level is masculine versus feminine. Wow, that blows the binary to pieces eh? There are very real, very everyday implications inherent in this for every single female and women. And our response to this is to argue about the definition of woman? Does that strike anyone as odd?

Sometimes I read this thread and I dont know which is worse...the flashbacks to Anita Bryant's antigay stuff or the ones of Phyllis Schafly arguing against the ERA.

[Women’s] authority is effective only so long as [she] identifies wholly with [her male] sponsors’. What happens for the feminist is that she somehow discovers her own authority, and comes to understand herself as authorized by her own knowledge of right and wrong to assume the agency of the judge, director, instructor, planner, policy maker, administrator [and namer of her own reality]. - Marilyn Frye

[atomiczombie]

Originally Posted by Chazz

How about jettisoning the concept of gender entirely? I know, it's a lot to get ones brain around. Patriarchy is counting on that.

Jettisoning the concept of gender because you think it's all a product of patriarchy? Wow. My gender ID is transguy. If you want to give up the concept of gender, then you are saying this part of who I am, which is important to me, is something produced by patriarchy and therefore not real or valid. I am not saying that being a transguy is the only or most important thing about me, but it is an important thing, to me. It isn't something that years of being raised and socialized as a girl could make go away. It isn't something that I decided I wanted so that I could gain privilege that I haven't had while living as a woman (even after hormones and top surgery I still don't have any more privilege). I can assure you I am not a woman who just isn't satisfied with any conventional definition of "woman". I don't strictly ID as a man, because my being trans is an important part of who I am. I do have a herstory, as someone else on this site pointed out to me. I don't deny or reject all the years that I lived as a girl/woman. Those years are part of who I am today. But I'm not a woman, and I knew I wasn't when I was 6 years old. My gender is not some cultural construct. There is something hard-wired about it. It is part of who I am, inside.

So, tell me Chazz: do you think my gender identity is something meaningless, or just a product of patriarchy?

[Heart]

Originally Posted by Jess

I think and have always understood the definition of lesbian to be a word of action. Lesbians "actively" ( vigorously and lovingly) have sex with other women.

There is another word for women/ females who actively have sex with women AND men. That word is bisexual.

Most folks I know who engage in sex with women, men and trans-persons call themselves "queer" or "pansexual".

This makes sense to me. I get it. I honor it. I respect it.

What is beginning to bother me a great deal, is that all of the sudden I feel like being bisexual is bad. Or being queer is bad or pansexual. Why not use the words already there? What is wrong with being bisexual?

I don't have issue with how anyone else decides to id themselves. I ain't sleepin with ya, so why should I care? Except, in the realm of issues Kobi mentioned above. On a personal level, call yourself avacado if you so desire, but on a political level, can we please decide on which version of the English language we are going to use? It would just help in the long run.

Heh. I've called myself everything. When I was sleeping with gay men, I called myself a fag hag. When I was sleeping with straight girls and guys, I called myself bi, when I was married, I called myself straight, now I sleep with butch women so I'm a dyke and a femme. What do I call myself when I'm not sleeping with anyone? A celibate?

I do not get why any of these labels, based upon whom I'm sleeping with at any given moment, has any bearing upon my politics or my political activism. In fact, my id as a lesbian is in part, a political choice, an assertion of my political alliances, as much as who I fuck. This is exactly what I was trying to articulate in my post #430.

Heart

[Chazz]

Originally Posted by atomiczombie

Jettisoning the concept of gender because you think it's all a product of patriarchy? Wow. My gender ID is transguy. If you want to give up the concept of gender, then you are saying this part of who I am, which is important to me, is something produced by patriarchy and therefore not real or valid. I am not saying that being a transguy is the only or most important thing about me, but it is an important thing, to me. It isn't something that years of being raised and socialized as a girl could make go away. It isn't something that I decided I wanted so that I could gain privilege that I haven't had while living as a woman (even after hormones and top surgery I still don't have any more privilege). I can assure you I am not a woman who just isn't satisfied with any conventional definition of "woman". I don't strictly ID as a man, because my being trans is an important part of who I am. I do have a herstory, as someone else on this site pointed out to me. I don't deny or reject all the years that I lived as a girl/woman. Those years are part of who I am today. But I'm not a woman, and I knew I wasn't when I was 6 years old. My gender is not some cultural construct. There is something hard-wired about it. It is part of who I am, inside.

So, tell me Chazz: do you think my gender identity is something meaningless, or just a product of patriarchy?

I can't say.......

[Jess]

Originally Posted by Heart

Heh. I've called myself everything. When I was sleeping with gay men, I called myself a fag hag. When I was sleeping with straight girls and guys, I called myself bi, when I was married, I called myself straight, now I sleep with butch women so I'm a dyke and a femme. What do I call myself when I'm not sleeping with anyone? A celibate?

I do not get why any of these labels, based upon whom I'm sleeping with at any given moment, has any bearing upon my politics or my political activism. In fact, my id as a lesbian is in part, a political choice, an assertion of my political alliances, as much as who I fuck. This is exactly what I was trying to articulate in my post #430.

Heart

K... Got it. You changed how you ID based upon what your ( then ) present situation reflected. I get that. I am way cool with that. I am also cool with and comprehend that our life circumstances do change and most of us adopt whatever new term most closely defines whom we are then.

The part I highlighted in red, I don't quite understand. If one one hand whom we sleep with should have no bearing on politics ( which I disagree with 1000% see christian right wings who hate homo-SEXuals), then why would you align yourself sexually for a political reason?

Just trying to follow. Thanks!

[citybutch]

Hey Jess,

The dictionary goes through a lengthy entry on the etymology of the word. The definition itself is more than 4 pages of the OED... so really extensive. I am not an online subscriber but own a hard copy of it... so I cannot cut and paste.

THAT being said, I can say that one of the definitions IS " an adult female human being". However, it goes on to say that it is always JUXTAPOSED against a male or man... OR "to make like a woman in weakness or subservience".

Female on the other hand is defined as "belonging to the sex which bears offspring". It seems to come from popular Latin, femella, which includes all "lower animals"... masculus being the male version of this.

*sigh*... maybe it is just me

Originally Posted by Jess

Without having a subscription to the OED and not owning a copy, what is the current definition of "woman". I am aware that the OED gives probably the most accurate origins of words and you have given a good historical definition/ origin. I am curious and perhaps you could help me, with what they use as the current definition.

Thanks.

[Cin]

Originally Posted by CherylNYC

A man who IDs as a snake is never going to be allowed to live in the reptile enclosure at the zoo. No, I don't feel compelled out of politeness to humour that man, or the man who IDs as a lesbian. Why would I? Why should I?

As Kobi explained above, there are real repercussions to us, (lesbians), when we allow the word that describes us to become meaningless. Go ahead and call me a bigot.

Call you a bigot, nah. Maybe you’re an ophidiophobe. Maybe you're Indiana Jones for all I know.

Seriously though I just find it impossible to tell someone they can’t be who they feel they are. It makes me feel bad. That’s all I meant. And that’s just me. Nobody else needs to feel that way.

I don't think a word always becomes meaningless when it is stretched a tad. Maybe it's just me, but my identity as a lesbian has more meaning for me than just who I sleep with. It is not just a sexual identity. It has political connotations and deep herstory. At least for me.

[Kobi]

Originally Posted by Heart

Kobi - I'm a lesbian because I sleep with women, but I have also had erotic and sexual relationships with men. So, as I've been told, I'm not a "goldstar" lesbian. In your view, in order to be able to identify as a lesbian without somehow muddying the waters or detracting from your lesbianism, or threatening gay rights, does one have to be "goldstar?"

Also, I don't happen to be one of those that essentializes my lesbian identity. Meaning, its not as simple as "I was born this way." I think I was actually born with the capacity for a fluid orientation and I have landed on lesbian at this point in my life for a whole host of reasons. (And I don't happen to think that it not being a choice will in any way protect us from religious fanatics or anti-gay zealots). So, in order to support your status and rights as a lesbian, does one have to believe that it's not a choice?

I see that I am now basically asking the very same question that SA asked. "Am I lesbian enough for you?" Ironic.

Heart,

I enjoy your posts, your intellect, your knowledge.

I'm not quite as fond of the general flip flopping I see in them.

Makes it hard to get a handle on exactly what it is you stand for.

[Jess]

Originally Posted by citybutch

*sigh*

I am going to post this one more time and then I give up... LOL... Been making the same point for oh so many years and it just gets lost...

Anyhoo:

"Woman
From the Old English "Wyfmon," meaning, "wife.""

http://www.westegg.com/etymology/

I dunno ... the roots of words matter to me... It's why in so many ways I love to reclaim the words like Crone... which they believe comes from early dutch for "old ewe"... To Crone means to "pick out and reject the old ewes from a flock" according to the OED. Subsequently applied in a derogatory sense to old females (and in the patriarchal way.. old women). To ME this is a reclaimable word.... or Hag (oh, Hag is MARVELOUS!), "1....an evil spirit, demon, or infernal being in female form; applied in early use to the Furies, Harpies, etc.... 2.... a witch.." OED. There are so many entries on Hag!

My friend Mary was so into reclaiming these words... and made magic out of them. They came alive with her....

While I totally understand your disdain for the origins of the word "woman", I still can not find the OED current definition of "woman", so I do not understand why it is so offensive today.

Much of the discord in this thread has been about the "traditional" definition of "lesbian". I would assert then, that perhaps we should also toss out female, because it is offensive to me to be just a being that produces eggs.


ETA: I just saw that you had responded to my question. Thank you. I am growing weary of this conversation. It will just continue to go in circles. It is not binary.