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UNFORTUNATELY,  WE NEED AIR TO BREATHE

Support Lesbian Health,
 Not the Chemical Industry

 Bev Jo

I want an end to patriarchy and all oppression. But sometimes, more than anything, I just want to smell clean air. Well, not really clean air, which is impossible, but air that doesn’t stink. That shouldn’t be too much to ask, should it?

It’s not even that I live in a neighborhood with factories. I grew up in one, so I know them well – toxic fumes pouring out day and night, a half block from our house.  Sometimes the paint was blistered off cars in our neighborhood when the acid rain came down. At school, there was always another factory stench. Where I live now, it could be relatively clean-smelling, even in this city. Sometimes I can smell beautiful clean air from the ocean miles away, with trees and flowers on the wind, but the next moment will be a lungful of nauseating stink.

And why? Not for any reasonable reason at all. Simply because of the greed of industry and the stupidity of people agreeing to be conned into paying for poisonous, dirty laundry products to pollute our air.

It doesn’t help that I know what these toxins are and that I can’t avoid breathing. If I can smell them, I’ve already absorbed their molecules into my lungs. The neurotoxins are poisonous to all my organs, damaging my already chronically ill body, making it more likely I’ll never recover and more likely I’ll get cancer. I think of my friend who has already had cancer twice. It doesn’t help that the spewer of this filth is not unreachable, unchangeable corporate industries. It might be easier to accept if it was. No, this is regular people in this and every neighborhood, who choose to buy and release this poison into the air we are forced to breathe. But, again, why?

The irony is that I grew up in Cincinnati, being exposed every day to factory stink from Proctor and Gamble, one of the U.S.’s biggest polluters. (Don’t believe the “green” industry label they have.) It’s like a nightmare science fiction movie that I am now thousands of miles away and still am forced against my will to smell Proctor and Gamble’s toxic products --coming into my windows and in the nauseating fumes pouring off people’s clothes and bodies in every public place. Even walking alone in the woods, where I can smell most people from 100 feet away, Proctor and Gamble follows me.

Whenever I think I’ve discovered all the monstrous ways that men have made this beautiful planet into a nightmare, I find another man-made horror.

I’ve been disabled by chronic illness for thirty years now. I’ve called it “Myalgic Encephalomyelitis,” “Chronic Fatigue Immune Dysfunction Syndrome,” and “Fibromyalgia,” but I don’t really know what it is. Because of the constant exhaustion, joint pain, strange sudden pain, difficulty sleeping, headaches, fevers, I’m wondering if it’s Lyme disease. (Endnote 1.)

It wasn’t until I was sick for several years that I became chemically sensitive and started to identify as being “chemically injured” or having MCS – Multiple Chemical Sensitivities. What this means for me is that I have a sense of smell I consider normal for someone not living covered in toxic chemicals in patriarchy. People living more naturally have strong senses of smell. (I’ve read that people in Viet Nam could smell US soldiers a mile away because of their toothpaste.)

Chemical injury for many people can mean many symptoms, including cancer, asthma, liver and kidney damage, nausea, vomiting, migraines, seizures, hormone disruption, immune suppression, MS-like reactions, pulse and blood pressure changes, heart arrhythmia, dizziness, confusion, panic attacks, memory loss, impaired vision and concentration, insomnia, exhaustion, depression, irritability, aggression, loss of muscular coordination, convulsions, and coma.

At home, the laundry products’ fumes pour into our open windows and seep in even when the windows are closed. In public, there’s also no escape. Going to a store for food means being forced to breathe in a nauseating stench. Supermarkets with shelves of toxic air “fresheners,” laundry products, and pesticides are the worst, but most health food stores also reek. Any food you buy there also smells and tastes of perfumes and toxins.

Almost every human stinks of “personal care” products and detergent and fabric softeners. Being in public means being forced to breathe these poisons against our will. And the stench sticks to us, so we bring it home, where it affects those we live with. (After being at any public event, I can’t even wash my clothes because the stink will remain unless I hang my clothes outside for days. I also always have to wash my hair and body.)

The mania for “cleanliness” and selling new, unnecessary products has meant that chemists continue to develop new chemicals that off-gas in much more invasive and persistent ways than ever before, until now almost everyone and every place in the U.S. stinks. Yet it’s so easy to change to make our communities more accessible. It’s not like any of these products smell good, no matter how many ads (aimed at women) try to convince us. They’re disgusting. They also are neurotoxins, damaging nerves and mucous membranes so that people lose their sense of smell and therefore use more and more of the poisons. People also are spending more and more money buying cleaning products -- the irony being that they dirty their homes and bodies in the process – sometimes permanently.

Why do women and Lesbians participate in this? Unless someone has asthma or has been chemically injured (Multiple Chemical Sensitivities) or has emphysema, they usually choose to stink. Very few don’t. They willingly pay money to apply men’s scents to their bodies, marking themselves as men’s property because they believe it makes them smell “good.” It doesn’t matter how terrible they really smell – the marketing propaganda convinces them otherwise.  As one slogan I’ve seen says, “Perfume is as romantic as hazardous waste.”

The use of toxic perfumes and cleaners is a female and Feminist issue, because females are the most targeted by advertising to use these poisons, and women are the majority victims of chemical injury. I also believe that women feel contaminated from growing up in patriarchy and believing that they are “dirty” from sexual assault, and also from voluntary contact with men. Men also tell women we are dirty. So women are obsessed with trying to be clean. For some, that even means developing Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Major corporations, like Proctor and Gamble, know this and direct their advertising accordingly.

Almost everyone trivializes themselves and others by considering this issue of health merely their own or others’ “personal problem,” calling our reaction to toxins “allergies.”  Allergies have nothing to do with it any more than people who get sick from cigarette smoke or factory emissions are “allergic.” It is simply a poison. Ninety-five percent of the ingredients in scented products are synthesized from petrochemicals. This is far more than personal -- it’s a political issue about accessibility and the right to have access to unpolluted air.

Most people seem shocked that the government allows scented chemicals to be sold without testing or regulation – yet they are usually aware that the government lies to us about many things, including invading other countries, the safety of our water and food supply, pesticides and herbicides, hormones and antibiotics in meat, GMO and irradiated food, nuclear reactors and nuclear waste, and big pharmaceutical companies’ toxic drugs, etc.  Toxic scented products are made by many of the same industries, just as chemotherapy drugs are made by the industries that cause cancer. People who would never buy other products from well-known polluters happily give these corporations money when it comes to personal care and household products.

Peoples’ attachment to scented products shows in their trying to find “organic” scented products, but one study showed that EVERY scented product, including those labeled organic, contained toxic ingredients. Also, be aware that many products that claim to be scent-free are not. Most stores smell so bad that you can’t even tell until you are home for a while and your sense of smell clears that the product you just bought is scented.

Saying “No” to an Exclusionary Community

Lesbians are my people. I love Lesbians with all my heart. I want us to have the best Lesbian communities possible, which is why I’m focusing on Lesbians here.

Some say that it can be difficult to make Lesbian communities completely accessible, in terms of finding wheelchair accessible locations for events, but one thing that everyone easily CAN do is to stop buying and using toxic scented products. They would save money, help their own health, and stop smelling bad, but most won’t consider it – even when that means they’re making it impossible for many Lesbians to be part of our community.

 I used to hate the cigarette smoke that was everywhere, but I understood it was an addiction. What I don’t understand is why Lesbians insist on using these horrible-smelling products. Even Lesbians who are conscientious about doing other things for the environment, and would never dream of not recycling, don’t consider that buying toxic products means supporting industries that pollute neighborhoods with factories, as well as their own air space. And when they using toxic laundry products, like Tide, Gain, and other terrible-smelling detergents, and fabric softeners like Downy, they are making neighborhoods everywhere smell like factories. The male manufacturers of these products are marking their territory in our air and water, and on our bodies – the ultimate in male marking. Many Lesbians object to other ways men mark territory, so why accept this?

Then there are Lesbians who slather on the most foul-smelling perfumes and colognes even though they know it makes others sick. Some of these products are so full of petrochemicals that they almost smell like kerosene or disinfectant. Most do have toluene, benzene, and formaldehyde, which, in other situations, is considered hazardous waste and dealt with accordingly.

“But what about people’s right to choose?  We shouldn’t control what people want to do, should we?”  Well, that used to be the prevailing attitude until laws had to be made to prevent people filling up every public place with toxic cigarette smoke. Even most ex-smokers are glad about that control now. So why are toxic products allowed to be sold that equally pollute every one’s air in public?  At least cigarette smoke doesn’t travel as far as drier vents spewing Downy. With cancer rates constantly increasing, we can’t afford to play games about filling our lives and homes with carcinogenic products. It’s those who are trapped in these homes without a choice who I feel the worst about – helpless, vulnerable animals and kids. I remember when dogs didn’t get cancer. I remember when cancer was so rare that only one member in my huge extended family, which included many old people, got cancer. There is so much that we can’t control about carcinogens in our environment, but this is one source of cancer we can control, and we can save money at the same time.

The insistence on freedom to do what we want is also behind large industries’ pollution of lakes, rivers, and ocean, as well as their spewing of factory filth into the air. Without regulations and laws, the rich do what they want, and the poor suffer and die.

Most of this is really about people being conned into wasting more money on products that they are told will make them acceptable or more desirable. I’ve seen so many Lesbians get excited about perfume and just refuse to believe it can hurt anyone. One friend who already knew that perfume is toxic came to an event, proudly saying she was only “wearing a light scent.” (It was horrible, and a Lesbian with asthma reacted immediately.)

This isn’t a trivial issue. If people with asthma react badly enough and can’t breathe, they can die. Even if they “just” have trouble breathing and their lungs become more permanently damaged and they’re forced to use steroids and amphetamines in inhalants that damage their hearts, isn’t that bad enough?  Some people react by having grand mal epileptic seizures and injure themselves when they fall. Why is this all being ignored simply for vanity? And I really don’t get the fuss about products that just stink. It reminds me of the fuss and addictive quality of plastic surgery. The selfish narcissism of all this is astounding. Our patriarchal culture, that so regulates and punishes any female who steps out of line in regards to following male-defined rules of femininity, encourages “freedom” as long as it means staying feminine and spending money.

It also doesn’t seem to stop personal polluters when Lesbian singers tell their audience that being exposed to perfumes and colognes hurts their voices. So many Lesbians know that the crap they are wearing is making the entire room smell bad, and yet they will coyly announce you shouldn’t hug them if it’s a problem for you. They understand that “no smoking” sections next to smokers are meaningless, so this shouldn’t be too difficult to grasp. Why does any Lesbian continue to hurt others and herself? Once she realizes how she’s been conned, why doesn’t she stop?  I know Lesbians who say they want to give up their car to help the environment, but they won’t give up Tide. What is going on here?

We shouldn’t have to choose between being in our Lesbian communities and protecting our health. Lesbians who react the most severely to scented toxins should not be forced to be homebound. It is the right of every living being to be able to smell clean air and be able to breathe.

For those of you who aren’t aware of the ever-present stink and who haven’t yet realized how your health is being damaged, (toxic exposure to scented products cause depression, irritability, exhaustion, headaches, joint pain, rashes, seizures, brain fog, etc., besides cancer), can you consider what it’s like for those who are homebound to know they can’t even have a friend bring them a library book? Because most houses have scented toxins like “air fresheners,” scented candles and scented soaps, etc., library books smell terrible from absorbing the stink. If cigarette smoke bothers you, can you imagine never escaping it?  Almost no homes are safe to visit. But you’re likely to get hostility if you explain to friends why visiting them is difficult. They do understand on some level, because they wouldn’t want to spend several hours closed up in a room with a chain smoker, but somehow they take offense if you say their candle scented with oily volatile toxic ingredients is unbearable.

Trying to have friends visit creates another problem. Ninety-nine percent of those who say they are unscented actually reek from various products. Some of these products, like Tide, NEVER go away. (A friend gave me a shirt from a Lesbian conference that she had washed in Tide. We hung it outside in the sun and rain. After a full year, it still stunk horribly.) The bad smell also transfers to other surfaces (which is why I now always sit on an insulite pad in public – which I have to leave outside after I go home since it then stinks for days from being on public chairs). Before my housemate and I stopped being too afraid to make our home safe, a visitor sat on our couch for 2 hours – and our couch stank of Tide for over 6 months.  We’ve also put down a plastic tarp on a chair for a visitor who was scented only with Gain, but the smell soaked right through the tarp and the chair stank so much afterwards that we couldn’t keep it in the house. Being in the same room with someone scented also means that you, your hair, clothes, and every bit of fabric in the room absorb the stink. Some people seem surprised at this, yet they understand and object when cigarette smoke does the same thing.

Another problem has been when I’ve given rides to friends who were previously unscented, and then suddenly they’re using a new, terrible product. This actually happens a lot, but the worst time was when a friend arrived and we’d arranged I would drive us several hours to a Lesbian music event. Being in a car accentuates any scent because of the closed space, but I could smell her as soon as she arrived. She’d put on a new lotion. She was mildly apologetic, but it never occurred to her that I should have said no to being trapped in the car with her all those hours. I didn’t, and felt nauseated the entire time. I also know that when something like this happens it’s likely to have a long-term affect on damaging my health. She’d understood the situation, so why was the new lotion so important? She wouldn’t have dreamt of lighting up a cigarette and saying she needed to smoke. I still don’t know how to deal with this kind of thing, so basically I drive alone, unless I’m with a trusted friend.

Everyone is affected by scented toxins that we’re forced to breathe, but most don’t know it. They attribute their symptoms to many other things or just think this is how we are meant to feel as we get older. Some end up taking psychiatric or other drugs to deal with how they feel, which adds to their worsening health. Those of us who know about the effects have additional stress on us when we go to public events, knowing we are damaging our health further and perhaps permanently.  Some of us have to do a lot of things to make it possible to go out, such as using caffeine and pain-killers, so we can be part of the community. We always have to weigh whether the risk and the effects are worth it.

There is so much in patriarchy that damages our health that we have no control over, so shouldn’t we at least support ourselves and each other in trying to protect our health? Lesbians’ lives are already so hard. Why not try to make our lives easier and also save money? Most toxic products on which people in the U.S. spend billions of dollars are completely unnecessary and only add to air and water pollution. For those who still feel immune, please realize that this issue affects everyone. Several Lesbians I knew who adamantly refused to stop subjecting others to toxic products are now so chemically injured that they can’t leave their homes.

This is one of the few things that we can do that’s in our control to make our communities safe and welcoming. And nothing smells better than natural Lesbian scent!

An excellent leaflet (“Fragrance: A Growing Health and Environmental Hazard) with a lot more information and links can be ordered through: Redemske Design, 344 Gardiner Road, Jefferson, ME 04348. Their phone number is 207-549-3531 and 207-549-5358.

Endnote 1. Lyme disease didn’t use to exist. It was created at the biological weapons lab at Plum Island near Old Lyme, Connecticut, where the first cases appeared. Ticks were injected with Borellia Burgdorferi, a spirochete that is very similar to the syphilis spirochete in terms of its stages and remissions, and how it attacks the joints and brain. After talking with many people about it, I believe Lyme is incurable. I’ve known people who started antibiotics immediately and took over $1000 worth a month for years and are still sick. Lyme is also very difficult to diagnose because the government created a commission of doctors who eliminated the two main diagnostic markers so that people who have Lyme show up negative on the tests. This saves insurance companies a lot of money. And of course if the government accepted responsibility for inventing this illness, there would be millions of lawsuits.

My ex-lover got the classic expanding bull’s-eye rash which grew until it was enormous, and then disappeared in a few days. If it had been on her back, she would never have known it was there. Nothing else causes that rash, yet the doctor declared that she didn’t have Lyme because the test was negative – even though I’d told her that the medical literature says it doesn’t show up in tests for at least 6 weeks. This idiot doctor also told us that the Western Fence Lizard transmits the bacteria, when, in reality, the lizard has a mechanism in her blood to completely kill it, leaving ticks on her free of Lyme. (Don’t expect to get correct answers from doctors – most are arrogant and incompetent, which is a dangerous combination. They killed my mother. Most people I tell the story to have a similar one where doctors killed a loved one of theirs. There are so many myths about Lyme. A friend insists it’s always existed because it’s also in Europe. Well, it wasn’t there when I was living in England and Ireland in 1997 and 1998, but it’s killing people there now, though it has a different species of tick as its vector. (My guess is that Borrelia Burgdorferi was brought to Europe in an infected person, and transferred to European tick species. Some people believe that it is also transmitted through mosquitoes and sexual contact.)

The Environmental Illness Resource:

 Lyme disease is an infectious disease caused by a spirochete (spiral shaped bacterium) known as Borrelia burgdorferi (Bb). Lyme disease is most often spread by ticks, but can also be transmitted by fleas, mosquitos, and mites. Evidence has suggested that these insects don't actually need to bite you for you to become infected. Worryingly, there is also evidence that Lyme disease can be spread by a number of other non-insect methods including from person to person through sex, or from mother to baby in the womb. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin have found dairy cattle and other animals can acquire the disease and pass it on to humans through the food chain. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta, believe that Borrelia burgdorferi can even survive the blood purification processes that donated blood is subjected to, and the disease can thus be acquired through receiving a blood transfusion.

"Transwomen" Are Merely Castrated Men

I've just posted over at The Magazine Project!  And I've started a new blog where this and other articles can be seen -- http://bevjoradicallesbian.wordpress.com/

                              Loving on the Borderline -- poems


SOMETIMES

In that time between the mists and the clearing,
I remember the knowing,
The feeling
That you were coming to me.
In the midst of all the hurt and fearing and wild yearning
And not knowing anymore anything,
I felt something beyond the horizon, gleaming.
It was not a dream.
From across the earth, you came to me.

Bev Jo
1998

BORDERLINE

Sharp
Your words cut like a scythe,
Slicing right at my heart,
Your aim, as ever, so true,
As if you no longer want me alive.
Once, I never would have thought this of you
I know you will re.tract your knife this time,
Such sweetness following that strike of your blade,
But the wound’s done, plain to see.
You do not think to ask forgiveness.
You do not see me nor this mess you made.
You do not notice blood flowing with tears.
And I do not think to leave, rejecting you,
But remain for our years of love,
Yet knowing this breach of trust will come again,
And no amount of kissing can heal this pain.

Bev Jo
2010


STAY
in this place a little while longer.
Stop hurtling into space,
Rage frozen on your face.
Hold onto yourself a little bit stronger.
Don’t leave me alone in this empty space,
Replacing yourself, my love, with a stranger.

Bev Jo
2008


RUNNING WHERE?

What will happen if you stop running?
Take a breath,
Stop bombarding your senses.
Will you feel fear,
Will you feel pain,
Will you remember what was,
What is,
Who you are,
Who you were
Who I am,
Who we were together?
Will your self-imposed amnesia
Lift its veil from your mind?
Will you remember when you were my home,
when you were mine?
Will you remember once I knew who you were
Yet still loved you.

Will you remember when
you didn’t have to lie to be loved?

You can run until exhausted,
Heart pounding, eyes wild, no peace,
Remembering only the worst,
Believing your own lies.

Why don’t you remember when you ran to me instead of ranting at me,
When you wanted nothing more in this world
than to hear my voice,
Hold me in your arms,
instead of believing your lie that I am your enemy?

When you don’t remember your past,
You don’t remember who you were,
And you can’t remember who you are.

Bev Jo
2008


SHAPESHIFTER

I fell for your gentleness and kindness,
I fell for your love and compassion,
I fell for your lies.
Who I fell for and who you are has no comparison.
Where did you go? Did you ever exist? –
You, who I see in the skin of my beloved,
Wearing her hair.
Did you kill her, swallow her soul, slide into her body,
And then look out of her eyes at me?
It’s like a horror movie.

I loved her so much, would do anything for her.
But now I don’t love her enough to hate.
I fear her, pity her, am repulsed by her, horrified.
She doesn’t look so different,
But it’s like she’s gutted of a heart,
She, who used to seem to have such a heart.
Does any part of you still exist?

I never knew you would break your vow of love and friendship
Or how cruel you would grow.
I never knew how much you would pretend,
Now that we are at the end of our love
And I never know when I will see you again.
For so many years, all the tears I cried for someone not real.
Leaving is one thing, but hurting just to hurt…
You already burned my heart so deep,
Stealing from me years of sleep.
Oh I learned to swallow your rage,
Taking my medicine dutifully to heal your soul.
You could not bear hating yourself,
So you had to hate me.

You used to say, “You could do a hundred wonderful things for me,
But one wrong move cancels the rest.”
Not being perfect, I could never catch up.
No way to win, no way to heal, no way to begin again,
But was any of it real?
Are you the victim of a psychic vampire who has stolen your soul,
Or is it just the real you, shapeshifter,
Revealed at last?

I was the keeper of your memory,
And I did not ask to be.
I was the keeper of your memory,
And I did not want to be.
I was the keeper of your memory,
So you would not forget me.

Still, I can’t forget those golden moments,
When I felt loved so deeply,
Where I believe I glimpsed the real you,
Heart and soul, such passion and clarity aimed in your eyes at me.
Does the truth and all the lies
Wipe that out completely?

Bev Jo
2008

JD was the alias given to the Latina Butch who was severely beaten and gang raped by a group of men in boys in Richmond, California in late 2008.


FOR JD

I

Those men and boys came to take
What was not theirs to take.
They came to maim and inflict pain as a way to to claim what was not theirs to claim.

Don’t tell me two of them are “only boys,”
When boys are chosen by dictatorships
who know they make the most willing
rapist and killing machines.

Don’t tell me they must have had terrible,
Abused childhoods, to be so cruel,
So deliberately evil.
If that were true, most women and girls
would be rapists and serial killers.

They understand what they have done
Because they would never want to done to them.
No, don’t take the blame away from them.
Instead of patronizing them,
give them the respect they deserve,
to be held accountable.
Let them pay in every way for their crime.

Let them see what comes from
committing such atrocity.
This could not be the first time
they worked together to inflict
so much terror, cruelty, brutality.

Let their punishment be a warning to all others --

Leave Lesbians alone.

Make it be that they are not continuing,
That she doesn’t every day
have to steady herself like steel,
in case she suddenly just sees them.
Make it be that they can’t continue until
They finally kill (if they haven’t already).

Give their victim a bit of justice.
It will not heal her, but it has to help.
They did not just try to damage her body –
They wanted to destroy her soul.
They tried to kill the Lesbian in her.
They so much don’t want us to survive
In heart, spirit, and mind.
If they thought they would pay no price,
They wouldn’t stop at rape, torture,
Humiliation, and terror.

There is no excuse for such abuse.
No reason at all for doing such a thing,
For hating Lesbians that much.

They don’t want us to be Lesbians
-- so they are the other choice?

II

What a choice –
To be willingly with those men,
Like their girlfriends are,
Or to be a Lesbian.

They choose to be pure evil,
While she chooses to love another woman.
Love, what a crime.

There are them --
And then, there are the Lesbians.
Strangers who come to help,
Who send her their love,
Who understand too well,
Lesbians who want to protect and heal her,
A whole community of Lesbians who think
of her and send support.
We cannot heal her, but it has to help.
I have never seen such a response of so
much love sent to a Lesbian victim of hate.
I have never seen such a wider community response,
from so many kinds of people.
After almost 40 years in a Lesbian community,
where the outside world mostly hated us
and gave more support to the rapist than victim.
So often it’s been Lesbians who support so many others.
But now it is changing.
I saw it that night,
in so many kinds of faces lit by candlelight.
Old amazon warriors from decades ago,
New friends I’d only seen dancing wildly,
And all the others who were not Lesbians.

It warmed my heart.
I hope it is warming hers.
Bev Jo

January, 2009

Naturally Lesbian

Naturally Lesbian
Considering how beautiful Lesbian love is,
Why are so many people so afraid of us?

A lie repeated enough begins to be believed
They bully us with their propaganda of
“the birds and the bees,”
As if every creature must be paired male and female,

Making heterosexuality inevitable, inescapable, normal,
While making us freaks.

But do they think we don’t know basic biology?
Do they think we can’t read?
Do they really not know about the birds and the bees
What is more Lesbian than living in an all- female sisterhood,
A collective community of thousands of bees
taking care of each other endlessly?
Feeding each other from their mouths,
They live with such intimacy.

The mother queen only creates a few males when
she decides it’s time to start a new swarm,
and they fly briefly on the wind before dying.
So none of the bees we ever see,
Going from flower to flower,
collecting nectar for their community,
are male or even heterosexual.

Ants also have an almost all-female sisterhood.
So why are movies still made for children
Showing bees and ants as male?
Movies full of lies mold young minds.
One of these popular movies even has the main
Ant character voiced by a well-known pedophile –
A polite term for child molester.

When the media does show female animals in children’s movies,
they are often caricatured, ridiculous,
To convince us that true femaleness is silly and weak,
Ignoring female strength and compassion.
Movies are fantasies, but the harm is real.

Few books tell the truth about how
the world is not all heterosexual.
Many animals are Lesbian and Gay,
From fish to birds to mammals,
And I’ve lived with Lesbian rats.
“The birds and the bees” ignores Lesbian Bonobo chimpanzees,
our closest animal relatives.

With so many lies, it’s hard to know the truth.
Historians have said the Amazons are a myth,
But I saw them -- in the British Museum --
Ancient Greek friezes thousands of years old,
Perfectly carved, perfectly beautiful.
I saw the horrifying reality of Greek men
Killing female warriors with swords and spears –
Sculpture after sculpture – life-like beyond imagining.
Before cameras, they proudly document their achievement in stone –
faces showing the Amazons’ agony, the Amazons dying –
Each man in each scene naked,
to make it clear just who is triumphant.
Liquid movement frozen in time –
History as a work of art.

This ancient Greek culture which our culture
reveres as the beginning of “civilization,”
Shows the death of real civilization –
The time before patriarchy –
There – for all to see.
And recently a female archeologist found
the tomb of an Amazon, proving the myths true.

It isn’t just that we are told all females
must belong to males –
we are taught to call all animals “he,” and never “she,”
as if females count for nothing.
We are taught to prefer the male,
Treasure the male above all females

Accepting the normalcy of patriarchy
means learning to accept the norm of rape,
the murder of females,
and the glorification of war and violence in this world.

Male worship is a dangerous thing –
not the loving of individual kind and gentle males,
but the adoration of maleness as superior.

Someone I loved was raised by a mother
who hated her for being female.
Worse than the daily beatings, fractures, dislocations,
was being told by the woman who should have protected her
little girl that “girls are dirty and disgusting,
But boys are wonderful.
Yet in that community, some boys openly tortured
and killed small animals in the streets and
traveled in cowardly gangs to rape girls.

Male worship is dangerous when males are destroying the world.

I remember my girlhood friends
with their love of other girls.
I remember my best friend who I was in love with,
training,
yes,
I mean training herself
To be attracted to males.
It wasn’t easy to work so hard at what didn’t come naturally.

But knowing how we are supposed to behave
Frees us to be all who we can be.
Why are they so afraid of us?
Maybe if they know that we are no longer
Portrayed as freaks and monsters,
ALL females will do what comes naturally.
And without females’ support,
There can be no more patriarchy.

Bev Jo

2008

Classism, by Bev Jo

                                            Classism      

                                                Bev Jo

                                                                 

                                             The Set-up

Class is a subject we are forbidden to talk or even think about. It’s like a big dirty secret in our U.S. culture, and the punishment is severe for breaking the rules of silence and obedience. That’s why it’s so important for Lesbians and other people to dare to discuss class.

Class affects every part of our lives. Classism in patriarchy determines: who will eat and who won’t -- literally who will live and who will die. Class decides how healthy we will be, how much medical care we will have (if any), how much pollution we’re exposed to in our air, food, and water, including when we were growing up, which continues to affect our health for the rest of our lives. Class determines whether you are homeless or not, and whether you live in an ugly, depressing place or beautiful, spiritually uplifting place. Class affects our quality of life and therefore our mental and emotional health. Something that affects everyone’s lives so deeply is either ignored or lied about in U.S. schools and media to the extent that many people don’t even know what class they are. Even worse, they are trained to identify with the classes who are oppressing them.

The “middle class” referred to in the media – those who are out of work or are over-working simply to stay alive -- are working class or the working poor. As long as people are told they are middle class, they are less likely to want to change things. This myth/lie is consciously continued for political reasons. I’m sorry, but it reminds me of a dog who’s told “Good dog!” after being kicked. Keep people grateful for any crumb, and, whatever you do, make sure they don’t realize how bad things really are.

The majority of people in the U.S. are working class, with a growing number of poverty class. Yet, the words “working class” are almost never said in the media or by politicians. It’s one of the biggest lies perpetrated on us, and is a uniquely U.S. phenomenon. In other countries, people know what class they are from childhood, while in the U.S. most of us are told that we are “middle class,” even when that is obviously not true. The middle classes are the professionals and people with privilege, in terms of money and education. Even if someone middle class becomes poor, they still have that sense of superiority and entitlement which comes from growing up with privilege and they remain culturally middle class and often still have access to family money. And if someone class-oppressed has “made it,” they still retain some of their culture. Class is also about far more than money and resources – it’s about culture and every part of our lives -- how we think, talk, write, and how we treat each other.

Another strange U.S. phenomenon is that the Left is extremely classist. The U.S. Left is a primarily middle class movement, which appears to despise the very people they pretend to support – the poverty class and working class. Leftist writing and radio shows are incredibly elitist and academic – which means they’re also unnecessarily removed from reality and boring. All I can think is that for some classist people, being Leftist is yet another way to feel superior. When I was at a university as a teenager, we were required to read an academic book about working class women, which was so removed from reality that it didn’t even recognize myself or my family in it.

It was Lesbians who’d come out after recently being in the Male Left who did the most bullying I witnessed of other Lesbians about class, as well as telling me that I was middle class – even though they’d met my obviously poverty class parents and I was clearly from that culture (no books in our house, uneducated family, rampant alcoholism resulting in many of my mother’s family spending time in prison, my mother working as a waitress, and my father health being destroyed by the toxic chemicals he had to work with.) These Lesbians were classist to me and my family, but I didn’t realize that until years later. Of course, many of them returned to men and heterosexual privilege (but that’s another article.)

Almost everyone I know is out of work or over-working to the point that their job would have been enough for two people in the past. I believe our “economic crisis” is completely artificial, just as was the “potato famine” that killed a huge part of the Irish population in the 19th Century. (There was enough food, but colonized Ireland was forced to export food by the English.) The rich are richer in the U.S. now than ever, but as long as everyone else is forced to spend almost all of their time working, looking for work, or struggling to survive on inadequate income, there isn’t time to even think, let alone change things. The ruling class learned from the Sixties, when, for the first time, many poor and working class people were able to go to universities and began organizing to change things on a massive scale. The once free universities now cost way more than most people can afford, with the result being that we have an ever-widening class divide in the U.S., and a population much easier for those in power to control.

When most people don’t even know their own history, they can be conned into believing almost any lie. Too many believe this country is the “land of the free,” rather than a dictatorship built on slavery and genocide where only a few class-privileged European-descent men had basic rights. Most don’t know the atrocities that the U.S. has committed and is still committing against other countries. Most don’t even know what colonies the U.S. owns. Those who didn’t know that the men said to have caused the 9/11 attacks were mostly Saudi Arabian (or as some think, by our government), are happy to go kill people in Iraq in revenge for 9/11-- which makes about as much sense as attacking Canada.

The main lesson we are taught from our childhood in the U.S. is to not question things. Not only should you accept whatever lies you are told, you should be hostile to anyone who challenges those lies. Ridicule is the main weapon used to get people to stop thinking clearly. “Conspiracy theories” have become a joke, with “documentaries” made by the mainstream media to explain why what is obviously a lie actually is true. How can anyone believe James Earl Ray killed Martin Luther King Jr.? King’s family doesn’t. How can anyone who’s seen the Zapruder film showing JFK’s head being blown open from what is clearly a shot fired from the front still believe the Warren Commission? The ABC documentary explaining the impossible has been on television many times, but it’s more difficult to find the eight hour British documentary, “The Men Who Killed Kennedy,” which interviews people who witnessed the actual assassins. Another European documentary, the “Origin of AIDS,” explains how a U.S.-funded doctor, trying to beat Albert Sabin in finding a live polio vaccine, inoculated people in Africa in the Fifties with HIV from chimpanzee blood. If this were common knowledge, imagine the lawsuits the medical industry and U.S. government would have to face. Some people remember when Lyme disease didn’t exist -- before the spirochete Borrelia Burgdorferi was injected into Ixodes Pacificus (the Western Black-legged tick) and other Ixodes species by scientists at the biological weapons lab on Plum Island, near Old Lyme, Connecticut.

The industries that pollute are killing people, and the poorest people live in the most dangerous areas. The same companies that cause cancer make drugs to “treat” cancer, which torture people and cause further cancer. Diagnostic tests using radiation cause cancer, yet we are lied to about that fact. Safer tests are ignored because the medical industry doesn’t make money from them. People are conned into taking massive amounts of drugs for “problems” that the medical industry knowingly creates. The AMA that told people to eat transfats (hydrogenated oils) instead of healthy saturated fat is now pushing statin drugs. (Contact me if you want to hear why I believe the AMA line that cholesterol is a “health risk” is completely false.)

The medical industry is responsible for so much heartache, pain, and death. It affects everyone in the U.S., but the class-privileged have more access to alternative healers as well as getting their choice of the best doctors. Because of their confidence and privilege, they’re also more likely to be treated better by doctors, while the class-oppressed are often easier for doctors to bully. After my poverty class mother died directly as a result of believing doctors and taking their toxic drugs, almost everyone I told about her had a story about a loved one who also was killed by doctors and the medical system’s arrogance. We are told to ignore what are clearly epidemic cases of cancer, autism, Alzheimer’s, etc. by being told these diseases are only appearing because of people living longer now. I’m amazed that anyone believes this. When I was a child in the Fifties, no one I’d heard about ever had Alzheimer’s or autism, and cancer was so rare that not one relative in my huge extended long-lived family had had it. If you adjust statistics to account for infant mortality and women dying in childbirth, people are dying much younger now than in the past, and of diseases that used to be rare. I have known so many fairly young Lesbians who’ve died of cancer. The cancer rate is now 1 in 2, even though it was 1 in 4 just 30 years ago. This information is in many people’s own experience, yet unless someone dares to question those in authority, people believe lies that are being used to control them and laugh at those who say the obvious.

I believe that those who actually are in charge are consciously turning our country into one with massive class divisions, like in England, where the European-descent class-oppressed now look like a different ethnic group from the class-privileged. A society that gives decent education only to the class-privileged, and then forbids the class-oppressed from going to museums by charging outrageously high admission fees, is making it very hard for the class-oppressed to even educate themselves. Museums and parks that were once for everyone have turned into elite country clubs where the privileged don’t even have to see the class-oppressed. We are all being trained to accept the loss of what we once had, and many people don’t know how things used to be. When I talk about how even museums are now unaffordable, almost every Lesbian, except for the most aware, repeat the lie that there just isn’t enough money. The U.S. is one of the only countries without decent health care for everyone, yet the money is there to give to corporations, dictatorships, and to kill people in other countries on behalf of U.S. corporations.  

The further someone is outside the system and the less they feel “all-American,” the more likely they are to question the “truths” we are told. My friends who are oppressed by racism or are from other countries or with immigrant parents tend to think more clearly. I learned my politics and awareness in the Lesbian Feminist and later Separatist communities – my family was all-American, so I believe if I can learn to think, everyone can. Some political radicals wonder why people in the U.S. seem so stupid, but we don’t have any idea what most people in the U.S. think since the media controls our perceptions, telling us what the class-oppressed feel. If we believe most are right wing, then we expect voting to reflect that and aren’t suspicious of government voter fraud. It hasn’t been my personal experience at all that the class-oppressed are less aware than the privileged. In fact, I think we’re more likely to question lies we’re told, including about the assassinations that dramatically changed the direction of the U.S. government in the Sixties. Most African-descent people are class-oppressed and, from friends and even strangers I’ve talked with, they are far more savvy about what lies those in power have perpetrated on the rest of us.

Those whose identity is more tied to the U.S. patriarchal system have the hardest time being open to reality. Until the past few years, I had primarily related with Dyke Separatists and my last three lovers have been from other countries. I’ve been completely stunned by some new Lesbian friends who actually say things like “God Bless Our Troops” and fly U.S. flags on 9/11. When I protest that the flag represents genocide and imperialism, I’ve been told to “love it or leave it.”

Equally upsetting to me is the number of Lesbians who don’t question patriarchal biases at all. Forty years after Feminism, almost every Lesbian I know calls any animal she sees ”he,” just as we were taught before Feminism. This may seem minor, but it’s a terrifying reflection of the level of acceptance of male supremacy in the U.S. 


                                                       II

                                          Among Ourselves

I love Lesbians -- Lesbians are my people. I want us to have the best relationships and communities possible. I want classism to no longer damage us. 
 

It would be so much easier to deal with our classist mainstream culture if we at least had support and safety in our Lesbian communities. I think that Lesbians as a group do try to be fair, kind, and loving (and are often working to help everyone other than Lesbians), but classism still exists among us.

Class is so obvious to me that I can often identify someone’s class background just by seeing or hearing them, or even looking at a photo. It’s clear in their body language, expression, and voice, yet some middle class Lesbians deny that class differences exist -- or they claim to be class-free – which means they are denying class-oppressed Lesbians’ existence.

The only way to fight classism is to acknowledge it. The status quo culture is middle class, and unspoken classist rules are enforced about how we’re supposed to behave. Unless she’s aware of classism, a middle class Lesbian will treat less privileged Lesbians in classist ways -- she may be sincere in saying she doesn’t notice differences, but still acts on those differences. It’s also important for her, as a good friend, to recognize how differently we are treated in the rest of the world, as well as in the Lesbian community. 

 I often forget that some Lesbians grew up with servants. A middle class Lesbian who I’d been in a Separatist group with in the early Seventies and seemed a true ally, later lived in a very privileged area and hired my poverty class lover (at the time) as her cleaner. (I am not talking about disabled Lesbians who need help in their homes, but able-bodied Lesbians who are too lazy to clean their own toilets.)

Then there are the “class experts,” like the middle class Lesbian who posted a criticism of Lesbians hiring undocumented cleaners, but didn’t mention she’d hired my undocumented lover to clean for her. Some of the most classist Lesbians I’ve ever known do workshops (for money!) to teach other Lesbians about class. But then classism is about arrogance.

I’ve heard a middle class Lesbian saying she’d learned from such a workshop to not say “thank you” because working class people don’t (!), while I’ve literally been yelled at by another middle class Lesbian because she’d thought I said “thank you” too much.

U.S. culture teaches us to not respect those who are oppressed. Not many have the courage or sense to reject such stupidity. The main problem I feel with class-privileged Lesbians is their arrogant assumption that theirs is the only reality and that they’re superior – whether it’s conscious or not -- which shows in how they speak to us, treat us, and try to enforce their middle class values. Most even feel superior about things they know nothing about. When I went to the Botanical Gardens with a middle class friend, she actually laughed at me when I told her the plant labels were often wrong. She sarcastically repeated back what I’d said as if I were an idiot. It didn’t matter that I’ve been a gardener for decades and had been coming to the Gardens for forty years – working class me just had to be wrong and ridiculous. So I explained that, that many labels remained after plants had died and new plants sprouted in their place, at least one plant (Dracunculus Vulgaris – the Dragon Arum) had been mislabeled as being in the Compositae family when it was an Araceae -- which is like calling a calla lily a daisy. I still don’t know if she believed me, but the gardener who’d made the mistake in labeling was glad I’d told her – but then she’s a sweet working class woman who fought hard to keep the gardens free when the university wanted to start charging high prices. (Guess who won.) That middle class friend considers herself to be very wise. She advised me to give up my below the poverty level disability income and health insurance because that would cause money to flow to me. She then borrowed money from me.
 

Class differences can make misunderstandings in friendships, but can be disastrous in other settings, such as working together politically. I’ve seen coldness, cruelty, and oppressiveness in class-privileged Lesbians’ writing that is considered fine because it’s done in a “proper,” acceptable middle class style, while a class-oppressed Lesbian writing in an open and impassioned style, is likely to be accused of being “too angry,” even when she is defending and supporting others. As a result, some of our most brilliant Lesbian ideas in writing are censored. If these standards were in place in the early Seventies, I wonder if Lesbian Feminism would ever have happened since the strongest and most courageous writing was in that passionate, angry style. That’s what attracted us to it. If you love those who are being oppressed, you show your feelings. Even many of the most privileged recognized that their families’ and dominant culture was bland, empty, cold, stifling, and oppressive, so they were attracted to the warmth, directness, and loving in more oppressed cultures.

I remember how early Lesbian Feminism and Separatism supported us to reject the patriarchal propaganda we were taught about who was superior and who was inferior so that we could have the most open, equal, caring, inclusive, diverse, and loving community possible. We didn’t want any Lesbian left out and we didn’t want to add to any Lesbian’s oppression. All hierarchies were challenged. Where once Lesbians had collectives, now they have boards of directors.

I believe two things seriously underminded our Lesbian Feminist-identified culture -- the introduction, admiration, and acceptance (in the late Seventies) of "reclaiming femininity," pornograpy, sado-masochism, and "gender queer" politics, and (in the late Eighties and Nineties) radical grassroots writing being replaced by unintelligible, more liberal academic writing. We now have “Gender Studies” 
(which is meaningless or worse) instead of “Women’s” or “Lesbian Studies” at universities and bookstores.

Lesbians have mourned the Lesbian manuscripts lost to us over the centuries because of being banned and burned by men, but where is our concern for Lesbian works, usually the most radical and creative, which are being now banned and censored by Lesbians? Do we really only want the most privileged, or those who follow their rules, to be printed?

One of the only ways we can speak to each other across great distances is through our Lesbian publications, which is why it’s so important that they be accessible and non-oppressive. I’ve gotten international support for my writing and politics, but what about more isolated Lesbians who don’t have support to counteract feeling not good enough when the editors rejecting them use the traditional weapon of classism – condescension, ridicule, and humiliation?

When creative, courageous Lesbians give up, we all lose. What important, original ideas are we being denied? In the Seventies, Lesbian Feminists knew that having degrees meant someone was less likely to be aware and clear-thinking – not more. Professors’ idolizing the revered male writers, theorists, philosophists, scientists, psychiatrists, etc. (some of whom had committed terrible atrocities against females and Lesbians) were likely to transmit female-hating and Lesbian-hating ideas. Most Lesbian publications would never dream of editing someone against their will to fit male and classist academic standards in order to weaken their ideas and politics. (That’s different from a Lesbian working with another as an equal to help her make her ideas easier to read.) Writers’ bios said who they were, as opposed to listing only their academic credentials. But now, most published Lesbian writing is academic and/or in that vapid, boring, badly-written, often meaningless class-privileged style. Entire books were written and published with only a few worthwhile ideas plagiarized from someone else – yet were lauded like the Emperor’s New Clothes. Even some middle class friends thought something was wrong with them because they couldn’t understand the writing.

In the almost twenty years since I wrote my previous article on classism, I realize that my focus now has to be very different since so few Lesbians I know have any awareness of class at all. In the radical, primarily Lesbian Separatist community I had been in, class was at least recognized as an important issue, even if not always dealt with well. Now, instead of discussing the intricacies of our relationships and whether class-privileged Lesbians should ever share resources, I’m reduced to just wanting to ask class-privileged friends to help pay for gas and bridge tolls when a class-oppressed friend gives them a ride. Or to ask friends to at least pay Lesbians they hire in servant roles (as cleaners, gardeners, etc.) a livable wage, as opposed to paying them what would have been a livable wage twenty or thirty years ago. (I’m not exaggerating. When I mentioned this to a friend, she explained that the Lesbian she hired enjoyed working for her so it didn’t matter that she wasn’t paying her enough to live on.) Another issue is when a Lesbian with a good income is working for extra money and unconsciously acts as a scab by charging much less than would be a livable wage, which changes the standard of what anyone doing that job could get paid.

I am still stunned when Lesbian communities are segregated by class, which is enforced by having events affordable only to the very privileged. This cruel class segregation usually also involves segregation based on race, disability, and age. In the San Francisco Bay Area, there is a Lesbian rights organization that has events which are outrageously unaffordable for many Lesbians, while other Lesbians would never dream of turning anyone away. Work exchange can be done with respect -- or with classism, as when the arrangement is to work during most of the event for a fraction of minimum wage. (Many of us who are disabled wouldn’t have the energy to both work and attend the event. Also, I'm not talking about events which cost the producers a lot of money that they have no choice to make back.)

This is a basic issue of having an accessible community. I do believe that some producers intentionally want their events for the privileged only. Ironically, they are keeping out some of the Lesbians who helped create our Lesbian culture, as well as some of the most interesting and creative Lesbians in our community. (When I’m among mostly middle class Lesbians, unless they’re very unique, I miss the vibrancy, warmth, intensity, and wit I feel among class oppressed Lesbians.)

I appreciate so much my producer friends of all classes who never want anyone to feel left out and who truly want an inclusive community, and so their sliding scale starts at zero or their event is by donation only.

Choosing to give up the fantasy of being superior means learning who we all really are, and is actually good for the privileged. Feeling good about ourselves without doing it at anyone else’s expense frees us in unimaginable ways.

I know that classism is a choice because I have class-privileged friends who are intelligent and compassionate enough to know they are not superior, and who treat their class-oppressed friends as equals. They also are aware of our cultural differences and are wonderful allies. I love them dearly. One thing I’ve noticed is that the true allies often have experienced treatment in their lives where they felt like outsiders – whether because of racism or disability or being oppressed as Lesbians at a young age or other reasons. That separation from feeling part of the dominant culture gave them understanding and empathy. Plus, I do believe they just have the courage to believe the truth.

Better to Be Anything than a Lesbian, by Bev Jo

I’m proud to be a Lesbian. I have never wanted to be anything else. That’s why I’ve been surprised and upset by the increasing number of Lesbians who are deciding to become “men” or believe that they already are “men.” I know a lot of them are trying to avoid oppression or are wanting male privilege. Loren Cameron, a “Female to Male Transsexual,” at a reading for her book (I can’t bring myself to call someone born female by male pronouns), “Body Alchemy,”described how she was treated with respect by the women and gay male staff of a San Francisco clothing store – but when an obvious Butch came into the store, the staff made fun of her. In a documentary, a Lesbian described how much better her life was as a man. She was more accepted at work and by her lover’s family. Her lover’s father said how angry he’d been that his daughter was a Lesbian, but now his daughter was “normal” because her lover had become a “man.” As he said, “It’s better than being a Lesbian."

It’s even more disturbing that young girls are being pressured to become transsexuals. I saw a documentary in England about girls who didn’t want the male-defined “feminine” role that patriarchy insists we conform to. The girls liked the comfortable and more protective clothes made for boys instead of skirts and dresses, and they liked doing the active things that boys are encouraged to do instead of playing with make-up and hair styles, posing, and flirting with boys. Instead of understanding that being naturally female includes liking to do things considered “male” and that “femininity” in patriarchal cultures is actually a male invention, the girls were encouraged to believe that they were really “males” inside of females’ bodies. One of the English girls went with her family to Amsterdam to enroll in the Dutch transsexual program so she could begin treatment, which included a hysterectomy, a double mastectomy, surgery to alter her vulva, and daily injections of testosterone – all before she reached puberty. Nothing was said about what if these girls changed their minds later. And not once was the word “Lesbian” ever mentioned as a possible alternative to explain their feelings. No other explanations were suggested either – not even basic feminist ideas about gender equality.

A friend sent me a taping of a U.S. radio program in which a mother described her little girl wishing she were a boy from the age of three. Again, everything the girl said about why she wanted to be accepted as male made sense in the context of male privilege. She’d been disappointed when her grandmother gave her a frilly dress for her birthday, so she asked her mother, “Why don’t you tell grandma I’m not the kind of girl who wears dresses?” When that didn’t work, she tried, “Why don’t you tell her I’m a boy?” When the girl was six, her mother told her she couldn’t be a boy since she didn’t have a penis, so she said she wanted one. If the conversation had ended here, that could have been used by proponents of transsexualism as proof that the girl truly wanted to be male. But when her mother explained to her what a penis was, the little girl said she didn’t want one. Still, her mother, who seemed unusually aware and caring, explained to the interviewer how she’d accepted, with “professional” help, that her daughter was a transsexual and would have to face surgery, testosterone injections, etc. Again, not once was gender equality or the word “Lesbian” mentioned.

I don’t know why I’m surprised that many hets would prefer that girls mutilate themselves and injure their health than become Lesbians. But why is this also happening among Lesbians?

Teenaged Teena Brandon changed her name to Brandon Teena in order to pass as male and be accepted by local girls in her small town in Nebraska. When she was found out, a group of men raped and murdered her. The only quote I’ve read by an actual friend of hers described her as a “Lesbian.” But everything I’ve read and heard since then in the Gay and mainstream media describes her as a “female to male transsexual.” I wish she could speak for herself.

Although they’re often included together, FTMs and MTFs are very different. I think it’s fine if MTFs want to be with other men and claim to be het women, as long as they don’t invade female-only space. I’m suspicious of any man claiming to be a Lesbian. The first MTF I met when I was 17 was a het man who constantly harassed me to be with him, even though I told him I was a Lesbian. He had no understanding at all of what that meant and certainly didn’t feel like he was a female trapped in a male body, yet a few years later he was not only claiming to be a Lesbian, but had become vice president of a Lesbian organization, eventually leading to the group ending. He’s written as a Lesbian for years and has lied when asked if he’s female-born, in order to get published. More men are being published as Lesbians than you might think. MTFs have caused tremendous damage to Lesbian communities, yet they’re so clearly men, with all the arrogance that male privilege and power gives. Het men want access to Lesbians (that’s a common pornographic theme), and claiming to be Lesbians is another way to get it.

However, these men wouldn’t be able to invade Lesbian space if Lesbians didn’t support them. Too often, Lesbians generously believe them when they say how oppressed they are -- forgetting that, while they’re welcoming these men into the few remaining female-only spaces (and almost non-existent Lesbian-only spaces), they’re making those places no longer safe for Lesbians who don’t want to be forced to be with men. I don’t want any Lesbian to have to go through what I’ve had to experience: Seeing the man who harassed me being welcomed as a “Lesbian” in female-only space and seeing his writing about “Lesbian Sex” printed in a feminist female-only publication (“off our backs” in 1992).

In her moving novel, “Stone Butch Blues,” Leslie Feinberg tells the story of Jess, a Butch who’d suffered years of harassment and rape by boys and men who wanted sexual access to Lesbians – and how Lesbians had to fight to defend the tiny amount of space they had in a predominately het bar. Yet the MTF she describes in her book is presented only in positive terms as sharing oppression with Butches. Rather than identifying with those of us who feel in the same position in relation to MTFs, she supports the MTF group who demand to be allowed into the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival each year, which would destroy that rare remaining female-only space. Why doesn’t she consider those men similar to the males she wrote about who insisted on getting access to Lesbians against our will? And what is more male than trying to invade females who say “no?”

There is tremendous pressure now to accept people as transsexuals without questioning what that means. If you don’t immediately agree, you’re likely to be called “transphobic,” as if Lesbians are in a power position over men pretending to be female or females pretending to be men. But both groups have more power than Lesbians – either they have experienced male privilege (which influences them still) or they’re getting male privilege now. It’s like accusing a woman of being male-phobic because we dare to question male privilege. Would we accept or be expected to accept someone claiming to be a Person of Color if they were born European-descent – especially if they demanded to be accepted by that community – and, even more so, if they wanted to be in power positions as leaders or writers representing the oppressed culture? If we wouldn’t accept that surgeons and other artificial methods could change someone’s race, then why accept that male surgeons can create females out of males? And if we believe that they’re just correcting a mistake because that man really feels he’s female inside, then would we accept someone European-descent who really believes they’re Native American inside (a lot of people claim this, but, hopefully, aware people recognize this as racist.) I think that the reason that Lesbians are so willing to accept gender as less important than race is because female and Lesbian oppression isn’t taken seriously and because they’re impressed that a man would want to be one of us, and, also, because Lesbians are so kind and welcoming and don’t want to hurt anyone, even if it means hurting themselves or their own kind.

I feel differently about Lesbians who say they are or want to be men. I feel betrayed by them because men are our oppressors, but the few I’ve met seemed to be kind Lesbians (which is one of the biggest compliments I can give.) And I don’t object to their being in female-only space because they know what it’s like to grow up oppressed as females and often as Lesbians. I understand questioning and rejecting the unnatural “feminine” role patriarchy sets up for us. We’re expected to alter our voices, body size and posture, wear demeaning clothing that make us more vulnerable to harassment and attack, wear shoes that damage our feet and backs and that prevent us from running or defending ourselves, mask our faces with lurid toxic chemicals, alter our hair texture and color with chemicals, burn, cut, or electrolysize our natural facial and body hair, etc. – all in order to be “normal” and “feminine.” We’re expected to give up our dignity in how we look and act because only men are really allowed to be their natural selves. (For those who think things are much better than in the past, picture a man in the role of a woman in a movie, using the same gestures, expressions, and movements. Animated films for kids are even more revealing in pushing female stereotypes, which is training girls for their roles. Animation of animals is probably the most extreme. Contrast those female-hating caricatures with how real wild animals act and it becomes clear just how false “femininity” is.)

Even many Lesbians believe these lies. I’ve seen Lesbian writing too often describe such ugly, unnatural “femininity” as “beautiful” or “hot,” while describing natural females as “ugly” or “masculine.” Many females, including Lesbians, will do almost anything to not look naturally female (Lesbian) because that’s interpreted as being “male” and “masculine.” Even some of the few who are openly against “femininity” still accept the lie by describing themselves and others as “masculine,” when, in actuality, being a Lesbian is as far from that as possible. Looking like a Lesbian isn’t “masculine – and it’s not feminine by patriarchal definition either.

If we refuse to believe anti-Lesbian lies, then we’ll help make the world and our communities a safer place for females to be our natural selves, and we’ll make it easier for girls and adult females to not think that they have to torture their bodies, including “changing their sex,” in order to be accepted. It also helps to believe that being a Lesbian is a choice. I think that it’s the natural state of all females, but because of growing up with patriarchal propaganda and tremendous pressure around us to be het, many go against their nature – which means that it takes a lot of courage to choose to be a Lesbian. In spite of the oppression we get and harassment and attacks, and in spite of not usually even having the support of our families and neighborhoods that other oppressed groups get growing up, I can’t imagine giving up how wonderful it is to be a Lesbian – not for any privilege in the world.

Some females take the privileged way out by choosing to be with men while others choose to be with females but identify as “men.” I believe both those choices mean self-betrayal and betrayal of other females.

I can remember making that choice when I was three – I didn’t need to know the word “Lesbian” to live my life as a Lesbian, although most of us do hear the word “queer” while growing up. In this age when people are often told the outrageous idea that they choose to get cancer by having the wrong attitude, the mainstream as well as Gay media line is that we don’t have a choice about being Lesbian or Gay. The attitude is: “We hate being queer and would do anything to be normal like you, but we were born this way – so pity us and give us equal rights.” It’s as if the entire beginning of the Lesbian Feminist movement never happened. Yet, it’s obvious that we do make choices since most Lesbians once chose to be heterosexual and a lot go back to being het. And many ex-het Lesbian Feminists used to make it clear that they chose to be Lesbian as a political decision.

Saying we choose to be Lesbians gives us pride in ourselves and gives us the power to change mistakes. Instead of begging for acceptance or wanting to be something we’re not (whether it’s being het or trying to be male), we can know the revolutionary truth that being a Lesbian is the best choice of all.

1997