Out

October 11, 2013 National Coming Out Day

So I pretty much figured out I am a Lesbian sometime during 1992, with the support of some musical theatre fag friends (and i say fag as a term of endearment, hope it doesn't offend you). I was 25. This was after many promiscuous years with men, a few boyfriends, and one long term on-again off-again abusive relationship with a guy which eventually ended when he left me for my 'best friend'. Musical theatre saved my soul after that, and the connections I made within theatre community, and the experiences I had as a result of those connections led me to my personal awakening, and a break through of the spiritual and intellectual limitations that my sheltered, dysfunctional and fundamental Christian upbringing had ingrained in me.

I had one more short but good relationship with a very sweet, wonderful man after I came out, so for a while I figured I was bisexual. That is, until I had a real relationship with a woman, and then there was no going back. Literally and figuratively. It was during that relationship, and my Saturn return, that I relocated from the East Coast to the West Coast.

21 years now, and still I get 'i love you but don't approve of your lifestyle' and 'would you ever consider a man?' from relatives. Being gay is still one of my many 'wrong choices' I've made, apparently, according to my mother. I have no idea what it would feel like to have parents supportive of who I love. My father passed well before I came out.

As a Femme Dyke, I come out all the time, almost every day. I guess I don't 'look like a dyke'. And therefore I am invisible as a Lesbian. (This is of course due to patriarchal gendered stereotypes.) On the arm of a Butch, I become visible for who I am, and I feel more 'in place' in the world in a certain way. It is one of the things I love about the butch/femme dynamic: who and how I love becomes visible, and assumed heterosexuality falls off me like the ill-fitting cloak that it is. Some radical feminists critique butch/femme as gender. I do not. For me it is a way of being, my sexuality, a dance in which I participate, not for the purpose of 'performing male/female gender roles' but because it is very precisely female, a dynamic that occurs between two women, that has nothing to do with men. A woman I know recently said that she felt that Butch women were how women would more likely be naturally, if we didn't live under patriarchy. I tend to agree. Not everyone does the butch/femme thang. But I love it. It works for me. It's my sexuality, my sexual orientation within my sexual orientation of Lesbian.

And I am a purist when it comes to Lesbian: Lesbian means I am a woman who is romantically and sexually interested in other women. And when I say woman, I mean female.  Lesbian = female homosexual. That definition has not changed, even though there are males living as women and having relationships with females and calling themselves Lesbians. This offends me deeply. And despite pressure within the 'queer' community, I am not interested in having sexual relations with males, even if they are 'living their lives as' women. And, I know lots of cute and sweet trans guys, but I not interested in anything beyond platonic with trans guys, because they are no longer living their lives as women. And for holding to these positions I get called transphobic, and hateful communications from strangers, and a death threat from the 'transpak'. Well, I think calling a male person a Lesbian is lesbophobic.  And I think calling a male body and male body parts female is delusional and offensive.

And so I have rejected 'queer' as a moniker. It invisibilizes me as a Lesbian. I also reject 'cis' as a moniker. It indicates a false binary, and I consider it hate speech, as it not only invisibilizes me as a Lesbian, but nullifies the very real oppression I experience because I am female. Please don't call me 'queer' or 'cis'. "Gay, Inc." did not consider the needs of Lesbians, and so in protest we started having Dyke Marches. And now "Gay, Inc." has become "QueerTrans, Inc." and still does not consider Lesbians, And, to quote a sister friend: the Dyke March was neither. I reject ALLA that.  And I reject gender altogether, as I believe it is a hierarchy that subjugates and oppresses females. and I feel that the current political agenda of "QueerTrans, Inc." re-ifies gender by encouraging performing stereotypical gender presentation, and that is damaging to women.

So yes, I tend towards a radical feminist politic, and lesbian separatism as a way of life. So be it.

But I hate no one: i do not hate men, nor do I hate transgender or transsexual people. It's the problematic, captialistic, patriarchal structure that I hate. So to quote Lisa Simpson "The whole damn system is messed up!"

~Radical Femme-inist Dyke~