Race and sexuality

Reflecting our conversation on Friday, it is necessary to recognize that many outside factors impact the “gay experience”. On Friday, we were specifically talking about chicanas, who are both impacted by their race, culture, and gender. Up until this point in our class, we have often just lumped all groups together, only distinguishing gays from lesbians. In this form, we were probably reflecting the common experience of the dominant race, white Americans—which is ironic in many ways given the emphasis that the LGBT community put on being distinguished from the dominant sexuality.

The discussion of race and culture gave a very different perspective on the adversities that some people face in their effort to “come out”. In particular, chicanas are almost always identified by their relationships with men and the men in their lives, whether it is their father, husband, or son. Lesbians in this relationship find that they must carve their own identity in the community, attached to no other man, which is an almost completely uncharted path for women in this community. Following through with this effort to create an autonomous identity is often seen as a rejection of the culture and a betrayal to the race.

Unlike white women, women of other races in the United States, have to fight for both equal recognition of their race and their gender, they are fighting a battle on two fronts. They have not had as much time to fight for their rights as women within their race because they have been too busy working for their race as a whole. This is true of all minorities who also identify as LGBT as well. Being queer is often seen as embracing white culture, likely because it is the white queers who have had time to pave a path for themselves in society. Not to say that the LGBT movements of the past haven’t been fighting for the rights of all of those who identify as queer and not to say that the white members of the LGBT community have been fully accepted in dominant society, but the main target of the LGBT movement was dominant society—white, heterosexual society—and it did not put the same effort into getting recognized and accepted by minority groups, leaving that to the LGBT members of racial and cultural groups. As a result, these LGBT minorities face obstacles that the white LGBT community could never imagine

La Femme

Joan Nestle’s article defending the femme makes many interesting points. The one that struck me as maybe most important is that femmes dress and act how they feel comfortable and are not conforming to male expectations as many feminists have claimed.

Most femmes are not trying to pass as heterosexual women, nor are they in anyway denying who they are. Actually, many of them would probably argue that they are embracing who they are—women who love to dress up and feel beautiful who also happen to be lesbians. Society is the agent that places the idea of passing upon them. The stereotypes that society has embraced about how lesbians should look and act have set the stage for femmes to blend in while butches stand out.

While, admittedly, some women do dress to fill male desires, many women dress to make themselves comfortable and happy. Those women who accuse femmes of betraying the feminist cause are stereotyping those women to the same extent that men have.

Many of these same arguments can be made of butches; they dress to make themselves comfortable and are not necessarily dressing to reject societal pressures about beauty. Additionally, they are not rejecting their gender or embracing masculinity by dressing and acting the way that society dictates that men should.

I do think that adopting the butch-femme norm of lesbian relationships works to reflect heterosexual norms upon lesbians. While some lesbian relationships may consist of a butch and a femme, there is no reason that it couldn’t be two butches together or two femmes. Overall, I would say that it is harder to “detect” a femme relationship due to societies acceptance of women being more affectionate with one another. Gay men, butch-femme, and both butch relationships are generally more visible, increasing the awareness and stereotype-ability of such relationships, allowing femmes to pass more easily, whether or not they want to.

AIDS

Discussing the topic of HIV/AIDS in class over the past week has been very interesting to me. I feel as though I have always been aware of HIV and known snippets about it, but I have never really understood the intricacies of how it works and how the rapid spread of AIDS impacted society as a whole and the LGBT community.

While, in high school, I had comprehensive sex education (for the most part), but very little detail was given about AIDS. We were told about other STDs, their symptoms, treatments, different ways of contacting them, etc. This sort of attention was not paid to HIV/AIDS. We were taught that it happens and that it is transmitted through sex, but that is about it.

My guess (although merely an educated speculation) is that we learned so little about it because it still carries the stigma of being a “gay disease”. I grew up in a conservative small town that has probably never been home to an openly AIDS-infected person, thus perpetuating the idea that it was not something that “our people” have to deal with.

In class we touched on the idea that while information about AIDS might be available, very few people are seeking it out for the sole purpose of knowing more, as we are. It scares me that over 20 years after the outbreak of AIDS, students are being taught almost nothing about it. There is some information available on the internet, and the U.S. government has an entire section of its site devoted entirely to AIDS, but after sifting through the site a bit, I find that it is hard to get any quick information. Almost every section of the site has an additional 5-10 links that are meant to provide information. As a member of the technology era, I, like most people, want quick, fast, straightforward information. If I find that interesting enough, I will dig in deeper to a subject. This seems like a simple and common idea that even the government is over-looking, making it hard for people with limited internet access or reading skills to get accurate information. It is under-education that leads to the continued spread of the disease, despite the fact that all its methods of transmission have been well known for years and it seems logical to me that the U.S. government (as well as others) should be doing everything in its power to stop this spread in both the United States and other countries.

lesbian feminism and gender roles

I had some lingering thoughts stemming from Friday’s discussion, so that’s my focus for this entry. Although I do see the arguments behind lesbian feminism, I also find it problematic.

The concept of political lesbianism may have worked to re-enforce feminism through complete separation from men, but it seems to undermine homosexuality. Choosing to act as a lesbian might act suggests that it is a choice for everyone and that everyone can choose NOT to be a lesbian. I imagine that this is one of the reasons that many actual lesbians resented these political lesbians. Going off of this idea, I take issue with the concept that “lesbians are feminists, not homosexuals.” Again, this suggests first that lesbianism is always a choice, but it also suggests that lesbianism is always political. There is more to feminism than being a lesbian and there is nothing inherent in being a lesbian that suggests wanting equality for women, but more a sexual preference for women. While having a relationship with another women may ensure that there is no misogyny at home, these women may still subject themselves (willingly or unwillingly) to such misogyny elsewhere.

Another issue worth mention, something that we have not discussed in class, is the stance that some of these lesbian feminists took on gay men. Although not all shared this opinion, some thought that gay men weren’t doing enough to do away with gender, especially by accepting the antics of drag queens and butch lesbians, but it seems to me that this challenge of gender is as important to getting rid of gender norms as the rejection of gender all together. By making people question their conceptions of gender, you can reassert the absurdity of inequality between genders. While this is clearly a very different tactic, it seems that both have their merit. I am not suggestion, however, that the gay movement did not have its own elements of misogyny, but I do not think that drag queens were the ones reinforcing gender inequlities.