Reclaiming Lesbian Pride

[ScandalAndy]

I'm one of the ones watching the store. I promise.

The community as a whole is so fractured in the younger generations because identities as a whole have become passe. Nobody wants to use identifiers, they believe in fluidity and rage against a system of names and notations and labels.

I ran a campus LGBT organization for two years and it was the hardest thing I'd ever done in my life. Everyone is so locked in to what THEY support and what they believe that they don't take the time to look and see how we are all still fighting for basic rights and need to support each other. Instead it devolves into a "why should i fight for your cause when MY cause is more important to ME".

I admit, I am one of those who minored in women's studies and can parrot herstory with the best of them, but I'm also trying very hard to learn everything I can from the pioneers. Two of my professors have been fighting most of their lives for tenured positions, and refusing to closet their lesbian identities often at the expense of their job security. One is butch, the other femme, although I doubt she's appreciate being described as such. Those two women taught me more about pride, activism, and the necessity of action than any book ever could.

Originally Posted by Kobi

My wish to rekindle lesbian pride sans the qualifiers is multifold. Part is feeling invisible as a woman and a lesbian. Part is feeling like a guest in my community as a butch. Part is feeling woman and lesbian have somehow become passe and are being phased out in the scheme of things.

My real life world is a world of lesbian women. I dont even know if there is a trans community/group here. I remember as a young woman how invigorated and validated I felt when I found the lesbian and feminist communities. I remember how proud I was to be part of the new trailblazers that would usher in a new era of creativity, development, and activism for women and lesbians. I remember soaking up every bit of information I could get my hands on, attending all the lectures, the events etc. I hadnt felt anything like it before or since.

Lately, I have been looking on the net for "lesbian" web sites or even sites that may be of interest to "lesbians". I wasnt looking for the old stuff. I was looking for the new stuff for the generations that came after us.

It has been a disappointing search thus far. I am finding many women run, lesbian in the title web sites. I was surprised to see a membership of females and males - I expect it in butch-femme but not general sites. I see many stories on beefing up (no pun intended) definitions across a wide spectrum, I see some definate blurring and almost interchangability in gender and orientation, much on relationships, fashion or lack there of, a fair amount on trans, a lot of masculine of center, a lot on variations of femme stuff ( the right words for this escapes me), a bunch on how to get laid (bookmarked those in case anyone is interested).

I didnt see anything on lesbian identity sans qualifiers, little on feminism, little on herstory.

There might be more of what I am looking for on FB but the few times I ventured there it seemed hard to navigate and pretty darn boring.

Even when chatting in real life with youngins today, they can parrot much on womens studies but it seems to be an academic exercise rather than a part of their history or their identities. They take so much for granted that we old farts had to fight for.

They have so much freedom to explore and so many more options/choices than were available back in my day. Yet they seem so unconnected to it.

At 55, I am too tired to be an activist anymore. I cant stay up late enough for the meetings.

So who's watching the store?