Invisibility and Lesbian Experience

The Invisible Lesbian

I read an interesting article in the NYTimes Magazine a couple of weeks ago. It concerned the ways that women are actively discouraged from pursuing careers in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, what they called the STEM subject group. Unfortunately, a large portion of the article focused on how majoring in STEM  fields frightened off potential male suitors. But one sentence in the article indicated that there was a different point of view expressed by a minority of the interview subjects. The sentence is framed in parentheses and reads as follows: "The lesbian scientists with whom I spoke, at the tea and elsewhere, reported differing reactions to the gender dynamic of the classroom and the lab, but voiced many of the same concerns as the straight women."

Huh? What does this mean? How many lesbian scientists were questioned? How does their experience differ? I was left with these unanswered questions as this sentence contained the only reference to lesbians in the entire piece. Clearly the writers and editors were only concerned with the experiences of genuine women, i.e.: the heterosexual variety.

Recently a poem of mine was included in an anthology about women's experience in the sixties and seventies. My entry was openly queer and dealt with unrequited lesbian love. Reading through the numerous poetry and stories included in the book, I have found only one other out lesbian. 

This is what it means to be part of a minority culture. Your experience is tokenized or erased, your pespective deleted. In capitalist publishing this is just mainstream vs niche market politics. But genuinely good writing should transcend these categories. It seems obvious that inclusion of ethnic and gender minority voices would only improve both the sales and credibility of an article, journal, film or anthology.
   
But now, at least, they are giving us a little nod. That means we have successfully been a thorn in their side long enough to make them aware of our existence. There is a small hole in the fence that has segregated our experience from that of real women. To make that opening larger, we must all pour through it en masse. Lesbian history is women's history and we are the only ones who can write it. Our experience is an indespensible and necessary component of the liberation of all women, and yes, all people.

Here, Queer and Becoming Visible

Just 118 years after Oscar Wilde’s arrest for sodomy, the LGBT struggle is finally being validated as a worthy cause. The news is full of LGBT issues, from a lesbian military widow being denied spousal benefits, queers being thrown out of restaurants, denied marriage venues and wedding cakes, anti-gay prom efforts in the Midwest and the Associated Press Style controversy over whether the words husband or wife should be used for same-gender couples. Even Obama refers to us with some regularity, linking Selma and Seneca Falls to Stonewall.

This is not to imply that we are winning these battles, actually, in many instances, the backlash has become stronger. Soul-numbing slights have been an expected occurrence for queers for centuries. But it takes public validation for many heterosexuals to be able to see the forest through the trees. And, as in the Black civil rights struggle, people are coming of the woodwork claiming they supported us all along. Well, they say that hindsight is 20/20 and that is definitely preferable to total blindness.

In the bad old days, as an inveterate leftist, mostly what our community faced was invisibility. Bringing up the subject of our oppression would sometimes elicit accusations of “bourgeois decadence” or in some way imply that we were diverting attention from class and racial struggles as though we didn’t occupy places in all other groups.

When a brave non-queer stood up for us, more often than not the comment would have been preceded by an “I’m straight but…” disclaimer. Even in the early gay pride parades straight folks could, more safely, employ the option of marching together as “straights for gay rights.”

But we have persisted and in the geological timeframe of historical change. Will we eventually see full equal rights in this country and perhaps even in this world? I can only live in hope. Still, we have to brace ourselves for the end game struggle. The laps directly before the finish line tend to be the most draining and exhausting of the entire race.

Challenges of Long-Term Lesbian Relationships

 A Long-Term Power Couple

Two women who gossip together, debrief on relationship issues, exchange sexual intimacies, what could be problematic about this picture? In many ways, nothing is and that’s why many lesbians get together in the first place. But the more challenging part of this equation is staying together.

Unlike places like Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan, in the U.S. the separation between the culture of men and the culture of women exists informally but nevertheless, serves as a divider for the men and women. The football with the boys and shopping with the girls stereotype is simply shorthand for a far wider separation that makes it easier for same-gender couples to meet, yet harder to persist in queer relationships.

Continuing to have friends is a given for heterosexual, married women. And I don’t mean only friends that are also coupled and visited with in pairs, I mean real “heart” friends. For lesbians in couples, emotional intimacy can be threatening for the life partner. There is no automatic dividing line between other women, as all of them have the potential of being seen as romantic partners. To prevent this, once coupled lesbians often engage in what I call emotional monogamy, meaning other couple friends are encouraged but new emotional intimacy is not. 

Among queer women some of the greatest wear and tear on relationships comes from the joined-at-the-hip phenomenon. This “urge to merge” is deadly to long term connections because it becomes attempting to share the totality of one’s existence tends to be deadly in a relationship. It is far healthier to bring home stories and adventures from two separate lives.. This involves cultivation of individual friends and interests; a simple thing that the majority of straight folks do automatically.

Being sexually monogamous yet emotionally non-monogamous is possible. But this feat  is more challenging for lesbians than for our straight sisters. It means being open to the kind of real friendships we had with each other before we were taught that emotional intimacy is automatically a precursor to sexual intimacy. This is debatable, but he absence of the possibility of true friendship cuts off an emotionally satisfying and healing connection to others. Friendship should not only be for teenagers, searching singles and old married ladies. Paired lesbians need friends too.

Of course, the major things that make our relationships more difficult are factors such as outright discrimination, lack of social support, denial of marriage rights, and inequality under the law, things that fall under the general umbrella of lesbian oppression. All are obstacles working against the longevity of lesbian relationships, demanding that we explore workable new alternatives.

Lesbian Bloggers vs Male Impostors

Will Submit DNA
Upon Request

In the bizarre irony that can only be real life non-fiction, a rash of heterosexual, male bloggers who are passing as lesbians, has materialized in cyberspace of late, casting doubt on genuine lesbian bloggers like, er, yours truly.

The blog, "Gay Girl in Damascus," supposed written by a Syrian lesbian, was exposed to be a fake when its creator, Tom McMaster a 40 year old white, male heterosexual, went too far and had his avatar undergo a political kidnapping so he could take a vacation in Istanbul free from the need to post.

To add insult to injury, LezGetReal an informative news blog turns out to be the creation of Bill Graber a 58 year old white, heterosexual male from Dayton Ohio, who under the fake identity of Paula Brooks, edited the site that claims to be, "A Gay Girl's View of the World." It's funny, I just assumed that the patronizing nature of that slogan represented a generational divide, not an impostor situation. You know how those young dykes don't seem to mind the use of words like: girl, lady and Mam, the way us old-school feminists do. God, Rachel Maddow uses them regularly!

A couple of other guys have been unmasked as well but the big question that remains, particularly for us actual lesbian bloggers is why?

We all know that the guys are kind of titillated by the whole lesbian thing but that doesn't explain it. And due to male, white, heterosexual privilege, most of them believe that they can do anything better than those of us who suffer under the weight of some kind of oppression. Oddly enough, that encompasses the belief that they can be better women than biological females. See the abominable movie "Tootsie," again if you don't believe that's true.

But posing as an online lesbian? I can only deduce that these boys have come to think that perhaps women do have something they covet, especially if they don't have to deal with the discrimination part of the equation. And lesbians occupy a market niche that still has more room than other niches, due, in part, to REAL oppression. Yes, we dykes, especially of my generation, are not as skilled at promoting ourselves and doing concrete, constructive things in the real world because we were raised to be women and to despise ourselves on many levels. It is a lot to overcome, so in the gap period when some of us struggle toward competence and self-acceptance, opportunist males see another opening in which to thrust their aspirations.

One other thing that, I bet, plays a role, is that lesbians don't have relationships with men. So, while they're posing as that queer gal, other women might begin corresponding with them. McMaster did have a romantic email relationship with a woman sympathetic to his character's plight. And being lesbian women eliminates the whole specter of male sexual activities of which they want no part.