the lesbian republic

So gr-e-g wrote a post about straight guys that really struck a nerve.  I’ve written about this issue before, but it’s always present for me.  What to do about them, especially when they’re invading our space?  I got such a positive reaction to my suggestion that we all run off and start a lesbian republic I started to wonder what it would look like.  Some ground rules:

1.  Absolutely no sexist misogyny.  For real, whether practiced by women, men, or anyone somewhere in between.  Self-respect as well as respect of others is to be desired.

2.  Trans people are welcome.  This republic is not about hate.

3.  Straight cis-gendered men are not welcome, unless they have made a serious effort to be understanding of gender non-conformity, are willing to abide by rule #1, and acknowledge that they have absolutely no right to flirt with the queers, whether traditionally feminine or not.  Punishment for breaking this rule is having to spend six months living as a woman in the world at large.

4.  Travelling in exclusive packs will not be necessary, as we are all safe in our republic, and will have no need to circle the wagons; therefore, newcomers will be made welcome by all, and there will be many opportunities to get to know our compatriots.

5.  Straight cis-gendered women are not welcome, unless they promise (cross their hearts and hope to die) that they will not make bi-curious comments unless they mean them, and mean them to be acted upon immediately.  Got that, ladies?  If you want a lesbian experience, it’s coming right at you.  You duck, you lose, and you’re out of the republic (if you don’t duck, then you’re out of the closet — congratulations!).

6.  No one’s gender expression will be made fun of at any point; butches, femmes, androgynous folk, those undecided or in-between, etc, will be joyously embraced.  Flirting is definitely allowed, unless of course it is not desired by the person in question.  (Perhaps we can devise a system whereby one’s flirting preference can be signalled non-verbally so as to prevent embarrassment.)

7.  Zero tolerance of:  racism, fat-phobia, trans-phobia, homo-phobia…and any other distasteful phobias and isms.  And no self-hate.  Only healthy self-doubt (a little goes a long way).  And nobody’s family gets to come visit, unless they’re paragons of virtue and could have written this list themselves.

8.  All will be welcome to come and go as they please (unless they have been required to leave due to rule violations).  

But really, who would want to leave?

does she?

Do you understand how I feel?  How gentle I am with your heart, your body, your soul?  Do you understand that I would always hurt myself before hurting you, always take the fall for you, make myself look bad in order to make you look good?  Don’t you see that I would choose this love above all else?

For so long, you set me up in your head as just another critic, saying the same wretched things as the rest of the world.  Hiding yourself from me, certain I wouldn’t approve.

But I am not that kind of critic my love.  I know those voices come from somewhere, from the suspicious stares and the narrow-minded people who raised you, but mine is not among them.  

If you could hear my true voice in your head, it would make you smile and reach out to people.  It would make you feel warm, comforted, at peace.  It would tell you that I love you, and that everything you are is all right with me.

more school

It’s finally hitting me — hard — that I’m going back to school.  Unsurprisingly, this is the week I got my act together to organize the paperwork for my loans.  

I was raised in a very financially unstable household, where money was around and then not in unpredictable ways.  My sisters reacted to this by maxing out as many credit cards as they could get ahold of; they are still in debt.  I reacted the opposite way (as in so many other cases…) by swearing off debt of any kind.  M. and I bought our car with cash.  We paid off my smallish student loan from undergrad in less than half the time allowed.  I can’t stand to be in debt.

I’m borrowing tens of thousands to pay for this degree.  I am pretty sure it’s the right thing to do; I’m a dedicated, hard worker, and I plan to work like hell to pay it all back as soon as possible.  I have the prospect of making decent money when I graduate.  Everyone who gets this kind of degree pays this kind of money for it, and I have a scholarship that pays basically all of my living expenses so I’m better off than some.  The problem is convincing myself that I’m worth it.  M. pointed out that though it sucks to be in that much debt, there’s no way for me to have the career I want without going to school.  

So I feel like I’m stepping off into a vortex of uncertainty.  Part of me is excited — finally, for the first time, I’ll be in an intellectually challenging environment.  I want the world to be a more just and equitable place, and getting this degree puts me in a position to try to help that goal along.  When more queer women are in charge of structuring how society works, there will be more justice.  [Okay, that translates to:  when I'm in charge of structuring society there will be more justice.  God forbid I should make normative statements about people I don't know.]  And someday maybe there will be justice and equity for all.

I <3 ME

No, not me.  Well, yes, but that’s not what I mean.  I’m talking about Melissa Etheridge.  But I should start at the beginning.

Long ago, in my distressed and alienated girlhood, my little sister had a group of friends. [This always mystified me, as I never had such a thing.]  One of them, the pretty popular one, had a copy of ‘Yes I Am’ right after it (and Melissa) came out.  It was big news, back in the day.  It came out the same fall M. and I were falling in love, but we hadn’t come out to ourselves yet.  

One winter day, once it was not-so-new anymore, she brought it over to our house, along with several other albums, and played it for my sister.  She went home but forgot to take her CDs with her.  I shamelessly stole it.  I was fascinated by it and I wanted it more than anything.  I listened to it over and over and over again, crying sometimes, in thrall to the truth in the lyrics that sounded like my truth, the closest anyone had ever come to understanding me.

Time passed and the friend noticed that I had her album.  Made noises about wanting it back.  I resisted.  More time passed, and she looked at me, really looked, and for a moment I think she saw the real me and said, ‘you can keep it.’ 

It was mine.  I loved that album, and frankly, I love it still.  I love Melissa Etheridge.  I guess people think she’s not so cool anymore, she’s kind of old-school and has kids and is, well, middle-aged and all, but she spoke to me first.  She sang about the rage and the sadness and the isolation of growing up gay in a fucking close-minded universe where nobody cared even a little bit if I was okay.  My sister’s friend grew up to be a sad, straight, fucked-up individual, who ultimately hurt my sister a lot, but there’s a little bright spot in my soul where her kindness lives.  I wouldn’t have been brave enough to walk into a record store and buy it for myself.

We saw ME live last night, and she was amazing.  Strong and funny and energetic and everything one could ask of a musician, including really talented.  As in, she sounded even better than the albums.  And when she sang the sadness in that little piece of my soul was present, but the joy of being all grown up and in charge of my own life was there too.  I was there with M., who started this journey with me.

Toward the end of the concert, ME said that the only thing we can do is to love ourselves; the more we love ourselves the more love comes back to us.  I think she’s right.  So I <3 ME, and I also <3 me.  And you.

[And someday, if I love myself enough, maybe I'll also love the straight guys who sprayed their white male heterosexual privilege all over our balcony section and made our space a little less safe.  I'm working on it.]

boringness

Not much is going on around here.  We’re settled into our new place, M. is working furiously on the dissertation, and I’m unemployed.  I knew I would be, and I thought I was prepared for it, but I really wasn’t.  I’m torn between the urge to be a novel-reading domestic goddess all the time (as in, I made granola for breakfast today), the desire to get out there and meet new cool people by volunteering my pathetic and useless capable and diverse skill set in the queer community, and the strong imperative to earn money. 

For me, if I’m not working, I can’t relax.  That may seem strange, since working is supposedly the opposite of relaxation, but time spent unemployed for me is time spent constantly stressed.  I somehow can’t allow myself to have fun or do other things, either because they would require money, or because I feel guilty that I’m not being a productive member of the household.  Technically we do in fact have enough money to pay the rent for the next two months, and (bless her) M. is a funded PhD student, so life could be a lot worse.  But.  I really need, if not a job, then at least something substantive to do.  I think about three hours/day is all I can take of domestic servitude goddess-hood…

Femme solidarity

Recently, at a drag show:  the drag king MC says, “does anyone live near [my neighborhood]? my friend [woman's name] needs a ride home.”

A (bio) man raises his hand.

Later on, the question is reiterated.  Perhaps the king feels uncertain, hoping that someone else will volunteer.  I raise my hand [volunteering my capable genderqueer gf as a driver, implicitly, of course] but he doesn’t notice.  Bio-man volunteers again.

He looks fine, like a crunchy granola prius-driving type.  But.  Isn’t that what we are all told not to do?  This is where the big sister bursts out of me in a flurry of caution.

Later still, the show is over, and the woman stands by herself at the bar finishing her drink.  I walk over, offer her a ride.  She accepts and confesses that she didn’t really want to drive with that guy, though he seemed harmless.  Probably nothing bad would ever have happened; still, it doesn’t hurt to keep an eye out for your femme friends, whether you know them or not.

Vintage FG, ca. 1994

Moving can turn up some odd memories, especially when one comes across one’s childhood journals. 

In the spirit of sharing, I present to you an entry dated Dec. 30, 1994:

*****

“[M.] came [over] yesterday…she just left.  My god, the sexual force between us is strong!  She will not go back now, I think.  I believed she loves me; now I believe that there is a chance for us to be together.  Not just spiritually, emotionally, and proximity-wise, but also on a more primitive and basic physical level.  It seems like a dream…at one o’clock this morning (approximately) she said if she were male I’d wake up pregnant……….

Our new scenario – [M.] is World Dictator; I am Chief of the Arts.  We are married – she has changed marriage laws so that they are not just male-female.  The public sympathy lies with me – I am the ‘Saint’.  They all pity me because the Dictator has complete power over me in the bedroom…she wears black silk; I wear white (she likes cotton) Irish linen (pre-washed, so as to be soft with pearl buttons for her to unbutton) (as she said).  

Oh but I want to be certain that our gender would never drive us apart…..” 

*****

Well. That writing is completely unedited.  I don’t think I could have told you if you asked me yesterday that there was a top and bottom just busting out of this relationship when I was the tender age of 16, which is when I wrote this.  Honestly that dynamic was very unintentional for me, at least until recently.  There was a baby butch and a baby femme there too.  I wish some guardian angel could have come down and sat on our shoulders and said ‘look kids, this is how girls fuck each other.  This is how girls who are more like boys function in the world.  Here are some words to describe yourselves.  This is a group of young people just like you.  Go nuts.’

Because honestly, the next 3 months of entries are me being incredibly sexually frustrated; when you’re a baby bottom with a baby toppy butch you DO NOT initiate sex, and you DO NOT ask for more than she gives you.  M. wasn’t so good at reading my signals back then…so we count our first real ‘sex’ [as in orgasm achieved at the other’s hands – anyone else have a better one?] as not til the following August, by which time I’d turned 17 (M. gets to claim 15, since it was right before her b-day).  I’ve always resented that a bit, since clearly the only thing stopping us was an absolute ignorance of what to do. 

Let me assure you that we proceeded to fuck like rabbits (although often with our clothes on) my whole last year of high school, including one lovely session just before our English midterm.  Everyone else was terrified of failing it, and got there early to study.  We walked in moments before the exam was supposed to start, all giggly and flushed.  People looked askance.  But no one ever suspected the truth, or said anything if they did.  Knowing them all personally, my theory of why is that they couldn’t actually think the thought that we were sleeping together — it was just too outside the realm of their experience.  If we had touched each other or said something, they would have known what we were doing, but to make the leap from ‘best friends’ to ‘getting it on’ was an exclusively hetero concept.  Which actually made it safer for us at the time…

trouble in straightland

This past weekend was about seeing all the people who have ‘missed’ us over the last 10 months while we were away.  We had social engagements every day – the 3d through to the 6^th, the latter being the bridal shower.  Seeing our old friends wasn’t exactly a bed of roses.  They are a mixed bag, and their other friends are truly heinous. 

One of these other friends asked me at the (awful) bridal shower if M. had worn a dress at our commitment ceremony.  I looked at her.  “What do you think?  Can you picture her in a dress…?”  She made an innocent face and said “well you never know!” and threw her hands up in the air.  Yeah, right.  She had just spent hours in M.’s presence two days prior to the shower – and it became even more obvious that this was no innocent question when she then proceeded to tell a story about a woman who was ‘straight as an arrow’ who had been offered money by her office to wear a dress to a company party and who had still refused – this to illustrate the ‘never can tell’ point I guess.  Gosh, maybe one’s coworkers should really refrain from getting that involved with what you’re wearing.

It is apparently too much to ask these people to treat her with interest and respect.  I know, with friends like these…..?  Being around them was really hard for M.; she found herself slipping into her old pattern of dissociating her outward self from her inner self.  This is the technique that landed us into so much difficulty in the first place. So it’s been a tiring week.  We have a few days to regroup, and then the second half of next week is full of queer events to go to.  We probably won’t meet anyone there, but we can start to get a sense of the community.  And hey, one of the cashiers at our local queer coffee shop flirted with me, so maybe femmes can be visible after all!  She was awfully cute herself…

update…

Well I’ve been offline for quite a while – we moved yesterday, and we are happily on our own again.  In fact, we had to move ourselves all alone, since the MIL was in a snit and wouldn’t help at all, except for the last third of the boxes.  Sigh.  I’m bruised and battered, and at the last moment a friend came and rescued us and got the mattress up the stairs, otherwise we’d still be there, passed out in the back of the truck.  Remind me to throw all my crap away next time!

 

We had a wonderful time in NY at the dyke march.  We got ridiculously, fantastically wet.  It rained so hard that I was soaked to my skin, from head to toe.  It got so bad that water actually ran down my back into my underwear.  Good times.  Then we got ourselves back to Brooklyn and changed and headed out, which was definitely awesome.  We still have a lot to learn about how to function at a dyke party, but Belle’s southern hospitality smoothed the way for us.  She rocks!

More on this later when we have our own internet…