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Food for thought.
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But some of us, not necessarily all of us, recognize the backward motion that is taking place in the community which HAS RESULTED IN A LOSS OF OUR LESBIAN PRIDE and HERITAGE. But, I get it. This parsing of terms is a drag. Is it ever ! ! ! ! However, one must go where the problem lies; at least part of the problem. Reassigning meaning to words lesbians identify with effects and changes how we imagine ourselves. Language matters. There are those within the community who know this and have been studiously chip, chip, chipping away at language while the rest of us have been building a tent. When 1 + 1 stops equaling 2, and 1 + 2 starts equaling 4, we're not communicating. And when someone says: Hey, we're not communicating, and another person says: Hush up, you're wrecking the tent, kumbaya. That's anti-communication - i.e. a subtle form of censorship. I don't know how to reclaim pride, build a tent and listen to the death knells of my identifiers all at once. I can cede space; I will not cede my identity. But, I get it. The mechanics of communication are boring, even anxiety provoking. It's so much easier to say: "Let's get along, shall we?", as we sidestep certain things. Let's not, then, do a Chicken Little when we finally notice that the meaning of lesbianism/Womanism/Feminism is fadding into obscurity. Otherwise, what's the need for Reclaiming Lesbian Pride? Kobi, you and I are on the same page about most things. Where we may diverge is about how to reclaim lesbian pride while walking around a linguistic elephant in the room, in a thread about reclaiming pride. There is clutter underfoot - fractured words, recalcitrant nouns, spurious adjectives.... I don't know how to have this conversation, balanced on one toe, while meaning is drained from the very words we use to define ourselves, even as we speak. Quote:
But, I do have a question.... Who's "voice" are we speaking in? Ours, or those who do not ID as lesbian women? If your post was directed at those who would recalculate our language for us, kumbaya. I got your back. |
<perk>
did someone call for a linguist? (yeh, yeh, I know, it's not the kind of input you want.) |
Eh, I got up my nerve to provide this linguistic perspective on things. I realize that pronouns are not the immediate issue, but it may point a path toward a different way of looking at identifiers. Namely, pinpointing exactly what it is we want to identify.
Imposing change on language is not usually a very successful endeavor--and yet has potential for creating societal conflicts out of proportion to the desired effects. George Orwell created an example that showed us some of the myriad problems that can result. There is, however, a natural language shift in English right now to neutralize gender in singular 3rd person pronouns. This is the use, in the vernacular, of they, them, to signify the singular as well as the plural. These forms are making their way into casual writing already. This is a trend that is not likely to desist. I propose that the use of they/them accomplishes more political equalization than adding invented sets of pronouns to the paradigm. Example: use hy/hys/hym and we presume we know both your sex and your gender. Whereas, they is neutral. Just as the first and second person pronouns do not distinguish, neither would the third person then. This kind of balancing shift in a paradigm makes it likely to "take hold." It is just a matter of time. Actually, if I should move this somewhere where it's more applicable, please let me know where that is. |
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Chazz, We think so much alike. It feels good to be on the same page as someone else. The voice I am speaking with is the woman, lesbian, feminist voice. It is who I am and what I represent in this world. Reclaiming lesbian pride, to me, is about being willing to stand up and be counted as a woman, as a woman who loves other women, as a woman who partners with other women, and as a woman for whom feminism and lesbianism, the unabridged version, is their guide. Reclaiming lesbian pride, to me, is about not being willing to compromise the language of your heritage or its unique meaning. It is about claiming it, owning it, speaking up for it, defending it, and taking back the power and control surrounding it. I would love this thread to be about those things. It would disappoint me if it turned into a debate about linguistics per se. This, to me, is not about linguistics. It is about what is behind the language and that, to me, is the crux of the matter. Is kumbaya yes? |
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Very simply: Lesbian pride for me is to stand up everywhere I need to and say, "Yes, I am a woman-identified, woman-loving, feminist lesbian. No equivocating, no minimizing, no qualifying". I have gone to hell and back to get to this place in my life. I am proud to have survived this journey. Many times I did not feel I would survive it. My family cast me out and for 15 years none of them would speak to me because I stood up and proudly stated: "I am a lesbian. I will always fall in love with, make love with, live my intimate life with other lesbian women". (Maybe one qualifier: I will always fall in love & make love with butch lesbian women). |
Curious
I have a question.... Where do lesbians who date all over the gender map go? What if one is a lesbian that's open to dating anyone in the queer spectrum? What happens to lesbians who've been with men? Sometimes Kobi I would of loved to claim lesbian but was told no, you're kinky, have kids with a man, to much make up, yada yada. So I claimed dyke, where can other lesbians that don't fit your view of lesbian go? Where do they go to claim their pride? :) (f)
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i am too tired to make sense. But i will try.
Whenever someone talks about defending an identity, they are in deep water. Basically, it's a battle already lost (to mix my metaphors). Think of people in France who are fighting for a French identity that does not include women wearing the niqab. Or again the French trying to protect the purity of their language and culture. Did that work? No. It never works. Problems with that mode of discourse: 1) You are framing it as a conflict rather than a change or evolution. You are creating two sides when there may be many or none. 2) It tends to have an agenda that is in part reactionary. France's is an anti-immigrant racism lurking behind that pride in French culture. Here? Who knows? Probably some transphobia. 3) It never works. i am proud to be a lesbian, but my version of lesbian, which is pretty mainstream for my age-group (yes, i listened to Meg Christian), wasn't everybody's then, and it's not many people's now. You can't have an official version of an identity. And an effect of defending and reclaiming IS expressing some typical or baseline set of traits that one is defending. YAY for Berkies may mean Manolos are not the footwear of the lesbian elite. I's dangerous. i have seen that with "femme." It's going on with "butch" all over. We can't look at it as reclaiming and defending without becoming reactionary. It's inevitable. My suggestion is that we show up as we are and love ourselves. If it's a political setting with a specific goal, then politicize the debate. But be careful about how we define ourselves. There are lesbians here who aren't "women loving women." They are living with and loving men. They are lesbians. I myself feel liberated by that. It means there is more room for me to breathe. It means i have new sisters and brothers. |
I celebrate my Lesbian Pride and my Lesbian Heritage.
There is, nor was there ever anything for me to reclaim. I never gave it UP! Even when The Lesbians called me a traitor for marrying my best friend who happened to be a gay man and attempted to throw me out of the "Club." It is quite simple for me... As a Lesbian who LOVES Masculine Butches and only dates Masculine Butches -- I am a Lesbian. If I were to get in an accident tomorrow and unable to move my body or feel sensation - Never again to be touched or touch another. Or if I were to choose to never date again. I would still be a Lesbian! Who you fuck - Who you play with - Who you date - Who you associate with... Has nothing to do with personal identity. I am Julie I am a Lesbian I am a Femme I am a Woman I am a Mother I am a Daughter I am a Partner I am a Friend None of the above descriptors can ever be taken away -- And again... For me. Nothing to reclaim. I came out in 1979 as a Lesbian and I will die a Lesbian! In all honesty, I am sick and tired of people placing constraints on ones identity. You can't be a lesbian - your hair is too long. You can't be a lesbian, you have long nails. You can't be a lesbian, you dress like a man. You can't be a lesbian, you are out of a 50's housewife movie. Who says? Julie |
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I am also of the Meg generation and have no problem admitting that. I guess we all can have a different definition of the same word but I would not have been disowned by my family if I had brought home a man. My parents screamed lesbian at me as though it were a filthy, ugly word and they seemed to know what a lesbian was. Re: children. I married at 18 and 2 babies by the time I was 21. I could not admit to myself I was gay until my mid-20's. Many women come out in later life and live with women the rest of their days. The whole trans issue confuses me. The new gender spectrum confuses me. It was not a part of my world until the planet. I may not understand it but I would defend to the end anyone's right to live their life their way. Not understanding is not the same as transphobia! The only phobia I have in my life is claustrophobia. My definition of lesbian is as I see it for myself as I posted it and I believe that I have the the right to call it as I see it for myself in a specifically lesbian thread, or don't I? Did that change too? I have stated before and will again: I always do my best to make "I" statements when I post. |
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I know you do not understand the trans issue... I remember once upon a time, not understanding it either. Though, I was much younger than I am now. I am glad you are here now at the Planet and are learning about our very diverse queer community here. I have never dated a male identified butch. I have always dated Female Identified Butches. I cannot possibly honestly say, that I would not (if my circumstances were different). And if I did, I would be devastated to learn, that my community shunned me. It would not change the fact, that I am a Lesbian loving a M/I butch. Julie |
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Your analysis here bears directly on the issues raised by the shifting pronoun paradigm, too. |
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I don't get this either. We seem to be rendering the word lesbian meaningless. |
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I am so sorry you find our history to be so meaningless. |
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No, sorry, I meant that I "truly do not understand the definition of a lesbian if one is in a love, sexual relationship with a man." (from the part of Anya's post that I quoted) If a woman is in a loving and sexual relationship with a man, then in what sense is she a lesbian? |
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The women that I have known who have dated men who defined as lesbians, dated women exclusively at one point (which was also the point when they first took on the identity of lesbian). It became their identity on many levels and they still identify with those many other levels even if they are currently dating a man. In this community is it not completely unusual. Hope this helps, tapu. |
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One cannot argue with the soul of another human being. Being a Lesbian is not sexual. That's what the right wing says. I hope people in our community are not saying or implying the same thing. If you were never able to be touched or touch another female bodied person again, in an intimate manner - Would you stop being a lesbian? If you were never to love another woman again - Would you stop being a lesbian? |
But isn't that the meaning of bisexual?
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The possibilities are endless. I claim lesbian and dyke in addition to being a butch woman. I have dated femmes that were lesbians. However I have also dated femmes who did not claim lesbian (they claimed bisexual, queer or gay). Also some of the femmes I have dated have also dated men, FTMs, male identified butches, etc- some were lesbians, some weren't. The women I have dated have or had their own identities before dating me and continue to do so. The fact that they are dating a butch lesbian doesn't change their identity.
So you can also have a woman to woman relationship where one or both women are not lesbians. |
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