I believe internalized misogyny is certainly an effective method of control and keeps us separate. But I don’t think it is the most effective control mechanism. I think misogyny of any stripe cuts across generations, race, class etc. And it is no more recognizable than the internalized version. Even the blatant, violent, horrific encouraged by society and sanctioned by a government misogyny on display all over the world is not recognized for what for what it is – organized and supported hatred of women. Instead we tend to say, with a measure of sadness and even a little disgust in our voices, that women are still oppressed in some countries. Hell, well, ya, I guess. But divide and conquer is quite a successful ploy and is used to keep all oppressed people separate from each other. We are taught to separate by race, class, sex, gender, sexual preference, religious beliefs, government ideology etc… We are also taught not to show each other mercy but instead to hold each other suspect.


I agree that we do not live in a perfect world. And I certainly can attest that words and actions very often do not match. But I think individuals should be held accountable for their actions, not groups of people that these individuals identify with. I certainly wouldn’t want any incongruency on my part attributed to butches who identify as women and are lesbian feminists. But perhaps you mean there is an actual organized attempt at infiltration by groups of people with a particular ideological agenda. I have trouble believing I can be threatened sufficiently to call in the troops by an ideology. I know I’m probably alone in this, but I’ve always been suspicious of simply an ideology as a weapon of mass destruction. In my experience it has often been the desire to destroy an ideology that has caused the mass destruction.

I also see the lack of grounding in woman/female/feminism. It makes me sad and angry. I don’t know how to combat it. I just don’t see any change coming. All I can do is to continue to speak out. To explain how I see misogyny and the patriarchy as the real root of all evil whenever the opportunity presents itself and sometimes even when the opportunity doesn’t present itself but instead hides in some deep dark hole.

But I don't really get how people identifying as trans/gender-queer or whatever translates as a loss for the identity of women. I don't think it's an either/or kind of thing. I doubt anyone is thinking, Oh I was going to identify as a butch woman but now I'm going in this direction. I think it just fits for them. And I don't think anyone is going to be choosing one identity over another for any other reason than that is how they feel, that is who they believe they are. And it's not like we win something if we have more people on our side. I do however think we win if we have more people with an understanding of sexism, misogyny, male privilege and the patriarchy.

One thing I believe very strongly is that no one can take my identity away. Or make me identify differently from how I feel. And I don’t believe I have the power to do that to anyone else. Even if I wanted to. Which I surely don’t. So I don’t see any reason to worry about losing anything or having my identity erased or its border destroyed. How could that happen? Would I be assimilated into another identity? Without my believing I am that how could it happen? I guess I get confused by ideas of vigorous border patrolling. How can one identity be in danger from another? I mean you can’t take anyone’s identity away can you? I get that you can dismiss people, set up hierarchies, undervalue female identities, but how is that different from what has always been true? No one can make me believe that I am less than. But it is frustrating to know so many turn a blind eye and really and truly have no idea whatsoever the depth and breadth of pain and hurt that misogyny causes us all. But I don’t really understand how that translates to danger to my identity. I don’t see any threat to how I identify in any real, this is war the enemy is at the gate, kind of way.

I don't feel alone. I'm blessed to have a strong Feminist and lesbian IDed women's community online and off. Truly blessed.

As to the "Reclaiming of Lesbian Pride".... I've come to realizations about that based on this thread and discussions with friends about it.

The Lesbian Pride I remember was a collective, mutually empowering celebration of female commonality and lived experience as lesbian women. One's social strata, race, background didn't matter. We held certain basic tenets in common: We were woman-centric, and personally/politically mobilized to fight against women's oppression and homophobia.

This mobilization and activism did NOT come at small cost. Patriarchy was not as accepting of uppity women or uncloseted lesbians in those days. Many of us were struggling to feed our children, ourselves, find and keep jobs, keep life and limb together, deal with homophobic families and friends - AND - exorcise our internalized sex-based gender mandates, patriarchal values and internalized homophobia. Things that don't seem to matter much anymore.

Yes, we looked forward to celebrating Lesbian Pride - formerly and informally. Those celebrations were the rare occasions when we could come together in our lesbian womanhood unsupervised, or penalized. It was powerful and empowering - heady stuff, indeed.

The days of Lesbian Pride based in shared, lived experience and commonality of purpose are, I suspect, over for good.... People can't even agree on what "female" or "lesbian" means, anymore.

How then, do woman IDed lesbians celebrate pride in our shared identity or lesbian HERitage? ....I suppose "we" could do a performance-based exercise in Lesbian Pride. Or, we could attend the Butch Voices conference and hope for a workshop or two that speaks to "our" lives.... Or, "we" could turn on the LOGO channel and hope for a show on woman IDed lesbians. They are few and far between these days, almost non-existent. It's pretty much trans everything, all the time, even there.... All of that is a poor substitute for the Lesbian Pride I remember.

Yep, we're pretty much marginalized these days - yesterday's news. Dinosaurs even. But dang, I'm not old yet and I remember the power and the passion, and the pride. I even remember how easy it was to meet a perspective partner who shared my Feminist sensibilities. Now, we're all sequestered in solitude, or endogenous communities, perusing online dating sites.

Yep, things sure have changed.... I understand that there are now infinite possible combinations of genitalia, clothing, mannerisms, sexuality, labels and roles within the neoLGBTQ "community". I understand that. Don't care much about it either way, really....

What I do care about is that I now have to put quotation marks around my identity - lesbian.... I care about the marginalizing/invisiblizing/censoring of lesbian women and Feminists.... I care about the appropriation and the presumption to naming others (including butch me) that is tolerated, even justified by many.... I care about the "good-girlism going on the LGBTQ community. The care-taking by "lesbians" of everybody but lesbians.... I care that all of this is being done in the name of "ally-ship".... This is not a politic I take pride in.

"We may recall some of the message of Mary Daly’s Gyn/Ecology (1984). A great deal of the machinery of men’s oppression and exploitation of women is mechanism by which women’s own energies and resources are turned against us [and one another], to suppress our spirits, cloud our judgment and consume us. And one of the most effective devices for this is the construction and manipulation of good and evil. It is a complex strategy. One part is the identification of certain things as good and others as evil-the naming of vices and virtues, and of sins. These are falsely and deceptively named. Almost anything that would strengthen or empower us or inspire us with the spirit of rebellion will be named “evil” or “sinful.” - Marilyn Frye

For me, Lesbian Pride is in large part about rebellion. It's not about exchanging one dogma for another, or embracing unfathomable theories authored by academics chasing tenure who are, admittedly or not, male-values-centric. Especially, not when said theory in NO tangible way addresses women's oppression. There are so few of us addressing women's oppression these days to begin with.

Off to start a rebellion....

Miss Tick - I basically agree that misogyny is a scourge that is under-estimated and under-examined, and I agree that it is the root of homophobia, however I am not prepared to say that it is the root of racism or classim, nor am I prepared to create any kind of ranking about which of those are worse or greater or lesser. Suffice to say they are all linked.

I also agree that identity is personal, but I see a definite relationship between misogyny and the undervaluing of woman in terms of social, systemic, and academic trends related to identity. Plus I have a personal reaction to what I have seen in my own communities about people's decisions to jettison their identities as women, and I shared that.

No one makes choices about their identity as a woman/not-a-women free of the impact of misogyny because we are all swimming in it everyday. It's inescapable, as you yourself point out, so I don't really understand how you can say that they have zero relationship.

But whatever. I'm sick of this thread now, frankly.

I experienced something here that was pretty eye-opening: Treated as suspect, termed a flip-flopper, a political liability even, because I don't conform to someone's very rigid and policed notions of lesbian identity. In my years as an active member of political lesbian communities, that hasn't happened before. And then guess what? A transman stood up for me and a non-lesbian identified femme repped me. Huh.

I'm not granting it more power than it deserves, (though I'll admit my feelings were hurt), but it certainly gives me pause in terms of what some queers/lesbians/femmes/etc are talking about when they rant about the closed ranks of old-school lesbian-feminists.

I'll reiterate something I said in a prior post -- that I get it, that it's actually patriarchy that creates this suspicion and policing. But while I get it, I don't like it, and I will also say that it's a decidedly un-feminist way of engaging, as it divides women from each other in ways that reduce our collective power. If women don't organize across race, class, sexual orientation, gender identity, ability, etc - we have no hope of fighting patriarchy.

Heart

Chazz - you ain't startin' it -- cause there's women globally, lesbian and otherwise, who are doin' it -- adressing women's oppression that is.

All of this feels like it's gotten a bit grandiose at this point. If you're isolated, maybe that's on you.

I'm out.

Heart

I’m struggling to figure what is actually being said here. Is it that if there weren’t so such acceptance of trans people there would be more lesbians? Or is it that there are less women loving women to give their attention to other women and issues of misogyny and patriarchy? Is it the plethora of male identified people that is the issue or those who love them?

I guess I don’t understand. Is there something that leads one to believe that there could be less trans people and less women to love them if we would just expend our energy only on other women like 2nd wave feminists believed? Suppose trans people and those who love them don’t want to do that? It certainly doesn’t seem all that fair to me. Isn’t the issue more about getting others to recognize misogyny, sexism and the oppression of women and to fight against it. To get men and male identified people to recognize how male privilege works in their life. I get that like the politics of 2nd wave feminists trans politics are rather myopic. It’s kind of new for everyone. Hopefully things will become more balanced. Third wave feminism is much different from 2nd wave.

I did not mean to rank oppression. I was trying to say it is the meeting point of all oppression, it is where oppression intersects, not that it surpasses every other oppression in severity or is the root of all oppression. My statement was
"I see the oppression of women as the one oppression that intersects all others. No matter your race or class or sexual preference, it is the one constant all females share. I see the patriarchy as the primary form of oppression and I see misogyny as its most effective tool. Misogyny is the place where worlds collide; it is the meeting point of oppression and privilege and transcends all the “isms”. Because of this I see a need for everyone concerned with oppression of any form to understand how insidious sexism is and how it runs mostly unchallenged and unnoticed through our lives."

When i said misogyny was the patriarchy's most effective tool I meant it intersected with more oppressions than for example classism or racism does. That is what makes it so effective. Not that it is inherently worse.
And when I said it "transcends all the isms" I was using the definition of transcends that means to pass beyond the limits of. Meaning it is not limited by race or class. Not that it is the worse form of oppression.

You're absolutely right. I don't how I could have missed that. It's not possible to make a decision about identity in a vacuum. Absolutely. I don't know what I was thinking.

I think I got here late to the party and feelings are running awfully high. I don't have that much emotion invested yet and I guess I should just back out quietly.

I'm trying to read this thread 'as if' what was being said isn't the above because I'm trying to walk my talk about giving one another the benefit of the doubt and not assuming, as a starting point, the *worst* possible motives on the part of others. I fear, though, that what is being expounded IS, in fact, that trans people are 'the Problem' and that if it weren't for 'them' then the larger 'we' of the lesbian community would be a more vibrant place.

cheers
Aj

And this just plain sux! When are we going to stop this BS? Until or unless we can look to our common (and there are plenty) struggles as an entire group and educate ourselves more fully about all of our identities and issues we deal with across the queer spectrum, we are never going to have a thing to feel prideful about.

ALH:

I've become convinced that until we get over identity politics, this kind of discussion will continue to dog us. However good the intentions might have been, identity politics has been a bog we have gotten sucked into. Now we're lost in it and all we can manage to do is come up with ever ramifying identity labels as if the fact that we did not know we were X was the actual problem facing us. I've grown weary of it.

I don't see how educating ourselves about our identities will actually help us because that won't get us past two *really* dysfunctional things we do: the first is that we assume the worst. It's not that white women in the community might not have thought about black women or what-have-you. No, in OUR community it is that white lesbians are irredeemably racist and, given half a chance, would love to see black women destroyed. That's the *first* interpretation. And we tell ourselves that we are doing this in the name of liberation. Poppycock! We're doing it because it is easier to take the worst interpretation than it is to step back and reflect on other possible causes. The other thing we do is that every time a new identity pops into existence, we have to go through vocabulary angst. First we define the new identity. Then we decide that since this identity name points out the difference between that group and all the other human beings who are *NOT* part of that group we have to come up with a term that describes everyone else.

The most obvious example is cisgendered. It is an entirely pointless word. It really is. It was created as a way of 'evening the playing field' with transgendered people. This was nominally necessary because talking about transwomen or transmen was somehow not empowering because it assumed that men and women who were *not* transgendered were the default. So now we have this term cisgendered so that transpeople can be empowered to live our lives. Except it does no such thing. The thing is these linguistic Rube Goldberg devices are moving targets anyway. So, transwoman or transman is supposed to be a sign that someone doesn't think of transgendered people as 'real' men or 'real' women so we come up with a neologism because THAT will change things. Except that once everyone adopts whatever term then THAT becomes the descriptor that is responsible for our oppression so we have to come up with another term and so on.

It's like the deckchair feng shui that the black community goes through about once a generation. My grandmother was colored. My parents were negroes. I was black. My son was African American. My granddaughter is a person of color (i.e. colored). Yay! We've come full circle. Does anyone here believe that the *reason* Barack Obama was elected President was because he was African American and not a negro? Anyone?

This subject has me really exercised so I'm going to sign off but I want to leave you with this thought:

"Equality in spite of evident nonidentity is a somewhat sophisticated concept and requires a moral stature of which many individuals seem to be incapable. They rather deny human variability and equate equality with identity. Or they claim that the human species is exceptional in the organic world in that only morphological characters are controlled by genes and all other traits of the mind or character are due to “conditioning” or other nongenetic factors. Such authors conveniently ignore the results of twin studies and of the genetic analysis of nonmorphological traits in animals. An ideology based on such obviously wrong premises can only lead to disaster. Its championship of human equality is based on a claim of identity. As soon as it is proved that the latter does not exist, the support of equality is likewise lost." (Steven Pinker quoting W.D. Hamilton in The Blank Slate)

The evil I see is not that as a black lesbian I have rights that derive BECAUSE I'm a black lesbian and I am denied those rights. Rather, I see it that as a member of Homo sapiens I have certain rights which I am denied BECAUSE I'm a black lesbian. My rights should not hinge upon this or that identity. I have no rights that should be granted because of my identity and *all* my rights are such that I should not be denied ANY of them because of my identity. To the degree that I am treated accordingly, I experience that as justice.

Cheers
Aj

THANK YOU!!!!!

Hey Chazz.... I totally get what you are saying here... and really appreciate it!

One thing I just want to note ( and a small note at that), Mary Daly really didn't put a lot of emphasis on lesbianism, hers or others. That was rather immaterial to her. She cared about women... plain and simple. The connections she felt were the woman connections steeped in Background and Leaping Connections.

"lesbian schmesbian" as she would say....

I am weary, too and a shift from identity politics could serve us well if we will just see how it is getting us nowhere. What you state here hits so many nails on the head that I so wish we could move on to that could get us out of the non-productive wheel-spinning we do.

My education comment had more to do with how often I see that many don't even do cursory investigations of literature that is readily available to all of us and a means to better understand who we all are. And that said- how are the publishing possibilities going for you? You have to get your work out there!1

Kobi:

I was simply using cisgendered as an example of something we do in the community that, in fact, divert us from more useful ends. I was not trying to derail the thread into trans territory again. No purpose is served by that. I would've liked to have seen this thread be a thread about how we, as lesbians, can keep lesbian culture alive. Lesbian culture made me the woman I am today and I think that if we let it die, then we will have a poorer world for it! That is what I was hoping this thread would be about.

I think that thread would be useful. I think that topic can be discussed without even ONCE having to divert into all of this other stuff that is not, in fact, about preserving lesbian culture so that if my granddaughter should happen to grow up and be a woman-loving-woman her generation won't have to feel like they are reinventing the wheel. That, to me, is a conversation worth having. I am, for the purposes of that conversation, willing to show up and do my part presuming that 'woman' is large enough to include a woman like me which is how I initially entered into this conversation.

Cheers
Aj

Kobi,

I respect your wanting to have a place to discuss Lesbian pride and Lesbian culture. And when the topics have stuck to those things, I have stayed out of the thread. However, that has not been the only topic discussed here, and some things have been said that I consider VERY relevant to trans people and how they fit into the queer community. I will give you some specific examples to back up this claim:

Chazz said:

And:

And,

Slater said:

And Heart said:

And she said this:

And this:

Now do I feel threatened when lesbians talk about lesbian pride and lesbian culture? Not even a little. I think lesbians are great. (I even used to ID that way before I got a better understanding of myself. I didn't transition because I hated lesbians. I don't. I transitioned because of who I am, not who I don't want to be.) But the things I quoted above are not about lesbian pride or lesbian culture. They are talking about gender and ID politics. These are things written by, according to my understanding, people who identify as lesbians. And they are talking about things that directly relate to trans identities. As a transguy, I have something to say about them because they are, in part, about people like me. If you folks talk about things that directly relate to trans identities, do I not, as a transguy, have a right to respond?

And, I have seen some nasty comments made and I decided to speak up about it. I was not responding as a transguy when I spoke up, I was speaking as a member of the human race.

This is something I'd also like for you to consider, Kobi:

This conversation has not been solely about Lesbian pride or the politics of women. Many weavings have interlaced back to the (same) gender conversation we are having now and have had now for 10+years on these B/F sites.

I want to address what you said about "If I took my Lesbian identity to a Trans thread...". That is not what is happening here. Transmen and Male-identified Butches have not infiltrated this conversation to start preaching their identity politics. From my perspective, people have mostly respectfully read along and interjected when something pertains to them...and this conversation has circled Trans issues almost constantly.

The reason I bring this up is because (and I'll reiterate this), a "safe" zone for Lesbians on a site that has a large population of many different Queer identities does not mean that anyone who identifies as a Lesbian gets to have a private (but public) thread to tease apart Trans or any other identity while all of the Trans or any other identity are expected to sit back and watch with tape over their mouths. Especially given some of the dialog here that has attempted (whether intentionally or ignorantly) to paint Trans women as "not real".

And I would offer that you would probably be pretty uncomfortable if Trans men made a thread entitled "Reclaiming Trans Pride" that went almost 500 posts deep where Trans folks wanted to talk about how Lesbians had victimized them or acted badly once at MWMF or had made them feel unsafe or how their gender construct was invalid for whatever reason.

And don't get me wrong, I'm not at all saying that I don't want these conversations to happen. I think we need to talk about what it is that makes people so fearful of one another that we keep clinging to stereotypes or unilateral thinking that results in "Im a victim, You're the oppressor" or "In order for me to be safe/heard/visible/valid, someone else needs to be excluded from the conversation."
(and theses aren't meant as absolutes, I'm thinking as I type)

Perhaps I'm feeling raw from having visited another forum specifically and explicitly for Lesbians and seeing the entire front page of one of their forums with 50% of the threads devoted to Trans identities and various ways that they are wrong/unsafe/intrusive/etc. etc. etc.

Because in my world, pride in our shared history means we aren't "foxhole bonding" over who we perceive to be a common enemy. This isn't to say we shouldn't discuss oppression, because that is certainly part of our history, but our history is not our oppression. Our history is also the things we have accomplished, the ways we have empowered and uplifted one another, and the celebration of each other as women.

I am a butch female woman kind of lesbian, dyke, female homosexual. I have also had (GASP) good sex with biomen. Sex is sex and pair bonding is pair bonding. Both are fluid things in my almost 60 years on the planet. Granted in the last 30 years my sexual and pair bonding has been exclusively with femmes.

Like Heart I sometimes really do believe it was a choice to have sex and pair bond with women (as adult females) and femmes. Had I chosen to pair bond with men I would be a women's basketball coach at the college or professional level. I chose differently and I am happy with my choice. I have made a huge difference in the world in a different way than as a women's basketball coach.

Fuck the gold star toaster oven test.........please take your stuff and put it with Michelle Bachman and the rest of the fundamentalist monotheist patriarchal folks.

I am proud to be a big ole fucking dyke.............lesbian as this thread defines it. I have no use for anyone who tells me I can not be a lesbian who has pride just because I liked sex and almost married a bioman once upon a time.

Kobi.........this thread keeps going round and round because many of us here don't fit or agree with your definition of what lesbian and lesbian pride means. You can have your reality of lesbian and lesbian pride......guess what I get mine also and they are not the same at all in any way. I defended you once when you first came here. I hoped your learning curve would catch up.........in my mind it has not.

I want and need lesbian space, women space. My version is inclusive and yours is exclusive..........yours is a tiny world that has no room for growth and inclusion of the next generation(s). It is no wonder the younger folks and many of us in your generation don't want shit to do with your version of lesbian pride and feminism. I like blue and yellow and find room for both in my identity as a lesbian.

And just for the record...........your dismissing Heart is no different than any other masculine being dismissing a feminine being.......it's the patriarchy at work.