#political lesbianism

[lesbian-defender]

The second wave didn't grow less powerful because men "finally noticed." Men saw it the whole time - women were arguing against porn and prostitution with leaders in the sex industry on television. Part of why the second wave faded was its inability to account for the diversity of female experience based on other manifestations of oppression. The idea there is One Woman and that women cannot hold power over fellow women (or men on other matters of oppression) meant women of color, poor women, lesbians and disabled women were sick of being gaslighted about how women contribute to other avenues of their disempowerment. Black Power and Gay Rights were major topics at the time, too. Many radical feminists had no sympathy towards the AIDs crisis and some, such as Sheila Jeffreys, started speaking about male homosexuality as something even sicker than male heterosexuality because it was male on male. At the same time, you had women (again, like Jeffreys) pretending to be lesbian because they didn't see it as female homosexuality but the pinnacle of feminism. These women still take issue with lesbians mentioning their foundational similarities with male homosexuals. Women like Jeffreys see lesbians not surrendering their identity for all women as a betrayal that favors men. These women can cry WOMAN = ADULT HUMAN FEMALE all day but chuck a tantrum when you say LESBIAN = HUMAN FEMALE HOMOSEXUAL. The second wave failed because it resisted reality in the end. Yes, patriarchy is real. Yes, misogyny is horrible and needs to be addressed more. But women of other marginalized classes got sick of other forms of disempowerment being minimized or completely denied because it wasn't convenient for middle-class white male-attracted women to mention the ways they hold power in the world, too. This is still an issue in radical feminist communities both online and offline. That is why it is so unattractive. Time to stop blaming TRAs for the lack of momentum.

I often see & hear women talking of "why the second wave failed". Why the radical feminism of the 70s "didn't work". What feminists "did wrong". I don't think the radical feminism of the 70s failed. Women didn't do anything wrong. What happened was that the backlash from men was too swift, too strong. The movement grew quickly. Finally, a mass movement of the oppressed fighting back against their oppressors. But when men realized what was happening and began to push back, women got scared. Like frightened troops on a battlefield, women scattered. The movement grew too fast and there was not enough groundwork, not enough planning to prepare for how to handle the huge numbers of mobilized women who were terrified of men's threatened or actual punishment for women's mass disobedience. But how could feminists have prepared for such a backlash? How can we blame them? There was no groundwork because a feminist movement of that scale hadn't happened before.

The radical feminists of the 70s were the groundwork. What they built then, we have now. We have it all, access to almost everything, from almost anywhere in the world, via the internet. In the 70s, feminists did not have the trove of feminist insight that we have now. They created it for us. We have their legacy. We have Mary Daly, Andrea Dworkin, Audre Lorde, The Combahee River Collective, Sheila Jeffreys, Catharine MacKinnon. We have a history now that literally did not exist in the 1970s. The second wave did not fail. It inspired a generation of women to learn about ourselves. We can do now what they could not; we can prepare. We know what a backlash looks like. We know what it looks like when men are frightened and how they threaten us. We know how women respond to these threats. We have foundational knowledge. We can try again. We have a whole library's worth of information, strategies, insight, analysis, history, theory, most of which did not exist 50 years ago. What a gift that is. All is not lost. We have the knowledge and the reach to organize. In time, if we stay strong, never waver, and remember the tools that the second wave gave to us, we have the power to create a movement even stronger and more explosive than the second wave.

[spaceysoupy]

So apparently it’s that time of year again where I have to post about this.

On lesbianism, white queerness, and 2S identity

Text below readmore

I am a two-spirit. My identity is specific to my Tribe and Clan, and even more specific to my family. I am not a man, I am not a woman, and I am not nonbinary; I am not defined by what I am not.

I am a two-spirit and I am a lesbian. That's not debatable.

But I am not a non-man.

There's an idea of two-spirits that we are just the ethnic version of non-binary

We're not. The reason you're so comfortable calling us nonbinary is because your idea of queerness is centered around the binary&what you are not: you're not cishet, you're not the oppressor, etc

White queers like to speak about 2S identities constantly as if we are monolith. "It's just a gender" "it's not a gender"

"they're not trans" "they're not queer" "they don't belong here"

The community tries to decide for the individual and that's so weird to me.

So much of white queerness is inherently about exclusion.

You need strict labels to exclude the people you fear. You write your definitions around your fear of intruders and by consequence you exclude the people that need your support the most.

You need people to "prove" they are queer before you let them in. You're like a fortress and you let vulnerable people drown in the moat; ignoring that the real oppressors don't need to be a Trojan horse to do damage, ignoring they are actively burning down the castle.

It's very sad to me, because it's ultimately tearing the community apart even further.

I've never felt very welcome in white lesbian circles and they've never understood my experience of gender, but it's gotten worse in the past 5 or so years.

As TERFs start to revive gold star lesbianism and center hatred of men as their definition of lesbianism, you start to get these younger lesbians that don't know history that start to parrot the rhetoric. First it's "non-men loving non-men" then it's "you're too close to Man™"

For many two-spirit lesbians like myself, this is very concerning. White lesbians are historically not the ones targeted by radfems.

Now we've gotten to the point that there are people denying that lesbian is an spec (multispec) identity while including (white) nonbinary people

White nonbinary people (usually AFAB nonbinary people) are seen as woman lite and are welcome in white lesbian spaces while queer Indigenous people are considered dangerous because white lesbians can't understand their gender.

When did understanding become a requirement?

We're getting very dangerously close to "lesbianism is ONLY attraction to women" and very close to "lesbianism is only attraction to *a very specific type of (white) woman*" and I really need young white lesbians to read about political lesbianism so they can see this

I don't want to hear "not all lesbians" or "well then they aren't welcome" because every time this rhetoric goes unchallenged you are actively welcoming these people to continue it and make it more and more extreme. Yes, even the kind that seems to have nothing to do with racism

Almost all of your exclusionary rhetoric is based on the racist ideas of political lesbianism and I do not know why you all cannot see that they want to move goalposts. It wasn't just bi lesbians, it wasn't just he/him lesbians, it wasn't just nonbinary lesbians. It's a tactic.

It really feels like young lesbians are not only letting us go backwards, but encouraging it. And that's thanks in part to the historical racism of political lesbianism, but many of these people ARE old enough to think critically and talk to people who've been through this.

So far I've seen this in younger lesbian spaces; the ones with older generations (the ones that don't welcome TERFs) have been pretty welcoming even if not totally understanding, because they at least recognize that you don't need to understand someone's experience to validate it.

But I'm really concerned for the young Indigenous lesbians who don't feel comfortable around older people and are going to these younger lesbian spaces only to be indoctrinated with thinly veiled TERF rhetoric. It makes me very concerned for our spaces as well.

So I'll say again

I am not a non-man and I am not a non-woman. I'm not defined by what I am not. I do not ascribe to your binary-centric definitions of queerness. I experience queer attraction to women. I'm a lesbian. You do not get to use community to decide my individuality.

Thread by ~Alitsanosga

Pronouns: hi'a/vsgina/utseli/uwasa

[certifiedgrrrlkisser]

my aunt was a member of the lesbian avengers in the late 90s and her chapter had it's own zine and i took some pictures of a few pages

my personal favorite is the letter template which i honestly might make copies of

i think it's very cool that this group (or at least this chapter) was openly trans-inclusive especially in the 90s when TERF rhetoric was extremely prevalent

[fictionfreedom]

Something something, if you want to attempt "political lesbianism" for the 4B movement you have to love all women AND understand that not all men are threats to you.

YOU HAVE TO LOVE ALL OTHER WOMEN.

You have to love black women

You have to love Asian women

You have to love Indian women

You have to love Native women

You have to love all women of color

You have to love bisexual women

You have to love women who have fucked men before

You have to love women who have fucked a hundred other people just for the fun of it

You have to love women who are sex workers

You have to love women who are strippers or pole dancers

You have to love transgender women

You have to love women with different ideologies from you

You have to love women of all different religions and beliefs

YOU HAVE TO LOVE WOMEN IF YOU WANT TO ATTEMPT POLITICAL LESBIANISM.

YOU HAVE TO KNOW THAT NON-WOMEN ARE NOT ALL A THREAT TO YOU EITHER.

Not all cis men are a threat to you

Not all non-women are a threat to you

Not all trans men are a threat to you

Not all MALE BUTCHES are a threat to you

Not all MALE LESBIANS are a threat to you

Not all nonbinary people are a threat to you

Not all Masculine presenting people are a threat to you

Not all Bigender people are a threat to you

NON-WOMEN AND NON-FEMININE PEOPLE ARE NOT ALL A THREAT TO YOU.

[sunflower-graves]

How long until the 4b movement turns into full fledged political lesbianism?🙄🙄

[dykeulous]

i hate the way that lesbian feminism is an extremely faulty school of thought based on actual homophobia, advocacy for “political lesbianism” (i love & treasure febfems, i just really really hate that it’s referred to as “political lesbianism”), and often biological essentialism (as in, bio-essentialism from its’ real definition, not “you’re bio-essentialist if you believe in homosexuality & female-specific oppression” lol). it’s basically a mix of cultural feminism (so, spiritualism, “gender soul”, divine feminine, bio-essentialism etc.), lesbophobia & radical female separatism. lesbianism is a naturally occurring sexuality– it is not “socially influenced”, “chosen”, “cultural”, or “political”. we can analyze the oppression of lesbians & how it’s rooted in male supremacy & heteronormativity without implying lesbians are somehow better people for loving women, or even the creepier aspect– that you’re a better feminist & morally superior for choosing to only date women if you’re also attracted to men (& then calling it lesbianism, as if it’s not just female-exclusive bisexuality). we also can point out that female homosexuality can be an important balance in defying oppressive structures– but this can be a slippery slope. while a lesbian absolutely is going against misogynistic rhetoric that connects women with heterosexuality & men, she did not “choose” this– she was born this way. it is her natural & completely neutral sexuality.

i really wish lesbian feminism could somehow be reformed. i do not want to be associated with adrienne rich, 60s female separatists & political lesbians, simply for daring to talk about decentering men & prioritizing female relations. i do not want to be looked at as a supporter of political lesbianism for talking about lesbian-specific oppression & how lesbians immensely contributed to feminism. i want to be able to talk about the struggles lesbians face under our patriarchal heterosexist regime without feeling like a weird 60s polilez. feminists who are lesbians, feminists who want to specifically center lesbian issues in their feminism & prioritize lesbians in their feminist activism, deserve to describe their movement as “lesbian feminism” without the weirdo connotations it carries. “i am a feminist who is a lesbian, not a lesbian feminist!”– well lets reform lesbian feminism, then. lets remove the weirdo connotations & fight against the polilez hardline female separatists lurking in our movement.

[bilesproblems]

Thinking abt political lesbianism. And how much I really dislike it.

I would rather share my orientation with those who love women and nonbinary folks as much as I do and celebrate that love, and use the lesbian label to highlight it, that happen to also love men just as much than I would with those who don't love women and enbies as much as they hate men. I feel more like my orientation is being bastardized and insulted when people decided it was a political stance against men because all men are inherently evil and insert some transphobic thing here than I ever do by somebody using the label I use while not having the exact same experience with attraction.

For as much as exclusionists wanna say mspec lesbians somehow indicate mspecs can choose a side... Political lesbians are the ones who chose to be "lesbians" regardless of if they actually loved women or not.

Also political lesbianism is transphobic because it relies on bioessentialism and you can't have that without transphobia.

[satyrradio]

transphobic political lesbians are so stupid like. wdym someone can't be MtF but you yourself can be StL

[dykeotomy]

i want to talk about a phenomenon in the trans community that reminds me of political lesbianism—a phenomenon that my gf refers to as “political transgenderism.”

during the second wave of feminism a lot of hetero/bisexual women stripped their sexualities and put on the label “lesbian” as a means to progress feminism. they believed that to be a feminist meant they had to exclude men from their attraction, despite the fact that sexuality is an innate, uncontrollable trait!

similarly, i see this sentiment crop up in trans communities. every single person who touts “you don’t need dysphoria to be trans” is a proponent of political transgenderism. they believe that in order to destroy the evil cisgenders, MORE people need to identify as trans or nonbinary! they believe that identifying as trans/NB is a valid political strategy.

my issue with both political lesbianism and political transgenderism is that there is no need to change your identity in order to fight whatever fight you believe in. i don’t need to claim to be Black in order to be anti racism or claim to be an amputee to be anti ableism. the only type of person who needs to center themselves and their identity in their political beliefs is a selfish and egotistical one.

political lesbians and political transgender people co-opt the struggles and vulnerabilities of marginalized groups. they use stereotypes and generalizations as an attempt to “pass” as “valid.” when really, the only thing that makes one a lesbian is exclusive female same-sex attraction, and the only thing that makes someone trans is dysphoria.

[good-night-my-sweet-prince]

hear me out

william shakespeare invented political lesbianism with "sigh no more" from much ado about nothing

yes i CAN elaborate

[knightingael]

The funniest thing about political "lesbians" on this site is that they're the ones who get soooo riled up about identity politics and how men can't just identify into being women. But then they're going to transition from straight or bisexual women into lesbians? lol

Go on about how you can't just identify into a marginalized group and then try to speak over the experiences of ACTUAL members of that group. And sure, go on about how lesbianism isn't an inherent trait and actually sexuality is sooo fluid. And now replace the word sexuality with sex and see how much you sound like the people you hate so much.

[djuvlipen]

the reason 'political lesbianism' is lesbophobic is because it posits lesbianism as a culture rather than a natural phenomenon. Political lesbian theorists define lesbianism as the choice to prioritize women over men, to espouse feminist theory and reject the nuclear family. That is the idea being expressed by Adrienne Rich in her text about "compulsory heterosexuality", rehashed by Mary Daly in Ob/Gyn, concentrated in the expression "woman-identified woman" used in many 2nd wave writings.

Political lesbianism turns female homosexuality into an aesthetic anyone can buy. If you define lesbianism as a culture, then anyone is free to identify in and out of it. It erases the actual meaning of female homosexuality and narrows the wide array of opinions female homosexuals can hold: some actual lesbians are not feminist, some actual lesbians are not revolutionary and are even right wing, some actual lesbians still have friendships with men and don't prioritize women; but at the end of the day, they are still lesbians for being homosexual females, they still face lesbophobia and their rights as lesbians still should be defended and recognized. Political lesbianism rewrites lesbian history to fit in all the women who have been seen as sexually deviant for whatever reason: because they were single, because they had female friends, because they were into kinks; a position defended by Judith M. Bennett (historian who wrote influential texts on women's history and gender studies) n her article 'Lesbian-Like'.

In practice, political lesbianism erases actual lesbians by making you think historical female figures were homosexuals when, in fact, they had happy relationships with men. It alienates lesbians from our history by making it look as though all the 'lesbians' that came before us loved men and were attracted to men.

Political lesbianism takes all the lesbophobic ideas held by straight and bi leftists and feminists: lesbianism as culture instead of nature, lesbianism as an aesthetic, as an identity to identify in/out, erasure of lesbian history and figures. It takes these ideas and legitimizes them by giving them the appearance of 'theory'. That's why political feminism has remained popular in both radical feminist spheres and transactivist spheres, two movements that are very alike in the way they treat lesbians as though we could ever be into men

[haggishlyhagging]

It is time we faced up to the fact that men hate us. We challenge them utterly through our sexuality; they will fight to keep us heterosexual and under their thumbs and control, if they feel that they have lost this they will turn on us with all their venom—and their power is mighty. As lesbians we have gained so little. Is it any wonder that with the might of their power against us we shake with fear and thus try to drown it out in other ways. To escape from it. Or—if we value it, try to recreate it in ourselves.

As lesbians our oppression is 'double' because we have no male protectors or individual policemen to hedge us against the wrath of male power and domination. Once it is known that we do not allow men to own our bodies sexually, they will make all attempts to kick us into submission. Because we present to them, in some part, the freedom that other women may obtain from them. We stand out because we show that it is possible to live autonomously, on a personal level. without men. They cannot bear this. They will retaliate to keep other women from doing so. If they have no power over women then they are powerless. We render them impotent, this realisation for men is their real fear of women.

I wanted to write about separatism, which is something that all lesbians participate in to different degrees (here I am referring to lesbian feminists). It is necessary in our struggle to take away from men as much time and space and energy as possible. Not only because we need an autonomous Women's Liberation Liberation Movement but because that time and space and energy is ours, and men would all too willingly steal it from us in any way possible. Separatism is vital to our existence. It is not always possible for us to be totally separatist but we need to strive towards total separatism because it is our strongest tactic against them. Some women feel that hating men is. I agree that women get much strength from hating men and getting in touch with the anger that this generates. I need to feel my hatred at least once every day. But taking time and energy away from them is even stronger. It means we have more control over ourselves and our own lives—to be able to decide which are the ways we want to work most effectively. They simply cannot stand this. It drives them literally crazy not to get a reaction from us. Our reactions to them give them credulity and power.

-Love Your Enemy? The Debate between Heterosexual Feminism and Political Lesbianism

[wildviolettribade]

Philogyny

The idea of women who want to lead women centered lives is such a powerful thought. Focusing your energy on them instead of your oppressors. It’s different from man hating, which is totally fair, but it is still giving your time and energy towards them. I feel a lot of the concepts proposed by political lesbians were great, but we’re tainted by the ideologies heavy homophobia and bigotry. I feel this term and idea could replace that.

[unapologeticallygay]

The Living Contraction by Pat Buchanan, The Lesbian Tide, Vol 2, Issue 10/11, June 1973

[hard--headed--woman]

I have to do a presentation on Monique "lesbianism is a political choice of rebellion against patriarchy" "let's abolish the sex binary" "lesbians are not real women" Wittig and her boring book for my literature class... ain't no way I'm staying objective on this one, they're gonna hear me go political