Dykes Loving Dykes

Bev Jo
Linda Strega
Ruston
Dykes-Loving-Dykes
Dyke Separatist Politics - For Lesbians Only
Table Of Contents
Introduction to Dykes-Loving-Dykes: Dyke Separatist Politics ........... 6
Why We Wrote This Book ..................................................................... 6
Introduction ....................................................................................... 8
Valuing Dyke Ways ........................................................................... 8
Innocents in the Publishing World ..................................................... 11
The Power of Names — Our Definitions ............................................. 13
Explanations .................................................................................. 20
Authors’ Notes ............................................................................... 20
Chapter One ...................................................................................... 25
The Crimes of Mankind ...................................................................... 25
Boys Will Be Boys ........................................................................... 30
Chapter Two ..................................................................................... 37
Selling Out Is Not Compulsory ............................................................ 37
Het Feminism Is a Contradiction in Terms ......................................... 37
The Heterosexist Myths that Manipulate Lesbian Feminists .................. 39
The Power of Women to Choose Who They Love ................................ 41
The Heterosexist Hierarchy .............................................................. 41
Dykes Are Oppressed...................................................................... 44
What Is the Cause of Heterosexuality? Is There a Cure? ..................... 47
Heterosexuality Is a Choice ............................................................. 49
“A Mother Knows” .......................................................................... 55
“But I Love Him” ............................................................................ 57
Het Women Hate Lesbians ............................................................... 58
Het Women Betray All Females ........................................................ 60
Chapter Three ................................................................................... 63
Heterosexism Among Lesbians Is Lesbian-hating .................................. 63
Dyke Community ........................................................................... 64
Anti-Lesbian Propaganda ................................................................. 65
Het Privilege Lasts .......................................................................... 67
The Heterosexist Hierarchy Among Lesbians ...................................... 70
The Lure of Het Privilege ................................................................. 73
Bisexuals Choose to Not Be Lesbians ................................................ 74
The Het/Male “Fuck” Mentality: Avoiding Love and Passion at Any Cost . 75
Dyke Identity Is a Conscious Decision ............................................... 79
The Co-Option of Pre-WLM Dyke Communities ................................... 80
No, We Were Not All Het ................................................................. 85
The Myth of Reverse Discrimination .................................................. 89
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Het Identification Destroys Dyke Culture ........................................... 91

Unlearning Lesbian-Hatred .............................................................. 93
Chapter Four ..................................................................................... 96
Supporting Butches Supports All Lesbians ............................................ 96
Butch Myths and Objectifications ...................................................... 98
25 Years Later... ...........................................................................103
Femininity Is a Choice ....................................................................107
Identity Appropriation Is Not a Form of Flattery ................................111
Butch-Hatred Is Lesbian-Hatred .........................................................113
Part 1 - Butch Oppression .................................................................113
Butches as Scapegoats ..................................................................117
“So Give Me a Definition” ...............................................................120
One Honest Fem’s Self-Recognition List ...........................................123
“But I Don’t Play Roles”..................................................................124
“Just Don’t Use Those Words!” ........................................................126
Part 2 - The Big Sell-Out: Lesbian Femininity.......................................127
Fem Privilege — Who Pays for It? ....................................................128
Feminine Lesbians Treat Butches As Non-Women ..............................130
Fems Who Think They’re Butches ....................................................132
The Het Woman’s Uniform vs. Lesbian Identity .................................133
Living with Integrity ......................................................................135
Part 3 - “Roles” = Butch Oppression ...................................................137
The Original, Real Role Players: Men and Het Women ........................138
Question Fems, Not Butches ...........................................................138
“The Lie That Rape Causes Roles” ...................................................140
Passing As Het ..............................................................................140
“P.C.” and “P.I.” ............................................................................142
Who’s Calling Who “Male”? .............................................................143
The Lie That Butches Bond with Men................................................146
Butches as Sexual Objects..............................................................146
Passive Fems Avoid Their Own Lesbianness ......................................148
Who’s “Sex-Obsessed”? .................................................................150
The Lie That Butches Are Tough, Mean, Violent, Unemotional .............150
Butch Oppression Hurts All Dykes....................................................152
Chapter Five ....................................................................................156
Lesbians For Lesbians - Dyke Separatism Means Loving Dykes ..............156
Who You Choose to Love Says Everything About You .........................157
Female-Only: Freeing Ourselves ......................................................160
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Boys First Means Lesbians Last .......................................................161

The Sacred Gift of Lesbian Only Space .............................................162
Separatists Fight All Oppressions.....................................................164
We Have No Brothers ....................................................................165
Hating Males Who Hate Us Is Self Defense .......................................168
Anti-Separatism Is Anti-Lesbian ......................................................171
Lying About Separatists on Behalf of Patriarchy.................................172
Lesbians Who Sell Us Out ...............................................................174
Separatism Means Doing Things in Radical Dyke Ways .......................176
Chapter Six ......................................................................................179
Kink = Leather = S/M = BDSM - It’s All Still Sadism and Masochism ......179
Contradictions...............................................................................180
Sado-Masochist “Consent” Is An Illusion ..........................................184
“What Can Two Girls Do Together Without A —–?” ............................185
Sado-Masochism Is Addictive ..........................................................187
The Dangers And The Damage ........................................................189
Masochism Is Self-Hatred/Sadism is Lesbian-Hatred ..........................190
Trendy Is Reactionary ....................................................................191
Fighting Sado-Masochism Is Pro-Lesbian ..........................................192
Chapter Seven .................................................................................196
Motherhood: The Ultimate Feminine Role ............................................196
The Myths and Mania of Motherhood ................................................197
“Don’t You Dare Talk Back!” ...........................................................204
Some Mothers Betray Their Daughters and Other Females for Males ....205
“Lesbians” Getting Pregnant??? .......................................................206
Are You Considering Having a Baby? ................................................210
Boys Oppress All Females ...............................................................212
Motherhood Oppresses Girls But Heterosexual Girls Oppress Lesbians ..215
Fighting Mother Privilege is Dyke-Loving ..........................................215
Chapter Eight ...................................................................................218
Patriarchy Is One Big Unhappy Family ................................................218
Families Are the Cornerstone of Patriarchy .......................................219
Family Is Dangerous ......................................................................221
God Is the Biggest Daddy of All .......................................................222
Ownership Is Not Love ...................................................................223
Families Hate Lesbians ...................................................................225
Misplaced Loyalties ........................................................................227
Let’s Not “Be A Family” ..................................................................233
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Dykes Are Home ...........................................................................235

Chapter Nine ....................................................................................238
Hidden Disability ..............................................................................238
Part 1 - Oppression Is Sickening ........................................................238
Are These Man-made Illnesses? ......................................................241
A Clean Environment Doesn’t Stink..................................................246
Saying “No” to an Exclusionary Community ......................................251
Part 2 - Worker, Heal Yourself ...........................................................262
The Rich Visualize — We Do the Work ..............................................263
You Must Be Doing Something Wrong ..............................................264
“You Don’t Look Sick” ....................................................................265
The Boss Says “Get Back To Work!”.................................................266
Working For Ourselves ...................................................................269
Chapter Ten .....................................................................................272
If Looks Could Kill - Looksism: The Most Personal Oppression .............272
The Politics of Beauty ....................................................................274
Fear of Nature ..............................................................................278
Nature Is Female ..........................................................................282
Fat Oppression ..............................................................................285
Fighting Looksism ls Dyke-Loving ....................................................291
Looksism Kills Females...................................................................292
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Introduction to Dykes-Loving-Dykes: Dyke Separatist Politics
Why We Wrote This Book

I’ve put our entire updated book at the heading of my blog, so all the chapters
can easily be seen and linked to, in order. Each chapter is meant to build from
the previous chapter, but most also stand alone, for reading and sharing.
2015 – We have re-positioned the chapters, so our original Chapter One, which
was "Lesbians for Lesbians", is now Chapter Five. Our new first chapter, "The
Crimes of Mankind", had been the beginning section of Chapter Two,
"Heterosexuality/Selling Out Is Not Compulsory", but we are now starting our
book with it as a separate chapter, since the rest of our book flows from knowing
that males are destroying the earth and that women do have the ability to stop
them.
We originally had 13 chapters, but are not posting our three personal stories or
our brief ending.
So here are the current chapters:
Chapter One: The Crimes of Mankind
Chapter Two: Heterosexuality/Selling Out Is Not Compulsory
Chapter Three: Heterosexism Among Lesbians Is Lesbian-hating
Chapter Four: SupportingButchesSupportsAll Lesbians
Chapter Five: LesbiansForLesbians — Dyke Separatism
Chapter Six: Leather = S/M = BDSM — It’s All Still Sadism
Chapter Seven: Motherhood: The Ultimate Feminine Role
Chapter Eight: Patriarchy Is One Big Unhappy Family
Chapter Nine: Hidden Disability by Bev Jo and Linda Strega
Chapter Ten: If Looks Could Kill: Lookism — The Most Personal Oppression
In 1990, we published our book, Dykes-Loving-Dykes, in order to share our
understanding about what goes wrong in our Lesbian communities, friendships,
and relationships, and about how that damage has undermined Lesbian
Feminism, Radical Lesbian Feminism, Separatism, and Radical Feminism in
general. Everything we described or predicted has proven true. (For example,
men claiming to be Lesbians and destroying our last women only space is almost
beyond belief, but they are now supported by most pretend feminists as well as
liberal Lesbians.)
So twenty five years later, I (Bev) am updating our book with our new
information and additional chapters with input from Linda Strega.
I’ve also continued posting new articles at my blog, which would theoretically
become a second or third book if we had the money and means to publish them.
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They are:
Please, If You Love Lesbians And Other Females, Think About This...
https://bevjoradicallesbian.wordpress.com/2014/07/22/please-if-you-love-
lesbians-and-other-women-think-about-this/
DefiningLesbiansOut Of Existence — The Pretenders
Part One — “Transwomen” Are Still Merely Men
https://bevjoradicallesbian.wordpress.com/2011/03/15/bev-jo-radical-lesbian-
writing/
Part Two – BetterTo Be Anything Than A Lesbian: “Transmen” Are Still Women
https://bevjoradicallesbian.wordpress.com/2011/07/07/transmen-are-still-
women-part-2-of-the-pretenders-defining-lesbians-out-of-existence/
Classism
https://bevjoradicallesbian.wordpress.com/2011/03/16/classism/
Ageism – A Radical Lesbian Feminist Perspective
https://bevjoradicallesbian.wordpress.com/2012/09/23/ageism/
Lifelong Lesbian –Always a Lesbian
https://bevjoradicallesbian.wordpress.com/2011/03/24/always-a-lesbian/
The Parasitizing And Gutting Of Radical Feminism
https://bevjoradicallesbian.wordpress.com/2014/03/02/the-parasitizing-and-
gutting-of-radical-feminism/
Progress VersusCo-optation In The Radical Feminist Movement
https://bevjoradicallesbian.wordpress.com/2011/11/06/progress-versus-
cooptation-in-the-radical-feminist-movement/
The Big Sell-Out: Lesbian FemininityBy Linda Strega
https://bevjoradicallesbian.wordpress.com/2011/07/27/the-big-sell-out-lesbian-
femininity-by-linda-strega/
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Introduction
The story of Lesbianism is a story of magic and survival.1In almost every part of
the world, we’re said not to exist, or we’re hated and lied about. Yet we persist in
surviving. Lesbians come from every culture and country. We appear where
there are no others of us, coming from people who try their hardest to make us
committed man-lovers. We create ourselves out of nothing, appearing like weeds
that cannot be destroyed. We crack open the foundations of the enormous
structures of male supremacy.
Our passion to survive and find each other over great barriers of distance and
time is like the crashing of ocean waves. Unstoppable. Like witches, we are a
horror story that chills the heartlessness of mankind. We’re said to be figments
of the imagination. Like ghosts, we’re simply not supposed to be. Like witches,
we are murdered and lied about. And like the ghosts of millions of murdered
witches,2 we haunt all of mankind.
Lesbians are part of nature. Like witchcraft, rats, spiders and snakes, we horrify,
because man is so deeply afraid of nature. We remind everyone that patriarchy
and heterosexuality are not inevitable.
We dare to be Dykes. That’s our crime against mankind. We dare to love other
Dykes. That’s unforgivable in patriarchy. But we won’t be stopped. We want the
best possible world for Dykes and all females, and that also means an
unpolluted, wild world, safe for the other creatures on earth. The only way to
save the Earth is to end patriarchy. The only way for male supremacy to end is
for heterosexual women to stop choosing and supporting men and being
heterosexual. We can’t prevent men and het women from making their life-
hating choices, but, as Dykes, we can choose to stop supporting them, and
instead choose to love our own kind and create truly Dyke-identified Dyke
communities.
This book is about loving Lesbians, which means fighting male rule and
heterosexism. That’s Dyke Separatism. Only by devoting our lives to
ourselves and each other as Lesbians, as a people, will we begin to build truly
Dyke-identified Lesbian Movements. Dykes deserve the very best — other
Dykes.
Valuing Dyke Ways

Why do we often feel that we’re still struggling against familiar pain that wrecked
so many of our relationships with other girls when we were younger — betrayals,
malice, slander, manipulations, exclusion from cliques? We already know some of
the reasons: racism, classism, ethnicism, ableism, looksism, ageism, and fat
oppression. There’s another reason that’s seldom discussed, but which explains
the many presently “mysterious” disasters among Lesbians: heterosexism or
Lesbian-hating among Lesbians.
To have strong Dyke cultures, we need to also return to our true Dyke/female
natures. That means recognizing and eliminating the indoctrination of male and
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het identification that’s imposed on us, which many Lesbians once chose to
embrace and which some still actively pursue. Rejecting male definitions of
females is central to Dyke Separatism. Because we’re raised in a Lesbian-hating
world, we’re all taught Lesbian-hatred. That doesn’t automatically disappear
when we come out. This book is about understanding and fighting all forms of
lesbophobia and Lesbian-hatred among ourselves as Lesbians, which also means
recognizing and fighting female-hating.
Although some of us have had glimpses, none of us knows what it would be like
to be part of a truly Dyke-centered, Dyke-loving community. It would be
Separatist, with no men or boys welcome, and with het women only as
occasional guests. We’d love, protect, care for and value each other as
Dykes. We would have one place in the world where we’d be safer, happier,
more hopeful, and strong. We would be genuinely committed to eradicating all
inequality among us because no oppressiveness is acceptable to true Dyke
Separatists and because we want to have the most diverse and welcoming
communities possible.
Dykes as a people are incredibly strong and courageous. Otherwise we wouldn’t
have survived. But too often that Lesbian strength is spent caring for our
oppressors. Too many Lesbians give energy to men and boys. Too many also
give their hearts to het women. Even when Lesbians are only with Lesbians, too
many maintain and use men’s standards and rules, and police those of us who
want to be fully Lesbian in our minds, hearts, and spirits. Het women are revered
as the essence of femaleness, beauty, and kindness, while Dyke-identified Dykes
are reviled. It’s all a mindfuck that hurts us individually and as a people.
We won’t take care of ourselves if we don’t value ourselves. The Lesbian-only
space we need is almost non-existent in the world. “Women’s” space usually
includes boys and often even men. Meanwhile, Lesbians are sick and dying from
Lesbian oppression.
In the early 1970’s, we felt a sense of hope, excitement, and possibilities for a
new beginning. Many of us were finding other Lesbians for the first time in our
lives. Dyke communities were growing bigger and stronger, and new ones were
forming. There was caring, love, and self-love among us as Lesbians.
Now it’s the era of selfishness. “Lesbian culture” became “women’s culture,”
which then became meaningless. Everyone but Lesbians were prioritized by
Lesbians. (By 2011, the Berkeley Women’s Health Collective had become the
business called the Berkeley Women’s Health Center, which then morphed into
the extremely Lesbian-hating Berkeley Clinic for Women and Men.) Theoretically
Lesbian organizations, like the National Center for Lesbian Rights3 legally support
men against Lesbians, even while still asking for Lesbian money and promoting
segregation in our community by having fundraisers that only the richest
Lesbians can afford.
Much feminist writing became anti-feminist. Dynamic and exciting Lesbian music
became “womyn’s” music, with the politics and culture gutted, and is often even
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more boring than mainstream het women’s music. The newer musicians played
to Lesbian audiences while being closeted enough to attract het and het women.
Lesbians idolized Lesbian “stars,” whose goal was to grow in fame and fortune
through taking Lesbian energy and diluting it for the consumption of men and het
women. The fire, passion, and realness of Lesbian Feminist politics is almost
gone.
Some Lesbians say they’re not “political,” as if that means they have no
responsibility for what’s happening. But we’re all political. Choosing to passively
accept things as they are is as much a political decision as fighting back, because
it affects every other Lesbian’s life. Politics are far more than male electoral
power plays, or abstract theories — politics means how we decide to live, in a
world where every action or inaction affects others.
Instead of working to build Lesbian communities, many women who identify as
Lesbians decided to create their own nuclear families by getting pregnant. With
“artificial insemination,” they produce over 85% boys, a patriarch’s dream come
true. They also formed an enormous, self-righteous, privilege-bonded pressure
group, demanding that Lesbians look after their sons and that their sons be
welcomed everywhere, teaching their boys that girls and women saying “no”
means nothing. They and the men posing as women destroyed our last
remaining female-only spaces.
Three events that completely altered our Lesbian Feminists communities were
the “feminist” invasions of porn and sado-masochism, along with the arrival of
academics (in a culture and movement that previously distrusted academia and
had the ideology of no leaders.) The class divisions widened with all three also.
The most influential women who wrote about “Lesbians sex” in the early Eighties
were actually choosing to be bisexual while lying and misrepresenting
themselves as Lesbian to promote their male-worshipping in our communities,
and to make money off Lesbians: Pat Califia (who now pretends to be a man to
get sexual access to gay men), JoAnn Loulan, and Susie Bright. (Similarly, the
few books supposedly about Butches have usually been by bisexual Fems and
are full of porn and Butch-hating stereotypes.)
These het/bisexual pornographers were part of the reason that Lesbians have
falsely been identified with sado-masochism, although that history can be traced
directly back to het and Gay male organizations.
So a new “women’s” industry appeared, with porn magazines and videos,
telephone-sex lines, and strip shows “for womyn, by womyn.” This was even
more of a capitalist money-maker than “women’s” music. It’s also directly tied in
with the male pornography industry and with sado-masochists.
Some Lesbians and pretend feminists write dramatically about why we shouldn’t
have “censorship” in our Lesbian communities. But “Lesbian” porn is male
fantasy with Lesbian-hating books and magazines full of male-style pornography
–“Lesbians” saying they wished they had penises, and Lesbians wanting to be
“fucked” in the vagina and in the rectum by imitation penises. Anyone who
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protests this and objects to being exposed to it against our will is accused of
being like the right-wing, fascist men who outlawed Lesbianism. This is a mind-
fuck.
The few of us who dare to speak out against this can’t censor anyone. We can’t
stop men or male “Lesbian” pornography. All we can do is protest it and say that
we won’t buy it, we won’t support it, and we won’t welcome it into our lives or
our homes any more than we welcome men. And when we create rare Lesbian-
only space, we have the right to keep porn out so there will be a few small places
that are safe for us in this world filled with rape, male-supremacy, and female-
hatred (which is what fucking and sado-masochism is all about). In reality, it’s
those who dare to protest porn and sado-masochism who are censored. Dyke
Separatists are always censored anyway — especially those who dare to write
against the heterosexist power structure among Lesbians.
For the Lesbians who are ridiculed and ostracized because you hate porn and
sado-masochism and know they are Lesbian-hating, we want you to know you
are not alone. There are many of us who agree.
We have been slandered and censored because we dare to fight the lies and
speak out against all other male influences in our communities, like pregnancy
being promoted, heterosexism, male-identified femininity, and the oppression of
Butches, Lifelong Dykes, and Never-het Dykes. If the daily dangers of living in
patriarchy haven’t stopped us, then neither will slander by pretend “radfems” or
the rape and death threats by the trans cult. Through our work, we continue to
meet deeply committed Dyke-loving Separatists and Radical Lesbian Feminists
and Radical Feminists of all ages across the world.
Innocents in the Publishing World

Two working-class US Dyke Separatists and one Lesbian Separatist from
Aotearoa wrote this book. We aren’t going to name and praise Lesbian stars as
many Lesbian writers do. We wrote our book in spite of that network in which
shared privilege determines who’s published and who isn’t. We do want to thank
our dear friends and the ordinary Dyke Separatists from all over the world who
don’t have fame and fortune but whose blood and sweat have kept Separatism
and Dyke politics alive.
We did our own writing, typing, word processing, and editing. We don’t claim to
be professional writers, and we don’t think Lesbians should have to fit those
standards in order to write about our own lives. The most important thing is to
be clear and to not be oppressive. Our style is as political as our ideas, and
reflects our working class (Linda and Bev) and national (Ruston, Aotearoa)
cultures.
It’s important to not change our ways in order to imitate the trend of increasingly
unemotional and abstract Lesbian writing. It’s become fashionable for Lesbian
political writing to be so academic as to be unreadable, and so vague as to be
meaningless. That way no one’s offended, but then no changes in our lives are
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possible. Lesbians’ communication goals used to be honest, unpretentious

writing, easily understood by all.
Too often Lesbian writers, especially the class-privileged, take an entire book to
say what could be said in one chapter. Sometimes it’s difficult to know what a
writer thinks about a subject even after reading her entire book, because her
language and ideas are so muddled by following male academic writing
standards. Meanwhile, we had to pack a book into each of our chapters, and a
chapter into each paragraph, because of our lack of money and resources.
It serves patriarchy if Lesbians choose to remain permanently confused in a
psycho-therapized muddle. It’s frightening to make definite statements and
decisions since strong opinions lead to action. Confused liberalness enables you
to be “friends” with everyone, while clear political commitment “limits” you to
equally committed friends. There’s plenty of support for the privileged. We
prefer to ally with those who are wronged, knowing that working to stop
oppression is the best support we can give each other.
Asking Dyke Separatists or Radical Feminists to explain ourselves in minute
detail, sometimes with demands of “scientific” proof, is often a way of evading
the truth, as well as a troll technique to divert us, dissipating our energy for
political work. This is a common male tactic, but feminists also play “logic”
games, distorting our words and meaning in order to evade real issues. (We see
this regularly in online discussions where the goal is simply to stop the Radical
Feminist discussion by derailing and exhausting everyone. Some of these trolls
are very likely to be paid agents.)
Some issues we’re writing about have rarely or never, as far as we know, been
written about before. Women who are upset at what we say in this book should
remember that learning the truth isn’t always easy. Facing heterosexism in
ourselves and other Lesbians is even more painful than recognizing it in men and
het women. But the only way to stop heterosexism among Lesbians is to
acknowledge and deal with it. It’s far more important for us to support Dykes
who are getting support nowhere else than for us to live with comforting
illusions and a conspiracy of silence about Lesbian-hating among Lesbians
injuring and, in some cases, killing Dykes who are the most oppressed as Dykes.
Intensity and passion have always been the basis of Lesbian cultures. By our
very nature, Dykes, particularly Separatists, question and challenge the status
quo lies, seeking out not-always-popular truths. That’s how we grow and find our
true selves, and begin to heal from the damage that patriarchy inflicts on us.
We write for those who recognize the truth in what we’re saying, and to
overcome the barriers of isolation among us. We write to express Lesbian reality
in a male and heterosexual world. We write to assert that it’s vital for Lesbians to
be clear-thinking, decisive, and politically active for our own Lesbian selves.
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The Power of Names — Our Definitions

Dyke: We use this term for the most Lesbian-identified of Lesbians. It’s
important to remember that it was originally used only for Butches.
Lesbian: A female who loves and falls in love with other females, makes love
only with females, and never relates sexually to males or injects semen into
herself. When Lesbians are single and celibate, we’re very different from celibate
het women, who are still sexually, emotionally, socially, and culturally focused on
men.
Lesbianism is far more than a “sexual preference” or “sexual orientation.” It is a
choice of women loving women. Everything we feel and do in our lives we do as
Lesbians. Our political and creative work is Lesbian. Our friendships are
Lesbian relationships.
No male can become a Lesbian. “Transwomen” are simply men perving,
fetishizing, and caricaturing women and Lesbians.
Female: The term we use for our sex, since it’s not age-specific and is less
identified with heterosexuality than “woman.” Also, it’s a reminder of our link
with other female animals on earth, who are generally called “female,” rather
than “women.” And, as Julia Penelope said in The Mystery of Lesbians,
“female” is derived from the French “femelle,” with no connection to the word
“male,” while (crediting the writings of Monique Wittig and ideas of Ariane Brunet
and Louise Turcotte) “woman” comes from “wif” (wife) and “man.”
Woman, Womyn, Wimmin, etc.: For many of us, “woman” has meant
heterosexual — a “real” woman by men’s standards. It’s a male definition
imposed on females and isn’t our natural state. The many feminist variations are
closet terms for “Lesbian,” and we refuse to support that trend. When we say
“Lesbian,” we mean it. It’s understandable that Lesbians in unsafe situations use
a code name like “womyn” to make contact with other Lesbians, but when
Lesbians use those terms instead of “Dyke” or “Lesbian” among ourselves, it
weakens Lesbian identity. “The womyn’s community” is het-identified, not
Lesbian-identified.
Some Lesbians embraced “woman” because that term is denied to many
females, especially Lesbians. Men call us “girls” to demean us. However, some
Lesbians prefer the term “girl” to “woman” for other reasons. For some African-
descent females, poor and working-class females, Lesbians who came out before
the Women’s Liberation Movement, and young females, “girl” is a familiar,
affectionate term. After all, we’ve all been girls for a long time, while “woman” is
a term laden with images of “adult” females who are heterosexually active,
wifely, and motherly. For many of us, girlhood was the time when many girls we
knew were most clear about loving other girls and rejecting boys. We support
girls who call themselves “girls” as a statement of pride, and we support adult
females who call themselves “girls” as part of their culture and heritage.
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We also don’t call ourselves Gay women since that associates us with Gay men.
That term has been a dividing line between Lesbian Feminists and non-feminists
or Lesbians who felt afraid to use the term Lesbian.
Lifelong Lesbian: A Lesbian who’s been a Lesbian her entire life (whether or
not she made love as a girl) and was never heterosexual.
Never-het Lesbian: A Lesbian who was never heterosexual but who didn’t
necessarily identify as a Lesbian from girlhood. Not being heterosexual in mind
or practice doesn’t mean that someone is necessarily a Lesbian.
Old Dyke: This is a term used by some Lesbians in Aotearoa for Lesbians who
came out before the Women’s Liberation Movement. In the U.S., the term “Old
Gay” is sometimes used instead.
Butch and Fem: These terms are defined throughout our chapter “Supporting
Butches Supports All Lesbians.” They aren’t “roles” that Lesbians play at or
switch, but are choices made at an early age. These ways of being are as much a
part of who we are as our class backgrounds. Butches rejected male rules to
feminize as little girls, while Fems accepted it. Butches always felt like unnatural
outsiders in patriarchy, while Fems always fit in on some level with male and het
standards of femininity. Whether we’re Butch or Fem is clearly recognizable from
how we look, talk, and act.
We prefer “Fem” to “Femme,” which is the French word for woman. We consider
it insulting to call any Lesbian a “woman,” and “Fem” will hopefully be less
jarring to French-speaking readers.
Hard Fem: “Hard Fem” is the term I (Bev) coined to describe what has
previously been called “High Femme,” which is a complimentary term as well as
a goal for too many Fems. Fem is considered the norm, so Butches are
scrutinized and divided from each other by Butch-hating stereotypes. Butches
who are more acceptable — most often those who are class privileged — are
sometimes called “Soft Butches” by Fems, implying that full Butches are the
hateful stereotype of hard, cold, mean, insensitive, predatory, etc., which
actually is more applicable to Hard Fems. Yet no one criticizes the norm of Fem.
Hard Fems also usually wear the extreme male uniform of the feminine drag
queen ideal, passing as het as much as possible, slathered in clown-like makeup,
wearing exposing dresses and high heels. Hard Fems are often the most
oppressive to Butches and Dyke Fems because they are the most invested in
obeying and proselytizing male rules for females. Hard Fems also objectify and
use Butches as well as Dyke Fems, yet this is never mentioned.
New Lesbian/Women’s Liberation Lesbians: A Lesbian who came out in or
after the WLM. In the U.S. and Aotearoa, and many other countries, this is since
about 1970.
Queer: We wrote our book before “queer” and “genderqueer” were general
terms used by and for the “queer” community that excludes Lesbians, and as a
way to avoid saying “Lesbian. We used “queer” in our book only for Lesbians,
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Dykes-Loving-Dykes
since it cut to the heart of Lesbian oppression, expressing it in a way no other

words can. It brings up all the shame, secrecy, loathing, and fear hets have
directed at Lesbians, and expresses the pride and the depth of love we feel for
ourselves and each other when we’ve healed that damage. Since the Seventies,
“queer” had been a term of Dyke/Lesbian pride as we reclaimed a traditional
anti-Lesbian insult that for some of us was the only name we knew for ourselves
as girls without support, without any positive image of Lesbians in any media.
But it’s not really a term that proud Dykes and Lesbians now can use because it
includes our oppressors, as the popular descriptor of Gay men, women who
identify with Gay men, bisexual women and men, men posing as women, etc. It’s
also become a closet, less Lesbian word that implies Lesbian, for women who are
too afraid to call themselves “Lesbian” or “Dyke.”
Het: Heterosexual. This is more specific than “straight,” which also implies
correct, honest, non-criminal, and chemical-free. A het woman is a female who is
sexual with men, or who, if celibate, still thinks of herself as heterosexual.
A bisexual is a woman who is sexual with men while being sexual with females as
well. This includes women who aren’t currently sexual with men but are open to
it in the future.
When we talk about “het women” in this book, we’re also generally including
bisexuals. Even though they get some degree of Lesbian oppression, bisexuals
still get privilege from their allegiance to men, and are in a position to do more
intimate harm to us than they could if they were simply het. They have more
access to Lesbians physically, emotionally, psychically, and politically. Their men
also have access to us: men involved with bisexuals have threatened, attacked,
and murdered their girlfriends’ Lesbian lovers. Lesbians involved with bisexuals
are exposed to STDs, including AIDS. The personal and community damage that
involvement with a bisexual brings is immeasurable. And the existence of
bisexual women proves clearly that some women keep as much het privilege as
possible while being aware of their option to be Lesbians.
Heterosexual Privilege: The power and privilege of “normality” that women
get from being fucked by men, marrying, reproducing, and raising families. Het
privilege is everything women get by belonging to men and the het world, and
everything Lesbians lose by being Lesbians. But Lesbians who were heterosexual
in the past still have some degree of het privilege, particularly when they
continue to identify with het women and have het and male values.
Heterosexism: The dogma that all people are or should be het, and that
heterosexuality is superior to being a Lesbian. Heterosexism is the most
universal institution, and Lesbianism is the most universal oppression.
Heterosexism also means Lesbian-hating.
Patriarchy and Sexism: The social system in which males have power over
females, and the male belief that males are superior to females. Techniques used
to enforce male power include mass murder or genocide (such as the European
witch burnings), mass mutilation (such as Female Vulval Mutilation, unnecessary
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Dykes-Loving-Dykes
mastectomies and hysterectomies), enforced dieting, murder, beatings and

torture, rape (including family rape), stereotyping, insults, and all other female-
hatred.
Lesbian oppression is the extreme of female oppression. If females are hated,
then females together are doubly hated.
Women-only/Female-only: Is what we used to have before men appropriating
our identity demanded access to our last spaces. This space is essential for our
survival, community, and culture. We still try to gather together, but are forced
to be subjected to men perving on us and to het women openly hating us since
we can usually meet only in public places.
Trans cult: I (Bev) coined this term to describe the phenomenon of the most
female-hating men demanding we accept them as women, and for some of them,
as Lesbians. None of it makes sense since this myth can easily be exposed in one
sentence: men can never be women, and women can never be men. The surgery
is a joke and does not begin to alter the mind, spirit, soul. Yet men have figured
out a clever way to get access to Lesbians previously denied them except
through rape. Now they mind-rape and get women to help them.
Since it’s impossible to say no to these men or any of this bizarre ideology
without threats, including rape and death, it’s clearly a cult.
“Transsexuals,” “transgender,” “transwomen,” and “transmen” simply do not
exist in reality.
Male-Identified: This term is wrongly used against Dykes, and Butches in
particular, who refuse to conform to male standards of femininity. Male-
identification is actually a measure of how personally devoted a female is to
males, and how much of her reality is bound up with the male versions of
“reality.” Internalized male culture, which all females in patriarchy inevitably
have, shouldn’t be confused with “male identification.” We use the term “male-
identified” to describe het women and the most extreme examples of het
identification and femininity among Lesbians.
Lesbian- or Dyke-Identified: Dyke-identified Dykes identify with and as
Dykes, not with het women or men. While many Lesbians are het-identified, no
het woman can be Lesbian-identified unless she becomes a Lesbian. Dyke-
identified Dykes look and act like Dykes. The more Dyke-identified we are, the
greater our Dyke oppression.
Female-Identified: Lesbians are the most female-identified females, because
hetness involves rejecting and betraying females. The more dyke-identified we
are, the more female-identified we are.
Aotearoa: The Maori, therefore rightful name for New Zealand. Whanganui-a-
Tara is one of the names for Wellington, as is Tamaki-Makaurau for Auckland.
Racial and Ethnic Background: We try to specify the continent of geographical
region of origin instead of referring to color to describe someone’s ethnic
background. The use of “Red,” “Black,” “Brown,” “Yellow,” or “White” doesn’t
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accurately reflect the enormous variety of racial and ethnic groups who exist on
earth. No person’s skin is literally those colors, and “black” and “white” have
been historically used in racist ways to mean negative/positive, inferior/superior,
evil/good, etc. We recognize that some Dykes do use “Red,” “Black,” “Brown,”
and “Yellow” with pride in their heritage, and, as Dykes, we know well how a
term of insult can be transformed into a term of pride. But we agree with and
greatly appreciate the work of African-descent US Dyke Separatists who’ve
stated their reasons for choosing to name their continent of origin.4 It’s a strong,
self-loving identification of the descendants of peoples forcibly taken from their
homes by European slavers, separated from those of their own country, placed
with others who spoke different languages, and cruelly tortured for daring to
speak their languages and pass on their cultures — all in an effort to subdue
kidnapped African peoples and deny their heritages. Because of this, most
descendants of the survivors of this genocide (estimates are that 20 to 70 million
died) are denied knowledge of their countries and cultures of origin.
Identifying one’s ethnic background with region of origin rather than just
approximate shades of dark and light skin among us helps every Dyke become
more aware of the beautiful variety and complexities of peoples and cultures on
this planet. Naming a Dyke’s ancestral homeland — the Pacific, Africa, South,
Central or North America,5 the Caribbean, Asia, Western Asia (“Middle East” is
not the middle of anything), Atlantic and Indian Ocean island nations, Australia,
and Europe, etc. is a beginning, although it’s not adequate. In each area of
each region or continent there are many, often hundreds, of individual racial and
ethnic groups, each with its own unique past, culture, and language.
Within the Pacific Islands, for instance, there are many nations with cultural,
historical, and racial differences, more numerous and complex than the nations
of Europe — yet European national differences are far more acknowledged and
respected by the dominant, racist European-descent cultures. Calling regions of
the Pacific by the European-designated terms “Melanesia,” “Polynesia,” and
“Micronesia” is also inadequate. For instance, the original peoples of the
enormous area from Aotearoa to Hawai’i to Te Pito O Te Henua (“Easter Island”)
are called “Polynesian” because they have some cultural similarities, but they
actually represent many distinct peoples and cultures. The same is true for the
other peoples of the Pacific.
Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking nations of South and Central America,
México, and the Caribbean aren’t just peopled by descendants of the Spanish and
Portuguese invaders — they’re also peopled by the descendants of African slaves
and many people of mixed races, as well as the original inhabitants, who are
lumped together as “Indians” or other group names that don’t begin to describe
the many different original peoples. The original peoples of México alone
represent many distinctly different cultures, and the borders set by the European
invaders and their ruling-class descendants don’t recognize these different
nations. For instance, the Maya live in parts of what are now México, Belize,
Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras. In the Andes, the Quechua live
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Dykes-Loving-Dykes
throughout what was once Tahuantinsuyo (the Inca lands), in parts of Perú,
Bolivia, Ecuador, Chile, and Argentina. With their population of over 9 to 14
million, the Quechua are more numerous than many other peoples who are
regularly reported on in the media of European-descent dominated countries.
In Africa, there are many ancient traditional nations within each current official
nation based on the borders arbitrarily set by European invaders. The people of
India and other Asian countries are also many different peoples. The Indigenous
people of Australia are also many peoples with many languages. In Canada and
the U.S., the hundreds of original nations with their distinct ethnic groups and
cultures are simply called “Native Americans” or “American Indians,” if they’re
acknowledged at all.
So, though we recognize that it isn’t adequate to simply name the region of the
world or continent of one’s ancestors as one’s ethnic identification, it’s at least a
respectful beginning.
As an example of the diversity of original peoples in North America, we include in
our Endnotes a list of some of the original peoples of just what is now California,6
many of whom still live in California as nations within a nation. (The list is only
approximate since it’s based on information gathered and recorded by European
invaders in the early years of colonization.) Within California, genocide against
American Indian peoples reduced their numbers dramatically.7
The tangata whenua (people of the land; traditional and rightful inhabitants) of
Aotearoa identify both as Maori and also with their iwi (nation or tribe)8 and,
often, hapu (sub-tribe). It was the English invasion, wars, and colonization,
beginning in the 18thCentury, that forced the tangata whenua to identify as one
group, Maori, in order to make unified resistance.
Aotearoa is Maori land. The iwi of Aotearoa9 traditionally organize themselves
according to their turanga-waewae (traditional lands) and the canoe they arrived
in from Hawaiki, the ancestral Pacific land.
Rape by Male Family: We say “family rape” or “rape by male family” because
the popular feminist term “incest” implies consent, and doesn’t differentiate
attacker from victim. Men also use other euphemisms for girl-rape: “pedophilia”
(literally “child-love”), or “sexual orientation to children,” “seduction,” “sleeping
with,” “having sex with,” “sexual intercourse,” “sexual acts,” 10 and “too much
affection.” We encourage you to read Father-Daughter Rape, an excellent
book by Australian author Elizabeth Ward. She says, “…I believe that the sexual
use of a child’s body/being is the same as the phenomenon of adult rape. Terms
like ‘sexual abuse,’ ‘molestation’ and ‘interference’ are diminutions of
‘rape’: they imply that something less than rape occurred.” 11 They’re also
ageist terms because they imply that crimes against girls are less serious than
crimes against women.
We also prefer saying “family rape” because the crime and trauma of girl-rape
goes even further than the pain of being raped by your father or other male
relatives. Girl-rape is part of normal family life, and older female relatives,
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especially most mothers, add greatly to the trauma by denying the attack and
failing to support the girl. The girl’s intense pain and sense of conflict is endured
against the backdrop of everyday family life that mostly continues as if nothing
happened to her. Later she must recover from that as much as from the actual
rape, not to mention coping with her family’s reactions if she exposes the rapist.
Victim: We call a female raped as a girl a family rape victim, not a family rape
“survivor.” “Survivor” is a US psychotherapy term that glosses over the fact that
many females don’t survive the attack — they’re either killed as girls or kill
themselves later. While it aims to praise female resilience, it actually compounds
the secrecy and shame of family rape by suggesting that there’s something
inherently shameful and dirty about being attacked or victimized. The fact that
“survivor” is attached to “incest” makes it particularly suspect — not only was
there no rape and no rapist, there was also no victim!
If there’s nothing shameful about being victimized, why not say it? Considering
that no girl is in any way to blame for being sexually assaulted, why not use
“victim”? After all, it has traditionally meant someone who was subjected to
harm against their will. Transactional psycho-therapy co-opted the word “victim”
to describe someone that they claimed “asked” to be hurt, and they included in
their arrogant definition oppressed people who never wanted to be harmed.
Someone who truly wants pain is a masochist, not a victim. Identifying as family
rape victims supports the victim, and those who love her, in their natural desire
for justice and revenge. It helps us assert our power. If we’re victims, then we
have the right to bring our attackers to justice.
Lesbophobia: We partly agree with Celia Kitzinger’s article “Heteropatriarchal
Language, The Case Against ‘Homophobia’” 12 in which she criticizes the word
“lesbophobia” because it originated as a psychological diagnosis that generally
defined fear of Lesbians as an irrational phobia — when in reality patriarchy has
good reason to fear us. So we describe men’s, boys,’ and het women’s usual
reactions to Lesbians by the more accurate term “Lesbian-hatred.” However, we
think it’s important to have another word to describe many het women’s
reactions as well as some Lesbians’ revulsion at and terror of their own and
others’ Lesbianism, because Lesbians and het women don’t have a reasonable
reason to fear Lesbian. “Lesbophobia” just seems the best term for this
particularly extreme kind of fear. It’s come into general use and no longer feels
like a psychological term for many of us, and it clearly portrays the terror that’s
as irrational as a phobia towards spiders or other harmless and beautiful wild
animals.
“Homophobia” was one of the first terms that made it clear queerness wasn’t
Lesbians’ “mental problem.” If anyone had a “problem,” it was the hets who hate
us. That made a great difference to many Lesbians’ lives.
Disabled: We (Linda and Bev) prefer this term for ourselves instead of
“physically challenged” (although we’re not criticizing anyone who uses
“physically challenged”), because we find that most well and able-bodied
Lesbians want to deny hidden disabilities and assume that if we just try hard
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enough we’ll be able to be as physically functional as they are. Chronic illness

severely limits our ability to function, and no amount of effort will make us as
physically able as well Lesbians. Some well and able-bodied Lesbians seem to
have taken the term “physically challenged” to mean that disabled Lesbians can
overcome any and all physical limitations if we try hard enough to “meet the
challenge.” We also prefer the word “disabled” because it includes developmental
disabilities while “physically challenged” doesn’t.
WASP: A US term for “White Anglo-Saxon Protestant.” It includes culture as well
as ethnicity.
History: This word comes from the Greek “histör” and “istör,” meaning
“knowing,” “learned.”13 It doesn’t mean “his story,” although the documented
history females have access to is the history of patriarchy because men have
systematically destroyed records of the time before patriarchy. No amount of
calling the past “herstory” will change that. As for what we call female history,
why allow men the exclusive use of a perfectly adequate word such as “history”?
Explanations
We don’t want to compare oppressions, because every experience is unique, but
unfortunately, only certain oppressions are acknowledged as existing. Specifically
Lesbian oppressions are ignored by almost everyone, including Lesbians. There’s
so little understanding of them that they’re sometimes considered to be
privileges. Even Lesbianism itself is said to be privileged by some “radical”
Lesbians. Usually only issues of oppression that are experienced, written, and
talked about by men and het women are considered valid by Lesbians. They may
not always be fought, but at least they’re recognized as existing, which is a
beginning.
For this reason, in this book, we often give classism as an example to explain the
pain and damage caused by the various forms of Lesbian oppression. The
comparison isn’t exact, because our class backgrounds aren’t chosen, while the
heterosexist privilege that some Lesbians use to wield power over other Lesbians
is chosen. We decided to focus only on class as an example because two of us
are class-oppressed and it seemed more appropriate to talk from our experiences
than to refer to others’ oppressions.
(Ruston: We use the English spelling and punctuation style of Aotearoa in
sections I alone wrote, and the US style in the rest of the book. We found this to
be the best way of expressing my national identity while not denying our class
differences, and it also made the enormous job of typing the book more
manageable.)
Authors’ Notes
Bev: I was born in 1950, in a catholic working-class family of German, English,
Scottish, American Indian, and I’m not sure what else ancestry. (My parents and
grandparents were all born in the US). I grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA, was in
love with other girls from my earliest memories, identified with the word
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“Lesbian” and rejected male-defined femininity from an early age (which is why I
now identify as Butch). I never was heterosexual, and became lovers with my
first lover when I was 17 (in 1968), before the support of the Women’s Liberation
Movement. I found a Lesbian community in Berkeley, California in 1971, and
became a Dyke Separatist in 1972. I’ve been disabled since 1981 with a chronic
illness.
I was one of the three members of the Gutter Dyke Collective who co-wrote and
published Dykes and Gorgons in 1973, which was the first Dyke Separatist
writing we knew of. (Much of that work was reprinted in the Separatist
anthology, For Lesbians Only.) It’s been my goal since first becoming a
Separatist to work towards building a Dyke Separatist community. I’ve written
Separatist articles published in The Lesbian Insider/Insighter/Inciter; For
Lesbians Only; and Lesbian Ethics (USA), Amazones d’Hier, Lesbiennes
d’Aujourd’hui; Lesbian Fury/Furie Lesbienne; Voices for Lesbian
Survival (Canada); and Gossip (England), among others.
I taught free self-defense classes for females only for 10 years, did Lesbian-only
self-defense workshops and Separatist workshops at “Womyn’s” Festivals, and
was in several Separatist action groups. I was part of the collectives that planned
the first Lesbian Feminist Conference in the San Francisco Bay area in 1972, the
first San Francisco Dyke Separatist Gathering in 1983, and the Lesbian Forum on
Separatism in Oakland in 1984. The most recent workshop I did was on Radical
Lesbian Feminism at the Old Lesbians Organizing for Change in Oakland in 2014,
where I protested our losing one more Lesbian group to male membership.
I moderate three Radical Feminist groups on facebook and one Lesbian-only
group.
I regularly party, dance, and cavort with the Lesbians, in spite of our having no
women only space left. I lead local nature hikes to see plants, animals, etc. I
think the animals that men tell us to hate and fear, like rats, spiders, snakes,
lizards, frogs, bats, and Lesbians (among others) are particularly beautiful.
Linda: I’m a working-class, catholic-raised, Italian-descent Lesbian, born in
1941 in a USA factory town. I’ve been chronically ill since 1981. An ex-het Dyke-
identified Fem who never married or had children, I was a het feminist activist
from 1968 until 1972, when I followed my deepest desires and became a
Lesbian. In 1973, I moved to Oakland, California, into a vibrant, intensely
political Lesbian community. I found that it was Dyke Separatists who were living
by the truths I’d come to consider self-evident, with the most real love for
Lesbians, and I’ve been a Separatist ever since.
I taught female-only self-defense classes for seven years, helped organize the
Dyke Separatist Gathering in San Francisco in 1983 and the Lesbian Forum on
Separatism in Oakland in 1984. I’ve written Separatist articles published in The
Lesbian Inciter and Lesbian Ethics (U.S.A.); Lesbian Fury/Furie
Lesbienne; Amazones d’Hier, Lesbiennes d’Aujourd’hui, and Voices for
Lesbian Survival (Canada); and Gossip (England).
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Dykes-Loving-Dykes
Ruston: I’m from Aotearoa, born in 1952 and raised in Tamaki-Makaurau. I

joined the Women’s Liberation Movement there in 1975 because I’d been falling
in love with females for years and very much wanted to become a Lesbian. I’m
pakeha (European-descent), of Welsh-Irish-English descent, middle-class, raised
protestant, and an ex-het Dyke-identified Fem who never married or had
children. I’m educationally privileged through having a degree in medicine, but
for many reasons I’ve never worked as a doctor. After working on anti-rape and
other feminist issues for about a year I became a Separatist in 1976. I helped
organize a Lesbian conference in Tamaki-Makaurau in 1977 and created Lesbian
theatre with other Lesbians in Hamilton in 1978.
I moved to Whanganui-a-Tara in 1979 where I got involved in setting up the
Lesbian Centre and in running many Lesbian-only political and social events. I’ve
written articles published in Circle, the Wellington Lesbian Newsletter,
Lesbian Lip, and Lesbians In Print (LIP), among others, in Aotearoa. I met
Bev and Linda through our political work in our respective countries, in 1983,
and since 1984 have been writing articles and letters with them, printed in the
Lesbian Insider/Inciter/Insighter; Lesbian Ethics; and Hag Rag (USA);
and Voices for Lesbian Survival; Amazones d’Hier, Lesbiennes
d’Aujourd’hui; and Lesbian Fury/FurieLesbienne (Canada).
Next to Lesbians and Separatism, my greatest love is the forests, wild creatures
and wild places of my home, Aotearoa. My favourite creature is the kea (alpine
parrot of Aotearoa). It’s a very stroppy bird that survived terrible slaughter. I’d
like to spend all my time at Lesbian parties, listening to music, learning
homeopathy, drawing, reading murder mysteries, and being outside in beautiful
places away from everyone but Lesbians.
Endnotes
1. Julia Penelope described this beautifully in “Mystery of Lesbians,” printed in Lesbian Ethics,
Vol.1, Nos. 1,2,3 (Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S.A.) and Gossip, Nos. 1,2,3, and in an edited
version in For Lesbians Only: A Separatist Anthology, p. 506 (Onlywomen Press Ltd., 38 Mount
Pleasant, London, WC1X 0AP, England).
2. Anestimated nine million females were accused of being witches and murdered by Christian
male authorities in Europe, mostly from the 14th to the 18th Centuries. That was an enormous
part of the population — in some villages only one or two females were left alive.
3. From Gallus Mag:http://gendertrender.wordpress.com/2014/08/11/dana-beyers-rotting-
lesbian-iceberg/
The NCLR (National Center for Lesbian Rights) now donates nearly all their (plummeting)
resources to non-lesbian (predominantly heterosexual and male) activism, much of it anti-gay.
Their legal director is “ex-lesbian” attorney Shannon Minter, who injects testosterone and now
“identifies as” a heterosexual male.
Here is a list of all active pending cases on the NCLR case docket posted on their website, as I
understand them:
• an amicus brief submitted in a lesbian case challenging Florida’s ban on adoption by
lesbians and gays. (The case was represented by pro-bono attorneys, not NCLR, so
here the NCLR submitted a brief in a case relating to an actual lesbian, not a case they
represented however.)
• Lawsuit filed to force prisons to provide incarcerated trans criminals taxpayer funded
hormones and surgery. Free sex changes for incarcerated transgender people who
“come out” after incarceration. As wards of the state, convicted criminals should be
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entitled to taxpayer funded hormones and surgeries that are not provided for law
abiding citizens.
• Lawsuit filed claiming heterosexuals are being discriminated against, by being excluded
from gay men’s softball leagues. Seriously. This is who the NCLR is representing. Can’t
make this shit up.
• amicus brief filed in case of Egyptian gay man seeking asylum from anti-gay
mistreatment in a country where gay men can be arrested for homosexuality.
• asylum case for Mexican transgender identified person who received alleged
harassment because of claiming to be a sex incongruent with that on birth certificate.
• asylum case for gay Pakistani male.
• amicus brief filed in case of Pakistani hetero male who alleges he was detained by the
FBI due to religious profiling of muslims in terrorism investigations.
• assisting a pro bono attorney who is representing an asylum case for Bosnian lesbian.
• lawsuit against Cherokee Nation representing lesbian married couple.
• asylum for another Mexican transgender person.
• That’s it. As I understand it those are the open pending cases represented by the
NCLR.
Well what else do they do?
NCLR Sports Project issued a report in 2010 warning that women’s sports teams
discriminate against males and that failure to permit males to compete against females in
female sports may result in “costly litigation”. The NCLR press report was issued in October
when a 57 year-old male who beat out all the female competitors (average age 30) to win
the women’s world championship for long-drive golf sued the LPGA for his “right” to
compete against women. The NCLR supported this action and does so by misrepresenting
themselves as being a lesbian WOMEN organization. The NCLR appears to believe that
women’s sports leagues infringe on the CIVIL RIGHTS of males. The 57 year-old male may
be the first competitor in history to embark on a new professional sports career at such an
advanced age.
It’s hard to IMAGINE that a lesbian rights organization would make the rights of males to
play women’s sports their highest priority, much less the “rights” of male criminals to
receive taxpayer funded sex changes, or the “rights” of heterosexuals to play on gay
softball leagues, but this is what the NCLR is concerned with. Only three of the ten active
pending lawsuits listed on the NCLR website concern lesbians, and two of them are not
actually being represented by the NCLR. So, one out of ten. Three transgender cases (two
male one female), two gay male, two hetero male.
4. Conversations with Monifa J. Ajanaku; and “Of Color: What’s In a Name?” by Vivienne Louise,
Bay Area Women’s News, Vol. 1, No. 6, Jan/Feb 1988,
5. Although we generally use accepted geographic terms, we disagree with the ones that say
there’s a “top” and “bottom” of our planet, with “northern” and “southern” hemispheres,
placing Europe, the US, and Canada at the “top” of the world, and southern Africa, South
America, and South Pacific nations at the “bottom” or “down under.” “Top” has been made to
imply superiority and “bottom” inferiority, so that current maps make northern hemisphere
nations appear innately superior to southern hemisphere nations. It may be too much for most
male minds to comprehend, but in space there’s no top or bottom. Our planet spins in space,
as do other planets, and the stars and moons.
6. Wikipedia:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_peoples_of_California#List_of_in
digenous_peoples_of_California
7. Russell Thornton, American Indian Holocaust and Survival: A Population History Since
1492 (Norman and London: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987), 49.
8. A.W. Reed and T.S. Käretu, Concise Maori Dictionary (New Zealand: Reed, 1984),
13. Claudia Orange, The Treaty of Waitangi (Wellington, New Zealand: Allen and Unwin/Port
Nicholson Press, 1987), 267.
9. Wikipedia:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_iwi
23
Dykes-Loving-Dykes
10. “Suing Ma Bell Over Dirty Language,” Newsweek, 7 Dec. 1987, 47. This article described a
12-year-old boy’s rape of a 4-year-old girl as, “…he persuaded a 4-year-old to perform sexual
acts.”
11. Elizabeth Ward, Father-Daughter Rape (The Women’s Press, Ltd., 124 Shoreditch High St.,
London E1 6J3, England), 79.
12. Gossip, No. 5, page 15.
13. Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary (Springfield, Massachusetts, USA: Merriam-
Webster Inc., 1984).
24
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Chapter One
Chapter One
The Crimes of Mankind

by Bev Jo (Based on the Original Version by Bev with Ruston and Linda)
(This chapter was originally the beginning of Chapter Two,
Heterosexuality/Selling Out Is Not Compulsory, in our book, Dykes-
Loving-Dykes, 1990.)
All males as a group have power over all females. The overwhelming majority of
men and boys harass, attack, and/or rape the majority of females. All girls and
women have been sexually harassed by boys and men, and most have been
sexually assaulted. Those males who aren’t able to physically attack us have
other forms of power they use against us.
Even when a man seems to be caring and fighting for justice, he still is likely to
be harming girls and women. Some of the most revered men across the world,
have been found out to be predatory to girls and women, or wrote disgusting
pornography.1
There are some men who do seem to be genuinely kind and trustworthy, but
that, sadly, doesn’t change what the majority are doing. And we never know
what males are doing when alone with those who can’t talk, such as babies and
animals. (It’s often forgotten that men and boys sexually assault animals, but
people in rural areas are well aware of it.)
Most women and even some reformist/liberal feminists believe the con that men
are violent and dangerous only because of being harmed by childhood trauma,
which, if that were true, would mean that most women would be serial killers.
The myth that socialization is the cause of male violence is one of the
most dangerous politics perpetrated against girls and women. It denies
reality. It denies what most girls and women know in their hearts and from their
own experience. It denies that male violence exists across many animal species,
and particularly in our mammal relatives. This myth is why women who are
invested in boys and men keep devoting the majority of their lives to males,
hoping to somehow make a better world, when in reality their very devotion to
males prioritizes them before girls and women, feeds them psychically,
emotionally, physically, and literally keeps patriarchy going. If women stopped
supporting men, patriarchy would end. Besides refusing to reproduce, this is the
most important thing that women can do for the earth. Rather than continuing to
hope and fantasize that males will change, we actually have the power to stop
men from raping, killing, making other species extinct and destroying the earth.
Because we are trained from our earliest memories to worship males and to
believe lies instead of our own perceptions, the truth can be shocking and
upsetting. But we can easily see the truth all around us, and it ultimately frees
us.
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Men know very well how innate their capacity for violence is, and how deeply,
biologically different they are from females. If in doubt, just ask them. Listen to
them and read them, and then, as many of us have done, stop voluntarily
interacting with them on every level.
A man in India wrote:
“I have heard the socialization excuse too. It’s nonsense. Biological men
are naturally born rapists. What feminists say about men — that they
rape because of their upbringing and social conditioning – is ridiculous. I
am a man, and I hate men and rapists because I was raped as a kid and
I know how painful it is. Even after that, I feel like raping women when I
see them. It’s a natural feeling because of testosterone. I try hard to
control it because I know how painful it can be to be raped. But I don’t
trust myself. I am a man and a potential rapist and I don’t trust myself
because I can’t help with the testosterone. I can say that 100% it is not
my upbringing – it’s nature. The only way to stop rape is to just not give
birth to males. Girls and women can only be safe when there are no boys
or men on this planet.”
Most men pollute the earth for the sheer pleasure of it, not just as the by-
product of their industries. Men love to leave their mark as a territorial
statement, just as many male animals mark “their” territories by spraying. Of
course, human males also mark with urine, as anyone who’s been in a public
telephone booth knows. Even when public toilets are available, men leave their
smell and mark on objects in ways females don’t.2
Some Lesbians say in anger that men are such “animals,” but that’s insulting to
animals. Of course all mammals, including humans, are animals, but men are the
least natural of animals. Men seem to have the goal of creating a completely
artificial world3 and have left their mark on the earth forever by altering the
natural landscape in many places.
They’ve exterminated countless plants and animals already, and their murder of
entire species is accelerating. They kill forests, build their ugly cities, pollute the
sea and fresh water, change the land’s shape with their destructive farming and
mining methods, and, as we wrote in 1990, they have even changed the
weather.4
Men’s radioactive and toxic chemical wastes will contaminate the earth for
hundreds of thousands of years. Plutonium, which is completely man-made,
remains deadly for 250,000 years. One sixteenth of a millionth of a gram can kill
a person, and men have already made thousands of pounds of it.5 If we didn’t
know this was true, it would be hard to believe. Even so, it’s still unimaginable
except in nightmares. Man has truly left his mark on his territory and, for the
most part, he’s very proud of himself.
People speak of “man’s inhumanity to man,” because the effect on females isn’t
even considered. But Man enjoys his power and cruelty. It makes him more of a
man. A male nuclear scientist who watched numerous nuclear explosions said
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Dykes-Loving-Dykes
Chapter One
what a “rush” it was because, “A male human being likes to see an

explosion.”6 (As of 1990, there were over 50,000 nuclear weapons on earth.)
The US military has contaminated what was pristine forest and water in Viet
Nam, where they sprayed Monsanto’s and Dow’s Agent Orange that was so toxic
it still causes birth defects in the people victimized in their homelands, but even
in the genes of the US soldiers, continuing into future generations. It also killed
so many of the trees, plants, and animals that they still have not recovered.
Most US people don’t seem to know that the US used nuclear weapons
(deceptively called “depleted uranium”) in explosives used to kill people in Iraq,
leaving the land and people permanently contaminated by radiation. (And this is
the land between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, once claimed as the
“birthplace of Western Civilization,” meaning that even the land revered by
European patriarchal historians was not safe.)
Mankind has also left his mark on his female possessions. In many cultures, men
literally own girls and women. Some women are even owned by their own sons
or other boys considered to be the heads of their families.
Fucking and impregnating girls and women is the epitome of males marking their
territory. Throughout the history of man, rape has been used to permanently
mark a people after invading their territory so that their future people are partly
descendants of the invaders. Many women still think of rape as merely an
expression of uncontrollable male sexual urges, but rape is calculated,
premeditated marking and expanding territory. It’s a form of genocide as well as
gynocide.
Men and boys raping and otherwise sexually assaulting girls in their families is
also a territorial statement. Fathers who rape their daughters are declaring their
daughters as their property. This includes beatings and other abuse with sexual
taunts.
Statistics show that over one-third of all females report being raped,7 but the
actual number is much more since it’s been estimated that only 10% to 20% of
sexual assaults are reported, which is further proof that the majority of females
are attacked by the majority of males. Most rapes aren’t reported, since dealing
with male authorities like police, hospital, and courts usually mean experiencing
brutal mental and emotional rape. (This is still true, 25 years after we first wrote
this.) That’s not surprising, because men in those institutions are also likely to be
raping girls and women. And some victims are raped by the men they go to for
help.8
Because of the hierarchies men have created, men also oppress each other.
Women with racial and class privilege have some power over more oppressed
men, but all females are vulnerable to rape, sexual harassment, and other
attacks by all males. Racist and classist lies portray racially- and class-oppressed
men as the primary attackers of all females, but statistically, females are most
likely to be attacked by males from their own racial, ethnic, and class
backgrounds, and the attacker is usually someone we know.
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Heterosexuality is a protection racket in which women choose particular men to

protect them, thinking they’ll be safer, but they’re actually putting themselves in
more danger. In the US alone, a woman is beaten to death by her husband or
boyfriend every four minutes9 — in fact, three out of four women murdered in
the US are killed by their husbands or boyfriends.10 It’s ironic that Dyke
Separatists are taunted by being told we “just want to kill all men,” when the
reality is that it’s men who kill women. If every female, including baby girls, were
able to kill in self-defense any boy or man who sexually assaulted her, there
would be few, if any, men or boys left on earth. (There would be even less if
every non-human female who was raped and tortured by male humans was able
to kill her attacker.)
Families exist in order for men to be served by females — domestically,
emotionally, and sexually. A lot of us haven’t realized that such sexual service is
required of daughters as well as wives, and that the rapists include all male
family members as well as fathers. Combining the numbers of reported
assaults11 with the many more unreported ones (especially knowing that many
victims of rape by male relatives forget the details, and others lack information
to name it for what it is), we believe over 90% of all girls are victims of rape by
male family. Of the many women we know who were raped as girls, none
reported it to the authorities. The majority don’t tell what they know won’t be
believed. And they’re also in fear for their lives. Most who did tell their mothers
were not protected. Instead, the mothers defended and protected their
husbands, boyfriends, sons, and other male relatives, and the attacks
continued. The horror of living with rapists, sadists, and their collaborators —
usually without the support of one person — means many little girls survive by
forgetting much of our/their own girlhoods. (I don’t know of any woman who was
not sexually assaulted in some way as a girl.) This mental and psychic
colonization12 is even more powerful than males’ ownership of our bodies.
The resulting amnesia of individual females mirrors the worldwide mass amnesia
of our own female past, of the time before patriarchy existed, before subjection,
rape, and torture were the “natural” order of things. An entire population that’s
brutalized into forgetting its own memories is more easily manipulated. Just as
cultures are destroyed and colonized by the censoring of history, so also are
individual lives damaged by the denial of our/their own pasts. Those who do
remember are made to feel confused, alone, and shamed by attacks which
we/they were powerless to prevent. Girl rape victims are told it was their own
fault, just as adult victims are. We’ll never know how many girls were murdered
to prevent the truth being told.13
One of the biggest patriarchal secrets has been the rape of girls by male relatives
in “normal, happy families.” We’re taught the lie of “family love,” but we
live the reality of rape by male family.
Even many Feminists don’t want to know about the extent of rape by male family
and the reality of male violence in general, saying that talking about it is
“negative.” But knowing and facing the truth stops the self-hatred many girls and
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women feel from being attacked. Men don’t want us to remember or to know
what they’ve done and continue to do. They don’t want us to remember the
power we felt in our essence as little girls before they began their assaults. And
they don’t want us to regain our full selves, because then we can stop them and
change the world. Our families fight to stop us from talking about rape by male
family, to protect our attackers. For most of us, we already know the truth. To
finally say it out loud and to fight it politically, releases the horror and frees us.
Meanwhile, the male media rapidly co-opted the work of Dykes who’ve been
publicizing the prevalence of rape by male family, faster than any other female
issue since the beginning of the present wave of female liberation. This attempt
to control the issue shows how central it is to the oppression of females. Rape,
especially the rape of girls by their fathers, is the most brutal, early lesson we
receive in our subjugated status as females in patriarchy.
The media talks of “child-molesters,” concentrating on the minority of boy
victims, when it’s girls who are the prime victims. They focus on the rare woman
or Gay male perpetrator, which protects the vast majority of attackers, who are
heterosexual males.14 Thus, fathers, step-fathers, brothers, uncles, grandfathers,
etc., escape notice and blame. The attacker is described as “deranged,”
“unusual,”15 and “sick.” The reality is that the average rapist is a normal male,
and studies have found the convicted rapist and “average” male to be
psychologically indistinguishable.16 Elizabeth Ward writes,
“…it is obvious that the Fathers come from every class in society. A
judge, a barrister, a diplomat, an eminent doctor, a university lecturer, a
teacher, a university student, a businessman, a film star, a labourer, a
tradesman, a public servant, a farmer, a counsellor, a minister of
religion, a soldier, a politician, unemployed, handicapped, very old, very
young: Everyman. All have raped girlchildren.”17
The rapists sometimes skip a generation, so that the woman’s grandfather
sexually assaulted her as a girl, while her father sexually assaults her daughter.
Both are pressured to forgive.
Far from showing concern for girl victims, the male media makes money off
our/their bodies. Rape has always been a big seller, spoken of in sexually
provocative, sensationalistic, and pornographic ways. Ads show young girls
looking seductive in cosmetics. Men attack girls and then make films about it to
get a thrill by watching themselves. They also try to take credit for “exposing”
rape by male family, which also means they’re controlling women’s reaction to it.
An explosive issue which could forever change all women’s attitudes toward men,
heterosex, and the family is turned into a TV soap opera.
Something so full of pain and horror is actually trivialized by men, presenting it
in a bland, unreal form in TV movies: Daddy rapes his little girl, but he
still “loves” her, and she “loves” him, and everything’s all right in the end — just
like a het “love” story. The family even stays together.18 It is lies. That’s one of
the most horrible things about patriarchy — it’s terrifying and destructive, yet
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Chapter One
also deeply boring and numbing. The horror and damage immobilize us and take
away our hope for justice and change. The numbing makes us passive. Either
way, men make it very hard to fight back.
The long-term emotional and physical effects of rape by male family are so
severe that it’s a wonder that any girl survives, let alone survives with any
physical or mental or emotional health. Rape by male family too often is the
cause of illness, suicide, and psychiatric incarceration of girls and women.
“The idea of torture is to … demonstrate that there is no hope, that you can’t
trust anyone, that you have no control from the point of torture on.” “Torture as
a conscious exercise of … policy [is] systematic violence used to keep entire
populations depressed, disorganized, humiliated and quiescent.” These are
statements in a newspaper about torture victims from Central America living in
the San Francisco Bay Area. “Symptoms can include anxiety and physical
aches. There may be nightmares, painfully vivid memories, muteness,
overwhelming grief, insomnia or withdrawal.” These are also among the many
effects victims of rape by male family suffer. They’re reacting the same way as
torture victims. “A terrifying message can be sent to entire communities by
returning prisoners to their families, broken and silent, or by dumping mutilated
bodies in public places.”17 — like girls at school witnessing each other’s silent
pain, like girls, Lesbians, and other women hearing about yet one more attack,
rape, mutilation, and murder of a girl or woman. Comparisons to political torture
clearly demonstrate the true reasons for rape by male family in a way nothing
else can. It’s a male policy decision about the management of potentially
rebellious females. (Females in countries where prisoners are routinely tortured
are therefore doubly terrorized and damaged from rape.)
We’re not claiming men openly talk with other men about their decision to rape
their daughters, though some do brag and joke about it. But their actions point
to a mass male agreement on the rape and torture of girls: the male media
either ignores or exploits the issue; the male police, legal, and social work
systems collude by failing to prevent rape and convict the rapists; so-called
“radical” men are silent in the face of the now widely-publicized statistics, trials,
and victims’ stories; and males tolerate, defend, buy, act in, and film
pornography involving girls. They may not make explicit government policies
saying all men should attack and rape all girls, but in every way, men’s reaction
to the issue indicates their approval. The judge who fails to convict a rapist of
girls is, after all, likely to have raped his own daughters or other girls. Those who
do protest are often doing it to protect their own property from other men.
Boys Will Be Boys

Mankind is poisoning the Earth. The air and water are contaminated, cancer and
other man-made diseases are epidemic,18 and the same men who can create
nuclear war at their whim are casually raping their daughters and other females.
Female apologists for men and boys say that males are rapists because they
were sexually assaulted when they were young. Why then aren’t most females
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Dykes-Loving-Dykes
Chapter One
rapists too? Or they say the problem is merely socialization — that “males were
only taught to do these horrible things” (by who?) and “they’re really no different
from females.” But the truth is obvious to anyone who’s not invested in believing
the lies.
Females are clearly physically different from males. We have different organs,
physiology, and body chemistry. Our brains are also anatomically different and
function differently. The corpus callosum, the part of the brain that connects its
two halves, is bigger in females, which means that females use the intuitive right
side and factual left sides of our brains in a more balanced way than
males. Female brains also use 20% more energy than male brains. One male
researcher said that it takes males until their thirties to physically be able to
develop compassion. Testosterone changes brains permanently, causing males to
be much more violent than females. Ninety percent of violence in the world,
across all cultures, is committed by men and boys. The man who compiled this
information said, “Men are competitive and less sensitive to context. How do we
insure global peace in an atmosphere charged with testosterone?”19
Why do so many Feminists avoid thinking about the proven effects of
testosterone? Men talk about it openly. It’s why male farm animals are routinely
castrated — otherwise they’re uncontrollably violent and dangerous.20 (As
filmmaker Michael Moore, said to Bill Maher on television, “We want to fuck
anything in front of us.”)
The truth is all around us, and even our other animal sisters know better than
most women that it’s the norm in males to want to rape and kill.
http://thearcticfeminist.wordpress.com/2014/02/16/its-just-socialization/
http://thearcticfeminist.wordpress.com/2014/02/19/one-of-these-things-is-not-
like-the-others/
http://thearcticfeminist.wordpress.com/2014/02/22/its-just-socialization-
revisited/
http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/animals-can-be-giant-jerks
The behavior of many other male animals is similar to human males, with male
mammals being among the worst: brutality, constant violence, fighting over
territory, obsession with fucking, and sometimes killing females they are trying
to rape, as well as killing the babies and raping and killing other species. Even
media favorites like koala males, when attempting to rape the females, often kill
the females and their babies. Male sea otters kidnap baby otters from their
mothers, forcing the mothers to bring food to them. They kill ten percent of the
females when trying to rape them. They also rape baby seals to death and
continue raping the corpse until it rots. Male lions kill the babies, including their
own, and rape the females. In one bug/hemiptera species, the males literally
puncture the females’ abdomen to reproduce.
Certainly socialization doesn’t cause male animals to act the way they do, so
there’s only one other explanation.
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In response, some female animals have built female-only societies, while others
choose to live in groups where all the adults are female and males are ejected
once they are adolescent and from then on live alone, since they can’t get along
with other males. Some female species, like ants and bees (so much for “the
birds and the bees” propaganda) have almost completely eliminated the males
and control the existence of the few they choose to create.
These aren’t just biological differences, but spiritual differences. Body and spirit
are united. You can usually distinguish a male animal from a female just by his
facial expression. Too many Feminists don’t believe in the innate differences
between males and females even when they can feel that difference. Perhaps it’s
too hard to face the fact that nature isn’t perfect, because that also means facing
the fact that males won’t change their brutal ways. Yet it doesn’t really matter
whether males can’t or won’t change, because they aren’t changing. That is
their choice and responsibility — no more women should devote their lives to
males, pleading with them to stop their violence.
The behavior of many other male animals is similar to human males, with male
mammals being among the worst: brutality, constant violence, fighting over
territory, obsession with fucking, and sometimes killing females they are trying
to rape, as well as killing the babies. Even the media favorites like koala males
happily kill babies and females. Male sea otters not only kill babies to control
females, but they also rape baby seals to death and continue raping the corpse
until it rots, many days later. Certainly socialization doesn’t cause male animals
to act the way they do, so there’s only one other explanation.
Some female mammals choose to live in groups where all the adults are female
and males are ejected once they are adolescent and from then on live alone,
since they can’t get along with other males. Male lions frequently prey on the
female societies, intruding on their territory, stealing their food, and killing lion
cubs, including their own offspring. These aren’t just biological differences, but
spiritual differences. Body and spirit are united. You can usually distinguish a
male animal from a female just by its facial expression. Too many Feminists
don’t believe in the innate differences between males and females even when
they can feel that difference. Perhaps it’s too hard to face the fact that nature
isn’t perfect, because that also means facing the fact that males won’t change
their brutal ways. Yet it doesn’t really matter whether males can’t or
won’t change, because they aren’t changing. That is their choice and
responsibility — no more women should devote their lives to males, pleading
with them to stop their violence.
Why do most women forget the incredible cruelty and nastiness of the boys of
their childhood? Boys are miniature men who grow up to have the power of
adult men. They actively oppress girls in the same way men oppress females, by
humiliating, insulting, beating, raping, and even killing girls. We know Lesbians
who were sexually assaulted when they were little girls by boys as young as five
years old. We know of a seven-year-old girl raped by her nine-year-old
brother. This isn’t uncommon.20
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Boys also verbally and physically assault women. Women sometimes arrogantly
believe themselves safe from boys’ physical attacks, but if there are enough boys
or if the females are unable to fight back, they too can become victims of even
very young boys. And because of their age, boys are rarely punished and are
safe from prosecution even when they’ve committed murder — after all, “boys
will be boys.”
As our Separatist friend, Katinka, from Sweden, wrote to us:
“These are just a few of the things I read in the newspapers recently; a
7-year-old girl stoned to death by a boy, a 10-year-old girl stabbed to
death by a 16-year-old male, a 58-year-old woman stabbed in the neck
and killed by an 11-year-old boy, a 13-year-old stripped naked and
beaten in the schoolyard by boys, and a 6-year-old girl who had been
kicked so severely by boys her own age at a day care that she had
nightmares and screamed while sleeping. A friend of mine in West
Virginia told me about a murder reported in the newspapers there where
a Lesbian had been stabbed to death by her 15-year-old son; he stabbed
her lover as well but she survived. The crimes of even younger boys
against girls and baby girls never reach the news media of course and
these boys as well as teenage boys are never punished in any way since
the girls are blamed and no one really recognizes it as oppression to
begin with.”21
In Katinka’s article, “In Defence of Dykes’ and Girls’ Lives,” She says:
“Lesbians are often ‘shocked’ at many Lesbians’ hatred of boys. Why is
that? I am shocked, angered and disappointed by many Lesbians’ lack of
understanding of girls’ lives. Hatred and anger are healthy and natural
reactions to oppression. These feelings are also politically important and
necessary. My hatred of men and boys grows all the time when I see
what they do to women and girls, and the indifference of others never
ceases to stun me.”22
Still, feminists defend and protect boys. In a review of a women’s book of self-
defense stories, a feminist wrote about one story that particularly shocked her:
“A woman who taught small children told of a 4-year-old boy in one of
her classes who didn’t like the fact that she swam in the ocean. He told
her that women weren’t supposed to do that, and when he grew up he
was going to cut off her arms and legs so she couldn’t do it anymore,
and then he would swim out farther than she had. Although such a little
boy probably didn’t realize the gruesomeness of what he was saying, it
does reveal the attitudes even small children can already have about
women.”23
Why does the feminist reviewer excuse that boy? Of course boys know exactly
what pain, injury, and limitation is. After all, a popular boys’ pastime is to torture
and kill animals. Calling the boy’s threat “the attitudes of small ‘children,’” denies
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the difference between girls and boys, and holds girls equally responsible for
such violent anti-female attitudes.
Blaming socialization for boys’ violence blames the females who raise and teach
boys.24 The implied solution is that even more female lives should be devoted to
changing males. The reality is that men and boys know it’s wrong to rape and
murder. There are laws in most cultures saying so. Blaming socialization
excuses those who commit the crimes and portrays the attackers as victims. This
is the typical patriarchal trick of reversing reality — the truth is called lies and
lies are called truth. In the resulting muddle, no male is ever held responsible for
his actions. The truth is that the crimes of mankind are willful and deliberate. We
ask: When will men and boys be held accountable for their crimes? When
will females of all ages be protected and cared for, instead of their
attackers? Why do women so often love the rapist more than they love his
victims?
Endnotes
1. It’s revealing how female-hating the most revered men seem to be, from Mohandas Ghandi,
who forced young girls to sleep naked with him to prove his celibacy, to the often-quoted Sufi
poet, Rumi, who wrote a poem about a woman who watched her female servant enjoying being
fucked by a donkey, so she tried it, and ended up being fucked to death. How lovely and
spiritual. The Importance of Gourd Crafting, The Essential Rumi, New Expanded
Edition, translated by Coleman Barks, HarperCollins Press, 2004,181.
2. This study of men’s toilet behavior found that men leave a hormonal secretion on toilets. When
they have a choice, men choose a toilet unmarked by this hormone. Females don’t leave such
secretions. A. R. Gustavson, M. E. Dawson, and D. G. Bonett, “Androstenol, a Putative Human
Pheromone, Affects Human Male Choice Performance.” Journal of Comparative
Psychology 101 (1989): 210-212.
We know a Dyke whose parents visited her Lesbian household in the country, and the first
thing her father did was to urinate against the outside wall of their house in full view.
3. It’s revealing how obsessed men are with the idea of artificial, man-made “people” and
whether they can have true human emotion. At the same time that men call it
“anthropomorphizing” and “wishful thinking” when some people believe that animals have
emotions like humans, men continue to make up android characters in the male media,
showing machines with feelings. We can’t help but think that men are obsessively trying to
explore their own lack of emotion. Their question actually seems to be “Can men feel real
emotion?”
4. Man’s technology and forest destruction is producing excessive amounts of carbon dioxide,
causing the “greenhouse effect,” a warming of the planet, which causes huge storms, floods,
droughts, and land loss. Many scientists say this is the beginning of an irreversible planetary
disaster. (We wrote this over 25 years ago. The situation is obviously a lot worse now.)
5. “Dark Circle,” a documentary film produced by Judy Irving, Chris Beaver, and Ruth Landy, first
shown on KQED, a San Francisco PBS television station, in 1986.
6. Independent Documentary Group, 1982, shown on US PBS television stations in 1988.
7. Information from Bay Area Women Against Rape, Berkeley, California.
8. “West 57th Street,” a CBS television news program, US, 8 October 1988. A 10-year old girl
who’d been raped for five years by a family “friend” finally summoned the courage to tell her
doctor. He raped her too, telling her she was “trash forever.” There are also reports of police
raping rape victims.
9. Information from US Federal Bureau of Investigation.
10. Jeffner Allen, Lesbian Philosophy: Explorations (Palo Alto, California: Institute of Lesbian
Studies, 1986), 28.
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11. Diana E. H. Russell says that in her study of 930 females, according to the broader definition of
“incest,” including “ … exhibitionists as well as other unwanted noncontact sexual experience …
54 percent … reported at least one experience of … sexual abuse before they reached 18 years
of age, and 48 percent … reported at least such experience before they reached 14 years of
age.” (p. 62) However, Diana also says that “Many people cannot remember any childhood
experiences before the ages of three or four or even five. How often incestuous abuse occurs
with small babies … is unknown … One such recent case involved a father who self-disclosed
that he had orally copulated with his two-week-old daughter. Most of these very young victims
will never remember the incestuous abuse — a fact that some perpetrators are likely taking
advantage of.” (p. 34) The Secret Trauma: Incest in the Lives of Girls and Women (New
York: Basic Books, Inc., 1986).“One out of three girls are sexually abused by the time they
reach the age of eighteen.” Ellen Bass and Laura Davis, Courage to Heal, A Guide for
Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse (New York, USA.: Harper and Row, 1988),
20.“Some studies indicate that 38% of all girls … have been sexually abused …” “Frontline,”
PBS Television, originally broadcast Apr. 12, 1988. WGBH Educational Foundation, Transcript
No. 609, 1.“Research indicates around 85% of child sexual offenders [men who rape girls] are
either a family friend, a relative, or acquaintance of the child” “ … around 70% of girls who are
sexually abused … are 5 to 11 years old.” Family Violence Prevention Committee and Accident
Compensation Corporation leaflet, New Zealand Listener, 10 December 1988, 117.
12. Females living in countries under foreign rule experience additional colonization.
13. “Most frightening of all is that many ‘inexplicable’ family murders that adorn the front page of
afternoon tabloid newspapers are a response to incest. The family murders I am speaking of
are those where the father apparently kills his wife and all their children, then shoots himself.
When this causal theory was originally suggested to me … I felt skeptical. I asked the then
most senior female police officer in the NSW police dept. if she had heard of this theory. Her
reply rocked me: ‘Oh, yes, we know that. There’s nothing we can do about it.’” Elizabeth
Ward, Father-Daughter Rape, (London: The Women’s Press, Ltd., 1984), 90.
14. Most of the so-called women “rapists” who’ve been prosecuted for having sex with boys
actually were preyed on by the boy, as in the case of Villi Fualaau, who was twelve when, after
already fucking girls, told his friends he was going to “nail” his teacher, Mary Kay Fualaau
(Schmitz/Letourneau), which he did. Yes, it was wrong of her to agree, but it was his decision,
revealing how much power even a twelve year old boy can have in relation to an adult woman
and teacher. Mary Kay and Villi were discovered and she was sent to prison for seven years,
though he impregnated her twice when she was temporarily released, and she was sent back
to prison. After her final release, they were married.
15. In San Francisco in 1987, there were a number of sexual assaults at a military childcare
facility. In an effort to prove how “unusual” this was, the blame was placed on the influence of
“Satanism.” Not only does this take the focus from the actual frequency of child sexual assault,
it indirectly blames witches, including Lesbians, because in most hets’ minds, witchcraft and
Satanism are the same thing.
16. Leaflet, Bay Area Women Against Rape, Berkeley, California. “Alan Taylor, a parole officer who
has worked with rapists in the prison at San Luis Obispo, California, said, “Those were the most
normal men there.’”
17. Elizabeth Ward, Father-Daughter Rape, 87.
18. This was the theme in Something About Amelia,” US film,1984. Girl rape is also a common
theme in television advertisements. An ad for baseball games said a good reason to attend the
games was “pretty girls – lots of them,” showing a girl who was about three years old. KPIX-
TV, San Francisco, 6 September 1987. An ad for the US NBC television series “Hunter” said,
“The bait in a murder trap is blonde, beautiful, and two years old.” San Francisco Chronicle,
1 December 1988.
19. Edward W. Lempinen, “Memories of Torture Haunt Bay Area Refugees,” San Francisco
Chronicle, 1 August 1988, A6.
20. In the 1950’s, females had a one in ten chance of getting cancer — it’s now one in three, Rose
Appleman, “Cancer: Breaking the Isolation of the Epidemic,” Coming Up, S an Francisco,
December 1988, 9. As of February, 2011, it is just over one in two.
21. Roger Bingham, “The Sexual Brain,” Community Television of Southern California, 1987.
Shown on KCSM-TV, San Mateo, California, May 18, 1988.
22. In Florida, a seven-year-old boy pulled a gun on two girls in his class at school and demanded
that they have sex with him. Information from friends, 1988.
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23. Katinka,“In Defence of Dykes’ and Girls’ Lives,” Amazones d’Hier, Lesbiennes
d’Aujourd’hui, No. 20, Québec, Canada (June 1988), 205.
24. Liz Quinn, review of Her Wits About Her: Self-Defense Success Stories by Women, in off
our backs, January 1988, 18.
25. Anna Lee wrote an excellent article on this, “The Tired Old Question of Male Children,” Lesbian
Ethics, Vol. 1. No. 2, 106.
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Chapter Two
Chapter Two
Selling Out Is Not Compulsory

by Bev Jo
How Patriarchy Uses Heterosexual and Bisexual Women against Lesbians
Heterosexuality.
This is the latest update of what had been our original Chapter Two, by Bev Jo
with Linda and Ruston,which included The Crimes of Mankind, now updated to be
our new Chapter One.
Het Feminism Is a Contradiction in Terms

This chapter is not meant as a personal criticism of women who are heterosexual
and/or bisexual, but as a response to the dilution of feminism by liberals/right
wing women pretending to be Radical Feminists who are spreading myths and
lies in order to promote heterosexuality and bisexuality for women. Decades ago,
Lesbian Feminists who had previously chosen to be het claimed that
“heterosexuality is compulsory” for women, ignoring the existence of Lesbians
and other women who had chosen to never be het. (One of the main proponents
for this propaganda was upper class and had chosen to marry a man before
coming out through feminism.) All the reasons they gave for their faulty and
harmful political analysis have been disproved, yet the myth continues to harm
women. Radical Feminism is about finding and naming the truth.
Radical Lesbian Feminists do have a few good, trusted allies who are het women,
but most het women are hostile to Lesbians, even if it isn’t obvious at first.
Feminism used to challenge all aspects of heterosexuality, but now is so
liberalized that many “radfems” follow the Gay male and genderqueer lie that we
have no choice about one of the most important decisions we make in our lives:
who we choose to love.
To find truth instead of confusion, ask, who do these politics ultimately
serve? Do these ideas challenge male supremacy at its core, or do they benefit
men and help continue male rule?
How did one of the most revolutionary truths of basic Feminist and Lesbian
Feminist politics, which has the potential to change all girls’ and women’s lives
forever, become so hidden, denied, and lied about? Learning how and why our
original inspiring politics were diluted and destroyed explains everything. True
feminism is about choosing courage and the obvious truth, instead of choosing
the path of fear and denial of reality.
We need to understand our history to know what happened to our wonderful,
hopeful, and exciting Radical Feminist and Lesbian Feminist movement and
culture. And that means learning our real history rather than the distortion which
men posing as Lesbians are re-writing. (These men have far more money,
power, and media access than we do, and of course are supporting male
supremacy.)
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No, we never joined with Gay men or the much later genderqueer movement.
We said no to, and fought, the porn and sado-masochism disguised as “feminist”
that invaded our communities in 1979 and later. We also always said no to the
few men who posed as Lesbians. We built proud, creative communities where
female-only space was the norm.
Most importantly, we fought the horrific Lesbian-hating we grew up with, from
the time when there was nothing but hate and lies about us in any media, when
we were told we were mentally ill and even dangerous. Rare Lesbian characters
in films and books usually died at the end, and real Lesbians often hid who they
were, in fear and/or shame. As a people, we were ignored, lied about, and
despised.
So when Lesbian Feminists created our culture and movement, it was essential
to say proudly that we chose to be Lesbians, to counteract the lies that we were
born queer or made “perverts” by some girlhood trauma.
I (Bev) found Lesbian Feminism in 1970 when I was 19, and it was a dream
come true. That was when a larger percentage of Lesbian Feminists were Lifelong
Lesbians and Butch, having become Lesbians out of our love for other females.
Also, more of us were class-oppressed. Our community reflected that strong
Dyke identity. Soon the newly-out women who became Lesbians as a result of
becoming feminists, and who often loved women less than they hated men, and
who were majority white and middle-class, outnumbered us and changed our
culture. But at the time, it seemed as if all women would soon come out. We
knew that the psychoanalytical propaganda that pathologized us was lies and
that all females are born Lesbian, while it’s the choosing to be het or bisexual
that goes against our nature.
It wasn’t until the Eighties, that the seemingly liberal, but actually reactionary
politics of “born this way” invaded our communities, having come from Gay male
politicians. We were pressured to join in asking for equal rights by appealing to
the pity of lawmakers – of course we “queers” (in the original insulting use of the
word) would prefer to have boring, empty het lives if only we could. If Gay men
said it was a choice, those in power would tell them/us to stop complaining. The
entire structure of the campaign for equal rights is built on Lesbians and Gay
men agreeing we are deficient in relation to heterosexuals, which is not far
removed from the old American Psychiatric Association’s assertion that we are
mentally ill.
But our Lesbian Feminist community had not been connected to Gay men at all.
Some who had tried working with Gay men had quit in disgust at their female-
hating and Lesbian-hating.1 Most Lesbian Feminists we knew were never around
Gay men and had no reason to be. Our communities were completely different,
which was obvious in the male porn ads we were subjected to if we got the
“Lesbian” and Gay newspapers we relied on for information about events. Their
focus is on sex rather than love. Men choosing to be het appear to be more
relationship-oriented because they have to be if they want access to women, but
in reality, few het men are monogamous, and most would live similarly to Gay
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Chapter Two
men if that were possible to do with women. (Perhaps Gay men do feel they are
born gay, but many more het men would choose to be gay if it weren’t for the
stigma.)
Gay men have almost nothing in common with Lesbians or other women anyway,
and did not experience what we did with the enormous influx of previously het
women into our Lesbian Feminist communities. Only later, when Gay men
formed Gay rights groups with access to media and enormous amounts of
money, and needed token Lesbians to get even more money, did their politics
influence Lesbian communities. And, even though Gay men publicly expressed
disgust and hatred of Lesbians, the AIDS epidemic, though clearly a sexually
transmitted disease, activated Lesbians to choose to support men instead of
Lesbians. Even then, very few Lesbians joined with them.
What happened to the Lesbian pride we had when we said, “We do have a
choice, and we choose to be Lesbians”? Returning to our original politics and
knowledge makes it clear that het and bisexual women choose to collaborate
with patriarchy, and also frees the many Lesbian Feminists who spend their lives
working to help “free” and protect het and bisexual women from their men. It
also enables Lesbian Feminists to finally make our own people a priority.
The Heterosexist Myths that Manipulate Lesbian Feminists

We could move forward if certain women would just stop lying and playing
games. (This seems to be the predominate tactic when unable to answer
honestly and directly.) If you really want to be Radical Feminist, stop oppressing
the women who are saying no to patriarchy, and stop lying about us. Stop
pretending you are not playing both sides if you are still invested in males. Just
be honest, whatever your choices are.
1. The lie that almost all girls and women are naturally heterosexual.
If this were true, why is every aspect of the media bombarding us with
increasingly pornographic propaganda, from schools, books, television, films,
magazines, peer pressure, and even “radfem” online groups? It starts much
younger than it used to, with five year old girls policing other girls as well as
adults about whether they have a “boyfriend” and, if they don’t, why not? It’s
shameful for girls to admit their first feelings of love, which is for other girls, and
which would continue if most did not decide later to choose boys and then men.
(Some do stay following their hearts, while others regret decades of their lives
wasted trying to make themselves love men.)
Every once in a while there is an extremely revealing interview, such as in
television news “magazines” where a young woman, asked about her “first time”
says “It was horrible, but it’s supposed to be, isn’t it?”
Privileged women riddled with STDs, some of which, like herpes and HPV, are
incurable, still call themselves “hopelessly heterosexual.” If women say similar
self-destructive things about being addicted to drugs or sado-masochism, friends
are likely to talk about having an intervention on their behalf. Instead, the
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pressure from most women is to keep staying with men, no matter how abusive
the men or how dangerous the consequences. When women break ranks about
choosing heterosexuality, other het women try to pull them back into line.
When “feminists” insist heterosexuality in inborn and not a choice, they are
supporting women to be hurt and abused by men. And they are keeping
patriarchy going.
2. The lie that woman have no choice but to be het.
Well, then what about all the ex-het Lesbians who return to men for privilege?
I certainly remember the Lesbian Separatist lover I held as she told how abused
she’d felt by the men she’d let fuck her, crying with her, for her. And only a few
years later, she told me in graphic detail how much she loved being fucked by
her new boyfriend.
It’s ignored that girls and women make thought-out choices about this. Some of
us remember our teenaged friends talking with us about how they were repulsed
by boys and men, but decided they had to learn to flirt to attract them or they
would lost status. We remember this, even if the women who did it pretend not
to.
3. The lie that it’s ‘misogynist’ to say that women can choose to not be
het since they are victims.
It’s misogynist to deny women have the strength and intelligence to choose. It’s
infantilizing them and is for more dangerous for them to stay with men.
It’s interesting that the strongest proponents of “Stockholm Syndrome” as the
reason women stay het are women with their own husbands or boyfriends. Who
else wants women to not think about any of this? Again, het women are
threatened when other het women want to break ranks.
4. The lie that Lifelong Lesbians are “lucky” to always have been a
Lesbian and to never have been fucked.
Saying no to men and their women our whole lives doesn’t mean not having
been raped. How is being marginalized and oppressed as a Lesbian our entire
lives, in patriarchy and even among “feminists,” “lucky?” Many Lifelong Lesbians
remember being taunted and even physically attacked when they were girls by
the girls who chose boys and men. Have some of those abusers grown up to be
feminists spreading this insult?
5. The lie that het women are more oppressed than Lesbians.
Seriously? Are we not living in the same world?
https://bevjoradicallesbian.wordpress.com/2014/03/02/the-
parasitizing-and-gutting-of-radical-feminism/
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The Power of Women to Choose Who They Love

So, how does male supremacy succeed, when females outnumber males and are
longer-lived than them? The answer is that het women support it. Males couldn’t
continue their crimes against the earth if women didn’t collaborate with them.
Patriarchy couldn’t exist without them. Males need females for their very
creation and for their survival.2
Dyke courage built the International Women’s Liberation Movement. Yet the
focus of mainstream feminism, including Lesbian feminism, remains reformist —
a way for het women to get a better deal from male rule — not a way to change
patriarchy. Enormous Lesbian energy goes into working for het women to gain
more rights from their men.
Feminist goals are primarily het-identified: contraception and abortion (to make
fucking easier), divorce and alimony, support for battered women’s refuges, pay
for housework, childcare (with the emphasis on the father’s role), and the
creation of a “men’s movement” to help “free” men from their own sexism. (Of
course we support women’s rights to contraception and abortion, but we think
fighting for them is het women’s responsibility, not Lesbians’.)
Yet most feminists show their ingratitude by denying the existence of Lesbians in
their organizations. They’re Lesbian-hating personally and politically. They’re
willing to sell out their Lesbian “sisters” in order to not disturb their men. The
few het feminist groups that do recognize Lesbian existence tokenize and
objectify us, and still expect us to make their het concerns primary.
Why are het feminists like this? It’s because they don’t really want to challenge
the basic foundations of male supremacy. They’d rather gain acceptance into
male power structures and share the roles of prime ministers, presidents, and
executives with men. The less privileged het feminists who have no hope of such
goals want to at least share their own men’s male privilege and to receive
heterosexual privilege instead of Lesbian oppression.
(After writing our book, I do want to say that I have some het women friends
who I love dearly. Interestingly, most aren’t feminists and it probably makes it
easier that we don’t have political discussions. I met them in the Rat Community,
which is an international community of people, about 99% women, who love and
work for the acceptance of rats, and who do rescue work on behalf of rats.
Maybe these women are special because they’ve opened their hearts and minds
to these gentle, intelligent, loving little animals who are feared and hated simply
because of who they are without being known as individuals, just as Lesbians
are.)
The Heterosexist Hierarchy

Besides the unequal hierarchy among females that are based on racism, anti-
Semitism, ethnicism, classism, imperialism, ableism, ageism, fat oppression, and
looksism, there’s also a heterosexual-based hierarchy created by men and
perpetuated by het women. Females at the top most fit the male-defined
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feminine role, while those at the bottom are furthest away from what men say
females should be.
This hierarchy was not created by Lesbians. We’re naming it in order to be able
to fight against it. Wherever oppression exists, there are intricate hierarchies
within each group which make a great difference in the quality of life of each
individual. The older the oppression, the more complicated the hierarchy. Those
at the top of any hierarchy get the most social and economic rewards, and
therefore get to feel better about themselves at the expense of those considered
“beneath” them. This is also true about other hierarchies.
With classism, for example, there are dividing lines between those who grew up
poor, working-class, middle-class, upper-class, and ruling-class. If you’re over
the line from a poorer to richer group, you’re generally more socially acceptable,
more culturally visible, and more arrogant. Poor Lesbians have less power than
working-class Lesbians, but both have less power than all middle-class Lesbians.
And within each broad division there’s an internal hierarchy. Lower-middle-class
Lesbians from non-professional backgrounds have less power than Lesbians
whose parents are professionals. And then there are what our lives are like now,
though class identification is based on how we grew up. All the details are
important. To say otherwise would over-simplify and deny women’s realities.
Men hate Lesbians because: 1) We love females in a female-hating world; 2) we
refuse to let men fuck us; 3) we refuse to marry and look after men; 4) we
refuse to breed and raise families; and 5) many of us refuse to look and act
feminine. Het women, by obeying these male dictates, gain privilege. The more
rules they obey, the more privilege they get, and the higher up the het hierarchy
they are. But the fewer rules Dykes obey, the more Dyke-hatred we get, and the
further down the het hierarchy we drop.
Since marriage and motherhood (preferably together) are the most valued
female roles in patriarchy, married mothers are at the top of the hierarchy. Even
if someone isn’t a wife or mother, she’s still expected to be fucked by men or to
at least want to. What male supremacists never forgive is females loving other
females instead of males. Lesbians are a serious threat to male rule, so we’re at
the bottom of the heterosexist hierarchy. And the less feminine a Lesbian is, the
more she’s oppressed, and the less het she’s been, the more she’s despised and
treated as alien.
The het hierarchy goes like this, starting at the top: het wives who are also
mothers; wives who are non-mothers; divorced mothers; unmarried het
mothers; married bisexuals; unmarried het women; unmarried bisexuals;
celibate het women (women who aren’t fucking men but are still heterosexual in
their thoughts and feelings). Although those at the top have more power than
celibate het women, all are heterosexual and so have the power to oppress
Lesbians, and all do so. (Unfortunately, this het hierarchy also continues among
Lesbians, which we talk about in our chapter on heterosexism among
Lesbians.) The het hierarchy is affected by all other hierarchies, so how much
racial, ethnic, class, and national privilege a female has affects her power, as
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does her age, size, looks, and abilities. But when females are similar in these
other aspects, those further up in the het hierarchy have more power than those
below them.
We’ve heard many Lesbians describe other Lesbians as “male-identified,” but
we’ve never heard het women, no matter how devoted they are to males, being
called male-identified. That slur is reserved for Lesbians. Yet no female is more
male-identified than het women. How could het women seriously want to fight
patriarchy when they live with it, nurture it, love it, and are fucked by it? If they
have sons, they’re literally creating patriarchy and are deeply invested in its
future. Heterosexual women are the scab labor that sabotages female
resistance.
Even the few het women who befriend Dykes usually still feel superior to
us. They patronize us because patriarchy says only het women, particularly wives
and mothers, are truly adults. No matter how old we are, Dykes are still treated
as children who never quite grew up. That’s because we refuse to be part of what
hets define as “real,” “adult” life – being fucked by men. (Lesbians participate in
continuing this stereotype when in Lesbian novels, het women characters are
portrayed as older, wiser, and mature, while Lesbian characters are portrayed as
young and naïve.)
By refusing to let the passion of Lesbianism into their lives, most het women
keep female relationships on a limited, superficial level, and focus instead on
their shallow, empty, numbing relationships with men. After all, other females
are competition for their men. Everything and everyone is sacrificed for the
males in their lives, usually including their own daughters’ well being, because
heterosexuality is based on the betrayal of females by females.
(Since writing our book, we’ve read some very strange accusations, such as that
Radical Lesbian Feminists want to recruit het women to come out so we can have
sexual access to them. Our response is: Don’t flatter yourself and don’t confuse
us with your own male attitudes. Unless het women coming out are very careful
and thoughtful, they actually damage our communities, and the Lesbians they
become lovers with, because they usually bring their female-hating, Lesbian-
hating male and het attitudes, including their tendency to sexually objectify and
pornify Lesbians. It would be far better for such women to simply stop being het
and stop continuing to support males, and to be celibate or become involved with
each other.)
Lesbianism challenges the foundation of male supremacy. No matter how much a
Lesbian tries to identify with and support patriarchy, no matter how much she’s
sold herself out, her very existence threatens male rule at its core. The essence
of patriarchy is maleness, and Lesbians, by definition, refuse to feed, nurture,
and intimately support males. Some Lesbians support males in other ways than
het women do — except they don’t welcome men or their semen into their
bodies. Lesbians are therefore much less likely to support males in ways that het
women take for granted. And Dyke Separatists refuse to nurture males at all,
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which is why we’re such a threat to anyone involved in patriarchy, including men,
boys, het women, and even non-Separatist Lesbians.
Dykes Are Oppressed

Part of the shock I (Bev) had when I first went online and saw how Radical
Feminism had been gutted, was seeing the combination of the virulence of het
women hating Lesbians combined with het women denying that Lesbians are
even oppressed. Our history of being ostracized and attacked, tortured and
killed, is clear to see for anyone who cares. Any het woman who doubts this
could try going around announcing to everyone she knows and meets that she’s
a Lesbian and see the effect. (Start with your family….) One of the primary
reasons that women stay with males is their fear of being considered a Lesbian,
a freak and a queer.
It’s important to be clear about definitions. Oppression isn’t simply the same as
misery. Oppression has clearly defined boundaries measured by such things as
discriminatory laws, physical attacks, verbal insults, threats, cultural invisibility
and stereotypes, deletion from historical records, discrimination in housing and
work, and ostracism by family and other heterosexuals. Lesbians are more
oppressed in these ways than het women. And we are also forced to live in an
alien society that we find repulsive and terrifying, that tells us we don’t exist now
and never did in the past.
Our refusal to be fucked by men doesn’t mean men aren’t constantly oppressing
us. Unlike Lesbians, all het women receive some degree of honor and respect
from patriarchal societies. No matter how little, it’s more than any Lesbian gets.
Het women’s lives and reality are acknowledged every day, at our expense, while
Lesbian reality is denied and distorted. The price of that damage can never be
measured. And one thing het feminism ignores is that, unlike oppression, the
hardships of being het can be avoided — by choosing not to be het.
No matter how oppressed a het woman is, she’s still given more political and
personal rights than any Lesbian from her same background.
Men and het women oppress Lesbians every day in ways het women escape. Het
women are more likely to be treated better anywhere in the world than Lesbians
are, whether it’s at jobs, on the street, in stores, prisons, courts, hospitals, or
mental institutions. That difference in treatment at times means the difference
between life and death. Het women are also treated better in feminist women’s
centers, clinics, bookstores, and even in specifically Lesbian places. The more out
a Dyke is, the worse treatment she receives. Dykes who can’t or won’t pass as
het are attacked by hets and scapegoated by many Lesbians. Yet Lesbian
apologists for het women still talk about how much luckier, “freer,” and fulfilled
we are as Lesbians — therefore het women’s lives must be “harder.” But luck has
nothing to do with it. They should remember that just as we chose to come out,
so also can het women.
Money means survival, and het women have access to more money through their
husbands, boyfriends, sons, and male relatives. Females still earn only a fraction
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of what men earn, but het women are more likely to get jobs, including non-
traditional and highly paid work, than Lesbians. They’re more likely to advance at
work and are less likely to be fired, harassed, or threatened into leaving their
jobs.
All government and private organizations discriminate against us, and het
women participate in this. There’s no claim on any territory in the world by
Lesbians as a people, nor is such a claim a possibility. Because we’re Lesbians,
we’re more likely to be incarcerated in prisons or mental hospitals than are het
women. Insurance, tax deductions, and health care all benefit hets. We’re forced
to be separated from our lovers and friends by anti-Lesbian immigration policies.
Even our dead bodies are often forcibly taken from our loved ones by family and
other heterosexuals. Lesbians are rejected by our families, cultures, and nations,
while het women ally with all these structures. We’re especially isolated when
we’re very old, young, ill, or dying.
We’re social outcasts and targets for hate — either made invisible or ridiculed
and caricatured in the media. Stereotypes of Lesbians are very damaging:
“inverted,” alone and lonely, ostracized, disowned, hated and self-hating, sick,
crazy, desperate, pathetic, ugly, violent, suicidal, molesters, and murderers. We
aren’t even considered to be females. In films and books, we’re most likely found
in bars, mental institutions, and prisons.
Het women proudly announce they’re het to any stranger. It’s almost impossible
to meet one without her immediately making a point of mentioning her husband,
boyfriend, or children. Meanwhile, Lesbians are expected to stay silent. Such het
talk isn’t casual, random conversation – it’s an assertion of het privilege and
status, and a reminder that they’re not “old maids” or Lesbians. They do it to get
approval and acceptance. It if wasn’t so important to them, they wouldn’t do it
so obsessively. Just like rich women bragging about their possessions, it’s
hierarchical behavior. And when they know we’re Lesbians, they say “your
private life” or “your sexual preference” “doesn’t matter to me.” That means they
don’t want to hear about our lives, but they assume that they’ll talk about theirs
and get support. Calling our entire life choice of who we love a “sexual
preference” trivializes us into absurdity. How dare we complain about oppression
that’s caused by a mere sexual choice?
Central to Dyke oppression is that it’s not taken seriously by anyone, including
many Lesbians. Most politically-minded Lesbians focus more concern on fighting
for the rights of almost every group of men, boys, and het women than for their
own kind. When any of us dares to say males are the enemy and het women are
collaborators, we face not only men and het women’s rage but also that of most
Lesbians! Our Dyke pain, oppression, and lives don’t matter to them — only non-
Lesbians are important. That’s why feminist health collectives, which exist and
function only through Lesbian energy and commitment, focus primarily on het
women’s and even Gay men’s needs. If any of us object because there are many
Lesbians who are sick and are dying and need help, and we point out that we
have far fewer resources than either men or het women, we are called “selfish”
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— by Lesbians. Unfortunately, the self-hatred of internalized Lesbian oppression

often turns into active hatred of those of us who dare to speak out for Lesbians.
If Lesbian oppression were treated seriously, het women would be less effective
in pressuring Lesbians to take care of them — whether it’s het feminist groups
demanding Lesbian support, or het families demanding Lesbians’ time and
energy. Het feminism mirrors families in interesting ways — when they want to
disown you and deny your existence, they do — when they want your life’s blood
in caring for them and keeping them going, they feel justified in demanding
it. When more Lesbians clearly understand the privileges that het women have
over them, it will be easier to say no to their demands. It will also be easier to
rebuild Dyke communities presently weakened by het-identified Lesbians who
perpetuate the het hierarchy among us. Perhaps we could finally have truly
Dyke-identified political movements and communities where we take care of our
own kind and not our oppressors.
Part of the problem is that only het women are considered “real
women.” Lesbians suffer female oppression in addition to Lesbian oppression, in
ways no het woman can ever experience or understand unless she becomes a
Lesbian. Lesbian-hatred is the most extreme form of female-hatred. Women’s
Liberation Movement politics, which say women are oppressed by men, but
ignore Lesbian oppression, have been carried by into our Lesbian communities
with no revision to fit Lesbian reality. Het feminists’ attitudes are: “Females are
oppressed. All females are het, so Lesbians aren’t female. Therefore, Lesbians
are not oppressed.” This extreme Lesbian-hating exists in our communities as
well as among het feminists, because Lesbian values reflect het values unless
consciously changed.
It’s true we perceive Lesbianism as more ideal, sensible, independent, strong,
attractive, and wonderful than hetness. It’s also true that we’re made to suffer
terribly for our choice. Many het women who left their husbands and boyfriends
and became Lesbians after joining the WLM spread the lie that Lesbians have
easier lives. They often don’t want to think how oppressive they were to us in the
past or even now. Certainly no other oppressed community has had to face the
onslaught of being outnumbered by their previous oppressors as Lesbians have.
Rather than form groups or classes to “Unlearn Heterosexism,” which feminists
and other women have done about other privileges they have, the recently out
ex-het women tend to get more respect as more “normal women.”
As long as Lesbians are slandered, insulted, controlled, imprisoned, deprived,
hunted, hidden, forcibly isolated, forcibly separated from each other, attacked,
and murdered for being Lesbians, none of us are free. Legislation outlawing
Lesbianism or discriminating against Lesbians exists in most countries. Only in a
few very liberal places are there laws protecting Lesbians from discrimination —
yet there are now laws in many countries outlawing sexist discrimination.3
Lesbians also suffer intense internalized oppression, without the shielding of
“normality” that het women have. The suicide4 and addiction rate of Lesbians is
very high. Being hated and slandered, and not represented in most of the media,
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has an effect. Lesbians are more vulnerable to illness than het women are. The
cancer rate for Butches, and especially those also oppressed by racism and
classism, is extremely high. Oppressed groups’ health suffers because of the
daily tension of living with danger, deprivation, and hatred. This is known to be
true of people oppressed by racism, ethnicism, classism, ableism, ageism, and
fat oppression, and we know it’s true of Lesbians.5
Many Lesbians went through hell as girls. Some were thrown out and made
homeless as young teenagers, while others were locked up in mental hospitals
and given drugs, with lifelong consequences. Rebellious het girls still usually get
strong support from friends, but Lesbian girls are often afraid to tell friends or
are ostracized. Lesbian girls who are the most visible, like Butches, are also
physically attacked by boys, men and even het girls and women.
Happiness for het women is having the status of normalcy, husband and
children, acceptance by family, money, a house, careers, possessions, and
power. They pay for it through loss of integrity and lack of true love and
intimacy, but that’s their choice. For Lesbians, happiness means having loving
friends and lovers, integrity, self-respect, Dyke culture, creativity, and
intimacy. We pay for it through severely increased oppression, forced on us by
both men and het women.
Lesbians are called “privileged” if we show pride in being Dykes. Yet when
feminists go on about how strong women are, their pride is not used to disprove
the fact that het women are oppressed. The strength and pride Dykes have
developed through fighting persecution are turned against us instead of
admired. Dyke strength and pride do not equal “freedom” or negate our
oppression.
What Is the Cause of Heterosexuality? Is There a Cure?

Many Lesbians ask,” Aren’t some het women’s lives just too hard for them to
come out?” No. This argument implies that it’s a luxury to be a Lesbian. In trying
to trivialize our oppression, defenders of heterosexuality completely reverse the
truth. No matter how difficult and painful a het woman’s life is, there’s always
someone from her same background and experiences who chose to be a Lesbian.
(We are everywhere!) And that Lesbian is not only more oppressed than that het
woman — she’s oppressed by that het woman.
Bev:What about an uneducated woman who was virtually sold by her father into
marriage with an older man when she was 13 years old? She lived poor and
isolated in the country, was beaten by her alcoholic husband, and had her first of
eight children by age 14. What choice did she have? That woman was my
grandmother. She did choose to leave her husband and kids and run away to the
city, where she cleaned houses for a living. But instead of becoming a Lesbian or
even being celibate, she married another alcoholic who was later sent to prison
for burglarizing a house where she worked. (After I wrote this, a cousin
suggested that her husband took the fall for her. She was ruthless and often got
into bar brawls, and even shot a woman in one, though she was said to be
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aiming for a man.) When rid of her husband, did she decide to at least be
celibate if the idea of becoming a Lesbian was too repugnant? No, she got herself
yet another drunken boyfriend.
It certainly wasn’t her poverty that prevented her from coming out or being
celibate, since she economically supported her men, as do many poor and
working-class women. My grandmother’s life was very hard, but the fact is that
there are females from her same background who chose to be Lesbians. And she
was treated better as an ex-married het woman than she would have been if she
were a single het woman (who’d only be able to get approval by talking about
wanting a man) — and she would have been treated far worse than either if she
was a Dyke. For all the hardship in my grandmother’s life, she still had the power
to oppress me as a Dyke, and she made it clear she hated Lesbians.
Why is there such a pervasive belief that it’s a privilege to be a Lesbian? Why are
the lives of upper-and ruling-class het women conveniently forgotten, even
though some of them have the power of life and death over many people?
Many class-privileged, European-descent Lesbians don’t want to recognize the
existence of millions of racially-oppressed Lesbians or to acknowledge that the
majority of Lesbians of all races are from poor and working-class backgrounds.6
(Similarly, anti-Separatists deny existence of Dyke Separatists who are racially
and/or class-oppressed.)
Most upper- and middle-class females are het. Women often gain in status and
money when they marry, while Lesbians usually lose what economic privilege we
got from our families. (That’s why so many women are against females getting
equal pay for equal work. They know that their men will get paid less if other
females are paid fairly.) Working-class women can get some middle-class
privilege or at least stay working-class through their association with men.
Working-class Lesbians often become poor because females not living with men
have fewer economic options. Although a class-privileged Lesbian can use her
privilege to treat a class-oppressed Lesbian badly, even the most oppressed het
woman still considers both Lesbians scum.
Many Lesbians also claim that het women become het because of self-hatred
resulting from being victims of rape by male family. This is particularly ironic,
since it’s been wrongly said for years that sexual assaults on girls cause
Lesbianism, as further “proof” of our being “sick.” The fact is that rape by male
relatives is so rampant that both Lesbians (including Lesbians who were never
het) and het women are equally likely to have been victims of sexual assault as
girls. This can make each lie sound plausible, since both lies are Lesbian-hating.
One lie makes us seem less oppressed than het women, while the other supports
the theory that it takes something horrible to create a Dyke. Both obscure the
truth that most girls are sexually assaulted.
Many Lesbians say, “But what about societies where Lesbians don’t exist? Some
women have no choice.” Since when does any Lesbian believe propaganda
spread by men? How many Lesbians’ lives have male biographers and historians
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distorted and lied about until our existence throughout history has been
completely denied? Dykes have had to do a lot of research and read between the
lines to find the few Lesbians from the past that we now know about. When we
hear of cultures where every female is said to be het, we should be skeptical
about where such “information” comes from –especially if the sources are
European or European-descent male anthropologists. Such “scientists” are
notoriously racist, sexist, and heterosexist. Likewise, we should be wary of
patriarchal governments and leaders within any culture. Every patriarch
declares: “There’s no Lesbian in my family, my town, my society, my country.
It’s an insult to even ask!” In capitalist societies men lump us together with
leftists, while in socialist and communist societies we were explained as
“evidence of capitalist decadence.”
Lesbians exist in Iran and Bangladesh. Even Butches, the Lesbians who rejected
male-identified femininity from girlhood, are in every culture with the same
recognizable look, including where Lesbians are executed by the government. So
why are Lesbians in the most privileged countries denying their existence? The
fact that Lesbians exist even in countries with forced child marriages proves that
heterosexuality is clearly a choice.
Lesbians who refuse to acknowledge the seriousness of Lesbian oppression are
still identifying primarily with het women. Ex-het Lesbians who identify with het
women are doing so at all Lesbians’ expense.
Heterosexuality Is a Choice
Many Lesbians repeat common fallacies as their reason for having been
heterosexual: “Becoming het isn’t a choice. I didn’t know any different. Everyone
does it. I didn’t know Lesbians existed.” They continue to use these same
excuses to support het women’s present choice of heterosexuality.
Saying “everyone does it” is used as an excuse for almost every oppressive
act, making it acceptable to be Lesbian-hating, racist, anti-Semitic, ethnicist,
imperialist, classist, ableist, ageist, fat oppressive, and looksist. It’s a cruel lie,
because it denies the existence of anyone who doesn’t fit into the privileged
“norm” of “everyone.”
You’d expect that Lesbians who believe that the majority of men are well-
meaning would think that het women make an understandable choice to be het.
But instead, they insist that women are incapable of making such a choice and
are the victims of the terrible oppression of “compulsory heterosexuality,”
suffering far more than any Lesbian. Why the inconsistency? The same Lesbians
who defend men as being no different from females suddenly sound as if they’ve
become Separatists when they talk about how het women are forced to be het by
brutal, cruel men!
Why do these Lesbians patronize het women by saying they’re incapable of
making the major choice of their lives? And why do they ignore women who brag
about making that choice?7 As Separatists, we don’t think males treat females
fairly at all, but we do acknowledge het women’s ability to make their own
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decisions, and we do hold them accountable for those decisions. No one chooses
her race, age, or class background. But heterosexuality and Lesbianism are
clearly chosen. We’re born into het and male cultures, but we are not born het.
If you think het women don’t make a choice, try a random sampling on the
street and ask them. If you think they’re more oppressed than we are, try asking
them if they wouldn’t have happier, more fulfilling lives being Lesbians.
Do women who insist no choice about having been het think we don’t remember?
I’ll (Bev) never forget being asked to leave the bed I shared with the first lover I
lived with because her boyfriend was coming to fuck her… and then seeing her
playing her het woman flirty little-girl games with him in public. I’ll also never
forget visiting a new friend when I was 16 and her introducing me to a male
friend who put his hand on her belly and looked pleadingly at her. She then laid
down on the floor and let him fuck her. No emotion visible, just whatever he
wanted. It didn’t matter I was there. Later she was worried she might get
pregnant, which would have destroyed her life. Rather than seem embarrassed
when back at school, she clearly felt superior to the other girls who hadn’t yet
been fucked.
Some Lesbians even say that the middle class euphemism for getting fucked
“PIV” – penis in vagina) is “rape.” Equating chosen fucking with rape is more
cruel female-hating. It denies the horror of actual rape. Baby girls who can’t run
away are raped. Imprisoned women are raped. Females of all ages are held down
and raped by gangs of men, or raped at knife or gun point. How can these
experiences be compared to women willingly letting their husbands and
boyfriends fuck them? Why are the lives of rich, ruling-class women, for
instance, who can leave their husbands whenever they like, and who have
money, servants, etc. ignored when women are said to not be choosing to be
het? What about the choices of millionaire het women who spend tens of
thousands of dollars on each of their designer dresses? Yet even the most
oppressed het women can and do leave their men. Again, for every het woman
existing, there are females from her same background who refused to be het and
others who chose to be Lesbians.
Older women used to admit they hate fucking, but with the modern co-option of
feminism in the phony “sexual revolution,” many women now proudly say they
love to be fucked, as often and by as many men as possible. That means some
women’s choice to invite men to fuck them affects how all of us are thought of
and treated. (The STDs in women increased dramatically as a result of this,
including incurable ones like HPV and herpes.)
One example proving choice is the two women who started a business called
“Wear And Share,” making and selling earrings for women that are simply
condoms on cardboard.8 Stores that carried them sold out immediately. What
better way for women to publicly say they want to be fucked? Another example
is the introduction of high-cut bathing suits that expose the pubic area, requiring
women to shave their vulvas. If women hadn’t bought those suits when they first
appeared in stores, they would have “gone out of style.” Instead, they’ve
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become so popular that it’s almost impossible to buy the more protective old-
style suits. They’re even made for little girls, and mothers buy them for their
young daughters. (Since writing our book, women buying breast implants,
labiaplasty, etc., have made self-mutilation into big business for surgeons, and
many women even buy them for their teenaged daughters, making their
daughters more inviting targets for boys and men.)
Similarly, many women not only choose to wear clownish make-up but choose
styles that look like bruises on their cheeks and eyelids. Violent anti-female porn
and, later, even “family” television shows made this popular. The porn industry
itself could not exist if women didn’t agree to be its models. A few women have
been abducted to be used in porn films, but the majority choose their jobs.
Some women write and film porn, no matter how much liberal feminists deny
this. For example, Lena Dunham, a producer, director, writer, and actor with
media power, who identifies as a “rabid feminist,” has gotten rave reviews for
her popular television series, Girls, even though she writes unbelievably female-
hating, pornographic scenes — such as the one showing the boyfriend of main
character (played by Dunham), fucking a woman while her “whore,” “bitch,” etc.,
even though she is protesting, making it clearly change from consensual fucking
into a rape scene. He finishes by wanking off on her chest (shown in
pornographic detail), further humiliating her. And then he is back with Dunham’s
character, and presented as her wonderful, kind, caring boyfriend. Similarly,
Miley Cyrus, is making a fortune by displaying herself on stage in repulsive
pornographic ways, and prostituting other women, like the little person who she
hires to perform at her concerts in a grotesque pointy bustier. When Sinead
O’Connor wrote to Cyrus, telling her she could be rich and famous without doing
such female-hating things, Cyrus responded with a nasty dig at O’Connor’s
history of mental illness. Instead of liberal feminists telling us to stop protesting
such female-hating and instead focus on men making money from selling women
(even though men will never stop and we would be wasting our time), wouldn’t it
make more sense to try to reach women who can potentially change?
And then there’s Joan Kelly, a “radical feminist,” who (in 2011) had a blog called
“Chicks Dig Me.” She seems to be accepted by some of the most radical feminists
online, in spite of the fact that she’s still selling her book, The Pleasure’s All Mine.
The Village Voice gave her a glowing review in BigBucks for Pain Sluts:
Over the course of her career, Joan Kelly has been strung up and splashed with
freezing water, had her labia sewn shut, gotten caned, and taken countless bare-
bottomed spankings — and has loved almost every minute of it … Byron Mayo,
co-owner of the BDSM advertising hot spot Eros-Guide.com and former owner of
a commercial San Francisco dungeon, has nothing but praise for the skills pro
subs bring to their trade … “In a world of political correctness, confusing role
models, and enforced ‘equality,’ the ability to tell a beautiful, intelligent, and
demure woman to get on her knees and do what you say is a fantasy come
true.” Kelly goes into more detail in her book: “I had a client sew my vaginal lips
shut … I had another client who took 18-gauge needles, heated them until they
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were red-hot, and used them to pierce the insides of my butt cheeks. I could
hear my skin sizzling as the needles penetrated me.”
Liberal feminists most likely would call Kelly a victim, but Kelly herself identifies
not just as a feminist, but radical feminist. She didn’t become a prostitute out of
desperation, but for fun. She’s from a very privileged background.
When will het women be held responsible for making their own decisions? When
they support the Ku Klux Klan and Nazi party? Radical Lesbians don’t excuse
women who choose to be right-wing racists in the same way they excuse the
most Lesbian-hating het woman, about whom they say, “It’s not her fault. She’s
powerless. She’s just doing what she’s been taught and doesn’t know any other
way to live.” Again, this is about Lesbian oppression not being taken seriously.
“Self-hatred” is no more of an explanation for Lesbian-hating than it is for
classism or racism — nor is it an explanation for het women’s choice to be
heterosexual.
The “radfems” most vehement about trying to silence discussion about women
being able to say no to men, insisting het women are “victims of Stockholm
Syndrome,” while branding Radical Feminist who disagrees as “misogynist,”
usually turn out to be women who themselves have husbands or boyfriends. Who
else besides het women are so invested in the myth that no woman can say no
to men? Men.
Some Lesbians say het women don’t give “informed consent” — “If women aren’t
given positive descriptions of Lesbians, how can they be expected to become
Lesbians?” – ignoring the obvious third choice of celibacy. Saying no to men
doesn’t have to mean choosing Lesbian oppression. Besides, patriarchal societies
don’t tell any girl that Lesbianism is an option, but that lack of support plus the
stigma attached to loving other girls certainly didn’t stop the millions of us who
came out before feminism. It’s an interesting contradiction that Lesbians who
talk about how difficult it is for women to come out usually have little concern for
Dykes who did come out without the support of the WLM.
What does inform us? Aren’t perceptions, observations, feelings, and instincts
our deepest knowledge? It’s true that though many of us didn’t grow up with any
positive images of Lesbians, we still all knew “queer” girls existed, and we
certainly all knew about “old maids.” Every family and neighborhood has at least
one. But celibate women are pitied and ridiculed, even if they aren’t as viciously
despised as Lesbians are. Newspapers, radio, television, libraries, and families
are full of horror stories of brutal, cruel men, yet most het women are grateful
and proud to have a man. The privilege of heterosexuality is a powerful incentive
to collaboration.
Linda: Throughout my teens and twenties I was devastated by the loss of one
woman friend after another as they began dating men, fucking, getting married,
and having babies. I wasn’t a Lesbian, but neither was I actively het until my late
20’s (I finally became a Lesbian at age 30.)
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The worst loss was my best friend, who I’d been in love with since we were both
18. We had a close, confiding, and playful friendship. She prided herself on being
a gutsy rebel who resisted authority. We both swore we’d never get married and
have children. Then at age 20, she suddenly changed. That year, I attended her
wedding, shaking and dizzy from the intensity of my “inappropriate feelings.” I
was reeling from the impact of seeing her contract herself publicly, legally, and
ritually to a man she hardly knew.
I knew then that I was losing my friend to a system that was destroying me —
my life was filled with grief and loss, and she was choosing to do this. She had
told me she didn’t love this man, but she was worried about being an old maid,
didn’t want to work, and he had a steady job and would “take good care of her.”
It was the same reasoning I’d heard from a half-dozen other friends: a cold,
economic decision. On her way back up the aisle, she winked at me. Shaken to
the core, I thought I had no right to feel betrayed, no right to feel rage and grief.
We stayed friends for a few years afterwards, but the closeness was gone. She
had the status of married “grown-up real” woman, and then of mother
(authoritative “grown-up real woman”). Her main allegiance was to her husband
and children. I became her old maid friend who she saw only when her husband
was away. (In our working-class community during the 1950’s and early 1960’s,
women were expected to be married by ages 18 to 20.)
While my friend was accepted and helped along by her family and friends
because of her valued position as a man’s helpmate, I was treated as a misfit.
Anyone who’s experienced that unspoken, bland ostracism knows it cuts deep.
Rejection and isolation are some of the worst social punishments. They engender
loneliness, fear, self-doubt, grief, and sometimes despair. The victim becomes
shut out of the everyday exchanges that sustain life, like information about jobs
and apartments. The misfit is last on the list, and she’ll hear about the job or
apartment only if no one else wants it. It doesn’t matter how endearing, helpful,
or admirable she is, she’s then just an admirable misfit.
My friend was a lot better off than me, because the het world was rewarding her
for fucking, marrying, and breeding, and it was punishing me for not doing any
of those things, nor showing any desire to do so. That is privilege and
oppression: hierarchies institutionalized for the purpose of maintaining hetero-
patriarchy. The system runs so well that hets play their roles without even
thinking about it: “That’s just the way things are.” “That’s life.”
Girls fear and hate boys. They’re harassed and assaulted by boys in their
families, schools, and neighborhoods. Many girls love other girls and are Lesbian
in their hearts and spirits. It’s not until later, when the privilege of
heterosexuality becomes more obvious, that many betray their best girlfriends in
favor of boys — sometimes even the same boys who’d been their tormenter and
attackers.
Becoming a “real” woman in patriarchy means deciding to forget and reject the
girl you once were. It also means rejecting the girl in each of us. This loss of the
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self is chosen. It results in privilege, not increased oppression. We still have

these feelings and memories, deep within us, of knowing the differences between
females and males. We can be true to our inner selves or we can reject
ourselves, which means choosing heterosexual privilege and female-hating. It’s
male and het lies that call remembering our choices and lives as girls
“immaturity” and “childishness.” It’s Lesbian-loving to keep that innate female
wisdom that others have abandoned.
Men don’t want us to know that we do choose, because that would increase (as it
already has) the numbers of het women who become Lesbians. The idea of
heterosexuality as the norm would be challenged and rejected. Het women
continue these lies because it gives them an excuse to not question their choices.
Lesbians then participate in these lies to protect het women and also to excuse
their own past choices. But by continuing the lies, they end up participating in
the vicious oppression of Lifelong Lesbians, Never-het Lesbians, and Butches,
viewed by the ex-het Lesbian majority as “those freaks/queers” among the more
“normal” Lesbians.
Even if women choose to subject themselves to abuse for the privilege of being
considered normal, it’s criminal what horrors many are willing to subject their
daughters to (including rape and clitorectomies and infibulation in some
countries). Most het women would like to be able to force all females, including
Lesbians, to be het. If heterosexuality is so “oppressive” to women, why do most
mothers aggressively pressure their daughters to be het?
Lesbian apologists for het women don’t believe they’re making a choice even
today in countries where there are beloved Lesbians on television and films, pro-
Lesbian books in public libraries, and mention of Lesbians in national news
reports. When we wrote our book, media images of Lesbians were mostly
hideously anti-Lesbian, yet countless Dykes still managed to come out under
those circumstances. In addition, millions of Lesbians who’ve come out through
Women’s Liberation have come out to their female relatives, friends, teachers,
neighbors, and co-workers, and have portrayed Lesbianism as positive to them
all. So millions of het women have knowingly had contact with Dykes in a way
not possible before.
What of the het feminists who work politically with Lesbians and yet choose daily
to stay het? Some Lesbians don’t even hold accountable het women who used to
be Lesbians and have gone back to men. Instead of considering them traitors,
they say “How did we fail them? What’s wrong with our communities?” Blaming
heterosexuality on Lesbians is extreme Lesbian-hatred. The fact that many
“Lesbians” have returned to heterosexuality makes it even more clear that
hetness is a choice.
Het women hate females so much they can’t bring themselves to be intimate
with them. Many have never even been friends with other females except in the
most shallow ways. Female-hatred explains why many mothers treat their
daughters cruelly, while loving and encouraging their sons.
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Because we suffer Lesbian oppression in addition to female oppression, Lesbians

are subject to much more hatred, which then causes self-hatred. We’re more
likely to have low self-esteem and to doubt ourselves, which is why Lesbians are
so thrilled when a het or bisexual woman declares she’s a Lesbian. Certainly het
women don’t similarly rejoice when a Dyke declares herself a woman.
What is often ignored in discussions about het choices as well as male-identified
femininity is that one of the reasons that women stay het and are so hating of
other women is that they are in competition over men. And sadly, when many
women come out, they bring these male attitudes right with them into Lesbian
communities.
What other group of oppressed people so sympathizes with, looks after, and
welcomes collaborators into our lives and communities as Lesbians do? What
other group of freedom fighters so “respects the choices” of traitors? If Lesbians
don’t care enough for our own kind to hold het women accountable, we should at
least care for their other victims.
“A Mother Knows”
Although many het women are upset when male strangers attack females, the
majority silently condone what their own men do. Some even actively
participate. In 1984, the U.S. news media reported that a multiple rapist in
Oregon had been sheltered by his rich mother who claimed all his victims were
lying. In 1988, a man convicted of “indecently assaulting” his six-year-old
daughter for a year and giving her an STD was publicly forgiven by his wife, who
wanted him returned to the family.10 In spring, 1986, in Santa Ana, California, a
10-year-old girl had the courage to bring her mother’s boyfriend to trial for
raping her, even though her mother pressured her not to report it. The mother
married her boyfriend just before he was taken to prison. We can only wonder
what revenge she’ll take on her daughter, who’s still her legal possession. In
August, 1986, a mother was jailed for participating with her husband and son in
the rape and sexual molestation of her four daughters who were all under the
age of six. The little girls were also hired out as sexual slaves for other men’s
use.
Some women may say they “didn’t know” what was happening, but how many
really care? When the majority of little girls are sexually assaulted by their
fathers, stepfathers, brothers, uncles, grandfathers, and male cousins, often over
a period of years, how can their mothers not know? Even if they don’t directly
witness the attacks, how can they ignore the girls’ terror, nightmares, illness,
and utter misery? Little girls are incapable of completely hiding their reactions.
Even if the mother herself is a victim of family sexual assault, she has no excuse
to fail to protect her little girl. In fact, her experience should make her more
protective towards her daughter, not less. No truth is so shocking and no adult
woman is so powerless that she can’t try to prevent her daughter from being
repeatedly raped, or at least give her the healing support of knowing her mother
is doing everything she can to protect her. It’s the girl who’s utterly powerless.
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The same woman who would immediately leave her husband if he brought home
another woman to fuck will usually stay if she finds out he’s raping her daughter.
And that includes rich women who can easily leave.
There are a few het women who are horrified when they find out what the men
they love have done. A few mothers leave or fight their men in order to protect
their daughters, but, unfortunately, the majority don’t. We’ve heard many stories
of adult Lesbians telling their mothers years later about being sexually assaulted
and raped as girls by male relatives, and not once did their mothers act
concerned for the victim. In every case, the mother denied the attack occurred
and defended her husband, sons, brothers, or father. The mothers then
pressured their daughters to not tell anyone because “what would people think?”,
and told them to behave like a “proper” daughter, granddaughter, sister, or niece
to their attacker.
One of the worst responses we know about was from a het mother who was
renowned in her community as a feminist. She continued supporting her son
after her adult Lesbian daughter (our friend) told her that he’d raped her when
she was little. Several years later, our friend discovered that her other brother
was raping his 18-month-old daughter. When she said she was willing to testify
in court to prevent him from having further access to the baby, her mother
supported her son and told her daughter, “I wish you’d never been born.” Thus
the het feminist betrayed both her daughter and baby granddaughter in her
effort to protect a rapist. But after all, he was her son. This woman had received
dozens of humanitarian awards, including a local “Woman of the Year” award,
and was also nominated “Mother of the Year.” She was even elected as a
delegate to represent women at international feminist conferences.
Another friend was betrayed by her mother when she was 17. Her mother invited
a military man to stay at their house, in her daughter’s bedroom, where he raped
her throughout the night, leaving blood all over her bed and walls. Clearly her
mother’s goal was to stop her daughter from being a Lesbian. Later she imitated
his accent, saying he could easily climb in their windows to “visit” her again.
We also know of a case where a Lesbian mother participated in keeping secret
her 12-year-old son’s rape of another Lesbian’s 9- and 7-year-old daughters — in
order to “protect the boy.” The girls’ mother participated in the cover-up, and the
boy is still in that community, having access to Lesbians’ daughters.
Lesbians find it difficult to hold women accountable because male authorities
often blame mothers in order to excuse rapists and murderers, and because men
have always blamed everything bad on females. By refusing to participate in the
lie that society “causes” men and boys to be brutal attackers, we’re saying
something that few females have ever dared to say before. Mothers aren’t to
blame for what their sons do, but they do share the blame if they protect their
men and boys by keeping the attacks secret. If they continue to support males
they know are dangerous, they do become partly responsible for the violence
those males commit. This is true not only in the het world, but also in feminist
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communities where mothers have fought battles to win boys’ access to female-
only space.
“But I Love Him”

Some women’s allegiance to men is unbelievable.11 Lawrence Singleton raped
15-year-old Mary Vincent, cut off her forearms, stuffed her into a drainage pipe,
and left her to die. Bleeding profusely and in agonizing pain, Mary ran for help
and survived. Singleton was arrested and convicted. When he was released from
prison after just eight years, nearby towns protested, demanding that he not be
paroled in their area. But two women invited him to live with them. One was his
ex-wife, who said, “I’m not scared of him. He’s served his time.” The other was
his girlfriend, who said, “I’ve got no reason to doubt Mary Vincent. He may have
blacked out. I don’t know.” When asked if she knew for certain if Singleton was
guilty, she said, “It wouldn’t matter one bit, not one bit. There is the other 99%
of him that is good.”12 Singleton later moved to Florida where he was convicted
of killing a woman. No one knows how many other girls or women he may have
otherwise raped and killed.
Ted Bundy confessed to murdering 23 young females in four U.S. states, and is
suspected of actually murdering over a hundred. He usually vaginally and anally
raped his victims before murdering them, and in at least one known instance he
forced one girl to watch while he raped and murdered another, before killing her
also. Many of the bodies were found decapitated and otherwise mutilated. It’s
believed that his first victim was an 8-year-old girl who he killed when he was
14. After he was in jail for two years, a woman named Carol Boone married
him.13The night before his execution for murdering 12-year-old Kimberly Leach,
his mother told him, “You’ll always be my precious son.”14
Some women who are beaten by their husbands or boyfriends use their
daughters to draw away beatings from themselves. Six-year-old Lisa Steinberg
was beaten to death by her illegally adoptive father, Joel Steinberg. He had
severely beaten his girlfriend, Hedda Nussbaum, for years before they “adopted”
Lisa. A friend said she believed “… Nussbaum thought adopting the little girl was
going to be an answer — a protection from Joel Steinberg.”15 Yet the feminist
media has greatly sympathized with Nussbaum, even while knowing that Lisa
was beaten and neglected for years with Nussbaum’s knowledge.
In 1987, Robert Chambers strangled Jennifer Levin, his 18-year-old girlfriend,
and left her half-naked body in Central Park in New York City. He claimed she
was forcing him to have “rough sex” with her and he killed her “accidentally”!
Since his family is rich, Chambers was let out on bail. In December, 1987, before
the trial even began, he went to a “slumber party” consisting of just him and four
women. A videotape showed the women wearing pajamas, laughing, dancing,
and playing sado-masochistic games with each other and with Chambers. At one
point, he holds a Barbie doll up to the camera, twists its head around and says,
“Oops, I think I killed her.” In another scene, one of the women plays at being a
baby crying and tells him, “I’ll tell everyone.” He says, “I’ll say you’re lying. I lie
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and they believe me.” The women were laughing throughout these scenes, even
though they were also Jennifer’s friends. One of them, Chambers’ new girlfriend,
was interviewed on TV. She said she “loved” him, that he was “warm and funny,”
and that everyone at the party knew he’d confessed to the murder. She said he’d
received over 400 letters of support, many from women. When asked how she
felt about the murder, she said, “I don’t feel it’s really my business.”16
In 1984, college student Brad Page beat his 21-year-old girlfriend, Bibi Lee, to
death. He later went back and raped her corpse. It took authorities five weeks to
find her body, while Page pretended to help search for her. In 1988, he was
convicted of “voluntary manslaughter” and was given only six years in prison. He
was released on bail awaiting appeal and the judge set his bail relatively low,
because, Page “… does not pose as a threat to another person, with the possible
exception of his wife.” Since his arrest, Amy Hacker married Page, and she cried
brokenheartedly as he was sentenced. Page’s lawyer asked that he be freed on
probation because of his new “family responsibilities.”17
Het Women Hate Lesbians

Some “radfems” say that we should love all women, and that women aren’t our
enemy. But as long as het women attack us and support the males who attack
us, they are our enemy. It’s healthy to hate those who do you harm. “Love your
enemy” is a christian, suicidal platitude that keeps the oppressed from protecting
ourselves. We can’t love ourselves if we don’t fight those who hurt us. Recently
at a march, Lesbians were shouting “Lesbians Unite!” when a het woman yelled
“Kill Lesbians!” – which sums up the attitude most het women have towards us.
Some despise us as a group, but are more respectful towards het-identified
Lesbians who use credentials that establish them as having been successfully het
in the past, such as being wives and mothers. But even the most “loving” het
woman is likely to reveal her hidden Lesbian-hatred if questioned closely. A
“caring” het mother, in one conversation, says she’s glad her daughter is a
Lesbian, yet at another time asks, “What do you think went wrong, to make you
be ‘that way’?” Another het mother says she’s proud her daughter is a Lesbian,
but then warns her to not tell other relatives because “what will people think?”
These mothers aren’t acting this way because they’re “powerless” or “unaware.”
In fact, they were each given devoted feminist support for years by their Lesbian
daughters.
Contrary to what many Lesbian feminists believe, het women do feel superior to
Lesbians. Deep down, we’re just perverts to them, no matter how they profess to
“love” us. After all, if they really loved Lesbians, they’d be Lesbians.
As a group, het women are deeply resentful of females who refuse to support
patriarchy and heterosexuality. They participate in many of the crimes men
commit against us, from ostracism and name-calling, to denying us work and
housing, to physical attacks. Het women neighbors have gotten Lesbians evicted.
Friends of ours were harassed by het women yelling “disgusting perverts” and
“you need to get fucked by men.”
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The power of hetness is clear when even het girls are capable of being
oppressive to adult Lesbians. Young girls who haven’t yet become physically het
are still het if that’s their identification and goal. Het girls can make Lesbian girls’
lives hell. Some Lesbian mothers’ het daughters have made insulting, anti-
Lesbian comments to adult Lesbians. That means we aren’t protected from
Lesbian-hatred even in the rare safety of female-only gatherings, one of the few
places we have any hope of really relaxing. Although het girls may feel
understandable anger at adults’ control of them (especially their mothers’), any
Lesbian-hating oppresses us. There’s tremendous pressure in schools and het
youth culture for girls to fit in with het standards. Those of us who remember our
own school years know how cruel girls can be to anyone who’s different, and girls
who don’t fit standards of male-identified femininity are ostracized and
tormented.
Some het women give obvious Dykes dirty looks or smirk at us while on the
arms of their men. At Dyke Marches, het women join their men in videoing half
naked Lesbians in what seems like a freak show to them. It’s not uncommon
also, for some of these women to have played at being bisexual, including for the
benefit of their men.
Het women channel their suppressed fear, anger, and hatred of men onto
Lesbians. Men are the rapists and attackers, but some het women act scared of
us. At the same time, some are drawn to Dykes by our strength, realness,
intensity, and attractiveness. Their own lives are empty of feeling in comparison,
so they flirt with Dykes, using us, while reserving their primary energy for males.
Men say Lesbians “prey” on het women when it’s het women who prey on
Lesbians. We know of a Lesbian who was actually slapped by a het woman
because she tried to stop the het woman from kissing her. There was a story in a
Gay San Francisco paper about a Lesbian fired from her job because of being a
Lesbian, while the christian het woman who was behind the firing had previously
made repeated sexual overtures to the Lesbian. This is sexual harassment.
Het women play games with Lesbians in order to “spice up” their fucking with
men, treating us as sex objects. Some of the het women most likely to share
intimate information about our lives with men, feeding men’s voyeurism and
providing titillation for het couples’ amusement and pornographic imaginations,
are those who seem on the verge of coming out for years.
Meanwhile, as attention to males’ sexual harassment of females grows, the male
media tries to divert our attention by reporting so-called harassment of women
by women. A 1988 article on sexual harassment of women in the U.S. Navy
Pacific Fleet, and a 1987 television show about harassment of women actors in
Hollywood both mentioned women being “sexually harassed” by women. Of
course, the het public is led to the “obvious” conclusion that Lesbians are
“harassing” het women. Again, the feminist political awareness that Lesbians
brought to public attention is co-opted and turned against us. The truth — that
het women sexually harass Lesbians — is given no attention anywhere in the
mainstream media, and only rarely in the feminist, Lesbian, or Gay media.
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Because of this distorted co-option, it’s even more important that Lesbians not
be afraid to speak out about our experiences of sexual objectification and
harassment by het women.
Het Women Betray All Females

Rather than be ostracized, hated, and ignored by their families and het culture,
many het women let themselves be fucked night after night, year after year, by
men they detest, giving up their own passion, and essence, and live lying lives,
selling themselves cheaply. Unfortunately, they sell the rest of us out too, rather
than risk their own economic and social position.
Heterosexual supremacist women’s arrogance and selfishness protects and
excuses men, even while men are exterminating entire species, because het
women benefit from male rule. Those who claim to care about the destruction
say, “Save the earth for our children,” meaning boys, the future patriarchs.
Other creatures and plants have a right to exist for their own benefit, not for
men’s or women’s enjoyment. The earth is being destroyed now and entire life
forms are already gone forever. Het women’s choices do affect all of us. Male
supremacy could not continue without het women.
Women have far more power than they take responsibility for, and that power
keeps patriarchy going. Men could not do it on their own. (And no, het women
are not sacrificing themselves, as some het feminists’ fantasize in order to
explain their own collaboration. Het women literally could bring down patriarchy
now.)
Het women also police other females for patriarchy. They punish Lesbians for
daring to fight against the established order. The vast majority of mothers train
us early to hate ourselves and other females, while the privileged ones almost
always teach their daughters to continue men’s hierarchies of Lesbian-hating,
racism, anti-Semitism, ethnicism, imperialism, classism, ableism, ageism, fat
oppression, and looksism, because it maintains their own power and feelings of
superiority.
Men as a group are waging a war against all females, and many het women don’t
just collaborate passively, but actively support their men’s positions of power,
from running governments, death squads, the Ku Klux Klan, right wing politics,
religious groups, etc., which couldn’t continue if the wives didn’t physically and
emotionally support them. We read about wives and mothers at a Ku Klux Klan
gathering happily exchanging recipes, which they wrote on the back of racist
hate literature. You’ll rarely see a rapist or murderer brought to trial without a
loving woman on his arm. Het women make excuses for men, and Lesbians
make excuses for het women.
We’re not saying all het women are horrible or that all Lesbians are wonderful.
We’re saying privileged Lesbians can change from being oppressive to being
responsible politically and personally, but het women — as long as they choose
to remain het — are limited in how much they can change, whatever their good
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Chapter Two
intentions. No one can effectively reject the methods of male rule without
rejecting male rule itself.
Some het women have shown great courage in fighting injustice, but they’ve
done it within a heterosexual, patriarchal framework, which still keeps females
subjugated to males. As long as any so-called “revolutionary” society is
heterosexual, men still rule and Lesbians are still oppressed. In fact, that is a
good way to find out if any culture or even environmental group that is said to be
feminist or matriarchal is truly not oppressive to girls and women: check out
their policy on the status of Lesbians and see if Lesbians are even acknowledged.
Our people, Lesbians across the earth, should no longer give our lives to fight in
any men’s or het women’s battles, which inevitably preserve male domination.
Dykes are subject to every kind of oppression that exists. When we focus on
fighting Lesbian oppression, we are also uniting with Dykes everywhere to fight
all injustice. That means rejecting all of men’s hierarchies. It means creating
justice and equality among all Dykes, and finding ways to ally with Dykes from
every nation and background. No one else fights for Dykes, so we must!
Endnotes
1. In 1970, Del Martin wrote “If That’s All There Is” in 1970 to explain why she would no longer
work with Gay rights organizations because they were too misogynist.
2. Many het women are so female-hating that they selectively abort female fetuses so they can
later have a son. Some even kill their newborn daughters, especially in societies that legally
restrict the number of children people can have. M. Lloyd, O. Lloyd, and W. Lyster, “Slugs and
Snails Against Sugar and Spice: Changes in the ratios of boys and girls might have profound
consequences,” British Medical Journal 297 (December 1988), 1627.
3. In Aotearoa/New Zealand, there’s a government Ministry of Women’s Affairs specifically
devoted to “women’s issues.” It’s so liberal that it organizes women-only feminist events and
sponsors others. Yet, when it was originally suggested that an open Lesbian be employed to
work on Lesbian issues, a heterosexual feminist organization complained, so the idea was
rejected.
4. Karla Jay and Allen Young studied 1000 Lesbians in the U.S. and Canada in 1977 and published
their findings in The Gay Report in 1979. Thirty-nine percent of the Lesbians stated they had
attempted or seriously contemplated suicide. By contrast, 19-26% of het women in an earlier
study cited by Eric E. Rofes had attempted suicide. From Lesbians, Gay Men and Suicide (San
Francisco, U.S.A.: Grey Fox Press, 1983), 17, 18, 20, 21.
5. One of the few studies on the health of “homosexuals,” including Lesbians, said, “Those living a
homosexual lifestyle in our society are at greater risk of ill health …. This vulnerability is
predominantly a consequence of social stigma. In this respect homosexuals suffer in a similar
way to other stigmatized minorities.” A.P. Bell and M.S. Weinberg, Homosexualities; a study of
diversity among men and women (London: Mitchell Beazley, 1978).A more recent study says:
“… stress related illnesses are what most distinguish Lesbian health from that of the female
population as a whole.” Judith Bradford and Caitlin Ryan, Final Report of the National Lesbian
Health Care Survey, PO Box 65472, Washington D.C. 20035, U.S.A. From a report by
Jamakaya, Hag Rag, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S.A., September/October, 1988.
6. A Lesbian wrote about the poverty she saw on a trip to India, “I hadn’t believed that people
had to live in such conditions! The first coherent thought that hit me was, ‘Shit, what’s the
oppression of Lesbians in the West, compared to the oppression of wimmin here, of children
here, of people here!!’” “Wimmin in India,” LIP, Tamaki-Makaurau, Aotearoa, July 1988, 6. Her
eagerness to rank heterosexuals’ pain as more real than Lesbians’ pain led her to forget the
existence of Lesbians among the poor Indian people she saw. If she hadn’t automatically put
heterosexuals first in her mind, her immediate thoughts would have been about how much
harder it must be for the Indian Lesbians in those communities. She may have privileges that
protect her from feeling much oppression as a Lesbian, but that doesn’t give her the right to
deny the oppression of other Lesbians in any countries.
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7. Feminists are also condescending towards prostitutes. Judy Helfand, a former nude model and
topless dancer in San Francisco said, “It makes me angry when feminists lump all sex-industry
workers into a pile of poor, exploited, brain-washed victims without minds of their own.” “I was
a young woman who needed to earn a living and chose to pursue the highest-paying least-
demanding jobs I knew of.” “These women … were not victims.” Quotes from Sex Work:
Writings by women in the Sex Industry (Cleis Press), in a review by Tara Bradley-Steck, San
Francisco Chronicle, 15 August 1987.In a review of Working (Dolores French with Linda Lee,
E.P. Dutton, 1988), Dolores French is quoted as saying prostitution is “as legitimate a career as
nursing or teaching.” She suggests many women have “chosen prostitution because they like
the independence, the money, and the satisfaction of providing a needed service.” Review by
Patricia Holt, San Francisco Chronicle, 23 August 1988.As Separatists, we’re totally opposed to
any female working as a prostitute because that hurts all females, but we do recognize the
ability of some to make their own decisions, while also recognizing that girls and women who
are literal prisoners are trafficked, which makes it even more upsetting that some women
promote prostitution.
8. Newsweek, 28 March 1988, 50.
9. While 25% of a mixed group of male and female voters said they wouldn’t vote for a woman
for president, 29% of women surveyed said they wouldn’t vote for a woman. KGO-TV News,
San Francisco, 29 September 1987.
10. Evening Post, Whanganui-a-Tara, 30 January 1988.
11. A magazine article describes how the U.S. film Mississippi Burning (a fictionalized account of
the murders of civil rights workers Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner) erroneously depicts the
deputy sheriff’s wife helping break the case by giving evidence against her husband. In reality,
deputy Cecil Price, indicted for participating in the murders, was completely supported by his
wife, Connor Price. “She has never asked Cecil what happened on that … night. ‘Don’t you love
your husband?’ she asks by way of explaining this steadfastness.” People, 9 January 1989, 38.
12. San Francisco Chronicle, 3 October 1988.
13. People, 6 February 1989, 46
14. Tim Swarens, Rocky Mountain News, Denver, Colorado, 25 January 1989. Bundy said of
himself, “ … I grew up in a wonderful home with two dedicated and loving parents … where we,
as children, were the focus of my parents’ lives, where we regularly attended church, two
Christian parents who did not drink, they did not smoke, there was no gambling, no physical
abuse, no fighting in the home.”Bundy was such an “exceptional” man that he wrote a
pamphlet for women on rape prevention while he was assistant director of the Seattle Crime
Prevention Advisory Commission. “Tears and Prayers: Killer Ted Bundy Executed in Florida,”
San Francisco Chronicle, 25 January 1989, A1.In a television report, Ann Rule, who worked
with Bundy as a counselor at a suicide crisis center, said, “He was the perfect young man … the
kind of man if I had been ten years younger or my daughters ten years older, I would have
thought this is the perfect man for a mate for life.”Men also were fond of Bundy. Right after he
was convicted of clubbing two women to death in their beds in a sorority house, the judge who
sentenced him said to Bundy in a compassionate tone of voice, “You’d have made a good
lawyer. I’d have loved to have you practice in front of me, but you went another way, partner.
Take care of yourself.” 20/20, ABC-TV, 27 January 1989.
15. People, 23 November 1987, 30.
16. The interview and video were shown on A Current Affair, KGO-TV, San Francisco,18 May 1988.
17. The Daily Californian, 3 June 1988, 1.
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Chapter Three
Chapter Three
Heterosexism Among Lesbians Is Lesbian-hating

by Bev Jo, with Linda Strega and Ruston
I love Lesbians. For all our faults, I (Bev) believe that choosing to be a Lesbian is
the best decision a woman can make in her life. If all women chose to be
Lesbians, patriarchy would soon end.
Lesbians are among the most kind and loving people, which is reflected in how
many are activists helping other oppressed people, animals, the environment,
etc. The problem is that Lesbians aren’t always as loving to our own kind, and
too often prioritize everyone else, including those with more privilege, and even
those who are deliberately oppressing us. (The worst example now of Lesbians
betraying Lesbians are those who support the “right” of het men to perv on us
and invade our last women-only spaces. How can any Lesbian support a het man
who not only says he’s a Lesbian, but demands sexual access to us? The myth of
trans and “transgender” may be the most destructive Lesbian-hating con and cult
that men have ever pushed on us.
https://bevjoradicallesbian.wordpress.com/2014/07/22/please-if-you-love-
lesbians-and-other-women-think-about-this/
and
https://bevjoradicallesbian.wordpress.com/2011/03/15/bev-jo-radical-lesbian-
writing/)
This chapter is about exploring and solving why Lesbians betray themselves and
other Lesbians. When we know and understand the reasons for such self-hatred,
we can change it and make safer Lesbian communities.
For many of us, when we first found a Lesbian community, we were so excited
and relieved that it took a while to realize how damaged most Lesbians are by
being hated individually and as a people by men, het and bisexual women, boys,
girls, and other Lesbians who internalized Lesbian-hating. Instead of being angry
at our oppressors, too many Lesbians turn their hatred on other Lesbians. Some
Lesbians actually question if it’s worth going through the suffering of Lesbian
oppression. But those of us who always loved other females are still celebrating
and loving being Lesbians and finding other Lesbians.
This is an update of our previous Chapter Three in Dykes-Loving-Dykes, to
explain, de-personalize, and solve what has gone wrong in our communities. This
is also a short history of what happened to my Lesbian Feminist community as I
have known it, in the Oakland/Berkeley/San Francisco Bay Area. (There are also
other Lesbian communities in this area, such as NIA, which is African-descent
Lesbians only. http://niacollective.org/wp-nia/about/. As far as I know, no
European-descent Lesbians ever had anything comparable in being so Lesbian-
loving.)
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Chapter Three
Dyke Community
The late 1960’s and 1970’s were a wonderful time of hope, celebration, and
growing community for Dykes in many countries. Finding each other through the
Women’s Liberation Movement transformed our lives. Lesbians stopped
wondering if we were the mistakes of nature hets insisted we were. Lesbian
Feminism made everything that had previously seemed confusing now make
sense: why most males prey on most females; the sadness we saw in friends
who had been sexually abused as girls; the sense of freedom and ecstasy we felt
being in love with other women; and the emptiness we saw in friends who
started patronizing us as they chose boys and men, and stopped being the
vibrant life-loving girls they had been, in spite of their increased status. It was
even clear why and how men were destroying the earth.
Our Dyke-centered politics and communities changed our lives. Once we
recognized that men as a group were male-supremacist enemies with het women
as their collaborators, male and het values began losing their control over our
minds. We clearly saw heterosexuality as a male invention designed to dominate
all females.
It also became obvious that eliminating our own self-hatred as Dykes freed us to
create Dyke-identified Radical Lesbian Feminist movements and cultures very
different from anything existing in known patriarchal history. With all our Dyke
energy, heart, and politics, we dedicated ourselves to improving life for all
Lesbians, which also helped all women and girls.
Separatist politics made clear our need and right to have Dyke-only space. First,
we created women-only space, which started a blossoming of women’s — mostly
Lesbians’ — creativity, politics, ideas, newspapers, articles, books, poetry, music,
art, and places to dance and party and celebrate each other. Lesbian-only space
was even more precious (rare in the US, but not in Aotearoa/New Zealand). It
released us from het women demanding our energy to help them deal with their
men, and from het women objectifying and oppressing us. (Since both being het
and bisexual are choices, we include bisexual women, unless stated otherwise,
when we refer to het women).
We understood why we needed to put Dykes first in our lives — proudly,
courageously, and with love — not by default and not apologetically. We refused
to submit to ridicule, hatred, and attacks, right-wing threats, leftist contempt, or
het feminist and Gay male pressure. It was Dyke Separatist values and politics
that created a powerful public Lesbian Radical Feminist presence in many
countries.
During the 1970’s, our Out Dyke presence also transformed mainstream hetero-
patriarchal culture, making it easier and safer for many het women to become
Lesbians. They had previously been too afraid to risk it. With so much support,
joy, and celebration, it became popular and even trendy for het women to come
out, and for a while it seemed that all feminists, and eventually all women, would
soon become Lesbians.
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Because almost all the feminists coming out through Women’s Liberation had
been het, they didn’t play the now-popular game of pretending to have no
choice, saying we are either born Lesbian or het, or claiming to have been
victims of “Stockholm Syndrome.” (That con is more clearly dishonest with
women choosing to be bisexuals. Bisexuals sometimes even complain about
being distrusted by Lesbians, but the reality is that they are trying to have
access to Lesbian love and community, while keeping their allegiance to men for
status and het privilege.) In fact, the newly-out Lesbian Feminists made it a
point to announce that their being a Lesbian was a feminist choice of pride,
making sure no one would mistake them for the old-fashioned pre-feminist
Lesbians, ridiculed in mainstream media as mentally ill perverts.
We soon painfully learned, however, that most women, including feminists,
remained heterosexual and Lesbian-hating. Those of us who became Radical
Lesbian Feminists were relieved to finally understand how and why we were
oppressed as females and as Dykes, so it surprised us that all women didn’t feel
the same way and join us. Some of those het feminists did play at being Lesbians
for a while, but many explained that they didn’t want to suffer Lesbian
oppression, be punished by their families, friends, etc., and they didn’t want to
lose the other privileges that women who choose men get. (This choice becomes
clearer when remembering that most het women signed their marriage contracts
as a form of legal prostitution with one man, to be supported in a lifestyle few
women could have on their own, for sexual services rendered.)
Some of the new Lesbian Feminists had already been close to becoming Lesbians
and would have come out because of their love for other women, without Lesbian
Feminist community support. They rejected their het pasts and het privilege as
much as possible and consciously strengthened their Dyke identities through the
following years. But many other het women wouldn’t have become Lesbians
without the relative ease and support of Lesbian Feminists and our communities.
(Some of these het and bisexual feminists enjoyed keeping full het privilege with
husbands and boyfriends, while also being admired by some Lesbian Feminists
and welcomed to our community and events, clearly with far more status than
Lifelong Lesbians. Lesbian Feminists even provided free childcare for these
women so they could have more time with their men.) The het feminists who did
leave their men still kept their het-oriented and male-identified values, and they
brought those destructive values into our Lesbian communities. As a result, they
weaken, dismantle, and harm the very Lesbians and communities that helped
them become Lesbians.
Anti-Lesbian Propaganda
Every insult that het-identified Lesbians direct against more Lesbian-identified
Lesbians is based on anti-Lesbian stereotypes. The patriarchal stereotype of a
Lesbian is a class-oppressed Lifelong Butch. The closer any Dyke is to being
Butch and/or a Lifelong Lesbian (Lesbians who identified as Lesbians from an
early age), the more viciously she’s oppressed.
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Stereotypes are a mixture of lies, projections, and distortions of partial

truths. They’re illogical and contradictory. Those in power — men — made them
up, and the stereotypes exist only to spread hatred and violence, so they don’t
need to make sense. Condense all Lesbian stereotypes into seven basic themes,
and you have a handy mental gauge for detecting disguised Lesbian-hatred and
understanding clearly who it benefits, and how:
“Lesbians don’t exist.” They’re all really bisexuals and/or het women gone
bad, and they’ve gone bad just to attract men’s sexual attentions and provide
variety for sado-masochistic scenes and pornography. If confronted with the
reality of a Lifelong blatant Butch, the het mentality quickly shifts to:
“Lesbians are pseudo-men” who’ve become that way because men don’t want
them or because nature has made a terrible mistake. They’re alien, monstrous,
ugly, unfeeling, perverted, sleazy, oversexed, predatory, violent, child molesters,
criminals, dangerous, hard, tough, insensitive — a male in a female body. In
other words, Lesbians are convenient scapegoats for men’s crimes. Related to
these two stereotypes are the lies that:
“Lesbians are ugly.” Of course females who look natural are ugly to men since
men love artificiality. This would be a funny since nothing is as ugly as men, if it
didn’t make girls and het women terrified of being considered Lesbians. It’s also
a good strategy to keep women obsessed with looking like drag queens with
alopecia (except for their dyed heads), even if the shaved vulva is clearly
pandering to male desire to rape little girls.
“Lesbians are immature,” since adult status is granted only to females who
fuck with men and/or breed. Lesbians’ feelings for each other are childish
crushes because they’re arrested at an early stage of development. They’re
young, silly, unrealistic dreamers, frivolous, and hedonistic. (As Freud said, to
become real adult women, girls need to give up their clitoral orgasms for fictional
vaginal ones.)
“Lesbians are privileged.” They’re all rich, European-descent, grew up under
unusual circumstances, and live somewhere else.
“Lesbians are crazy.” Some horrible event or circumstance made them
queer. How else could they love females? And since they’re not sane, they’re
dangerous to “normal” people and nothing they say should be believed, or they’ll
infect innocent het women with queerness; and
“Lesbians are lonely,” pathetic, emotionally inadequate creatures living on the
fringes of the real world. They’re incapable of true, deep love and loyalty. They
all secretly long for a normal life of marriage and motherhood.
Like the het woman, the het-identified Lesbian use these stereotypes —
sometimes openly and sometimes subtly — against all Dyke-identified Lesbians,
because she hasn’t bothered to unlearn het supremacist assumptions. She still
treats blatant Dykes as undesirable “Others.” An important part of her thinks,
feels, and acts like the het woman she is or used to be.
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The het-identified Lesbian wants to continue being accepted and valued in the
het world, which to her is the “real world.” She is eager to convince men and het
women that she hasn’t changed much, and in some ways she hasn’t. But she
also wants to convince hets that all Lesbians as a group aren’t that different
from hets. Blatant Dykes anger and embarrass her because our existence
threatens her campaign for het acceptance. When she became a Lesbian, she
wanted our love and energy, but she didn’t want to be like us.
Het Privilege Lasts

Lesbians are among the only oppressed people who have to deal with our recent
oppressor not just joining our communities, but outnumbering us. We deserve
truly Dyke-identified communities, where all Lesbians are as out and Dyke-
identified as possible. But how, when het women, full of male culture, male-
worshipping, and Lesbian-hating propaganda, keep joining our communities,
without bothering to learn our culture and to recognize and eliminate how much
they hate us and themselves?
The only way we can get safe, Lesbian-loving Lesbian Feminist communities is if
Lesbians with more heterosexual privilege acknowledge our privilege and
change. (Since our book was written by one Lifelong Lesbian and two ex-het
Lesbians, we say “we/our/etc.” for both groups.) But most Lesbians have no
awareness of Lesbians having het privilege (or even that het women have
institutionalized het privilege over Lesbians and celibate women) or how it affects
us inside of our own communities.
Women who chose men first rarely question themselves or consider what
Lesbian-hating and lesbophobic attitudes they brought into our communities.
Instead, they usually act is if we should be grateful that they deigned to join us.
Sadly, most Lesbians agree, and ex-het Lesbians they are likely to be given
special status, admiration, and respect as being more “real” women than Lifelong
Lesbians are. Why have women who are so male-worshipping that they are
visibly male-identified in how they think and feel become more revered or
considered more female than those who are the most female?
Lesbians who recognize that het women have power over Lesbians should easily
recognize that Lesbians who once were heterosexual have more privilege than
Lesbians who were never heterosexual. Lesbians who used to be het bring some
of the social and economic power of heterosexual privilege with them when they
come into Lesbian communities. They also bring STDs, danger from past
husbands or boyfriends stalking them, and dildos and other sado-masochistic
sexual practices, which are, after all, based on the inequalities and pain in
heterosexual/male sex. Most het women, in order to tolerate intimate contact
with brutal men, learn to numb themselves and also learn to believe that fucking
and assaultive sex is what “love-making” is. Ex-het Lesbians also usually bring
that strange heart/mind/spirit/body disconnect that het women have, and which
interferes with having truly loving relationships.
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We don’t know of anyone else who has dared to talk about this, yet it affects us
and our communities in the most intimate ways imaginable. Ignoring this, in
order to not offend or upset ex-het Lesbians, helps no one, and keeps our
communities damaged and het- and male-identified.
Since most ex-het Lesbians are also Fem (Fems are the majority of women, who
grew up accepting male-defined false “femininity” as our core identity), this
compounds our sense of being normal among “abnormal” Lifelong Lesbians,
many of who are also Butch (Butches are the opposite of “masculine” and are
closer to what all females would be without patriarchy.) If the majority of
Lesbians who chose to be het as well as Fem in the past don’t try to explore what
that means for ourselves and Lesbian communities, then we cause damage and
heartache, and even drive out longtime Lesbians.
Having been het in the past doesn’t automatically mean a Dyke is now het-
identified. Many ex-het Dykes came out because of their love for other women,
have been strong Out Dykes for years, and are also oppressed by het
glorification among Lesbians. We are committed to acknowledging our past het
privilege just as we acknowledge any other privileges we have. And many of us
do courageous Dyke Separatist political work.
Dyke-identified Lesbians all know the pain and deprivation of being unacceptable
everywhere and of having to always be prepared for hostile attacks. Having been
het ourselves doesn’t make us immune to this oppression, but it does act as a
buffer. It makes it easier in proportion to how extensively het we were. The
longer we were het, and the more involved with men we were, the more
protected we are from Lesbian-hatred now. And the more status we still have
among Lesbians.
How much het privilege an ex-het Lesbian has is determined by how high she
climbed the het hierarchy and how long she stayed there. It’s also affected by
other facets of her identity — including how much racial privilege she has or
doesn’t have, her ethnic, class, and national background, her age, looks, and
whether or not she’s disabled. But all ex-het Lesbians were once over the line
into “normal” society in a way that no Never-het Dyke has been. There’s a world
of difference between being over that line, no matter how otherwise oppressed
or “unsuccessfully” het a Lesbian was, and being behind that line, always
resisting hetness and — for the most brave — always being a Dyke as well.
During the years a Lesbian was het, she fit in as a “real woman.” This includes
those who were celibate but still thought of themselves as het and hoped
someday to find “their” man. Some of these Lesbians falsely identify as Never-
het, or portray themselves as having always been Lesbians, but if they were
living as heterosexuals and thinking of themselves as het, they were
heterosexual.
Once a female has had the experience of being treated as and feeling like a “real
woman,” she never loses it. Her basic, deep assurance of being “normal” gives
her an unquestioned inner sense of permission to act with confidence and some
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expectation of acceptance. It also gives her a feeling of authority and superiority

towards Lifelong Lesbians. The manner she learned circulating in the “real world”
is a source of inner defense against the accusations of “perversion” and
“abnormality” she receives as a Lesbian, and will be with her as long as she
lives. In addition, she always has the option of decreasing the intensity of hets’
Lesbian-hating attacks by telling them that she, too, was once a member of their
exclusive club. This is especially true if she still looks het, is Fem, as the majority
of ex-het Lesbians are, and particularly if she’s also an ex-wife and mother
(which means she had the certified societal proof of “normal” womanhood – a
husband and children). Looking het carries enormous privilege at the expense of
women who are proudly out as Dykes, and even more so, Butches. This is why
we sometimes see ex-het Fems being condescending to Lifelong Lesbians,
especially Butches, even though the ex-hets may be half their age.
Many ex-het Lesbians talk incessantly about their children, grandchildren, ex-
husbands, and/or boyfriends, to gain or keep status. They even do this with
other Lesbians since it also adds status among Lesbians (no matter how
incredibly bored they make the listeners). This is the cue for other ex-hets to join
in with their own het supremacist talk, asserting dominance. Sometime it almost
appears to be a duel as to who will establish the most male-identified het
credentials. Hets, including family members, can easily convince themselves that
such ex-hets are still really one of their own who’s temporarily involved with
Lesbians. By contrast, a Lifelong Dyke, especially if she’s Butch, is thought by
hets to be completely alien and unacceptable, and is much more feared and
hated.
The ex-het Lesbian knows she can’t possibly fit the most common anti-Lesbian
stereotypes of the Lesbian who was supposedly “genetically programmed to be
queer,” or became so as a result of “childhood trauma” or “rejection by
men.” This makes it easier for her to feel comfortable being a Lesbian. Lifelong
Dykes are much more vulnerable to having those stereotypes applied to them —
even by Lesbians — because most anti-Lesbian stereotypes are based on the
assumption that “the typical Lesbian” was never heterosexual.
It’s ironic when the ex-het Lesbian defends herself to hets by saying she chose
to be a Lesbian, yet then denies to Lesbians that she chose to be het. The ex-het
who refuses to acknowledge that her heterosexuality was a choice perpetuates
the stereotype that Lifelong Dykes are born “queer” (in the traditionally hateful
definition of what is shouted at Lesbians), while the ex-het who tells hets she
had a choice (implying that others didn’t) is buying acceptance on the backs of
Lifelong Dykes. She’s in effect saying, “I’m not one of those real perverts. I’m a
more normal Lesbian.” Her defense is a selfish, irresponsible rejection of her own
kind. The fact is that all Lesbians choose to be Lesbians whether we remember
making that choice or not.
The relative privilege of ex-het Dykes is similar to how Dykes from middle-or
upper-class backgrounds will never feel the way Dykes from poor or working-
class backgrounds feel, even if they become poor. Present worry about not
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having enough money isn’t the same as a Lesbian being told she’s not good
enough all her life, and still being told it in the present and into the foreseeable
future, including by other Lesbians. The middle-or upper-class Lesbian is more
likely to have a confident, even arrogant, manner to make her life easier, and to
get her respect, attention, and the things she wants, including better-paid jobs
with status. Such privileged Lesbians are never defined as poor or working-class
by politically conscious Lesbians — yet a het woman who’s just come out is
usually accepted as being as much a Lesbian as a Dyke who’s been out all her
life. A Lesbian star once said, “It doesn’t matter if you’re a Lesbian for five
minutes or fifty years.” But it does matter. Real Lesbian Feminists would be
outraged if a rich Lesbian who just lost her money now defined herself as poor or
working-class. Of course, het women who become Lesbians are Lesbians, but
there’s a world of difference in their lives and experiences and that of a Lesbian
who’s been out for many years.
When the brave Dykes who have resisted het and Fem identification are looked
down on and policed to become more feminine and het-oriented, then Lesbian
communities are weakened. It’s this growing heterosexism that has caused many
Dyke-identified Dykes to wonder if our belief and idealism about Lesbian integrity
and kindness could be wrong. But the oppressiveness and cruelty we witness in
Lesbian communities isn’t an innate part of Lesbianism — most of it is from male
and het values.
The Heterosexist Hierarchy Among Lesbians

To understand heterosexism among Lesbians, we need to understand the specific
Lesbian experiences and oppression of Dykes who’ve been Lifelong Lesbians,
Dykes who were never heterosexual, Dykes who came out before the support of
the Women’s Liberation Movement, and Butches. These are four different
experiences and identities, and sometimes they overlap, but sometimes
they don’t.
For instance, a Dyke who was never heterosexual hasn’t necessarily always been
a Lesbian. She may have come out later in life. (Because of the influence of
Freudian psychology, it’s usually assumed that everyone is sexual in some way
— a female who was never heterosexual is assumed to have always been a
Lesbian. But some females didn’t consider themselves either Lesbian or het until
they came out. In fact, most little girls are vehemently anti-male and anti-
heterosexual for most of their girlhoods before they choose to become het.) We
can also become Lesbians long before first making love. It’s possible to have
never had a lover and still know you’re a Lesbian, at any age, and to suffer
hatred and ostracism for taking the courage to be out with friends and
acquaintances. (I was in love with other girls from my earliest memories and that
was the most important influence in my life.) Also, some Butches have been het,
although the majority haven’t been.
There’s no political language or analysis to support the particular experiences of
Lifelong Dykes, Never-het Dykes, Dykes who were out before the WLM, and
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Butches. Politically responsible Dyke publishers who say they especially welcome
writings by more marginalized, oppressed, and rarely represented Dykes, usually
list only those groups recognized by the male Left. (That was decades ago. Now
they focus on degrees and credentials, power given by patriarchy, which was
once treated with suspicion by feminists, or list their children and grandchildren.)
It’s essential to fight all oppression because it’s wrong and hurtful, rather than to
make a good-sounding tokenistic political platform. Unfortunately, many
privileged Lesbians seem to be against certain oppressions only because some
men and het women and their organizations say it’s the acceptable thing to do. If
the only people who fought the same oppressions were Lesbians, the issues
would be mostly ignored. It’s been extremely damaging to Lesbian politics that
specifically Lesbian issues are treated as “personal” and therefore trivial. Even
worse, if we dare to say we exist, we are patronized, ridiculed, or accused of
bragging about being “gold stars” (the term usually used to ridicule and silence
Lifelong Lesbians), even though most other Lesbians are constantly bragging
about their het pasts. Lesbians’ past het privilege isn’t named in political terms
or included in self-descriptions because it’s the assumed norm for all Lesbians.
Another way of trying to silence discussion about Lesbian oppression is to say it’s
minor in comparison to more serious oppressions like racism or classism. But
being targeted, attacked and killed for being visibly Butches and Dykes couldn’t
be more serious. Plus, there’s never any conflict between fighting Lesbian
oppression and other oppressions. A higher percentage of race- and class-
oppressed Lesbians are Lifelong, Never-het Dykes, and/or Butches. Ignoring
their Lesbian oppression adds to their/our oppression from racism and classism.
In Chapter Three, we named the Heterosexist Hierarchy among all women, with
those at the top supervising and policing women further down, on behalf of men.
Wives and mothers are the most privileged in the Heterosexist Hierarchy, while
single, celibate women are the least powerful het women. But the Heterosexist
Hierarchy doesn’t stop at the line dividing het women and Lesbians — it
continues among Lesbians. Butches and Lifelong Dykes who came out before the
WLM are at the bottom of the entire hierarchy and also are used as the scariest
stereotypes of Lesbians, used to frighten other women into line. Yet men and
their women collaborators who ridicule Butches also try to prevent us from being
seen or known about, so we are never or rarely allowed to be shown in the
mainstream or even “Lesbian” media. The one Butch portrayed in a mainstream
film was raped and beaten to death, sending a message to all girls and women
from patriarchy.
Such Lesbian-hating had a profound effect on my first lover and I in 1968, when
she was 16 and I was 17. The only “Lesbian” film showing a “Butch,” was the
horribly sado-masochistic, Butch-hating film The Killing of Sister George.
Other films we saw were also terrifyingly Lesbian-hating, like The Fox, where a
man kills a Lesbian and gets her lover, and The Children’s Hour, where
teachers are falsely accused of being Lesbians but when one of the women
realizes she does love her friend, she is so ashamed that she kills herself. The
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only Lesbian book we knew of was The Well of Loneliness, with the message
that if you truly love your lover, you will abandon her so she can find happiness
with a man. There was nothing in the mainstream media remotely positive about
Lesbians.
Forty six years later, there are actually beloved Lesbians in the media (although
heterosexuality is still aggressively and pornographically promoted as the norm),
but still no Butches. Think about what it means when an entire population of
women is never allowed to be shown in films and television. Then think about
what this means when this censorship is also enforced in the “Lesbian” media –
which means that Lesbians and other women have no truthful point of reference
to make it possible to talk about what it means to be Butch. (In Radical Feminist
groups, women flail around trying to find even one Butch, while others make
cruel Butch-hating comments based on their belief that obvious Fems posturing
as weird Butch stereotypes are Butch.)
If you try to talk about this, you will be told that women portrayed in films and
television and illustrated books are Butch when they are not. At best (or worst,
really) they are a grotesque and repulsive caricature of Butches – such as Lea
DeLaria’s character, Big Boo, in Orange Is the New Black, which most people
believe accurately represents real Butches, even though the character is the
opposite of a Butch, and Lea has publicly said she’s Fem. (Of course that series
also portrays a man who poses as a woman, Laverne Cox, playing the character
who teaches real women about their vulvas because they are too stupid to know
as much about their own bodies as a man does.) In The L Word and in Alison
Bechdel’s illustrated comics and books, Dykes to Watch Out For, the “Butch”
characters are womanizers who either are genderqueer sado-masochists or just
slightly less feminine than the other characters. Why are Butches so terrifying
that we must not be shown at all or other than as the opposite of who we are?1
Dykes who are lower in the Heterosexist Hierarchy are more likely to recognize
what we’re saying as true. Oppression limits our lives in countless ways, while
privilege is easy to take for granted. For example, an ex-het Fem mother usually
doesn’t notice that the same hets who are friendly and helpful to her at work, in
her neighborhood, and on the street, are likely to be openly cruel towards a
Lifelong Butch, even if both Lesbians come from the same racial, ethnic, and
class background. The Dyke who’s the victim of this oppression can’t avoid
noticing it, but, unless she has political support, she mostly likely blames herself
for being despised, and other Lesbians may blame her as well.
We’re not “ranking oppressions” — that’s already been done for us by men
and their het women helpers. We’re explaining oppression and working to end it.
This hierarchy is real and pervasive. Any Lesbian who wants to fight Lesbian
oppression can observe it any day, any time. Lesbians’ lives are important
enough to be given close attention.
The Heterosexist Hierarchy among Lesbians starts with Lesbian ex-het wives and
mothers, and then, in descending order, Lesbian ex-wives, never-married
Lesbian mothers, never-married ex-het Lesbians, Lesbians who thought of
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themselves as het although they never fucked with men, Lesbians who never
were het, and Lifelong Lesbians and Butches. Any Lesbians who came out before
the WLM have less privilege than their counterparts in the hierarchy who came
out during or after the WLM. Those who are Fem have more privilege than
Butches at the same position in the hierarchy, and Fems who pass as het have a
lot more privilege than Out Dykes, especially Butches. (Not being recognized as a
Lesbian can mean life, as opposed to being killed, in patriarchy. Lesbians have a
range with some being as Dykey as possible, while others are drag queen
feminine. Some are recognizable to other Lesbians, but not to most hets, and
there are ways that some Lesbians feminize that are almost like uniforms in their
sameness, such as Fems who have very short hair, but long dangling earrings,
which even many het women don’t wear). Again, Lesbians who suffer from
additional oppressions have less privilege than others at the same place in the
Heterosexist Hierarchy.
Thus, the amount of privilege a Lesbian had when she was het, which is based on
time and devotion given to men, determines how much heterosexist power
she’ll have among Lesbians.
Of course, any Lesbian who brags about herself as a mother and ex-wife
maintains more het power than a similar Lesbian who doesn’t. There are some
Dykes who, when het, were at the top of the hierarchy but who now reject their
past hetness and actively hate and fight heterosexism. A past choice of
heterosexuality doesn’t mean anyone has to now be het- or male-identified. No
matter how high a Lesbian was in the het hierarchy, if she chooses
wholeheartedly to be a Dyke, her love, caring and respect for Dykes
shows through. Her present choices make her more Dyke-identified than a
Lesbian who was less connected to men in the past, but who still talks about
boyfriends from decades ago and who’s currently identifying with het women,
protecting and caring for them at Lesbians’ expense.
Strong Lesbian identity is a choice, and past het privilege doesn’t prevent it. The
single most important thing is to identify primarily as a Lesbian, with other
Lesbians. Many ex-het Separatist and Radical Feminist Dykes, including ex-wives
and mothers we know, are as angry at Lesbians glamorizing hetness as Lifelong
Dykes are.
The Lure of Het Privilege

The het-identified Lesbian internalized male and het values as a girl, but she
believes those values are an inborn part of her own female nature. Having been
het means she adapted to life as a set of rules which patriarchy set up. Now that
she’s become a Lesbian, she acts as if Lesbian culture is just a different set of
rules. So she can take pride in breaking “Lesbian rules,” ridiculing Lesbian
culture, and joking and bragging about being “politically incorrect,” when she’s
really still just following male rule and oppressing Dykes.
Ex-het Fems are more likely to keep up with ever-changing het fads in makeup,
hair styles, clothes, food, dieting, language, entertainment, and politics, making
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it a status symbol to pass as het. How can any Dyke trust or work politically with
someone who spends so much time mirror-gazing and obsessed with making her
appearance and behavior fit male standards? When Lesbians like a slutty het
image, they’re revealing that they don’t feel oppressed by it. After all, many ex-
het Lesbians chose to wear make-up, dresses, earrings, and high heels to please
the men who were fucking them. It gave them privilege and status, proving they
were “real” adult women. They never experienced that het regalia as symbolizing
intimate betrayal and collaboration, and so they don’t understand those of us
who do. Lesbians who embrace the het uniform oppress all Dyke-identified
Dykes, particularly those of us who were young Lesbians without support as we
watched our girlhood friends putting on dresses, high heels, and make-up as
their steps to “growing up” and going het. Do the Lesbians who pass as het feel
as superior to Butches and Dyke-identified Fems now as they did when they were
het? Most act like they do.
One Lesbian said she liked to mention her ex-husband so hets would know she
wasn’t “just a queer” or a woman who had been rejected by men. We’ve heard
many Lesbians speak affectionately about ex-husbands, saying they discuss their
lives and Lesbian friendships with them. They ignore that men aren’t
trustworthy, and that other Lesbians don’t want information about themselves
shared with any man or boy. These ex-wives also don’t care how their closeness
with an ex-husband affects their Lesbian lovers. (One Lesbian we know actually
allows her ex-husband to bring her flowers on their “anniversary,” even though
she divorced him years ago and she is married to her Lesbian lover. Do men do
this when their ex-wives have married men?)
We know of Lesbians who let their daughters visit overnight with their ex-
husband, even though they know he sleeps in the same bed as the girl. Just like
het mothers, these Lesbian mothers end up cooperating in the rape of their
daughters, because it’s more important for them to preserve the mystique of
family “love” than it is to protect their daughters from family rape.
Bisexuals Choose to Not Be Lesbians

Het-identified Lesbians say that anyone who says she’s a Lesbian is a Lesbian.
(Some even include men who perv on Lesbians in this definition). But for our
own protection, physically, psychically, and emotionally, we have to name
bisexuals for what they are.
Why does a bisexual call herself a Lesbian? To make it easier for her to prey on
Lesbians and increase her market value for men. Men like to think Lesbians want
to be fucked since it satisfies their egotistical, pornographic fantasies. As one
Separatist said, “When a bisexual calls herself a Lesbian, she’s giving her prick
more of a bang for his buck than a regular het woman does.”
Bisexuals are not only emotionally dangerous to Lesbians, but also physically
dangerous, from transmitting STDs (including some incurable and lethal ones),
to Lesbians being disabled and killed by their bisexual lover’s jealous ex-
husbands and boyfriends.
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Being bisexual is not an act of fate but a choice. It’s choosing to be sexual with
women while also choosing to be sexual with our oppressors, men. Some
bisexuals take advantage of Lesbian love, which is far more intimate and
passionate than what they would get from a man, but return to het privilege
when it suits them. Some use their investment in men as a weapon to hurt
Lesbians, like the Lesbian who bragged about threatening lovers by saying “That
makes me want to go back to men.” Het-identified Lesbians who keep a foot in
the het world are more likely to become het again.
Many Lesbians, similar to this woman, have returned to being het or bisexual.
Such women whine that, “It was too hard, too painful, too intimate with
Lesbians.” Many Lesbians blame themselves, asking “What are we doing wrong
to drive these women back to men?” Those women went back to men because
they hadn’t left them in the first place and are willing to betray themselves and
us to get het privilege.
There was a meeting in Berkeley, California about why Lesbians go het. After a
roomful of Lesbians poured out their hearts about feeling betrayed by this, a
woman told the group that she’d begun fucking with men again. The Lesbian
“facilitator” said, “You were very brave to come to this meeting”! She didn’t
recognize the courage of the Lesbians in the room who remained Lesbians, or
made themselves vulnerable in discussing the pain of het betrayal with other
Lesbians they didn’t know. Instead of making that space be safe for Lesbians,
she supported a collaborator and traitor.
We know a woman who used to be a Lesbian Separatist, went back to men as a
bisexual, and, then, after discovering she’d caught AIDS from her last boyfriend,
returned to Lesbians. A friend said that the classism of her middle-class lover
was part of why this woman began fucking a class-oppressed man, yet she
herself was working-class and would never have considered even befriending a
man to get class support. Two others of us were also working-class, and were
outraged that classism was used as an excuse for this woman betraying
Lesbians. Working-class and poor Dykes are not more likely to return to men
and it’s not class privileged Lesbians’ fault if they do. This putting het/bisexual
choices before Lesbians is oppressive to Lesbians of all backgrounds. The fact
that this collaborator might have infected her Lesbian lovers with AIDS wasn’t
even mentioned.
The Het/Male “Fuck” Mentality: Avoiding Love and Passion at Any Cost
Women who choose men learn to disconnect their mind/body/spirit. Unless they
work on unlearning this, het-identified Lesbians bring male attitudes about
sexuality into their Lesbian lives. They’re used to thinking of sexuality as
separate from love and passion, and their real, inner selves, which makes them
sensually and emotionally numb, especially if they were actively het for
years. They think in terms of flirting, competition, games, conquests, libido,
“sex-drive,” “fucking,” “hot sex,” “technique,” etc. — and they’re excited by the
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power of Fem privilege, dominance and submission, and sado-masochism. All of

which means they avoid real intimacy, passion, and love.
As Lesbian-hating het women, they routinely scapegoated Lesbians for men’s
crimes, and after becoming Lesbians they continue to do so more
intimately. Sometimes they vent their misdirected rage by being cruel during
arguments. Others play hurtful sexual games, such as refusing to make love to
their lover while expecting her to make love to them, flirting seductively to try to
be the center of attention, etc. Some het-identified Lesbians want everyone to be
attracted to them, including Lesbians they have no interest in. They may become
lovers with Lesbians they don’t care for, simply to get power, to make someone
else jealous, for petty revenge, for attention, for a feeling of conquest, or other
reasons having nothing to do with love or even passion.
This is het behavior, where women hate other women and are in competition
with them. A het woman gets social power by making herself attractive to men
and getting them to fight over her. She doesn’t necessarily feel attracted to the
men she flirts with, but she’s chosen to absorb the het dogma that she should be
“pretty” and “sexy,” and she’s competing with other women to increase her het
status. Such het games are oppressive and hurtful when played with Lesbians.
The following situation isn’t uncommon: a newly-out Radical Lesbian Feminist
Fem appears in our community, expresses rage against men, and is seductive
towards several Lesbians in a friendship group, without being sensitive to
existing relationships or individual vulnerabilities. It soon becomes clear that she
is playing games like she recently did with men. After initiating being lovers with
several of the Lesbians, she acts surprised at the understandable pain, anger,
and jealousy she caused and reprimands the Lesbians for being “possessive” and
“old-fashioned.” One such Lesbian actually said in surprise, “It really is different
with Lesbians than it is with men, isn’t it?” She didn’t want to understand most
Lesbians’ deep emotional involvement with lovers. When she flirted and said “I
love you,” many Lesbians believed her. They also felt drawn to take care of her,
because she’d talked about being abused by boyfriends and being lonely as a
new Lesbian. But she was in a power position with most Lesbians because of
being Fem and having had a recent extensive het past.
Another Radical Lesbian Feminist we knew also had been actively het. She then
became what appeared to be politically sophisticated and articulate about
Lesbian oppression, and also flirted with many Lesbians. Later, on a local
television program, in full Hard Fem het regalia, she described herself as a Fem,
telling the male and het women audience, “I flirt with anything that moves,
including men.”
When many ex-het Lesbians talk about lesbian sexuality, they use terms like
“fucking,” “penetration,” “screwing,” “cunts,” “coming,” “thrusting,” and all the
rest of the assaultive pornographic imagery of heterosex — as if it were fun,
funny, natural, exciting, and welcome conversation among Lesbians. Like their
“casual” talk about past het experiences, marriage, children, and grandchildren,
such conversation is the deliberate language of heterosexual dominance
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and is a way to exclude and reproach Dykes who resisted heterosexuality. Dyke-
identified ex-het Lesbians don’t want to hear this disgusting crap either. Even
otherwise nice ex-het Lesbians can subject Lesbian friends to hearing about why
she thinks a plant looks like testicles or a “used condom.” (I still don’t know if
she is just used to doing this with her male and het friends or what, but saying
this last comment during dinner with a group of Lesbians didn’t get her a happy
response.)
There are several highly-praised, internationally-read, Lesbian writers who push
their offensive, het-oriented politics in their writing. They see pricks everywhere,2
or their “Lesbian” characters ignore the parts of female bodies that men ignore,
like clitorises, and are instead preoccupied with what basically seems like
fucking. Even het feminists used to recognize writing like this as sexist and
pornographic. Some also target Butches to ridicule and caricature — all for the
enjoyment of their male and het audience.
The first most influential three women who wrote about “Lesbians sex” and
seriously damaged our Lesbian communities by promoting porn and sado-
masochism in the late Seventies and Eighties were bisexuals: 1. JoAnn Loulan, a
therapist who identified as a Lesbian in order to make money exploiting our
community with her books and workshops. Linda and I wrote in Lesbian Sex, Is
It?, our review of her book, Lesbian Sex, that she had to be a bisexual, based
on her description of Lesbians as “having wonderful sexual relationships with
men.” After years of denying this while pushing her Lesbian-hating and Butch-
hating books, Loulan finally admitted she was with a man. 2. Pat Califia, a
bisexual sadist Fem brought sado-masochism and porn into our community from
the Gay male community, by starting “Samois,” the first “Lesbian Feminist S/M”
group, writing a “Lesbian” sex book, and then porn that glorified Lesbians being
gang-raped by gay men. Califia now identifies as a “Gay man” and is lovers with
another woman who identifies as a “Gay man”). 3. Susie Bright was more clearly
bisexual and was one of the first “sex positive feminist” pornographers. Similarly,
the few books supposedly about Butches were also by bisexual Fems, full of porn
and Butch-hating stereotypes.
These het/bisexual pornographers were part of the reason that Lesbians have
falsely been identified with sado-masochism, although that history can be traced
directly back to het and Gay male organizations. The “Lesbian” sexologists
spread Lesbian-hating propaganda, such as: “please yourself at all costs — even
if that means fantasizing your lover as a het woman or even as a man”
and “anything is all right if it gives you a thrill,” including porn and sado-
masochism (even though they cause increasing numbness, boredom, and
mind/body/emotion disconnect). They also ignore Lesbian emotions like love.
In Loulan’s book, “Lesbian Sex,” she suggested Lesbians should shove a variety
of bizarre objects into their vaginas, such as dildos (worn on a harness), balls,
fists, asparagus spears, zucchini, rubber tubes, etc. Lesbians who object to
“penetration” are described as being “sexually backward” and “prudish.” She
even recommends that someone with a “spastic” vagina train her vagina to
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accept larger and larger objects and then move the objects repeatedly in and out
of an increasingly numb, traumatized vagina. For those who find it too painful,
she insists you keep at it for an hour and then see how you feel. (This is exactly
what male therapists recommend to rape victims and also het women who hate
being fucked.)
There’s no support for Lesbians to explore why we have the right to refuse
sexual contact that’s painful or uncomfortable, or that it’s possible to have
extremely passionate multi-orgasmic love-making without vaginas being touched
at all. The clitoris is the part of our vulvas with the most intense feelings, while
the vagina has very few nerve endings. But of course men’s main interest is in
vaginas, and so most girls and women either think their “vagina” is their vulva or
don’t even know the word “vulva.” In some male cultures, clitorises are so
threatening that they’re cut out of every young girl’s vulva.
For Lesbians who are alone and without support, there’s almost nothing
“Lesbian” to read that doesn’t match male and het pornographic standards. True
Lesbian love and passion are portrayed as laughable and too emotional, while
cold, repulsive heterosexual or Gay male fucking are promoted for Lesbians.
Many of us have experienced ex-het lovers hurting us during “lovemaking.” A
friend who came out at thirty was shocked when her first lover, who was
stereotypically male-identified feminine, suddenly was as brutal and painful to
her in bed as men had previously treated her. I explained that that is not how
most Lifelong and Butch Lesbians are (unless trained by ex-het women), but is
not uncommon with “feminine” women who first chose men.
Women who taught themselves to love repulsive pricks brought dildos and other
aspects of sado-masochism into our communities, making them unfairly
associated with Butches or Lesbians. Fem Joan Nestle wrote about carrying a
dildo in her purse, presumably to be ready to be fucked if meeting a stranger
Butch. (Poor objectified Butches…) I’ve heard Butches tell with grief and shame
about how as young Lesbians they found pre- or post-feminist Lesbian
communities ruled by ex-wives who taught them what “real” women wanted in
bed — which was pricks/dildos, but not the rest of the brutal, ugly, selfish male.
So young Butches were trained in obeying these Lesbian-hating sado-
masochists, and then that added to Butch-hating stereotypes. Such damage is
immeasurable.
Why would any Lesbian prefer to have a grotesque object representing ugly
maleness and violence be used on her instead of feeling her lover’s body? I
believe it’s because these male-identified ex-het women are afraid of being fully
Lesbian, so they can fantasize they are still with men. Then why would any
Lesbian want to use such an object, as opposed to actually touching her lover’s
body? As scary as it is for the self-hating Lesbian to be touched by a Lesbian, it’s
more terrifying to touch another woman because then she can’t ignore she’s with
a woman — so she prefers using an object representing rape to fuck her lover,
instead of making real Lesbian love with gentleness and true passion. And then,
since so many ex-het Fems don’t want to reciprocate love-making, their Butch
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lovers end up being so grateful to have intimacy with the woman they love that
they are more likely to accept any form of contact, no matter how demeaning.
One of the cruelest things that some ex-het Fems do to Lifelong Butch lovers is
to not love them, which is likely what caused the myth of the “Stone Butch.”
Some ex-het Fems never want to make love back or as equally with Lifelong
Lesbian and Butch lovers. Some stop wanting to make love at all, which is
attributed to “Lesbian Bed Death.” (I have never seen anyone bring up how it’s
rarely Butches or Lifelong Lesbians who stop wanting to make love, and that it’s
primarily ex-het Fems who do.)
Dyke Identity Is a Conscious Decision

In the great blossoming of Lesbian Feminist ideas in the Seventies, Dykes heard,
read, wrote, and discussed that men weren’t just controlling us through visible
patriarchy, but that they were also influencing us through internalized male
values, male cultures/religions/cults, media, politics, etc.
These ideas changed our lives forever. We realized that we didn’t just have to
fight male supremacy in the world, but also internal patriarchal indoctrination, so
that we could be more truly our natural Dyke selves. Why are these ideas so
rarely expressed now? This is a major disconnect between Lesbian Feminist
politics from the Seventies and afterward, where in the Seventies there was
more of a sense of a committed community, as opposed to being concerned for
ourselves only as individuals. (This change accompanied right wing national
influences valuing greed and status.)
Although most feminists agreed that women had internalized male values, most
het women who became Lesbians never thought about changing their male
values to Lesbian ones. Many who otherwise cared about Lesbian politics and
culture somehow assumed that Lesbian identity could be passively absorbed and
that they automatically and effortlessly no longer had het values. For many,
Dyke identity was misperceived as trendy. This is especially true of Lesbians
who’d never even considered Lesbianism before they joined Women’s Liberation.
A new identity that’s only superficial is easily rejected when times get tougher,
as they did in the 1980’s. Remaining, unexamined het identification resurfaced
and many ex-het Lesbians began to look more het and abandoned Dyke-
centered politics for het feminist, male left, Gay male politics, or to be “fun
Fems.”
The new Lesbian who wrote in the mid-1970’s that she looked in the mirror and
said to herself, “How amazing! Yesterday I was a wife and mother, and today I’m
a short-haired radical Dyke Feminist,” was fooling herself about her
transformation. She was now a Lesbian, but she had yet to do a lot of thinking
and changing before she would have a strong, lasting Dyke identity. That meant
working out how her recent considerable het privilege still affected Lesbians. Like
many other Lesbians, she would probably mistakenly think of her past only in
terms of how hard and painful being het was, and how “free” she was in her new
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“alternative lifestyle.” And she would erroneously interpret Dyke encouragement

to become more Lesbian-identified as “reverse discrimination.”
Many of these were the Lesbians who complained about the “Lesbian uniform,”
which was our Dyke culture’s way of proudly identifying and recognizing each
other as Lesbians, while rejecting the het and male-identified feminine uniform
propaganda blasted at us in the media and constantly policed by friends, family,
co-workers, other Lesbians, and even strangers. These were also the Lesbians
attracted to the porn and sado-masochism brought into our communities in the
late Seventies by the bisexual pornographers.
Increasingly, new ex-het Lesbians joined our communities who didn’t seem to
think about being a Lesbian at all. They continued as if they were still het, but
just had a “better kind” of lover. They kept calling every animal they saw
“he.” They strongly identified with their het pasts and with het women in the
present, never caring about Lesbian oppression. Some just wanted to experiment
with and use Lesbians, having power over us that they could never get with
men. They abused Dykes by relating to us as if we weren’t female, which doesn’t
mean they gave us the respect or privilege that men or het women get, but that
they objectified us in cruel Lesbian-hating ways. At the same time, these women
expected and demanded that Dykes take care of them the way men are
supposed to look after women, yet never do.
One of the signs of reactionary/liberal feminism damaging our communities now
is whenever there is a shutdown of discussions about the ways women obey and
admire male values. Instead of this being named as collaboration, the women
promoting patriarchal propaganda are claimed to be self-hating victims, which is
designed to guilt-trip and shame Radical Feminists from having the basic life-
transforming discussions that were part of even mainstream feminism from the
Sixties and later.
The Co-Option of Pre-WLM Dyke Communities

It’s easier for newer Lesbians to come out because others of us have been out
for years working to make it easier. It was devastating to be a Lesbian when the
only portrayal of Lesbians in films and books was as pathetic, crazy, suicidal, or
murderous. It was especially destructive for Dykes whose families abandoned or
imprisoned and/or psychiatrically tortured them, and for Dykes who were thrown
out of school, threatened, and ostracized.
The influx of many newly-out ex-het Lesbian Feminists, who were meeting Dykes
for the first time, caused a new pressure on pre-existing Lesbian
communities. The entry of this more privileged group into an oppressed, long-
established group with its own cultures, values, and traditions, caused a classic
culture clash.
There had always been the outside pressure of male and het society on Lesbian
communities. And there had always been Lesbians who passed as het, as well as
Lesbians who went back to being het, all of which added to Lesbian
oppression. But now, Lesbianism came to the attention of het women, and
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through them, men, in a way it never had before. This made Lesbian assimilation
into het culture (co-option) possible in a way previously unimaginable.
Many of the things that happened after this encounter are typical of events that
follow the imposition of a more powerful, oppressive culture on a less powerful
one. At first, there were more longtime Dykes than new Lesbians, but this soon
reversed, particularly in more privileged communities in big cities or college
towns. The pre-Women’s Liberation Movement Lesbians were more class and
race-oppressed than the influx of new ex-het Lesbian Feminists, many of who
came out through their universities and colleges, dramatically affecting Lesbian
communities.
Because they came out in such large numbers around the same time, WLM
Lesbians backed up each others’ still-existing heterosexist values and
lesbophobia towards pre-WLM Dykes. The negative repercussions of this culture
clash continues between Lesbians who came out because of being in love with
other females versus those who came out more coldly and intellectually through
feminism and because of hating men.
New Lesbian Feminists who looked and acted more feminine felt superior as
“normal, “real” women (they had had their men to prove it). They called
themselves “womyn-identified-womyn,” to make clear their political choice to be
a Lesbian, and to differentiate themselves from the Lesbians they perceived as
being born “queer.” They ignored that many of the pre-WLM had been feminists
before them and had created the Lesbian Feminist movement, making it easier
for them to come out.
Women’s Liberation politics glorified the word “woman” without analyzing its old
association with heterosexuality (which is why some Lesbians still are reluctant
to use it) and euphemistically glossed over the meaning of “Lesbian.” Lesbians
who identified as “wimmin-loving-wimmin” rather than Dyke-loving-Dykes could
now avoid Lesbian oppression in a way never before possible, by becoming a
“new” normal, womanly, feminine, feminist, intellectualized, laundered Lesbian.
Pre-WLM Dykes were even more unacceptable if they looked Butch and couldn’t
pass as het if they wanted to. They were oppressed as Dykes in ways that the
new, het-privileged Lesbians couldn’t imagine, and were ostracized as well as
being used as lovers by them. If they were occasionally emulated with the
offensive term of “foremothers,” it was mostly in a superficial, objectifying way.
So pre-WLM Dykes were forced into second-class positions and excluded in their
own Lesbian communities.
In many large communities, such as the San Francisco Bay Area, new Lesbian
Feminists outnumbered pre-WLM Lesbians so much that they could avoid them if
they felt too “uncomfortable” (lesbophobic) around them. Because most of the
out-through-movement Lesbian Feminists were Fem and ex-het, they also
avoided Butches and Lifelong Lesbians. Their continuing contempt for pre-WLM
Dykes reached its most oppressive and absurd when they sneered at what they
called “Bar Dykes” (pre-WLM and non-feminist Dykes) by calling them “straight
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Lesbians.” Lesbian feminists often lumped together all non-WLM Dykes as “Bar
Dykes,” whether they were part of Bar Dyke culture or not, and it was always
said as an insult. (Again, the classism was glaring.)
The implication is that Dykes who come out because of their love for females are
less Lesbian and feminist-identified than het feminists who come out because of
hating men, an intellectual decision, or because it seemed like a trendy
choice. It’s no coincidence that many of these new Lesbians went back to men
once they experienced a bit of Lesbian oppression. This situation continued until
the Lesbians who came out in the 1970’s have been outnumbered by even later
waves (who seem to have no idea that stronger Dyke consciousness and
communities ever existed.)
Similarly, Butches who refused the male-invented femininity pushed on all girls
by men and het women are called “male-identified” in a classic mindfuck. This is
because male femininity cushions Fem Feminists’ lesbophobia and Lesbian-
hating. Fems’ stereotyping of Butches, who had said no to male rules, as “male,”
is similar to how men and het women slander us, and increases Fems’ illusion
that they are more female and “normal,” by patriarchal standards. But there is
nothing innately female in the male directives ordering girls and women to pose
as feminine.
Even more horrifying is that most feminist mothers, including “radfems,” dress
and present their little girls as stereotypically feminine, from pink uncomfortable
shoes they can’t run in, to demeaning hair styles, to flimsy dresses that make it
harder for their girls to play safely, and exposing them to the humiliation and
sexual harassment of boys and men seeing their underwear if they fall or climb.
This trains little girls to be passive and sedentary, and also makes them more
vulnerable to being sexually assaulted and raped.
So why do women who profess to be feminists do this to their daughters? I
believe it’s because of the status they get for having feminine girls to show off,
and to avoid being criticized by family, friends, and strangers, as well as not
having to deal with their girls being called “boys” if they dare to comfortable and
natural. This making little girls vulnerable to men and boys calls all of
their mothers’ so-called Radical Feminist politics into question.It’s one
thing for adult women to choose to make themselves exposed to men for status,
but far worse to prostitute their little girls to male prurience. Non-feminist
women pressure their protesting and crying little daughters to act the way men
expect girls to act in patriarchy because of the rewards they get (and I am very
aware of this because of how my mother dressed me in dresses so obscene that
I was humiliated by teachers and sent home from school), but these women are
not aware as Radical Feminists are of how this endangers their girls.
All of this is connected to wanting to appear “normal” in male supremacist
cultures. The more fearful that Fem Lesbian Feminists became of being perceived
as Dykes, the more feminine they try to appear, which was and still is reflected
in Lesbian Feminist media images and drawings of Lesbians in publications, on
leaflets, and now in online posts. It was not an accident that this “reclaiming
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femininity” coincided with the introduction of porn and sado-masochism into our
communities. (When some Radical Feminists recently attempted to locate images
to post online of warrior women, they could only find grotesque, half-naked
porny images, unnaturally skinny with massive breasts, or ephemeral fairy/weak
images, often in gauzy gowns and high heels – none of which is how fantasy
male warriors are portrayed.)
One prominent US Lesbian feminist, who came out comfortably after the WLM
and soon set herself up as our leader wrote, “Clearly we needed a different name
for Lesbians who are feminists than for those who are not. Finding women
sexually attractive has nothing to do with feminism; most men find women
sexually attractive.”3 She also describes the difference between Lesbians,
bisexuals, and het women as “choices of sexual expression.” She doesn’t seem
aware that trivializing Lesbianism as merely sexual is a classic Lesbian-hating
male attitude which denies that being a Lesbian is a choice of loving other
women, and that Lesbian passion is totally different from predatory male
sexuality. The very act of a Lesbian feeling attraction for another female is in
itself rare and revolutionary. It threatens patriarchy at its core. Lesbians who
never heard of feminism have loved, and still love, other Lesbians with care and
commitment that far exceeds the ideals of feminism. Why don’t ex-het feminists
feel the same need to differentiate het feminists from non-feminist
heterosexuals? Can you imagine the outcry if they used insults for non-feminist
het women similar to those they use for non-feminist Lesbians?
Lesbians who chose men first often seem to think, “Why be a Lesbian if not for
feminism?” Meanwhile, those of us who chose our own kind first, out of love and
without conscious political analysis, are suspected of being sordid and
lecherous. To anyone with a het mentality, the word “Lesbian” is inherently
sexual and suggests the dirty, predatory, male sexuality of traditional anti-
Lesbian stereotypes. Meanwhile, ex-het Lesbians’ past (hetero)sexuality is taken
for granted and rarely thought of as wrong, lurid, and dirty — even though that’s
exactly what heterosex is. Ex-het Lesbians who came out intellectually through
the WLM are more likely to have learned and later exhibit male traits of sexually
objectifying women since they learned their sexuality from their obscene and
predatory men — not Lifelong Lesbians or Butches.
A Lesbian is also most likely to stay a Lesbian if she made her choice through
love and passion, from her entire heart, mind, soul, and body, and not through
political analysis alone. Lesbians who paid the high price of Lesbian oppression
are also more likely to be trustworthy and strongly Dyke-identified than women
who wholeheartedly chose men and later came out reluctantly after years of
encouraging support from Lesbian friends.
Another Lesbian star said in an interview, “I knew I had Lesbian leanings before I
found the Women’s Liberation Movement, but I don’t think I would have
admitted it. Lesbians’ life back then was the bar life, alcoholic, unhappy, difficult
and depressing.” Yes, it was very hard for Lesbians before feminism and coming
out then demanded special courage and commitment — but this Lesbian is still
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thoughtlessly repeating, years later, the stereotypes she held of Lesbians when
she was het.
And not all Dykes who came out before the WLM were part of bar culture. Dykes
created many ways to survive and be part of communities of their own kind. The
sort of life they made depended on how much racial, ethnic, and class privilege
they had, and how fiercely females were oppressed in their countries. Some
formed private clubs where they could meet. Others made cultures in Lesbian
bars, preyed on by the male bar owners and violent police. Any horribly
oppressed people forced to meet in bars will be vulnerable to
alcoholism. Members of oppressed groups who succumb to their oppression are
always used to show that stereotypes about them are “true,” while the ones who
found happiness are forgotten. Why not instead recognize how oppressed, and
therefore courageous, Dykes who survived bar culture were?
Meanwhile, what was the comparable life of a middle-class housewife in the
1950’s and early 1960’s, which is what this Lesbian had been? (My mother, who
was a married working class housewife, was so miserable and lonely that she
regularly went to filthy het bars for company, became an alcoholic, was arrested
in brawls, and tried to commit suicide. When I was a little girl, she put me in
frilly dresses and brought me with her for attention and put me on disgusting
drunken stranger men’s laps.) Many Lesbian Feminists had no contact with pre-
WLM Dykes, so where was this ex-het getting her information, which is identical
to het media myths about “perverted” Lesbians, designed to frighten women into
obedience to their men? As hard as it was to be a Lesbian before feminism, there
was the beautiful love of equals between two women together, as opposed to the
lonely, depressing, often alcoholic or anti-depressant-addicted sado-masochism,
inequality, and abuse that is in heterosexual relationships.
Lifelong Lesbians and especially Lifelong Butches, can have a beautiful, solid
Dyke feeling which is quite different from the atmosphere in most later Lesbian
Feminist groups. That unique presence is reassuring to those of us who feel
alienated around the many ex-het Lesbians who prefer femininity, het
identification, and obsessively fussing with appearance, trendy clothing, hair
styles, and jewelry. Such Lesbians feel “absent” in contrast to the centered
presence of Lifelong Dykes, which is why many ex-het Fems seek out Lifelong
Butches as lovers.
Many communities did feel more Lesbian-identified in the 1970’s than later, but
pre-WLM Dykes have been subjected to Lesbian Feminist censorship and ridicule
since the beginning of the WLM, and have had to see their pasts being
“reclaimed” in books and speeches by Lesbians who, when they were part of pre-
WLM Dyke culture, betrayed them by passing for het or being bisexual. Why
should that be who now represents pre-WLM Dykes to an objectifying audience
of new Lesbians and, worse still, to the het public? The Lifelong Dykes who
never sold out, fucked men, or passed for het, and who actually continued the
ancient traditions of Lesbian culture, are usually ignored, and their writings
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unpublished. They have the right to define what their cultures were, who they
were then, and who they are now.
No, We Were Not All Het

To ignore and deny someone’s existence is an attempt to eliminate her, which is
what most heterosexuals do to Lesbians. Why then do many Lesbians deny that
some Lesbians were never heterosexual? Why do they enforce ex-het dominance
in Lesbian communities as the only Lesbian reality? Never-het and Lifelong
Dykes face the obstacle of being a small minority within a minority, yet most
Lesbians would prefer we didn’t exist at all.
If hetero-patriarchy can’t claim a female as one of its own, it tries to claim her as
having been one of its own. That’s why rape by male family is so prevalent —
it’s men’s attempt to possess females. All females resist rape, and therefore
resist enforced ownership. But most females become heterosexual. By making
that choice, they agree to become possessed by men through fucking and
marriage, whether that’s their conscious intention or not. The father “gives” his
daughter away in marriage, to be owned by another man. But the ownership isn’t
complete, the marriage isn’t legally valid, unless it’s “consummated” — unless
she’s fucked. The fucking alone ensures possession, as when a victorious army
rapes the females of a conquered nation, to prove its ownership and to change
the genetics of the people. But the existence of Lesbians says there are females
who refuse to be voluntarily owned and controlled by males. When ex-het
Lesbians deny Never-het and Lifelong Lesbians’ existence, they are replicating
how hets treat Lesbians.
It’s common at Lesbian gatherings and in Lesbian publications, to hear and read
“We were all straight once.” If a Dyke hesitantly says that she wasn’t het, she’s
likely to be shamed, slammed with hostility or the topic is changed.
Lesbian Feminists would never tolerate anyone saying all Lesbians are middle-
class, so why the double standard? Our class background isn’t our choice, while
becoming het is. Those of us who are working-class at least have working-class
culture acknowledged in the world and regularly represented (even if
caricatured) in the media. Young Lifelong Lesbians usually grow up completely
alone, in the most vulnerable years of our lives, not only with no one else in our
family, neighborhood, school, or culture being like us, but knowing we are
completely unacceptable. To continue this double standard among Lesbians is
incredibly Lesbian-hating.
Some ex-hets have even said ridiculous things like “Since we’re all exposed to
het culture, we’re all het in our minds anyway, so no one can say they’ve never
been het.” (Butch-hating Fems say similar things about Butches.) They really
don’t believe there’s no difference between choosing to fuck with men and
choosing not to? Can they also not imagine any female not internalizing male
and het values as they’ve done?
Ex-het Lesbians also often say, “I was always a Dyke — I just didn’t know
it.” Well, no they weren’t. Some were completely het for decades and never even
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considered loving other females. They’re also likely to be the same individuals
who talk proudly of past husbands and boyfriends, making certain everyone
around them knows they’re mothers and even grandmothers. But they can’t
have it both ways — het women are not Dykes and Dykes are not het.
In a large Lesbian discussion group where ex-het Lesbians frequently bragged
about their het pasts, a Lifelong Lesbian started to talk about having always been
a Lesbian, but another Lesbian quickly changed the subject. After the meeting,
several Lesbians angrily said how “insensitive” the she was — they had suffered
as het women and didn’t want to be “reminded that other Lesbians
hadn’t.” Some accused her of trying to make them feel guilty. Are they so
narcissistic that they think everything is about them, or are they just trying to
maintain dominance? If they really feel bad about having been het, why did they
brag about it so much? (Originally, we’d written that the same group would be
less likely to accept ongoing bragging about class privilege or to accuse class-
oppressed Lesbians of “guilt-tripping” for daring to talk about their lives, but I
now think they would do that also — anything to maintain supremacy and
privilege.)
No one considered how painful and difficult it was for a Lesbian who’d always
been oppressed as a “queer” outcast to try talk about her life in a group full of
het/male-identified Lesbians who’d always felt accepted as “normal.” And they
certainly didn’t want to learn about her life. In fact, they were trying to drive her
out of the group. Meanwhile, these same women often devoted hours of
attention and support to Lesbians who talked of their past het experiences,
including being mothers.
If ex-hets want to discuss their het pasts and resolve problems from it, they
should do it with other ex-het Lesbians, and use the opportunity to also talk
about ways they can support to their Lifelong Lesbian friends, including
protesting whenever ex-het experience is presented as the only Lesbian reality,
and encourage other ex-het Lesbians to be aware of the privileges they have.
The myth of ex-het Lesbians being more oppressed is furthered by therapy
politics that support privileged Lesbians’ “rights” to be demanding and
narcissistic. Lesbians who subject other Lesbians to hearing about their
“conflicted feelings” about men or sordid, pornographic details of their past
heterosexuality will often begin by saying, “I’m being very vulnerable to tell you
this, but …” Being oppressive is not the same as being vulnerable. In the name
of “being honest,” one upper-class, European-descent Lesbian we know of
subjected her working-class, racially oppressed lover to pornographic, sexually
explicit details about her fucking experiences, and then told friends what she’d
done, as an example of how important it is to be “completely honest” with one’s
lover, and how Lesbians can help each other “deal with” their het pasts. Not only
did she hurt her lover, she also publicly humiliated her as well. This self-
indulgent insensitivity came from a Lesbian who’s considered to be very Dyke-
identified and who speaks glibly and authoritatively about issues of privilege and
oppression.
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Some ex-het Lesbians make bizarre contradictory rationalizations about why they
chose to be het, such as saying, “I was het because I’m an incest survivor,” —
which again denies the existence of Never-het victims of rape by their male
family. The fact is most girls are sexually assaulted by male relatives, and that
includes most Lifelong Dykes as well as ex-het Dykes.
“Did your family raise you as a boy?” is more likely asked of those who aren’t
drag-queen feminine and reveals that the interrogator can’t imagine any female
refusing to be fucked by men and loving other females unless she was
conditioned by hets to think of herself as male.
Other ex-het Lesbians ask, “Maybe your family gave you more freedom,” denying
the rape, restriction, and mental and physical torture many Lesbian girls have
experienced from their families.
Saying “I was straight because no one told me I had any other option” ignores
that no one tells any young female it’s okay to be a Lesbian. The courage to
follow your own female wisdom, in spite of het propaganda and severe
punishment, comes from within. What about love for her own kind and a natural
revulsion toward males? Why does she also deny the existence of celibate
women? Of course all girls know about “old maids,” but most prefer to be fucked
by men to escape that stigma.
Lifelong Lesbians were equally pressured to be het, often by the same women
who now claim they had no choice. Do they think we forget their sneering at us,
name-calling, ridiculing, and ostracizing us and, for some, physically attacking us
when we were girls? Do they think we don’t remember them telling us about
consciously deciding to abandon girl friends for predatory, female-hating boys in
order to get status? Some of these women even went against their families in
choosing particularly disgusting boys and men.
Some ex-het Fem Lesbians’ also sexually harass you if they find out you’re a
Lifelong Lesbian. I’ve been subjected to a “friend” loudly asking a group of us at
a dance, “Wouldn’t you like a big hard dick right now?” Another Lesbian from
that friendship group showed me a photo on her cell phone of a man’s erect
prick. Another “Lesbian” in our community, in a baby girl voice said, “I have
something to show that will scare you.” It was a metal key chain with a
grotesque image of an erect prick on a little man effigy. Her lover of many years
told me how tortured she felt by her lover taunting her that she had a physical
need to get fucked and would go find strange men to be fucked by.
At a Lesbian party, a Lesbian feminist star who’d co-founded MS magazine
announced “we’ve all been straight.” When I dared to disagree, she started
ranting “But didn’t you ever want some dick? Can’t you imagine wanting some
dick? ….everyone had to have been straight once … why don’t you try fucking —
you might like it.” Only Linda and I argued with her. The others in the room were
afraid to.
Their goal, like with the women who troll Radical Feminist groups online, is to
censor and silence, and to make it just not worth speaking out. When a Lifelong
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Dyke tentatively mentions her life, ex-hets are likely to complain, “That’s all she
ever talks about.” Try counting the times you’ve heard Lesbians say they’re
Lifelong Lesbians, compared to how often Lesbians talk about their het pasts, ex-
husbands, boyfriends, children, etc.
Others ask, “Why is it an issue at all? Why make such a big deal of never having
been het?” Well, why make such a big deal of having been het? And isn’t that
what hets say to us: “Why make such an issue of being Lesbians? Do you
always have to talk about being a Dyke?” “Do you have to be so
blatant?” Meanwhile, it’s impossible to talk with a het woman for two minutes
without her bombarding us with unasked-for information about her husband or
boyfriend and/or children. But that’s taken for granted and is therefore
acceptable, just like ex-het Lesbians’ het talk. Lifelong Lesbian oppression is
considered trivial because Lesbian oppression is considered trivial.
We’re also told “You’re so lucky to have escaped being het,” ignoring the choice
of resistance we made to say no to men that they said yes to. It also reinforces
our being “abnormal,” compared to most women. It’s even more unfair when the
Lifelong Dyke is working-class and the seemingly jealous ex-het is middle- or
upper-class.
“Oh, how cute! A virgin Dyke!” is patronizing and pornographic. If the speaker
thought about the realities of sexual assault, she would know that refusing to
choose heterosexuality doesn’t protect the majority of females from rape. When
men invented the idea of virginity, it was because they are obsessed with
fucking, raping, and possessing females. For thousands of years “virgin” has
meant not having been fucked, and therefore having market value as “untouched
territory” – a particularly vulnerable, frightened victim for easy terrorization and
conquest. None of this is funny or cute. “Virgins” are portrayed as naïve,
unknowing, unworldly, sheltered, and ignorant of “real life,” because in
patriarchy only males and hetness are “real life.”
Just as Lesbians are considered immature and “in an arrested stage of
development” by patriarchal psychologists, Lifelong Lesbians are treated by ex-
het Lesbians as if we never grew up and became real adults. Lesbians even
continue this crap when they use “virgin” for women who haven’t yet been to the
Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival. Becoming het often means learning to wear
arrogant, parental expressions, while Lesbians who never were het sometimes
look the same natural way we did when we were girls. Yet it isn’t safe to have
such open expressions in our hierarchical communities.
It’s the voice of “maturity” and “adulthood” that tells little girls “everyone” gets
married and has babies. It’s the same voice that explains, patiently and
condescendingly, that nuclear power plants are safe. The status of adulthood
should never be underestimated since it means acceptability, credibility, respect,
and privilege. At least ex-het Lesbians, especially ex-wives and mothers, were
treated as “grownup” and “worldly-wise” before becoming Lesbians their attitude
to those who are different is often parental — they assume their values are the
best and only values. The burden of explaining is never on the het woman or ex-
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het Lesbian — it’s on the Never-het Dyke. How did we manage to be such
freaks? Plus our existence is a reminder that becoming het was and is a choice,
rather than the compulsory state it’s professed to be. Het supremacist Lesbians
find our lives less real and less full because we haven’t been intimate with males,
who have the real power. Since we “gave up less” to come out, who really cares?
Most Lifelong Lesbians play along with the myth that ex-hets had harder lives
because they are protective of lovers and friends. But if a Lifelong Dyke
occasionally feels pride at having said no to men throughout her life, it’s
understandable considering she lives as a social outcast at the bottom of the
heterosexist hierarchy, as well as all the betrayal she’s experienced. But there
isn’t a chance in hell she’d imagine she’d gain status or respect from most
Lesbians by talking about her lifelong resistance to heterosexuality.
The Myth of Reverse Discrimination

Some ex-het Lesbians complain that they were distrusted when they first came
out. This sometimes happens in more Dyke-identified communities, but usually
newly-out, ex-het Lesbians are far more valued than Lesbians who’ve been out
longer. Many Lesbians consider it more admirable when mothers who were
married for a long time come out, as if it’s much harder for them to be
Lesbians. It’s not — it’s easier, because married mothers are treated as more
important than other women. But they are also more likely to complain and be
bitter about what they felt they were promised and didn’t get from men and
patriarchy. Many of these ex-het Lesbians turn their rage at men onto Lesbians.
It’s classic arrogance that those with more privilege complain more and therefore
their feelings are considered more important. This dynamic is also seen in groups
discussing classism, where the class-privileged take up far more space
complaining than the class-oppressed do. Losing privilege is hard, but it isn’t as
hard or as painful as never having had it.
Some ex-het Lesbians may be annoyed and disappointed the few times they’re
not catered to when they talk about their children, grandchildren, husbands, or
boyfriends, because they’re used to getting that attention among hets. The
issue isn’t that new ex-het Lesbians are “harassed” for not being “real
Lesbians” — it’s that Lifelong Dykes are oppressed (including by
Lesbians) for not being “real” women.
Lesbians are the only oppressed people who are constantly being joined by large
numbers of their recent oppressors. This is one reason why entire Lesbian
communities seem to be making the same mistakes over and over. We gain
strength in increased numbers, but we also have to deal with an onslaught of
new members who are still very lesbophobic and oppressive, and who usually do
not bother to learn our history or culture. These women are also more likely to
get into power positions in Lesbian communities, as the Lesbians in “LGBTQI”
organizations, and in Radical Feminist communities online.
Newly-out Lesbians, especially those who were heterosexual, are very likely to
be Lesbian-hating towards the more longtime Dykes they meet, just as most het
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women are Lesbian-hating to Lesbians. Lesbians who’ve been out longer, who
understand the realities of Dyke oppression, and who’ve watched many new, ex-
het, Lesbians return to men and het privilege, have the right to be cautious
about welcoming unknown members. It’s entirely reasonable if they feel
suspicious of those new Lesbians who still look and act very het and who talk
proudly of their het pasts. Sadly though, the opposite is usually true: new
Lesbians are often hostile and condescending towards longer-out Lesbians even
while they’re receiving extra attention from Lesbians because of the high status
their recent hetness gives them.
There are also Lesbians who, when they were het, actively oppressed Lesbians,
were hostile to us, harassed us from jobs and housing, and excluded us from
feminist groups. Some of us knew het feminists who did these things, later came
out, and then expected us to welcome them into our communities and trust them
as one of us — even when they continued to make Lesbian-hating
statements. The more hostile a het woman is to Lesbians, the more destructive
power she’s going to have towards us if she later becomes a Lesbian.
Newly out, genuine Dykes deserve support and friendliness, but certainly no
more than longtime Dykes get. Longtime Dykes need more support because
we’ve been oppressed as Dykes for much longer. Lifelong Dykes’ experience,
wisdom, and strength deserve new Dykes’ respect and appreciation.
Het-identified Lesbians try to prove how non-threatening Lesbians are by
denying that we’re significantly different from het women, pointing out the many
ex-wives and mothers among Lesbians. Whose standards are these? Why do so
many Lesbians consider having chosen to fuck with men as more of an indication
of “warm, mature, genuine femaleness” than choosing to love other females right
from the beginning? Who is saying that all females should be fucked, or at least
should once have been fucked? — Men and their het women collaborators. Male
values are fatal to Dykes. Any culture and political movement that tries to
prove to itself and the oppressor that it’s no different from the
oppressor’s culture is in serious trouble.
Because heterosexual privilege means very real economic privilege, some ex-het
Lesbians bring money, possessions, and opportunities with them into Lesbian
communities that other Lesbians could never hope to have (again, depending on
other privileges the ex-het Lesbian has). A Lesbian who married a rich, middle-
class, or even a well-employed working-class man is likely to have material
assets from that marriage, such as alimony or social security money, a fully
furnished house, land, a car, savings, etc., which are long-term rewards for
heterosexual compliance, and a continual reminder of that connection. (Some of
these Lesbians continue being legally married to their husbands.)
They also have access to Lesbian community events that many longtime
Lesbians could never afford to go to, even though we helped create our
communities. Many events sponsored by “Lesbian” organizations (which are now
primarily focused on helping men posing as Lesbians against real Lesbians) are
deliberately priced high in order to maintain class and race segregation. Yet
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some of these European-descent ex-wives actually complain about how they

were “slaves” to their husbands, (which is a common racist misuse of “slavery,”
and should be applied only to people literally, legally, physically owned by other
people.)
Het acceptability also gives a woman increased opportunities for educational and
job skills, and access to legal, medical, financial, and other services, which
continue to benefit her after she becomes a Lesbian. Meanwhile, Lifelong Dykes,
Butches, and Dyke-identified Fems, and are more likely to be rejected by schools
and employers, and discriminated against by such services, often ending up in
the lowest-paying, hardest jobs, denied decent health and other care, and
homeless. Het women, and therefore ex-het Lesbians, have more confidence in
dealing with, and feeling they have the right to use, such services — access that
can make a great difference to a Lesbian’s quality of life and, in crisis situations,
can mean the difference between life and death.
We’re not saying Lesbians shouldn’t bring het-gained riches with them into our
communities, but we’d like that privilege to be acknowledged about where it
came from, rather than it be assumed that these advantages came from their
own work, and, when possible, shared (which was once basic Lesbian Feminist
politics.) Another way to help other Lesbians is to be an advocate for Lesbians
when dealing with the medical and legal systems, to help them get justice and
better treatment. Even less privileged friends can help. When a dear friend was
trying to get health insurance and then prepare for surgery for cancer, a group of
us who are Dyke Separatists helped, donating safe Lesbian blood, going to the
government agencies, doing medical and alternative research, planning to spend
each night in the hospital room with her, shopping for food, bringing meals, etc.
I went to every medical appointment with her and asked the surgeon, who has a
reputation for cruelty, every relevant question we could think of, which clearly
meant that the doctor was more respectful. The one time I had to miss, she was
treated terribly by that surgeon. This support can sometimes mean the difference
between life or death.
Het Identification Destroys Dyke Culture

The Women’s Liberation Movement did make vast positive changes in Dykes’
lives, and that’s largely because many pre-WLM Dykes worked to create
Feminism. Yet many ex-het Lesbians defend and protect males and het women
far more than they do other Lesbians. They personally and politically caretake
and prioritize women who still choose men. They provide support for
contraception and abortion as well as medical services for diseases and injuries
caused by fucking and childbirth, making het life more tolerable for women. They
identify with het women, saying, “I was there once.” Since they don’t recognize
themselves as former collaborators, they don’t recognize the present
collaboration of het women. They also pressure other Lesbians to make het-
oriented issues a priority. In mixed groups of Lesbians and het women, ex-het
feminists often want Lesbians to be less blatant, so het women can be
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“comfortable.” In other words, they support het women’s Lesbian-hatred and put
Lesbians’ rights and needs last.
Lesbians who tout femininity and who treat Butches and Fem Dykes with
contempt reveal that they don’t really consider Butches to be truly female.
Thisbehaviour is male-identified, not that of the Butches they accuse of being
“male.” Lesbians who imitate het women by supporting and identifying with men
and their rules are male-identified. They treat Butches the way men treat
females — with contempt and objectification, as an alien Other who’s
nevertheless needed and used. Such het-minded contempt for Dykes, like all
oppression is deeply hurtful, causing isolation, loneliness, grief, illness, despair,
and death. The irony is that the ex-het Lesbians who are so casually malicious
and uncaring continue to benefit from Butches, whose courage and work keep
Dyke cultures alive. Again, this is ex-het Lesbians’ choice. They don’t need to be
like this, as ex-het Lesbian Separatists and other Radical Feminist Dykes who
truly fight Dyke oppression prove.
Some women didn’t become Lesbians because they love Dykes and feel like
Dykes — they came out because it was trendy for a while, or they hate men (yet
don’t really love and desire Lesbians), or they want “better sex” and don’t want
to worry about getting pregnant or getting STDs, or they have male
pornographic fantasies of Lesbians. We’ve met ex-het Lesbians who said they
became Lesbians because they couldn’t get what they wanted from men, and
because they wanted to be loved and looked after. We all want to be loved, but
the difference for Dykes-loving-Dykes, whether Lifelong or ex-het, is that we’re
also devoted to loving other Dykes, and don’t expect our friends and lovers to
focus their lives and emotions solely on fulfilling our needs.
Het-identified ex-het Lesbians have diluted Lesbian politics in their eagerness to
maintain connections with men and het women, and to get approval and material
benefits from them, even though that “approval” is mostly tokenistic and
voyeuristic. Most Lesbians in power positions that we know of are ex-het and
Fem — CEOs/directors of “Lesbian” or “LGBT” organizations with massive
salaries, media spokespeople, writers, “spiritual leaders,” gurus, therapists, etc.
The reason that so many Lesbians support the rights of het men who pretend to
be Lesbians to perv on us and destroy our last women-only spaces is because
they are used to putting men first and valuing men more. Some Radical
Feminists suspect it’s also because they must feel more comfortable having men
around.
This co-option, together with men’s and het women’s deliberate backlash against
our movements, caused the present fragmentation and bleeding of Dyke-
identified politics. We’re determined to return to the hope we once felt and are
working towards a new beginning for Dyke Separatism, with the Dyke love and
unity that means.
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Unlearning Lesbian-Hatred
We’re not saying ex-het Dykes should never mention having been het, any more
than we’d suggest Dykes from middle-class backgrounds shouldn’t say they’re
middle-class. They should be honest so other Dykes know who they’re dealing
with, but they shouldn’t flaunt their het privilege or burden more oppressed
Dykes with problems related to their het pasts.
We raise these issues because we believe Lesbian communities should reflect
Lesbian cultures, not male or het cultures. Do we want het-identified Lesbians to
be comfortable in our communities — when they have the entire het world
validating them — at the expense of Dyke-identified-Dykes, who get comfort and
support nowhere? Shouldn’t Dyke communities welcome Dykes since no one
else does?
We’re not trying to make anyone feel bad or guilty. We’re trying to protect and
defend more marginalized Dykes from being hurt. The first step towards fighting
an injustice is to name it. Ex-het Lesbians sometimes lock themselves into self-
pity and resentment when another Lesbian tells them their het values and
assumptions are oppressive. They focus only on the pain and abuse they suffered
from men during their het years, and ignore the fact they would have suffered
pain and abuse from both men and het women if they’d been Lesbians all their
lives.
Psychotherapists teach us we must “feel good” about ourselves, whatever the
consequences. Of course it’s good for us to feel self-loving and proud of being
Dykes, but it’s not appropriate for us to feel good about oppressing others,
taking no responsibility for whatever privileges we have. That selfish attitude
helps no one, including ourselves. It we’ve sold out and collaborated with
injustice in any way, we will feel bad, which is necessary to motive ourselves to
change We’ll feel better when we do change, but if we don’t take responsibility,
we’ll continue inflicting pain on those we oppress. If we want to be strong,
truly Dyke-identified Dykes, then we will help ourselves by fighting
hetness – even if we were once het. Fighting injustice benefits us all — it’s
not good for any Lesbians to gain and hoard privilege that hurts other Lesbians.
Instead of retreating into anger or defensiveness, ex-het Dykes should
appreciate the rare occasions when Lifelong Dykes and Butches talk about our
experiences. Discovering other Dykes’ realities can be a real pleasure, and it
teaches us about our own lives. New Lesbians entering established communities
have a responsibility to find out about the politics, history, and traditions of their
new home — out of interest and respect — just as privileged people should when
they’re the guests of an oppressed culture or country. Radical Feminists have
such values about other oppressed groups and cultures — why not about Lesbian
culture?
Just as there are groups for Dykes in “Unlearning Classism” and other injustices,
why aren’t there groups for newly-out or ex-het Lesbians in “Unlearning
Lesbophobia” and “Unlearning Heterosexism”? All ex-het Lesbians have proven
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themselves/ourselves capable of tremendous change, courage, and self-love by

becoming Lesbians. What many of us haven’t understood is that we have to keep
changing in order to identify more with our newer Lesbian selves and less with
our former het selves.
For ex-het Dykes, unlearning Lesbian-hating first requires overcoming your own
resistance. Ask yourself why you’re a Lesbian, and really think about your
answers. Notice how het women oppress and betray you because you’re a
Lesbian and because they’re het, and let yourself get angry at them. This
is an act of self-love. Het women are destructive beyond measure to Lesbians,
and we have a right to be furious at them. Their male-worshipping hetness itself
is an act of Lesbian-hatred, and they’re collaborating most intimately with our
common enemy — men. Why make them so much more important than us? If
you don’t protect and care for yourself as a Dyke, it’ll be impossible for you to
really be loving and protective of other Dykes.
It’s a good idea for Lifelong Dykes to form groups for support and political work
to unlearn together any values we’ve internalized about preferring ex-het
Lesbians to ourselves and each other. The same is important for Butches to do,
knowing that oppressed people often value oppressors more than they value
themselves. We also need each other’s support to reject ex-het Lesbians’ and
Fem’s assumptions and insults. It’s important for us to develop solidarity with
each other rather than be forced apart by defending oppressive ex-het and Fem
Lesbians at each other’s expense.
Ignoring and refusing to fight any oppression — whether it’s racism, anti-
Semitism, ethnicism, imperialism, classism, ableism, fat oppression, looksism,
ageism, or heterosexism — means participating in it, deliberately or through
passivity. Politically responsible and caring Lesbians work out what our privileges
and oppressions are and name them when we communicate who we are,
whether in writing or personally. It’s as important to name whether we’re
ex-het or Lifelong or Never-het Dykes, whether we’re Butches or not,
and if we came out before the Women’s Liberation Movement when we
describe ourselves, as it is to say what our class and ethnic backgrounds
are. Lesbian publications should encourage by including these Lesbian cultural
categories whenever they name usually excluded Lesbians who they particularly
wish to recognize and support.
The invisibility, mistreatment, and oppression of Lifelong, Never-het, and pre-
WLM Lesbians, and Butches is simply Lesbian-hatred, and it doesn’t just affect
Dykes as individuals — it hurts all Lesbians individually and damages our entire
communities’ safety, love, strength, unity, and political achievements. In order to
recognize that heterosexism exists among Lesbians, and in order to fight it, we
must name it and take the issue as seriously as any other inequality that exists.
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Endnotes
1. A rare exception are the Butch directors and actors in the short films in the annual free Queer
Women of Color Film Festival in San Francisco, which was started by Madeleine Lim, a Butch
who was a refugee from Lesbian persecution in Singapore. But this is not mainstream and
seems to be ignored by the more prestigious and money-making “LBTQWTF” film festivals.
2. Jan Clausen, Sinking, Stealing (Trumansburg, New York: The Crossing Press Feminist Series,
1985), 222. In describing a little girl opening her birthday presents, Clausen says, “I stay put
in my chair, content to watch from a distance the rending and tearing, the ritual violation. Of
course I’m familiar with this climactic moment, endemic to birthday parties: the remorseless
frenzy of the defloration; the faded, indifferent gesture with which each gift is laid aside as the
young roué gropes about for fresh stimulus.” (p. 25). This is just one example of the bizarre
heterosexism in this book — yet it received rave reviews from U.S. Lesbian feminist
publications. A few years later, Jan’s longtime lover discovered her being fucked by Jan’s secret
boyfriend in their bed.
3. Sonia Johnson, Going Out of Our Minds: The Metaphysics of Liberation (Freedom, Calif.: The
Crossing Press, 1987), 116-117. Her The Ship that Sailed into the Living Room is one of the
most Lesbian-hating books by a recently-out, previously described “hopelessly heterosexual”
Lesbian Feminist, I have ever seen. She projects all her hatred of men and male-identification
onto Lesbians. She also is racist in making up a “Black woman” character who she uses to put
down African-American culture.
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Chapter Four
Supporting Butches Supports All Lesbians

by Bev Jo
(My update is the introduction for our edited original chapter on Butch
oppression, BUTCH-HATRED IS LESBIAN-HATRED, published in 1990. That three-
part chapter follows this section.)
We know why men hate and fear Butches, but why do so many women and even
Lesbians? Seriously, why?
How Butches are treated in patriarchy and in our Lesbian communities is a more
severe example of how Lesbians as a group are oppressed. When the existence
of Butches is denied or we are treated as freaks, then love and acceptance of
Lesbians as a people is missing. Butches are the most obvious, the most out of
Lesbians. We are feared and hated. We are ridiculed and scapegoated. We are
even told we don’t exist.
The fear and hatred are damaging enough, but why deny our existence?
This is similar to how Lesbians used to be forbidden to be referred to and how
none were allowed to be seen in the media except in the most objectified and
bigoted ways. Now Lesbians are acknowledged as existing and are even on
television, but still no Butches. Yet even while we are not generally shown in any
media, including Lesbian media, we are still ridiculed, and the rare
representations allowed are the most disgusting male fantasies of Butches.
(Loren Cameron, a Fem who now identifies as a Gay man, has said in one of her
talks that she saw the het women and Gay men who worked at a clothing store
make fun of a Butch, while they treated her, appearing as a short working class
man, with respect.)
It’s obvious why men want to hide and distort Butches. But why do women go
along with this? Why feminists? And why do so many Radical Lesbian Feminists
participate in erasing and lying about us? What are they so afraid of?
Butches are closer to what all females would be without patriarchy. We refused
as little girls to obey male rules and accept male-identified femininity as our
identity. We never fit in as “normal” girls and usually were completely alone with
no one else being like us, during our most vulnerable years of girlhood. (Most
oppressed, marginalized people at least grow up with others of their kind in their
families, schools, and neighborhoods, reflecting them back to themselves.) Butch
girls are also harassed, ridiculed, and physically attacked by men, boys, and
even women and other girls. Then when we finally find other Lesbians, we are
harassed and oppressed in a whole other way because Lesbian communities are
dominated by Butch-hating Fems.
Butches are always visible, recognizable as Lesbians and as Butches, and do not
usually pass. We can be identified from a single photograph, by looking at us,
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hearing our voices. Is that why we are such a threat? Is that why we are to be
kept secret and hidden, even while slandered, even in Radical Feminist space?
It’s revealing that many feminists are likely to call Radical Feminists “woman-
hating” or “misogynist” as a way to shut down any questioning of some women’s
collaboration with men and patriarchy. But has any feminist/woman ever been
called “woman-hating” or “misogynist” for slandering and insulting Butches?
Some women pretending to be feminists actually object to Butches ever being
mentioned, deny we exist, or wish we were dead. Is this because we are
undeniably Lesbians, so the men and het women can’t pretend we aren’t a
version of male-identified feminine het women? Is it because we are an
embarrassment to the Lesbians who want to be considered “normal?”
Butches are used by men as the scariest representation of a female imaginable,
in order to police women into being afraid of Butches, but also to be of afraid to
even think about what a Butch is. Part of this is that women are also afraid to be
considered Butch or Lesbian because men police women by telling even the most
het-looking women that they don’t look like women.
Butches are used as “proof” that Lesbians play roles and emulate hets, but the
grotesque role playing that men and het women do are ignored, and being Butch
has nothing to do with role-playing. It’s the Hard Fems who make themselves a
caricature/drag queen image of woman. And fighting Butch oppression means
ending even unconscious role-playing.
“Hard Fem” is the term I coined to describe what has previously been called
“High Femme,” which is a complimentary term as well as a goal for too many
Fems. Fem is considered the norm, so Butches are scrutinized and divided from
each other by Butch-hating stereotypes. Butches who are more acceptable —
most often those who are class privileged — are sometimes called “Soft Butches”
by Fems, implying that full Butches are the hateful stereotype of hard, cold,
mean, insensitive, predatory, etc., which actually is more applicable to Hard
Fems. Yet no one criticizes the norm of Fem. Hard Fems also usually wear the
male uniform of the extremely feminine drag queen ideal, passing as het as
much as possible, slathered in clown-like makeup, wearing exposing dresses and
high heels. Hard Fems are often the most oppressive to Butches and Dyke Fems
because they are the most invested in obeying and proselytizing male rules for
females. Hard Fems also objectify and use Butches as well as Dyke Fems, yet
this is never mentioned.
Now that male identified femininity is being challenged again in feminism, I’m
seeing feminists online ask why no woman stops being feminine, which continues
the erasure those of us who never played the feminine role and of Dyke Fems
who stopped years ago. It’s like how most het women just refuse to see
Lesbians. Part of this has to be that these feminist deniers of reality do not want
to give up their own Fem privilege and the compliments they get. Notice that the
avatar facebook photos of most feminists are in grotesque makeup, with their
eyebrows unnatural (as no man would ever choose to look unless caricaturing
femininity), and basically looking as het/male as possible. (Or if they look like
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they are pretending to be Butch, check their previous photos.) Also notice how
every time such a photo is posted, they are told how beautiful they are, what a
great style they have, etc. It’s not just compliments, but policing the women who
refuse to play that game and a reminder to those who do obey the male rules of
what they will lose if they stop. As soon as a woman refuses to continue even a
tiny bit of playing feminine, she gets harassed by friends and family and loses
status.
The fact that Butches are scapegoated, ridiculed, hated, and our existence
erased, by men, het women, and most Radical Feminists explains exactly what
has gone wrong with feminism and why we do not have an increasing proud and
strong Radical Feminist movement.
The story of how Butches create ourselves out of nothing, and manage to exist in
a patriarchy that forbids us from even being shown in the media, is a lesson for
all Lesbians and women.
Butch Myths and Objectifications

In spite of Butches being closer to how all females would be without male rule,
the common myth about Butches is that Butches are “male” or “masculine.”
Refusing to follow male rules does not make someone “masculine,” but the
opposite of masculine. Butches are the least male of women because we refuse
to obey men. Just because men have declared that the more comfortable, better
made, and less humiliating clothing is only for them, does not make it male.
Feminists have always known that it is an insult, not a compliment, to be called
“male” or “masculine.” So why use it against the women who most say no to
male rules?
In some cultures women aren’t allowed to drive. When a few brave women risk
torture and imprisonment by driving, do we call them “male” or “masculine”?
Standing in a natural grounded way also does not make a woman male. Women
are told from girlhood to be afraid to look centered and grounded or they will
appear “masculine,” which is part of what wearing high heels is all about. If men
like how they look, they should wear them! It’s horrifying to see how women are
wearing heels, including women in films who are portrayed as being warriors,
and how restricted women competing against men in singing TV contests are.
The men can run around the stage and leap dramatically, while the women can
barely walk or stand, and certainly must have their attention divided to not just
fall over and by the pain in their feet, leaving them at an extreme disadvantage.
(There are videos of famous women and models in high heels teetering and then
falling.) Notice that film or television shows increasingly depict women with less
clothes, tight clothes, and their bodies exposed. Even if the plot is about people
trying to survive a terrible disaster, finding clothes wherever they can, the
women still look distinctly and unnaturally “feminine.”
Notice the vast difference in images used to denote female versus male. Many
public restrooms signs show men taking up space with a wide stance, while the
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“women’s” sign is like a one-legged top in a dress. Humiliating and demeaning.

Every media silhouette I have seen depicting female versus male shows a
dignified strong male image and a weak, flimsy female image. None of this is
innate, natural, or normal. But this propaganda affects us from girlhood, showing
us how to look “proper,” though unnaturally, female.
Some Lesbians’ Butch-hating shows itself in cruel ways, such as obsessing about
physical characteristics, which reveals they believe Butches are aberrations with
hormonal imbalances. One Lesbian, who had literally run away from a workshop
my ex-lover and I did about equal lover relationships and Butch oppression,
actually asked, “Why are Butches slim-hipped if it’s not a hormonal problem?” —
which is especially bizarre since the Butch stereotype is more likely to be fat,
with large hips. This is like how doctors and even alternative healers tell Lesbians
they must have a hormonal imbalance.
Lesbians who say such Butches “look like men” ignore large-breasted Butches.
Since Butches are less obedient about following male dictates, we are more likely
to be bigger and fatter than Fems, many of who starve themselves into being
acceptably underweight. (This is not a criticism of naturally thin women, but of
those who deliberately deprive themselves of adequate nutrition to fit feminine
standards. The male rules for small, weaker women, as well as the women who
police on behalf of men, have led to new generations of girls and women who are
permanently smaller and weaker than previously.) Of course there are thin
Butches, but there are less of them than thin Fems and het women. I have never
heard anyone speculate about inadequate female hormones when commenting
on malnourished, bony models.
In our Radical Feminist groups, Butches are usually ignored, but once brought
up, bizarre Butch-hating comments are made, showing that the women writing
them have no idea what a Butch is, but hate us anyway, because we are the
scapegoats for Lesbians. One het women said Butches were as oppressive as
men because of a woman she knew at work. I of course did not assume she was
talking about a real Butch or even knew what a Butch was, and after wasting
hours of our time, she finally asked if Butches were recognizable. That’s the
entire point of why Butch oppression is inescapable! It then became clear that
this woman’s “Butch” was actually a feminine heterosexual woman. Another
time, we asked the Radical Feminists if they could find any media images of
Butches, and they linked to incredibly pornographic het woman images.
Then some of the women send me photos of themselves to prove they are Butch,
while the photos prove the opposite — they are Fem, don’t even look like
Lesbians, and clearly heterosexual. I’m still puzzled as to what they think a Butch
is.These are usually women who previously were scared to even think about
Butches. Some Fem Lesbians who have passed completely as het to escape
Lesbian oppression and to be considered attractive to men, also try to say they
are Butch, or ask could they be Butch if they change how they look? No. It’s a
choice made in girlhood, reflected by body language, mannerism, stance, voice,
etc. (Many women pitch their voices unnaturally high as part of following male
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rules. Men want women to seem weak, while also looking as different from men,
and as unnatural, as possible.) Most of these same Radical Feminists are
outraged when men appropriate the identity of women, yet don’t consider they
are also appropriating an identity that is not theirs. I finally realized that part of
this is because women are so used to competing with women for men, so they
then see Butch identity as being another competition to win.
Now that most Lesbians are passing as het, many Lesbians believe that any
Lesbian who is not a Hard Fem must be a Butch, even though Butches are only
about 5% of the Lesbians we commonly see at events. There are a lot of Fem
Dykes who are out as Dykes, but who are clearly not Butch. And then there are
extreme Fems who say how much they love Butches, yet are unwilling to stop
passing as het, which would make life much less difficult and dangerous for
Butches, as well as Fem Dykes.
Many Fems who do recognize the existence of Butches objectify us with a similar
sense of ownership and objectification towards us that men have towards women
– as if we somehow belong to them. If we say that we are more attracted to
Butches or are not attracted to Fems, we are told that we can’t possibly mean
that, or we just haven’t found the right Fem yet. It’s the same kind of patronizing
amusement men have towards Lesbians. I’ve actually been told that two Butches
together are missing out. (On what? Unequal, passionless love-making?) Exactly
what men say about two women together. These predatory Fems never even
bother to ask about how our experiences with Fem lovers we’ve had over the
decades led us to prefer being with Butches. Then there are Lesbians who are so
freaked out by the idea of Butches loving each other that they announce that we
couldn’t possibly be real Butches (though not if they meet us in person).
I’ve heard Fems ask, “What’s wrong with objectifying Butches?” Well, what’s
wrong with sexually objectifying any oppressed groups of women? Some Fems
want to be with Butches to get the attention and love they expected to get from
men, but didn’t. And for some predatory Fems, Butches make a convenient
scapegoat to take out their rage at men. I know two Radical Lesbian Feminist
Fems who talked about beating Butch lovers. One was an upper middle class
Euro-descent Fem who beat her poverty class, legally blind, racially oppressed
Butch lover. The other Fem said she beat her working class Lifelong Lesbian
Butch lover because she could not get back at her father or ex-husband. Neither
seemed remotely remorseful and were contemptuous of those Butch lovers who
had been devoted to them. (When I asked the blind Butch about her lover
beating her, the Butch was still trying to protect her abusive ex, and said “there
was violence in our relationship,” which actually implicated her. So I asked if she
had ever hit her lover, and she said no.). And these abusers of Butches were
Radical Feminists! We can only imagine how often this happens.
It’s true that many Butches are so self-hating that they worship Hard Fems
beyond what would make an equal relationship (although others of us find that
look repulsive). Butches aren’t unique in this. Other oppressed people often
value those who try to assimilate to look more like their oppressor, which is why
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so many Fems pass as het. I see most Fems where I live also being more
attracted to Hard Fems than to Lesbians who look like Dykes, whether Fem or
Butch. It feels like the patriarchal media has won out, after all these years of
bombarding us with ugly male-defined “beauty.” It’s not just that many/most
Lesbians want to be lovers with women who look like movie stars – they want to
be seen to be lovers with women who look like movie stars. In my old
community, these extremely feminine women would have been looked at warily,
as if they might not be truly Lesbians. This isn’t being unfair – Hard Fems who do
follow male rules of how women are supposed to look are more likely to have
chosen men in the past and to go back to men.
Women, like other colonized people, have been given a caricatured, fetishized
representation of how we are not only supposed to dress, but move, gesture,
talk, laugh, think, etc. Most women learn unnatural patterns of behaving while
being little girls when they are punished for acting naturally and rewarded when
obeying male rules. Butch girls, with no support and no role models, refuse to
obey the male rules.
What is heart-breaking is how much self-hatred there is among Butches. Some
have been encouraged by their Hard Fem lovers to believe and say that Butches
have “male privilege” — which of course is not true. Butches are never treated
as men. Butches are treated as the most abnormal freaks among Lesbians. Fems
usually can make more money, have more status (as “real” women) with family,
friends, and in the rest of patriarchy, and are more likely to own houses as a
result of having had husbands, careers, and sometimes families who gave them
money. (Butches are more likely to be disowned, and more Butches are class-
oppressed, and there is a higher percentage of Butches of Color than European-
descent.)
Then there is the lesbophobic myth that identifying as Butch means we play
roles. Yet Lesbians can be outrageously Fem and not be accused of role-playing.
I have never played roles. Daring to discuss differences does not mean we play
roles. Identifying as Butch does not mean playing roles — it means identifying
with the choice we made as little girls, against all odds, as well as being a
marginalized, oppressed, invisibilized minority in Lesbian communities. We get it
in the het world for being the most out, obvious Lesbians, and we get it in our
own communities. Are working class Lesbians who identify as working class
accused of playing roles about class? (This is again about Butches being
insultingly categorized as only a sexual identity, pornifying us.)
It doesn’t help that almost the only books about Butches are in anthologies
edited by Fems and bisexual women who further Butch-hating stereotypes. What
I have seen in decades of being out as Butch is that it’s Fems who have pushed
Butches into role-playing, partly because it makes the Fems feel less scarily
Lesbian. Sado-masochism, including using dildos, is part of that and is absolutely
mainstream among het women as well as non-feminist Fems. (Yet ridiculous
comments are made, like by a Fem who was planning a “sex” workshop and said
that she’d have to keep an eye on all of her dildos to stop Butches from stealing
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them. Why would any Butch want an ugly dildo? At another event, a Fem threw
her large collection of dildos out into the Lesbian audience.)
At a Butch Voices conference dinner, I brought up how upset I was that a
workshop organizer assumed all Butches used dildos, calling it “Butch cock.” I
asked how many of us have been sexually assaulted by pricks and all that they
represent, comparing dildos to sado-masochist use of Nazi paraphernalia in
scenes. A Hard Fem bisexual patronizingly lectured me about how much better
sex was using objects. I answered that something is seriously wrong if a Lesbian
prefers silicone in the shape of a prick instead of the feel of her lover’s hands and
body, and why would someone want to use such an offensive object on her lover,
instead of feeling her? No way was this het-looking woman in full make-up going
to bully me into believing that the incredible loving, wild, and passionate love-
making I have shared with lovers would be improved with ugly male objects. She
finally resorted to telling me that it probably was too late to change at my age –
an ageist version of the usual sado-masochist taunt implying I was a prude or
had never heard of dildos before. I’d been saying no to repulsive dildos since first
being told about them when I was 14.
I have heard other Butches say that although they hate dildos, they have been
pressured to use them on ex-het Fem lovers, for obvious reasons. The first
Lesbian I knew told me how she had found other Lesbians in a bar community
run by bisexual prostitutes in1965. As a teenaged Butch, they were training her
in what “real women” want. She felt so disgusted and used by these women that
she left and never again tried to find a Lesbian community.
I wonder how many of those women who want their lover to use dildos are
fantasizing about being with a man. By using objects, they can disconnect, as
opposed to being completely present, loving, feeling, and being felt by another
woman, which is a continual reminder that they are Lesbians and are doing
things that can still be punished by death in some countries.
A horrific aspect of role-playing that I recently heard about is the so-called
“Stone Fem,” who will only be lovers with a Stone Butch. I believe that the Stone
Butch is a Hard Fem creation since I have never known of a Butch who willingly,
happily said she wanted to not be loved and never wanted to be made love to.
What I have heard is Butches talking painfully about Fem “lovers” who refused
to make love to them with equal passion, attention, time, and love, or refused to
ever touch them, while they were expected to make love to the Fem for hours,
whenever she wanted. Once you fall in love with and are committed to a woman,
it can be very hard to acknowledge, even to yourself, that she doesn’t love you
equally, or at all.
I believe some Butches, and particularly those without support, do sometimes
end up as Stone Butches because it can feel less painful to take on that identity
than to continually face inequality in love and love-making. After years of bad
treatment, some just stop hoping for real love, and shut down. It’s a travesty
that some Fems have fetishized such a traumatic aspect of Butch oppression. I
can’t imagine how some Fems can justify identifying as “Stone Fems.” It’s like
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declaring, “I really am an incredibly selfish, misogynist, Lesbian-hating, and

Butch-hating woman and am proud of it. I just want to be the complete center of
love, attention, and pleasure, and I want to make my lover feel alone, unloved,
and worthless. Aren’t I wonderful?”
I believe the “Lesbian Bed Death” myth is usually about the Fem or both Fems
(since the majority of Lesbian relationships are two Fems together), stopping
wanting to make love. Butches are much less likely to stop, no matter what
horrific childhood and other sexual assaults they’ve suffered. Even when a
Lesbian otherwise appears as Butch, this intimate detail of wanting to be
passionate in love-making and to make love to their lover is a defining
characteristic of being Butch.
25 Years Later...
So how are things for Butches now, since 1990, when we published our chapter
on Butch oppression in “Dykes-Loving-Dykes?”
Well, things seem mostly a lot worse – some of which we predicted, based on
how mainstream and assimilated and Lesbian-hating many Lesbians were
becoming. But some of it has still been a shock. I have never seen or heard such
overt hatred of Butches among Lesbians as I’m hearing now.
In my old Lesbian Feminist and Separatist community from the Seventies, there
was disapproval about role-playing, (which I still agree with, but not for the
reasons said then), sometimes falsely blamed on Butches by the lesbophobic, yet
Butches were more respected and appreciated than now. Even without clear
politics about what it meant to be Butch, there was an awareness that Butches
were the most visible of Lesbians who had kept Lesbian existence known while
other Lesbians were passing and hiding. Some of the out Butches were
appreciated and acknowledged for having created our Lesbian Feminist
community with their brilliant Radical Lesbian Feminist politics, articles, poetry,
books, music, etc. Looking like a Dyke was valued, so most Lesbians, even most
of the Hard Fems, cut their hair, wore trousers and boots, and the infamous
flannel shirts. We didn’t wear “men’s” clothes. We rejected the flimsy,
demeaning, and restrictive clothes men ordered us to wear, and we proudly wore
our Dyke clothes, which were handsome, practical, comfortable, cheaper,
sturdier, and safer (in terms of being able to defend ourselves, do physical work,
and not be such a target for male harassment or attack). We were saying yes to
being Lesbians and no to men.
The only reason I can think of why Lesbians make fun of that time and of how we
looked is that they are embarrassed by so many women being so clearly out and
rejecting male rules, and they want to police us into being less threatening and
more assimilated. (You would think they invested in the cosmetics and other
industries selling male-invented femininity.) Some of Fems from that time talk
bitterly about the “pressure” they felt to look like Lesbians, ignoring the
punishing and sometimes lethal pressure and harassment in the patriarchal world
(from family, het women and male friends, at work, from strangers, etc. to look
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more het/feminine). They are still furious that there was a brief time in history
when they did not dominate Lesbian communities with their Fem supremacist
politics. Not enough to have the rest of patriarchy reflecting and rewarding them,
they wanted no woman to say no to them. Some of them also still deny being
Fem, and yet it is their core identity.
Most of the Lesbians I know now pass as het. The more extremely male-defined
feminine a Lesbian is, the more valued she is. Occasionally, there are defensive
comments like, “What do you mean? What does a Lesbian look like?” But that’s
game-playing since we all really do know exactly what Lesbians look like,
especially since so many women are devoted to not looking like a Lesbian.
(Some of the same women now pretending to be confused about identifying
Lesbians in the past joined with their men in ridiculing and harassing us. Some of
the women now glaring or smirking at us at public places where Lesbians are
gathered (since we have none of our own places left), proudly having their man
on their arm, will later come into our community saying how they were victims of
those men they once bragged about, demanding and getting attention and
support from the Lesbians they still oppress.)
Looking like a Lesbian means looking the way patriarchy forbids us to look, and it
deeply threatens those who support patriarchy. It means looking free and being
able to recognize each other in public. It means being proud to not assimilate or
succumb to the pressure to feminize, including saying “I don’t want to waste my
time and money trying to make myself fit impossible standards that leave most
women feeling inadequate.” Looking like a Dyke also means looking far more
attractive.
There is a high price to pay for always looking like an out Dyke. It can mean
being threatened, attacked verbally and physically, being harassed by family,
being disowned, being hated and ridiculed, being evicted, losing jobs, not getting
jobs, etc. Young Lesbians have been locked up in mental hospitals by their
families and tortured. Out Lesbians are raped and killed for looking like Dykes,
and Butches are even more targeted (as Teena Brandon was.)
Many Lesbians who are not Butch get Lesbian oppression. The more Dyke a Fem
looks, the worse she’s treated. But Butches do not or cannot pass as het, even
the few who try. That creates a whole other level of oppression. But it’s how
Butches are treated in Lesbian communities that I’m focusing on, because if we
can’t treat Butches as equals and with respect in our own communities, there
isn’t much hope elsewhere.
For the first time, I am hearing Lesbians point out particularly attractive Butches,
saying “She’s so ugly. She looks just like a man.” Well, no, she doesn’t look like
a man at all. She looks the opposite. The policing is so extreme, that I’m even
hearing such insults said about stereotypically “cute” Fems with painted toenails,
just because they have short hair and look like Lesbians. It is not a safe time and
place to be an Out Lesbian among Lesbians, let alone a Butch.
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In just one week recently, I heard three Butch-hating comments from Lesbians.
(And I can only imagine how much harder these onslaughts are for Butches with
no support.)
On a hike, two Fems began commiserating about how hard it had been for them
in college to find Lesbians to identify with because the only Lesbians they’d seen
were Butch. (From experience, I’m guessing those “Butches” were probably
mostly Dyke Fems since there aren’t that many Butches.) It didn’t occur to these
Lesbians that by adhering to mainstream standards of how women are supposed
to look, they were making it impossible for other Lesbians to find them. It’s as if
they thought it was Lesbians’ responsibility to seek out and rescue them. The
“Butches” took risks to be so visible, yet instead of being appreciated, they were
criticized. Would it have been better for all the Lesbians to pass as het at those
colleges? I think the real issue is that looking so Dykey was and is threatening to
those Lesbians. But why? What are they really scared of?
I think it comes back to the fear of being “abnormal” and not fitting in (“what will
people think?”) – and daring to challenge rigid male rules of how females are
“supposed” to look, which women continue to enforce. I frequently read Lesbian
writers being very impressed with women displaying the various trendy feminine
styles that pretend to be wild, outrageous, and edgy with piercings, tattoos,
elaborate hair styles, shaved heads, high heels, etc. – but these are just
variations on how women are expected and demanded to look. It is Butches and
Dyke Fems, who are truly showing courage and, by their existence, are
threatening patriarchy.
I don’t understand why so many women don’t seem capable or willing to
understand basic feminist politics, like that “femininity” is male – male-invented,
male-identified, and a caricature of true femaleness. It’s a colonized status, with
obvious parallels with other colonized people who are pressured to assimilate. It
is a demeaned appearance, demanded of women to display their supposed
inferiority, and especially their subservience to men. Yet like other ways that
oppressed people assimilate, femininity is greatly rewarded in patriarchy,
including by other women. (Some feminists pretend that the women playing
feminine are treated terribly by men and are victims, forgetting how other
women also reward them and how they then police women who refuse male
rules.) That’s part of why it’s such a joke for men to dress in drag – they love to
humiliate women. Nothing about “femininity” is female. It’s a con and a trick of
patriarchy. Yet, most women wholeheartedly accept and identify with it, and will
defend it so rigidly and irrationally that they refuse to even think about the issue.
Again, why is this so terrifying to explore?
The flip side of women’s fear of being too “other” is women being extremely
concerned about protecting some people who claim to be oppressed for being
“Other” — even though those people have far more privilege than Butches.
During that same week of the hike, I went to a Lesbian brunch where a Hard
Fem was telling us about how terribly difficult it was for F2Ts (Female to
Testosterone – women who pretend to be men.) I answered that they are
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women who no longer want to be us, and no longer want to be oppressed as

women and/or Lesbians. (People can’t change sex any more than they can
change species. They are women opting for privilege at our expense. I’ve
heard/read some say that they want to be men to get better jobs, more “chicks,”
and because they dread becoming “old women.” I do not understand why we are
expected to not only support them, but to put their desires above Lesbians,’
other than that usually everyone is considered more important than Lesbians.)
I had just begun to protest the comment, when the het-looking woman began to
lecture me with the trans cult line: “You have no idea what it’s like to grow up
never feeling like you fit in.” Seriously? Had she not bothered to look at
me? Anyone can tell immediately on seeing me that I grew up exactly like she
had described – knowing I never fit in as a “normal,” proper feminine girl. I have
always felt like an outsider because I hated and rejected male-identified
“femininity” from my earliest memories. I had no politics or support — not one
book or film that showed Lesbians in anything other than the most horrible,
degrading, terrifying stereotypes. You certainly couldn’t turn on the television
like now, and see much-loved public Lesbians. Meanwhile, many F2Ts actually
are Fem or het/bisexual women (who want sexual access to Gay men) who grew
up fitting in quite well. But here was an example of the experiences of Butches
being taken from us – appropriated – by a privileged Fem who was oppressing a
less privileged Butch on behalf of F2Ts who had betrayed us both.
Meanwhile, for the feminists wanting to support women to not want to
“transition,” they really should think about if they look het and male-identified
feminine that their choice makes it much harder for any woman who refuses
male rules, making them feel further alone and like freaks. Or: Meanwhile,
feminists who want to support women to reject “transitioning” should realize that
their own choices to look het and male-identified feminine makes it much harder
for any woman to reject male rules, because that makes them feel more alone,
marginalized, and perceived as “freaks”. Perhaps if they don’t care about how
Butches are oppressed, they will care at least for the het, bisexual, and Lesbian
Fems who say they are men.
Then another Hard Fem at the brunch told us about how her nineteen year old
daughter was a Butch who was lovers with another teenaged Butch. To me, this
sounded rare and wonderful. But the mother was very upset because her
daughter’s lover was “too Butch” and she preferred her to be with a more
“womanly” Lesbian. When I protested, the first woman said confidingly to me,
“It’s really more about class.” Meaning the young Butch was just too blatantly
poverty class to be good enough for her daughter.
Sometimes I despair about Lesbians and women. But then I remember what all
this means politically – it is clearly about the worshipping of patriarchal
oppressive standards which too many women have adopted as their own – and
that means that these attitudes and ways of hurting other women can be
changed, just as some formerly right wing women have changed and now fight
for justice. But unlike with other issues of privilege and oppression, specifically
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Lesbian issues are ignored. Our communities have been inundated with women
who were determinedly het, sometimes for decades, often with the privilege and
arrogance that that means. Unless they examine and change their lesbophobic
and Lesbian-hating attitudes and politics, they undermine and destroy our
communities.
The reason we wrote our book was to explain the internal factors among
Lesbians and feminists that keep us from fully allying and fighting patriarchy.
Recognizing female-hating and Lesbian-hating – which means recognizing all the
ways that women who are more allied with, identified with, and committed to
patriarchal standards betray Lesbians and women who have rejected those male
rules – is the only way we can have truly loving, diverse and egalitarian Lesbians
communities. This is in addition to fighting other oppressions among us, such as
racism, classism, ableism, ageism, fat oppression, etc. Other feminists have
written about these issues, but almost no one has named the oppression of
Butches, Lifelong Lesbians, and Never-het Lesbians in Lesbian communities as
well as in patriarchy. If anything, growing up as a lone Lesbian or Butch, feeling
like you never belonged, being ostracized and put down by other girls, family,
neighborhoods, schools, etc. is said to be “lucky” or a “privilege.”
Lesbians who betray other Lesbians on behalf of patriarchy, to make themselves
more comfortable, do end up hurting themselves as well. But they still benefit
from the power they wield over other Lesbians, sometimes including their own
daughters.
I experienced another example of common anti-Lesbian attitudes recently at a
Lesbian party in a town known for being right wing and mainstream. A Lesbian I
was talking with said that she felt different from the others at the party. Since
common introductions at some of these events consist of: “What do you do?”
(career talk), “My children…,” “My grandchildren…,” I was very curious how she
felt different. But then she said, “I’m more suburban, I don’t like the word
Lesbian, and I want to be more normal.” She looked almost startled for a
moment when she realized what she’d said. She’s not the only one to feel like
that. Self-hatred is sad enough, but it’s worse when it affects other Lesbians as
well.
Femininity Is a Choice
I want to talk about how assimilating into men’s rules for how girls and women
“should” look hurts Butches, but I also don’t want to upset my friends who do
choose to look male-defined feminine. There are many compromises that we all
make. I have a Dyke Separatist friend in her twenties who said, “I have to look
like this — gesturing to her long, styled hair and feminine clothing — if I want a
lover.” It’s not true, but any increase in privilege does give an increase in
options. If it’s that difficult for someone who’s prime age, how much harder is it
for old Lesbians who are being subjected to ageism as well as disapproval for
looking like Dykes?
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Looking extremely feminine also improves Lesbians’ and women’s career options.
Some women singer/songwriter/musicians know that being respected, with their
skill and talent recognized and appreciated, is greatly influenced by how they
look. They are expected to look “beautiful” by feminine standards. I don’t
criticize them or any woman for this, but I just want to stir awareness for women
to support women who will not or cannot fit male dictates for what a woman is
supposed to look like.
I don’t mean to make anyone who chooses to look feminine feel bad. But there is
no way to talk about the increase in butchphobia and Butch-hatred without
talking about enforcement of male-created femininity. We can’t stop societal and
male hatred of us, but women can stop policing girls and other women to obey
male rules. And since women who fit in with patriarchal standards are more likely
to be listened to and taken seriously, het Radical Feminists can be important
allies and friends.
Lesbian oppression (for being Lesbians) hits Butches much harder than Fems.
That is part of why we all need to be aware of it and acknowledge it. Far too
many Butches (particularly those who are also oppressed by classism and
racism) have already died far too young. Being hated and scapegoated in
mainstream patriarchy, among feminists, and even among our own Lesbian
people takes a severe toll. (In one year, three Butch friends died from cancer.
One had been horribly humiliated and harassed at her birthday party when her
family and Lesbian friends ganged up to tell her she should wear dresses.
Another time, her Lesbian friends slathered her in grotesque makeup to go to a
Lesbian event, to “make her be more like a girl.” She was more of a girl than
they ever could be. Even an extreme Fem friend was horrified by how unnatural
she looked. I didn’t live near her, so didn’t see her often, and can only imagine
what else they did to her. Our immune systems are definitely affected by stress.)
If all Lesbians made sure they were visibly Lesbians, instead of most now
passing, that would dramatically change things for us. When the subject comes
up, most Lesbians profess to not understanding at all what it means to be Butch
or Fem, other than extreme role-playing caricatures. Yet, each woman does daily
make a conscious decision about how she will look in the world. There is even a
distinct look that some Fems choose, which seems to be a kind of uniform or
signal identifying them as Lesbians but which is still clearly Fem and not any way
that a Butch would choose to look.
For those who don’t feel safe being out, do try to help fight Lesbian-hating and
Butch-hating when you can. For women choosing femininity, do think about why
you make that choice. Is it out of fear of harassment? Is it to look “attractive?”
For Fems attracted to Butches, you clearly find that look attractive, so why not
choose it for yourself? If your reaction is about wanting to look like a “real
woman,” and you recoil at the thought of looking like a Dyke, please explore and
change your bigotry. There should be groups for Unlearning Butch-hatred and
Unlearning Lesbian-hatred as there are about other issues that divide us. Since
some non-Lesbians and het women are also working to fight male-identified
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femininity inside and outside of themselves, I want to acknowledge these women

as WFF – Women Fighting Feminization – which reflects that it is a continual and
essential process for fighting patriarchy. (An example is our wonderful friend and
ally, Megan Mackin, a non-Lesbian, who, in an effort to be supportive to Butches,
explored the issue of rejecting femininity at her blog.)
“Why don’t Lesbians just stop separating and identifying as different? That’s
divisive. I don’t even know what a Butch is anyway.”
Well, I guess that’s because you aren’t one and don’t notice or don’t care how
we’re being treated. (Most Butches do understand and know who they are, even
those in denial.) We wouldn’t need to identify separately if we weren’t made to
feel like we don’t belong — if we weren’t being treated as different, other,
inferior (including/especially in lover relationships with Fems). Typically, in
patriarchy, the most privileged, especially if they are a majority, dominate. They
either drive out those they oppress or they bully and insult. Their dominant
position is too often taken for granted. Many Fems, particularly those who
identify as “radical feminists” and claim to not be Fem, question why the
existence of Butches is even mentioned. This is exactly how most het feminists
treat Lesbians.
Because Butches are a barometer of Lesbian oppression and because the more
Butches are maligned, the worse it is for all Lesbians, it’s in all Lesbians’ interest
to support Butches. But we completely upset the het-identified world of “normal”
lesbophobic Lesbians. The same thing also happens when ex-het Lesbians are
dominating a conversation with assumptions that we all have been het, and
make jokes about “virgins.” Do we object and say we exist, or do we not put
ourselves through the inevitable harassment and attempts to humiliate? It is all
about the most privileged Lesbians’ experiences and lives being the most
recognized and valued. It’s the classic situation that happens with other issues of
privilege and oppression, except that those with otherwise radical politics, too
often revert to being right wing when it comes to specifically Lesbian
oppressions.
For those who just can’t handle their Lesbian-hating bigotry about the existence
of Butches, do you really mean to be asking “How dare you exist and how dare
you make those of us looking down on you uncomfortable?” Do we not have the
right to say we exist and to discuss how and why we are treated differently from
other Lesbians and other women?
Whenever a Lesbian says she doesn’t understand why anyone identifies as Butch,
that’s because she’s not Butch and it doesn’t affect her. She’s not hurt for being
Butch or she would understand. It’s similar to het women not understanding the
importance of Lesbians identifying as Lesbians. (Although there is a difference,
because het women could choose to be Lesbians. The Butch choice is made in
childhood.) We need to define ourselves because we are not represented in the
dominant culture or in most Lesbian cultures. We are rarely, if ever, represented
in media images of Lesbians or we’re presented as a horrible stereotype or a
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joke. Sometimes we’re commented on as a prurient interest of Fems who

objectify us.
We are treated as Butch whether we want to be or not. Those who profess to not
understand what this issue is about, do treat Butches differently. It’s like those
who profess to be unaware of class or classism, claiming to be “class-free.”
That’s a privileged option for those in the power position because they are not
the ones being treated as inferior, which happens to the class-oppressed whether
we identify or not – and the oppressiveness is still there because people do
know, whether they are honest with themselves or not. Those of us who are
aware of these issues can see it clearly even in personal and written interactions.
Those who deny the existence of class or of Lesbian or Butch oppression are
more likely to use their privilege to control, intimidate, and hurt others. Those
who dominate always insist there is no oppression. This is what men do to
women in denying that misogyny and patriarchy exist.
I often wonder what Lesbians who deny the existence of Butches think when
they hear men and het women and the media joke about us. Do they cringe and
then vow to be more obedient to male rules so no het would ever take them for
such a despised creature? In spite of Butches being a joke in the mainstream
and even Lesbian media, there is so much pressure to feminize girls and women
that they rarely show a real Butch. When a “Butch” is mentioned, it’s a feminine
woman who is less made up and less drag queen-looking, but who is still clearly
not Butch. Even The L Word television series had not one Butch. Orange Is the
New Black has a grotesque Butch caricature played by prurient actor Lea
DeLaria, who has said she is Fem and has public feminine photos of herself, but
she still looks enough like a Butch stereotype to play the travesty of a real Butch.
It’s ironic that the “Bechdel test,” which is used to determine how sexist a film is,
came from Alison Bechdel, who never once drew a Butch in her syndicated
cartoon series, Dykes to Watch Out For, (now in book form) — even though
she drew it over decades and showed an otherwise diverse Lesbian community.
Yet Bechdel was capable of drawing a boy pissing on a Lesbian and semen
dripping from a condom. Many Lesbians thought her non-monogamous, trannie-
supporting, genderqueer sado-masochist Fem character with a crewcut, Lois, was
Butch, but her look and behavior were the opposite of Butch. Male money and a
television network was behind The L Word, but Bechdel’s work was her own
choice. Both of these, like the most public “Lesbian sex” books, which were
actually written written by bisexual women, did great harm to our Lesbian
culture and communities by normalizing and giving a trendy status to porn and
sado-masochism and the trans cult
Again, what are they so afraid of?
The horror of being called Butch is used to terrorize girls and women into being
even more artificial and male-identified feminine. Most women want to placate
their oppressors, who, after all, are dangerous. Women then police girls and
other women on behalf of men. (Very important to not anger Daddy.) Women
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who are the most threatening to men are the most policed. This can be subtle –
with constant suggestions about “improving appearance,” which just happen to
fit in more with male standards – or less subtle, like open ridicule of Butches and
Dyke Fems.
Identifying as Butch can bring up self-hatred since “Butch” is a term so used
against us with contempt, but it can also give us pride and a way to share
support and culture with others. I believe that identifying who we are gives us a
means and language to connect with others and defend ourselves against bad
treatment.
For those who do love women and Lesbians enough to care, it is easy to learn
about who Butches are. I have friends who can immediately recognize Butches.
Many can do it from just seeing a photograph or hearing a voice. As a Fem friend
said, “Just look around. Butch oppression is obvious.” There is a Butch look that
is instantly recognizable. I have seen that same exact look among American
Indian, African-American, Maori, Thai, Bangladeshi, Indian, Iranian, Israeli,
Chinese, Filipina, Mexican, Serbian, English, French, German, US (from so many
backgrounds and races) Butches.
Identity Appropriation Is Not a Form of Flattery

Another part of the objectification of Butches is when Fems claim to be Butches.
It’s not uncommon for Radical Lesbian Feminists who are threatened by the
mention of Butch existence to claim that they were never feminine as girls. (Even
het women actors brag in their biographies that they were ‘real tomboys,”
although their girlhood photos could not look more feminine. Ironically, real
Butches hated being called “tomboys” as girls because we didn’t want to be
identified with our attackers, boys, in any way.) In spite of many Fems’ attempts
to prevent Butch oppression from being discussed and to erase our identity,
there seems to be a deep awareness that Butches fought patriarchy from the
beginning, and so some envy us. I’ve even heard a Fem who came out in her
fifties and is an Hard Fem who bonds with other Hard Fems in public about
makeup tips, say that if she’d come out sooner, she’d be Butch. Well, then why
not try to look as much like a Butch now, and support your lover and other
Butches?
It’s very unfair for the same women who as girls taunted and ridiculed little
Butch girls (do they think we don’t remember?) to now claim our identity, even
while some of them still look extremely feminine and would never be taken to be
a Lesbian. Somehow we are both despised and yet considered trendy.
What is even more upsetting is that many of these Fems are publicly posing and
posturing as offensive Butch stereotypes in photo collections and organizations
that claim to be Butch. And they always outnumber the real Butches.
Then there are Fems who want their lover to be Butch and there are not that
many Butches, so they push a more Dykey Fem into the Butch role of taking the
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brunt of Lesbian oppression when they are out together, and to do for them
things that Butches often do, like accept inequality in love-making.
Other Fems decide to be authorities of what it means to be Butch and even write
incredibly Butch-hating propaganda. An example is Carolyn Gage’s “The Lesbian
Butch: Hope of the Planet from Supplemental Sermons for a Lesbian Revival
Tent.” Val Miller and I co-wrote a response
https://bevjoradicallesbian.wordpress.com/2011/04/27/please-stop-butch-
hatred-critique-of-the-lesbian-butch-hope-of-the-planet-by-carolyn-gage/
It’s become standard in Lesbian communities that no one is allowed to question
anyone’s self-identity, no matter how bizarre, making it extremely difficult to
object to extremely feminine woman being in Butch groups. Appropriating our
identity is one thing, but it’s even more harmful when Fems get into power
positions in Butch organizations, and control and influence the direction of the
group into Butch-hating politics.
Some Fems ban real Butches from Butch groups. I was in such a “Butch” group
for a year (our goal was to organize an ongoing female-identified Butch groups)
with a Fem who was stereotypically feminine in appearance, body language, and
gestures, even constantly mentioned her children (Butch mothers aren’t common
and they also don’t refer to being mothers as frequently in political groups). She
also identified as a “Leather top” (otherwise known as a “sadist”) and brought a
bull whip to every meeting — I believe partly to try to intimidate me. (She just
looked silly while brandishing her whip.) Half the original group quit or were
kicked out, until I was left with the Fem and her Butch ally. I was soon also
kicked out, leaving the “Butch” group to be led by one Butch and one Fem sadist.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that most of the women claiming to be Butch who
use male pronouns for themselves are actually Fem. A number of Fems and even
het/bisexual women have claimed to be Butch and later claim to be F2Ts, which
leads many people to think that the majority of these women are/were Butch. In
Loren Cameron’s book, “Body Alchemy,” the “before” photos show adult feminine
women who “transitioned” to male. Many of these women (like Loren herself and
Pat Califia) later claim to be Gay men because they return to being sexual with
men. They are het or bisexual women who are a “trans” version of fag hags.
Some Butches became het when they were isolated and pressured, before
finding other Lesbians. I have never known a Butch in a Lesbian community to
go het.
Many of these women even use mannerisms and speaking styles that are like
stereotypical Gay men, reflecting how influenced they are by Gay men.
But the worst appropriation I’ve seen happened at the Butch Voices conference
in 2012, where it was bad enough that Fems posing as Butches were in power
positions. Even while forbidding us to present any female-identified Butch
workshops, they allowed two workshops by men claiming to be Butch. The men
simply looked like drag queens with mannerisms and voice patterns similar to
Gay men and were nothing like women and even less like Butches. One of them,
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Tobi Hill-Meyer, who was raised by Lesbians, was then welcomed onto a board of
Butch Voices, even though he has had no surgery and is a pornographer who
posts photos of his prick online.
These men had no shame about appropriating our identity and rare space. I
really feel that if they could kill real Butches and take our skin, they would. But
like with all men masquerading as Lesbians, they can never have what they most
want – they can never have consensual sexual access and passion with a
Lesbian, because any woman who would agree to be intimate with them is no
longer be a Lesbian.
Butch-Hatred Is Lesbian-Hatred
by Bev Jo, Linda Strega, and Ruston
We originally wrote this chapter as two articles that countered the
increasing glorification of male-identified femininity and role-playing in
most Lesbian publications and among individual Lesbians.1This
reactionary trend is part of the growing acceptance of heterosexist
values among Lesbians in all the countries we have information about.
We have to fight it, because ignoring it means contributing to it.
Part 1 - Butch Oppression

Butch oppression is a difficult issue to deal with because there are so many
conflicting definitions of what it is to be Fem or Butch. Butches are the Lesbians
who, as girls, rejected patriarchal male rules to feminize, and refused to play the
role designed by men for women. Fem Lesbians are those who accepted that
male-defined feminine, to various degrees, as girls.
We use the term Butch oppression (and Fem privilege) for what many Lesbians
call “roles” and “role-playing.” “Roles,” as it’s usually used, implies that Butches
and Fems have equal power or that only Lesbians who define themselves as
“Butch” or “Fem” are in roles. But this is a political issue of power inequality —
and is as serious and real as any other inequality that Dykes work to change. Our
language should name the real core of the issue. “Butch oppression” makes it
clear that Fems have the power and the privilege over Butches.
We use the word “roles” to mean the basic core identities of Butch and Fem that
all Lesbians have developed in childhood (and which are not a result of genetics
or hormones.) We say “role-playing” to mean deliberate role-playing as well as
all the ways Fems maintain power over Butches, including sexual and social
behavior, political beliefs, appearance, self-image, and manner.
We want to make it clear that we’re against role-playing. Acknowledging
Butch oppression does not mean supporting role-playing. To think that it does is
like saying acknowledging Lesbian existence supports stereotypes against
Lesbians. When we talk about all Lesbians being Butch or Fem, we’re using
these definitions to make it possible for Butch oppression to be fought. Just as
it’s impossible to fight classism if some Lesbians claim to be class-free, it’s
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impossible to end role-playing as long as some Lesbians deny their Butch and
Fem core identities.
This is a complex issue. The terms are loaded, the definitions are contradictory,
and, more than any other issue among Lesbians, the thought of it brings up
intense Lesbian-hatred. To admit your Butch and Fem core identity in a
responsible way means declaring your commitment to strong Dyke identity,
which takes a lot of courage. Unfortunately, most Lesbians who openly identify
themselves as Fem (and to a lesser extent, Butch) aren’t doing it responsibly, or
even accurately. They’re just glorifying role-playing as “sexy” and “fun.” But
role-playing, including the intense versions played by Lesbians who deny they
play Butch and Fem core identities, is hurtful and damaging to Lesbians,
individually and as communities.
The male origin of femininity is clear. We agree with the basic feminist writings of
the early 1970′s that rejected all forms of femininity. Men demand that women
caricature ourselves for men’s benefit. Identifying and rejecting that crap is the
way to find our true, innate female selves. Even non-Lesbian feminists worked on
these politics in consciousness-raising groups in the past.
We are so subjected to the propaganda of femininity being natural womanhood
that it can be hard to see through the lies. For instance, growing up with
caricatured images of female cartoon animals from our earliest memories has an
impact. Look at real wild female animals – not the poor inbred pets with pink
bows in their fur – and you see none of the mannerisms and movements that
we’re taught are intrinsically female.
Yet many Lesbians, including those who consider themselves radical, still admire
and emulate that male facade. They’ve embraced femininity. Even though it is so
clearly a self-absorbed, narcissistic, unnatural state, these Lesbians believe that
it is true femaleness, and so they set up Femness as the acceptable norm for
Lesbians.
Besides the obvious signs of femininity in clothes, makeup, and mannerisms, and
in articles glorifying femininity in Lesbian and feminist publications, there are
also subtle undercurrents of feminization among Lesbians. In this chapter, we
confront both the obvious and the subtle. Looking past the tangle of lies we’re
taught from the moment we’re born means facing the fact of being Lesbian in a
whole new way — a reality that’s far removed from the world of “normal” het
women.
There are differences among Fems: The extremely feminine Hard Fems are at
one end of the scale — they internalize male ideals of womanhood, which
requires continually viewing themselves as if through men’s minds until men’s
ideals feel like their own. At the other end, Dyke-identified Fems are repulsed by
most aspects of femininity. Fems’ Lesbianism is obviously a major resistance
against male values and male appropriation of women. But our basic femininity
and recognition by the het world as “women” remains. (Since we’re two Fems
and one Butch, we generally use the terms “we” when writing about both
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groups.) We can choose to grow less feminine in thought, action, manner, looks,
and clothes. However, nothing can change the fact that Fems grew up feeling
accepted as real girls and real women, and so were spared the agony,
punishment, abuse, and self-doubt of being ostracized as “abnormal.” Most
likely, the reason girls become feminine is the same reason Lesbians choose to
remain feminine, go back to being more feminine, or pressure other Lesbians to
become feminine –that is, so they can fit in, feel acceptable, and not think of
themselves as unnatural.
I’ve often heard Fems say, in defense of men who claim to be Lesbians, “You
have no idea what it feel like to grow up never feeling like you fit in or belong.”
Yet, unlike most of these men, that is exactly what Butch girls feel like growing
up. But typically, men’s feelings are considered more important than women’s.
Most Butches who acknowledge being Butch clearly remember hating and
resisting femininity when we were little girls. This is more than being a “tomboy,”
which many Fems claim to have been. A Butch’s resistance brings extreme
punishment: she’s described as abnormal, queer, a woman-who-wants-to-be-a-
man; she’s often beaten, raped, institutionalized, psychiatrically tortured
(including being subjected to electroshock, drugs, and psychosurgery), and/or
disowned by her family, for not “acting like a woman.” Her resistance does not
EVER win her the privileges that men keep for themselves. Because men know
she’s indeed a female, and a most rebellious one, she’s made an example of for
all contemplating resistance. She has “stepped out of her proper place” and
“gotten above herself.” Butch oppression originates with men saying, in effect,
“This is how patriarchy punishes resisters.”
Many Fems, especially Separatists, are strongly Dyke-identified and genuinely
want all Dykes to have equal, loving friendships and relationships. Adoration of
femininity is no more acceptable to Dyke-identified Fems than it is to aware
Butches, and that’s why we (Linda and Ruston), as Fem Dykes, are as willing to
fight Fem privilege as Butch Dykes are. Becoming aware for the first time that
being Fem puts you in a position of privilege can be disturbing, but that hasn’t
stopped many Fems from taking that new awareness as a chance to strengthen
our Dyke identities and work toward stronger Dyke communities.
For many Dykes, the very mention of Butch and Fem is upsetting because it
seems to prove male lies about us. One of the most common stereotypes of
Lesbians is that we “play roles.” Therefore, many Lesbians insist roles don’t exist
or that only the most “unfeminist,” “uneducated,” “male-identified” Lesbians
“play roles.” Roles are supposed to be a thing of our “sleazy,” “perverted” past
that feminism cured. These condescending, Lesbian-hating politics discredit and
malign anyone who dares to try sorting out the complex truth, which is that most
women, whether Lesbian or het, choose to be Fem from girlhood.
Since the 1980’s, there’s been a glorification of role-playing. Some newer
Lesbians think of roles as a trendy game, imitating mainstream hets’ reactionary
return-to-the-1950′s nostalgia (with 1950′s racism, Queer-bashing, and
stagnation). Some Lesbians we’ve known who were unconsciously playing the
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Fem role began to be conscious and deliberate about it when they realized it
could increase their privilege. So roles are either considered a reactionary topic
we should avoid or the key to the hottest Lesbian sex, especially if played in an
sado-masochistic setting. Also, there are a lot of Fems who think it’s fun to play
at being Butch, the same way some class-privileged Lesbians make a game of
downward mobility. Some of these Fems are the most vocal about being “Butch,”
which adds to the general confusion about Butch and Fem core identitys. They
are also the most likely to harass other Fems for being feminine.
All these misconceptions make it very hard to even begin dealing with being
Butch or Fem in a responsible, political way. But it’s essential to do it because,
otherwise, we won’t have equality among ourselves. The issue of Butch
oppression is as complex as any other political issue that involves hierarchies
among Lesbians. As with any other inequality, ignoring it doesn’t make the
problem go away. It persists, affecting how each of us thinks and feels about
herself and other Dykes. It affects our political work, our friendships, and our
interaction with lovers. Exploring the truth about Dyke identity, including Butch
identity, is the only way to learn to truly value and love each other and ourselves
as Dykes.
Dykes who want to deal with roles aren’t responsible for roles existing. We’re
just describing them and trying to fight injustice. We don’t want Lesbians to feel
shame, guilt, fear, embarrassment, or to take offense. We’re writing to free
Dykes from those feelings. Nor are we confirming male and het lies about
Lesbians. We’re trying to make sense of a confusing situation that causes pain
and oppression for Butch Dykes. Dealing with any issue of inequality is hard and
can be painful. No matter how unjust, the status quo of injustice is familiar and
can seem safer. But the damage is severe, while the gains from fighting Butch
oppression mean happier, safer, stronger Lesbian communities for all of us.
Some of the oppressive behavior we describe may be similar to something you
find yourself doing. If you realize that it’s just a way you learned to act and
identify with, and isn’t who you are deep down inside (otherwise you wouldn’t be
a Dyke), then it’s possible to stop being oppressive without feeling personally
threatened. And if you sincerely care about the Dykes you’re oppressing and
causing pain, it’s possible to let go of old ways of behaving and change without
feeling resentful or bad.
Every Dyke we know, both Fem and Butch, who’s had the guts to bring up Butch
oppression and Fem privilege has been attacked to her face and in the Lesbian
press, and has been subjected to ridicule, condescension, slander, social
exclusion, and loss of friendships — all in an effort to suppress the
truth. Obviously we care very much about this issue and are deeply convinced of
the accuracy of our understanding, if we’re prepared to risk this sort of
reaction. Fems have usually been the most insulting, because this issue
threatens their power over Butches. Those who fear loss of privilege usually
become enraged.
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Coming out as Butch is as terrifying and difficult as coming out as a Lesbian or a

Separatist without support. The reactions are similar to what happens when
someone brings up class in a group for the first time. She usually meets with
angry resistance, denial, hostile jokes, unfair accusations, and ostracism by the
privileged, which crushes opportunities for major, positive changes in how we
think of ourselves and each other. This destroys our chances for
personal happiness and Dyke unity. Such reactions focus sympathy on the
outraged Fem, when it’s the Butch who needs support.
Fems who deny that they are Fem are actually saying Butches don’t exist. Most
Lesbians deny Butch oppression the same way that most het women deny
Lesbian oppression. Some Butches also deny that they are Butch, or that Butches
are oppressed, because for Butches, thinking about it brings pain, self-hatred,
and fear of exposure to the surface, and because exploring Butch oppression can
bring retribution from Fem lovers and friends.
When the reality of Butch and Fem identities are acknowledged by Radical
Feminist Lesbians, they usually assume that only Butches “play roles.” Fems
aren’t considered “Fem,” but are thought of as “just ordinary Lesbians,” because
we merge into the mainstream concept of normality. Being more feminine makes
us more like women are meant to be in a male-run world. These male standards
have been taken for granted for so long that they’re usually assumed to be
“natural.”
If we realize that femininity confers privilege, and therefore social power, and
not nurturance, fragility, softness, and warmth, we won’t fall for feminine
games. If we realize that resistance to femininity makes openness, honest
directness, a sense of realness, emotional intensity, passion, and Lesbian loyalty
more possible, we can release and develop more of those qualities in ourselves
and in our communities. If we don’t reject femininity and the Lesbian-hating,
self-hating politics it reflects, we’ll never have fair and equal personal or political
relationships, because we won’t be loving and valuing each other as
Lesbians. Discussions about Lesbian ethics will remain an abstract fantasy as
long as love and friendship are based on unethical game-playing, manipulation,
and objectification.
Butches as Scapegoats
Butches have kept Lesbianism alive and visible over the centuries and should be
an inspiration to us all. Butches who are out in times and places where females
are openly owned by fathers or husbands are extremely brave. They are the first
to be attacked, persecuted, imprisoned, and killed during the worst times of
female and Lesbian repression.
Butch oppression is simply a more extreme version of how all Lesbians are
treated by a heterosexist world. Men and het women often use the term “Butch”
interchangeably with “Lesbian.” Men and het women scapegoat Lesbians for
male crimes. Lesbians are portrayed as girl-molesters, when it’s men who are
the rapists, and when Lesbians ourselves are among the many girl victims of
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rape by male relatives and strangers. Men have succeeded in diverting attention
away from their own violence, teaching women to displace their real rage at and
fear of men onto Lesbians. Scapegoating Lesbians enables the het woman who
shrinks in revulsion from a Dyke on the bus or who shouts insults at a Dyke at
work, to live with, look after and defend a man who beats her and rapes her
daughters.
This scapegoating is central to Lesbian oppression. It’s become clear only
recently that most females are victims of rape by male family, making it obvious
that most males are rapists. The enormity of this terrorization is why males find
it necessary to divert attention from their crimes, in order to maintain het
women’s devotion. Butches personify Lesbianism, so the most rage and fear is
redirected at us. Butches are portrayed, by hets and Fem Lesbians, as hardened
abusers of women, when it’s men who are callously gynocidal, and when Butches
ourselves are prime targets of male violence, as well as abuse from het women
and Fems.
The existence of Butch and Fem identities have been so distorted and lied about
by hets, and Butch identity is so deeply linked with Dyke identity and Queer
oppression, that just mentioning the issue often calls forth denial, pain, anger,
and confusion among long-time Dykes. It also calls forth a stream of anti-Butch
stereotypes from reactionary ex-het Fems who haven’t rid themselves of the
lesbophobia of their het years.
Butches have the right to come out as Butch, yet when we do, reactions by other
Lesbians are often identical to how hets react to any Lesbian coming out. In
spite of all the pressure, there have always been Dykes who identify as Butch, as
well as Butches who won’t, just as there are Lesbians who are clearly out and
others who prefer to be called “women,” or “womyn.”
For decades, I’ve been asked, “Why don’t you identify as something other than
Butch?” by threatened Fems. (The last who asked me that was one third my
age.) Can you imagine asking another oppressed, marginalized, and invisiblized
Lesbian why she doesn’t just give up her identity so she won’t make those in the
dominant position uncomfortable?
A Lesbian-focused analysis of Butch oppression has to be based on what we
know about heterosexism and Lesbian-hatred. Who first accused Lesbians,
especially Butches, of being “like men?” Who first accused Lesbians of imitating
heterosexual couples? Who is the most interested in destroying our self-esteem
and making us appear repulsive to ourselves and others? Who is the most
invested in discouraging girls from resisting femininity and heterosexuality? Who
uses Lesbians, especially Butches, as scapegoats? We know men’s lies, and we
know we can extricate ourselves from yet another network of lies that damages
us at our very Dykes cores, and at the heart of our relationships with each
other. Butches are not like men. Lesbians are not the same as het
couples. Analyzing “roles” among Lesbians really means analyzing Fem privilege,
Butch oppression, and the heterosexual hierarchy that exists among
Lesbians. Instead of assuming that Butches are in a role while Fems are just
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“being themselves,” we need to recognize that it’s Fems who have accepted the
artificialities of a role, while Butches have resisted accepting those artificialities.
Het women consider themselves to be the norm of what it means to be
“womanly,” just as Fems consider femininity the standard by which all Lesbians
should be measured. This means that many, perhaps most, Fems don’t even
consider themselves to be Fem. They think of themselves simply as “Women,”
“Womyn,” or (for the most radical) “Lesbians” or “Dykes.” That’s similar to how
het women don’t think of themselves as feminine women or het women, but
simply as “women.” It’s left to us as Lesbians to say that het women don’t
represent us all, that they aren’t “the Women,” but are just one kind of female
— otherwise we end up accepting their implicit definition of us as non-female. In
the same way, we need to assert that Fems don’t represent Lesbianism or the
ideal Lesbian.
We’ve been bombarded with feminine standards since we were born, so many
Butches also believe the propaganda that Femness is the “normal” way to
be. This is similar to how the cultures of the class-privileged can seem more real
and even cozily familiar to poor and working-class Dykes than our own cultures,
because of media propaganda.
Butch oppression is so ignored that most Lesbians insist on simple definitions if
anyone dares to bring up the subject. When easy explanations aren’t possible,
they conclude that the issue isn’t real. After all, why should most Fems care
when they’re not the ones being hurt? Denying the reality of Butch oppression is
like denying any inequality — denial ensures the continuation of the oppression.
Butch oppression isn’t given validity as a political issue. Even otherwise radical
Lesbians make jokes about Butches and put us down in a way they would never
do with other oppressed groups. Although some Lesbians are opposed to
classism being discussed and fought, for instance, at least there’s a recognition
that classism exists in patriarchy and also among Lesbians.
Often Fems, and even some Butches, not only deny that Butches are oppressed,
but say that we’re oppressive to Fems. Old myths die hard, especially when the
male and het world all around us constantly pressures us to believe them. The
fact is that more Fems fit negative Butch stereotypes, including being “male-
identified” and “like men,” than Butches do. Fems who single out Butches this in
way are acting like the men and het women who say that Lesbians are as cruel
and horrible as men. Fems may find this a “terrible” thing to say, but how do
they think Butches feel to be told such things about ourselves?
We should know by now that believing stereotypes distorts our perceptions. For
example, a Fem who isn’t expressive or talkative may be perceived as “shy” and
“vulnerable” while a quiet Butch may be called “sullen,” “cold,” and “aloof.” A
Fem who shouts in anger may be perceived as “strong” and having a right to her
feelings, while a Butch raising her voice in anger is likely to be perceived as
“violent” and “domineering.”
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Butches are no more perfect than any other oppressed group. If being perfect
were necessary for someone’s oppression to be acknowledged as real, and
fought, no injustice would be fought. There are always a few individuals from
every oppressed group who happen to fit the worst stereotypes of that group,
but that doesn’t make the stereotypes true or mean that group or those
individuals deserve oppression. The fact is that there are nasty individuals from
all groups, and just as many or more individuals from the privileged group also
fit the oppressed group stereotype. Responsible Lesbians would never say
classism is irrelevant because they know mean working-class Dykes and kind
middle-class Dykes. Butch reality is so distorted and misrepresented that many
Lesbians forget to apply what they’ve learned about their own and others’
oppressions to this issue. For this reason, one way to avoid being unintentionally
reactionary is to temporarily substitute Butches in your mind with a recognized
oppressed group when you think or talk about roles.
Each of us has internalized some degree of anti-Dyke propaganda, which we take
out on ourselves and on each other. The main targets are Butches, who are also
the most pressured to internalize self-hatred. But the strong Dyke inside every
one of us is punished, repressed, and damaged by fear, hatred, and ambivalence
towards Butches — whether as Butches we internalize it against ourselves, or as
Fems we externalize it against Butches. It’s way past time for us to say No to
heterosexual demands that we hate our Dyke selves and Yes to our love for
each others’ enduring, wild, determined female/Dyke selves.
“So Give Me a Definition”

A definition is both easy and difficult. When we describe Butch and Fem, some
Lesbians immediately recognize what we mean. Those who do want to
understand will recognize themselves and other Lesbians. For others, no
definition satisfies them unless it’s a stereotype. Those who want to avoid the
issue or “just don’t understand” are expressing their resistance to the truth, just
as some het women don’t understand how anyone can be a Lesbian. The
complex realities of our Butch and Fem core identities can’t be reduced to a brief
glib sentence or two. This entire chapter is our attempt to define and explain it.
For those with awareness of Butch and Fem identities, it’s obvious. You can
usually tell when you first meet someone whether she’s Butch or
Fem. Sometimes you can tell just by hearing a Lesbian’s voice. It’s much easier,
for instance, than identifying someone’s class background when you know
nothing about them. Yet, for Lesbians who aren’t aware of who, it can seem
difficult at first.
One way to work out whether someone is Butch or Fem is to notice how you feel
around her. What’s your gut reaction? Who do you feel effeminate in relation
to? When do you feel like a clumsy clod? How “Queer” or how “normal” do you
feel around a Lesbian? When do you feel “like yourself”? Butches and less
feminine Fems tend to feel awkward or crude when they’re around the extremely
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feminine. Fems, including the least feminine, tend to feel more feminine around
a Butch.
Butches are more likely to recognize a Lesbian’s core identity because Butches
are so oppressed by role-playing. Fems who’ve also suffered because of other
Fems’ role-playing may recognize roles more easily, too. Butches tend to know
more about who is Fems, just as other oppressed groups tend to know more
about the oppressor’s culture than vice-versa. Hard Fems also recognize
immediately who’s Butch and who’s Fem, for their own predatory reasons. Hard
Fems are the most obvious role-players. Some are so feminine that they look
like drag queen Hard Fems, while others are more subtle. They may look like
strong Dykes, but their actions reveal their oppressive attitudes. Hard Fems
generally treat Butches as sex objects, treat less feminine Fems as if we were of
no consequence, and treat other Hard Fems as rivals.
Butches are closer to what all women would be like if we didn’t live in
patriarchy.
Butches are more like what we’d all be if we weren’t subjected to intense male
feminization. Butches express femaleness and Lesbianism more naturally, while
Fems’ femaleness and Lesbianism is channeled through the acquired values of
femininity. Fems share those feminine values with men and heterosexual
women while Butches’ ways of being are furthest from those of men and het
women. But there are exceptions. The institution of heterosexism has many
aspects. Making one decision to resist male rule doesn’t mean someone makes
them all. Some poor and working-class het women from rural areas who do hard
physical labor have less of the typical feminine mannerisms, (although that has
changed in the last few decades since pressure has been on such women to
feminize even more). And there are Fems who accepted some degree of
femininity but never became het, while there are Butches who were het and even
wives and mothers. But there’s a higher percentage of Butches who never were
het than Fems. And there’s a higher percentage of Butches who are oppressed
by racism and classism.
Since most of the many Lesbians who came out through the WLM are Fems,
Butches are in a minority. Nowadays, it’s possible to go to a Lesbian event
and find yourself in a crowd of a hundred Fems and five Butches.
Even though many radical Lesbians say they reject the most obvious femininity
of the Fem stereotype, Fem is still overwhelmingly the image presented in
Lesbian publications and books, and on CD covers and in films: long hair, often
dyed or bleached, in the styles clearly designated for women by men; plucked
eyebrows; cosmetics; earrings; long, painted fingernails; dresses, skirts, and
high heels. Besides these images in photographs, there are also drawings of
exaggerated femininity.
Even when the image is supposedly more “Lesbian,” with short hair and pants,
there’s usually some male-identified womanliness — a touch of feminine jewelry,
long fingernails, a “dainty” unnatural hand position, and/ or an expression that’s
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commonly found on models: narcissistic, arrogant, coy, seductive, cute,

graceful, or posed sweetness, rather than plain Dyke directness. A few images
project a “proper” motherly or grandmotherly expression, which is also
acceptably feminine. Most Lesbian feminist media stars are clearly Fem
(although this was less true in the early 1970′s). Many look het, but even those
who look like Lesbians convey their Femness by the tilt of their head, their facial
expressions, and the way they talk. Many Fems speak in a higher-pitched voice
than is natural for them.
On virtually every leaflet or advertisement we’ve seen for Lesbian conferences,
meetings, support groups, and dances, the image is clearly Fem (sometimes
including in ads for Butch events!). This is a political statement saying who the
organizers consider representative of our Lesbian culture, and who is welcome
and who isn’t. This not only excludes Butches, but Dyke-identified Fems as
well. It’s as elitist as high prices and lack of sliding scale, which say, “for the
moneyed only.” When the common images are also of thin, young, able-bodied,
class-privileged, European-descent gentiles, then even more Lesbians are
excluded. But while there’s some growing consciousness about including groups
of Lesbians other than the most privileged ones, there seems to be a decrease in
including images of obvious Dykes. (We suggest it’s better to not use any
images of Lesbian faces or bodies on ads than to use ones that exclude any
oppressed Dykes.)
Fems generally fit the image of how a woman is “supposed” to be, and Butches
don’t. Notice how much ease or unease a Lesbian feels with feminine apparel
and how easily she passes or could pass for het. We can all change our
appearance, but body language is revealing. Fems are more likely to move and
make gestures in ways that are traditionally feminine, playing with their hair
when talking, even if it’s only an inch long. Some Lesbians think the fad of
shaving their head as a political statement makes them look more Butch, but it’s
almost always a sign of being Fem. It requires constant maintenance and is
actually just a variation on feminine fussing with appearance. Also, it’s not
unusual for a Fem to dress and wear her hair clearly like a Dyke one year and
look very het the next. Looking Out has been a fad for many, but fads pass, and
many Fems ultimately reveal a craving to follow the drag queen Hard Fem ideal.
Dyke-identified Dykes, whether Fem or Butch, are repulsed by that crap.
Fems are more likely to be obsessed with their looks and what they like and
dislike about their bodies. They’re more likely to spend a great deal of time
preparing their appearance, as if they’re going on display for the male gaze, just
as het women do. They’re also more likely to notice other Lesbians’ appearance
and make critical comments about how they look.
Fems are also more likely to act “motherly.” We’ve never met a motherly Butch
who wasn’t an actual mother, but we’ve met many motherly Fems who aren’t
mothers. And Butch mothers tend to be less in the motherly role of being critical
and policing. But that doesn’t mean that non-motherly Butches and Fem Dykes
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aren’t loving, caring, protective, and nurturing. Contrary to het propaganda,

those are Dyke qualities, not inherent mother qualities.
Butch and Fem identity go much deeper than the superficiality usually talked
about. Some Butches convince themselves they’re not Butch because they’re
good cooks, or they like doing craftwork, making a cozy home, and hate sports,
and/or are intimidated by mechanical tasks. Some Fems think they’re not Fem
because they hate femininity and are comfortable doing traditionally “male” work
like carpentry and mechanics. A more accurate way to recognize core identities
is by noticing who has the power in social and intimate relationships. Fem
privilege carries a lot of clout in Lesbian social interactions.
One Honest Fem’s Self-Recognition List

1. When I first meet another Lesbian, if all other things are equal (more or less),
I feel less difference with Fems. Even when there are other differences between
us, such as ethnicity or class, when it comes to core identity, Femness is an area
of similarity. With a Butch, I feel the potential barrier that any major difference
creates. We’re on different ground. We can’t assume we know how each other
feels — we can assume our experiences have been very different and that as a
result we’re likely to feel different about a lot of things. That’s true of any two
Lesbians, but every difference in privilege and oppression widens the gap and
requires more conscious effort to achieve understanding and closeness.
2. Until developing a radical Dyke politics, I never had any qualms about
identifying as a “woman” and had no trouble being accepted as one by hets I
feel myself moving like a Fem, and automatically using some feminine
gestures. They’re not exaggerated, but are obviously different from how Butches
move and act I don’t pass as het, but I feel relatively confident I could pass as
het if necessary — not a polished version, but adequate.
3. Feminine activities like sewing, needlecrafts, cooking, and other things
designated as “woman’s work” feel like something that belongs to me and to my
sphere of activity. Some I enjoy, some I’m indifferent to, and some I hate, but
somehow they all “belong” to me. I remember the years it took to train me in
some of those skills, and how bitterly I hated most of them at first, but in the
end I accepted them as “second nature.” No one thinks it’s odd to see me doing
these activities, while Butches who are comfortable and skilled with this kind of
work are often teased and ridiculed by both Butches and Fems.
4. Often, Butches show friendliness to me by acting protective, solicitous, even
deferential. They don’t usually act that way toward other Butches.
5. I can tell that I’m less uncomfortable among het women than Butches are. I
don’t need to be as on guard, because het women don’t act as scared, hateful, or
predatory (flirtatious) toward me, especially if a Butch is present — they focus on
the most Queer Lesbian present. If I’m alone with het women, they sometimes
do act that way. However, no het woman has ever pretended after a long
conversation that she thought I was a man, which has happened to Butch friends
who are very obviously female.
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“But I Don’t Play Roles”

It makes sense that some otherwise responsible Lesbians don’t want to
acknowledge that we’re all either Butch or Fem because:
1) Hets use this as propaganda to obscure their outrageously extreme role-
playing;
2) Dykes don’t want to admit doing things that seem to confirm het stereotypes
of us;
3) “Role-playing” is a negative stereotype of Dykes who came out before
feminism, and so they are looked down upon by the newer ex-het feminist
Fems;
4) Sado-masochist Lesbians and “Lesbian” porn glorify role-playing;
5) The even newer ex-het Fems who came out after the WLM (and who are
therefore much less oppressed as Lesbians) often think it’s campy, cute,
thrillingly “naughty,” and trendy to play with roles.
Of the many Fems who deny being Fem, some claim to be Butch, and others
claim to be neither Butch nor Fem. Yet, to anyone with any awareness, it’s easy
to identify whether someone who you don’t personally know is Butch or Fem just
from a photograph or from a Lesbian’s voice and way of speaking. How can any
Dyke consider herself free of these basic core identities? It’s like the Lesbians
who insist they are class-free, when they visibly are not. When you’re privileged,
you can take your position for granted, but when you’re oppressed, you can’t
avoid noticing it. Whether or not a Dyke chooses to identify her Femness, she
should be aware that Butches are treated as Butches no matter how we
identify. She should at least notice and resist the ways she’s treated as more
normal (Fem) by both hets and other Lesbians.
Some Never-het Fems associate Femness with heterosexuality and are
understandably unwilling to identify as Fems, but they still benefit from Fem
privilege, although to a lesser degree. A sound analysis of heterosexism among
Lesbians clarifies both issues — Butch oppression and Never-het Dyke
oppression.
Some Fems claim it’s “masochistic” to identify as a Fem, because they accept
and perpetuate the lie that “Fems are oppressed by Butches like women are
oppressed by men.” The truth is that Butches are oppressed by Fems
similarly to how Lesbians are oppressed by het women. Fighting
femininity is an essential part of fighting sado-masochism. Accusing politically
responsible Fems of self-hatred because we acknowledge Fem privilege is just
another way of trying to silence discussion about Butch oppression. Should
everyone just grab whatever privilege they can with no concern for who pays for
it? Lesbians who refuse to use our privilege, and who fight injustice — whether
about Butch oppression or any other issue — should be respected for our
courage instead of being called masochistic. Fighting inequality benefits
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everyone. Who wants to live in communities where some feel good about
themselves at others’ expense? We should all feel good together.
Many Fems claim that Butches are more privileged and admired in Lesbian
communities. Some Dykes do support other Dykes to stop being feminine and to
be Dyke-identified in appearance and behavior. But that doesn’t mean Butches
are considered superior. Similarly, working-class culture occasionally getting
respect doesn’t mean that the working class are considered superior or now have
privilege over the middle-class. Oppression is real and observable. Privilege
means gaining real, concrete advantages.
When Fems complain about “pressure” to look and act like Dykes, it’s like het
feminists complaining about being “pushed” to come out. There’s far more
pressure on us all to feminize — in the male and het world, our families, and
Lesbian communities as well. The support to be more Dyke-identified is
minuscule compared to that (and, by 2015, nonexistent.)
Butches are under unrelenting pressure to look more “normal,” by mothers,
other family members, co-workers, and even lovers and Lesbian friends. If we
do feminize ourselves, we are rewarded by being told how much “nicer” we
look. Some Butches have succumbed to this pressure over the years.
Ironically, some Fems who are temporarily playing at being “Butch” pressure
other Fems and Butches to act more “tough” (their erroneous image of
Butchness). They’re the ones we’ve noticed being the most likely to make nasty
anti-Fem comments and jokes (another part of their erroneous image of
Butches), which isn’t the same as honest resistance to Femness. It’s
scapegoating other Fems for your privilege. A Fem we knew who used to make
frequent anti-Butch comments was told why this was oppressive; she then tried
to make herself appear more “Butch” and began making anti-Fem comments. It’s
much more acceptable for Fems to reject femininity than it is for Butches, who
are perceived as “going too far.” In fact, the Lesbians who are most praised
for being “Butch” are usually less obvious Fems. This makes identifying
Lesbians more difficult, especially when newly-out Fem Lesbians are inclined to
think of almost all longer-out Lesbians as “Butch.”
Anti-Butch attitudes are taken for granted among Lesbians. At a Lesbian forum
in San Francisco, the audience cheered when it was announced that several
members were Fems, and they cheered again when another Lesbian described
herself as a “recovering Butch.” U.S. gay papers print many personal ads
making statements like, “feminine Lesbian wants pretty Lesbian who looks like a
woman,” or “no Butches, please.” In one such ad2 the Lesbian stated her bias
clearly: “I’m most comfortable in this straight world acting straight. I truly
dislike the gay scene, roles, Butches, dykes … etc. I’m not secretly looking to
‘come out,’ so no helpful offers please. My closet has always been, warm, cozy,
and exciting.”
We’ve occasionally seen some support of Butches in Lesbian and feminist
publications, although it’s still vastly outnumbered by anti-Butch statements. In
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criticizing a play about “Lesbian battery” for showing the victim as “obviously
more femme” than the abuser, one reviewer wrote, “It is necessary to note …
that the [Lesbian] abuser can as easily be a 5’2″ woman with a high voice and
big dimples as she can be the tough “Butch” image.”3 In a workshop on Lesbian
identity at the First Encuentro (Gathering) of Latin American and Caribbean
Feminist Lesbians in Cuernavaca, Mexico, “Several women noted that it is
generally the Butch that is regarded with distaste. We need to accept the
Butches among us and … thereby reject heterosexist attitudes.”4 De Clarke wrote
about Butches:
I’ve never seen Butchdom as a cardboard replica of masculinity; never
met a Butch who felt to me, socially, like a man; never felt from a Butch
the sense of violence that underlies most male social congress … Many
Butches of my experience have an almost exaggerated gentleness … I
contrast this with the all-out violence of which women are capable who
believe themselves weak and powerless … Butches come in for a lot of
teasing … aggravation …To me it feels like queer-baiting, but from dykes
… it’s a kind of violence to refuse a Butch her identity.”5
“Just Don’t Use Those Words!”

Like other inequalities among Lesbians, Butch oppression isn’t something the
privileged — in this case, Fems — have the right to “disagree” exists. Butch
oppression does exist, and Fems either act honestly and responsibly about it or
they refuse to, which is the luxury of the privileged. When even the most well-
meaning and otherwise radical Fem says, “I don’t agree with the issue of Butch
oppression,” she’s denying the existence, identity, experiences, and lives of
Butches. It’s more honest to say, “I don’t want to be responsible about my Fem
privilege. I don’t want to face up to Lesbian oppression,” rather than to liberally
act like it’s just a “matter of opinion” for Fems to deign to make decisions
about. Butches simply don’t have that luxury.
We use the terms Butch and Fem because, although we’re not certain of their
origin, it’s likely Butches chose them as a way of expressing their
oppression. Butch isn’t only a political term, it’s an identity. To delete the term
is to delete that identity. To replace it, as some Lesbians have suggested, is to
gloss over reality with euphemism — it’s as closet as calling Lesbians “wimmin-
loving-wimmin.” Butch, like Dyke reclaims an insulting, “shocking” word as a
term of pride and courage. And to soothe Fems’ discomfort by deleting Fem is to
delete Butch and the entire issue. Fem accurately reflects the origin of Femness
— femininity. When Fems say, “I agree with some of your points but not those
words,” they remind us of Ruston’s het sister who said, about Ruston being a
Lesbian, “I don’t mind what you do — just don’t use that word!”
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Part 2 - The Big Sell-Out: Lesbian Femininity

by Linda Strega
In the 1980’s, a decade of reactionary politics, femininity became an accepted
value among many Lesbians. Even many politically radical Lesbians, who I would
most expect to support Lesbian self-love and self-respect, who usually call male
bullshit for what it is, began to openly admire feminine ways of dressing and
acting. Femininity! A patriarchal hype if there ever was one — a phony ideal
created by men, not by Lesbians — an ideal that almost all heterosexual women
embody to please men.
Femininity is not an inborn aspect of femaleness. Our most innate qualities as
women can never be developed through the restraining, artificial posing, game-
playing and mirror-gazing that is femininity. Men have taught women what they
want women to be –they call it “feminine” or “womanly.” As Lesbians, we need to
be awake enough to realize that this male invention is masculine to the core, no
matter what it’s named, no matter how many women go along with the lie.
Femininity is not truly female; the similarity in the words is a lying male trick.
Lesbians’ acceptance of anything “feminine” is part of the weakening of Lesbian
politics — a Lesbian parallel to the right-wing trend of het politics. The same is
true of the popularity of sado-masochism among many Lesbians. In fact, sado-
masochism encourages the re-acceptance of femininity as a “positive” “erotic”
style among otherwise radical Lesbians. I’ve heard shallow reasoning that if
some Lesbians “enjoy” femininity and “can’t stop wanting it,” then it’s better to
go ahead and accept it. That’s the kind of irresponsible, reactionary politics too
often supported by psychotherapy. It’s the same liberalness that supports
Lesbians going het, becoming bisexual, and having babies. It’s the same self-
destructiveness that leads Lesbians to accept thinness as a standard, that calls
the slow suicide of dieting “eating healthy” and the self-punishment of over-
exercising “staying fit,” and that encourages Lesbians to worry about the effects
of aging on their appearance. Those are all male, het values — feminine values.
They all revolve around how men want women to act and look, and they all
derive from male desires to control female behavior.
Those Lesbians who act out the feminine model and claim it’s a contribution to
Lesbian culture, a flowering forth of their “real selves,” are of course Fems, and
most often Fems who were once heterosexual. They haven’t gotten rid of old het
values, which are now resurfacing in this reactionary time.
The het media is full of stories about the het feminist who “realizes that she
doesn’t have to give up being a woman to be a success in life,” who “regrets
having tried to be like a man,” and is now “rediscovering the excitement of
feminine seductiveness, the fun of dressing up in high heels, make-up and skirts,
and her deep need for the joys of motherhood.” Doesn’t sound too different from
lots of Lesbian media, does it?
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Fem Privilege — Who Pays for It?

During the past decade, I’ve read many articles and stories written by Fem
Lesbians that celebrate Fem role-playing as positive, fun and erotic. It’s not just
the writings that alarm me. I’ve encountered the same trend at Lesbian social
and political events, even among otherwise radical Lesbians. By contrast, articles
I’ve read about being Butch show conflict, self-questioning, self-criticism and
pain. The same contrast occurs in most discussions I’ve had with other Dykes
about Fem and Butch identity, and is one of the many indications that Butches
are in an oppressed position relative to Fems.
I’ve been identifying myself openly as a Fem since 1979, when I joined in
gradually developing a political analysis about Butch oppression and Fem
privilege with a few Dyke Separatist friends. I define myself as a Fem, not
because I admire and enjoy femininity or want to develop my Fem qualities but
because I recognize that, like most girls, I accepted feminine training as a small
child. Why I didn’t resist, when Butch girls did, is now unknown to me, part of
the forgotten past. (I do know it wasn’t because I was more oppressed or more
heavily pressured than Butches I’ve met.) What’s important to me now is how
that choice affects me and other Lesbians in the present.
Being accepted as a “real girl” by the het world, and therefore by my own self,
has given me the bearing, manner, and lack of doubt about being a “real
woman” that Fem privilege bestows (even though I don’t now identify as a
“woman” but as a Lesbian or Dyke). I try to avoid oppressive Fem behavior, but
I know that because of my history I will always be Fem. If I claimed to have
become Butch because I now reject Fem clothing and behavior, that would be as
untrue and offensive as a class-privileged Lesbian saying she’s poor or working-
class now because she doesn’t have much money and rejects classist values.
Is it possible to be neither Butch nor Fem, as most Lesbian feminists claim about
themselves? From my observations, no. (By Butch and Fem I mean the core self-
identity chosen in girlhood — not role-playing, which is about acting out a part
which may or may not be your core identity.) Every girl is faced with the choice
of either submitting to feminization and being accepted, or resisting and being
punished. The pressure on girls to feminize themselves is universal and
unrelenting. It exists in every patriarchal culture, and I don’t know of any culture
in the world today which isn’t patriarchal. The styles of femininity vary in quality
and degree from culture to culture, but in every patriarchal culture “woman” is
defined by her allegiance and orientation towards male values and desires.
Patriarchy’s idea of “woman” is not based on true female biology as men claim.
“Woman” is actually an artificial, social definition invented by men. It defines
what men want women to be — a submissive being who bonds emotionally,
mentally, and physically only with men. According to this scheme, if you’re not a
woman (namely, a male-identified female), then you’re some kind of deficient
man, or trying to be a man; you’re “unnatural.” So, Lesbians, by choosing to
bond with other instead of with men, are defined by hets as being “like men.”
(Notice that only Lesbians really give primary allegiance to other females. Het
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women and all men give primary allegiance to men. The comparison of Lesbians
to men is inaccurate even regarding the choice of who we bond with.) Butch
Lesbians, who not only bond solely with women but completely reject femininity,
are even more viciously defined as being “unnatural” and “like a man.”
I believe that Butch and Fem identities are chosen at such an early age (they can
be observed in four-year-old girls) that they have a profound effect on how we
feel within ourselves, how we interact with each other, and how we’re treated by
the het world, for the rest of our lives. A small girl is surrounded by only two
models of gender behavior: she lives in a world that says and believes, “Women
dress and act like this, and men dress and act like that.”
If a girl cannot and will not accept the artificial trappings and mannerisms of the
feminine role, everyone around her begins telling her she’s doing something
wrong and unnatural. As she gets older and still resists femininity, the
accusations intensify. When her Butch (and possibly Lesbian) identity becomes
obvious, she’s labeled a deviant, a freak of nature, a man in a woman’s body.
She isn’t supposed to exist. She’s a threat to the Big Lie of “feminine woman,”
and so men and their women collaborators make up all kinds of ridiculous,
hateful fictions to explain away her existence. The pressure is meant to humiliate
and bully her into accepting femininity, and it must put her through soul-shaking
self-doubt, even if she knows other Butches. Because so few women totally
reject femininity, she usually doesn’t meet other Butches for many years, but
faces the onslaught alone, during the most vulnerable years of her life—her
girlhood and adolescence. Sometimes Butch girls are partially accepted in their
families and among friends, but as a kind of mascot or pet, not as an equal. After
all, it’s helpful to have an outcast around, someone who’s at the bottom of the
pecking order for those further up to feel superior to.
[Now in 2015, well-meaning liberal parents are being misguided into labeling
daughters as young as four years old “transgender” if they resist femininity.
These parents tell their daughters that they’re boys trapped in a girl’s body, and
start them on a track towards hormone injections and surgery and, therefore, a
lifetime of destroyed health. No alternatives are suggested. No one tells the girls
that it’s natural for to prefer the freedom and dignity of trousers instead of
dresses, and to want active and adventurous play. No one tells them that
Lesbianism is a possibility and a good way to live. The parents, and their social
workers and medical supporters, think they are “liberal” when they name a girl
“transgender,” but they are not “liberal” enough to accept her as a young Butch
or a Lesbian. In fact, their destructive enforcing of gender roles is not liberal at
all, but extremely reactionary.]
Meanwhile, girls who accept femininity—the vast majority, unfortunately—are
accepted as “real girls” and encouraged to take pride in their feminine ways.
There are degrees of femininity, of course. Some Fem girls accept the complete
emaciated Hard Fem sex-object ideal while others take on just enough feminine
identity to still be accepted as real girls. But, because of hets’ fanaticism about
“real womanhood,” they do set a rigid line. Any female who refuses to make at
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least some concession to feminine requirements is over that line—that is, she’s
denied the right to be called normal. Not only is she “not really a woman,” she’s
pushed outside the bounds of normal society, which judges that it owes her
nothing and has the right to destroy her. She’s become a danger to male rule
instead of a saleable item in the het marketplace and/or a cooperative
representative and promoter of male-defined “womanhood.”
Fem privilege is based on retaining a claim to that “normal” standing that
Butches are completely denied. Even though Fem Lesbians are seriously
oppressed as Lesbians, we’re still treated by hets as if we’re more like women
than Butches are. Butches receive a more extreme version of hets’ insistence on
seeing Lesbians as unnatural. When young Butch and Fem lovers are found out
by angry het guardians, who gets the most blame and punishment? You know it’s
not the Fem. The usual interpretation, as we all know, is, “That disgusting
bulldagger shouldn’t be allowed around decent innocent girls.”
Because Fems, in varying degrees, fit more closely the male-created ideal of
“real woman,” we’re more privileged than Butches, both in the het world and in
Lesbian communities. Because Butches have rejected feminine conditioning more
completely, they’re treated as being morequeer, more suspect, more
“unnatural.” (Ex-het Fems get more “normal” privilege than Never-het Fems, and
ex-married Fems and mothers get even more privilege. An ex-het Butch and a
Never-het Fem are in a position to oppress each other, but when they’re both
Never-het or both ex-het, the Butch will be more oppressed than the Fem.) Hets
don’t relate to Fem Lesbians with the same degree of vicious queer-hating. Even
though we do get it, especially if we’re dressing and acting in a more Dyke-
identified way, it’s never as bad as what a Butch gets. As is always the case with
oppression, we’ve internalized these privileges and oppressions, so that Butches
and Fems alike tend to treat Fems as if we are more “real women,” more
deserving of care and attention. Meanwhile, Butches are viewed as being “male-
identified.” What could be more insulting, untrue, and oppressive?
Feminine Lesbians Treat Butches As Non-Women

Some of my understanding about Butch oppression comes from how I’ve been
treated by het women, by more feminine Fems, and by anti-Separatist Fems who
think of Separatists as being like the worst sort of men. At those times, I’m
treated a little bit as if I were Butch, as if I were very queer and not quite
female. Not a nice feeling. While it’s happening it’s made me feel, in weaker
moments, as if there might really be something monstrous about me. The effects
of being viewed as unnatural go deep, no matter how much I know they’re
wrong, no matter how strong I am—and I am strong and politically aware. It’s
insulting and objectifying to be seen as being like your worst enemy—men—and
to have your female reality and individuality denied. That’s the kind of thing
that’s done continuously to Butches.
Fems seriously injure Butches when they believe and act on Butch-hating
stereotypes. Some of those stereotypes are obviously negative ones: that
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Butches are abusive, dominating and insensitive, like men; that they oppress
women, like men do; that they don’t understand real women; that they don’t
experience female oppression; that they are obsessed with sex, like men are.
Other stereotypes are claimed to be positive, but are just as damaging: that
Butches have special erotic power; that they are mysteriously physically stronger
and emotionally invulnerable; that they enjoy doing hard physical tasks and
protecting Fems from danger and from unpleasant experiences. Believing any of
these stereotypes is not respectful — it’s objectifying.
Many Fems falsely assume that Lesbians value Butchness more highly than
Femness. That’s similar to class-privileged Lesbians romanticizing poor and
working-class Lesbians and feeling sorry for themselves because they’re “the
wrong class.” If you pay attention to how Lesbians actually treat each other, it
becomes obvious that Fems are treated more like “real people,” “real women,”
while Butches are treated as more queer, more in need of Feminism.
Women’s Liberation feminism is concerned with making heterosexuality more
comfortable for heterosexual women. Why should any Lesbian want to support
this heterosexist reformism which, of course, supports the male idea that
femininity defines femaleness? Accepting that unquestioned male definition is
why most ex-het Lesbians who came out in the WLM think that Butches are in a
role, but that Fems are not. Like with other privileges, Femness is considered the
norm. And of course it’s those with the privilege who have the power to define
what the norm is. Butches are usually considered unfeminist by ex-het Women’s
Liberation Fems and are accused of not being “woman-identified”—an indirect
way of saying not “womanly.” This is insulting and oppressive, because they’re
saying Butches are like our oppressors.
The fact is, Butches are more truly female-identified than the Fems who criticize
them. It’s Butches’ rejection of femininity that offends these Fems. Never does it
occur to such Fems that they themselves are the ones who need to become more
female-identified, that is, more Lesbian-identified. The “womanliness” they value
so much isn’t basic to female nature at all: Butches’ independence from male
definitions is more truly female. Most ex-het Women’s Liberation Fems have
been too arrogant, because of their het and Fem privilege and lesbophobia, to
realize that it’s they who have something to learn from Butches who are lifelong
Dykes.
I’ve met many ex-het Fems who, because of their lesbophobic assumptions
about roles, think Fems are oppressed by Butches. When I asked one ex-het, ex-
married Lesbian mother what she meant by saying she, as a Fem, felt oppressed
by Butches, she answered that it was “an extension of how I was oppressed as a
heterosexual woman.” This Lesbian is unfortunately far from unique in thinking
of a Butch as another sort of man, and she’d been a radical Lesbian for years
when she said that. Het attitudes and het privilege don’t vanish upon coming out,
even after years of being a political Lesbian: they have to be recognized,
analyzed, and consciously resisted just like other oppressive beliefs and
behaviors.
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The same Fems who think of Butches as oppressive imitation men also often
romanticize Butches as lovers: wanting to be pursued and swept off their feet,
wanting to be the one who is made love to and not caring to focus the same
attention on her lover; wanting to experience the Butch lover as Other, as some
kind of opposite, as mysteriously more powerful, stronger, braver. The honest
admiration and respect that a Butch could arouse in another Lesbian, Fem or
Butch, gets distorted into a het-like power game—an addiction to inequality, with
the Fem in the power position and pretending not to be. It’s not honest, it’s not
respectful, and it sure isn’t love.
There are also degrading eroticized anti-Butch attitudes which are accepted
unchallenged among Lesbians, like the following description of a sex video
advertised prominently in the May, 1985, issue of a local Lesbian/Gay
newspaper: “For the lesbian s/m connoisseur — butch is taught a few manners in
femme worship.” Anyone having a hard time recognizing the hatred in this ad
needs only to substitute the name of any other oppressed group for “butch” and
the corresponding privileged group for “femme” and feel what your gut reaction
is. (The depth of Lesbian oppression is such that it’s often easier for us to react
emotionally to an issue which isn’t particularly and solely about Lesbians.)
It’s wrong to exploit Butches’ courage and risk-taking, letting them do most of
the work of maintaining Lesbian visibility and take the worst punishment from
the het world, while they are used by Fems to celebrate the Fems’ “power to
attract.” What about Fems trying to develop some of those Butch qualities they
sometimes claim to admire? Many Fems have done that, but the trend toward
femininity is eroding support for de-feminization and replacing it with strong
pressure to feminize.
What about Fems recognizing our privileged and oppressive position? What about
trying to stop the sexualizing of power imbalances? What about acknowledging
that acting out of privilege is, of course, going to feel more comfortable, but that
that doesn’t make it all right? That privilege is why many Fems are now saying “I
enjoy being a Fem,” while Butches express conflict, soul-searching, discomfort,
self-criticism and pain about being Butch.
Fems Who Think They’re Butches

Discussions about Butch and Fem identity often become confused because many
Fems think they are Butches. Butches are a small minority, and there are many
misconceptions about what true Butch identity is. So, many Fems are mistakenly
assumed to be Butches, or believe themselves to be Butches, if they’re less
feminine than other Fems. Some Fems who are also privileged in other ways, like
looks, thinness and class, get positive attention from other Lesbians by playing at
being Butch. They may be admired for managing to act “Butchy” without “going
too far,” but they certainly don’t experience Butch oppression. There are also
Fems who want to be like men and think that means they are Butches.
Then there are more oppressed Fems who get pressured into a Butch-like role
and are objectified as sexual and emotional servicers by more privileged and
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more feminine Fems. When two Fems are lovers or friends, if one is more
oppressed because of being darker, fatter, older, having less looks privilege, less
ethnic or class privilege, less or no het experience, or being more Dyke
Separatist, she’s likely to be considered the less feminine of the two, and
therefore “the Butch.” This just adds to her existing oppressions. Her feelings
won’t be considered to be as important or as sensitive as her lover’s, her
lovemaking may not be reciprocated, and her lover may interpret everything she
does through the distorted screen of lesbophobia, because “the Butch” in the
couple is the one who’s considered more queer than her lover. She’s more likely
to understand the nature of Butch oppression as a result of being treated like a
Butch at times, although she’ll never experience as much Butch oppression as
she would if she was actually Butch.
The Het Woman’s Uniform vs. Lesbian Identity

I’ve been criticized by Fem Lesbians who wear some form of Fem drag and want
to know why I don’t “dress up,” why I “want to wear a uniform.” This offensive,
militaristic male imagery is openly Lesbian-hating—they’re the ones wearing the
male-approved feminine uniform. They complain about how terribly pressured
they feel to wear Dyke clothes, yet in every case these Fems aggressively
initiated talking about clothes. I don’t go around confronting Lesbians who dress
feminine, nor does anyone else I know who feels the same as I do about this
issue: we’re usually too busy defending ourselves against attacks on our lack of
femininity. Meanwhile, I often hear feminine Lesbians praised for their “courage”
in displaying their femininity. Where’s the “courage” in perpetuating male and
het values?
One Fem, an ex-het, ex-married mother, gave me a lecture at my own kitchen
table about how the “Dyke look” (Butch) is really a European-descent middle-
class “uniform.” She claimed that racially oppressed Lesbians and poor and
working-class Lesbians like to “dress up” Fem. (She herself is European-descent,
working-class, protestant-raised.) For her, apparently, racially oppressed Butches
and poor and working-class Butches either don’t exist or don’t count. Not to
mention myself, sitting in front of her, a working-class Fem who hates feminine
clothes and rejects the idea that Fem drag is “dressing up” in any positive sense
— I also didn’t count.
Why do our critics assume I and other Dykes don’t know what a “uniform” is?
None of us want regimentation. And why are the ancient, universal cultural
traditions we’ve developed as an oppressed people shown such disrespect? Many
oppressed groups of people express their cultural identity and recognize each
other through wearing traditional clothes unique to them, with individual
variation according to taste. People who invade others’ lands and suppress their
cultures forbid traditional clothing as one of the first steps of genocide.
Reclaiming traditional clothes is often one of the first steps in resisting cultural
destruction. They’re worn as a statement of pride. Dykes wear Dyke clothing for
similar reasons. Yet the same liberal men and women and het-identified Lesbians
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who’d never dream of attacking other peoples’ cultural style don’t hesitate to
attack us for ours.
The clothes I and other Dykes wear aren’t the kind men designate for women.
They’re clothes that are cheaper, sturdier, warmer in cold weather, less
constricting and more protective—the kind of clothing that men would like to
reserve for themselves. Wearing them is not only more comfortable and
functional, it also makes it more obvious to anyone who sees me, including other
Dykes, that I’m a Dyke. They also make it easier for me to defend myself if a
male attacks me. My Dyke clothes free my movements to be more natural to
myself, because they don’t require the artificial constraints that feminine clothes
do: the smaller steps, legs kept together, restricted shoulder movements, the
fussing with hair, jewelry, and make-up that we’re used to seeing in women.
(When I refer to restricted body movement, I’m not talking about inherent
physical ability. Whatever one’s physical ability, clothing can either restrict or
allow maximum use of one’s body.) My clothes aren’t “male” clothes, they’re
Lesbian clothes. They symbolize Dykes’ deep refusal to be men’s sex-toys. And
because they’re forbidden to us, they also represent our refusal to follow men’s
orders.
Those who understand patriarchal dress codes are aware that the seemingly
more reasonable feminine slacks and blouses that many Lesbians accept still
conform to male dictates. For example, if they weren’t specifically for women,
feminine shirts wouldn’t be called “blouses.” This isn’t a word game—clothes
designated for women have fewer pockets, are less well-made, and often more
expensive. Even “unisex” clothing reserves better quality, convenience, and
comfort for the men’s and boys’ versions.
I call feminine clothes “drag” because they’re a game-playing het costume. Het
women’s lives are based on lies that are repeated and acted out so often that the
truths about themselves as women and potential Lesbians are deeply buried. Het
women are dead to themselves as true females as long as they choose to remain
het. They don’t know what the needs of a female soul are, or they wouldn’t be
het; they wouldn’t be nurturing their very enemy. Then why are so many
Lesbians imitating het women? Or in some cases, going back to values they had
when they themselves were het?
Hets often assume that feminine-looking Lesbians are really bisexual or het. I
don’t think that assumption is 100% het ignorance. Feminine clothing, hair
styles, behavior, obsession with dieting and with male-approved appearance are
all forms of social communication that say, “I’m willing to please men,” or at the
very least, “I accept men’s dictates in dress and behavior. I’m not as queer as a
Butch. I’m really rather normal.” Generally, Fems can pass as het more easily
than Butches. But Fems who reject feminine values and try to be visibly out are
treated as more queer than other Fems. We’re in a position to be oppressed by
Fems who are selling out, and we’re more natural allies for Butches.
Some Fems enjoy the fact that men and/or het women like their Femness. Some
ex-het Fems are still caught up with male approval, even if it takes the form of
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thinking, “You men like what you see, but you can’t have me anymore.” I’ve
actually read that written by a Fem in a “Dyke” publication, and I’ve heard
Lesbians talk that way. Lesbians who play those sexual games with men are
making both the games and the men more important to them than Lesbian
identity and solidarity. Other Lesbians use feminine clothes and behavior simply
to make themselves safer from queer oppression, trying to blend in more with
het ways. Whatever the reasons, it’s all at the expense of Butches, who by being
the most blatant and public resistance fighters against heterosexist values, by
not catering to het approval at all, become the targets for the most intense
punishment from the het world. After all, if even other Lesbians (Fems) are
willing to play that part of the het game—are willing to dress and change their
bodies (dieting, shaving, altering their hair) as men dictate—that supports the
het pressure on Butches to do the same, not to mention the racism, ageism,
looksism, and fat oppression involved in doing those things.
Femininity isn’t a harmless diversion or form of self-expression. It’s not creative,
it’s not “freeing,” it’s not daring or sexy. It’s just the same phony heterosexist
crap. It means spending time, energy and money on nail polish, perfume, hair
styles, dresses, diets, body-shaping exercises, poses and games; fantasizing
yourself as the center of sexual attention, making everything into a sexual game,
getting yourself further and further away from female reality, from real female
Lesbian power. It means identifying more and more with het values and choosing
to see yourself through men’s eyes. Shit, you could be that woman in the lipstick
commercial: Just substitute a Butch Lesbian for the man that’s panting after her.
If your lover or friend doesn’t want to play that game, you’ll teach her how much
“fun” it can be. How much time and interest does this leave for forming truly
loving Lesbian relationships, building strong Lesbian communities and fighting
patriarchy?
I don’t understand the pleasure some Fems claim to get from feminine drag, but
I know it’s connected to heterosexist privilege — that is, it’s het-created, het-
approved, het-rewarded and anti-Lesbian. I don’t know why most girls accept
feminine training when it’s possible to resist it as Butch girls do, but I do know
from experience that Fem Lesbians have the choice and ability to recognize the
lie for what it is and to reprogram ourselves. Our politics change our feelings
about a lot of things. Think of certain movies or books you enjoyed before you
became more politically aware — ones that disgust you now, because your gut
feelings respond to your present knowledge. I feel that way about the feminine
clothes I admired as a little girl. I feel angry about the clownish, yet sexually
suggestive crap pushed on unknowing little girls — miniature versions of what
adult het women wear to advertise their availability to men to be fucked.
Living with Integrity

Feminine clothes and games aren’t something that can just be tacked onto a
Lesbian’s otherwise-political life without affecting her and other Lesbians in
deeply damaging ways. Those feminine things began as, and continue to be,
male-oriented signals and symbols. They’re the results of female submission and
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collaboration. We can’t transcend or reclaim them. They’re in no way neutral,

they’re loaded with meaning. They’re actually masculine in the extreme. Any
pleasure that’s gotten from femininity is enjoyed at the expense of Lesbians who
are oppressed by it, especially Butches, who are made to feel like misfit
minorities in their own communities. Fems reveling in femininity also oppresses
Lesbians like me who’d feel miserable and degraded in feminine drag, and
who’ve experienced the queer-baiting game-playing of Hard Fems. Fems who
glorify femininity also make it harder for Lesbians like me to be understood and
respected when we identify ourselves openly as Fem and discuss Fem privilege
and Butch oppression. We’re less likely to be considered genuine Fems who know
what we’re talking about. Not all Fems want to cultivate femininity. Many of
us are resisting it wholeheartedly. We’re trying to strengthen our Lesbian
identities, not weaken them.
Lesbians who dress and act feminine also make life harder and more dangerous
for the rest of us in relation to the het world. They make blatant Lesbians an
even smaller minority who are therefore easier to discriminate against, harass,
scapegoat, and brutalize. It makes it harder for us to get and hold jobs, welfare
or disability income, to be rented apartments, to attend schools, to get medical
care, to go anywhere, to even just walk down the street. If all Lesbians were
obvious Lesbians, we’d all be safer. There’s a hell of a lot of us, and we’d be a
force to be reckoned with.
Most importantly, choosing to be an obvious Lesbian is about living with
integrity. A Butch’s choice to resist femininity is the choice of a female who’s
being true to herself, choosing to be as alive to her female self as possible,
regardless of the punishments inflicted on her as a result. I find in that resistance
a key to Dyke power, Dyke beauty and Dyke love.
Endnote
The original version of this article was published in the Fall 1985 issue of the journal Lesbian
Ethics. I have not updated it, except for one bracketed paragraph. Many thanks to Alix, my lover,
for helping me revise it for clarity in 2011.
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Part 3 - “Roles” = Butch Oppression

From the beginning of patriarchal rule, women who accepted the feminine role
devised ways to manipulate the male oppressor through that role, as much as
they could within the narrow limits of an oppressed position. What’s appropriate
when dealing with the oppressor is, however, inappropriate and cruel when used
against other Lesbians. It’s particularly cruel towards Butches, who are at the
bottom of the heterosexist hierarchy.
Fems begin oppressing Butches in girlhood, which is why we have some of the
same painful experiences with each other now as we did with other girls in the
past. Beginning in girlhood, the most feminine little girls are at the top of the
heterosexist hierarchy among their peers, and are already active in punishing
Butch and less feminine girls through the many hostile games we all remember
from our own pasts. They form exclusive cliques to ostracize and attempt to
isolate the undesirables, and they ridicule the less feminine and the determinedly
unfeminine. They slander less privileged, less feminine girls, deliberately
damaging those girls’ chances for friendships and acceptance by others, and they
show off their feminine accomplishments and attributes in ways that make
everyone else feel clumsy and inferior.
These are the girlhood versions of Hard Fems. As Lesbians, Hard Fems don’t
always wear extremely feminine clothes and trappings, though they’re the most
likely to. It’s their behavior that most distinguishes them as Hard Fems. Because
their femininity makes them more acceptable, more normal-seeming by het
standards, and because most Lesbians have deeply internalized het standards,
Hard Fems’ power and manipulations are seldom recognized as such. An Hard
Fem usually has many friends and staunch defenders, some of whom are hurt by
her over and over. Somehow she’s seldom perceived as being responsible for the
pain, ruined relationships, and damaged political work she leaves in her wake.
The Lesbian we knew who said, “It really is different with Lesbians than it is with
men, isn’t it?” was an ex-het Hard Fem who left a swath of heartbreak and self-
hatred among Lesbians she had manipulated and abandoned. Despite this
minimal realization that Lesbians aren’t men, several years later, she’s still up to
her old tricks, is considered very Lesbian-identified anyway, and still has friends
who feel she’s a fragile soul who needs their protection. Lesbians don’t have to
keep being vulnerable to this kind of heterosexist abuse from other Lesbians. If
we can analyze and understand what’s going on, we can refuse to participate in
it.
Although not all Fems are Hard Fems, all Fems do identify with each other as
being other than Butch. This kind of bonding occurs within every privileged
group, because there can’t be an in-group without an out-group, and it takes in-
group cooperation to maintain the lie of superiority. That’s why a Fem who calls
attention to Fems’ oppression of Butches, and is determined to fight that
oppression, angers other Fems and is subject to their efforts to silence her.
Fems who break Fem bonding get punished.
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Even less feminine Fems always have the option of “pulling rank” and engaging
in an occasional Hard Fem display, and many do so. The unquestioning,
arrogant, smug assumption of superiority over Butches is an oppressive quality
shared by almost all Fems, and that alone supports Lesbian-hatred among us to
a degree that’s damaging to all Lesbians and devastatingly cruel to Butches. This
is similar to how classist attitudes are ingrained in many class-privileged
Lesbians. They may not consciously think they’re superior to poor and working-
class Lesbians, yet they act condescending and authoritative.
The Original, Real Role Players: Men and Het Women

It’s men and het women who truly play roles. Their roles are so much a part of
the dominant male culture that they’re taken for granted and considered to be
natural. Men project onto women all of their own deficiencies (such as cowardice,
illogic, inanity, dishonesty, treachery, and pettiness), and they push onto women
an array of male-invented feminine mannerisms and styles that encourage
weakness, dependence, submissiveness and general fuckability. Such is the role
of “woman,” yet we’re supposed to believe it’s natural to want to mince along
on stilted shoes, face masked with stinking, lurid chemicals, nails bloody talons,
dieted-jazzercized-depilated-plastic surgeried bodies encased in exposing
dresses, voices unnaturally high, gestures “cute” and aggressively flirtatious, and
minds focused on pleasing men at any cost.
Meanwhile, men, who are raping female-kind, destroying life on the planet, and
in quieter moments simply boring everyone to death, pretend exclusive
possession of all valued qualities: strength, courage, nobility of heart, directness,
honesty, wit, loyalty, intelligence, and independence. They also steal all
comfortable, freedom-giving, attractive, and dignified clothes for themselves.
These are truly grotesque, exaggerated roles, reversals of reality, invented by
men to maintain control over women, and accepted by their collaborators, het
women. Lesbians don’t “play roles” like hets do. We’re not “like men and het
women.”
The fact that male drag queens (including MTFs) can pass as women should
convince all Lesbians that femininity’s not natural. Some models in women’s
fashion magazines are reputed to be men in drag.6 Some drag queen
entertainers have said they “make better women” than any woman could.
[Interestingly, in 2011, many men claiming to be women are saying the same
thing.] It’s possible that men’s wish for women to look feminine reflects their
own secret desire for themselves and other men to look like that. We suggest
that if men so love dresses, makeup, and high heels, they should all wear them.
(Just don’t claim to be female.
Question Fems, Not Butches

Feminine women, accepted and rewarded for cooperating with male dictates, are
given the job of teaching and enforcing male-invented womanliness in other
women. So het women praise femininity and punish resistance to it, on behalf of
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men. They protect men’s exclusive access to dignity, safety, comfort, and
physical freedom. Fems, as part of the Fem role, carry on this policing behavior
in Dyke communities to varying degrees, punishing Butches and pressuring us
overtly or covertly to become feminine.
Asking why Butches are Butch is the same as asking why Lesbians are
Lesbians.
This question treats the Butch as an alien, incomprehensible being in a side
show, to be psychologically analyzed. It’s like Lesbians’ families asking, “What
did we do wrong to make you that way?” — as if they deserve the credit for our
turning out so wonderfully. It’s insulting, oppressive, and patronizing for anyone
to say they know what “caused” us to be what patriarchy considers bad or wrong
about us. It’s the old, standard, “some terrible thing must have happened to
cause that girl to become a sick queer.”
The theory that we’re shaped only by forces outside ourselves denies that we
have power to make decisions and be responsible for our own actions. Asking
“what caused Butches?” comes from the attitude that Butches are “abnormal”
and Fems are “normal.” For instance, some Fems become obsessed with
thoughts of male hormones when they see a Butch with facial hair, and forget
that just as many Fems have beards or shave, not to mention all the het women
who’ve had electrolysis. Why don’t those Fems make the mistake of thinking of
male hormones when they see very thin Fems with small breasts? It’s because
lack of female fat is admired by men, and female facial hair isn’t.
The only approach that makes sense is to start from the conviction that
Lesbianism is every female’s natural, inborn state and that there are relentless
attempts to condition it out of us by the greatest propaganda machine in
existence: the institution of heterosexuality. We should instead ask “Why do
most women become het?” It then becomes obvious that Lesbianism involves not
only love for women, but also resistance to, and rebellion against, heterosexual
indoctrination.
Heterosexuality is a vast and complex institution, and heterosexual conditioning
has many facets. In order to become a successful Real Woman, a girl must
reject other girls and become feminine, het, wife, and mother (the latter two
preferably, but not necessarily, together). At some time in their lives, most
Lesbians choose one or more of those roles. Many were wives, and some are
mothers; some chose to be het but resisted marriage and motherhood. Some are
never het, but did accept femininity enough to fit in as “normal.” There’s
certainly tremendous pressure to be feminine, but the fact that some Lesbians
completely resist it makes it clear that it is a choice, in the same way being het
is a choice.
If het women didn’t cooperate with the teaching to be het, all women would be
Lesbians. Similarly, if no Lesbian accepted the teaching to be feminine, we’d all
be Butch. Butches, like Fems, live in patriarchy. We’re not saying Butch is our
natural state, but that it’s much closer to our inborn, natural state, and that only
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a small minority of little girls refuse to let go of their original female essence. We
can’t know what we’d be like if we lived in a Dyke-only world but, in the absence
of het conditioning, there would be no such thing as femininity, and we’d all be
more similar to how Butches are now.
Although most Fems we’ve talked with say they don’t remember choosing a
feminine identity in girlhood, most Butches clearly remember rejecting femininity
and being punished for it as early as three years old. We’re not trying to blame
little Fem girls for making bad decisions. After all, we had no political support
and couldn’t know the full meaning of our choices. We’re saying that Fems must
stop scapegoating Dykes who refused the easier path of “normality” and who’ve
been viciously punished for that. We’re saying that ex-het Dykes (both Fem and
Butch) must now act responsibly about the consequences our choices have
meant for Never-het Dykes, and Fems must face the consequences our choices
have meant for Butches. Ex-hets and Fems shouldn’t wallow in guilt or self-
recrimination—we should change our politics and truly support Never-het Dykes
and Butches, who’ve been forced to pay for the acceptance we bought.
“The Lie That Rape Causes Roles”

“Lesbians who were raped when they were girls become Butch” / “Lesbians who
were raped when they were girls become Fem.”
We’ve heard each of these contradictory theories from Lesbians who were trying
to explain” in the same way that Lesbianism is often “explained” by psychiatrists.
The first lie reinforces the stereotype that it takes something horrible to create a
Butch. It’s difficult to disprove since most Butches are victims of family rape and
other assaults. The fact that most Fems also are victims makes the second lie
sound plausible, but that’s also offensive because it implies that Femness is
created by oppression and Butchness is created by having more privilege. The
fact is that both Butches and Fems are attacked as little girls, as are most het
women. To focus on one denies the experiences of the other, and obscures the
reality that most girls are sexually assaulted.
Passing As Het
We have a responsibility to not pass for het, especially in places where hets are
more liberal about queers. It’s privileged arrogance to throw away the chance to
help build Dyke community by being out. Many Lesbians manage to look
acceptable enough to men and het women to get jobs, yet are still recognizable
as Dykes to the Dykes who see them at work. There are other choices that make
it possible to keep a job besides looking like a draq queen Hard Fem. The
Lesbians who go out of their way to look het get benefits from men and het
women that are won at the cost of oppressing Dykes who are less willing or less
able to pass. Meanwhile, many Hard Fems and het women eagerly dress up like
drag queens, old sexist dress codes are reinstated, and both Fems and Butches
who can’t or won’t pass are unable to get or keep jobs. (And yes, there are a few
Butches who do try to pass as feminine for jobs, but they don’t really convince
anyone.)
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Lesbians who choose to pass as het sometimes act insulted and falsely claim to
be “oppressed” if other Lesbians don’t recognize them as Lesbians. But it’s not
safe for us to make that assumption about them. Lesbians exist in every culture
in the world, and we find each other by looking definably different from het
standards. Those of us who are clearly out are more likely to be disowned by
family and het friends, evicted, fired from jobs, arrested by police, beaten,
raped, and/or killed for being Lesbians. We face huge risks, but to be closeted
feels like a form of suicide to us. If every Lesbian refused to pass as het, our
tremendous numbers would make the world safer for us. And those Dykes
who can’t pass, no matter how hard they try, would be in less danger.
It’s no coincidence that in every country we have information about, whatever
the traditional local style, the look that’s forbidden to women is the same look
that’s widely recognized as Lesbian. This is the appearance that’s reserved only
for men, and is considered “cross-dressing” for women. Since it belongs to men,
it is more dignified, practical, and comfortable that the styles that men demand
women conform to.
One of the most common identifying characteristics for being a recognizable
Lesbian is to have short, natural (neither permanented nor straightened, dyed
nor bleached) hair. We mean the type of hair that even oblivious hets identify as
Lesbian, not “crew cuts.” It’s Lesbian-baiting to act like being out means you
have to adopt a ludicrous male military appearance. Critics of short hair accuse
us of focusing on “trivial issues,” yet their outrage makes it clear that hair style
is anything but trivial to them.
Femininity pressures women to be obsessed with their appearance in time-
consuming and self-hating ways. And women pay an enormous amount of money
to maintain feminine hair styles. Racist attitudes pressure racially and ethnically
oppressed women with tightly curled hair to have their hair straightened, or at
least made more loosely curled with burning, corrosive, carcinogenic chemicals.
And, although the oppression is far less, women with more “acceptably” straight
hair are sometimes expected, depending on current styles, to make their hair
curly in order to be more feminine. Very few women have escaped having their
hair drastically altered when they were little girls, so that they could “look their
best,” and most have chosen as adults to alter their hair.
There are fashions which have been called “Lesbian” or even “Separatist” when
they’re just another counter-culture kind of femininity. One of these is the “tail,”
“fag tag,” or mullet, where the hair is worn short in the front and long in the
back, either all the way across or with just a narrow section hanging down. This
fashion is popular among Gay men (who originated it), punks, and now
mainstream het men and women. It’s become so trendy that even young boys in
nuclear families wear it. (By 2011, the mullet has become a mainstream media
joke.) The Lesbian who has it may think she’s being blatantly out, but the style
says, “I may be a Lesbian, but then again, I may be het or bisexual. Either way,
I don’t want anyone to get the impression I’m a Dyke.”
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It’s a symbol of rebellion against male directives for Lesbians to refuse to change
the natural appearance of our hair and to refuse to grow it long, preventing men
from easily grabbing it. It’s also a symbol of ethnic and racial pride for Lesbians
to refuse to straighten their hair in imitation of northwestern European hair
texture. Some racially and ethnically oppressed Lesbians wear their hair in longer
styles that reflect their culture but still make it possible for themselves to be
recognized as Dykes. They do this by wearing styles of hair and clothing that
aren’t specifically feminine.
“P.C.” and “P.I.”

Politics that support femininity either assert that Femness is an oppression,
which makes it difficult for politically responsible Dykes to argue against it—or
they assert that femininity is simply a matter of personal taste and preference,
which implies that anyone objecting to it would have to be a dictatorial power-
monger. (No Dyke has the power to stop others from selling out. As the
oppressed, all we can do is object.)
Heterosexist Lesbians aren’t usually content with being oppressive—they like to
boast that they’re “P.I.” (“Politically Incorrect”). That way they can pretend
they’re original, brave, and revolutionary, instead of passively conforming to
male rule. Lesbians who admire and follow such male-defined politics as
femininity, “Lesbian” porn, sado-masochism, passing as het, supporting
“Lesbian” pregnancy, or protecting boys’ and men’s “rights” to be in Lesbian
space often pride themselves on being “Politically Incorrect.” Those who protest
the selling out are considered boring bullies. After all, it’s easiest to silence
someone by turning them into a joke. Interestingly, these are the exact same
tactics that European-descent men and het women use to ridicule anyone who
protests the status quo, whether by fighting racism or objecting to people
wearing fur coats made from the bodies of endangered species.7
The few truly brave Dykes who are fighting the patriarchal onslaught against our
communities are treated as if we were in power, even though encouraging and
supporting our Dyke looks and behavior is far less common in our communities
than criticism of Out Dykes. This is a typical male mind-fuck. It’s the Lesbians
who are following men’s directives who are “Politically Correct” in a
male-run world, and they derive privilege from that correct role. It’s as if they
came into radical Dyke communities wearing crosses and other right-wing
symbols, saying, “We’re so brave to stand up to you all.” There’s nothing
courageous in wearing the feminine uniform (whether the old conservative or the
newer trendy styles), repeating the ancient heterosexist propaganda, and doing
just what women are supposed to do in patriarchy.
These anti-political politics aren’t just anti-Lesbian—they’re usually oppressive in
every other way as well, as this excerpt from a Lesbian personal ad shows:
“Politically Incorrect and proud of it … 5’4”, 135 lbs, green eyes, platinum blonde
hair, good-looking, very intelligent … Dislike: … stereotypical dykes … man-
haters. Seek women who is: Caucasian, pale-skinned, slender, 25 to 30+, …
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physically fit … pretty … Okay if you wear a pound of mascara … The more exotic
you are, the better.”
Who’s Calling Who “Male”?

Looking like a Dyke does not mean we’re trying to look like or be men. Dykes
who aren’t trying to gain privilege by looking het are often mistaken for men or
boys because we don’t look like men’s definition of “women.” Even Fems are
occasionally called “sir” by hets if they’re wearing Dyke clothes, short hair, no
make-up, no earrings, etc. Yet it’s Butches who are accused by Fems of “trying
to be men.” Fems, as well as Butches, have sometimes tried to pass as men
when traveling or out walking alone at night because it was far more dangerous
not to. This is just common sense, and Lesbians often approve a Fem doing it,
but not a Butch. Why the double standard? Something unfair is going on when
there’s one standard for Butches and another for Fems. Feminists admire women
who take traditional male jobs, especially “professional careers,” and don’t
accuse them of “wanting to be men.”
Butches are clearly, visibly Dykes. We’re sometimes mistaken for men not
because we want to be men, but because no one believes women should be so
solidly, sturdily ourselves, the way men are allowed to be. And also, people are
trained to just not think – Lesbians who refuse to look feminine shake most men
and het women to their foundation. We frighten men, and we remind het women
of whole other worlds of possibilities.
It’s ironic that many Lesbians who accuse Butches of “being like men” actually
like some men. They just don’t think women have the right to be any of the
positive ways patriarchy reserves for the male image.
Being taken for a man is deeply insulting and queer-baiting. It doesn’t mean that
the Dyke is getting any male privileges or power. Butches live under female
oppression as well as under the worst of Lesbian oppression. If Fems defend
themselves against the “Lesbians are men” attack by explaining that it’s one of
the many anti-Lesbian stereotypes, why can’t they defend Butches in the same
way? Why can’t Fems understand that Butches get more of this treatment
because Butches have always been the most obvious Lesbians?
Many Fems, particularly Never-het and other Dyke-identified Fems, are treated
as more queer/Dykey by Hard Fems. And even the most Hard Fems know what
it’s like to be treated as perverts by het women. That gives them a little taste of
Butch oppression. Any Fem who says she doesn’t understand at all what it’s like
to be Butch reveals how much het privilege she has, and how much she
considers Butches as Other, alien, and beneath her.
Butches are not like men. Butches don’t think, look, or act like men. Butches
don’t have the privileges and power of men. In terms of the heterosexist
hierarchy, we’re the least privileged of all Lesbians, and therefore of all women.
Men, het women, and Fem Lesbians never treat Butches as if we actually were
men, because that would mean giving us privilege. When they call Butches
“male,” they’re being extremely cruel, smug, arrogant, dishonest, and
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oppressive. The Lesbian-hating of this stereotype is outrageous. Most Fems take

part in this mass, community abuse of Butches, which has disastrous
consequences, causing Butches emotional pain, deprivation, isolation, fear,
illness, and death. By 2015, there is a much higher percentage of Butches we’ve
known who have died – way out of proportion to their numbers.
Butches are treated as the queerest of the queers. In the patriarchal hierarchy,
men are at the top, next are wives/mothers, single het women, celibate het
women, next are bisexual women, then Hard Fems who emulate and identify
with men and het women, next are Dyke-identified Fems, and finally Butches are
at the bottom. (As we said in Chapter 3, this hierarchy is also affected by how
long we’ve been Lesbians, when we came out, and past het privilege. Also, we’re
in no way minimizing the significance of racial, ethnic, class, nationality, physical
ability, fat, looks, and age oppression. Dykes who are oppressed in any and all of
these ways are additionally oppressed if we’re also Butch.)
Just as, among Lesbians, the “normal” Lesbian image is a middle-class
stereotype, the “queer” Butch image is often classist. When Butches are said to
be “like men,” the image presented certainly isn’t that of the male lawyer,
doctor, or business executive. It’s more likely to be the stereotype of a working-
class truck driver who hangs out in bars, is uneducated, uncultured, rude, tough,
cold, and violent. These aren’t just anti-Butch and anti-Lesbian lies, but classist
lies as well. Meanwhile, the model for femininity is based on the upper-class
WASP het woman ideal.
A few Butches may appear to have a fractional share of something that’s usually
reserved for men, such as a non-traditional job, but the vast majority of women
who’ve moved into such high-paying work are het; a few are Fem Lesbians. The
very few Butches in those jobs are much more oppressed on the job, just as we
are everywhere else. The only women who seem to have attained executive,
upper-class positions as the heads of companies and high status in
governments—often by being daughters or wives of powerful men—are, again,
het women.
Butches who’ve tried to pass as men, or who are taken to be men, or who’ve
done any or all of the things used to “prove” Butches are “male-identified,” don’t
prove anything except that, in patriarchy, if you don’t accept the role of
“womanly,” you’re labeled “manly,” whether you like it or not. Parents, relatives,
teachers, and other girls who treat a Butch girl as an imitation boy aren’t
causing her to be Butch; her resistance to femininity was chosen by her much
earlier in life. What they’re doing is abusing her by refusing to acknowledge her
as a female. She’s never given the privilege a boy has —she’s just treated as an
abnormal girl.
In what way is a Butch girl thinking she’s “not a woman” different from adult
Dyke Separatists and radical Lesbians rejecting the term “woman” for ourselves
as a political act? (Except that choosing to reject a mis-definition is easier when
you’ve had a chance to acquire a clear analysis and political support.) Can’t the
young Butch’s early rejection of femininity be seen as an intuitive awareness that
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“feminine” usually means “heterosexual” and all the other disgusting things that
go with it? Isn’t she instinctively realizing much earlier, and without political
support, that all the outward symbols of womanliness and heterosexuality, and
the internalized values that support them, also mean fuckable, dependent,
unthinking, submissive, and ultimately passive? Young Dykes who perceive that
crap for what it is and rebel against it without support, in spite of constant
punishment, are to be admired and respected. That’s courage!
Because some Butches have bound their breasts, Butches are called “male.” In a
world where men and boys stare and grab at women’ breasts on the street,
making humiliating comments, it’s not odd that a Dyke would want to conceal
and protect her body. Isn’t it more questionable to wear padded, push-up bras in
order to elicit sexual attention from men – not to mention implants that destroy
the immune system and which now many women are buying for their teenaged
daughters, as well as other plastic surgery, to make them more sellable to men?
Who but the truly male-identified would: wear apparatus that pushes her breasts
out and up into men’s faces; ruin her back, pelvis, and feet by tottering about on
high heels; squash her body into a girdle; painfully remove the fur on her body
or face; wear make-up that looks like bruises across her cheeks or that mimics
sexual excitement; poison herself and anyone within breathing distance with
chemicals that disguise her female aroma; or wear a dress that exposes her body
and makes her less able to escape from rape? Who else would deliberately starve
and torture (“exercise”) herself to look weak, powerless, unfemale, and thin
enough to please men? And who else would believe that looking so undignified
and ludicrous is being “fashionably beautiful”? One Fem we know was on a local
Oakland, California, television show about “Butch and Fem roles.” Even though
Lesbians had in the past spent many hours explaining to her much of what we’re
saying in this chapter, she wore het paraphernalia and make-up and explained
she was a Fem because “I feel like a girl.”
Bev: Using make-up does males’ dirty work in other ways, too. Where do
Lesbians think cosmetic chemicals come from? Besides the fact that most
cosmetics are “proven to be safe” (which they of course are not) by torturing and
murdering millions of animals, Lesbians don’t usually consider what it’s like to
work or live near cosmetics factories. I have a higher risk of developing cancer or
liver disease because of growing up a half-block from such a factory. My
working-class neighborhood was daily subjected to the nauseating, caustic fumes
that literally blistered the paint off cars. It’s no coincidence that factories are
built only in poor and working-class areas.
Studies have shown that in the U.S., 884 ingredients used in cosmetics have
been reported to the government as “toxic substances.” Of these, 314 are
reported to cause biological mutation, 218 to cause reproductive complications,
778 are capable of acute toxicity, 146 are reported to cause tumors, and 376
ingredients cause skin and eye irritation. But the U.S. cosmetics industry is a 17
billion dollar business so, “… there are no inhalation tests to determine perfume
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safety, only skin tests, and neuro-toxic effects are not examined.”8 [These
quotes are from 1990. It’s much worse now.
The Lie That Butches Bond with Men

This is a particularly offensive stereotype, considering that men are Butches’
enemies. Many of the Butches we’ve known haven’t ever been friends with men,
while many of the Fems we’ve known have. Why are the few Butches who are
friends with men focused on, when it’s het women as a group who literally,
physically, bond with men? What of their collaboration? Het women are intimate
with men in ways that no Lesbian could ever be. They welcome men into their
bodies, and create and nurture men. Some even collaborate with males in the
beating, abduction, rape, and murder of other women. If any Lesbians bond with
men, it’s more likely to be ex-het Fems than Butches. Many ex-het Fems
maintain close relationships with ex-husbands and ex-boyfriends. Ex-het Fems
are also more likely to become bisexual or return to being het. Of the many
Lesbians we’ve known who’ve gone het, all were Fems, and almost all had been
het. Men and hets are more comfortable with Fems than with Butches, because
that’s how they want us to be: the more Fem and het-identified a Lesbian is, the
more comfortable patriarchy is.
Butches as Sexual Objects

One of the major stereotypes of Butches is that we objectify Fems. This again
compares Butches to men, when the reality is that it’s usually Fems who sexually
objectify Butches. Butches are more likely to take the risk of initiating being
lovers than Fems are, which is courageously Lesbian. When Fems appear to be
more aggressive, they’re often in fact trying to get the Butches to do the
initiating. A Fem at a Lesbian forum said about coming out, “You don’t go with
men, after you grew up thinking you would. Then you let a woman touch you,
and that’s really scary.” What goes on in a Lesbian’s mind when, rather than
talking about coming out through desire to love and touch another female, her
focus is on letting a Lesbian touch her! This is a common attitude—the Fem is
the one who is loved, and the Butch is the one who loves. The way some Fems
come on to all Butches and ignore other Fems sexually is similar to the way
many het women flirt with all men and ignore other women. It’s also similar to
the way men objectify women, viewing them only as things to be used for sexual
conquest. It’s personally and sexually invasive to assume Butches welcome this
impersonal and inappropriate attention.
One Butch we know was approached at a party by a Fem who’d recently come
out. They worked together and there’d been no sexual interaction between them.
Our friend thought of this Lesbian as just an acquaintance. Suddenly the Fem
said, “Put your hand on my breast.” The Butch was stunned. She had no interest
in touching this Lesbian in any way. She felt verbally molested, but presumably
was supposed to feel flattered. Another Dyke we know was in a bar when a Fem
she barely knew and wasn’t even in a conversation with deliberately rubbed her
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bare breast across our friend’s arm. These tricks must have worked with men in
this Lesbian’s past.
When a Butch and Fem become lovers, the Butch is more likely to make love to
the Fem than vice-versa. Some Fems never reciprocate their lovers’ passionate
attentions. Many do, but often not with the same intensity and focus that they
enjoy from their lover. Is it any wonder that some Butches become reluctant to
accept lovemaking from Fem lovers, when all have experienced rejection,
indifference, and half-hearted going-through-the-motions? It also doesn’t help
that many Fems are attracted by the stereotype of the “stone Butch,” without
any awareness that Fems have created and maintain that stereotype for their
own benefit, and that it causes a great deal of pain to Butches.
Many Fems want to believe that Butches get something out of inequality in
lovemaking. Some Fems even insist that a Butch doesn’t need to be made love
to because the Fem’s orgasm mysteriously causes her Butch lover to have an
orgasm at the same time! (Wryly referred to by a Butch friend as “the Phantom
Orgasm.”) Again, Fems are perceiving Butches to be some kind of man. After all,
don’t men prefer to be the active partner in sexual encounters with women?
Doesn’t it give them power over women? But Butches are not men. (In
Aotearoa, Dykes sarcastically refer to Fems who don’t make love to their lovers
as “flat-on-their-back-fairies.” Fairy is an Old Dyke word from Aotearoa for Fem.
In the US, the term is “pillow queen.”) What is more hateful and cruel than
making your lover feel that you can’t bear to touch her? Is this a woman who can
be trusted to be a Lesbian?
Femininity teaches women to imagine themselves the center of sexual attention,
the alluring flower meant to attract rewards from excited, attentive, and loving
admirers. Of course, that’s het fairy tale crap. The het woman’s costume and
perfume are meant to attract men, and men’s attentions are far from loving.
Most Fems don’t want to attract men, but many have internalized that image of
themselves as an alluring center of sexual attention, and they simply substitute
Butches as those they want to attract.
But Butches are not men. We’re women, we’re Lesbians, and our lovemaking
has absolutely no connection or resemblance to men fucking women. A Butch
focuses her attention on her lover’s pleasure, and her lovemaking is a way of
creating strong emotional, psychic, and spiritual intimacy with her lover. Men
don’t make love — they use women’s bodies to masturbate themselves and to
establish dominance over them — they fuck women. The physical realities of the
two activities are completely different. Considering the profound emotional,
psychic, and spiritual differences as well, comparing Butches to men in intimate
sensual relationships is glaringly illogical and insulting.
It would be more accurate to say that, in many cases, a Butch making love with
a Fem is similar to a Lesbian making love with a het woman. The most het-
identified Fem’s lovemaking is like a man’s — her focus is on her pleasure alone,
with no concern for her lover’s. When she does touch her lover it’s with the
intention of “fucking” her and dominating her. It’s the most insensitive, harsh
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kind of Lesbian lovemaking. The Butch is set up as The Queer, and her female
needs and desires — physical, mental, emotional, and beyond — are ignored,
because she’s not perceived as being female. Does this sound like a safe
situation for a Butch to say, “I really want you to make love to me the way I
make love to you, even though a lifetime of queer and Butch oppression would
make it hard for me to believe you really meant it”? Not likely. So, many Butches
have accepted being “stone Butches” out of loneliness and desperation, and have
given up on ever finding equality and real love.
Some Fems are pushed into unequal lovemaking by lovers who are more Fem.
These Fems experience some of the pain, frustration, humiliation, loneliness, and
self-hatred that unreciprocated passion creates, and they can understand from
that what Butches go through all the time.
Passive Fems Avoid Their Own Lesbianness

By being lovers only with Butches or pushing Fem lovers into an oppressed Butch
role, a Fem can avoid her fear of her own Lesbianism. When a Lesbian initiates
making love to her lover, she directly faces the fact that she’s a Lesbian. But if
she’s made love to and doesn’t reciprocate that love, then she can feel less
queer. In fact, by being passive in Lesbian intimacy, she is less queer. That
makes her lover “the real queer.” This is especially true of Butches but also
affects Fems in the Butch role. The common het stereotype of Lesbian couples is
that one is “the real Lesbian” (the Butch) and one is a het woman who’s been
forced or seduced into the relationship by the Butch. This oppresses Butches, not
Fems.
Fems who are involved with Butches and do nothing to fight the oppression of
Butches go along with that stereotype whether they mean to or not. When they
go out into the het world with their lover, they’re not thought of as being
responsible for the relationship — they’re perceived as het and temporarily
involved with a Lesbian instead of with a man. As insulting as this is to the Fem,
it’s far more insulting and dangerous to the Butch. This unequal situation can
be avoided only if the Fem takes equal responsibility for being a Lesbian and for
being in a lover relationship, which means acting and looking like a Dyke.
Think about how het women flirt with us, act scared of us, believe and spread
Lesbian-hating lies about us, patronize us, treat us like perverts or as if we’re
stuck in a childish state” — that’s how many Fems treat Butches. Many ex-het
Fems have said that it took them a long time to come out because they met
Butches and were terrified, so they went back to men. Now, that’s really taking
responsibility for yourself! Weren’t they scared of men? Why not?
While many Fems are passive because of irresponsibility, some have much more
destructive motives. Some Fems who lived with or married men when they were
het actually want their lover to be in a “male role.” They may push their lover to
act like the ex-husband/boyfriend, to make love in a way that feels like fucking,
because they haven’t stopped thinking like men’s women. Since Butches have
much less social power than Fems, particularly ex-het Fems, they’re vulnerable
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to being pushed around by them, including being forced into the Fem’s fantasies
— especially since part of the Fem role is authoritativeness toward Butches. For
example, it’s usually male-identified ex-het Fems who talk about liking to be
“fucked hard” and who like their Butch lover to use a dildo. An Old Dyke friend
recalls, with pain and anger, being made to feel “like a walking dildo.” She tells
of the countless times such Fems have said to her, “I’m a Lesbian at heart, but
my body is still heterosexual and wants a prick.” We believe that this is what
dildo use is about. Instead of experiencing the exquisite sensation of your lover’s
body or her feeling yours, a silicon prick is used instead. You can certainly feel
more by touching and being touched, so the only reason we can think of for
using an object that is in the image of what rapes and is imitated in weapons
from guns to nuclear missiles is simply lesbophobia/Lesbian-hatred.
When a Butch is told all her life that she’s not really a woman, and is taught to
hate herself, is it surprising that she would take a “real” woman’s word for what
women like in lovemaking? Some of the ways Butches are stereotyped come not
from the ways Butches look or act, but from the fantasies, desires, and pressures
of het-identified Lesbians. These are the ex-het Fems who, when they talk about
“past lovers,” include men. These are the Lesbians who came out for reasons
other than their love of women. They “just happened to fall in love with a woman
this time,” or they want power over others that they can’t get with men, or they
want to play out a male-pornographic fantasy. (Most Lesbians we’ve known who
like to read porn have been Fems.) By never making love to their lover, but only
being made love to, Fems like this can fantasize they’re really with a man. Then
they turn around and accuse their lover of being “male-identified”! It’s horrible
that Lesbians like these, who operate totally out of male and het values, and fuck
over Lesbians, are accepted as nice role-free Lesbians while Butches and, to a
lesser extent, Dyke-identified Fems, are persecuted for their Lesbianism, by
other Lesbians.
Fems sometimes ask, usually with hostility, “Well, why are most Butches lovers
with Fems, then? And how come lots of Butches admire feminine Lesbians?” The
answer is internalized oppression. It’s not unusual for other kinds of
oppressed Lesbians to be attracted to Lesbians from more privileged groups. For
instance, some working-class Lesbians are lovers only with class-privileged
Lesbians. Resistance to femininity comes at a high price — total lack of support
— which breeds self-doubt and self-hatred. In that situation, the more privileged
and acceptable are always more highly valued than those who remind you of
yourself, and you gain a little protection from oppression by getting their
friendship and approval. Also, Butches are in a small minority, so we meet more
Fems. Some Butches do succeed in becoming lovers with each other, and those
we’ve met have said that theirs was the most equal relationship they’d
experienced, and that they’d been able to help each other nurture self-love.
However, Butches who are lovers with other Butches are harassed by both Fems
and Butches, including being lectured to that they should be with Fems and that
they aren’t “real” Butches or are less Butch than the “real” Butches who are with
Fems. Sound familiar? Lesbians are told that “real” women are with men.
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Who’s “Sex-Obsessed”?
Hard Fems are often remarkably callous towards Butches and Dyke-identified
Fems. Many Dykes have experienced Hard Fems’ het-style sexual games, but
they can be very difficult to confront. Hard Fems’ sexually suggestive comments
and jokes can seem like harmless play. A Hard Fem commenting on the vulval
appearance of food or flowers may be considered charming, while a Butch saying
the same words is likely to be called “sex-obsessed.”
Any Dyke who directly asks a Hard Fem if she’s flirting is also likely to be called
“sex-obsessed.” Meanwhile, the Hard Fem gains popularity through manipulation,
pretending attraction to Dykes she’s not interested in. She may “accidentally”
rub her breasts or pubic region against a Dyke or place her knee between the
legs of a Dyke while dancing, her manner clearly flirtatious. The Dyke may feel
vulnerable and confused, wondering, “Am I imagining this? Does this mean she’s
attracted to me? If I respond with interest, will she deny what she’s doing?” The
Hard Fem will very likely respond with surprise, feigned fear, ridicule, or anger.
This type of covert sexual manipulation borders on molestation, because it’s an
uninvited invasion of physical boundaries that’s done in order to gain a power
position. It’s especially harmful to family rape victims or any Dyke who’s had her
reality repeatedly denied. Yet this intrusive Fem seductiveness is admired by
many Lesbians, and falsely thought of as “sexual honesty” and “being daringly
out,” when it’s nothing more than the way “liberated” het women act with men.
Lesbian sexuality should be genuine, Dyke-loving, and egalitarian.
Hard Fems often set up competition by flirting with several Dykes at the same
time and then enjoy being fought over. They may also maintain power by
stringing along several lovers at once without giving any their full attention,
acceptance, or intimacy, and then harassing their hapless followers for their
reasonable jealousy.
The Lie That Butches Are Tough, Mean, Violent, Unemotional

Every Lesbian has to be tough to survive. We’re threatened and attacked,
verbally and physically, because we’re Dykes. The more out we are, the more
likely we are to be attacked, especially physically. Even when we’re not being
overtly attacked, we’re stared at, made to feel like outcasts, and are the objects
of angry, disgusted, hating, patronizing, leering, or ridiculing looks. Even if no
male or het woman is being horrible at a particular moment, we’re still constantly
assaulted by a het, pornographic, male world, with male fetishistic fantasies of
women in store windows, on billboards, and in all the male and het media. A
Dyke can’t be all fluffy and sweet, with a soft, open face, when she’s walking
through a virtual mine-field. Fems also have to protect ourselves physically,
emotionally, mentally, and psychically against this assaultive het world, although
to a lesser extent, and as a result could be accused of being “mean, closed, and
tough.” When Butches are similarly self-protective, our behavior is used to prove
male lies about Butches being “hard.” Yet the het world is much more hostile and
dangerous to Butches, especially to those who are further oppressed by racism,
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anti-Semitism, ethnicism, classism, ageism, ableism, fat oppression, and

looksism.
It’s a basic political principle that it’s not all right for those with more power to
stereotypically label those with less power. A Fem who accuses a Butch of being
“suspicious,” for instance, should ask herself instead what it is in her own
behavior that the Butch has reason not to trust. There’s plenty, if the Fem is
doing nothing to fight Butch oppression, and is making the usual assumption that
it’s the Butch with “the problem.” Treating someone as “abnormal” is an
excellent reason to not be trusted. Fems treat Butches this way all the time, with
very rare exceptions. Butches have more than enough reason to relate to the
general world with great distrust, and we also have plenty of reason to not trust
Fems the way things are at present in Lesbian communities. While Butches are
frequently and publicly insulted in Lesbian publications and elsewhere, with
almost no one speaking out in our defense, we would be most unwise to
completely trust Fems.
Butches are told we’re “unemotional, tough, and cold,” because we’re not
Fems. These accusations have very little to do with what each individual Butch is
actually like. Fems, being feminine, are perceived as “soft, vulnerable, and
emotionally expressive,” which is often far from the truth. Fems aren’t
“oppressed” by this womanly stereotype — they’ve chosen to live it because of
the privilege it gives for appearing to be “normal women.” In reality, Fems are
more often tough, mean, and less genuinely emotional than Butches are. It’s
tough, mean and closed to act oppressively to Butches. Hard Fems who won’t
even try to be close to other Fems, and who try to make Butches fill all their
needs, are especially emotionally distant. Fems who’ll only be close to lovers or
Lesbians they’re attracted to are impossible to be friends with.
Hard Fems sometimes behave in stereotypical feminine ways by throwing
scenes, screaming, using tears to manipulate others, and generally acting like
drama queens. This doesn’t prove that Fems are “open” and Butches are
“closed.” Throwing scenes isn’t real emotion—it’s pushing other Lesbians around,
intimidating and silencing them by using theatrical power plays or cruel outbursts
that show no consideration for other Lesbians’ feelings. These displays are
learned behavior, deliberately used for effect. It’s not from being genuinely
upset, which all of us feel sometimes and need to express. The same Fems who
use tears to manipulate other Lesbians are likely to ignore or ridicule a Butch
who cries. That is the more male behavior.
None of the Butches we’ve met conform to the “tough, closed” stereotype.
Butches are often more present, warmer, and more emotionally supportive than
many Fems. We’ve met as much or more genuine warmth, sensitivity, and
willingness to deal honestly with feelings among Butches as among Fems.
Butches’ solid Dyke identity gives them a personal realness that no amount of
femininity will ever confer. To be more Lesbian is to be more true to our natural
female selves, while to be less Lesbian-identified (more het-identified) is to be
further from our real selves. The further you are from your real self, the less
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capable you are of being honestly direct, and the less capable you are of being
really close to another Lesbian.
Portraying an entire group of Lesbians as all having the same characteristics is
objectifying and denies individual personalities and differences. Just as there are
many sorts of Dykes, there are many sorts of Butches. As long as Fems are
projecting stereotypes onto Butches, Fems will never be able to truly
communicate and be close to us. This is the Fems’ failing, not the Butches’! It’s
also the Fems’ loss, and the Butches’ oppression.
There’s also a stereotype of Butches being drunks, which reflects the common
stereotype of Lesbians as alcoholics. In our experience, recovering alcoholic
Butches are more likely to be open about being alcoholic and having stopped
drinking than Fems. This makes alcoholic Butches more visible than alcoholic
Fems, of whom there are many. This stereotype is also used against many other
oppressed groups, since using alcohol and drugs is a common way of trying to
cope with oppression.
Unfortunately, being bombarded with hatred causes self-hatred. Many Lesbians
end up believing Lesbian-hating lies. They may think they’re queer because of
emotional or hormonal problems. Some Butches believe the same. A few may
even agree with Butch-hating lies, but no one should use Butches’ internalized
oppression to believe the lies. No Dykes should be repeating those lies any more
than they should repeat stereotypical lies about any oppressed group. Saying,
“But some Butches are like men,” is like saying, “But some working-class
Lesbians are dirty, lazy, stupid slobs.” Just because someone says something
derogatory about themselves or about someone else doesn’t mean it’s true.
Butch Oppression Hurts All Dykes

No matter how often the stereotypes of Butches in particular, and Lesbians in
general, are proven to be untrue, the lies are still spread, and damage is still
done. Why? Because Lesbians are the only threat to the world-wide rule of
patriarchy, and Butches are the most obvious of Lesbians — the Dykes who most
clearly refuse to cooperate with male domination of the world. Why do Lesbians
themselves participate in the male assaults on our resistance struggle? One of
the reasons is that patriarchy is based on hierarchy and inequality, divide and
conquer. Women are split up into many different groups and taught to be
antagonistic, ridiculing, and hating towards anyone who’s beneath them in the
het hierarchy. We learn this as little girls in our schools, families, and religions.
Part of the conditioning to become “real women” is being taught to police and
bully other girls on behalf of the male power structure. That’s why even young
girls can be so cruel to anyone who is different.
Why is it that het women, who exemplify the feminine ideal, are perceived as
“emotional, loving, open, soft, and expressive”? It’s because they get close to,
are open to, and love males. As a group, they sure as hell aren’t that way with
Lesbians. The feminine stereotype is a lie. Het women are closed emotionally,
because they won’t be intimately open with other women. Lesbians, especially
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Butches, are falsely stereotyped as “closed” because Lesbians are not

available for intimacy with men. No matter how intimate and warm we are
with each other, we’re still called “distant, closed, emotionally frozen,” because
closeness between Lesbians doesn’t count—only loving men and boys (especially
sons) is counted as “feelings.” Individual het women can be as cold and vicious
as they like, but as long as they’re a wife and mother, they qualify as “gentle,
warm, feeling,…womanly.”
Of course not all het women act hateful. We know some who are dear friends
and allies, but still, het women as a group operate this way and all benefit from
institutionalized privilege.
Non-Separatist Lesbians, though they don’t hate and avoid men like Separatists
do, still don’t fuck with men. That’s basic to Lesbian identity. No matter how nice
non-Separatists are to men, they’re still viewed by men and het women as the
mean, hard Lesbians of the stereotypes. Even more so are Separatists, who are
so “cruel and harsh” as to have the guts to perceive men as the rapists and
murderers they are. We supposedly “lack compassion” and are “hard and vicious”
because we hate males, while rapists and murderers are the objects of universal
womanly loyalty, and love. Het women breed, feed, clothe, clean for, fuck, love,
and support those rapists, and so are considered “loving, natural, open, and
womanly,” instead of being accurately perceived as the Lesbian-hating, female-
hating collaborators they really are. Meanwhile, Lesbians who dare to challenge
het women’s hatred towards us are called “woman-hating” or “misogynist — the
lie of reverse discrimination.
The world we live in calls hatred and cruelty “love,” while calling courage and wit
“cruelty.” Lesbians, especially Butches, are set up by men to be the universal
scapegoats for male crime. Understanding this makes it clear why we’re
stereotyped as harsh and mean. Stereotypes should always be analyzed to find
out who they profit — then we find out why the stereotype exists. That’s more
important than picking apart every individual component of each stereotype.
Once we grasp why it exists, the entire body of lies automatically loses
credibility. So whenever a Fem is tempted to treat a Butch as the stereotype, she
should realize that, whether she wants to or not, she’s doing it on men’s behalf.
Hopefully that will make it clear to her that she must stop. If she refuses to
stop oppressing Butches because she doesn’t want her own Fem
privilege to be threatened, she should realize that her actions are
ultimately supporting men to go on abusing herself as a female and
Lesbian.
Butches need to become more aware of Fem privilege and Butch oppression, not
in a self-hating way, but by realizing how we’re oppressed and by caring about
the oppression of other Butches. Part of that means developing solidarity with
other Butches and unlearning the Lesbian-hatred that leads to valuing Fems
more. The old pattern of being attracted to and falling in love with manipulative,
game-playing, “attractive” Hard Fems doesn’t hurt only ourselves, it hurts other
Butches as well. It’s essential to not fall for the thrill of Fem flirtation that has no
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love or real caring behind it. That also means fighting the urge to be trusting and
protective of Fems who are actually being oppressive to you or others. For some
Butches, that means changing a lifetime of believing that the most feminine
Lesbians are the most female-identified. It means being true to your own self
and to all Dyke-identified Dykes, Butch and Fem.
Dyke-identified Fem friends and lovers can be true and trusted allies to Butches,
as the authors of this book prove. Reacting with rage towards all Fems doesn’t
help fight Fem privilege. It can make things worse, as well as being unfair. Dyke-
identified Fems shouldn’t get the brunt of a Butch’s lifetime of very
understandable anger about Butch oppression. Hard Fems usually make sure
they’re not around to deal with any of it. It also doesn’t help to insist your lover
is Butch when she isn’t. (Both Butches and Fems do this.) Dyke-loving Fems can
love and support our Butch friends and lovers best by supporting and
encouraging their resistance to Butch oppression, and by rejecting femininity.
Lesbians who haven’t challenged their internalized anti-Lesbian attitudes are less
able to be emotionally open and intimate with other Lesbians, because of the
fear that Lesbian-hatred causes. Real intimacy with Dyke friends and lovers
requires acknowledgment, acceptance, and pride in our Lesbianism. Dyke joy
and intensity, love, and well-being are our rewards. To remain lesbophobic is to
leave in place barriers to intimacy that no amount of therapy or drugs can ever
get rid of. Only Lesbian-identified politics, which means really caring about other
Dykes will remove those barriers.
Endnotes
1. Our politics about Dyke Separatism, strong Dyke-identity, and Butch oppression made an
international Dyke connection for us and is how Linda and Bev met Ruston.
Ruston: From when I came out, I was aware of a feeling of “similar” or “opposites” in
Lesbians’ friendships and lover relationships, including my own. However, I still believed “roles
were in the past” and denied Butches’ existence. But several Lesbians courageously came out
to me as Butch over the years, and as my understanding of Lesbian (including Never-het and
Old Dyke [Lesbians who came out before the Women’s Liberation Movement]) oppression
grew, it became clear Butches were oppressed. Even while recognizing I was a Fem, I found
that the game-playing of other Fems badly affected me. I met no-one who shared these politics
until reading Bev’s article “Roles: Butch and Femme” in 1982 in the Lesbian
Insider/Insighter/Inciter (USA).
Bev: In the U.S., with the support of a few other Separatists, including my best friend Linda, I
came to the same conclusions. I wrote an article in the original Lesbian
Insider/Insighter/Inciter about Butch oppression (No.5, Minneapolis, Minnesota, November
1981). Even though I presented the topic in a cautious, exploratory way, the article was met
with hostility by many Lesbians. Ruston, who was also a Separatist, saw my article and wrote
to me to share support. Ruston dared to say that she knew that Fems were in the privileged
position in relation to Butches, which supported my and Linda’s ideas.
Linda: By 1983, I was alarmed by the increase of overt femininity and Butch-hatred among
“radical” Lesbians, and by the resulting pain and damage to Dykes I love. I wrote an earlier
version of what is now Part II of this chapter, “The Big Sell-Out: Lesbian Femininity,” which
was printed in Lesbian Ethics, Vol. 1, No. 3, Fall, 1985. Together the three of us wrote the
sequel, (which was partly based on an unpublished article of Ruston’s), printed in Lesbian
Ethics, Vol. 2, No. 2, Fall, 1986, as “Heterosexism Causes Lesbophobia Causes Butch-Phobia,”
now incorporated into Parts I and III of this chapter.
2. Coming Up, San Francisco, California, November 1988.
3. Tracy McDonald, review of “Behind the Curtains,” off our backs, 17:8, Aug./Sept. 1978, 19.
4. Elena Popp, “First Encuentro of Feminist Lesbians,” off our backs, 18:3, March 1988, 32.
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5. De Clarke, “Femme and Butch: A Readers’ Forum” Lesbian Ethics, 2:2, Fall 1986, 96.
6. Wilson Key, Media Sexploitation (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1976), 24-26.
7. Tony Bizjak, “The Hip Social Manifesto: New Dictums of the ‘Politically Correct.’” San
Francisco Chronicle, March 17, 1989, B3. Bizjak includes a list describing “P.C.” versus “P.I.”
positions, ridiculing people who say “Persons of Color” rather than “minorities,” and “Asian”
instead of “Oriental.” He says it’s “P.C.” to have a “housemaid named Bob” rather than a
“housemaid named Maria,” to be for “affirmative action” instead of claiming “reverse
discrimination,” and to be for “animal rights” instead of “animal deaths.”
8. Research by Karen Stevens, The Reactor, A Publication for the Environmentally
Sensitive 4.1, Jan.-Feb. 1989, (P.O. Box 575, Corte Madera, CA 94925, USA), 2.
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Chapter Five
Lesbians For Lesbians - Dyke Separatism Means Loving Dykes

by Bev Jo, Linda Strega and Ruston
In a male supremacist world that reviles Lesbians, it’s a deeply courageous and
loving choice to be a Dyke Separatist and say, “We put Dykes first. No one else
cares for or loves Dykes, but we do.” Separatism comes from the same place
within us that our choice to be Lesbians comes from — fierce love, passion,
protectiveness, and commitment to our own kind. It’s the most female-loving
politics, philosophy, and way of life on Earth. Separatism also means having the
courage to perceive the world the way it really is.
The principles of Lesbian Separatism – female-only space – are what created
Feminist and Lesbian Feminist culture and community. It’s what made our
politics and blossoming creativity possible in women’s centers, bookstores, coffee
houses, meetings, readings, newspapers, journals, books, dances, parties,
plays, concerts – with no interruptions, domination, or voyeurism by men. The
unique magical feeling of Lesbians together is incredibly powerful.
All Lesbian Feminists and other women who participated in our communities
benefitted from Lesbian Separatist politics. It changed everything. It still is
changing the world, though under more pressure than ever by men trying to
destroy women-only space, (which says what a threat Separatism is.)
So why was Separatism so reviled and lied about in the Seventies and still is, all
these decades later, by the same women who profited from it? Why are we the
one Lesbian group who everyone loves to scapegoat, lie about, and hate? Why
are we treated as if it’s a crime to care for and love our own people and actually
make Lesbians a priority instead of putting everyone else first – men, men who
pretend to be women, men who pretend to be Lesbians, women who pretend to
be men, women who choose men, and women too Lesbian-hating to choose to
be Lesbians?
Separatism for other oppressed peoples is rightfully admired and understood,
even though many have been killed for daring to do it (proving how necessary it
is). Of course people under siege need to meet with their own kind, away from
their oppressors. But not Lesbians and other females. Why? The answer is that
females count for little, and Lesbians even less. Women and Lesbians together
away from the policing eye of men are extremely threatening. Also, Dyke
Separatism is saying no to men, and they punish and try to destroy any female
who does that. And then women take on the policing job for men.
As Pippa Fleming, in support of Lesbian Separatism, once demonstrated, while
standing with a group of Lesbians of different races, “This kind of Separatism is
not acceptable….” and then walking a few feet away to stand next several
African-descent Lesbians….”but this kind of Separatism is.” Yet, even while
Lesbian Feminists and other Feminists welcomed our politics of women-only
space, Lesbian Separatists became the scapegoats of our community – harassed
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with the most ridiculous slander, banned from Lesbian and feminist organizations
and social groups. The attacks continue, even though men, with collaborator
women’s help, have invaded our last women-only space.
I (Bev) became a Dyke Separatist in 1972 and I don’t know of any other
Lesbians who have been Dyke Separatists as long as I have, so I want to keep
our culture and history alive. As a group, we had less privilege than most of the
Lesbians who attacked us, yet the Separatist-hating slander said we were
privileged and lived escapist lives in the country. Like most Lesbians, we are
majority working class and live in cities. Separatism is about who we choose to
be close with, not who we are forced to relate to for survival.
No other oppressed people are so ordered to make their oppressor priority. As an
oppressed people, we have the right to be with each other away from our
oppressors — het men (including those pretending to be women and Lesbians),
Gay men, boys, and women allied with and invested in men. We also have the
right to choose who we love and trust, who our friends will be, and who we’ll
work with politically. This is the basis of feminism, which was once taken for
granted in many countries. Lesbians, women, and girls, created times and places
to be together, protected from male stares, perving, domineering, insults, and
violence.
Even after all these years, at the Old Lesbians Organizing for Change conference
in July, 2014, which, except for the man pretending to be a Lesbian, was
operating under Separatist principles of being for Old Lesbians only, Separatists
were targeted for slander and hatred. One of the speakers, who owes her fame
and writing career to the support of Lesbian Feminists, aimed the usual lies and
hatred at Separatists. She told personal stories of how betrayed she felt by her
lover’s son and how used she felt by her own son, yet her direct anger was
aimed at Lesbian Separatists for no apparent reason. Her claim that all
Separatists are European-descent and middle class is not honest since she knows
that’s not true, and here she was benefitting from this space where she was
virtually worshipped, once again scapegoating us with hatred. Why? Because we
are the easiest target and she could motivate the audience of Old Lesbians, at
almost Lesbian only space, to participate. And of course in her attack on Lesbian
Separatists, she completely ignored the existence of NIA, which is the only
Lesbian only organization that we know of in the San Francisco Bay Area, by and
for Lesbians of African-descent.
Who You Choose to Love Says Everything About You

If all Lesbians put Lesbians first in every aspect of our lives, and if all Lesbians
fought heterosexism and every other oppression among us, we could create
vital, powerful, joyful Dyke cultures. In many countries in the 1970’s and 1980’s,
Dyke Separatist politics produced exciting, creative communities of Dykes,
transforming Lesbians’ lives and making it easier for many heterosexual women
to become Lesbians. But now Lesbian energy is diverted into helping everyone
but Lesbians. When Lesbians prioritize supporting het women, even though het
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women prioritize males, is that because het women are considered more “real”
women and more “oppressed,” even while they are oppressing Lesbians?
Dyke Separatism means always putting our Lesbian friends, lovers, and political
allies ahead of males and het and bisexual women. It means making Lesbian
values more important than male and het values. Putting Lesbians first also
means never siding with men or het women, including relatives, who are
oppressing Lesbians. That includes not neglecting or abandoning Lesbian lovers
and friends in an effort to be accepted and approved of by family, het friends, or
co-workers. Being true to Dyke integrity is more important to us than the social
acceptance we’d get by silently accepting Dyke oppression.
Dyke Separatism means relating only to females when we have the choice.
Because men control the world’s resources, we have to deal with men for
physical survival, but we don’t choose to be close friends with them. (Some
Separatists make cautious exceptions for male relatives, while other Separatists
don’t.) Separatism also means working politically with other Lesbians whenever
possible (except for the most trusted het or bisexual women who do not despise
us.)
It is an unforgivable crime in patriarchy for females to dare to deeply and
completely love ourselves and each other, so Lesbians are the most universally
hated people on Earth. We are so hated that het individuals and media try to
pretend we don’t even exist. In every patriarchal, het culture, our existence is
denied or viciously lied about. Men and boys are expected to love themselves
and their male cultures, and het women are expected to love and devote their
lives to men and boys. To be more accepted, many Lesbians also accept the
patriarchal role of women prioritizing males, while the few of us who say “no” to
this injustice are hated by Lesbians as well as by men and het women.
Because males daily threaten our survival, we protect ourselves by resisting
them at all times in every way possible. Separatism means refusing to
collaborate with men in the ways they oppress, exclude, humiliate, attack, rape,
and kill females. Separatism also means fighting the Lesbian-hatred and female-
hatred that turns us against our own selves, which leads to illness or death. Too
many Dykes have died because of Lesbian-hatred. Too many Dykes have killed
themselves trying to escape the pain of oppression. Separatism means choosing
life.
By definition, all Lesbians live in a Separatist way, because we aren’t sexually
intimate with men. Refusing to let men fuck us is a courageous act of rebellion in
patriarchy. Separatists take this intrinsic Lesbian act and extend it into all parts
of our lives, consciously refusing every male demand.
Lesbian Separatism has a history and culture. We have always met together in
political Separatist-only groups and with friends. In the US, there were also
Separatist Gatherings, with the first that I know of being in 1982 at DOE Farm in
Wisconsin, another in San Francisco in 1983, and then a series of annual
Gatherings in Wisconsin in the late Eighties and early Nineties, and another in
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the Bay Area in 1993. There was also the Separatist anthology, For Lesbians
Only, edited by Julia Penelope and Sarah Hoagland, printed in 1992.
I became a Dyke Separatist after meeting a nineteen year old Separatist when I
was twenty one at the 1972 Lesbian Feminist Conference that I helped organize
in Berkeley (one of the first in the world). Separatism from men was already
taken for granted among Lesbian Feminists, but this Lesbian clarified that she
was also a Separatist from het and bisexual women since they were collaborating
with men. Even as late as 1991, some Separatists wrote that women-only space
was a given everywhere. And now, twenty-five years later we do not even have
the safety of female-only public restrooms.
Some het women smugly say to us, “But you’re cutting yourselves off from half
the human race!” – forgetting how much they have cut themselves off from the
greater number, which are women, and that they’re even cut off from
themselves. Their perceptions are distorted because only males really matter to
them. These are the kinds of ridiculous mind-fuck/gaslighting comments that
women devoted to men throw at Lesbians to get us to react with shame and
guilt, and to feel we are not being “normal” women because “real” women
prioritize males.
It simply isn’t possible to be loving, nurturing, and loyal to both males
and females, because males are waging a war against all females. Even if
males don’t seem to be participating at a particular moment, that can change at
any time. Commitment to any male is a commitment to male supremacist rule,
and that means participating in the abuse, exploitation, rape, and murder of
Lesbians and other females. Some self-hating Lesbian Feminists have said, “It
doesn’t matter who you go to bed with or whether you love males or females —
what’s important is how you live the rest of your life.” This trivializes what it
means to be a Lesbian. Who you choose to love, says everything about
you. There’s a world of difference between females and males. Lesbians who
value males and het females more than Lesbians are female-hating, but no
female is as female-hating as those who intimately nurture males over females.
If all women refused to relate to males, that would be the end of patriarchy.
Even just for Dykes to say that we have the right to our own Dyke communities
is a revolutionary act. Not collaborating with men also means valuing life over
men’s death-worshipping cultures, and choosing Dyke wisdom and creativity
over the cold, empty, boring stagnancy of patriarchy.
Simply by existing in a world that denies our existence, and by surviving
millennia of male rule, Lesbians are a resistance movement. Throughout
patriarchal history, Lesbians have always been in the forefront of fighting for
female rights and defending females against male attack, while het women have
continually betrayed us to men and created more men. Just as we’re the core of
present day Women’s Liberation, we were the core of past feminist movements.
The most out, blatant Dykes have been the most consistently courageous in
fighting for Lesbian survival because of refusing male-identified rules of
femininity. (It’s no coincidence that the media forbids us from ever even seeing a
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Butch, except for a rare one who is shown being raped and beaten to death, as
in the film Boys Don’t Cry).
Where permitted by men and het women, usually because they’ve been closeted
or “discreet,” Dykes have also been in the forefront of national, racial, ethnic,
class, and other liberation movements across the Earth. This work gained rights
for men and, to a lesser extent, het women. But Lesbians have been persecuted,
imprisoned, and murdered in both “revolutionary” and reactionary societies.
Wherever you find strong, exceptional females – in the past or present — you
find Dykes. We should reclaim our courageous past with pride and remember
that current international radical Lesbian movements, including Dyke
Separatism, come from that tradition.
Female-Only: Freeing Ourselves

Men made institutions to enforce patriarchy and patriarchal propaganda:
governments, military, police, legal, medical, educational, and social welfare
systems; media with newspapers, magazines, television, films, advertising,
“literature,” “art,” and, of course, the ultimate male cultural expression —
pornography, vital to their terrorization of females. Man’s organized religions
vary in their female-hatred, but all provide symbols and myths to “prove” the
“inevitability” of male dominance and heterosexuality. Male institutions are
made to appear such a necessary part of the world that it becomes almost
impossible to imagine living without them — particularly the social institutions
considered “normal,” like heterosexuality, marriage, motherhood, and the family,
as well as artificial male-identified femininity and false standards of “beauty” that
keep all girls and women insecure and ungrounded, and which even most
Lesbians take for granted. These cultural institutions are as vital to male rule as
governments and armies.
Patriarchy isn’t just outside of us in rape, murder, and male institutions. It’s also
inside of all females’ minds, in how we think, feel, speak, and act, because we’ve
been indoctrinated with male propaganda since birth. Separatism means
examining and ultimately freeing ourselves from all those male lies, as well as
freeing ourselves from actual male presence. We need to question everything
because anything that doesn’t come directly from Lesbian culture is likely to be
anti-female and anti-Lesbian. Separatism is a way to keep clear awareness in a
world that thinks only of exterminating Lesbians.
Some Lesbians believe that to be truly Separatist, we must never see or hear
male media, as if we’d be uncontrollably influenced by this propaganda. But
Separatists aren’t that weak. It’s far more important for Lesbians to recognize
and eliminate male and heterosexist thought and behavior than it is for us to
afraid look at a book or film by a man. We need to know what lies are being told
in the media and also to recognize the ways that Lesbians are following male and
het fads. Separatism doesn’t mean shutting ourselves off from patriarchy — it
means knowing its lies so clearly that we’re strong enough to reject them.
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Why is female-only space now almost non-existent in many communities, when

it was common in the early 1970’s? It’s not like men and boys are less prurient
and dangerous or that we don’t have the same needs for safety and community.
What’s different is the steady erosion of Lesbian identity and commitment, but
most importantly, the entire economic situation changed so that there simply
isn’t enough money to have the spaces we once had. Even the bars are gone.
In the US, the change began dishonestly, with events still called “women’s” or
even “Lesbian,” while beginning to welcome men. It was a shock when a
“Lesbian Conference” in San Francisco was open to men and het and bisexual
women. There’s also a dishonest change in the US, where some events are still
called “women’s” or even “Lesbian,” while also welcoming men. Even a “Lesbian
Conference” in San Francisco was open to men and het and bisexual women. The
conference organizers even wanted male media attention. A “Lesbian Health
Forum” in San Francisco was even more upsetting because men were not only
welcomed over Lesbians’ protests, but when a doctor with limited time answered
audience questions, all the men were called on while many Lesbians were
ignored. When sign-up sheets for support groups for ill Lesbians and their friends
and lovers were passed around, the men also signed up. We’d gone to this forum
only because it was clearly advertised “for women-only.”
Part of the problem is that some Lesbians and women made careers out of our
movement, getting power and status and money at the expense of our
communities. Like when Lesbian directors of organizations which betray Lesbians
to men make $300,000 a year, while still asking poor Lesbians to donate.
Some of the biggest money-makers have the word “Lesbian” on them, like the
National Center for Lesbian Rights, which prioritizes men over Lesbians and other
women, and even campaigns to destroy the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival
(one of our last and most precious spaces), on behalf of the men identifying as
Lesbians — the same men who threatened the Festival for years, walking around
with weapons and signs saying “Die Cis Scum” (“cis” is the name the trans cult
uses for real women since they’ve taken “women” for their own), handing out
cards with the ugly porny image of women commonly used as stickers on trucks,
but with a large erect prick, and the words, “Real woman have cocks” — who are
now allowed in, because of Lesbian betrayal, parading around exposing their
pricks. Many Lesbians and other women are still fighting to save the Michigan
Womyn’s Music Festival as women-only space, including doing a letter writing
campaign to NCLR, but NCLR is likely to follow the direction of whoever has the
most money, which is the trans cult and other men.
Boys First Means Lesbians Last

Anti-Separatist Lesbians who want an “inclusive” rather than Lesbian-identified
movement have selfishly undermined female-only space. They seem to forget
that het and Gay men, with so much more money and power than Lesbians,
have plenty of spaces that are not “’inclusive” to women. Their commitment is to
men, and, particularly, boys first. Many Lesbians who seem to understand the
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need for separation from men often act as if they think boys are another kind of
female, not noticing how abusive most boys are to girls and even adult women.
Why are mothers of sons and their supporters so upset about female-only space
when it’s so rare anyway? They act as if a once-a-month or even once-a-year
female-only event is going to destroy their sons.
Males expect that all girls and adult females exist for their use and ownership.
When females bully other females into accepting the presence and demands of
males, they’re acting as agents for those males. It’s important for boys to learn
that they can’t get everything they want and to be taught to respect the rights of
females. Some Lesbian mothers do try to teach their sons this, but most seem
intent on training their boys to be dominant.
When mothers of sons disrupt female-only events until they get their way,
they’re teaching those boys to be the center of attention, which is, after all, the
traditional role of a male among females. And when Lesbians fight for boys’
“rights” at the expense of females, they’re not only denying us our basic right to
choose to be away from our oppressors, they’re teaching boys that no girl,
Lesbian, or other woman has the right to say “no” to them. They’re truly training
them to be young men in a male world. It’s no coincidence that some of the
Lesbians who first brought boys into female-only spaces later brought men who
identify as Lesbians into our community and organizations. These are
heterosexist choices for Lesbians.
The Sacred Gift of Lesbian Only Space

Heterosexuality and all het women oppress all Lesbians. Het women act as men’s
collaborators in maintaining male and heterosexual supremacy. Female-only isn’t
enough – we also fight for Lesbian-only. And, as an oppressed people, we have
the right to say clearly who is one of us and who isn’t. Het and bisexual women,
and even men, say they’re Lesbians when they want access to us.
Separatism means Lesbians together — not just “Lesbians away from others.”
Lesbian space is not a vacuum because it’s devoid of male and het women.
There’s almost no truly Lesbian land anywhere, or even any female land. Most
“women’s” land welcomes boys and often men. Lesbians have no countries,
states, cities, towns, neighborhoods, or even streets where we’re safe and
welcome, let alone which belong to us. We are despised everywhere. Men own
the world, and even Gay men control entire neighborhoods and towns. The few
“women’s” places usually cater to het women. Lesbians always come last, even
for most Lesbians. Lesbian-only space has existed only for brief times in a very
few places in the world, even when women-only spaces were strong and
numerous.
Lesbian-only space is a precious gift to all Lesbians. We have the right to be
where Lesbianism is valued and loved openly instead of being voyeurized and
endangered by bisexual and het women. We also have the right to just feel safe
enough to have fun and enjoy each other’s Lesbian selves away from our
oppressors. It isn’t enough to just be away from male presence, although that’s
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an essential first step. Lesbian-space feels completely different from women-only

space, just as women-only space is different because no males are present.
Dykes have survived thousands of years of patriarchy, being attacked,
imprisoned, tortured, and murdered for daring to be Dykes. We know so little
about our long Lesbian past. There’s some small record of the most privileged
Lesbians, but the stories of the majority of more oppressed millions are lost to us
forever. They built and sustained hidden Lesbian communities and cultures, but
there are none of the things that honor the lives of men and even some het
women — no monuments or buildings dedicated to their memories, stories told,
songs sung. In fact, the trans cult, with far more resources and money, are re-
writing our history and claiming every dead famous Lesbian, from Joan of Arc to
Teena Brandon as a “transman.” (This reminds us of when Mormons baptize
dead people who were not Mormon, including people who were killed in the
Holocaust, against the wishes of those who love them.)
Before the Lesbian Feminist movement, most Dykes had nowhere to meet except
for a few expensive male-owned bars that abused us. Creating and supporting
our own Lesbian spaces transformed Lesbian lives. Yet the rare Lesbian-only
spaces we know of that existed in recent years weren’t destroyed by police
wrecking them or by governments closing them, but by pressure from men
passing as Lesbians and by anti-Separatist Lesbians, usually the same groups
that destroyed female-only space. Once again, the demands of females dedicated
to males were made more important than any Lesbian’s rights.
Some Lesbians have complained that we aren’t doing enough outreach to help
het women come out. Often the Lesbians making these statements have chosen
to live in isolation while Separatists like ourselves have worked for years helping
het women as well as creating Lesbian-only gatherings and forums, and writing
Separatist politics. Lesbians provide many services to make it easier for women
to come out, but we shouldn’t have to give them any rare places that might still
exist for Lesbians. Putting women who choose men before other Lesbians doesn’t
help het women, anyway, because they’re more likely to come out, and stay out,
if there are visible, strong, Dyke-identified cultures. Putting het women first only
perpetuates the ancient Lesbian theme of waiting — waiting for things to
improve, waiting for men to stop attacking us, waiting for het women to stop
betraying us, waiting to find our own kind and love and friendship. It also
continues the ancient female tradition of supporting and living through everyone
else except ourselves while no one looks after us. We’ve waited and sacrificed
long enough.
Far more Lesbians work on het women’s issues, supporting women assaulted by
the men they choose, birth control, and abortion — just as far more Lesbians
work for Gay men’s issues, like AIDS — than work for Lesbians. Dykes who
prioritize het women are automatically putting them before Dykes, because the
whole world makes het women more important than us. We can’t develop and
work on Lesbian politics with het women because, by definition, they will no
longer be Lesbian politics.
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Women-only and Lesbian-only space is also essential to have online, at blogs and
in facebook groups. You immediately know that a site is a troll group if it claims
to be “feminist” but men are allowed, or, even worse, moderate the groups.
While Lesbian-only publications have disappeared in the US, “erotica” magazines
and books supposedly published by Lesbians have appeared. Why do Lesbians
buy and write for these publications, particularly the expensive glossy ones which
are obviously funded by the male porn industry? One of the most popular among
some supposedly political Lesbians is even sold in liquor stores in San Francisco.
Making images of naked Lesbians available for male pornographic titillation is
selling all Lesbians against our will. Whether or not the Lesbians photographed
mind that men see them, we mind. One Lesbian exposing herself in this way
hurts and exposes all Lesbians. Do we really want men masturbating to Lesbian
photos and staring at all Lesbians in public with with those magazines in mind?
Rapes of obvious Lesbians have increased, and we know of a series of attacks in
San Francisco in which one of the Lesbians was forced to watch while her lover
was being raped. It’s bad enough that men and het women make pornographic
books and films about “Lesbians” without Lesbians participating in it. Het women
who work in man-made “Lesbian” porn are also betraying us.
Separatists Fight All Oppressions

Females as a group are far kinder and more just than males. (For instance,
women are the vast majority of those working to help or rescue animals and
anyone needing help.) Female plus female — Lesbians — greatly multiply this
potential. Lesbians know what it’s like to be ostracized and unfairly hated, and
so, as a group, Lesbians tend to be the most devoted to fighting for justice and
equality, whether it’s for oppressed groups of women, people, other animals, or
the environment.
However, we live in patriarchal societies divided by racism, anti-Semitism,
ethnicism, classism, imperialism, ableism, fat oppression, looksism, and ageism.
That means that most Dykes worldwide suffer these oppressions in addition to
female-hatred and Lesbian-hatred. Being opposed to all injustice is central to
Separatist politics. Because Separatists love Lesbians and hate oppression, we
don’t want to do anything that harms any Dyke or makes her life harder, and we
also refuse to tolerate oppression for ourselves. We oppose all oppressions,
including when men and het women suffer them.
Some racially-and class-privileged women have said, “Racism and classism were
invented by men and if we focus on those issues we’re letting men divide us.”
Regardless of how racism and classism originated, they exist now and have
existed for thousands of years. Privileged het women have participated
wholeheartedly in racism and classism as their privileged men’s helpmate,
nurturer, feeder, breeder, wife, and mother. European-descent, gentile women
may not have started slavery, the Ku Klux Klan, the Nazi party, and colonialism,
but they participated in and profited from those atrocities. If all men disappeared
tomorrow, racism and other oppressions would continue. It’sright wing and
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liberal “feminists” who are letting men divide us, if they ignore
oppression among women. They are also not being true feminists, because
real feminism means working for equality among us. They also need to learn
feminist history to know that the most oppressed women were a crucial part of
the early Radical Lesbian Feminists.
Oppressions are best fought by truly caring about the Lesbians subject to these
oppressions, whether those Lesbians are ourselves or someone else. Being
oppressed ourselves doesn’t automatically mean understanding someone else’s
different oppression, but it can help in terms of knowing what it feels like to be
stereotyped, denied access to important resources, treated as “other” by the
privileged dominant society, publicly harassed, physically attacked, in danger of
being murdered, and ignored or ridiculed in the mainstream media.
Those of us with additional oppressions shouldn’t use that as an excuse to avoid
being responsible about any privilege we may also have, nor should we only
agree to fight a Dyke’s oppression if she fights ours. Oppression should be fought
regardless, and being oppressed doesn’t cancel out any privileges we have,
although it makes the privilege less powerful. Fighting all oppression means
constantly trying to find ways to resist any privileges we have by developing
non-oppressive language, creating political groups and events that are
welcoming and inclusive of all Lesbians, and expanding our knowledge of the
world to take into account the everyday realities of Dykes from all experiences,
cultures, and countries. Developing inclusive language is difficult and the results
can seem labored and sometimes artificial, but it’s still vital to do it, because the
languages of those in power reflect their supremacist values. Creating inclusive
political and social events means privileged Lesbians being sensitive to the
cultures of Lesbians from backgrounds different from their own, and not
objectifying them as “exotic” or “other.”
As Dykes, we know what it means to be objectified by men and het women, but
the most privileged Lesbians often have little understanding of more oppressed
Dykes’ lives except as media caricatures, while oppressed Dykes usually know a
great deal about privileged cultures. Privileged Lesbians sometimes say that all
countries and ethnic groups are male-dominated as an excuse to not learn about
other Lesbians’ cultures, yet the same Lesbians accept the cultures in power as
the norm, even though they are more male-dominated. In fact, strong female-
loving traditions from ancient female cultures still survive in recognizable form in
many contemporary cultures, in spite of invasion and colonization by more male-
oriented nations.
We Have No Brothers
This chapter is about Lesbians, but we’ll say a bit here about Gay men because
many Lesbians who recognize het men’s misogyny still work politically with Gay
men and relate to them as if they were Lesbians. It makes sense to sometimes
temporarily ally with Gay men if they’re being harassed, since we share some
aspects of “queer” oppression with Gay men, and bad treatment they get also
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affects us. But Gay men are still men. Male bonding is, after all, the basis of
patriarchy, and Gay men are usually as openly female-hating as het men. When
Lesbians work politically with Gay men, we’re drained and only the men
benefit.
The heterosexual, familial appearance of men and women together, even if
they’re Lesbian and Gay, is very appealing to some Lesbians. The attraction of
“normality” should never be underestimated. Organizations, like the Shanti
Project, for “dying Gay men and Lesbians and their loved ones” were changed
into groups dealing only with “people with AIDS,” (over 90% men) — and dying
Lesbians were told to go away. Everything in the world seems to be about “men”
and “mankind,” but suddenly it’s “people” with AIDS. Like other STDs, AIDS is
primarily transmitted by semen, so Lesbians are the least likely people to get
AIDS through sexual contact.1
After AIDS appeared, Gay men wanted to be identified with Lesbians in order to
obscure the fact that AIDS is primarily spread by men. In true vampire fashion, a
San Francisco Gay newspaper ad targeted Lesbians with “Our Boys Need Blood
…. Lesbians: help solve an urgent crisis in our community. Our blood is the least
likely to be contaminated with the AIDS virus. Our blood is urgently needed for
the ever-increasing numbers of AIDS patients. Stand with our brothers in
fighting the AIDS epidemic.”2 These men who had refused to share any of their
massive resources with us and who subjected us to having to see their
pornographic and naked displays in that newspaper, which was our only way to
find out about local Lesbian events, suddenly wanted our actual blood? What a
mind-fuck to play on Lesbians’ (many disowned by het family) wanting a
replacement family and acceptance by pretending we were in a familial
relationship with men who despised us.
How did it become Lesbians’ job to help men deal with their STDS from fucking
each other to death? A Gay man who I (Bev) met in 2012 said that Gay men
would never have helped Lesbians if we were dealing with a lethal epidemic,
even though they have so many more resources. He’s disgusted with most Gay
men and said that because he has AIDS, he’s regularly asked by Gay men to give
it to them. (Yes, that rumor is true. Lesbians ask me about this, horrified, and I
can only answer that this is one more way that we are a world apart from
necrophilic men.) How dare they imply these Gay male strangers are our
brothers or sons?
Yet, all these decades later, when AIDS can easily be prevented, Lesbians are
still donating time and money and participating in AIDS benefits, like the AIDS
Life Cycle Ride, which made $14.5 million in 2013. For years, the San Francisco
“Lesbian and Gay Parade” (later “LGBTQ” Pride Parade) was the only way for
Lesbians to march publicly, but Gay men also subjected us to their female-hating
drag displays and we had to see the massive NAMBLA — “North American Man-
Boy Love Association” — banner. As the parade became increasingly corporate
and expensive to join, there were a handful of Lesbian contingents, while
thousands of Lesbians marched under AIDS banners. You would never have
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known there was a difference between Lesbians and Gay men, or that the caring
was not remotely reciprocal. Yet, more Lesbians in this same area are homeless
and sick and dying than ever before.
We don’t advocate neglecting or harassing anyone with AIDS, but we are saying
that Lesbians and het women’s great concern for AIDS victims are because most
are men. Even US “Feminist Women’s” clinics have special sessions for Gay
men’s other STDs.3
In a speech given at an Eighties San Francisco conference for Lesbians who were
taking care of men with AIDS, Jackie Winnow, a Lesbian dying of metastatic
cancer, said
…. there’s a few things you should know. There are around 100 women
with AIDS in the Bay Area. In 1988 there were 40,000 women in San
Francisco and Oakland living with cancer; at least 4,000 of the women
with cancer are lesbians; 4,000 will die this year. Only 1.5 percent of the
city health budget last year went to women-specific services …. There
are so many women in our community with health problems, be they
cancer, environmental illness, Epstein-Barr or multiple sclerosis, but
they are not seen as having anything serious enough to be taken care of
… and women are on the lower rungs of the financial ladder, and when
they become ill the bottom falls out much quicker, because they’re
closer to it …. Why aren’t we screaming that sexism kills us? …. All
disease in this country is political … the money going to AIDS was taken
from the cancer budget ….4
As Anna Lee, a Black US Lesbian Separatist, says in her brilliant article, For The
Love Of Separatism:
Another example of the bond between white lesbians and white males is
the almost wholehearted endorsement of the need to support males
dying of AIDS…. many white lesbians both separatist and non-separatist
claim that because black women are dying of AIDS, lesbians should be
involved in that struggle. It is true that black females and males die
from AIDS. It is not true that AIDS is transmitted through the air we
breathe and the water we drink. It is transmitted through sexual contact
with someone who has AIDS and through blood exchange with someone
who has AIDS. Because of the way AIDS is transmitted, lesbians are a
low risk group. In order to induce lesbians to work on AIDS, the
definition of lesbianism is diluted to include women who have sexual
contact with men. Who then is a heterosexual woman?…. I’m still
waiting for white lesbians to question their bond with white men and
what that bond means to creating a diverse lesbian community. The
bond between white lesbians and men is currently a stumbling block to
the creation of meaningful race and class diversity.”5
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Hating Males Who Hate Us Is Self Defense

Dyke Separatists’ refusal to love men and boys is extremely threatening,
because males need females for their survival in ways that we simply don’t need
them. So our saying no to males is interpreted to mean we are man-haters. But
we are Separatists first because of our love for Lesbians.
Yet when someone hates you and is actively trying to destroy you and those you
love, it’s a reasonable, healthy decision to hate him. Responding in any other
way is self-destructive and self-hating. The christian platitudes “love your
enemy” and “turn the other cheek,” inviting your attacker to hit you again, are
obscene, reactionary, and sado-masochistic philosophies. There’s no neutrality
under male rule. If males weren’t constantly harassing us and attacking females
and destroying the earth, then perhaps we could try to just ignore them. But if
you truly love the earth, plants, animals, and all females, then inevitably you
grow to hate men and boys as a group.
Men and boys hate life itself, which shows in the way they automatically attack
all living things, from throwing rocks and and sexually assaulting animals, to
hitting plants with sticks. Refusing to recognize that fact keeps us powerless and
in danger. Most females who are raped and killed are assaulted by men they
know and have trusted. Even females who are attacked by strangers sometimes
waste precious seconds hesitating to defend themselves, because they’ve been
taught to mistrust their own instincts when they’re in danger and don’t want to
hurt the feelings of the men. Girls and women often don’t want to be interpreted
as unfair, suspicious, unkind, or untrusting of males, even when preyed on. What
are most women’s responses when approached by a man they don’t know? It’s
still a shock to realize that many women first wonder if their hair or clothes are
attractive enough to the man and appraise him as a potential date.
Taking the courage to distrust and hate males gives us a detachment that
releases us from the stress of constant anger, while freeing us to feel the rage
we need to protect ourselves when in immediate danger. It also helps us to heal
from the damage done to us in the past. The right to fight for survival is a basic
right of nature.
No oppressed group is required to justify its resistance to a deadly enemy the
way Separatists are. Why aren’t men and boys similarly expected to justify their
hatred of females and Lesbians and all life? And why aren’t het and bisexual
women challenged for choosing to support males? It’s acceptable everywhere for
men and boys to hate all females, because their violent misogyny is so built into
their cultures that it’s treated as normal and inevitable. A man who’s slightly less
female-hating is praised as a “great exception.”
Women and girls are told to “forgive and forget” in a way that men never are.
This is designed to keep women vulnerable to attack. Alice Sebold’s
autobiographical book, Lucky, is about being raped at knife point by a man who
continued to stalk her and later raped her best friend, ending their friendship.
The rapist was so premeditated that he had a system worked out with a rapist
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friend who looked almost identical to him who would arrange to be brought in for
the police lineup, after having arranged a good alibi with witnesses. Alice’s book
is harrowing in describing how her life was almost destroyed by this man who
continued to stalk her for years, yet when she was interviewed by Terry Gross on
the National Public Radio show, Fresh Air, Terry actually asked Alice if she had
“forgiven” the rapist. That was such a horrible, cruel thing to do to Alice, though
she managed to say “no.” Can you imagine a man who has written about being
tortured, raped, etc. being asked in the media if he “forgave” his attacker?
So much female life is spent thinking and worrying about men. Het women
constantly worry about whether men will like them, be attracted to them, or
whether they’ll be able to keep their men — or whether the men they love will
physically or emotionally attack them or even kill them, as well as sexually
assault their daughters. When you don’t care about men or welcome them into
your personal life, you spend far less time thinking about them than other
women do.
Some non-Separatist Lesbians go out of their way to praise males and talk about
how much they love men, as if they are trying to prove that they aren’t
“abnormal” man-haters. Yet the same Lesbians who go on about how much they
love men sometimes bait Separatists by saying that we’re “like men,” because
we hate men. Suddenly they act as if maleness was terrible — you’d think that
they’d want us to be like men if they’re so fond of them. This comes from the
traditional Lesbian-hating lie that Dykes are like the worst men. Yet it’s het
women who most imitate men in thought, feeling, and action. (After all, both
men and het women love men first.)
Lesbians who taunt Separatists for our healthy rage are acting in men’s interests,
not female’s. Men are terrified of what will happen if all females become man-
hating Dykes. What should be questioned is automatically loving, admiring,
promoting, emulating, nurturing, trusting, seeking the approval of, covering up
for, fucking, breeding, and raising males. In a world where males, including
boys, daily maim, torture, beat, rape, kill, exclude, and oppress females, it’s
loving males that’s irrational, unrealistic, inappropriate, obsessive, and male-
identified.
We dare to say the truth about the horrors that men commit, so Lesbians who
choose to live in a humanist fantasy world about “gentle men” are frantic to
silence us. Censorship of Separatists by Lesbians and liberal feminists is part of
that attempt to hide the truth, which is far more destructive to Lesbian cultures
and communities than openly hating men could ever be.
Internalized Lesbian-hatred is so strong among most Lesbians that they hate and
insult Separatists more than any other group of Lesbians, including those who
are actively support the right-wing, capitalists, sadomasochists, practicing
christians, etc. Separatists are criticized with more hostility than men or het and
bisexual women ever are. And Lesbians who normally preach tolerance and love
towards every person, including men, will spout the most vicious lies against
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Separatists. The irony in all this is that everywhere that Separatist political
activism exists, it’s made Lesbians’ lives safer and better.
Lesbianism is said to be caused by a childhood trauma that makes us afraid of
men, so many Lesbians who are rape victims fear being stereotyped if they
admit to hating men. It can be a shock to realize that almost all females,
Lesbian and het, were sexually assaulted as little girls and have good reason to
be afraid of and repulsed by males. That’s not why we’re Lesbians any more than
that’s the reason het women choose to become het (which is the line that liberal
feminists are spreading). In fact, we’d find it easier to be more loving with each
other if we weren’t sexually assaulted as little girls. It’s healing for Lesbians
who’ve been attacked by men and boys to say openly that we hate them. It’s
cruel and disrespectful to tell us to feel otherwise. Why is there a double
standard, where Lesbians support women raped and beaten by men to be angry
and distrustful towards men while telling Separatists not to be?
Most non-Separatist Lesbians, and probably even more het women, loathe men
on some level. It’s emotionally impossible for females living under male
terrorization to not feel rage at them. Separatists are just more direct and
honest. Non-Separatists can spend hours talking about hating men, and many
would never be friends with them, yet if you dare to tell non-Separatists they
sound like a Separatist, they are insulted. Married het women who’ve lived with
men for years are usually the most vocal about how nasty, arrogant, violent,
cold, and cruel men are. The difference is that het women are selfishly
committed to those they hate because of the privilege they get for it — they
don’t want to shake up their lives by facing reality, so they devote themselves to
men and boys, undermining other females on males’ behalf.
The Lesbians who don’t hate men should realize that if they really loved or even
liked men, they would be heterosexual. Being a Lesbian isn’t about the
mythological “born this way” or “sexual orientation” propaganda, or about finding
females more “sexually attractive” than males. There’s so much pressure on
females to be het, and so much punishment for being a Lesbian, that “sexual
attraction” alone doesn’t explain Lesbianism. Being a Lesbian means intensely
loving females. On some level, all Lesbians are repulsed by men, which is a very
natural female/Lesbian feeling. Non-Separatists who love men and boys are still
not nurturing them in that essential way that men demand: They don’t agree to
be fucked. That very refusal says something crucial about who we are. A Lesbian
who loves males is a contradiction.
Some ex-het Lesbians who are still very het-and male-identified may be more
emotionally tied up with men than they are with Lesbians. Many came out
because they couldn’t get the care and love they wanted from men but do get
from Lesbians, yet they don’t love Lesbians. They’re still concerned about what
men think of them, and some are trying to impress individual men that they still
relate to. Many of these Lesbians go het again for the status and privilege.
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Anti-Separatism Is Anti-Lesbian
The deeper our commitment is to Lesbians first, the clearer it becomes that
everything in patriarchy is designed to put Dykes last. As we become more
aware, we can recognize the most disguised Lesbian-hatred, even when it
appears in our own Lesbian communities and friendships.
When we meet other Lesbians, we meet ourselves. When we see another Dyke
being oppressed by men and het women, we re-experience our own oppression.
When we see another Lesbian’s self-hatred — the Lesbian-hatred she’s taken into
herself from the patriarchal world — we’re reminded of our own self-hatred.
Much of this self-reflection is unconscious, yet can have profound effects on the
ways we treat each other as Lesbians. We can either respond caringly and
protectively or with re-directed self-hatred. From the Lesbian who snubs you in
the street or avoids you at work, to the rampant hatred directed at Separatists in
our own Lesbian communities, internalized Dyke-hatred and heterosexist
hierarchies devastate our lives as individuals and communities.
Horizontal hostility is part of all oppressed groups. Those who want to be
accepted by their oppressors are ashamed of and distance themselves from the
most oppressed, most recognizable, most radical of their group, believing that
such “trouble-making” members give their entire group a “bad name” and
damage its chances of acceptance. Those who are the most proud of their
identity and culture are the most likely to become the group scapegoats. In
Lesbian communities, it’s Separatists and the most recognizable Dykes
(particularly Butches) who’ve been attacked in this way by conformist Lesbians
who want to be accepted by men and het women.
From the start, Separatists have been so lied about and ostracized, that it’s a
wonder any of us are still politically active or even personally functioning. Yet the
Lesbian feminists, Lesbian socialists, “radfems,” and other activist “radical”
Lesbians who attack Separatists would never consider directing such abuse at
most other oppressed groups, including other separatist groups. Because Dyke
Separatists are “merely” Lesbians, and so insistently Lesbians, it’s acceptable for
them to take out all their fear and rage on us. After all, no male or het radical
movement cares about Lesbians, so why should other Lesbians?
Separatists we’ve talked with from six different countries have described almost
identical experiences of insults, ridicule, threats, slander, and ostracism in their
Lesbian communities.
Meanwhile, Lesbians who ally and identify with men and het women do get some
measure of tokenized validation and respect from liberal men and het women,
and thus from other Lesbians. It’s the traditional male protection racket —
women attach themselves to men in order to get “protection” (from other men,
of course), while “unattached” females are treated as the lowliest females in
society.
Anyone who fights oppression is attacked by the oppressor and by the
collaborators, and we’re no exception.
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Lying About Separatists on Behalf of Patriarchy

Lies don’t have to be true to be believed, and stereotypes don’t need to make
sense to be convincing. Some anti-Separatist stereotypes are in fact direct
opposites: Separatists are reviled because we hate men, yet we’re said to be like
men; we’re said to put too much energy into men because we refuse to put any
energy into men; we’re accused of being narrow, rigid, intellectual, unfeeling
zealots, yet we’re also said to live in a naive fantasy escapist utopia. We’re called
harsh and cold, but we’re also accused of being too emotional and intense in our
reactions to oppression.
Anti-Separatists accuse us of being “immature,” just as psychologists say that
Lesbians are permanently immature, in an arrested stage of development (the
evidence being that we never went from having girlfriends to having boyfriends,
which is based on female-hating Freud saying that clitoral orgasms were
immature and mature women would have vaginal orgasms, from being fucked of
course).
Anti-Separatist lies mirror traditional anti-Lesbian stereotypes: “It must have
taken something terrible to make you hate men so much” is a variation on
“You’re only a Lesbian because you had a terrible experience with men.” Yet
we’re also said to be privileged, with no true knowledge of men or the “real
world.” Feminist socialists accuse us of being just a non-political spiritual and
cultural alternative lifestyle, while “apolitical” Lesbians criticize us for being too
political. We’re told we’re too full of hate because we dare to love ourselves in a
Lesbian-hating world. Stereotypes aimed at other oppressed groups usually don’t
make any sense either, because stereotypes and lies are merely tools used to
make those groups seem less “human.”
One of the nastiest attacks on Separatists is to call us “militaristic” and “fascist,”
even though Separatism is deeply opposed to fascism and war, and fascist
governments always try to exterminate their Lesbian populations. Separatists,
like all Lesbians, are in particular danger from right wing men. Calling Separatists
“fascist” is also anti-Semitic, because it denies the existence of Jewish Dyke
Separatists who are courageously out about being both Separatist and Jewish.
Such comments are also particularly offensive to other racially and ethnically
oppressed Separatists.
Mainstream patriarchy aims similar lies at non-Lesbian activist groups, whether
they’re anti-racist, het feminist, socialist, unionist, anti-imperialist,
environmentalist, or pacifist. Any group fighting for reasonable changes in the
basic structure of inequality is accused of “reverse discrimination.” Those who
fight for justice under an oppressive system don’t have the power to discriminate
against their oppressor. Excluding our attackers isn’t the same as our attackers
enacting laws to exclude us -- it’s the opposite.
Separatists are also accused of being “critical” and “judgmental” because we
dare to criticize a system that’s killing females and because we dare to judge
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men for their crimes. That doesn’t give us social power — it’s a dangerous,
painful thing to do that has no external reward.
Separatists are accused of doing nothing and having done nothing for the world.
That’s what hets say about Lesbians: “Nothing plus nothing equals nothing.” So
the Lesbian-only centers, publications, books, demonstrations, gatherings,
conferences, forums, actions, self defense classes, art, healing, music, concerts,
dances, and love that Separatists have created, and which have improved
Lesbians’ lives, must all be worth nothing too, since the accusers only value men
and het women.
One of the strangest criticisms of Separatists is that we don’t exist. (This is a
charge that right wing pretend ”radfems” make about Butches also.) Truly, some
Lesbians have said that Separatism is a thing of the past, yet here we are, across
the earth, more of us than ever before. Centuries of persecution haven’t made
Lesbians fade away, and persecution won’t make Separatists disappear either.
The same courage, determination, and love that keep us alive as Lesbians keeps
us going as Separatists.
There’s something very wrong when a movement devoted to fighting oppression
is accused of being completely oppressive. It makes sense that men and women
invested in males lie about Separatists, because we threaten their power. But it’s
Lesbians who are most directly doing their dirty work for them. Why? Het
women’s role under male rule is to police other females on behalf of men and,
sadly, Lesbians tend to continue this destructive het women’s tradition.
Cooperative females are rewarded with social acceptance. Just as het mothers
teach their daughters to be quiet and submissive so as not to disturb Father, het
feminists suppress and control Lesbians, and anti-Separatist Lesbians try to
control and silence Separatists, so we won’t disturb men — especially because
when Father is angry, he tends to take it out on the policer as well as the
policed. This same system of betrayal happens when male-worshipping women
and Lesbians promote men who say they are women and Lesbians against our
will.
Anti-Separatists gain in political and social power by attacking Separatists. Some
become leaders in the “women’s community,” and some gain influence, status
and careers in mainstream het culture. And many Separatist bashers also have
gone het.
Do Lesbians who’ve been dedicated to destroying female-only space actually like
what they’ve done? Are they happy knowing that little girls are attacked by boys
at “women’s” events? Do they like the fact that females have been beaten and
raped in the “Women’s” Building in San Francisco by men who were welcomed
into the building, and that Lesbians have been attacked by men at a “women’s
festival?
Telling a non-Separatist Lesbian that you’re a Separatist is like telling a het
woman you’re a Lesbian — they react like you’ve turned into a monster and
never speak to you again, or suddenly announce that they’re one too — even
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though everything they say makes it clear they’re not. Non-Separatists say
they’re Separatists for many of the same reasons that non-Lesbians say they’re
Lesbians — they want to be with us and enjoy our culture without risking the
oppression. They mistakenly think it’s trendy and want the status of being
considered daring and unusual. Some are attracted to the truth in Separatism
but not fully understanding what it means. There are many non-Separatists who
agree with and work for basic Separatist principles such as Lesbian-only and
female-only space — yet who’d never identify as Separatists and in fact criticize
Separatism.
Lesbians Who Sell Us Out

Recognizing and developing Dyke culture is essential to our survival as Dykes.
Culture is the way we express our beliefs, values, and emotions. It’s our music,
art, writing, oral traditions, dancing, healing, and even love-making — it’s
everything that celebrates Lesbians. If we don’t live within and through our own
Dyke culture, we automatically live within and through the dominant male and
het culture.
Feminist and Lesbian businesses that are run for power and profit have
accompanied the weakening of radical Dyke politics. The betrayal in trying to get
as much money as possible affects our communities also in terms of promoting
segregation, because events for these organizations cost more than the majority
of Lesbians can afford, effectively keeping out the poorest Lesbians, who are also
likely to be oppressed by classism, racism, ageism, ableism, etc. We believe this
isn’t just coincidental, but deliberate. How nice for the rich to be able to socialize
with other privileged Lesbians without being embarrassed by seeing one of their
Lesbian servants at events.
It’s not inherently bad for a Lesbian to run a business catering to Lesbians, but
it’s a bad idea to confuse it with radical action, to make money at the expense of
other Lesbians, and to use it to gain a power position. Many of these businesses
make political statements of welcoming men, and sell Lesbian culture to men,
while being unfriendly to Lesbians as a group. Basic feminism was opposed to
hierarchies with stars and followers, because the star system condones the belief
that some women are intrinsically better than others, and should therefore
legitimately have power over other women. Now stars are revered without
question, even though their power depends on other women being denied power.
Usually someone becomes prominent only by diluting her radical politics and
dominating and using other Lesbians.
Lesbians once did political work in collectives open to all Dykes, but now many
Lesbian organizations are exclusive and closed. Most have “boards of directors”
with hierarchies and rules based directly on class-privileged men’s corporate
regulations and hierarchies. Decisions are made through a director’s’ decree or
power block voting, so that Lesbians in a minority position are ignored or driven
out. (And some of these directors make horrifying amounts of money.)
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Instead of sharing emotional and political support in the radical free small groups
that were once a foundation of Lesbian Feminist culture, there are self-appointed
“leaders” or “facilitators” whose qualifications were given to them by men, who
control meetings according to their biases and privilege, who tell you when and
how you can talk and what you can talk about — all for an expensive fee. Paying
them reinforces the “proof” that they are “experts.”
Things that we used to do for ourselves are now in the control of those who run
support groups as a business. This has greatly weakened Lesbian politics and
communities. The self-reliance, creativity, and daring of Lesbians developing our
cultures and politics from our own experiences was the essence of our Dyke
culture and essential to our survival as radical, independent, and egalitarian
communities.
The Lesbian therapy movement has been a powerfully reactionary force in
Lesbian communities. The strong, clear thinking that once transformed Lesbian
lives has been diluted into a muddle of dangerous psychobabble. A Lesbian
psychology book says that it’s “heterophobic” for Lesbians to criticize het women,
and also “homophobic,” because it means we’re not secure in our identity. And of
course anyone protesting men in women-only or Lesbian-only space are called
“transphobic.” This is classic mind-fuck, as unreal as “reverse racism” where the
white racists are whining about being oppressed. Men have the power and are
oppressors. Women allied with men against Lesbians are not oppressed when we
say no to them or confront their oppressing us. And no, Lesbians are not
“homophobic” for fighting our oppression. We’re Lesbian-hating only when we
betray ourselves and each other and our cultures.
Mind-fuck and gaslighting are a powerful and dishonest way to silence oppressed
groups, by using our politics and language against us. Words that have power
and impact are made meaningless. Another example of this method is to silence
anyone you disagree with by calling her an “abuser,” even though she’s never hit
or threatened or emotionally abused anyone. That, of course, takes all meaning
out of the word “abuse,” but it’s a good way to politically and socially eliminate a
Lesbian who you don’t like.
“Misogynist” is another term used against Radical Lesbian Feminists and
Separatists to bully and censor. Twelve-step programs based on those of
Alcoholics Anonymous have been developed to deal with other problems Lesbians
have. They’re less hierarchical than some forms of therapy, but because they
were originally developed for men, they stress humility and giving up power. Of
course this is a good idea for men, but not for Lesbians. Lesbians don’t need to
believe in a “higher power” or a male god — we have enough trouble believing in
our own power. It would be far better to develop “programs” to overcome self-
hatred and learn to love our Dyke selves: in which Lesbians would declare, “I had
to face the fact that I have an inner power, and that I can have a powerful effect
on others.”
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Separatism Means Doing Things in Radical Dyke Ways

Lesbian publications and increasingly online Lesbian and “radfem” blogs and
facebook groups often avoid strong, radical ideas, and instead promote
reactionary politics that are widely supported by the male media and patriarchy.
Some are deliberately trolling to promote right wing, reformist, or liberal
“feminism” as Radical Feminism, while censoring real Radical Feminism, to
confuse new feminists.
They are deliberately undermining our Lesbian Feminist politics of forty plus
years. Lesbian policy statements saying clearly that a publication is against
heterosexism, racism, classism, ethnicism, imperialism, ageism, ableism, fat
oppression, and looksism are rare now, when they once were basic Lesbian
Feminism. Invitations especially directed to more oppressed Dykes to write are
almost nonexistent. Instead of having an editing policy which encourages
Lesbians to write in more real, less pretentious ways and to reach writers who
have less confidence because of oppression, most Lesbian publications are eager
to follow male journalistic and academic styles of classist and racist editing. Slick
Lesbian journals refuse work not because it’s oppressive (which should indeed be
refused), but because it’s not “good enough” in terms of style, spelling, and
grammar.
These male standards have no place in Lesbian communities. All Dykes’ work
should be valued, not just those with male university training. Of course we want
good quality publications, but that doesn’t mean excluding Dykes by arrogantly
presuming to know how we should express ourselves. Racial, ethnic, national,
class, and other differences are expressed in writing and language styles, and
they should be respected. Otherwise, the many beautifully varied Lesbian voices
we have are reduced to the bland, boring, tedious, privileged, and often
unreadable form of “proper” class-privileged, academic, WASP English. When
male standards are used by Lesbians, including enforcing fake feminism, we lose
Lesbians and other feminists who should be with us. These oppressive standards
would have eliminated the Lesbians who helped create Lesbian Feminism.
The Lesbian and “radfem” star system has meant that some of us have seen our
own and others’ brave Separatist politics reviled, only to have them reappear in
a diluted form, plagiarized as the well-loved ideas of well-known writers. These
often-quoted stars are usually class-and race-privileged, clearly Fem, proudly ex-
heterosexual, and were still het when the radical Lesbian ideas that they’re now
calling their own were first written and said. Unfortunately, even some Radical
Feminists contribute to this by quoting and praising certain “radfem” stars, while
ignoring the anti-Lesbianism and sometimes even anti-feminism in their writings.
There was such a sense of promise and excitement in the early 1970’s. Then, as
selfishness and selling out increased in the growing right wing mainstream male
and het cultures, it moved into Lesbian communities. Some of these attitudes
were brought by recently-het Lesbians who never heard of caring, egalitarian,
Lesbian ways of doing things, and when they did, openly despised them. Being
part of a group that accepts selfish behavior also means being treated selfishly
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and living cold, lonely lives, full of the pretense of love but never the reality. Yet
these Lesbians continue imitating male and het cultures.
The “wimmin’s” culture that once meant “Lesbian” is now clearly about “women,”
with het women’s values again. Instead of real politics based on real love,
“women’s” music is full of the fake “love” found in male music. Lesbian
lovemaking is sold as pornography in some Lesbian publications or online.
Women fitting grotesque male standards of “beauty” are considered “beautiful”
by deluded Lesbians and het women. Even Radical Lesbian Feminists seem
incapable of posting images of females that are not disturbing in how male-
identified feminine and silly, ungrounded and flimsy they look, One well-meaning
Radical Feminist activist actually wrote an article saying she wanted to be a
“fairy” and “princess.” Radical Feminists tried to find “warrior women” images to
post online, and only found grotesque drawings of half-naked skinny women in
high heels looking like they had breast implants. Even many Radical Feminists
don’t seem to be aware of what it means that men would never choose to look
the way even “strong” women are now portrayed, except as caricature, and that
there are almost no strong and dignified images of women anywhere. All are
pornified, with revealing clothes, stances, expressions, and poses that men never
use because they are porny, demeaning and humiliating. Awareness of all this
was common feminist knowledge in Lesbian communities in the Seventies. It
changed when porn and sado-masochism was brought into our communities from
Gay and het men, by bisexual women posing as Lesbians.
Lesbian consumers who are desperate to fit into the “real” world eagerly
consume lies. It’s a choice to live in an artificial world. But if we have enough
courage, we can reclaim our Lesbian traditions and our passion, fire, and
realness. We can think for ourselves and refuse to participate in the increasing
co-option. Most of the co-opters couldn’t and wouldn’t continue undermining us if
there wasn’t money to feed them, since money and power is all they care about.
If we refuse to fund, believe in, and follow them, then they would fade away.
Dykes who’ve been discouraged by the co-option and by Lesbian betrayals can
take heart by remembering that the growth of Dyke-identified communities
worldwide is just beginning. Forty-five plus years is a long time in an individual’s
lifetime, but it’s a tiny fraction of the thousands of years of patriarchy and
Lesbian isolation. Our numbers are growing across the world, across all
generations, and our international connections and solidarity are increasing. As
we become more Separatist, and therefore more Dyke-loving, we will have the
communities we dream of.
Endnotes
1. As of January, 1989, the 24-Hour National AIDS Hotline of the US Centers for Disease Control
reported that of the 82,406 cases of AIDS in the U.S, only two Lesbians had contracted AIDS
through sexual contact — and that was from using “sex toys” still moist with the blood and
vaginal secretions of their infected partners. Other medical reports claiming female-to-female
sexual transmission turned out, on closer examination of the literature, to involve Lesbians who
were intravenous drug users and/or bisexuals, so they were probably infected by men or
needles contaminated with infected blood. While other Lesbians are clearly at low risk of
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contracting AIDS, there is always a risk when anyone is lovers with bisexuals or with Lesbians
who were recently het (tests aren’t always reliable, since the HIV virus can take a while to
show up), or is doing sado-masochism with an AIDS carrier (because of blood-to-blood contact
through traumatized, torn tissue). Just as Lesbians are the group at lowest risk for sexual
transmission of AIDS, we’re the lowest risk for other STDs. A study of 148 sexually active
Lesbians in San Francisco revealed no cases of syphilis, gonorrhea, or chlamydia. Sexually
Transmitted Diseases, April-June 1981, 75.
2. Coming Up, San Francisco, California, August 1986, 9.
3. The Oakland Feminist Health Center has a “Men’s Wart Clinic” for “treatment of penile and anal
venereal warts.” Oakland, California, USA, 1987.
4. Rose Appleman, “Sustenance for the Long Haul: Lesbian Caregivers Conference.” Coming Up,
San Francisco, California, August 1989, 6.5. Lesbian Ethics, Vol. 3, No. 2, 1988, 54.
5. Lesbian Ethics, Vol. 3, No. 2, 1988, 54.
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Chapter Six
Kink = Leather = S/M = BDSM - It’s All Still Sadism and Masochism
by Bev Jo
(This is an update of our chapter against sado-masochism from our
book, Dykes-Loving-Dykes, which I co-wrote with Linda Strega and
Ruston, and which we published in 1990, and which was translated and
printed in the German Lesbian anthology against sado-masochism, Mehr
als das Herz Gebrochen (More than a Broken Heart) by Constance Ohms
(Hg)in 1993. Some other chapters and updates from our book and later
articles can be seen at https://bevjoradicallesbian.wordpress.com/)
(My focus here is about the contradiction of some Lesbian Feminists, or even
Radical Feminists, also being sado-masochists. Some Radical Feminists ask how
sado-masochists can be feminist at all, but some do have otherwise strong
feminist politics. I am exploring this because Lesbians are my people. But I am in
no way saying that Lesbians are more likely to be sado-masochists than are
women who choose to be het or bisexual. Sexual interactions with men are by
their nature sado-masochistic. Lesbians are the people who are the most free
from the sado-masochism permeating patriarchal culture.)1
Most of us grow up with mental, emotional, and physical abuse. I believe most of
us have been sexually assaulted, and certainly all females have been sexually
harassed as well as subjected to violent hatred of females throughout the media.
Patriarchy, reinforced by religions, is a sado-masochistic culture, based on
humiliation, pain, and suffering. Most females’ earliest feelings of love, intimacy,
and passion are interwoven with dependence, fear, anger, threats, and rape. We
are taught to be both self-hating (masochistic) and to hate our own kind
(sadistic). We are trained into sado-masochistic scenarios from the day we are
born. I believe this is done to disconnect us from our natural feelings of love and
passion towards other females. We are also taught to turn our reasonable,
righteous anger inward so that most girls feel suicidal at some point in their
lives. It is hard to identify with other females who are victims, so many girls and
women learn to worship the boys and males who have tormented and tortured
them. This also explains some of why women will line up to marry imprisoned
serial rapists and killers of women and girls, and will betray other females on
behalf of men claiming to be female.
Most girls hate themselves and other girls so much that they choose to become
heterosexual. Lesbians fight for the right to love ourselves and each other, but
we still carry a lot of self-hatred. That doesn’t mean that we have to accept
feelings of masochism and sadism because of the ways we’re oppressed any
more than we have to accept the feelings of hatred and self-hatred because of
being exposed to the heterosexism, classism, racism, anti-Semitism, ableism,
ageism, fat oppression, looksism, etc. that are reflected in the patriarchy around
us. Our politics and common sense give us the awareness to say no to
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oppression, as well using our own privileges against others, and gives us the
strength and awareness to face reality and reject the lies forced on us.
It’s one thing to recognize the ways we are manipulated and conned to hate
ourselves and other women, but it’s another to glorify, proselytize, and sexualize
this misogyny and to justify it as a reasonable political position and identity.
Contradictions
It’s telling how many euphemisms Lesbians use for sado-masochism. It’s as if
Lesbian sado-masochists, and particularly those identifying as Lesbian Feminists,
really do not want to use the most accurate and revealing word for what they do.
I believe that’s because they are in conflict about it.
After all, how can they self-identify with the Marquis de Sade, who proudly
tortured and murdered women, as well as Sacher Masoch, who pretended to be a
masochist2, while also subjecting women to non-consensual sadism. Identifying
with these men is male-identified in the worst possible sense. And yet, many
Lesbians have joined with the majority mainstream het and bisexual women and
with most men in becoming sado-masochists.
When sado-masochism first openly appeared in my Lesbian Feminist community
in the San Francisco Bay Area in the late Seventies, Samois, a “Lesbian Feminist”
sado-masochist group, played with the terms and with many Lesbians’ minds by
calling it “S/M,” saying that the power was equally shared. Their book, “Coming
to Power,” began with sado-masochists patronizingly re-naming the rest of us as
“vanilla.” (The sado-masochist cult shares many parallels with the trans cult,
where women are re-named against our will – trans call us “cis” — and where we
are insulted and lied about and lied to in order to con and manipulate us.)
The euphemisms keep changing. The most common one I see now is BDSM and
“Leather” and “Kink.” I have been shouted at for daring to say “sado-masochists”
rather than “Leather-dykes.” I have also been called “leather-phobic.” Anyone
who refuses to call men who appropriate female and Lesbian identity
“transwomen” will recognize the cult technique of bullying to censor opposition
and political differences. In both cases, we are forbidden to think or say what we
think. After enough times of being yelled at and threatened, many Lesbians just
obey.
But why should we obey? What right do sado-masochists have to claim the term
“leather” for their own or to police our language and politics? Leather has long
been associated with Lesbians and especially with Butches who came out before
feminism, and has nothing innately to do with sado-masochism.
Can you remember your first reaction when hearing about “Lesbian Feminist”
sado-masochists? Many of us were stunned that Lesbians, and especially
Lesbians who called themselves feminists, would participate in such a Lesbian-
hating and female-hating practice.
It’s important for those who consider themselves Radical Feminists or Separatists
to be aware of how sado-masochism bonds them with patriarchy, het and gay
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men, and het and bisexual women. Some of us watched sado-masochism

brought into our Lesbian communities and relationships by women who learned it
from their husbands and boyfriends. Other women learned it from gay male
friends. Some members of Samois had previously been in “Cardea,” a women’s
sado-masochist support group, which had been connected to “Janus,” a group
that included het and gay male sado-masochists.
Sado-masochism may be trendy, but it isn’t new – it’s as old as patriarchy.
Religions, such as christianity, are based on sado-masochism. Those of us who
were forced to be catholic as little girls, grew up surrounded by images of bloody
and tortured jesus and saints, and were taught to regularly contemplate the
blood and gore.
Mainstream culture is full of sado-masochism. I saw virtually every Hollywood
movie in the Fifties when I was a girl. I’d thought that sado-masochism in the
media was less obvious than now, but recently saw just a few minutes from the
1960 popular film, “Spartacus,” which I’d seen when I was nine. Spartacus was
the escaped slave who formed an army to free people enslaved by the Romans.
In the short scene I saw, he freed a slave woman who asked him to order her to
always obey him, as part of their flirtation. Talk about obvious sado-
masochism! Clearly, sado-masochism was far more important than the idea of
freeing everyone. (This scene, which was supposed to be powerful and
presumably sexually charged, was just laughable. But then, most sado-
masochistic scenes are.)
Part of the myth of sado-masochism is that it is so bold and daring that
discussing it or even thinking about it will “trigger” women who have been
abused. I believe sado-masochists get off on this because it contributes to their
power. Nothing deflates that posturing as quickly as not only refusing to be
intimidated, but finding it silly and pathetic. Yes, some aspects are horrifying and
play on serious misogyny, Lesbian-hating, racism, etc., but that makes Radical
Lesbian Feminists angry rather than afraid.
Sado-masochists attempt to intimidate any Lesbians who oppose them into not
trusting our reasonable and instinctive emotional, psychic, and political
objections to sado-masochism by using the political language of oppression
to silence and censor us. Just as with the trans cult’s dishonest tactics, sado-
masochists use feminist politics against us. The fact that many responsible and
caring Lesbians don’t want to oppress other Lesbians is used to manipulate us
into accepting sado-masochists as an oppressed sexual minority. In reality, they
are the mainstream majority, with sado-masochism providing titillation for
otherwise bored hets. Sado-masochism (again, like the trans cult) is a right wing
backlash against female-loving. It’s mainstream as well as deeply misogynist and
Lesbian-hating. Reverse discrimination does not exist.
In my experience, when the political cons don’t work, both sadists and
masochists resort to their usual verbal/emotional abuse, including using
classism, by calling us “stupid, ignorant fools” and telling us to “educate
ourselves,” as if that will make us be more open to their obviously warped
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politics. Attempts at shaming and humiliation are classic parts of sado-

masochistic scenes, so most are quite used to these techniques.
The main pro-sado-masochist argument is that someone should be able to do
whatever they want in the privacy of their bedroom and it’s no one else’s
business. Well, the same can be said for porn and prostitution, as well as other
right wing political practices. Such decisions affect all of us, individually and as a
community. We’ve had enough decades seeing the harm sado-masochism does
to Lesbian relationships and communities to have the right to talk about it.
At this point, for me, it’s really just about saying “no” to sado-masochists. But I
haven’t seen that work very well, whether I’m trying to be friends or work
politically with them. What I’ve experienced is non-consensual verbal and
emotional abuse with my “no” being ignored.
The last time I ignored my common sense and worked with two sado-masochists
in a Radical Lesbian Feminist political group, I was subjected to one of the
members bringing her bullwhip to every meeting, presumably because she
needed to practice. (You can’t make this shit up.) From what I could tell, she
was using it to flirt and to try to intimidate me. The intimidation didn’t work, but
the flirting with other members did. Another member who claims to be against
sado-masochism gave me an insulting lecture saying that I was showing bigotry
equivalent to racism because I’d said my experiences with sado-masochists are
that they inevitably do non-consensual emotional abuse. (Again, this is similar
to the kind of mind-fuck the trans cult uses against feminists.)
I lost a sadist friend from that group who I otherwise shared Radical Lesbian
Feminist politics with. She accused me of “outing the worst and darkest hour
of the Leather-dyke community” because I wrote at a Radical Feminist blog
about gentile Pat Califia non-consensually carving a swastika into her Jewish
lover’s back. What Califia did has been well-known for decades as an example of
what sadists can do in spite of claiming to be respectful of “no.” It is even more
volatile and relevant because Califia is one of the original stars of the “Lesbian
Feminist” sado-masochist movement and was instrumental into bringing it into
our communities. Linda Strega, Ruston, and I wrote in our book in 1990 about
what Califia did. It’s never been a secret. Yet, this friend was so desperate to
keep it hidden that she verbally abused me and tried to censor me. She acted
like I had betrayed her beloved sado-masochist community and expected that I
should keep their secret, which I have to say is a bit reminiscent of keeping
Daddy’s secret about molesting daughters – especially since sadists (including
my ex-friend) like to be called “Daddy.” Considering how many women have
been sexually assaulted by “Daddy,” it is also hard to accept “Daddy” being used
as a “play” term for sadists in sexual encounters.
Rather than being discriminated against, sadist pornographers seem to get
preferential treatment. Califia has continued being Lesbian sado-masochism’s
poster girl in spite of the fact of her increasing public male-worshipping. Califia
said decades ago that she “would rather fuck a hot boy who’s into S & M than a
vanilla Lesbian.” It’s actually a relief that she has come full circle back to men,
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although in a slightly different version of her former male-identified self. She is

now claiming to BE a gay man – or what the more rational of us recognize as a
het or bisexual woman obsessed with gay men (“fag hag”). Yet Califia still has so
much power that even after abusing her lover in such a horrific way (can you
imagine removing that scar?), after being forgiven for calling the police on the
lover’s friends who went after her, and after writing books with some of the most
Lesbian-hating misogynist sadistic porn imaginable (in “Macho Sluts,” one story
is about a Lesbian being given the birthday “gift” of being gang-raped by gay
men posing as cops), she was still made Lesbian sex/relationship advice
columnist for the Lesbian magazine “Girlfriends.” She was allowed to keep that
job even after she “came out” as a gay man and called herself “Patrick Califia.”
I do not believe the gay male line, which has done so much damage to Lesbians,
that we are all “born this way.” Lesbian Feminists in the Seventies proudly said
that we were making a choice to be Lesbians, as opposed to the mainstream het
lie that says only a few perverts are born queer. Women being aware we are
making a choice to be het or bisexual or Lesbian changes women and
changes the world. It’s an enormous threat to patriarchy. It brings up the fact
that all woman could choose to be Lesbians, which is what I think they would do
if it wasn’t for the extreme punishment for refusing and reward for obeying.
As our once independent, strongly feminist Lesbian community was being eroded
by gay male influence, many Lesbians started to explain their past het choices
and later coming out as “I was always a Lesbian. I just didn’t know it.” The right
wing’s attitude is that we don’t deserve equal rights because we are choosing to
be queer, so gay male and now mainstream Lesbians’ answer is that “We would
of course choose to be het like you if we could, but we’re just pathetic queers
who have no choice, so please give us equal rights.” It’s a politics based on
shame and pity, not pride and self-love, like Lesbian Feminism.
I believe that Pat Califia has always chosen to be a bisexual, like the two other
women (JoAnn Loulan and Susie Bright) who were the main “sexologists” who
pushed their agenda of sado-masochism, porn, heterosexism, etc. in our Lesbian
community in the Eighties. They pretended to be Lesbians partly because writing
porn/sex books and doing workshops for Lesbians meant they were accepted by
Lesbians and made money and careers from Lesbians. JoAnn Loulan redefined
“Lesbian” in her destructive book, “Lesbian Sex,”(which Linda Strega and I
reviewed in our article, “Lesbian Sex – Is It? In 1985) by saying that “some
Lesbians have wonderful ongoing sexual relations with men.” This was such a
mind-fuck that one of our headings was “Can Therapists Make Lesbians
Disappear?” We knew Loulan could not be a Lesbian by her own definition, and
years after taking money from Lesbians, she admitted on national television that
she was with a man. But most Lesbians seemed to believe and trust these
women based on the authority and expertise they claimed as therapists or
“sexologists.” In restrospect, it was actually quite the dominance and submission
scenario. This was also where our community seemed to switch from not trusting
anyone who set themselves up as stars, to just obeying “authority.”
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Those who were pro-porn and sado-masochism were scathing and ridiculing
towards Radical Lesbian Feminism. The glossy magazine, “On Our Backs,” that
glorified “Lesbian” porn and sado-masochism and role-playing, chose that name
in opposition to the longtime Feminist newspaper, “off our backs.” It was all
clearly so reactionary and right wing, yet few seemed to question it. Or maybe
they did and were censored in the Lesbian media. And then the “Lesbian” strip
shows began – not just in the usual male porn districts, but in our own
communities, prostituting all of us for men and endangering us. (How many men
have raped Lesbians after reading Califia’s porn about Lesbians wanting to be
raped?) Suddenly, mainstream or liberal and leftist bookstores replaced Feminist
or Lesbian Feminist books and newspapers with porn and sado-masochist books
by “Lesbians,” for Lesbians, and whoever else wanted to spend the money. I still
believe that the male porn industry funded this takeover of our communities.
Sado-Masochist “Consent” Is An Illusion

The “consenting” exchange of power and trust said to be the core of sado-
masochism is in reality a re-play of the betrayed trust and abuse of power most
of us experienced as girls. What does it mean to be unable to accept “love”
unless punished? Why ask someone you love to play your rapist? Why want to
hurt, beat, cut, whip, burn, humiliate, and shit on someone you “love?” How can
re-playing scenes of sexual terrorization ever be good for someone? How can
anyone who is sexually excited by the inequalities acted out in sado-masochism
be trusted to respect limits. If it was a release, then why is sado-masochism so
addictive and those who join the cult increase the level of pain and destructive
games? Why do so many lose control?
When Lesbians are used to playing emotional as well as physical sado-
masochistic games, do they automatically stop when they are around Lesbians
who do not want to play games of hierarchy and humiliation? In my experience,
they don’t. Besides friends and acquaintances being treated in sado-masochistic
ways, some scenes are done as public displays, with unwilling spectators,
because many sado-masochists are stimulated by having an unwilling audience.
Even just parading around in sado-masochistic regalia, and bragging about sado-
masochistic events is exhibitionistic and an example of shoving sado-masochism
at us against our will, like the sadist who brought her bullwhip to our political
meetings.
It’s hard to take seriously a Lesbian who accuses you of “demonizing” sado-
masochism while she is wearing the Nazi-style leather cap that gay male sado-
masochists popularized. Gay men made an entire business out of producing
expensive leather sado-masochistic paraphernalia, as well as fabricating a
political movement, complete with a “Leather Pride” flag (black and blue with a
red heart3), which they march with and fly over the Armory, an enormous
dungeon that takes up an entire city block in San Francisco. Demanding respect
as an oppressed minority parallels the trans cult again.) My ex-friend first
became a sado-masochist in a bisexual community when she was still quite
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young. She became a Lesbian within a year, but, in spite of her otherwise Radical
Lesbian Feminist and Separatist politics, her first loyalty lies with the sado-
masochistic community, which became obvious to me when she clearly still
thought of Pat Califia as a courageous hero, rather than the male-worshipping
misogynist porny bisexual sadist who brought the worst aspects of gay male
culture directly into our community, as well as the genderqueer crap my friend
so rails against.
But then sado-masochism is about ritualizing inequality and oppression. Hero-
worship without examining what that means is just one aspect of mainstream
sado-masochism in patriarchal culture.
Another example of non-consensuality is in female-identified Lesbian support
groups which are meant to provide a safe space for Lesbians who do not want to
be around women identifying as male and using male pronouns, yet special
exemptions are made for sado-masochistic “play” language. Why the double
standard? Even more interesting is that it would never be allowed for someone
to bring a beer to such a group since that might trigger a Lesbian in “Recovery”
to want to drink, yet there is no concern for anyone who has been raped by their
“Daddy” to not want to hear Lesbians play with that term sexually.
A friend of mine had dinner with a Lesbian who defines herself as a “Top.” When
my friend went to leave, the sadist grabbed her arm and told her she was
staying. My friend finally had to push her away to get her to let go. What if
another Lesbian in that situation had been too intimidated or upset to be able to
show that she was willing to defend herself? It sounded like this was a
game/scenario the sadist was used to playing. How many Lesbians has she
attacked?
I have to ask: What atrocities have sado-masochists managed to hide?
“What Can Two Girls Do Together Without A —–?”

Sado-masochists tell us we need games, apparatus, and role-playing scenes to
be exciting, which is similar to when men and het women ask “What can two
girls do together without a prick?” Instead of asking how can we be passionate
without rape and slave and prisoner scenes, handcuffs, whips, dildos, role-
playing, etc., I ask why any Lesbian feels so bored and empty that she is driven
to increasingly unsavory and bizarre scenarios. It’s running away from real
passion and intensity. There is nothing like being completely present with your
lover, looking into each other’s eyes, as you make love. But then, many sado-
masochists have anonymous sex with complete strangers.
To me, the epitome of sado-masochism, which, after all, is based on male
violence against women, is the glorifying of maleness. Using dildos, and believing
you need dildos for Lesbian love-making, is more destructive for Lesbians than
the worst aspects of sado-masochism. I just don’t understand the reason for it
other than pretending to be male or pretending your lover is. There is nothing
you can do with a dildo that you can’t do far more intensely and passionately
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with your Lesbian hands and Lesbian body. Most Lesbians find pricks disgusting,
so why play with a fake one?
From what I’ve read, it’s ex-het Fems who primarily brought dildos into our
Lesbians communities (Joan Nestle wrote about this in “A Persistent Desire,”
when she described carrying a dildo in her purse in case she met a Butch she
wanted to fuck her), and then brought them back after they seemed to be
rejected by most Lesbians. I can’t help but distrust the motives. A self-hating,
lesbophobic, Lesbian-hating Lesbian can pretend it’s not really a Lesbian making
love to her if a dildo is being used. And that same hateful woman can feel more
“normal” by pretending to be a man touching a woman when she is “making
love” with a dildo. It’s a way to avoid touching and being touched. It’s a way to
distance, as well as to pornify Lesbian sexuality.
I have heard so many Butches say they hated and felt objectified by being asked
to use dildos on lovers. But, of course, Lesbians, and especially Butches, want to
please their lovers. I’m guessing that dildos came back into use because some
Fems demanded them, and then lovers complied. Dildos merged with the rest of
the sado-masochistic “sex toys” that Lesbians talk about in order to not feel left
out.
I’ve seen two documentaries where Lesbians decided to have mastectomies and
take hormones to please their lovers who did not want to think of themselves as
Lesbians, and to please their lovers’ families. So if mutilating yourself and risking
your life is required for some relationships, why not use dildos?
When I protested at a Butch Conference that it was wrong to assume that we all
used dildos, a sado-masochistic Hard Fem lectured me as if I had no awareness
of what dildos were. When I refused to submit to her, she dismissed me by using
ageism, telling me that I was probably too old to change. Is fourteen too
old? That’s the age when I first heard about dildos, in 1965, when I visited the
girl I had been in love with since I was five and she was nine. Now, at eighteen,
Rosemary had found a sort of Lesbian community, though it sounded like it was
the ex-het, ex-wife Fems in control and who taught the younger Lesbians what to
do. Rosemary was in love with her Butch friend, but that was disapproved of.
She asked if I knew what a dildo was and proceeded to explain that Lesbians
needed to use them to satisfy these women since they didn’t have pricks. I only
vaguely knew what a prick was and was repulsed. I was also confused since I
was sure I was a Lesbian, having been in love with other girls since my earliest
memories, but if this was what it meant to be a Lesbian, then how could I
be? How many young and older Lesbians are made to feel more alone and
isolated by the normalizing of dildos and other sado-masochism in our
communities?
Butches are particularly objectified in regards to dildos. A local “sex toy” party
and demonstration was given recently by a Fem who made a “joke” about having
to watch to make sure that no Butch would steal her dildos. Why would any
Butch want her ugly dildos/
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It is so disturbing how absolutely mainstream and acceptable dildos have

become in our communities. Where once Lesbians said no, they now feel guilty
and not trendy enough if they don’t use them. I even hear Lesbians complaining
about the cost — after all, it’s become a big business. It’s also become a het and
mainstream joke in the media and elsewhere, and therefore is a way for men to
be reassured that, deep down, Lesbians really do want pricks. How can any
Lesbian with a sense of pride want to participate in this? Men appropriating
Lesbian identity are also using dildos to claim that their pricks are just a variation
and so they should be allowed to be in female-only space. (GenderTrender is a
blog by Gallus Mag, where she posts some of these Lesbian-hating men in their
own words — http://gendertrender.wordpress.com/)
Sado-Masochism Is Addictive
Many sado-masochists are also addicted to alcohol and other drugs. The popular
gay male drug, poppers (amyl nitrate), is used to make it easier to have
something shoved up your rectum. While it can be damaging to be lovers with
addicted Lesbians who are not careful, it can be dangerous to do sado-
masochism with one. Sado-masochists say that when someone is sexually
aroused, sensations which normally would be painful are no longer felt as pain,
or that, mystically, there becomes less distinction between pain and pleasure.
But why wouldn’t there be more sensitivity, rather than less? Why is insensitivity
to pain said to be good when it is actually dangerous to our safety? If a Lesbian
is feeling numb sexually, why is sado-masochism recommended, rather than
exploring why she is shut down? The oppression and brutality that we’ve suffered
as Lesbians and as women have caused many of us to become numb, physically,
psychically, and emotionally. It can be hard for many of us to really feel our
bodies because they’ve been the objects of torture and ridicule for so long.
A friend has said that we’re not born wanting to feel pain. Babies move away
from pain, not towards it. Craving pain is not natural. It’s a sign of damage.
We’ve all internalized a connection between love and violence, pleasure and pain
– it’s a natural response to constant assault and abuse from an early age and a
culture that glorifies rape and torture. It’s not our fault if we’ve internalized some
of those feelings, but it’s therapized crap that we should just accept them. Do we
just accept oppressive or suicidal feelings that we might have? Sadistic and
masochistic feelings are not naturally ours. We must fight them just as we
must fight suicidal, addictive, or other destructive impulses.
Another addictive and male aspect of sado-masochism is competition to see how
far you will go. There is definitely status into being into “heavy” sado-
masochism, including wearing the black handkerchief in a back pocket (again,
Lesbians imitating gay male culture.) Along with this are the putdowns and
ridicule of non-sado-masochist Lesbian love-making as being weak, passionless,
prudish, etc., when the truth is the opposite.
The fact that many sado-masochists keep increasing their dosage of pain and
humiliation, as addicts do, in a desperate attempt to feel less numb or just to
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feel something, is ignored, as is the fact that as a group, Lesbians are the most
passionate people on earth.
Sado-masochists, like other addicts, insist that what they are doing is good for
themselves and that they are making a healthy choice. Once addicted, doses
tend to increase, and so does the level of sado-masochism. Lesbians start to do
more and more, bragging about pushing limits. It becomes necessary to do sado-
masochism to feel sexual at all or to have an orgasm. And sado-masochists
relentlessly push sado-masochism on the rest of us, nonconsensually.
An example is from an interview with Joan Kelly (an upper-middle class woman
who describes herself as a Radical Feminist and who has a blog called “Chicks
Dig Me.” She is still selling her book, The Pleasure’s All Mine: The Memoir of
a Professional Submissive. Here’s an excerpt from the Village Voice review of
her book:
Big Bucks for Pain Sluts:Inside the Kinky World of a Professional
Submissive4–
My favorite part of the job is the physical high, while the biggest
drawback is tending to bruises several times a day after a heavy
corporal scene. “I surprise myself at how far my pain tolerance has
evolved. For example, I had a client sew my vaginal lips shut, and I
didn’t make a peep,” Ophelia (Joan Kelly) boasts via e-mail. “I had
another client who took 18-gauge needles, heated them until they were
red-hot, and used them to pierce the insides of my butt cheeks. I could
hear my skin sizzling as the needles penetrated me.”
Why have I never seen any feminist challenge this woman’s right to call
herself a feminist, let alone “Radical Feminist,” while selling herself and
all women out in such a disgusting way? She is making money off
feeding men’s fantasies about women loving being tortured by men.
A friend describes these public proud sado-masochist prostitutes as being in the
pimp role, because they proselytize prostitution. In this case, Joan Kelly is also
pimping all women into being targets for male violence. Certainly men use this
kind of porn as an excuse for assaulting women, since it’s not just “snuff” films
(where women are literally killed for male pleasure) which lead more men to
attack women and girls. Explicit pornography in advertizing, TV, movies,
magazines, and online has massively increased as a response to feminism until
it’s become a “normal” expression of heterosexuality and is now part of
mainstream “culture” in many countries. It’s also part of the backlash against the
Women’s Liberation and Lesbian Liberation Movements and has contributed to
the rise of sado-masochism in het and Lesbian society. “Lesbian” porn for and by
men is the most popular porn. The mainstreaming of sado-masochism in the
everyday propaganda of women being willing victims or “sluts” is just as
dangerous. There is a direct link between sado-masochist “toys” and high heels,
make-up, slutty clothes, etc.
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Too many Lesbians get involved in sado-masochism because of desperately

wanting to please lovers. How many Lesbians now want to become free of the
addiction of sado-masochism, but don’t know how, and instead of getting
support, are called traitors by the proponents of sado-masochism? It is very hard
to leave a cult.
The Dangers And The Damage

We really are not supposed to talk about this, but some sado-masochist Lesbians
have suffered permanent physical damage from: lacerations of the vagina and
cervix, loss of bladder and bowel control (from fisting), uterine injury, scarring
from whipping, burning, and cutting (how do you remove an incised swastika?).
Some Lesbians have gotten STDs, including Hepatitis and AIDs from blood and
shit contact. Joan Kelly described loving the feel of those hot needles inserted
into her body and from having her labia sewn up. Can you imagine her scars?
(Sorry to focus on the scars, but it’s a permanent reminder even after a woman
decides to quit sado-masochism.)
One Lesbian sado-masochist book’s “suggested guidelines for safety” only
reveals how unsafe sado-masochism is. The needle for nipple piercing has to be
carefully placed to not puncture the milk ducts. “A womon’s nipple will take three
months or longer to heal, with daily attention to hygiene.” For labia piercing:
“You will need to wash the vulva at least twice a day…until it has healed. It will
take at least 6 to 8 weeks to heal.” For “golden showers:” “Anyone who drinks
piss should be sure to drink plenty of water afterward, to help wash the excess
urea out of her system.” “If you receive brown showers, you should monitor your
health closely. In particular, you and your partner need to be checked regularly
for intestinal parasites.” Since it can take a while to show up positive for certain
blood-borne illnesses, some women can be contagious without knowing.
What does it do to a Lesbian to be whipped, chained, cut, burned, humiliated –
to lick someone’s boots, to have cries of “No, stop!… please stop….” be ignored
as part of the game – to be literally shit on and ordered to eat shit, to be called
vile names? What is the effect on the Lesbian doing these things? How does it
affect anyone else they relate to? What does it do to a Lesbian to be told she
must hurt and humiliate her lover in order to please her? And how often does
the “safe” word end up being ignored?
Lesbians have been made the scapegoats for the men and boys who sexually
assault girls and women. What damage does it do to play out those scenarios?
When a Lesbian plays “rapist,” she is inviting the forces of Lesbian-hatred deep
into herself and into our culture. When a Lesbian plays at being a willing victim,
she is mocking all victims of rape. (I still believe that glorifying rape by feeding
the lie that women want to be raped, as Califia has done for money and fame, is
one of the worst betrayals any woman can do to other women.)
What damage is done for a Lesbian to be called a “slave” and call her lover
“master” or “Daddy?” On US national television a European-descent Lesbian was
shown calling her African-descent lover her “slave,” as she led her around by a
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leash. What damage is done when a gentile dresses up in a Nazi uniform and
carves a swastika on a Jewish Lesbian’s body? What damage is done in playing
out rape scenarios for “fun?” How can any Lesbian defend, identify with, or
justify these actions? I ask the same question about those who read and watch
porn. I say that it damages Lesbians who do these things, on many levels. It is
hard enough to not be contaminated by misogyny and Lesbian-hatred that is all
around us as it is.
Some “Lesbian Feminist” sado-masochists are outraged at what we and others
have written, and they protest, “But we don’t do that!” Yet by saying they are
into “Leather” or “Kink” or “BDSM,” they make a public statement identifying
themselves with that cult. I have yet to read or hear any Lesbian publicly
protesting or disagreeing with any aspect of sado-masochism. Loyalty first goes
to other sado-masochists, including someone as abusive as Pat Califia. My ex-
friend never sounded upset at Califia, but only at me for writing about what she’d
done.
Most sado-masochists insist that sado-masochism helps free them from past
trauma and abuse. They say they know the difference between real and pretend,
consent and abuse. But Lesbians who leave the sado-masochist cult say
differently and talk about how lines are crossed and consensuality ignored. Even
Lesbians in non-sado-masochist relationships that become abusive can have
trouble recognizing what is abusive until it’s in the past. Instead of freeing you
from past abuse, sado-masochism is like cutting an old scar, deepening the
damage.
Masochism Is Self-Hatred/Sadism is Lesbian-Hatred

“Top” (sadist) and “Bottom” (masochist) are roles used by het and gay men, het
and bisexual women, and Lesbians to define their sado-masochistic roles.
Although sado-masochists may switch, most define themselves in rigid roles.
Sado-masochism is defined as a “mutual exchange of power.” Why then, are
the vast majority of sado-masochist Lesbians self-defined masochists
who crave pain and humiliation? The few “tops” usually don’t look very
comfortable in their sadist role.
We live in a very Lesbian-hating world and it is almost impossible to escape
internalizing that self-hatred. It’s no coincidence that many sado-masochists
Lesbians, including “tops,” are still self-mutilating. Rather than accepting and
encouraging the roles of dominant and submissive, sadist and masochist, why
not fight those roles? Many sado-masochists are addicts trying to be sober. Why
don’t they see the connection with sado-masochism as another kind of
destructive drug?
We have enough trouble from having grown up in patriarchy with inequalities like
heterosexism, sexism, classism, racism, anti-Semitism, ableism, ageism, fat
oppression, looksism, etc. as being the norm without glorifying abusive power
differences. It increases and reinforces inequality to ritualize and sexualize it.
Yet, it used to be said that playing sado-masochistic games would somehow free
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Lesbians from the oppressions we’ve been indoctrinated with. No one is so

trustworthy that it’s safe to play with such pain and oppression. Even when the
roles are reversed, how does it affect a relationship for the more oppressed
Lesbians to focus a lifetime of justified rage onto her Lesbian lover? The situation
still isn’t equalized.
All these years after this fad became popular in our community, has anything
seemed to change for the better? I sure haven’t seen it. I only see the sado-
masochists I know refusing to take “no” for an answer.
Trendy Is Reactionary
Patriarchy loves to create subcultures so that the boring, bland privileged can
feel even more superior compared to “common, ordinary” people. Meanwhile,
their trendy subcultures, with their own expensive clothing and hair styles,
create new markets for the fashion industry. Often manufacturers themselves
determine which new fashions will become “counter-culture” styles. This game-
playing at who’s trendy and who’s passé helps hets feel less numb, since being
het is incredibly boring.
The most popular fads are those pretending to express “rebellion.” Smoking
cigarettes and drinking alcohol had that appeal in the past, but they have long
since become part of mainstream dominant culture. Still, in spite of how passé
they are, and how dangerous they are to the health of the users as well as those
around them, many Lesbians still use them simply because they are associated
with being trendy.
Trendy Lesbians often act as if they are still rebelling against their parents who
don’t want them to look slutty, but they are actually allying with the parental
attitudes that prefer a Lesbian be or look ANY way other than identifiably
Lesbian. Looking male-identified feminine is very much part of sado-masochism,
although many non-sado-masochists also consider it exciting and sexy. This is
where the line between non-sado-masochists and sado-masochists can blend and
merge. It’s interesting that some feminists who object to leather and studs on
Lesbians feel fine about the more traditional male look for women: high heels,
make up, dresses etc. But the conformist, reactionary politics that support
Lesbians looking het also fuel sado-masochism.
Anything that reflects how men want women to appear, including looking
ridiculous and emaciated, is innately misogynist. Mainstream and fashion images
of women often mimic or promote sado-masochism, such as showing women
wearing makeup that mimics bruising – once you start to recognize sado-
masochistic promotion, besides the overt images, you see that the media is full
of it.
For het and bisexual women who are already male-identified, being sado-
masochistic is just “normal.” Het and gay male culture and media constantly
show sado-masochism in films, television, plays, books, etc. Many het and
bisexual women seem to whole-heartedly participate. I believe that
heterosexuality is by its nature sado-masochistic. Women being fucked by men is
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humiliating and degrading, which is why many het feminists are against women
being fucked or “PIV” (Penis in Vagina), as many call it. (I really don’t like
euphemisms, and the current feminist term “PIV” both pretties up the reality as
well as making it sound even more grotesque.) There’s a reason that girls’ first
reaction to learning about fucking is to be horrified and disgusted.
Many women now proclaim proudly how they love being fucked, but that’s a
fairly recent phenomenon, which I believe is in response to the intense pressure
on women to obey men’s rules, which is a direct response to the threat of the
Women’s Liberation Movement. In the past, it was an open joke that women
chose a form of legally contracted prostitution, to sexually service one man in
exchange for het privilege, respectability, “being taken care of” (since men’s
wages are so much higher than women’s), to be considered “normal,” please
their families, etc. – with the joke being that they hated being heterosexual with
their men. (“Not tonight, dear, I have a headache.”) All that changed with the
“Sexual Revolution,” where men got “free love” (no more paying), while women
got STDs, pregnant, and less rewards (though still enough for most to not
consider being celibate or Lesbian.) The “Sexual Revolution” was men’s way of
dispensing with the game of heterosexual “love” in order to admit that they just
wanted to fuck, rape, and abuse as many girls and women as possible.
Some mothers try to protect their daughters from being fuck fodder for men but
many girls and young women rebel against their mothers by becoming even
more of what patriarchy calls “sluts” and are proud of what they mistakenly
believe is being “liberated’ and daringly rebellious. There is nothing more
conservative, reactionary, destructive and old-fashioned than for a
woman to be fucked. The male “Sexual Revolution” capitalized on this by
encouraging as many women as possible to agree to being fucked by as many
men as possible to feel “liberated.” Some women literally died as a result from
getting lethal STDs such as AIDS and Hepatitis.
There is a whole level of sado-masochism that carries over into oppressing
Butches, but with the same kinds of erroneous assumptions that are similar to
the trans cult, where the most female and Lesbian and most oppressed in the
situation (Butches) are equated with being the opposite – the most male, the
dominator, and the privileged. The reverse is true, which we explained in our
book and in my recent update, “Supporting Butches Supports All Lesbians.”
For the Radical Lesbian Feminists who don’t understand, equating Butches with
privilege, is similar to how the trans cult says that Lesbians are more privileged
than trans, even though they are either men wielding their male privilege against
Lesbians and women, or are women who want male privilege and are self-hating
enough to despise Lesbians.
Fighting Sado-Masochism Is Pro-Lesbian

I went to a party recently where a friend brought out a paddle and explained that
sado-masochism helps to heighten sensation. Another friend, rather wearily, I
thought, repeated almost verbatim, another old Samois line about how playing
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with sado-masochism helps women overcome past abuse (as opposed to the
reality of becoming addicted to reenacting it.) It is very sad to see all these years
later, younger women continuing those sado-masochist con lines.
Some Lesbians promote the myth about sado-masochists being an oppressed
minority by saying they shouldn’t have to “be in the closet” about their sexual
preferences. We agree that we would prefer knowing who is and who isn’t a
sado-masochist since so much of how they act is based on enjoying power
imbalances and there’s enough of that already between women without playing
games to add to it. So, no, we don’t want anyone hiding that they enjoy
humiliating lovers, cutting and beating lovers, pressuring lovers to drink their
piss or eat their shit, etc. or that they are masochists who want a sadist lover,
and we object to comparing being sado-masochist to Lesbians who have to hide
who they are to survive.
Some have credited sado-masochism with making it easier for Lesbians to talk
about sex, but Lesbians do that all the time without being sado-masochist.
Perhaps it just isn’t considered “real” sex if it isn’t in a male context? — Just as
men don’t consider whatever is not fucking to be “real” sex, no matter how many
more orgasms women can have with other women.
We support Lesbians who have stopped being sado-masochists and know that
they get bullied in a similar way to how women who leave the trans cult are
harassed.
Haven’t we learned enough by now to know that wanting to do something that is
destructive to ourselves and other females is just not good? For our survival and
self-respect, we need to turn our justified hatred against our enemies and our
oppressors, instead of inward, letting men’s war against us to be successful.
Many Lesbians are becoming Radical Lesbian Feminists and Separatists, saying
no to male and het values, and are fighting unjust hierarchies and oppressions.
Recognizing
heterosexism among ourselves and in our communities opens the way to freeing
ourselves from it. Rejecting and fighting sado-masochism is part of that. Some
Lesbian events, like Dyke Separatist gatherings have been publicized as sado-
masochist-free.
If Lesbians give up sado-masochism and allow their natural Lesbian passion to
come out, they’ll find that nothing can compare with that wild love that only
Lesbians have and can give.
Endnotes
1. Susan Hawthorne has also written against Lesbian sado-masochism in
http://guweb2.gonzaga.edu/againsthate/journal4/04ancienthatred.pdf
2. From Wikipedia: On 9 December 1869, Sacher-Masoch and his mistress Baroness Fanny Pistor
signed a contract making him her slave for a period of six months, with the stipulation that the
Baroness wear furs as often as possible, especially when she was in a cruel mood….Sacher-
Masoch pressured his first wife, Aurora von Rümelin, whom he married in 1873, to live out the
experience of the book, against her preferences.
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3. Leather Pride flag – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leather_Pride_flag

4. Big Bucks for Pain Sluts -Inside the kinky world of professional submissive
By Rachel Kramer Bussel Tuesday, Feb 7 2006
Over the course of her career, Joan Kelly (submarnie.com) has been strung up and splashed
with freezing water, had her labia sewn shut, gotten caned, and taken countless bare-bottomed
spankings—and has loved almost every minute of it. As “Marnie,” the Los Angeles–based kinky
gal works as an independent professional submissive. For $260 an hour (to start), you can hire
her to lie across your lap and get whacked good and hard (her favorite) or, for several
thousand dollars, go deeper into your dominant fantasies. She’ll even come right to your hotel
room, or you can use a local dungeon.
Joan Kelly, author of The Pleasure’s All Mine: Memoir of a Professional Submissive
It’s clear from Kelly’s (Carroll & Graf, 2005) that this job’s about much more than money. Her
excitement is evident over the phone, as she reveals that she’s been single until recently,
getting her pain fix on the job. “When I started, I had that Pretty Woman fantasy, thinking I’d
meet Mr. Kinky Right. If that had ever happened, I would’ve quit in a heartbeat,” she
confesses. “If I don’t have someone in my personal life [to be kinky with], I’m physically
compelled to do sessions. I’ve tried to quit a few times, but I couldn’t—I have to have this in
my life.” Kelly’s current paramour, whom she met online, is “getting kinkier by the minute,”
responding to her cues.
Local pro sub Submissive Ophelia (submissiveophelia.com), who claims she’s “New York City’s
most hardcore masochist,” also got into the work after a failed relationship. Her first boyfriend
made her his captive, and after that, “I had a difficult time meeting men who enjoyed
dominating me. My submissive urges kept growing, and I decided being a pro would get me
more playtime and fulfill my desires.”
Her favorite part of the job is the physical high, while the biggest drawback is tending to
bruises several times a day after a heavy corporal scene. “I surprise myself at how far my pain
tolerance has evolved. For example, I had a client sew my vaginal lips shut, and I didn’t make
a peep,” Ophelia (Joan Kelly) boasts via e-mail. “I had another client who took 18-gauge
needles, heated them until they were red-hot, and used them to pierce the insides of my butt
cheeks. I could hear my skin sizzling as the needles penetrated me.”
Byron Mayo, co-owner of the BDSM advertising hot spot Eros-Guide.com and former owner of a
commercial San Francisco dungeon, has nothing but praise for the skills pro subs bring to their
trade. “You can touch places in a really good sub session that most marriages don’t get to in
years. The result is a sense of psychological intimacy most of us crave but rarely get,” he says.
“In a world of political correctness, confusing role models, and enforced ‘equality,’ the ability to
tell a beautiful, intelligent, and demure woman to get on her knees and do what you say is a
fantasy come true.”
A woman after my own heart, Kelly’s favorite type of scene involves over-the-knee hand
spanking and role-playing. “The hottest thing for me is if they’re ‘punishing’ me for something.
I could do back-to-back spanking sessions all day, every day,” she enthuses, then clarifies—
”but not if it were eight hours of super hard spanking.” She has done five hours in a row, but
she enjoys the challenge. “I’m tired at the end of a day like that, but mostly from the
emotional energy of plugging in with one person after another.”
Being a sub is decidedly more risky than wielding a whip, which is why pro subs make more
than your average dominatrix. Kelly explains that in L.A., dungeons often start women as subs
who can work their way up to being doms. They may go through the motions, but for Kelly, it’s
all real. “Virtually any pro sub will do spanking, but if it’s not their fetish, they’re not gonna
have the kind of response that turns a fellow fetishist on. Spanking pushes an instant arousal
button in me. That’s not common in the professional s/m scene.” Mayo praises such dedication.
“I’ve seen pro subs come out of sessions glowing like they’ve just spent a week on an island
vacation with a fantasy lover. Others emerge needing to curl up and be held because they
exposed so much raw emotion. They have to do it because they love it, or it will quickly go
sour.”
Novice clients, be forewarned: Cash alone will not buy your way to smacking Kelly’s ass. This
proud “spanking fetishist, selective and submissively responsive bottom, and excitable pervert”
(according to her website) insists that although she enjoys herself immensely during sessions,
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she’s no one’s plaything or naughty little girl. Don’t call her and expect instant obedience; you
not only have to pay for that, you have to earn it. “Clients have to respect me as an equal
person. I get to say how hard things will get, I get to say what I need,” she explains. “Guys will
call up and while I’m trying to interview them as a potential client, ask, ‘Are you kneeling?’ It’s
embarrassing for the guy.” Her advice? “Never assume anything about a woman you approach
for a pro session—we’re all different. Some subs won’t take off their G-strings but will let you
cane the shit out of them. There are women like me who’ll get naked and jerk off in front of
you, but you better not start caning the hell out of me unless it’s my idea.”
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Chapter Seven
Motherhood: The Ultimate Feminine Role

by Bev Jo, Linda Strega and Ruston
(Originally published in 1990, I, Bev, have updated this to share online.)
Radical Feminism is about questioning everything we are taught is sacred and
unquestionable in patriarchy, from male religion to every other male dictate for
females. Radical Feminism means understanding all male cons in both the
political and personal, exploring the political effects of each personal decision,
and knowing what choices are possible. Motherhood is one of the most important
foundations of patriarchy, yet we are taught that choosing it means becoming
woman supreme.
Any time we find ourselves being expected to genuflect to and pay homage to
any particular group of people, which means valuing ourselves less, we need to
deeply think about why we are expected to do that – especially when they are
often our oppressors.
This is not about criticizing women who are mothers, but about
exploring the institution of motherhood and how it keeps patriarchy
going, because women claiming to be Feminists are still choosing
motherhood.
Please have no illusions: If you choose to reproduce, you are being incredibly
selfish and keeping patriarchy going. Patriarchy and the daily extinction of
species would stop very soon if women just stopped reproducing. This is the one
thing where each woman’s decision has a massive effect on the future.
Motherhood is one of the biggest cons and cults of patriarchy. Women complain
endlessly about how terrible their lives are as mothers, even though most choose
it (yes, most women know that if they choose to let men fuck them, pregnancy is
likely). At the same time, mothers brag endlessly about being mothers and about
their children, particularly sons. They openly pity women who can’t have
children. Most participate wholeheartedly in the destructive myth that they are
doing something wonderful for society and the earth, when the reality is that
they are giving the earth a death sentence. At the very least, mothers do not
have to add to the propaganda of motherhood pushed onto all girls and women,
yet, in spite of their bitter complaining, most wholeheartedly pressure other
females to also reproduce. Why?
One of the dilemmas of talking about the privilege of motherhood is that
motherhood is presented by reformist/right wing/liberal feminists as being the
most oppressed condition women can experience. What is ignored in this is the
power that motherhood has as an institution, how it is promoted with endless
media propaganda, and how women who say no are punished. (If you dare say
this on most “radfem” sites, you will be banned for telling the truth.) Like most
kinds of privilege you can often only see it when you’re not experiencing it.
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Acting out of heterosexuality, reformist feminists focus primarily on men,

ignoring Lesbians and women who say no to breeding. (We are an unpleasant
reminder that women can and do choose. They would rather we don’t
exist.) Most women are promised much more than they ever get for reproducing
the next men and the next women to breed more men, so they are bitter and
angry. They make demands on men to help with their children, and then, without
any thought about the privilege they have that is directly gotten at the expense
of non-mothers, they expect Lesbians and women without children to help take
care of those children, as if they have done us all a favor by reproducing and as
if we somehow owe them. They also take out their anger at men onto us.
In reality, reproducing is one of the most selfish things a woman can do. The
world is horrifically over-populated and adding more humans is killing the planet.
If you dare to say this, the most common response is a crazed “But all humans
will die out!” as if that is likely at eight billion and growing. These children, who
we never had a say about being made, are our direct competition for future
survival resources.
The happiest Lesbians seem to be those who came out late, in their forties or
fifties, after having husbands, careers, houses, lots of money, and far better
health with which to enjoy life. Of course, most wish they had never chosen men
to begin with, but they have gotten substantial rewards for reproducing and
choosing men, with a far more secure future than most Lifelong Lesbians.
Meanwhile, het Feminists set on keeping this mess going are unwilling to look at
their own complicity, and will do anything to avoid taking responsibility for their
past choices to be het, or even their current choice of having a man — so they
start talking about girls in far-away countries chained to walls, being raped and
forced to reproduce, as if that was their own situation, which is designed to
shame us into silence. How dare we even question motherhood, enshrined as a
cult along with religion and patriotism?
The Myths and Mania of Motherhood

To understand why some Lesbians want to be mothers, we need to understand
what the mother role has to offer. There are strong Dyke-identified Dykes who
are mothers and who don’t expect to be revered for it. But many Lesbians, both
mothers and non-mothers, revere the institution of motherhood in the same
ways that patriarchy does. They envision matriarchy is as the ideal alternative to
patriarchy, but Mother Rule, especially Het Mother Rule, wouldn’t be much of an
improvement over Father Rule. What we need is equality between Lesbians, with
no one ruling. The way to create that equality is to question and challenge every
“truth,” especially sacred “truths,” that we’re taught. That also means
questioning much of feminist analysis, especially the parts that reflect het
feminists’ heterosexism.
Very few Lesbians question the sacredness of motherhood and the demand that
mothers be treated as superior beings in relation to non-mothers. The few who
do are attacked in print, censored, or banned from online groups. The insults
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are similar to what men and het women call any female who refuses to support
the institution of motherhood. That tells us we must continue exploring why
patriarchy and feminists so love motherhood. (Amazones d’Hier, Lesbiennes
d”Aujourd’hui of Montréal, Québec, Canada, was a wonderful exception to
this.)1
There’s a feminist myth that motherhood is the most deeply oppressed,
suffering, and hardworking of female conditions, and that, in comparison, non-
mothers’ lives are full of fun, irresponsibility, and freedom. Meanwhile,
patriarchal propaganda says that motherhood is the only true fulfillment and
happiness a female can have, and that childless females (especially Dykes) live
pathetic, empty, meaningless, neurotic, lonely, unnatural, and barren lives.
Both of these myths are lies, based on a distortion of truth. The feminist lie is
based on the fact that men oppress women and therefore mothers are oppressed
by men. Mothers create and raise children for men — boys are future men, and
girls are meant to be future creators and incubators of men, as well as servants
and fuck objects. Poor mothers who don’t have men supporting them in their
mother role have a hard time making enough money to live while also caring for
their children. We agree that mothers’ lives can be hard. It’s expensive and time-
consuming to raise children. But that hardship is chosen for the privilege
involved, and pain and hardship aren’t always the same as oppression. It’s
painful to be het, but het women have tremendous social power over Lesbians
and oppress us.
Hetness and, in most cases, motherhood, are choices, and both choices come
from a commitment to men first. Even when women don’t decide specifically to
get pregnant, if they choose to be fucked by men, then they know what the risks
are. Women who choose pregnancy gain the particular privilege and respect that
only mothers are allowed. (Women often just continue doing what they are told
they are supposed to do and follow what “everyone else is doing,” which means
choosing men, making babies, etc. But clearly not every women does that, and
trying to fit in and be considered normal is going for privilege. Some women are
more calculating and aim to get a man with substantial privilege so they can
have security, status, and money, while providing heirs, as well as sexual
services as their part of the bargain — higher class monogamous prostitution.)
The feminist lie that defines mothers as oppressed victims ignores the privilege
which comes from men declaring that mothers are the women who everyone
must love, praise, and admire. It ignores the existence and deeper oppression of
Lesbians who aren’t mothers, especially those who’ve always been Lesbians. The
patriarchal lie that defines mothers as supremely fulfilled is based on the false
“fulfillment” that privilege gives them – only mothers, enacting the most het of
roles, are allowed to represent the radiant epitome of womanliness. The rest of
us are treated with various levels of contempt, because men consider our lives as
barren as they consider our bodies. Many Lesbians ignore the social power that
mothers have, like they ignore the power het women have relative to Lesbians.
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That power is given to mothers and het women by men because men need them.
Men couldn’t exist without mothers.
Patriarchy makes a fuss over the physical aspects of how women become
mothers, from the het acts of fucking and pregnancy to having a “fertile” body.
In patriarchal minds, giving birth makes a Mature Woman out of a girl.
Otherwise, all ages of females are just “girls” to men. The baby is the female
body’s badge of completeness. As one mother said, “I feel I would be hollow now
if I had not been a mother.”2 This glorification is particularly oppressive to
females who are physically unable to get pregnant.
The propaganda is that being pregnant is natural and even needed, not just by
humans, but by other animals. Some women even force their pets to get
pregnant because they think it’s good for them, though for many species, this
means being raped. Many female animals are left scarred and injured, and some
die as they fight to defend themselves from being raped. In zoos, when they
want a species to reproduce, they often shackle the female to be raped because
some will fight to the death against the rapists. Being pregnant also sucks the
life force from the mother animal. Female bodies respond as though it’s a
parasitic invasion and try to kill the fetus. And many women still become
permanently disabled or die from pregnancy and childbirth, which is rarely
publicized.
Then there’s the social aspect. In every culture we know of, mothers receive far
more respect and status than any other group of females, which is why so many
women choose to have children. Even patriarchal religions demand, “Honor thy
father and thy mother.” Mothers are given their own day — “Mother’s Day.”
Businesses praise mothers and give them special discounts — not surprising,
since mothers create more consumers. Cards and gifts are sent in their honor,
and both the patriarchal and feminist media laud mothers.
Feminist and Lesbian stars do special concerts and events for mothers. One of
the largest annual gatherings of Lesbians in the world, the Michigan Womyn’s
Music Festival, has been called “a gathering of mothers and daughters,” with
mothers therefore doubly welcomed. That means females who are and were het
were publicly more welcomed than Lifelong Lesbians and Lesbians who’ve never
been het. It also means non-mothers were automatically put in the inferior
position of daughters. What other female or Lesbian group is as regularly and
institutionally acknowledged and praised as are mothers? No wonder most
Lesbian mothers identify first as “mothers” and second as “Lesbians.”
Many employers give special benefits to mothers, and many pay for extensive
maternity leave. Some employers and governments provide free childcare. Non-
mother Lesbians pay taxes to support those benefits without getting similar
benefits when we’re ill or having to look after our lovers and friends who need
care. Many feminist groups also provide childcare or money for childcare. (Bev: I
taught self-defense classes for girls and women for ten years for Bay Area
Women Against Rape. After administrative changes in the group, my $100 a
month salary was eliminated, while office staff members received full salary plus
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$400 a month extra for childcare. Self defense classes are among the most
important support that such groups can give to girls and women. I was
committed to never being able to leave the area for more than a week for most
of ten years since I taught each week, but mothers had priority.)
In Lesbian communities, more Lesbian money has been donated to Lesbian
mothers than any other group, particularly for custody cases, while most other
Lesbians’ needs are largely ignored. Since the new A.I. (“artificially
inseminated”) mothers became the majority of mothers in Lesbian communities,
that means they’re likely to get the majority of funding. There’s usually little or
no organized financial support for Lesbians who have other responsibilities, such
as caring for ill or dying friends and lovers. How much money and support has
been raised for homeless, hungry, terminally ill, disabled, and/or imprisoned
Dykes compared to money raised for childcare and custody cases? How many
Lesbian events welcome children free (including boys), even if the mothers are
rich, and then refuse to let in poor Dykes who can’t pay? Lesbians are simply
valued less. Why give the most help to those who provide a future for the
patriarchy? Children are future men and potentially future het women, while
Lesbians merely stay Lesbians. The richly funded “Lesbian Rights” project in San
Francisco is almost completely devoted to Lesbian mothers’ and even Gay
fathers’ custody cases. “Lesbian Rights” has become synonymous with “Mothers’
Rights”! (Meanwhile, the “National Center for Lesbian Rights,” with their
enormous budget, primarily works for men, including the very men who are
destroying our last female only spaces.)
Lesbians who get pregnant assume they can demand support. (Bev: A few years
ago, I organized meetings for Lesbians to discuss Lesbian Separatism. One of the
Lesbians who sounded very anti-male and agreed that males were inherently
dangerous, was pregnant with a boy. I didn’t know her well, but she actually
announced she would have me “on diaper duty” for her baby boy. I told her it’s
the last thing I would do. A couple of years later, she confided that her still
young son is proof of how boys just throw rocks and there is nothing she can do
to stop him.)
Motherhood gives an aura of respectability to a Lesbian that nothing else does
except going het. The next best thing to being a wife and mother is to at least be
a mother. That’s half of the male definition of “woman.” Motherhood gives
surrogate wife status. It’s as close as a Lesbian can come to being
heterosexual.14 Lesbians have been considered immature by patriarchy and its
psychologists, but becoming a mother means becoming a full adult. Mothers of
boys get even more privilege, because males are more valued. This increased
privilege for Lesbian mothers is gained at the expense of Lesbian non-mothers.
Too many times we’ve heard Lesbians say that mothers should be particularly
respected. The prominence of Lesbian mothers in the Lesbian media is an effort
to prove that we’re acceptable by het standards — that we’re not alien,
inexplicable, Dykey monsters and that we’re family, feminine, wifely, domestic,
motherly, and normal. When mothers and ex-het Lesbians are focused on in this
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way, it’s at the expense of Butch, Never-het, and Life-long Lesbians. In effect,
they’re saying, “We’re not perverts like them. Some Lesbians (us!) are real
women.”
One of the highest compliments many Lesbians think they can make is to call
someone a mother, even if she isn’t. A Dyke who’d never been het worked many
years to help create female-only land. The Lesbians who admired her called her a
“founding mother.” A well-meaning Dyke bestowed the term “mothers” on us
because our political work meant so much to her. She intended it as warm
praise, and we appreciated that, but it was actually a negation of all non-
mothers. It’s a male lie that females’ potential ability to breed is the well-spring
of our energy, spirituality, inventiveness, protectiveness, and kindness. All these
qualities stem from our Dykeness. They’re female, not motherly, qualities. It
hurts us a people and culture when Lesbians continue male propaganda among
ourselves by saying that non-biological mothers can become mothers through
our creativity.
Part of mothers’ power comes from the myth of their being more wise,
responsible, caring, loving, and unselfish than anyone else. “Only a mother
knows.” The propaganda is everywhere. Try keeping a list of how many times
you see motherhood promoted in the media. A newspaper ad showed a mother
and baby with the caption “One of the most important jobs in the world ….” A
survey of 1000 U.S. women found that 60% said motherhood is the best thing
about being a woman.3 A magazine ad described the reverence given to pregnant
women:
I felt this incredible sense of well-being. There is really nothing like it.
People beam at you. They offer you their seats on the bus. Total
strangers walk up to you in the supermarket and ask you if they can
touch your stomach. Everywhere you go, you feel like your stomach is
announcing: “Here I am! I’m making a baby!” Your parents look at you
differently, too. My mother was glad I was finally doing something
constructive.
In an interview, one woman said, “Everyone pampers you — sometimes
even complete strangers. Also, I felt more womanly while pregnant.”
Another said, “…when I was pregnant, I felt that it was acceptable to be ‘fat.’ For
the first time, I really liked my body and that was truly liberating.”4
In another article, titled “Battle of the Bulge — When Pregnancy Feels Like an
Enemy Invasion,” a woman says:
“…the first time I ventured onto a bus with my infant son … a young
man whom I would have gone out of my way to avoid on a dark street
offered me his seat.”5 In another article, a woman who already has six
adopted children says, “Actually making a baby is something very
important to me. It makes me feel whole.” The writers go on to say,
“The need to be fruitful and multiply is a thing of beauty, an impulse to
be adored and respected.”6
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These aren’t exaggerations. Motherhood is the primary way females are allowed
to feel like someone important. In some cultures, like Nazi Germany, mothers
are or were given medals by their governments when they produce a large
number of children. In others, they’re given honorific titles as part of their
names. In the US, a fundamentalist Euro-descent couple is repeatedly put on the
cover of national magazines as they have yet another baby. At last count, they’d
reached twenty. It’s obscene.
We know Lesbians who say their lives dramatically changed when they became
mothers. As Cheryl Jones wrote about being pregnant:
“Strangers on the street talked to me for the first time in years. They
were friendly … the difference was that because I’m a lesbian, no one
had talked to me on the street for years! What a strange experience to
go from being ‘persona non grata’ to womanhood’s prime exemplar!”7
Those who have sons, especially, are treated with a deference they’d never
experienced before, by men, het women, and Lesbians. They finally felt accepted
by their families. Even those who identified openly as Lesbians said their
neighbors became warmer and more welcoming. The ways they were treated by
strangers were also dramatically different when they had children with them.
An acquaintance who became lovers with the mother of a five-year-old boy told
us they took him apartment-hunting because landlords were so much more
friendly when they presented themselves as mother, son, and friend. Whenever
they went without him, they were treated with wariness and hostility.
We knew two Lesbians in a couple, a mother and a non-mother, who were
treated very differently by the same food stamp worker, although they were
equally qualified for assistance, came from similar backgrounds, and weren’t
very different in appearance and behavior. The mother, who brought her
daughter to the interview, was treated in a friendly way and assured that she
would receive her food stamps as quickly as possible. The non-mother was
treated harshly and got her food stamps only after obstacles and delays.
Non-mother Lesbians who are with children are usually assumed to be mothers
and also get preferential treatment. Whenever one of us accompanied friends’
young daughters in public, we were astounded at how much better we were
treated than when alone or with adult Lesbians. Women smiled benignly and
acted comfortable with us, instead of being hostile. It made going out in public
immeasurably easier. Even the most obvious-looking Lesbian becomes more
acceptable if she’s with a child. As one Lesbian we know said, ”When I walk down
the street with a friend’s baby, I’m no longer the fat Butchy Dyke I’ve been all
my life.”
A Radical Feminist in one of our online groups wrote:
Mothers are privileged and I am forever frustrated at how other women
who aren’t feminists are sucked into wishing for motherhood to obtain
that privilege and attention. Last night, there was a whole group of what
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appeared to be coworkers at a restaurant I was at. They were

celebrating a baby shower and everyone was excited and praising this
woman for her pregnancy. Even the males present were excited and
lavishing attention on her. There were children attending also and all I
could think about was how every little girl at that table was seeing the
admiration and attention that the pregnant woman was receiving, and
how even the strangers at another table offered congratulations to her.
It was one of those moments where discussions on this thread were
playing themselves out right in front of me. This was all brought to a
head by another female friend at the table looking adoringly at her
boyfriend/husband and saying “I can’t wait to be able to be a mother.”
It was horrifying, like some kind of love fest for this pregnant woman.
It’s no wonder that women think they want to have kids. Look at the
importance placed on it! It was ridiculous!
Mothers in public places frequently demand attention from everyone around
them. It’s not unusual to see a mother in a store talking very loudly to her child
while she looks around expectantly for compliments. Mothers of boys are more
likely to act this way, but mothers of daughters sometimes do too. It’s a way of
showing off to the world that they’re mothers. They take up a great deal of
physical and psychic space with their demands for attention, expecting everyone,
particularly other females, to pay homage to them. One example: In a doctor’s
office, there was a mother with a young boy who was running around the waiting
room, yelling. His mother commented loudly on his every move, announcing that
he was going to be a doctor because he picked up a toy stethoscope. She could
care less that people in a doctors’ office might be sick or in pain and needing
quiet.
Another example: We were in a park, sitting by a pond with fish, celebrating one
of our birthdays. Other women were drawing and talking quietly in this peaceful
space, with plenty of room for everyone. Then a class-privileged-looking mother
of a very young boy came up and sat so close that she touched one of us, even
though there were other empty seats near the pond. She held her son out in
front of her, literally pushing him in our faces, saying loudly, “Look at the fish,
dear!” The boy looked completely bored. She repeatedly told him to notice the
fish, while looking expectantly at us. We ignored her, which wasn’t easy,
considering the noise she was making and the fact that she was brushing against
one of us. Then she asked if she was bothering us. When we said yes, we’d
rather not be shoved, she began yelling at us. We reminded her, quietly and
politely, that she had asked us and we were only responding. She continued
yelling, so we told her that we just wanted to be left in the peace that was there
before she came. She walked away, screaming, “You must be Lesbians! You
must be Lesbian Separatists! Well, I fuck men!” (The other women at the pond
looked at her like she was crazy.) We’d said nothing to her about men, boys, het
women, heterosexuality, or being Lesbians. We simply had refused to smile at
her and her boy.
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“Don’t You Dare Talk Back!”

The pain a mother suffers is considered more important and serious than any
other female pain. A ludicrous example is when a Lesbian we knew said that she
was in emotional agony because “A mother’s pain is the greatest pain. No one
else feels as much as a mother.” She wasn’t even a mother, but imagined she
was because she had been trying to adopt a girl. Even after being denied the
adoption, she was already identifying with the mother role and being oppressive
to non-mothers. Mothers are also considered more important, as shown
throughout the media, when it’s mentioned that a mother has been injured.
Clearly the constant message is that non-mothers being hurt or killed matter
less.
The main reason Lesbians believe mothers are more oppressed than non-
mothers is because mothers use their privilege to demand special treatment.
Their demands have quite an impact when they’re delivered in the authoritarian,
shocked tones that mothers use for “naughty” children. It is, after all, the
mother’s role to be obeyed without question. They use the same controlling
behavior towards non-mothers as they use on their daughters. As the old saying
goes, “God created mothers because he couldn’t be everywhere at once.”
Lesbians who challenge mothers’ privilege are likely to be treated as if we were
“disobeying” them, even when we’re a great deal older than the mothers.
Mothers expect Lesbians, as well as their children, to treat them with the same
reverence.
Few non-mothers have had the experience of talking to others in quite such
condescending ways. As a US bumpersticker says, “I’m the Mom, that’s why!”
Mothers have the authority that comes only from having total control and
ownership of someone else, including literally having the power of life and death
over their children. One mother we knew said she was exhilarated by the power
she had over her daughter, joking that it would be easy to foul up her daughter’s
life by teaching the wrong words for everything.
The powerlessness of young girls is one key to understanding the power of
mothers. Motherhood also gives females power over males that non-mothers
rarely have. A friend of ours said that raising sons made it possible for her to
know about how to talk to adult male strangers as if they were little boys, and
sometimes they would just respond without question as if they were obeying
their mother. Knowing the power of mothers’ disapproval, the US Postal Service
had an ad for “Mother’s Day” that said “It’s not too late to win Mother’s
approval.”
It’s particularly unfair when mothers use the political language of oppression to
manipulate non-mothers into treating them with deference. Caring, responsible
Dykes often believe someone who claims to be oppressed, especially if they are
accused of not understanding, because “you don’t know what it’s like to be a
mother.” That is as outrageous as the class-privileged saying that poor and
working class Dykes have no right to talk about class privilege because we’ve
never experienced it. Some Lesbian mothers may be angry at the privilege they
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lost when they became Lesbians, and expect non-mothers to make up for it. But
men are responsible for their Lesbian oppression, not Lesbians.
Some Mothers Betray Their Daughters and Other Females for Males
Considering the amount of nuclear and other toxins, as well as imperialist racist
oppression that European-descent christian men have spread across the earth,
European-descent gentile females have a specific responsibility to not create
more males. No matter how many horror stories that the mainstream media
reports about the destruction of the earth, they rarely say to stop breeding. Even
environmentalists keep churning out the babies. Most of the world’s forests are
cut down, most water is contaminated, and entire species of animals destroyed
forever. It’s happening now. How can anyone but the most selfish (unless they
are from a people endangered by genocide), keep reproducing?
For those who say it’s natural to reproduce, disease and parasites are also
“natural.” The crazed obsession that men and het women have with fucking and
making horrible over-populated replicas of themselves is not natural, but is a
sign of humans being way out of control in nature. Animals, including people, do
not overpopulate unless the natural balance is very disturbed, and no one has
disturbed nature more than men. No other animal has created such an artificial
environment all over the earth. Very little in hetero-patriarchy is natural. They
even buy and cover themselves in stinking toxic chemicals because they believe
it makes them more appealing.
Het women’s obsession with reproduction is so extreme that some women get
pregnant even when they know for certain that their child will inherit an
excruciating, fatal disease. That’s “love”?
Wanting the attention mothers get motivates women who clearly should not be
having babies. One of us was put in touch with a “Radical Feminist” new in town,
who turned out to be a pregnant homeless woman who refused to get an
abortion because she compared it to killing people. This woman knew about
overpopulation and so made up a story about being “Indigenous,” saying she
was Irish-descent, but a little later admitted that she was genetically English.
She wanted help to find a dry doorway in the rain to sleep and ended up going
back to a railway car to join the homeless man who had gotten her pregnant. It
never seemed to occur to her that any baby she had would be in danger and
have a hellish life. It was all about her.
In order to keep their het and mother privilege, some het mothers selfishly
collude in the rape of their daughters. There’s an excellent film about Canadian
Shirley Turcotte’s journey to talk with her family about her father orally and
vaginally raping her and her sister from the ages of five. Shirley’s sister said, “I
was five when I first tasted his semen….dad went all the way with me when I
was five. I remember that and mom came home and I was bleeding down
there…. I keep wondering, well, why didn’t she take me to a doctor and get me
checked up. Why?” When she was in her teens, she became pregnant. “I tried to
tell a priest that it was my dads’ baby…. The priest said, ‘No, no that’s not right.
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Don’t accuse your dad, you’re supposed to respect him: Honor thy father, honor
thy mother.’” Shirley’s mother said about their father, “He could be very loving.”
Shirley asked, “He was loving? When did he change?” Her mother answered, “
When you were babies. He didn’t like the crying.”8
Katinka, a Swedish Dyke Separatist said that in the Swedish Women’s Bulletin,
a socialist-feminist mother said, “If we want men to share in taking care of girls,
we can’t go around accusing them of incest.” She heard another mother say that
her greatest fear about her daughter being raped is that it might cause her to
become a Lesbian.
“Lesbians” Getting Pregnant???

How would you like to live in a world of 85% men? (That’s what A.I. usually
produces because the XX sperm are heavier, with more genetic material.)
Het baby booms often follow right wing reactionary trends. Political pressure is
put on women to return to or stay in traditional male-defined feminine roles and
accept male supremacy. “The lower the status of females in a culture, the higher
the birthrate; the higher the status of females, the lower the birthrate.”9 Women
who call themselves “Lesbians” started getting pregnant in the early Eighties.
Patriarchy and nationalism are intertwined, and motherhood is a key part of
both. Right wing national trends were partly a reaction to the growing Lesbian
and feminist movements, just as they were in 1930’s Nazi Germany. In an effort
to destroy the growing German Feminist and Lesbian movements, the Nazis
proclaimed women’s role to be “Kinder, Kirche, Küche” – “children, church and
kitchen.” (US nationalism is epitomized by “mom, the flag, and apple pie.”) This
pressure to reproduce was directed at so-called “Aryan” women, while Jewish,
Roma/Gypsy, Slavic, and disabled females were killed or sterilized by the Nazis.
In the US, females oppressed by racism and classism have been victims of
enforced sterilization. Harry Laughlin, the “father” of US eugenics inspired the
Nazis and they awarded him honorary degrees. (Bev: My poverty class aunt was
sterilized against her will at sixteen by the US government, for being a
“criminal.”)
As gentile Lesbians of primarily European descent, we recognize that Lesbians
whose cultures have suffered genocide are under different pressures to get
pregnant than more privileged Lesbians. But still, those who do choose
pregnancy are oppressing all Lesbian non-mothers, particularly those who never
got heterosexual privilege.
Like Lesbianism, resistance to motherhood exists in all cultures and is a powerful
threat to patriarchy. This revolutionary resistance has been carried out in
isolation and in small groups everywhere, in spite of punishment, including
death. It’s sometimes been done with full awareness of its political female-loving
significance, and sometimes out of intuitive self-love, in spite of feeling guilty for
disobeying. In every case, it represents saying no to men and male rule. It is the
stubborn survival of Lesbians’ love for ourselves and each other, against all odds.
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This beautiful Lesbian determination deserves recognition, support, and respect

from all Lesbians. Understanding the significance means understanding that
Lesbian self-love and self-respect is the opposite of the male-defined femininity
of wifehood and motherhood. The revolutionary quality of this resistance is often
not noticed or appreciated because actions that do not benefit men and their het
women agents are not honored. We need to recognize that men hate Lesbians
not only because we say no to them and dare to love our own kind, but because
we refuse to breed and make more men and more het women to produce
men.
Many Lesbians had children when they were het, and some didn’t want to be
mothers. Some women were raped and were not able to have abortions. A few
women have given up their children. Some of the Lesbian mothers who gave up
sons clearly did it to protect our Lesbian culture. (Ruston: I recall that almost
every politically active Lesbian mother I met in Women’s Liberation and the
Lesbian community in Aotearoa in the 1970’s had left her children, particularly
sons.) In patriarchy, where women are considered to be of little value except as
wives and mothers, this is a courageous act. Some Lesbians who gave up their
children have been abused by both the het world and het-identified Lesbians.
There are also Lesbian mothers who haven’t tried to bully non-mothers into
taking care of their children and have done their best to reject mother privilege.
Many Lesbians’ reasons for getting pregnant mirror het women’s — it’s trendy
and “everyone is doing it” – which are the same reasons for going het and
marrying men. It’s a selfish, personal attempt to feel less powerless, as opposed
to a political solution that might actually give us real power in our lives. Men are
destroying the earth, raping and killing girls and women, while het women
continue fucking and making more men. Then “Lesbians” in Lesbian communities
started following. Very soon, the Lesbian media was making “Lesbian” pregnancy
look fun and attractive. A Lesbian cartoonist even showed a “Lesbian” couple’s
baby boy pissing on Lesbians as cute. (This same lauded cartoonist who was
printed in many publications and published cartoon books over years, also drew
semen dripping from a condom, but never once drew a Butch.)
Some of the Lesbian pro-pregnancy propaganda portray it as if it’s courageous,
creative and revolutionary, but, like het motherhood, it’s the same boring,
confining, reactionary, traditional, and right wing role for women, like all aspects
of heterosexuality.
Motherhood has never caused great change and instead keeps women “in their
place.” Yet non-mothers are pressured to feel guilty by their families and
patriarchy. When Ellen DeGeneres first came out, she was asked if she was going
to have babies and she said, “No, I’m too selfish.” What on earth is selfless about
reproducing? It’s the ultimate patriarchal mind-fuck. One Lesbian we know said
apologetically that her reasons for not getting pregnant were “just personal, not
political” since she hadn’t realized her own courage and the political nature of her
resistance. Even popular het women stars are pressured relentlessly in the media
to reproduce.
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And then there is breeding as proof of a happy relationship, just like with het
women. We heard a Lesbian actually say about her ex-lover, “I loved her so
much and was so committed to her that we were going to have children, though
I hate children.”
Lesbians aren’t voluntarily sexual in any way with men. The acts of welcoming
semen into one’s body, being pregnant, giving birth, and breastfeeding are
specifically heterosexual acts. Women who choose pregnancy are simply not
Lesbians. They may yet become Lesbians or they may have been Lesbians in the
past, but they’re not Lesbians while participating in the most heterosexual of
acts. If they’re being sexual with Lesbians, then they’re bisexual. This isn’t a
question of semantics, but of Lesbian survival.
Women who inject semen into themselves are subjecting their Lesbian lovers to
the same dangers that other bisexuals subject Lesbians to, such as STDs,
including AIDS.10 Lesbians are the least likely people to get AIDS from sexual
contact, but “artificial insemination” does cause a risk and some “Lesbians” have
been infected. Because many of these women used semen from Gay men,
they’re likely to have a higher than usual rate of AIDS. The Lyme disease
spirochete, Borrelia Burgdorferi, has also been found in semen, and most Lyme is
not diagnosed and is almost impossible to cure, so that means many men are
carrying it. Semen itself is an immune depressant. Female bodies react to sperm
as an invasion of foreign cells and send antibodies to kill them.11There are other
dangers as well. Sperm donors, including Gay men, have sued for “paternal
rights” when they’ve found out that their sperm has impregnated women. Some
have even become physically threatening out of possessive jealousy for “their”
children. In most men’s minds, the bearer of “his” child is “his” woman.
Over 85% of A.I. babies are male.12 Women who become pregnant with male
fetuses are doubly heterosexual. They live for nine months in more intimate
contact with a male than het women experience when being fucked. They share
blood, and the baby’s male hormones flow through the mother’s blood, affecting
her mind and body. There is no act more heterosexual than creating men.13
Some mothers speak openly about their heterosexual bonds with their sons. As
one mother said, in a U.S. survey of how women feel about motherhood, “There
is a romance between mother and son that doesn’t exist between mother and
daughter. You can love your daughter, but you both love and are in love with
your son.”14 In an interview, another mother said of her new son, “I don’t feel
like I’m all alone any more. I have a significant other in my life.” Yet another
mother said, “A mother wants a son to grow up early in life and be her advisor,
escort, and extension of the men in her life. She wants her daughter to always
be her little girl, not quite mature enough to make it without Mama’s help.”15
Some Lesbian mothers are also open about their het attitudes. In a poem to her
son, one Lesbian mother said, “I see I am in love with you.”16 Another said to a
Lesbian she considered hiring, “I want whoever does childcare for my boy to fall
in love with him.” One “Lesbian” mother wrote about her sperm donor, “It took
me six months to get pregnant. During that time Joe kept track of my cycle,
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would check to see if I got my period, and would write down in his calendar the
days he was coming over to visit and jerk off. We had a corner for his favorite
sex magazines. He used my pyrex cup as a receiving vessel. Even now I feel
good every time I cook.”17 In an interview on a television news program, another
said, “I looked for the right father for my child …. It was like falling in love with
him … in a sense it was.” The “Lesbian” mother and sperm donor cuddled
together for the television camera.18Many pseudo-Lesbian mothers have
surrogate fathers for their children. Patriarchy is father-rule, but you can’t have
fathers or patriarchy without mothers.
Many Lesbians want to believe that women who choose to get pregnant are
Lesbians if they say they are. (Many also desperately want to believe the
bisexual and het women they love are Lesbians, but that doesn’t make it true.)
Thousands of women are choosing to get pregnant, assuming that Lesbians will
take care of them and their (majority) sons. As long as we accept these women
as Lesbians, we’ll feel a responsibility towards them. Lesbians give them
abundant physical and emotional care because they perceive them to be
Lesbian mothers.
The role of mother is a heterosexual one. It takes tremendous work and
commitment for a mother who becomes a Lesbian to stop identifying as a mother
first and acting in a mother role. Even if she does stop, the privilege remains,
although Lesbians can choose to not act out of that power and can try to have
equal relationships with other Lesbians. For a Lesbian to choose to become a
biological mother is to wholeheartedly embrace what motherhood means in
patriarchy. Besides the pregnancy itself, the mother is now committed to
devoting a major part of her life to nurturing and loving, in most cases, a male or
future het woman. Her primary identity becomes that of Mother, as many have
proudly said.
The het world has always exerted tremendous pressure on Dykes to become het,
to accept fucking, femininity, pregnancy, and motherhood. Of course, hets want
us to stop being Lesbians, to stop being a threat to patriarchy. Now het pressure
is being exerted from within Lesbian communities as well as from outside. But
Lesbians don’t choose to get pregnant any more than we choose to be fucked by
men. Calling these women “Lesbians” contributes to defining Lesbians out of
existence. Hets would love to believe that all Lesbians are really bisexuals or
potential hets, and that Lesbians really need men to fuck them or at least
provide sperm to make the babies that all females are supposed to want. That
would prove that heterosexuality (submission to men) is the natural state of
females. The “Lesbian” baby boom became widely known in the het world, as the
headline “Lots of Lesbians Having Babies” announced in a San Francisco
newspaper. The article even referred to the fact that some “Lesbians” get
pregnant through fucking, not just A.I.19
How many thousands of Dykes feel betrayed by this het activity masquerading as
Lesbianism? How many Dykes are finding themselves the only one in their
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community who objects to friends or lovers becoming pregnant and/or fucking

with men, and are made to feel like perverted freaks as a result?
If patriarchy can’t kill us, get us to kill ourselves, lock us up, persuade us to hide
who we are, or get us to become het or bisexual, then they try to define us out
of existence. If anyone can call herself (or himself) a Lesbian, and if “Lesbians”
fuck, have babies, and create and raise men, then what about those of us who
are still real Dykes who love each other, love ourselves, and don’t want semen
anywhere near us?
We’re saying that true Dykes are not disappearing, and we refuse to be divided
and isolated from each other. No matter how men and their women collaborators
try to dilute our Lesbian identities and politics, some of us remain Dykes and are
working toward truly Dyke-identified communities.
It can be very hard for Lesbians who are alone in being against the “Lesbian” fad
of getting pregnant. Often the mothers-to-be and new mothers are surrounded
by Lesbians who dote on them, satisfying their every whim. Anyone who dares to
question the situation is likely to be insulted and ostracized. We want Dykes in
that situation to know that they have support. The following list has been helpful
for those who are dealing with a lover or friend who wants to get pregnant.
Are You Considering Having a Baby?

Well, your decision affects all of us, and there are some things we’d like to say
about it.
Becoming a Mother Does NOT Mean …
1. … that you are a loving, unselfish individual.
2. … that you are politically courageous.
3. … that you will become more oppressed than Lesbian non-mothers.
4. … that if you have a daughter she will become a Lesbian.
5. … that if you have a son he will be the exceptional non-sexist male (the
messianic mother complex).
6. … that you aren’t bringing another rapist into the world.
7. … that you’ll be able to relive your life through your children.
8. … that you have a right to expect or demand that Lesbians take care of
you and your children.
9. … that you have a right to inflict another male on our Lesbian
communities.
10. … that you have a right to inflict another male on our world.
But Becoming a Mother DOES Mean …

1. … that you are treated with more respect and privilege in the world.
2. … that you are treated with more respect and privilege among Lesbians.
3. … that this increased privilege is at the expense of Lesbian non-mothers.
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4. … that your privilege is greater if you have a son.

5. … that you’re fulfilling the male-defined role of femininity and Motherhood.
6. … that you’re doing what you’ve been ordered to do since you were born.
… that you’re participating in a reactionary choice to join the het baby
boom which is part of a right-wing backlash against Lesbians.
7. … that you’re sentencing yourself to at least an 18-year commitment.
8. … that you have less time and energy to take care of yourself and other
Lesbians.
9. … that you have a primary commitment to your children that will take
precedence over close Lesbian friends or lovers
10.… that you’re contributing to more hardship in all of our lives because your
babies will be our future competition for housing, jobs, resources, and
possibly food and water.
11.… that you will replay some of the same destructive roles you experienced
with your family.
12.… that you’ll be caught up in the circular trap of dependent and caretaker
13.… that it’s likely your children will later hate you because they didn’t grow
up with all the privileges of a normal nuclear family.
14.… that they’re likely to hate you just because of the power you have over
them as a mother, whether you wanted that power or not.
15.… that you will be vulnerable to being institutionalized by them when they
grow up.
16.… that you’re most likely creating more heterosexuals.
17.… that you’re burdening an already overpopulated world.
18.… that no matter what you do, if you have a boy, he will likely terrorize
and assault girls and, later, adult women and Lesbians, and likely will be a
rapist.
19.… that if you have a son and a daughter, it will not be unusual for your son
to sexually assault your daughter.
20.… that it won’t be a rare if you are assaulted by your son when he gets old
enough.
21.… that you’re no longer a Lesbian because playing with semen, being
pregnant, and giving birth are heterosexual acts.
22.… that you risk getting AIDS and other STDs and passing them on to
Lesbians.
23..… that you’re weakening and permanently altering your body, and
shortening your life span, making it more possible to bleed to death,
develop high blood pressure, have a stroke or heart attack, or develop
diabetes, kidney disease, or cancer.20 (The dangers of pregnancy and
childbirth are a well-kept secret.)
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Boys Oppress All Females

Het mothers are notorious for worshipping their sons. “I was in awe that I could
produce a male human.” When I look at my daughter, I see myself. When I look
at my son, I see my son.” I think I will be more a friend to my daughter and be
respectful to my son.” “It’s a new world seen through your son’s eyes, and for
some reason we let them get by with doing things that we’d never let a girl
do.”21
In an anthology, one mother whose adult son was living with her described
picking up his shit-filled underwear and smelling it, saying how in love with him
she is. With this level of adoration, if such a son raped her daughter or other girls
or women, who would she protect?
Considering the amount of energy already poured into men and boys in this
male-run world, why would any Lesbian want to give them more, let alone make
more of them? The sons of mothers that already exist are enough of a threat to
all girls and women.
Boys are voyeuristic and prurient towards girls and women from an early age.
Too many mothers make their sons’ right to run around naked take precedence
over girls’ and women’s rights to not have to see them, like when mothers bring
sons into changing rooms where girls and women are subjected to seeing their
erections. Like when adult men are naked, this is a threat of rape. Some mothers
even allow their sons to masturbate in front of Lesbians.
Lesbians are sometimes concerned about the power they have as adults over
boys, forgetting that boys have power given to them by adult males. In some
countries, boys have power over all females, including their mothers. Many
Lesbians have internalized the het women’s role to protect all males, even at
other females’ and their own expense. When Lesbians have to defend ourselves
from attacks by boys, we are vulnerable to reprisals from authorities as well as
from Lesbians. Thinking of boys as kids or children denies the fact that boys have
the power to threaten girls and anyone else they can physically intimidate. Boys
also often have less concern about the consequences of their violence than men
do, since they are almost impossible to prosecute for raping, torturing, or even
killing, and they know it. They have the law and their families, including their
mothers, to protect them.
When feminists proudly proclaim that anyone who bothers their “kids” will have
to deal with them, do they include girls or women defending themselves? One
feminist proclaimed on her facebook masthead that “there is no greater warrior
than a mother protecting her child” and elsewhere on her page wrote, “You mess
with my kids and you mess with their crazy ass Mom…. be warned.”
Teenaged boys are more violent than any other age group of males, and boys in
gangs are even more sadistic, which is why some dictatorships prefer having
boys as young as twelve recruited into their armies.
Lesbians’ sons have attacked and raped girls, including their sisters and other
Lesbians’ daughters. Many adult, able-bodied women aren’t concerned about
boys’ attacks on girls because they smugly assume they themselves are safe, but
females of all ages have been attacked and killed by boys. Girls and disabled
women are more vulnerable to injury, but all females are targeted by males. And
being able-bodied is a temporary condition. Sons also assault their mothers and
it’s not rare for a boy to rape, beat, or kill his mother or other older female
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relatives. Some boys kill their entire families. Boys are increasingly becoming
mass murderers.
Why do so few Lesbians remember their fear and hatred of boys who attacked
and sexually harassed them when they were girls?
It’s dangerous to believe you can raise gentle, non-dangerous males.
Socialization is not the problem since male violence extends across species. From
an early age, boys exhibit a sadism, cruelty, and violence that is extremely
different from girls’ behavior. (Girls who do attack others are often joining with
boys.) Some boys may be considered well-behaved if compared to more violent
boys, but even the gentlest boys show a viciousness when compared to girls. We
always say, you never know what males are doing when alone with babies or
animals. Yet this violence is considered the norm: “Boys will be boys.” Contrary
to myth, serial rapists and killers are not “sick.” They measure on psychological
testing as normal males. And girls and women are most likely to be attacked by
males that they are close to, including relatives. Woman who think they can
control the danger of their boys and men are deluding themselves, and the rest
of us pay the cost.
It’s not mothers’ fault that their sons are rapists and murderers. But it is their
responsibility to be aware that they might be. All mothers think that their sons
will be the exceptional males, but Lesbians’ sons have inside information about
our culture and communities, and no matter how catered to and shown that they
matter more than any girl, woman, or Lesbian — because of that worshipping —
many boys will be resentful that they didn’t get even more privilege or grow up
in a “normal” het nuclear family. Some of them, like pornographer Tobi Hill-
Meyer, was even brought to the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival as a boy. Now,
he damages our community by claiming to be a Lesbian and Butch (though he’s
typically male-identified feminine), getting into power positions as so many men
who claim they are Lesbians do, such as being on the board of Butch Voices,
controlling and censoring our community. And this man who is actually accepted
as a Lesbian, has posted photos and videos of his erect prick online.
Every boy and man who has beaten, raped, and killed a girl or woman has had at
least one woman (if not many) in his life who loved, protected, and nurtured
him, and who tried her best to keep him from being a brutal, dangerous
attacker. It isn’t these women’s fault if the boys they loved are rapists
and killers, but they do share responsibility if they continue supporting
them. Choosing to nurture our attackers means becoming their collaborators.
The mother who insists her son is an exception is inflicting her self-righteousness
on every female he will attack in his life. She has no right to bring another
oppressor into our world, and even less right to bring him into a Lesbian
community and demand that we be forced to be around him or look after him.
Even Lesbian Feminists delude themselves. Some years ago, we went to a
Lesbian Feminist event in another city that included a short film by a Lesbian
that was supposed to be cute, but which was actually showing one Lesbian’s son
assaulting another Lesbian’s daughter. They looked to be about eight years old.
The girl was dressed only in a full body leotard, while the boy had on trousers,
jacket, and cap. When the girl tried to talk, the boy put his hand over the girl’s
mouth, punched her, and shoved her out of the view of the camera, which kept
its focus on him. He picked up the girl, and when she yelled to be put down, he
dropped her. He told her to climb on his back, and then he threw her down on
her head. While still lying on the ground, he shoved his face into her crotch and
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wouldn’t stop, even though she kept yelling “Stop it!” That was the end of the
film. The girl looked increasingly embarrassed and humiliated in the film. It was
excruciating to watch, but the audience of about a hundred Lesbians applauded
and had laughed throughout, even though what they were lauding was obviously
a sexual assault. We were horrified. If this is what a Lesbian’s son does in front
of a camera, what does he do with no witnesses? Would the audience have been
applauding if the film showed two adults instead? Clearly, this was a boy much
loved and accepted in that community, and would be able to get away with
almost anything. Why did the girl not matter at all?
When we talked with Lesbians afterward, they were patronizing: “It’s just kids
playing.” “That’s how they learn their roles.” (!!!) “It’s a heterosexual phase all
kids go though.” (The “heterosexual phase” didn’t include the girl who did not
agree to any of it. And those of us who didn’t like boys sexually assaulting us
when we were girls must then be freaks or don’t exist.) We were told we were
over-reacting and asked if we’d ever “worked with kids.” So we had to be experts
to earn the right to object to girls being assaulted? The fact that we have clear
memories of being attacked and injured by boys when we were little didn’t count.
We even asked, “But don’t you remember what it was like for you as a girl?” and
one of the Lesbians said she’d “learned to roll with the punches” from her bother
and that it was “fun.”
The girl was objectified as not possibly feeling the way a woman would in the
situation. Calling both the girl and boy “kids” removed the girl from recognition
or sympathy she would have gotten as a woman. The boy was also identified as
being different from adult men and therefore less dangerous and oppressive,
though boys his age do rape and kill. Many of those Lesbians had to have been
sexually assaulted as girls, yet they identified with the boy, betraying
themselves, the girl, and all of us who are female.
What we learned is that Lesbians who love and protect boys can’t be trusted to
care about how dangerous those boys are. Their loyalty is to boys first, just as
most het women’s loyalty is. We’ve seen too many instances of Lesbians’
daughters and girls treated with harshness and contempt, while sons are fussed
over with a respect that borders on reverence.
Het women are even more likely to delude themselves about their “wonderful”
boys. It’s become trendy among the most class-privileged young Euro-descent
women to convince everyone how sensitive and gentle their sons are. We met a
woman like this who had a five year old boy. As she told us how he loved plants,
the little prick was systematically beating her flowers with a stick, shredding the
plants to death. She said tenderly, “No don’t do that, dear. You know you love
flowers.” He continued killing the plants.
This “progressive” kind of motherly discipline of the past thirty years has
produced an even more dangerous male. The mother gives her son the sense
that the world revolves around him, and that he is allowed to do whatever he
wants. She’s certainly never said no to mother’s little darling or let him know
what pain feels like when she’s found him torturing, raping, and killing animals or
beating and sexually assaulting girls.
How many girls will be beaten and raped, and adult Lesbians oppressed, before
all Lesbians realize that boys raised by Lesbians are no less a threat than other
boys?
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Boys who rape their sisters and other girls are usually still accepted and loved. If
there’s blame, it’s usually put on the girls, no matter her age, who’s accused of
“asking for it” – even if she’s too young to walk or talk.
Because girls are growing up in Lesbian communities of 85% boys, the rate of
rape and violence to girls has to be much higher. How can Lesbians as individuals
and communities tolerate this.
Motherhood Oppresses Girls

But Heterosexual Girls Oppress Lesbians
A Lesbian baiting us about being against “Lesbian” pregnancy asked, “Well,
where do you think little Lesbians come from?” The reality is that most Lesbians
come from the same place that we always came from: het nuclear families.
Whether we are Lesbians or not is simply a choice. Some Lesbians talk about
making little Amazons of the future, but no one can make a girl a Lesbian. It’s
what we believe all girls would naturally choose if it wasn’t for the rewards or
punishments given in patriarchy, but legally owning someone can’t force that
decision.
Most daughters of Lesbians choose to be het for the privilege.
Patriarchy puts unrelenting pressure on girls to fit in and be “normal.” It can be
horrible to devote twenty years of your life to a girl and then she decides to be
fucked by men and be Lesbian-hating. The rewards for selling out are similar to
why many Lesbians return to men. Most of the daughters of Lesbians we’ve
known chose men. One of these girls would hang around with her men in public
places and taunt Lesbians by name (patronizingly patting them on the head),
who she knew from growing up in a Lesbian community, to humiliate them for
the benefit of her men. The Lesbians who loved and raised this girl went through
hell and risked imprisonment to get her away from her abusive father and to give
her the best life possible.
We have a friend who almost lost her teaching job because a Lesbian-hating girl
circulated a petition saying that our friend had sexually harassed her female
students. The girl first got other girls to sign a completely different petition and
then attached their names to her lie. When confronted, she admitted it was a lie
and said she’d done it so our friend would lose her job. Het girls can be cruel and
oppressive to Dykes of all ages, but Dyke girls are even more vulnerable to their
Dyke-hating.
If Lesbians are really concerned about girls, why not try to help girls who are
already Lesbians who are living on the streets or in shelters? Many have been
disowned by their families or run away from abusive families.
Fighting Mother Privilege is Dyke-Loving

If motherhood improved the world, the world would be in a much better state
since it’s filled with mothers. Having a baby won’t enable you to relive your life
and it won’t cause you to be a better person. It will likely do the opposite since it
will give you the power to raise another person as property, to hit and punish
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and humiliate. And that kind of power corrupts. It’s bad enough that we are all
taught to accept inequality and injustice as normal, because of the hierarchical
families and cultures we grown up in. It’s hard enough to fight inequalities
among Lesbians without choosing such an extremely unequal role. One mother
said, ”I used to think a lot about how I would glow when I was pregnant, about
how important I would feel to produce a baby that came from my own body. I
imagined I would feel like a Madonna, holding a complacent infant in my arms. I
loved the idea of having a baby completely dependent on me. That babies grow
up never crossed my mind.”
The patriarchal system of family ownership can also be dangerous to mothers.
Lesbians are already vulnerable to being institutionalized by Lesbian-hating
family, but Lesbian mothers are also vulnerable to being declared incompetent
and locked up by adult children and even grandchildren. Mothers legally have
power over minors, but as they age, the power shifts to their adult children.
Many Lesbians who support het values do so out of passivity. Since mothers
believe we owe them care, attention, money, energy, sympathy, admiration,
respect, and even obedience, and then feel justified in demanding that and more.
If we don’t refuse those het values, we’re likely to respond out of guilt for not
being mothers ourselves, and perhaps with eagerness to prove we’re not too
unnatural to have “motherly instincts.” By contrast, Dykes with little or no past
het privilege are taught to expect abuse rather than respect. So it’s harder for us
to expect help, much less demand it when we really need it, and other Lesbians
are less inclined to organize help if we do ask.
We should never be accused of being woman-hating if we refuse to be mothers
or refuse to help mothers. Motherhood bleeds our communities dry. Lesbians
who choose not to be mothers should never have to pay economically, politically,
or emotionally for other women’s choice to reproduce.
Endnotes
We highly recommend IceMountainFire’s blog and post on motherhood:
http://icemountainfire.wordpress.com/2014/07/12/motherhood/
1. Amazones d’Hier, Lesbiennes d”Aujourd’hui (Amazons Yesterday, Lesbians Today) a
wonderful Lesbian-only journal from Montréal, Québec, Canada, devoted an entire issue to the
politics of motherhood (#20, “Motherhood Reviews and Rejected,” edited by Francine Mayer,
June, 1988.) Dykes from several countries were printed and we especially recommend the
articles by Katinka from Sweden, Marian Lens from Belgium, Hilary and Ruston from Aotearoa,
and Francine from Quebec. This chapter is a revised version of an article that we (Linda and
Bev) had printed in that issue, called, “Lesbians Choosing Pregnancy?” We greatly appreciate
the courage of the AHLA Lesbians in printing these articles. Hilary’s and Ruston’s article was
first printed in Circle, a Lesbian Feminist journal for women only, in Whanganui-a-Tara, 1983.
As far as we know, these were the first articles that refuted Lesbian mothers’ claim of being
oppressed by non-mother Dykes.
2. Lewis Genebie and Eva Margolis, The Motherhood Report: How Women Feel About Being
Mothers (New York, Macmillan Publishing Co., 1987). P. 422.
3. San Francisco Chronicle, 16 Feb 1988.4. The Motherhood Report, p.102.
5. Savvy, Feb 1988, p. 99.
6. “Miscarriages,” Newsweek, 15 Aug, 1988, p. 49.
7. Cheryl Jones, Motherlines,” Coming Up, Sept 1986.
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8. To a Safer Place, Frontline #609, originally broadcast on PBS television stations Sept 12,
1988. WGBH Transcripts,125 Western Ave., Boston, MA 12134.
9. From an interview with Isaac Asimov on Bill Moyers’ “World of Ideas,” KTEH-TV, San Jose,
California, 18 Oct. 1988.
10. From Hag Rag, Vol. 3, #3, Nov-Dec 9988, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. “In a survey of 388 doctors
who do four or more artificial inseminations per year, The Congressional Office of Technology
Assessment found that only 44 percent of the doctors checked semen specimens for HIV, 28%
checked for syphilis, 27% for gonorrhea, 26% for hepatitis, and 6% for herpes.”
11. Jacqueline Steincamp, Overload: Beating M.E. (Whatamongo Bay, Queen Charlotte Sound,
New Zealand, Cape Catley Ltd, 1988, 154. “Semen itself is an immune suppressant and every
new…encounter leads to an exchange of foreign antigens and possibly damaged immune
complexes.
12. Julia Penelope, “The Mystery of Lesbians II,” Gossip #2, p. 35.
13. As Susan Cavin said in Lesbian Origins, Ism Press Inc. 54: “I suggest that the first enduring
heterosexual relation is the mother-son relation.”
14. As Cheryl Jones said about being pregnant, “I felt the same as other women in a way I hadn’t
since coming out at 17. I knew more about what the majority of women in the world were
doing.” Motherlines, “Coming Up,” Sept. 1986.
15. The Motherhood Report, 288.
16. Sue Silvermarie, “Seven Years Satisfied,” We Are Everywhere, Writings By and About
Lesbian Parents, edited by Harriet Alpert, (Freedom, California: The Crossing Press, 1988),
p.103.
17. Lee Swislow, “J.J.”, Ibid, 198.
18. NBC-TV new, 9 March 1987.
19. San Francisco Chronicle, 30 Jan.1989, A9.
20. V. Beral, “Longterm Effects of Childbearing on Health,” Journal of Epidemiology and
Community Health. Vol.39, 1985, 343.
21. The Motherhood Report, 300.
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Chapter Eight
Patriarchy Is One Big Unhappy Family
by Bev Jo, Linda Strega, Ruston
(I have updated this chapter, first published in our book, Dykes-Loving-Dykes,
in 1990. The statistics are from before that time, but the content is as relevant
as ever. Because our book was originally for Lesbians only, the focus is on
Lesbians, but family is destructive to all females).
Love and loyalty given to family is misplaced, and it weakens our bonds with
each other. If our family has been abusive to us and we are still accepting that
abuse as the price for contact, inevitably that hurt will be transferred to those we
love. Some Lesbians will take out their pain on those Lesbians who are
committed to loving them, while others end up damaged and with less love to
share.
Family is the basis of patriarchy, where we are taught our first lessons in male
domination over females.
Many Radical Lesbian Feminists who otherwise have very clear boundaries
around people who hate and oppress us, seem to lose their perspective and
politics when it comes to their abusive families. Instead, they allow people who
would never otherwise choose to have in their lives or be friends with to have
intimate access to themselves and often to their lovers. Even when male family
has sexually harassed and assaulted them or female family who they love, too
often feminists maintain contact, and sometimes give more commitment than
they have even to their most trusted friends. Why?
There are many reasons that women betray themselves by loyalty to abusive
family members (besides money and status for the most privileged.) There is the
myth of family being more important than anyone else, in spite of the many and
perhaps majority of males in families sexually assaulting female family (and all
females who have families have been sexually harassed by male family.) There is
the intensely propagandized idea of blood being thicker than water, and that only
family really loves and cares for you, in spite of all evidence to the contrary.
Females are taught to betray themselves and all others on behalf of family, no
matter how much they have been abused by them. Even when immediate family
is not as abusive, the structure itself is, and is the basis of patriarchy. Many
Lesbians who have never felt truly loved by their families, are longing and hoping
for their families to finally love and accept them.
This is a damaging trap. The myth of family is harmful and even lethal for
females. Even loving female family can mean being locked into relationships with
abusive male family. Yet so few women knowing this will say no to family.
Even Dyke Separatists can share one link with male cultures all over the world by
being friendly with male and het relatives, and many Separatists do so. Every
nation, culture, political ideology, and people we know of in the world reveres the
Family. It’s the tie that binds all mankind together. Those who reject Family are
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outcasts everywhere. The fact that it’s considered sacrilegious in patriarchal

cultures to even consider criticizing Family tells us that it’s revolutionary to do
so. Only institutions that are vital to patriarchy are protected by such strong
sanctions.
Families Are the Cornerstone of Patriarchy

How can we trust, be close with, or even want to be around someone who wishes
the death of who we are and would make us het if they had that power? If their
acceptance of us consists of saying, “We love you no matter who you are or what
you do, whether you’re a Lesbian or a murderer,” then that’s not acceptance. Do
they still question “what caused you to be ‘that way'”? Do they still wonder if it
was their “fault” — asking were they “too close” with us or “too distant,” “too
lenient” or “too strict” with our not wanting to be feminine, did they “push us
towards boys too much” or “not enough”? These Lesbian-hating attitudes aren’t
good for us. And what do they feel about males they love who are attackers and
rapists — did they care for and protect them? Do they still, as families most often
do?
In most cultures, the father and mother legally own their children. The father
and other male relatives often terrorize, beat, and rape the little girls in the
family. Those who don’t physically assault “their” girls still abuse them
emotionally and psychically, and profit from those males who do rape. Mothers
and other female relatives too often contribute to this by choosing to not notice if
their daughters and other little girls are assaulted and raped by male relatives.
Many refuse to believe their daughters when they tell them. Many don’t want to
know, even when the girl suddenly shows clear signs of being extremely upset,
terrified, and injured. And many still don’t want to know after their daughters are
grown. In every case we know of where an adult Lesbian has told her mother
what her father and/or brother did to her, the mother defended her husband
and/or son and was verbally abusive to her daughter.
There are mothers who do care and try to protect their daughters, but they are
exceptionally rare. In the U.S., women who send daughters who’ve been raped
underground to the safe shelter movement are treated as criminals and often
imprisoned by the male court system. A woman who spent seven months in
prison for hiding her daughter from her ex-husband said that women who do this
spend more time in prison than men who have raped children.1There’s a growing
network of females who support these women and their daughters. But the vast
majority of women who courageously protect their daughters were already
divorced when they discovered that their daughters were being attacked by their
fathers. We’ve never heard of a single case where a mother acted to protect her
daughter when the attacker was her own son. Women divorce husbands, but
rarely choose to separate from sons.
We Are Told the Lie of Family Love, But Most of Us Have Lived the Reality
of Family Rape
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We’re constantly bombarded with images of happy families in magazines, books,

films, plays, etc. We’re told our lives are pathetically meaningless if we’re not
part of a family. But families exist in order for males to be served domestically,
emotionally, and sexually, and to enforce heterosexuality. Many of the Lesbians
who return to men seem to be hoping that finally their hateful families will love
and accept them.
Family is a small replica of patriarchy. It’s the basic unit — the single brick that
makes up the patriarchal building. Family is based on hierarchy and inequality.
The word itself comes from the Latin “famulus,” meaning “servant.”2 Family
demands obedience and loyalty to those at the top of the hierarchy first. A
typical nuclear family consists of the Patriarch, second-in-command Mother, and
the sub-hierarchy of the children, with sons given more power than daughters.
The oldest children are delegated power to boss and bully the younger ones.
There is often an extended family with extended hierarchies. Every family has
the “good” person and “bad” person, the in-group and out-group, the favorite
and the scapegoat. Those accepted as “good” family members feel superior to
the family outcasts and rejects. We get much of our sense of regard or disregard
for ourselves and others through our family positions.
Those who don’t grow up in families are made to feel that they don’t really
belong in the world. The lie of the “happy family” is particularly cruel to Dykes
who grew up in foster homes or institutions. They’re told they’re less “normal”
because they’ll “never know what wonderful experiences they’ve missed.”
Sometimes even Lesbians spread these lies because they themselves believe
them. Not growing up in a nuclear family doesn’t mean escaping the horror that’s
common in families, either. It usually means getting all the abuse with none of
the social privilege. It also means being abused by a greater number of adults
because you aren’t the legal possession of one or two. Those who were adopted,
or are from “non-traditional” families having only one parent, unmarried parents,
or an alcoholic or drug-addicted parent, are also made to feel inferior.
If we’re “maladjusted” by the standards of the dominant society we live in (all
Lesbians and Gay men are considered maladjusted, for instance), then that’s
blamed on our family. The big lie is that everyone comes from a happy,
wholesome family -- except for us. The truth is that there are no happy families.
Emotional and physical abuse and rape are a normal, commonplace part of
family life. Who could expect anything different from living with males? And how
can being forced to live intimately with het couples –our parents — for years,
make us happy or teach us who we are as females and as Dykes? Even having
only female family, if they’re het, means growing up with emotional and
sometimes physical abuse.
Individuals and groups who don’t live as part of families are treated by most
patriarchal societies as having far less value than family members. Very often,
people who speak out against the increase of poverty in the U.S. say how
especially terrible it is that families don’t have homes or enough food, implying
that single people or groups of friends aren’t worth caring about. Meanwhile, for
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those who actively reject their family, abject poverty is portrayed in books and
films as a rightful punishment.
From “Family-Size,” “Family Rate,” and “Family-Style,” to insurance benefits,
legal rights and neighborhood socializing, family members are told all the time,
everywhere, that they belong, while we’re told we don’t. Try counting all the
times family is mentioned as propaganda in the media. Even a television show
about a disaster has the authorities telling people, “Go home to your families!” Of
course that is geared to make those without families feel inadequate and
worthless. Lesbians are treated as outsiders when we have jobs with hets,
because we don’t talk about husbands or boyfriends — but if we talk about our
relatives, we’re suddenly treated with more warmth and acceptance. It makes us
seem less alien and more “human.” (This has changed since some Lesbian
couples have gotten married and so can refer to their “wives,” which is part of
the attraction of marriage, besides the many civil rights not otherwise possible to
obtain, such as for immigration.)
Famous Lesbians who come out are bombarded with questions about whether
they will reproduce, ignoring that over-population is destroying the earth. (“Zero
Population Growth” as an idea and politics has been censored from the US
media.) Having children makes otherwise despised Lesbians appear more
“normal,” which is why so many who were closeted have reproduced. Meanwhile,
the Lesbians who are choosing to reproduce with “artificial insemination” are
making 85% males, a patriarchal dream come true and a nightmare for the 15%
girls forced to be around them in shared daycare, etc.
Both the right wing and left wing revere family as the center of their political
ideologies. Right wing fascists, euphemistically called “conservatives,” preach for
a return to “family values,” while leftists demand that women make babies for
the revolution and be part of the larger family of their society. Both oppress
Dykes. (Socialism is more economically fair than capitalism, but it’s still
patriarchal politics. Radical Feminism encompasses the best parts of socialism.)
Family is essential for patriarchal cultures to exist. Dykes are a threat to family
because we’re a threat to male rule.
Family Is Dangerous
Family is deadly. Over half the females killed in California in 1987 were killed by
a male in their family, and the typical U.S. mass murderer is a man killing his
entire family.3As we’ve said before, the vast majority of physical and sexual
attacks in families are by males, particularly adults, against females of all ages.
However, physical abuse of children, especially of girls, by their mothers and
other older females, is common, and most mothers tolerate and even encourage
physical abuse (“punishment”) of their children by their husbands. (We define
physical punishment of girls as abuse, from slapping and spanking to the most
severe neglect, beatings, and murder.) A very small number of heterosexual
mothers sexually assault their daughters. Of course, this rare situation is unfairly
focused on by the male media, obscuring fathers’ massive sexual crime rate.
Now, adding to the abusive mix, are an increasing number of fathers who are
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later in life insisting they are women and even Lesbians. This female-hating
mind-fuck increases the suffering of girls and women in families.
Teenage runaways are less likely to be abused by strangers on the streets than
by their families at home.4 Five children are killed in the U.S. each day by their
parents.5 These are just the known, proven cases. Many more children go
missing and are never found — occasionally it’s discovered that their parents
beat them to death and then reported them missing. “Over 80% of the violence
in our society [Aotearoa] is committed within the family.”6 “The family is the
most dangerous place in the U.S. The most likely place to be murdered is in the
family home.”7 Victims are usually the most vulnerable — babies and little girls
who can’t escape, and old, ill women. It’s very probable that many old women
who die while living with their families have been quietly killed to get rid of them,
with the death attributed to natural causes. Even when there aren’t murders,
torture, rape, and other abuse are commonplace in families. It’s chilling to think
about what goes on day and night right next door in our own neighborhoods.
We’re not just talking about “exceptionally cruel and violent” families. We’re
talking about all families as an institution. Family structure and function are
intrinsically rotten. Sometimes privileged Lesbians use racism and classism
against less privileged Dykes who talk about being raped and/or beaten by their
families — implying that more oppressed families are “especially terrible,” in
order to protect their own illusions. But violence and rape occur in families of all
backgrounds.
God Is the Biggest Daddy of All

Many Lesbians who usually feel quite sane suddenly feel crazy around their
families. That’s because families are enough to drive you insane. Brainwashing
and cult mind control techniques sound familially familiar:
1) Those in authority control your environment;
2) they manipulate your environment;
3) you’re pressured to feel guilty if you don’t adhere to the values of those in
power;
4) your reality is denied if it’s in conflict with the dominant ideology;
5) what you observe greatly contradicts the “truths” you’re told;
6) the explainers of reality constantly contradict themselves;
7) that contradiction is declared to never happen;
8) questioning is silenced by meaningless contradictory platitudes and clichés;
9) obedience is required of all members or else emotional and physical
punishment is given.
If these techniques sound similar to male religion, it’s no coincidence. Family is
treated as a religion, and belonging to a religion means belonging to a very large
family. Family and religion are intertwined as a cornerstone of patriarchy. When
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someone claims “God made families,” families become even more inevitable and
beyond question.
Families are intensive training grounds in accepting injustice and abusive
relationships as the norm. Schools do this too, but for less time and in less
personal and intense ways. Family life is usually our first experience in
humiliation, oppression, rape, pain, and violence. That intimate betrayal from our
“loved ones” teaches us self-hatred. “If the very ones who say they love me treat
me in these cruel ways, then I must deserve it.” A little girl usually has no one to
explain the truth and help her protect herself.
Our ability to know what’s good for us is diminished by these girlhood
experiences. Family accustoms us to a sado-masochistic type of inequality in
intimate relationships because our first experiences of physical closeness and
affection are bonded with humiliation and pain. We often share connections and
nostalgia with family members based on shared pain, witnessed pain, and
inflicted and received pain mixed with pleasure and “love.” It would be easier in
some ways if the people who brutalize you would be consistent. It’s heart-
wrenching and confusing when the hands that feed and wash you and sometimes
caress you lovingly are the same hands that hit and sexually assault you. There’s
comfort with familiarity and then there’s the horror of the familiarity that’s forced
on you against your will.
As a girl, you learn to expect inconsistency — kindness/cruelty, love/hate,
pleasure/pain, and become addicted to the cycle. You end up believing that you
can have love and warmth only if you pay with pain and humiliation. You’re
trained to confuse your family with your very self. “We’re in this together.” “I am
them, they are me.” How do you escape them when you can’t escape from
yourself? How dare you think otherwise? Your survival depends on them. And if
you share particular experiences and oppressions with your family that others
don’t share with you, then it’s even more difficult and painful to separate and
protect yourself. You feel guilt about your parents’ hard lives, but they usually do
not want to know how they make your Iife hard.
Ownership Is Not Love

Children are parents’ proof of normality. Parents are often smug about their
reproductive ability and bask in the inflated importance of carrying on the human
race and the family name, as if reproduction were some rare talent rather than a
physiological function. Inevitably, if you write that patriarchy could end soon,
and the earth and countless species would be saved if women just stopped
reproducing, the response is usually a horrified “But the human race will die out!”
– which is not likely at 8 billion and growing. Humans will die out if they don’t
stop reproducing. The illogical terror that some women might actually say no is
revealing.
Family is each man’s extension of himself and his marking of territory. Ever
notice how much space (and noise is part of space) families take up in
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neighborhoods compared to households without children? Parents love to

advertise that they’re parents.
Parents try to use their children to do what they themselves couldn’t or wouldn’t
do. Then parents make their children feel guilty for “having done so much for
them.” It’s not the child as an individual person who matters, because the child
is treated as a thing, a possession. If you get out of line by trying to be your own
person, parents remind you that they created you from their bodies. “You’d
better be good and obey your parents.” they tell you, just as many say, “You
should obey god because he made you.” Parents saying they “sacrificed
themselves” and “worked their fingers to the bone” for their children is
outrageous. It’s a major source of Lesbian guilt towards parents, particularly our
mothers. People know that if they choose to fuck, they might reproduce and if
they do, then the children need to be looked after and provided for. Parents have
children for their own benefit, not for the children’s. A little girl shouldn’t be
blamed for needing food, clothes, shelter, and schooling. Parents too often
emotionally leech off their daughters, using girls’ energy and vitality at the same
time as they’re crushing it.
Belonging to family gives the illusion of belonging with them, a very hard feeling
for Dykes to let go of, because we don’t belong anywhere in patriarchy. Many
Lesbians believe that belonging to family is actually a “real, deep connection”
with their family instead of just being a possession. But all feelings that come out
of such a forced relationship are unavoidably distorted and deceptive.
Many Lesbians who don’t usually voluntarily relate to men make exceptions for
male family members. Dykes who would otherwise never dream of welcoming
men or boys into their homes to visit or stay overnight will welcome men from
their families or their lovers’ families. Separatists who refuse to relate personally
to males or even to het women often make exceptions for their female family
members. A courageous few choose to not relate to any males or het women.
Some Dykes keep limited contact with male relatives in order to have access to
money and other privileges to share with our communities. As long as these
Dykes are able to limit and control the contact, the relationships are more like
those they have with male bosses and co-workers. They’re from necessity, and
carry no illusions of love or friendship. We support Dykes to not relate to any
males when they have the choice, except for those kinds of situations. We also
support Dykes who’ve broken off contact with abusive het female family as well,
and we encourage all Dykes to limit their contact with het female family and to
keep asking themselves if they truly are happy with the amount and kind of
contact they do have, and how much is based on guilt or fear. If that sounds
extreme, it’s because we’re upset at the damage that family, including female
family, has done and is still doing to Dykes we love.
When Lesbians try to reclaim any of the terms relating to family, we’re accepting
connections that are based on dominance and submission, where we have power
only at another’s expense. Family is always destructive to us because it’s based
on objectification, hierarchy, and violence. Apart from anything else, any
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heterosexual environment is a bad place for Lesbians to be. We’re expected to

love our families, not because of who they are, but what they are. It’s not
supposed to matter when family members hate us, have been abusive to us,
and, in the case of the males, raped us — we must love them because they’re
family. Family is the first lesson we learn in how to treat each other as things
rather than as individuals we personally care about. Family dynamics train us to
want to possess each other as objects because family is based on ownership.
How many Lesbians are still being emotionally or even sexually harassed by the
same men who physically and emotionally abused them when they were little
girls? (Sexual “jokes” and comments that many fathers and other male relatives
make to us as adults is sexual harassment.) How many Lesbians are being
emotionally abused by their mothers and sisters because they refuse to relate to
rapist male relatives their female relatives still love and protect? If anyone else
urged you to visit and talk or write to someone who had raped and/or beaten
you, would you even consider it? You certainly wouldn’t call that kind of pressure
“love.” Yet your mother or sisters may insist they “love” you even while they are
disregarding your feelings and the harm that’s been done to you. It’s extremely
damaging for a victim of rape or any assault to be pressured to be around her
attackers, to be told by female family, “He’s your father!” (or brother, uncle,
grandfather, cousin, etc.) –“he loves you,” ”why won’t you kiss him?” “why aren’t
you being friendlier to him?” For a little girl, her family is often her entire world,
the only people she knows, who she should be able to trust and who should love
and protect her. It’s an extension of the rape when they betray her. If the courts
insisted that rape victims be forced to relate to their non-relative convicted
rapists, that would be a recognizable outrage, yet this insidious family pressure
is too often accepted. Having different expectations of victims of rape by male
family compared to other rape victims implies family rape is less important, less
criminal — when in fact it’s a far worse crime because of the vulnerability of the
victim and level of betrayal.
The last thing a victim of sexual assault needs when she’s trying to recover is to
be told “he didn’t really mean to hurt her/didn’t know what he was doing/did it
only because he had a hard life or was very upset at the time or was only a
boy/is a sick old man now,” or that she’s being “hurtful” and “selfish” when she
refuses to ever see the rapist again. Even when you’re clear about saying no to
forced intimacy with these men, it’s much harder to say no to the women in your
family who you still love and who you desperately want to believe love you too.
They may even love you in the shallow way that many het women allow
themselves to love other women, but it is cruel and selfish to pressure you to
relate to anyone you don’t want to relate to. We need to be allowed to say no at
last. (Many women have not told family members that they were assaulted by a
male relative because they know they will be disbelieved and reviled.)
Families Hate Lesbians

These are just a few experiences of Dykes we’ve personally known in Aotearoa,
the U.S., and other countries: After decades of being a Lesbian, a Dyke says her
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mother is “very supportive,” yet she’s afraid to come out to her. Another
Lesbian’s mother ridiculed her because she’s never been heterosexual, and
asked, “Don’t people laugh at you?” Another Lesbian’s family had her
incarcerated in a mental hospital at age 19, where she was subjected to
electroshock “therapy” and has lost part of her memory — yet she still takes care
of the mother who did this to her. Another Dyke was disowned by her family at
fifteen when they found out she was a Lesbian, yet she is now expected to take
care of her aging parents. Another Lesbian’s father slammed her head into a wall
when she got a lover, almost killing her. Another Dyke came out when she was
seventeen and her parents called the police, forcing her to leave town with no
money and nowhere to live. We know many Lesbians who came out in high
school who were sent to psychiatrists and forbidden by their parents from ever
seeing their lovers again.
We know of a Dyke who was killed in a car accident, whose body was taken far
away by her family, and her lover was prevented from ever seeing her again. No
respect was shown for their relationship and the family buried her in a christian
ceremony against her known wishes. “Loving Daughter” and her name are the
only words on the tombstone, even though she had believed her family truly
supported their relationship.
A friend of a Dyke we know was murdered by being shot. The official verdict was
suicide, although there’s reason to suspect a male acquaintance murdered her.
When her lover removed her own possessions from their home, the dead
Lesbian’s het sister called the police to charge her with theft and denied her
further access to their home.
Typical comments from Lesbian-hating family are: “I accept you, but please don’t
tell your mother/father/grandparents/aunt/uncle, etc. because it would kill
her/him.”….”What did we do wrong?” ….”You didn’t try hard enough with
men.”…. “You’ll die alone and unhappy.”…. “You’re cutting off half the world.”….
“This is against nature and god’s law.” One of the most selfish was “Can’t you at
least go and have a one night stand to give me a grandchild?” (meaning, “Can’t
you find a strange man and get raped and perhaps STDs, including AIDS,
because I’m so selfish?”) Too often, Lesbians are just grateful that the response
isn’t worse, no matter how bad it is.
Making excuses like, “How could they know better?” or “They’re just scared,”
hurts Lesbians. That’s the kind of excuse that used to be made for European-
descent families’ racism. There is even less excuse now, decades after we wrote
our book, when beloved Lesbians are daily seen in the media. Some Lesbians say
family members are “too old to change,” which is ageist and ridiculous when the
Lesbians saying this have mothers way younger than we are. Nor is their health
“too fragile to take it” since the truth doesn’t kill, lies do. (It’s interesting that for
Meg Christian’s first album — one of the first out Lesbian Feminist singers — she
wrote “Song to My Mama,” where she sings how her mother must know that
she’s a Lesbian, but “it would kill her if I told her so.” No woman sings that her
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mother would drop dead if she finds out her daughter is getting fucked by a man,
but somehow love between two Lesbians is horrifyingly lethal.)
In our experience, exceptionally “liberal” parents remain obsessed with people’s
reactions to their daughters’ Lesbianism. A group in the U.S. called “Parents of
Gays” complained on television about the stigma of having a Lesbian or Gay
child. Their support was for each other, not their children.
Families’ social function as a patriarchal institution is to enforce heterosexuality
and maintain heterosexual supremacy. They’re better suited to do this than other
institutions because they raise us. They teach us heterosexuality just as they
teach us to talk, walk, and dress. Later, when we come out, families are
societies’ first line of defense against Lesbians and Gay men and they’re in a
unique position to punish us. It’s been estimated that a third of teenage suicides
in the U.S. are because of being oppressed as Lesbian or Gay. In a study of
6,500 teenage suicides in the U.S. approximately 30% were found to possibly be
Lesbian or Gay. About 2,000 Lesbian/Gay teenagers kill themselves each year in
the U.S.8
Misplaced Loyalties
Het women’s alliance and loyalty is usually to males first. The Family and
patriarchy itself couldn’t exist if women didn’t act as paid agents in policing other
females and spreading males’ lies and misogyny.
Our female relatives can choose to change, but there’s no way we can make
them choose females over males. What IS in our power though, is to protect
ourselves and each other. It’s especially hard to defy our mothers because it’s
not just patriarchy that teaches us to revere and obey them – liberal/right wing
feminist politics tell us how hard our mothers’ lives are, saying that we as
Lesbians are in a privileged position in relation to them. In spite of the truth
being the opposite, most Lesbians respect and value mothers far more than they
do non-mothers. This is destructive family roles and makes it very hard to deal
with betrayal by our mothers. It helps to remember that when we relate to our
families in ways that hurt us, the harm will travel through us to our friends and
lovers.
Love and loyalty given to family is misplaced, and it weakens our bonds with
each other. Most families can never truly accept a Lesbian daughter, because
that would challenge all the lies and illusions their lives are based on. It hurts us
to love someone who doesn’t even respect us enough to listen to us and who
undermines the positive choices we’ve made in our lives. If they say they love us
but hate who we are as Lesbians, then they don’t really love us. Most het women
don’t really know what love is. They have that mind/body/spirit disconnect that
they learned from men. Usually, they explain that they were “born het” or
choose to be because they are just not “sexually attracted” to women.
Considering how grotesque and pornified “sexual attraction” is throughout
patriarchy and especially in the modern media, who but males would feel
it? Being a Lesbian is a decision to be open to loving other women, which
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naturally leads to passion. But for het women so disconnected even from
themselves, too often “love” ends up being a word to use, to justify demands, to
manipulate and to explain commitments which don’t make sense.
The myth of “unconditional love” is very seductive, considering how lonely most
females are in patriarchy. It’s hard not to lie to ourselves if we desperately want
to believe that our families do love us. They insist they understand us better
than anyone else, even though they obviously don’t know us at all. It can be
easy to build up their few kindnesses in our minds while overlooking the many
times they make it clear they hate Lesbians and wish we were someone else.
Most assume we still belong to them because we don’t “belong” to anyone else.
Only a man in our lives would count as a real relationship — certainly not our
Dyke friends and lovers.
Family often don’t take our Lesbian lives seriously. Most hets believe the
stereotype of the lonely Lesbian – It helps them feel smug about their dismal,
desolate, sordid lives. It’s a projection onto us of their own deep emptiness and
loneliness. Dykes are potentially the least alone of people. We may be outcasts,
but what we have with our lovers and friends and communities is deep and
intense. The stereotype is that old women will be lonely, yet in our Lesbian
community, there are hundreds of Old Lesbians who regularly go out to dance
and party. Sometimes so many things are happening at the same time that it’s
difficult to know which event to go to. Since we don’t have women only spaces
left, we usually meet in public venues, where sometimes the older het women
see us and have a mixture of horror and envy on their faces, as they cling to
their zombie-like men. Yet to our families we’re “just girls” together, no matter
how old we are. (Bev: “When my mother looked back on her life, she referred to
herself at the age of 45 as an “old lady” to explain why it had been too late for
her to make her life better, yet she referred to me at that same age as a “just a
young girl.”) In patriarchy, family is all and friends are nothing. Very good
friends are honored by being called “one of the family,” but everyone knows
they’re still “just friends.”
Bev: My mother had a very lonely life, with no friends. She lived alone
with and looked after a man she hated, who hated her, like her previous
two husbands. He called her filthy names, gave her an STD, and was
with her only to use her. Her first husband was an alcoholic boxer who
beat her regularly. The second was my father, who was cold and distant,
and ridiculed her for being uneducated, rural poor (though he also was
poverty class). I gave her constant support for years to leave her last
husband and make a happier life, including helping her find a place and
move. But she went back the next day, continuing saying how she hated
him. She’d had a few close female friends, but lost them by putting her
men first. It didn’t help that her last husband tried to fuck every woman
who visited her (as she told me).
My mother complained about how lonely she was, yet told me how sorry she felt
for me because I’d been “all alone” during the “holidays” and on my birthday.
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She knew I hate nationalistic, racist, and christian holidays and haven’t
celebrated them since I lived with my parents. My and my friends’ birthdays are
our biggest celebrations, and I’d had a wonderful time on mine,with my favorite
Separatist friends and lover. My mother knew this, but “those girls” didn’t count.
They’re not real since they’re not men. And though then ages 41 and 31, they
would never be adults to her since they were not wives and mothers. And, of
course, they’re not family. (Why my mother glorified family is beyond me. Hers
was filled with horrific abuse, growing up partly in foster homes and being
sexually assaulted and forced to work in fields as a little girl because her mother
abandoned her eight kids to run off with a man.) When I confronted her about
trying to make me feel like an outcast, she explained that she meant I was alone
because I wasn’t with my family. Yet she knew I could see her anytime I wanted
and I chose to keep as distance as my only way to stop her constantly harassing
me.
Often our female family, like so many het women, spend hours complaining
about their husbands, even saying they’re about to leave them. But this is a trap,
because they use our support and caring only as a way to release their anger so
they can stay with their men. So our energy ultimately benefits those men.
Some Lesbians are so intertwined with their families that they say they’re going
“home” when they visit their parents. They make endless excuses for the cruel
treatment they get from their “beloved family” and then take out their
suppressed rage on the Lesbians closest to them.
In order to protect ourselves and Dykes we love, we should be aware of how our
“loving” family treats our friends and Dykes in general. We shouldn’t expect less
of relatives than we do of other het women, nor should we expect our friends
and lovers to relate to or accept our family’s abuse. Dykes need our love and
energy more than abusive family, because we have so much less support. When
we’re injured from choosing to relate to abusive families, our Lesbian friends are
drained by helping us recover.
Lesbians who’ve never felt accepted by their mothers are especially vulnerable to
their mothers needing them now, hoping to finally be loved by them. For those
who never had a more traditional type of family, this can be very attractive, but
it’s like stepping into what seems to be a beautiful pool, only to find quicksand.
Bonding with family often means bonding with privilege. One of the main ways
that race and class privileged people keep their power within their own groups is
through nepotism. Bosses don’t usually place a “help wanted” ad when a
prestigious, high-paying position is available. They use contacts from privileged
family or friends, or from that other old-school familial network — the
brotherhood and sisterhood of fraternities and sororities) in order to keep power
among the select few. Most wealth and positions of power are inherited.
Lesbians who grew up in families where racial, ethnic, and/or class oppression
made family solidarity necessary for survival are even more painfully oppressed
by the institution of Family than more privileged Lesbians. As is often said, more
oppressed Lesbians need the protective, strengthening alliances that family is
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supposed to provide in the face of a hostile dominant culture, but we do not get
it. Rape, cruelty, hierarchies, and the devaluing of Lesbians in families cuts
across all races, classes, ethnic groups, and nations. As class-oppressed Dykes,
we (Bev and Linda) know the pain of not “belonging” with family members who
were once, by default, our most intimate partners in oppression and sometimes
major allies in resisting classism. For Linda, as part of an immigrant Italian-
American family, this is even more true.
Dykes with chronic illness or disabilities also may find it especially hard to
distance themselves from families who’ve provided vital assistance. However, it
will be easier for them to be independent of family if able-bodied and/or
moneyed Dykes provide ongoing, reliable assistance, which is the responsibility
of our communities. Instead, many Lesbians who give physical care do so only
for Gay men with AIDS, even though that is an STD some men actively seek out.
(A Gay man I [Bev] know who has AIDS says he is constantly approached by
Gay men who want to get it from him.) We need to focus our caring ability on
our own kind who are disabled and ill, and needing help. (In 2013, the “AIDS
Lifecycle Ride” organization got $14.5 million dollars, much of it from Lesbians.
Some of the male directors of such “LGTBQWTF” groups make $300,000 a year.
This is outrageous. Lesbian energy and money otherwise is devoted to helping
het women, as if het women’s issues are our own. Lesbian have the least and get
the least.)
The more we try to get support from our families, the more power they have to
further injure us. Privileged Lesbians who keep bonds with family may justify
themselves by claiming that more oppressed Dykes have no choice but to
maintain family bonds, yet the truth is that many racially, ethnically, and class-
oppressed Dykes have had the guts to cut off those harmful relationships. For
those of us who do keep some contact with het female relatives, we need to
maintain control over how we relate to them. The best way we can get true
solidarity and support, as many of us have already found, is with Dyke-
identified-Dykes who share our oppressions.
Relating to Lesbian family members is more complex. Ideally, it’s wonderful to
have someone in your life who knows your family as well as you do, who’s also a
Lesbian with the potential for shared support in understanding your family’s
dynamics. If your relative is strongly Dyke-identified, then it’s possible to have a
true friend who’s also your family. But for some, it’s a constant struggle to not
fall into old destructive familial patterns and rivalries, or to avoid pulling lovers
and friends into them. It’s also important to resist the pull to automatically put
Lesbian relatives before friends and lovers. Some Lesbians still feel trapped in an
intolerable hierarchy with Lesbian relatives, including their Lesbian mothers, and
decide to break off contact. Just because someone is a Lesbian doesn’t mean
you’ll necessarily like her and want to be close. Still, there’s at least the
possibility to have a close and trusted friendship with a Lesbian family member
that you won’t have with het family.
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One of the most forbidden things we can do is to decide to free ourselves from
our family. It’s so unthinkable that the possibility never occurs to many Lesbians,
including those whose families previously cut them off for years. Many of us have
been so grateful our family “accepts” us that we don’t even consider we may not
want to accept them. After all, we had no choice in being owned by them in the
first place. Saying “no” to family in any way is considered cruel, even though
you’re saying “no” to cruelty. Making the decision to free ourselves from male
relatives and abusive female relatives, or even just limiting our contact with the
more decent female relatives, takes great courage and determination. It’s
especially difficult for those who’ve been caring for a dependent relative, which
often seems to be expected of Lesbian family rather than siblings. But that
decision enables us to begin healing from the abuse we’ve suffered, including
from rape by male family.
Those of us who had regular recent contact with our female relatives found there
wasn’t one time when we visited them that they didn’t make critical comments
about our Lesbianism or how our bodies and clothes look, and how we live.
Freeing ourselves gives us a chance to break old destructive patterns, which also
makes it less likely we’ll respond to old or very young Lesbians in ageist ways in
the future, and can help Dykes who grew up in families to be less likely to be
oppressive to Dykes who’ve never had a family. For many Lesbians, it’s also
meant being freed from cycles of depression, suicidal feelings, and self-hatred as
well. Freedom from family gives us more physical, psychic, and emotional energy
to care for ourselves and other Dykes. Sadly, Lesbians are more likely to provide
support and care for ill, abusive parents than they are for ill Dykes. Yet there are
often other family members who are willing to help sick relatives, while sick
Lesbians are more likely to have no one.
There are some wonderful exceptions, though. In 1987, there was a story in a
Berkeley, U.S., newspaper about Ollie’s, a Lesbian bar community that supported
a Lesbian named Jean, whose lover had recently died of cancer. “It’s a place
where people will back you in any kind of crisis.” When Jean’s lover died, the bar
was the second place she called. “Within fifteen minutes, the bar had emptied
and several carloads of women arrived at her house. In the weeks that followed,
Jean’s friends from the bar organized into shifts, taking time off from work so
that someone was always with her.” Jean said, “The people at the hospice told
me, ‘Whatever your connection is, I wish everybody had it.’” This kind of support
has been traditional in some Lesbian communities.
For ourselves, the changes we’ve made with our families have greatly improved
our lives. One of us had letter contact with only her mother and hadn’t seen or
talked with her for many years. Another of us related only to her mother, talking
with her occasionally on the phone and seeing her several times a year since she
lived nearby. Another of us had extensive contact with family members until a
few years ago when she began to remember her father had raped her when she
was little, so she cut off contact with him. When she tried to talk to her mother
about it, her mother was completely protective of her father, and harassed her
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about “maligning such a wonderful man.” She now refuses to relate to her family
until they deal with her in a more fair way, and is amazed to find herself
mourning the loss of them only rarely, thinking of them hardly at all. Whether or
not she has very limited contact with her female relatives in the future, she’s
determined to never be “part of the family” again. And she feels clearer in her
friendships with Lesbians than she ever was before.
We were not casual about distancing ourselves from our families, but did not
know how to stop being treated badly otherwise. It does help to share support
about doing such an unpopular thing. We appreciate the Dykes who’ve written
and talked about their experiences with cutting off contact from family members.
One thing we definitely recommend, from experience, is that if you do keep
having contact with relatives, visit them only on your terms, deciding how,
where, and when you’ll visit, and never stay overnight with them. It’s much
easier to stop them from putting you back into your old family position if you
don’t live together, however briefly. Never willingly relate to anyone who you
don’t want to see or who’s still treating you badly in anyway. Don’t relate to a
relative, even one you love, who pressures you to see, talk with, or write to
anyone you don’t want contact with. A mother who will see you or be nice to you
only if you relate to the father or brother who sexually assaulted you isn’t good
for you. Her approval is not more important than your recovery. It’s also
damaging to you to censor yourself from talking about the harm your family has
done to you. Much of family power and control is based on secrets and lies. It
might surprise you how much power you do have when you start to say
no.
It’s important to explore the ties that bind you. What does your family want and
demand from you? If they could make you become het, would they? That would
mean that they want to break up you and your lover, and all your Lesbian
friendships. Also, let yourself think about what would happen if you suddenly
were living as a dependent (without legal rights) with your family – how much
would they restrict your freedom?
What do you want and need from your family? Do you ever get it? What do you
get? How much is hurtful to you and how much is good for you? What do you
have to pay for the good parts? Can you get those things from the Dykes you
love? How do you feel about your friends’ families and how they’re treated by
them? Do you think your friends should be treated better? Are you more willing
to accept hurtful treatment from your family than you think your friends should
from theirs? Would you protect your friends if you could? Are you more prepared
to break off with Lesbians who upset you than with relatives who abuse and
oppress you? If you don’t have the sort of close Dyke connections that would
sustain you if you left your family, could making family distance create a space
for those connections?
Thinking of your parents as a heterosexual couple (if they are) can help you
think more clearly about the bond you have with them. Do you ordinarily choose
to intensely, intimately socialize with het couples? Why should you think of your
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parents as any different? If you were raised by a heterosexual couple, you were
intimately involved in their relationship and probably still are, if you visit them.
Their primary commitment is to each other, no matter how much your mother
complains to you about your father or claims you’re closer to her than he is.
Would you so easily be manipulated by your het neighbors and coworkers?
Lesbians who’ve been around lovers’ and friends’ families for a long time may be
accepted to some extent as “part of the family.” That can feel like an honor,
because it’s so easy for us to value men and het women more than we value
ourselves. But being part of a family, even one that’s not our own, means being
treated in the same possessive way. They speak to you in those familiar,
intrusive, critical, and callous ways that they would never use with their own
friends. They’re likely to act parental and condescending, putting you in a child
role. And it wouldn’t be unusual for your lover’s male relatives to be sexually
suggestive towards you, including telling pornographic stories.
Let yourself pay attention to the horrible things your family says,
because that lets you know what they really think. Don’t keep making
excuses, remembering only the good parts.
Let’s Not “Be A Family”

“Family values” means hating Lesbians. Why do so many Lesbians want to use
the term “family” for ourselves? The drive to belong, be “normal,” and be
accepted by the male and het world plagues Lesbians, which is why many try to
present Lesbian and/or Gay culture as just another kind of family. That’s also
why many Lesbians want to try to be part of male religions, and why christian-
raised Lesbians celebrate christmas (sometimes in the guise of “Summer
Solstice” in the southern hemisphere or “Winter Solstice” in the northern
hemisphere — which is still clearly a christmas celebration when they don’t
celebrate the opposite Solstice and other more important witch days such as
Beltane and Lammas.) This quest for approval undermines us as Lesbians. No
amount of proclamations at Gay pride marches about how we’re all “family” will
make Gay men become our brothers and why should we want brothers, anyway?
The including of Lesbians into “LGBTQIWTF” against our will is another attempt
to include us into a pseudo-family that is using us and is incredibly destructive to
us. We’re also trapped by the het mystique of Family if we consider “sisterhood”
with other Lesbians a better ideal than friendship. For many Dykes, their
biological sisters are het women who’ve been, and still are, cruel and oppressive.
There’s a hierarchy among sisters in most families, which means that for many
Lesbians, the sisterhood they grew up with was anything but the “sisterly” ideal.
Too often that inequality creates patterns that stay with adult Lesbians and
interfere with our ability to get along socially or work together politically. We
grow up without any model of justice and equality. Our closest female
relationships with our mothers, sisters, aunts, grandmothers, and cousins, were
usually anything but fair. Many Lesbians who keep close relationships with het
sisters find their heterosexuality oppressive and hurtful, including the few who
attempt to not be anti-Lesbian. Most heterosexual women are actively hostile to
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their sisters’ Lesbianism and try, like their mothers, to “turn them straight.” Even
if our sisters try to be good to us, the male structure of family inequality is too
powerful to not damage our interactions.
Adults often give elder sisters the power to boss, punish, and even hit their
younger sisters. Older girls are expected to do some of the parents’ work of
taking care of the other children, which should not be their job, but one way for
them to rebel is by taking their anger out on the only people in their power —
their younger siblings. Since boys are more protected, the youngest girls usually
get the most of this unfair treatment. A Lesbian Feminist told one of us she felt
badly for her mother when the mother beat the littlest girls, aiming for bare skin
so it would hurt more, because “she must have been in such pain to do that.” As
an older sister, she chose to identify with the authority figure, her mother, rather
than with her younger sisters, the truly powerless ones who needed her support.
She’s still doing it as an adult, using feminism to excuse her mother’s cruelty.
Some older sisters do use their position to be kind and protective to younger
girls, and in rare cases they will expose a male relative who’s raping the younger
girls.
It can also be hard for mothers to avoid transferring to other relationships the
experience they have had of being able to order and control their children, telling
them when they can eat, sleep, etc. That sense of power often continues
unconsciously, and mothers will treat other women as if they expect to be
obeyed. The Lesbians who have not had the status of being considered “real”
adults are particularly targeted and vulnerable to this. Lesbians who grew up
having power over younger siblings or as teachers also sometimes continue
expecting to have power in relationships, unless they are careful to be aware of
that. That attitude of authority can be quite powerful, even if they don’t have
that authority now. They may still unconsciously expect other Lesbians to be
submissive and it can take constant vigilance to not act out that dominant role in
their relationships. Many Lesbians who were older sisters do act in egalitarian
ways towards others, but some are reluctant to let go of that past authority. If
you were never in such a power position, being an only, youngest, or middle
daughter, you may find some Lesbians acting condescending towards you simply
because you refuse to use the body language and verbal games that define you
as a person who’s been in physical and emotional authority over others. You may
find yourself being treated as if you’re younger by someone the same age or
younger than you. In many Lesbian groups, battles over dominance and
submission go on not only because of differences in acknowledged areas of
privilege and oppression, but also because of family positions.
Sometimes the only equal relationships we knew in our early years were with our
friends who were also little girls. But too often family inequalities were carried
over into our first interactions with non-relatives. Being trained in hierarchies at
home encourages us to accept other hierarchies as well, including those based
on race, ethnicity, class, nationality, ability, size, looks, age, heterosexism, and
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male-identified femininity (how “normal” and feminine one girl is as opposed to

how Lesbian and Butch another is).
Schools are no places to learn kind, egalitarian, female ways of relating because
its structure gives some girls power over the majority of other girls. Most of us
know what it’s like to be ostracized and ridiculed by more privileged girls in
cliques (often based on classism) at school. Those who are excluded are usually
the majority, but as long as the favored few are admired and sought after by the
outcasts who hope to join the “in crowd,” the privileged group stays in power.
That cruel pattern often divides Lesbian communities even now. Whenever a
Dyke is slandered, ridiculed, patronized, or excluded from Lesbian political and
friendship groups, the same malicious hierarchies are being played out.
Our yearning for “sisterhood” among Lesbians is a yearning for that true love and
caring we should have received from our families but never did. We can’t have it
as “sisters” or “family,” but we can have it as Dykes together.
Dykes Are Home

As long as our family comes first in our allegiance, we can’t be truly committed
to other Dykes. When Lesbians cut off friendships with other Lesbians over minor
conflicts and differences, yet keep contact with family members who are vicious
to them, they betray Dykes as a people. They’re literally allied with our enemy.
We have only so much room and tolerance in our lives for difficult relationships,
so it’s Lesbian friends who are more likely to be abandoned. Sometimes Dykes
maintain contact with their families because no one else, friends or lovers, can
be relied on to stay in our lives. The family may be brutal and hateful, but at
least they’re “family.” If more Dykes put Dykes first in their lives, we will be
available as friends and support for each other, and dependence on families will
be easier to break.
There would be far more money in our Lesbian communities if most Lesbian
money didn’t go to our families when we die. The fact that your family once
owned you means they can own you again. They have legal rights to you and
your possessions, which you don’t have to them. (Lesbians’ children have those
“rights” over their mothers too.) Any of our family members, no matter how
they’ve attacked us, can assert their right of access to us if we’re in the hospital.
When we die, the family automatically has access to our bodies. If we’re very
sick or injured so that we have difficulty communicating, they can take custody
of us and imprison us and even deny us proper medical care. Some adult
Lesbians have been declared incompetent by law so their parents or other
relatives could resume ownership. That’s one way to deal with a “rebellious”
daughter.
There are Lesbians still being held against their will, like Sharon Kowalski was,
with their families trying to keep them from ever being with their lover and
friends again. (Sharon, a U.S. Lesbian, was severely injured in a car accident in
1983. She was improving under the care of her lover, Karen Thompson, until
Sharon’s parents took legal possession of her. They denied Karen access to her,
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and Sharon’s condition deteriorated. Sharon’s mother said, “I hate Karen

Thompson like I’ve never hated anyone or anything in my life.”)11 After years of
legal battles, they were reunited, but Karen believes Sharon will never recover as
much as she would have if her father had not stopped her physical therapy.
It’s extremely important for Lesbians to make legal documents to try to prevent
family from using their legal powers to make decisions about our medical
treatment when we’re hospitalized or to incarcerate us in mental institutions, and
to keep them from taking our property (including journals, letters, and
possessions on loan from friends and lovers). Even then, families have been
successful in overturning such contracts, but at least it gives us some protection.
Lesbians who’ve made legal documents and whose families don’t know where
they live are in the safest position. Legal marriages are also stronger protection,
as well as giving immigration rights. As much as Separatists might be against
marriage, we support it for the equal rights it gives. Of course everyone’s rights’
should be protected, whether married or not, but that is not within reach at this
time, while marriage equality is. (For Radical Feminists adamantly against
marriage, we question why they first don’t first try to stop het marriages.)
It’s also important to work out how we continue harmful family dynamics with
our friends and lovers. Our girlhood is always going to affect us in some way, but
we can improve things and try not to set up hierarchical pseudo-families in our
own communities and relationships. With strong Dyke politics and support, we
can and do recover from girlhood abuse, without resorting to therapists who
often provide a hierarchical substitute for parents, continuing our dependence.
We are our own and each other’s best healers. We should resist being in or
wanting to be in elite groups, with their hierarchies of stars and scapegoats. We
shouldn’t think of Lesbians in couples as being superior to single Dykes, whether
ourselves or others. (It’s easy to relate to couples as if they were in authority
over us, because many Lesbians in couples act parental and condescending
towards single Dykes.)
We, as Dykes, have got to be there for each other with that long-lasting
commitment that’s usually given only to families, with real love and caring, which
means working out occasional difficulties. Then we’ll be better able to survive our
families and patriarchy. We will be the enduring Dyke communities we long for.
Endnotes
1. KGO-TV News, San Francisco, 6 May 1988.
2. 2. Shulamith Firestone, The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution. (New
York: Bantam/William Morrow and Co., 1972).
3. KGO-TV News, San Francisco, 31 March 1987.
4. San Francisco Chronicle, 31 August 1988. Mark-David James studied 195 teenagers who left
their homes and went to shelters in Toronto, Canada. He found that even the horrors of
runaways’ street life –prostitution, hunger, and drugs — don’t outweigh family abuse. 86% had
been physically and/or sexually abused at home, while 67% got the same treatment on the
street.
5. Nina Eliasoph, “Why Kidnap Stirred the Bay Area,” San Francisco Chronicle, 2 December
1986, A26.
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6. Information leaflet by Family Violence Prevention Coordinating Committee and Accident

Compensation Corporation, New Zealand Listener, 19 November 1988, 61.
7. The Unquiet Death of Eli Creekmore, KCSM-TV, San Mateo, 3 May 1988.
8. KRON-TV. San Francisco, 29 March 1988.
9. Angie Cannon, “Reassurance for Gay Kids,” San Francisco Chronicle, 5 March 1988, A2.
10. “Cheers: Gay Days and Nights at Ollie’s, Express, Berkeley, California. 21 August 1987.
11. Why Can’t Sharon Kowalski Come Home?by Karen Thompson and Julie Andrzejewski (San
Francisco: Spinsters/Aunt Lute Book Co.,1988).
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Chapter Nine
Chapter Nine
Hidden Disability
by Bev Jo and Linda Strega
Part 1 - Oppression Is Sickening

by Bev Jo
Some have wondered why this chapter is in our book about Lesbian Separatism
and Radical Feminism. Since our book is about having as much equality among
women as possible and recognizing what harms us and what divides us, this
information is essential, and is even more timely after 25 years, seeing how
patriarchy has harmed and continues to harm women physically, mentally, and
emotionally. Understanding some of the causes can help protect us.
We’ve also tried to include information to protect and improve health, especially
since we’ve seen too many friends die and be disabled from possibly preventable
diseases and pharmaceuticals and unhealthy eating recommendations. I know so
many women who have worked very hard to eat what they don’t like and give up
what they love, based on popular and accepted misinformation, and end up
seriously damaging their health.
Since we published our book in 1990, many more Lesbians and other women we
know, of all ages, have some form of chronic illness, chronic symptoms, and/or
chronic pain. Many who are under fifty also have hormonal disruption, probably
from growing up exposed to xenoestrogens (the toxic chemicals that mimic true
estrogens) – from food cooked and stored in plastic (including Teflon pans),
pesticides, and soy (carcinogenic and toxic to the thyroid). Girls are increasing
going into puberty at earlier ages. (When I was a girl, puberty started around
twelve but more recently it’s been said to start around ten, but now some girls
are beginning puberty at seven. This makes little girls vulnerable to getting
pregnant from rape as well as affecting their health in other ways.)
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/magazine/puberty-before-age-10-a-new-
normal.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Doctors’ and alternative healers’ advice to be vegan or vegetarian, to eat soy
(which is now in almost all processed food), toxic trans fat/hydrogenated oil, and
high carbs, and to eliminate healthy organic saturated fat and meat has been
disastrous for health, including leading to increasing numbers of women having
hysterectomies and/or oopherectomies (removal of ovaries). I’ve noticed that
vegans seem to have the most health problems,1 but many women are damaged
in ways that women were not in the past. The hormonal disruptions also have
severe mental and emotional effects, which affects relationships, including in our
online Radical Feminist community.
Do not believe the myth that people live longer now. Remove statistics for
decreased infant mortality and women dying in childbirth, and it becomes clear
that people do not live longer.2 Women also have far worse quality of health
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now. Tombstones from hundreds of years ago, as well as genealogical records,

show extremely long-lived women in the past. Alice Walker wrote about her
great, great, great, great grandmother living to 125. A number of other women
who had been slaves also lived to well over a hundred,3 in spite of the extreme
stress of their lives. http://blog.encyclopediavirginia.org/2012/02/11/convention-
of-former-slaves/
Many of the forms of hidden disability that I’m seeing among friends are
increasing, and it’s like solving a mystery to find out what is really happening to
us. I believe there are multiple causes: toxic chemical and radiation exposure
(including medical X-rays), synthetic, poisoned, and GMO food; polluted water
and air; and new or engineered pathogens. The toxic and radiation exposures
alone also account for the epidemic proportions of cancer, which was extremely
rare when I was a kid. It’s amazing that anyone is still alive, actually, or that all
people don’t have cancer, like nuclear physicist, John Gofman,4 said about the
levels of radiation that people are now exposed to. (If any doctor tells you than
an “X-ray is only like one plane trip,” they are lying. Doctors know the truth.
They also all know that any radiation causes heart
damage.) http://www.ratical.org/radiation/inetSeries/nwJWG.html
I’ve been disabled with a mystery illness for more than half my life, since 1981.
It has been called Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, Fibromyalgia,5 Chronic Fatigue
Syndrome, Chronic Fatigue Immune Dysfunction Syndrome, etc. Now I wonder
about the cause being the bacteria spirochete, Borellia Burgdorferi/Lyme disease
and/or the accompanying dozen co-infections also spread by Ixodes genera
ticks.6
Then in the mid-Eighties, I also became increasingly reactive and sensitive to
toxic stink that men and their corporations have spread throughout our
environment as they continue inventing new “fragrance” poisons, which are
completely unregulated and which never stop smelling horrible. It’s a clever way
for men to mark territory while making money, from dirty perfumed laundry
products to the countless and unnecessary “personal care” products mainly
aimed at women consumers. My health was already damaged by growing up in
Cincinnati with many factories spewing toxins, but now I still can’t escape Proctor
and Gamble, thousands of miles away, because people are paying to pollute our
neighborhoods through their drier vents with the disgusting stink of products like
Tide and Downy, making our neighborhoods smell like factories. It’s a
patriarchal/male nightmare affecting the health of all of us, against our will.7
The terms for people who react sooner to the toxins that are harming all of us is
CI (Chemical Injury), MCS (Multiple Chemical Sensitivity) or EI (Environmental
Illness, which implies the environment is making us sick). But most people just
blame themselves and say they have “allergies,” which is like saying that lung
cancer from cigarette smoke is an allergy, and personalizes what is actually a
political issue that affects everyone’s health. Not to mention these toxic products
are polluting the air, earth, and water where they are manufactured, used, and
disposed of. It’s amazing how many people claim to care about the environment,
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but don’t consider refusing to support the companies producing such nasty filth.
It’s one of the simplest, easiest ways to help the earth, save money, and protect
your own health.
When I first became sick, my lover at the time also had the same symptoms that
felt like a flu that wouldn’t go away: deep fatigue, low grade fever, swollen
glands, pain, aching, and some friends also had similar symptoms, so I
suspected a pathogen, with perhaps the addition of toxic exposure, to explain
why some recovered and some didn’t. However, Lyme and the co-infections,
transmitted through Ixodes genera tick bites could look like exposure to the
same pathogen if we picked up ticks around the same time when hiking or
working in the hills (which is exactly how Lyme was first discovered in the
Seventies, by a cluster of kids with rare juvenile arthritis.) Noone publicly
seemed to know about Lyme in 1981. Or at least no doctor we saw mentioned it.
I’ve also since learned about the damaging effects of metabolic syndrome, which
includes polycystic ovaries, pain, etc. from eating as the doctors demanded. One
fat-phobic idiot Lesbian doctor I saw was horrified I ate avocados because of the
healthy high fat content.) Mainstream doctors’ recommendations to eat low fat
actually have increased heart disease, cancer, arthritis, dementia, etc.8 Stress,
like oppression, also increases high blood sugar and insulin resistance. Many of
us probably also have symptoms of metabolic syndrome, but that doesn’t
account for other symptoms or for so many of the symptoms to match.
It took me a while to identify as disabled, because my chronic illness isn’t visible.
Also, most able-bodied women seem to try very hard to believe that I’m no
different from them. Sometimes it’s hard even for me to take my sickness
seriously because I’m fairly mobile and, when under pressure, I’m can still
function, although I feel much worse for a long time after. But I know the
difference between how I am now and how I was previously, and I’m lucky to
have friends who also know that difference. Most importantly, my closest friend,
Linda, is similarly disabled. We give each other valuable support and recognize
that each other’s illnesses are real.
When we first published our book in 1990, I’d already been to nine doctors, four
acupuncturists, two naturopaths, and five homeopaths. I tested positive once for
mononucleosis, but was told it couldn’t be chronic, so it was ignored. Most of the
doctors told me I wasn’t sick since they couldn’t find anything wrong, which I
later found is common with illnesses causing hidden disability, so it look me
years to get a diagnosis. CFIDS used to be called “The Yuppie Disease” because
statistics showed that a lot of middle-class people have it. The fact is that these
are usually the only people who can afford to see the average of eight doctors
that it takes to finally get some sort of diagnosis. Those who are too poor to
afford doctors aren’t generally listed in the statistics.
Four of the doctors I saw were sympathetic, but the rest were offensive and
incompetent. I was concerned that I might possibly have a contagious disease,
but the infectious disease specialist I saw assured me that a person couldn’t
remain contagious after a couple of months of being sick. In fact, there many
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long-term contagious diseases. Another Lesbian doctor told me that there was
nothing wrong with me and that I should just lose weight. (I was about 140
pounds at the time.) She told my underweight lover with identical symptoms that
she should just drink coffee. Years later, I discovered that many of our
symptoms match those for the early stages of leukemia and some other kinds of
cancer. Certainly, you don’t want to try to lose weight with cancer since it’s a
wasting disease and those who weigh more have a better chance of surviving.
I’ve heard many ridiculous, contradictory doctors’ opinions. One het woman
osteopath flipped out when I told her that not all women are heterosexual, in
response to her bizarre ranting that I should use birth control, although I
couldn’t be more obvious as a Dyke and was at the appointment with my lover.
In her crazed state of Lesbian-hatred, she said I needed female hormones, for no
explainable reason.
Eventually, though, enough people became sick with similar symptoms that
names for our illnesses were invented which still don’t really describe the cause.
I’m not surprised by the treatment I’ve gotten from doctors. I’m more upset by
how I’m treated by other women. Since my constant fevers cause my face to
look red, I’m often told I look “healthy.” They say that life is hard for everyone,
and I should just try harder. They are terrified of getting sick, so they want to
pretend I’m not. It’s true that all women have difficulties, but we’re also all in
different states of health. Some can push themselves to extremes and use
stimulants to keep going, which only works for a while.
One of the most offensive but typical comments is “we cause ourselves to be
sick, so if you wanted to get well, you would.” I can’t imagine a more male-
minded idea. “You create your own reality” is a useful philosophy to manipulate
the oppressed. Unfortunately, it not only benefits the patriarchy, it also helps
oppressive people maintain their privilege and illusion of superiority over the rest
of us. If positive thinking works so well, why don’t these people visualize
themselves into being less oppressive? (It’s interesting to see what happens
when they become chronically ill themselves.)
Oppression adds to the severity chronic illness since physical or emotional stress
makes us sicker. I’m writing this partly because I want to help prevent other
women from going through the same abuse from both the medical establishment
and from our own kind. You body tells you when you’re sick. If you feel sick, you
are – especially in our cultures where we are pressured to ignore pain and
sickness. No one has the right to tell you you’re not sick, whether they’re a
doctor or a friend.
Are These Man-made Illnesses?

Lyme disease didn’t used to exist. Many of us believe that the US government
created Lyme disease/Borellia Burgdorferi when they injected Ixodes genera
ticks with multiple pathogens in military biological warfare experiments at Lab
257 on Plum Island, New York (as described in the book Lab 257), near Old
Lyme, Connecticut. (Therefore, it’s Lyme disease, not “Lyme’s disease,” since it’s
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named for the location and not a doctor.) The ticks were also injected with co-
infections, such as Babesiosis, Erlichsiosis, Bartonella species, Yersinia
enterocolitica, Chlamydophila pneumoniae, Chlamydia trachomatis, and
Mycoplasma pneumoniae, plus the newly diagnosed (in 2013) Borrelia
Miyamotoi.
For those who are so mainstream or patriotic/nationalistic that they don’t believe
that the US government, doctors, and scientists love to experiment on people,
they should remember that the “land of the free” was built on genocide and
slavery, and that giving American Indians blankets infested with smallpox virus
was early biological warfare. (As recently as the Sixties, US scientists, funded by
the US Atomic Energy Commission deliberately infected thousands of Amazon
Indigenous people with a virulent measles vaccine that killed hundreds of people.
According to Professor Turner, the same group also secretly carried out
experiment on human subjects in the US, which included injecting people with
radioactive plutonium without their knowledge or permission.)
8
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/sep/23/paulbrown
Patronizing people as “conspiracy theorists” does not change the facts about
past, present, and future biological weapon use. Of course the medical history of
scientists experimenting on people against their will, from Mengele to Tuskegee9
and Guatemala proves that they are not to be trusted or believed. The US
government admitted to mutating viruses and bacteria, to “study their effects,”
and then releasing them into urban areas such as the San Francisco Bay Area,10
which is why the theory of ticks injected with pathogens is not outrageous. Who
knows what the long-term results of the known tests have been? The forgotten
smallpox discovered in 2014 in a storage room in the US shows their level of
criminal incompetency.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_syphilis_experiment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guatemala_syphilis_experiment
The goal at Lab 257 was theoretically to develop pathogens to kill the domestic
animals in the Soviet Union in order to destroy the economy and starve the
people to death, but the scientists also experimented on ticks. (I believe every
kind of experimentation like this is male marking of territory, from wreaking
death and disease, to contaminating parts of the earth for millions of years with
nuclear pollution. In the Nov., 2014 issue of Natural History magazine, under
“Samplings,” a short article describe scientists injecting mice with human semen,
for no apparent reason.)
Of course Nazi scientists had Russians and other Slavic people on their list for
genocide, so being paid and praised by the US government to continue the Nazi
war on the Soviets would have been even more appealing to Erich Traub, the
Nazi in charge of bio-weapons on Plum Island.
“Carroll’s ‘Lab 257’ also documents a Nazi connection to the original
establishment of a US laboratory on Plum Island. According to the book,
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Erich Traub, a scientist who worked for the Third Reich doing biological
warfare, was the force behind its founding….”
“….With the end of the war, Traub came back to the United States under
Project Paperclip, a US program under which Nazi scientists, such as
Wernher von Braun, were brought to America….A source who worked on
Plum Island in the 1950s,recalls that animal handlers and a scientist
released ticks outdoors on the island. ‘They called him the Nazi scientist,
when they came in, in 1951 they were inoculating these ticks.”
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/10/25/the-deadly-secrets-of-plum-island/
Annual records of the first and subsequent cases of Lyme disease from the
Seventies clearly show an increasing arc spreading westward from the part of the
Northeast coast near Plum Island.11 Of course the medical propaganda now tells
us that Lyme has always been here, but that’s another lie. Anyone old enough
knows that we never saw or had to worry about ticks or Lyme disease when
going into grasslands or woods. Many of us grew up playing in woods and only
began to see ticks in the last few decades. Lyme disease simply did not exist
anywhere in the US before the Seventies.
There are many myths about Lyme. A friend insists that Lyme always existed
because it’s also in Europe, but it wasn’t there when I was living in England and
Ireland in 1997 and 1998. It came to Europe later than the US, and my English
lovers in the 1990’s had never heard of it and neither did anyone they know. The
European vector is the same genera of Ixodes, and is named Ixodes Ricinus
because the markings on the tick are reminiscent of the patterns on castor beans
(Ricinus, same as the poison from castor beans). Borrelia Burgdoferi was
probably brought to Europe by an infected person from the US who then was
bitten by European Ixodes species Ixodes Ricinus. It’s now killing people there.
(In the eastern US, the vector is Ixodes Scapularis, while in the west, it’s Ixodes
Pacificus.) Lyme is now in Asia, South America, Australia, etc. When we are
gone, it will be easier to spread the lie that it’s always been here, with theories
that don’t make sense, like that it was found in a 5,000 year old corpse in the
Alps. (In terms of trusting scientists’ competency in recognizing illness, they are
still debating if syphilis came from Euro-Asia or the Americas.)
Lyme disease is most often spread by ticks, but can also be transmitted by fleas,
mosquitoes, and mites. Evidence suggests that these small arachnids and insects
don’t actually need to bite you for you to become infected. Lyme disease can also
be spread in other ways, such as from mothers to fetuses. (At a Lyme lecture I
went to, an alternative healer was positive she’d gotten it from her boyfriend.)
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) believe that Borrelia burgdorferi can even
survive the blood purification processes that donated blood is subjected to, and
therefore can be spread by transfusion. The related spirochete, Borrelia
Miyamotoi, discovered in 2013, is not being tested for, which means the
blood supply is even less safe.
Lyme is also very difficult to diagnose because the US government commission
had a conflict of interest and eliminated half the main diagnostic markers, so
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most 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.
Again, Borrelia Miyamotoi, is likely to cause similar symptoms but will
also not show up on standard tests.
A great imitator, like its cousin syphilis, Lyme is found in the brains of many
people with Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, ALS, MS, Fibromyalgia, arthritis, Lupus,
etc.12
http://www.jneuroinflammation.com/content/8/1/90
From 36 known Borrelia species 12 cause Lyme disease or other
borreliosis, which is transmitted by the bite of infected ticks….
When neutral techniques recognizing all types of spirochetes were used,
or the highly prevalent periodontal pathogen Treponemas were
analyzed, spirochetes were observed in the brain in more than 90% of
AD cases. Borrelia burgdorferi was detected in the brain in 25.3% of AD
cases analyzed and was 13 times more frequent in AD compared to controls.
http://bebrainfit.com/lifestyle/drains/lyme-disease-a-hidden-cause-of-mental-
decline-and-alzheimers/
http://blog.lef.org/2013/12/is-alzheimers-caused-by-infection.html
They found spirochetes in about 90% of Alzheimer’s patients, while the
bacteria were virtually absent in healthy age-matched controls.
The hopeful aspect to this is that Lyme can be more treatable and less of a death
sentence than some of these illnesses. (Friends who have done the best have
used specific herbs.)
My ex-lover got the classic expanding bull’s-eye rash which grew until it was
enormous, with multiple circles of color, and then it 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 six 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 that completely kills 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 her story to have a similar one where doctors killed a loved one of
theirs.)
When a friend got Lyme while camping in the Sierra Nevada mountains, she said
she saw hundreds of tiny black bumps on her legs, which she’d never seen
before during previous Sierra camping trips, and which turned out to be Lyme
ticks. If the percentage of Ixodes Pacificus carrying Lyme was even 1%, then of
course that’s where she got it. Every year, the numbers of ticks and infected
ticks are increasing in California and elsewhere. The East Coast, where Lyme
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began, havs the highest percentage of infected ticks, recently listed as

35%.http://news.stanford.edu/news/2014/february/ticks-bay-area-021814.html
I suspect Lyme was the cause of some friends dying while diagnosed with other
illnesses, such as MS. Leslie Feinberg blamed Lyme and the co-infections for her
death on Nov.15, 2014. I suspect Lyme pain and depression is behind some
suicides also.
Many of us believe that Lyme is incurable and is chronic.13 I know many women
with Lyme, and none have fully recovered. A Rheumatoid Arthritis specialist I
know says he believes it’s not chronic, but turns into Fibromyalgia — which is
chronic illness. So if Borrelia encysts and hides as spirochetes do, going through
stages with remissions, then who knows if it’s still there? I spoke with Lucia Hui,
Senior Public Health Biologist at the California Department of Health around
2002, to talk with her about Lyme. That was before she went on an expedition to
the Sierras to study Lyme and got the classic Erythema migrans rash. She knew
the protocol and immediately began treatment, but years later, she was taking
$1000 worth of antibiotics a month, and still sick. She’s now listed as leading
Lyme support groups.
A new myth is that unscrupulous doctors and alternative healers are behind the
theory of Lyme as a chronic illness for their own benefit. There are a few doctors
and healers who are conning people for money, and that has always been true
about chronic illness, but the majority of doctors are deliberately denying acute
Lyme even when people have classic symptoms, as well as denying Lyme as
chronic illness. Some doctors actually refuse to write a prescription for the more
accurate test, even when the patient agrees to pay for it since insurance won’t.
For those who doubt the reality of Lyme as chronic illness, I suggest going
barefoot, in shorts and a short-sleeved shirt, off trail in a wooded or grassy area
where a lot of deer visit, and sit and lie on the ground until you are covered in
ticks. Eventually, you’ll get Lyme and then can tell us how chronic it isn’t.
Then there are the vaccines that cause cancer, like another polio vaccine that the
CDC admits to:
http://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/it-only-took-50-years-cdc-admits-
polio-vaccine-tainted-with-cancer-causing-virus/
Some scientists believe that AIDS is a similar bio-weapons creation, although I
believe the theory that HIV was inadvertently spread from chimpanzees to
humans in Africa, in 1955, through an experimental polio vaccine given by
greedy US doctors. There’s an excellent award-winning 2003 film now free online
called The Origin of AIDS.
(http://www.originofaids.com/,http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWd4KblpDsc,
and http://freedocumentaries.org/int.php?filmID=123) which explains how Dr.
Hilary Koprowski and his research team used chimpanzee kidney cells. One of
the women doctors in their group told them that their vaccine was not safe
because she could see other unknown viruses in it. They ignored her, of course,
because status and money were more important than health. Although
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Koprowsky denied using chimpanzees since that was too dangerous because of
the possibility of transmission of pathogens from humans’ closest relatives, the
film proves that he did use 200 chimpanzees and interviews Africans who
captured and cared for them.
It’s revealing also that they gave Africans their experimental vaccine rather than
people in the US.
Considering that humans have been eating primates in Africa for millennia
without developing AIDS, the polio vaccine explanation makes more sense that
the “bushmeat” theory, which blames the introduction of HIV into humans
through contact with killed primate blood and blames Africans. Edward Hooper
writes about this in his book, The River and in his article at
http://www.aidsorigins.com/more-supportive-opvaids-bushmeat-hypothesis-
revised-response-recent-faria-paper-science.14
Unlike other viruses, HIV, as a retrovirus, was difficult to discover, but there was
pressure to do it because of the many rich European-descent men being affected.
Perhaps, also, men who wanted sexual access to as many women as possible,
wanted to not have to worry about such a deadly STD. There is not similar
urgency with finding out what is behind the many chronic illnesses that keep
appearing, even though they are devastating people’s lives and can be fatal, and
certainly not when the US government could be sued, as in the case of the
invention of Lyme disease and the many co-infections.
A Clean Environment Doesn’t Stink

In the years since I first became sick, I’ve grown much more sensitive to the
man-made chemicals which surround us daily. My original illness has another
cause, but not being able to escape toxic chemicals definitely worsens my health.
And these chemicals damage all women and make some severely ill.15
Below is my separate section about chosen pollution:
UNFORTUNATELY, WE NEED AIR TO BREATHE

Support Women’s Health, Not the Chemical Industry
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.
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And why? 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.
If we smell the products’ stink, we’ve already absorbed their neuro-toxic
molecules into our lungs. I think of my friend who has already had cancer twice.
She and none of us should be forced to breathe this pollution against our will. It
doesn’t help that the spewers of this filth are not unreachable unchangeable
corporate industries. It might be easier to accept if it was. No, these are 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 US’s biggest polluters. (Don’t believe
their “green” industry label.) It’s like nightmare science fiction that I am now
thousands of miles away and still am forced to smell Proctor and Gamble’s toxic
products in our neighborhood and in the nauseating fumes pouring off people’s
clothes and bodies in every public place. Even walking alone in the woods, I can
smell most people from 100 feet away, with Proctor and Gamble following 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 illogical horror.
It wasn’t until I was sick for several years that I became chemically sensitive
enough to identify as “chemically injured” or having Multiple Chemical
Sensitivities. We’re all injured by exposure to toxic chemicals in patriarchy, but
some of us have had more exposure to pesticides or other toxins and so react
sooner. Many of us who are chemically injured are considered to have an
unnaturally sensitive/strong sense of smell, but in reality, we’re more like people
who live closer to nature. People who surround themselves with toxic scents
have damaged, deficient senses of smell. (I’ve read that people in Viet Nam
could smell US soldiers in the dark from a long distance because of their
toothpaste and other scented products.)
Almost everyone trivializes themselves and others by considering this health
issue merely their own or others’ “personal problem,” calling our reaction to
toxins “allergies.” Allergies have nothing to do with it any more than people with
lung cancer from cigarette smoke are “allergic.” It is simply poison. Ninety-five
percent of the ingredients in scented products are synthesized from
petrochemicals and many, like benzene and toluene, are considered hazardous
waste.
Most women know that factory chemical fumes, gasoline, pesticides, herbicides,
natural gas, carbon monoxide, and tobacco smoke (among others) are
carcinogenic, and that some can kill you outright if you’re exposed to high
enough concentrations. But they often don’t realize that the chemicals they
choose to wear or use in their homes are toxic: perfumes, cosmetics, scented
candles, scented soap, shampoo, hand lotion, toothpaste, “cleaning” products,
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“air fresheners,” hair spray, chemicals to curl or straighten hair, deodorants,

detergents, fabric softeners, disinfectants, etc.
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 constantly, about invading other countries, the safety of
our water and food, pesticides and herbicides, hormones and antibiotics in meat,
GMO and irradiated food, nuclear reactors’ lack of safety, 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.
These products aren’t needed by anyone. Plain unscented soap, baking soda, and
white vinegar are as effective in cleaning our homes, and unscented body-care
products are better for us than scented ones. But the chemical industry is big
business. Through aggressive advertising, we’re taught that we, our clothes, and
our homes aren’t really clean without a strong perfumed odor. Living in a
polluted world has also meant that many people don’t have much sense of smell
left, so the stronger a product smells, the more people are likely to buy it.
The mania for “cleanliness” and selling unnecessary products has meant that
chemists continue to develop new chemicals that are much more persistent than
before and which don’t wear off like previous products. Yet it’s not like any of
these products smell good, no matter how many ads (mostly aimed at women)
try to convince us. They’re disgusting, and their neurotoxins damage nerves and
mucous membranes so that people lose their sense of smell and therefore use
more and more of the poisons — ironically dirtying their homes and bodies while
believing they are clean.
In the last several years, laundry products, especially fabric softeners and anti-
static strips, have become so scented that people become sick from living near
laundromats or even in neighborhoods where people use a lot of them. The
perfumes in these products are so strong that they spread and cling much more
than the milder scents used years ago. In the US, they’re added to printers’ ink,
so we’re exposed to toxins in many magazines, newspapers, mailed
advertisements, and even imprinted plastic grocery bags. No matter how the
manufacturers advertise their products as having a “fresh,” “natural,” “flowery,”
“herbal,” or even “unscented,” these are toxic chemicals and don’t smell natural
at all. Many people find their odor nauseating. But these chemicals have become
so popular that it’s almost impossible to go anywhere public without being
surrounded by people wearing them.
Many ailments which are misdiagnosed as arthritis or migraine headaches are
actually environmentally caused. Those who react first are like the canaries that
miners took into the mines to find out if there was poison gas they couldn’t
smell. We may be the first to suffer the effects of these toxins, but they’re
poisonous to everyone — it’ll just take a while longer for some to use up their
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tolerance and become sick. So please take this seriously, for our health and
yours. If we say something you’re using is sickening to us, please stop using it.
(It can be hard to find unscented products, but the more consumers demand
them, the more there’ll be.)
Chemical injury and exposure to toxic products can cause cancer, headaches,
heart arrhythmia, nausea, migraines, joint pain, brain fog, asthma, depression,
irritability, insomnia, exhaustion, dizziness, confusion, panic attacks, memory
loss, rashes, liver and kidney damage, vomiting, seizures, hormone disruption,
immune suppression, MS-like neurological reactions, pulse and blood pressure
changes, impaired vision and concentration, aggression, loss of muscular
coordination, convulsions, and coma.
There’s no escape, at home or outside. The laundry products’ fumes pour into
our open windows and seep in even when the windows are closed. Going to a
supermarket means being forced to breathe in nauseating stench from shelves of
toxic air “fresheners,” laundry products, and pesticides. But most health food
stores also reek of nasty-smelling scented products, and any open food you buy
also smells and tastes nasty from perfumes and other toxins.
Almost every human stinks of “personal care” products and detergent and fabric
softeners. Then the airborne 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 myself to get the stench off me.)
Why do women who otherwise are very savvy about other patriarchal cons
participate in this? Unless someone has lung or heart problems or has been
chemically injured, 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.
In reality, perfume is as romantic as hazardous waste.
The use of toxic perfumes and cleaners is a female and feminist issue, because
women are the most targeted by advertising, and women are the majority
victims of Chemical Injury. Men also tell women we are dirty. Also, many women
feel contaminated from growing up in patriarchy and from sexual assault, as well
as from voluntary contact with men, 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, showing women looking crazed with ecstasy as their
smell their nasty laundry 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
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can’t even tell until you are home and your sense of smell clears that the product
you just bought is scented.
Another increasing health problem is also caused by people’s choices: burning
wood, garbage, etc. in their fireplaces.16 Burning is the cause of half the winter
air pollution where we live. Most people in this area have adequate heat through
gas or electricity, so they burn for pleasure, ignoring that people are literally
dying. Having friends with asthma and congestive heart failure who are seriously
affected is making me more aware of the damage from burning, but it’s also
affecting the health of everyone, including animals, just as smoking does. When
we can’t prevent most pollution, it’s upsetting that people selfishly choose to
make the air absolutely filthy, against our will.
http://www.ehhi.org/woodsmoke/woodsmoke07.pdf:
Although wood smoke conjures up fond memories of sitting by a cozy
fire, it is important to know that the components of wood smoke and
cigarette smoke are quite similar, and that many components of both are
carcinogenic. Wood smoke contains fine particulate matter, carbon
monoxide, formaldehyde, sulfur dioxide and various irritant gases such
as nitrogen oxides that can scar the lungs. Wood smoke also contains
chemicals known or suspected to be carcinogens, such as polycyclic
aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and dioxin.
Wood smoke interferes with normal lung development in infants and
children. It also increases children’s risk of lower respiratory infections
such as bronchitis and pneumonia.
Wood smoke exposure can depress the immune system and damage the
layer of cells in the lungs that protect and cleanse the airways.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), toxic air pollutants are
components of wood smoke. Wood smoke can cause coughs, headaches, eye,
and throat irritation in otherwise healthy people.
For vulnerable populations, such as people with asthma, chronic
respiratory disease and those with cardiovascular disease, wood smoke
is particularly harmful — even short exposures can prove dangerous.
The particles of wood smoke are extremely small and therefore are not
filtered out by the nose or the upper respiratory system. Instead, these
small particles end up deep in the lungs where they remain for months,
causing structural damage and chemical changes. Wood smoke’s
carcinogenic chemicals adhere to these tiny particles, which enter deep
into the lungs.
Recent studies show that fine particles that go deep into the lungs
increase the risk of heart attacks and strokes. EPA warns that for people
with heart disease, short- term exposures have been linked to heart
attacks and arrhythmias. If you have heart disease, these tiny particles
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may cause you to experience chest pain, palpitations, shortness of

breath, and fatigue.
The particulate matter in wood smoke is so small that windows and
doors cannot keep it out—even the newer energy-efficient weather-tight
homes cannot keep out wood smoke.
The EPA estimates that a single fireplace operating for an hour and
burning 10 pounds of wood will generate 4,300 times more PAHs than
30 cigarettes. PAHs are carcinogenic.
A study by the University of Washington in Seattle showed that 50 to 70
percent of the outdoor levels of wood smoke were entering homes that
were not burning wood. EPA did a similar study in Boise, Idaho, with
similar results.
Saying “No” to an Exclusionary Community

Lesbian 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.
Some say that it can be difficult to make Lesbian communities completely
accessible, 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 understood it was
an addiction. What I don’t understand is why women insist on using these
horrible-smelling products. Even women 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 use
terrible-smelling detergents like Tide, Gain, etc. and fabric softeners like Downy,
they are making neighborhoods everywhere smell like factories. Many women
object to other ways men mark territory, so why accept this?
Then there are women 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 smell like kerosene or disinfectant.
“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. The insistence
on “freedom”is also behind large industries’ fracking, 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.
This is far more than personal — it’s a political issue about accessibility and the
right to unpolluted air.
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With cancer rates increasing, we can’t afford to play games about filling our lives
and homes with carcinogenic products. And for those who say they love animals,
how can they justify subjecting animals who have such sensitive senses of smell
to such foul poisons? 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 save money at the same time.
This isn’t trivial. When people with asthma can’t breathe, they can die. Even if
they “just” have trouble breathing and their lungs become more permanently
damaged, and then they’re forced to use steroids and amphetamines in inhalants
that damage their hearts, isn’t that bad enough? Why is this being ignored for
vanity? 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.) It reminds me of the addictive quality
of plastic surgery. The selfish narcissism of all this is astounding. It’s very much
about obeying male rules of femininity.
Women don’t stop even when beloved women singers tell their audience that
being exposed to perfumes and colognes hurts their voices. Too many women
will coyly announce you shouldn’t hug them if their “fragrance” is a “problem” for
you, but if you remind them their products are damaging the health of everyone
in the room, they usually answer, “I know.” They understand that “no smoking”
sections next to smokers are meaningless, so this shouldn’t be too difficult to
grasp. (One woman who insisted on wearing perfume she knew hurt others, had
actually asked for money for months for her ongoing health problems, never
making the connection). No one should be cavalier about this issue. Several
women I knew who adamantly refused to stop subjecting others to toxic products
are now so chemically injured that they can’t leave their homes.
I know women 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? (I do not advocate women
restricting their lives by giving up their cars and making themselves vulnerable
using public transportation.)
It’s actually not that hard to stop buying toxic products. Women affected by
having asthma or CI or MCS, or who sincerely care for the environment (and
animals they live with) , manage to have completely unscented homes. Do know,
though, when trying to change to safe products, that mainstream detergents
marked “unscented” usually reek horribly. It’s good to follow recommendations
from some of the MCS lists.
We shouldn’t have to choose between being in our Lesbian communities and
protecting our health. Women 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.
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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 the books smell so bad
from being in homes with scented toxins like “air fresheners,” scented candles,
cleaning products, etc. 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, even when unlit.
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 generous friend gave me a shirt
from a Woman conference that she had washed in Tide. We hung it outside in
the sun and rain for a year, and it still stunk horribly.) The bad smell also
transfers to other surfaces (which is why I now always sit on a thermarest pad in
public – that I am regularly harassed about using — 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, we let a visitor sit 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.
No friends’ cars are safe to be in, so I always drive. But when I’ve given rides to
friends who were previously unscented, they often are using a new scented
product. This happens a lot, but the worst was when a friend arrived reeking,
even though we’d arranged I would drive us several hours to a women’s 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 used a new lotion and was only
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 was 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, plus making me increasingly chemically
sensitive. 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 I drive
alone, unless I’m with a trusted friend, and even then, there are often problems.
Everyone is affected by scented toxins that we’re forced to breathe, but most
don’t know it, and they attribute their symptoms to other things. Some of us end
up taking caffeine, pain-killers, or other drugs, which adds to our worsening
health, to make it possible to go out, so we stay a part of the Lesbian community
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we helped create. We always have to weigh whether the risk and the effects are
worth it.
Too many Lesbians prioritize men and other non-Lesbians when being activists,
volunteering, or donating. Consider that ill and disabled Lesbians get much less
support than our oppressors, yet have much less resources. No one else supports
Lesbians so Lesbians need to.
Making our spaces scent- and poison-free is one of the few things that we can do
to make our communities safe and welcoming. No man-made chemicals smell
better than natural Lesbian scent!
Endnotes
1. The Vegetarian Myth, by Lierre Keith, has excellent health information, including explaining
why being vegan for twenty years permanently damaged her health, and why being an ethical
omnivore, who eats pastured, organic meat is better for animal species and the environment
than supporting extensive agriculture. (Most soy is produced by
Monsanto.) http://www.lierrekeith.com/book-ex_the-vegetarian-myth.php
2. http://www.livescience.com/10569-human-lifespans-constant-2-000-years.html
…. The increase in life expectancy between 1907 and 2007 was largely due to a
decreasing infant mortality rate, which was 9.99 percent in 1907; 2.63 percent in
1957; and 0.68 percent in 2007.
But the inclusion of infant mortality rates in calculating life expectancy creates the
mistaken impression that earlier generations died at a young age; Americans were
not dying en masse at the age of 46 in 1907. The fact is that the maximum human
lifespan — a concept often confused with “life expectancy” — has remained more or
less the same for thousands of years. The idea that our ancestors routinely died
young (say, at age 40) has no basis in scientific fact….
Again, the high infant mortality rate skews the “life expectancy” dramatically
downward. If a couple has two children and one of them dies in childbirth while the
other lives to be 90, stating that on average the couple’s children lived to be 45 is
statistically accurate but meaningless. Claiming a low average age of death due to
high infant mortality is not the same as claiming that the average person in that
population will die at that age….
When Socrates died at the age of 70 around 399 B.C., he did not die of old age but instead by
execution. It is ironic that ancient Greeks lived into their 70s and older, while more than 2,000
years later modern Americans aren’t living much longer.
http://www.healthpromoting.com/learning-center/articles/life-expectancy
The popular media often imply that increases in life expectancy are due to the wonders of
modern medicine. This is false. Increases in life expectancy are due almost entirely to a
decrease in the infant mortality rate….
Infant mortality in the US has decreased from more than 100 per 1,000 in 1920 to
10.9 today. During this same time, life expectancy has been said to have increased
from 54 to 74 years.
At first glance it looks like people are living 20 years longer now than in the past. But
this figure is misleading because it is just an average. It could mistakenly lead you to
think that in 1920 most people lived to approximately 54 years of age and that now
they live to approximately 74. This is not the case.
Consider these facts. In 1920 an adult 60 years old could expect to live an average of
16 more years, to about 76. Today an adult 60 years old can expect to live 20 more
years, to about 80. That is only a four-year difference that appears in the life
expectancy figures.
Adults are not living 20 years longer now than they did in 1920. In fact, adults today
live little longer than they did in 1920, which is before the development of the
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powerful modern medications that are often credited with life extension. What has
dramatically improved is our chance of surviving to 60.
Lies and Statistics
Mark Twain proclaimed that, “There are lies, damn lies, and statistics.” Surely he is
not alone in the conclusion that statistics don’t lie, but liars use statistics. The
statistics commonly used to describe “advances” in the area of life expectancy are
misleading, at best.
3. Convention of Former Slaves

http://blog.encyclopediavirginia.org/2012/02/11/conve
ntion-of-former-slaves/
February 11th, 2012 by Brendan Wolfe
IMAGE: Washington, D.C., 1916. “Convention of
former slaves. Annie Parram, age 104; Anna Angales,
age 105; Elizabeth Berkeley, 125; Sadie
Thompson,110.” National Photo Company Collection
glass negative. (Shorpy)
4. http://www.ratical.org/radiation/inetSeries/nwJWG.ht
ml
Dr. Gofman was a Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley (Ph.D.
in nuclear-physical chemistry and an M.D.) who was the first Director of the
Biomedical Research Division of the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory from 1963-65
and one of nine Associate Directors at the Lab from 1963-1969. He was involved in
the Manhattan Project and is a co-discoverer of Uranium-232, Plutonium-232,
Uranium-233, and Plutonium-233, and of slow and fast neutron fissionability of
Uranium-233. He also was a co-inventor of the uranyl acetate and columbium oxide
processes for plutonium separation. He has taught in the radioisotope and
radiobiology fields from the 1950s at least up into the 1980s, and has done research
in radiochemistry, macromolecules, lipoproteins, coronary heart disease,
arteriosclerosis, trace element determination, x-ray spectroscopy, chromosomes and
cancer and radiation hazards. Starting in 1969 he began to challenge the AEC claim
that there was a “safe threshold” of radiation below which no adverse health effects
could be detected.
5. Fibromyalgia is a term for what could be multiple illnesses

http://www.fmcpaware.org/symptoms
6. Lyme disease is an infectious disease caused by the spirochete (spiral shaped bacterium)
known as Borrelia burgdorferi (Bb). Lyme disease is most often spread by ticks, but can
also be transmitted by fleas, mosquitoes, and mites. Evidence has suggested that these small
arachnids and insects don’t actually need to bite you for you to become infected. There is also
evidence that Lyme disease can be spread by a number of other methods, including, like its
spirochete cousin, syphilis, sexually, as well as from mothers to fetuses.
To complicate diagnosis, a second Borellia species was discovered in 2013.
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2014/february/ticks-bay-area-021814.html
www.underourskin.com/
Under Our Skin: The Acclaimed Documentary about the Untold Story of Lyme Disease.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3565243/
In Lyme disease concurrent infections frequently occur. The clinical and pathological
impact of co-infections was first recognized in the 1990th, i.e. approximately ten
years after the discovery of Lyme disease. Their pathological synergism can
exacerbate Lyme disease or induce similar disease manifestations. Co-infecting
agents can be transmitted together with Borrelia burgdorferi by tick bite resulting in
multiple infections but a fraction of co-infections occur independently of tick bite.
Clinically relevant co-infections are caused by Bartonella species, Yersinia
enterocolitica, Chlamydophila pneumoniae, Chlamydia trachomatis, and Mycoplasma
pneumoniae. In contrast to the USA, human granulocytic anaplasmosis (HGA) and
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babesiosis are not of major importance in Europe. Infections caused by these

pathogens in patients not infected by Borrelia burgdorferi can result in clinical
symptoms similar to those occurring in Lyme disease. This applies particularly to
infections caused by Bartonella henselae, Yersinia enterocolitica, and Mycoplasma
pneumoniae.
Chlamydia trachomatis primarily causes polyarthritis. Chlamydophila pneumoniae not
only causes arthritis but also affects the nervous system and the heart, which
rendersthe differential diagnosis difficult. The diagnosis is even more complex when
co-infections occur in association with Lyme disease.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqKaM_J7KDI
NonSpiral Borrelia
Part 1 — Explanation of Shape shifting and Form Metamorphosis of Spirochetes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ojq_2-HlNg
Part II — Cystic Borrelia and Related Topics Including Round Body Infections of the Brain
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrLJLgoNgA4
Why the government won’t allow treatment for Chronic Lyme disease
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYMezkigMWk
Dr Horowitz Lyme Disease and Chronic Illness
7. http://www.philstar.com/health-and-family/2013/04/09/928381/wash-alert-beware-toxic-
detergentshttp://www.smartklean.com/html/the_truth.htmlAn 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 207-549-5358.8. The Vegetarian Myth by Lierre Keith.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/11/04/saturated-fat-intake.aspx
8. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/sep/23/paulbrown
Thousands of South American indians were infected with measles, killing hundreds, in order to
for US scientists to study the effects on primitive societies of natural selection, according to a
book out next month….The book accuses James Neel, the geneticist who headed a long-term
project to study the Yanomami people of Venezuela in the mid-60s, of using a virulent measles
vaccine to spark off an epidemic which killed hundreds and probably thousands….One of the
most controversial aspects of the research which allegedly culminated in the epidemic is that it
was funded by the US atomic energy commission, which was anxious to discover what might
happen to communities when large numbers were wiped out by nuclear war. While there is no
“smoking gun” in the form of texts or recorded speeches by Neel explaining his conduct, Prof
Turner believes the only explanation is that he was trying to test controversial eugenic theories
like the Nazi scientist Josef Mengele….Prof Turner says Neel and his group used a virulent
vaccine called Edmonson B on the Yanomani, which was known to produce symptoms virtually
indistinguishable from cases of measles.
“Medical experts, when informed that Neel and his group used the vaccine in
question on the Yanomami, typically refuse to believe it at first, then say that it is
incredible that they could have done it, and are at a loss to explain why they would
have chosen such an inappropriate and dangerous vaccine,” he writes.
“There is no record that Neel sought any medical advice before applying the vaccine.
He never informed the appropriate organs of the Venezuelan government that his
group was planning to carry out a vaccination campaign, as he was legally required
to do….
“The political implication of this fascistic eugenics is clearly that society should be
reorganised into small breeding isolates in which genetically superior males could
emerge into dominance, eliminating or subordinating the male losers in the
competition for leadership and women, and amassing harems of brood females.” Prof
Turner adds…
In the memo he says: “One of Tierney’s more startling revelations is that the whole
Yanomami project was an outgrowth and continuation of the atomic energy
commission’s secret programme of experiments on human subjects.
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“Neel, the originator of the project, was part of the medical and genetic research
team attached to the atomic energy commission since the days of the Manhattan
Project.”
James Neel was well-known for his research into the effects of radiation on human
subjects and personally headed the team that investigated the effects of the
Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs on survivors and their children.
According to Prof Turner, the same group also secretly carried out experiments on
human subjects in the US. These included injecting people with radioactive plutonium
without their knowledge or permission.
9. http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/books/04/02/lab.257/ From CNN.com: The facility at

Plum Island, now overseen by the Department of Homeland Security.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/10/25/the-deadly-secrets-of-plum-island/
Carroll’s “Lab 257” also documents a Nazi connection to the original establishment of
a US laboratory on Plum Island. According to the book, Erich Traub, a scientist who
worked for the Third Reich doing biological warfare, was the force behind its
founding.
During World War II, “as lab chief of Insel Riemsa secret Nazi biological warfare
laboratory on a crescent-shaped island in the Baltic Sea,Traub worked for Adolf
Hitler’s second-in-charge, SS Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler, on live germ trials,”
states “Lab 257.
The mission was to develop biological warfare to be directed against animals in the
Soviet Union. This included infecting cattle and reindeer with foot-and-mouth
disease.
“Ironically, Traub spent the prewar period of his scientific career on a fellowship at
the Rockefeller Institute in Princeton, New Jersey, perfecting his skills in viruses and
bacteria under the tutelage of American experts before returning to Nazi Germany on
the eve of war,” says “Lab 257.” While in the US in the 1930s, too, relates the book,
Traub was a member of the Amerika-Deutscher Volksbund which was involved in pro-
Nazi rallies held weekly in Yaphank on Long Island.
With the end of the war, Traub came back to the United States under Project
Paperclip, a US program under which Nazi scientists, such as Wernher von Braun,
were brought to America.
“Traub’s detailed explanation of the secret operation on Insel Riems” given to
officials at Fort Detrick in Maryland, the Army’s biological warfare headquarters, and
to the CIA, “laid the groundwater for Fort Detrick’s offshore germ warfare animal
disease lab on Plum Island,” says “Lab 257.” “Traub was a founding father….”
The Long Island daily newspaper Newsday earlier documented this biological warfare
mission of Plum Island. In a lead story on November 21, 1993, Newsday investigative
reporter John McDonald wrote: “A 1950s military plan to cripple the Soviet economy
by killing horses, cattle and swine called for making biological warfare weapons out
of exotic animal diseases at a Plum Island laboratory, now-declassified Army records
reveal.” A facsimile of one of the records, dated 1951, covered the front page of that
issue of Newsday.
The article went on: “Documents and interviews disclose for the first time what officials
have denied for years: that the mysterious and closely guarded animal lab off the
East End of Long Island was originally designed to conduct top-secret research into
replicating dangerous viruses that could be used to destroy enemy livestock.”
“Lab 257” has many pages about this based on documents including many that
Carroll found in the National Archives.
The book also tells of why suddenly the Army transferred Plum Island to the
Department of Agriculture in 1954the US military became concerned about having to
feed millions of people in the Soviet Union if it destroyed their food animals.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff “found that a war with the USS.R. would best be fought with
conventional and nuclear means, and biological warfare against humans not against
food animals,” says “Lab 257.” “Destroying the food supply meant having to feed
millions of starving Russians after winning a war”
Still, “Lab 257” questions whether there ever was a clean break.
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Officials at the Plum Island Animal Disease Center have, however, insisted over the
years that the center’s function is to conduct research into foreign animal diseases
not found in the USespecially foot-and-mouth diseaseand the only biological warfare
research done is of a “defensive” kind.
“Lab 257” also maintains that there is a link between the Plum Island center and the
emergence of Lyme disease. It “suddenly surfaced” 10 miles from Plum Island “in Old Lyme,
Connecticut in 1975.” Carroll cites years of experimentation with ticks on Plum Island and the
possibility of an accidental or purposeful release.
“The tick is the perfect germ vector,” says “Lab 257,” “which is why it has long been fancied as
a germ weapon by early biowarriors from Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan to the Soviet
Union and the United States.”
“A source who worked on Plum Island in the 1950s,” the book states, “recalls that animal
handlers and a scientist released ticks outdoors on the island. ‘They called him the Nazi
scientist, when they came in, in 1951 they were inoculating these ticks.”
“Lab 257” goes on: “Dr. Traub’s World War II handiwork consisted of aerial virus
sprays developed on Insel Riems and tested over occupied Russia, and of field work
for Heinrich Himmler in Turkey. Indeed, his colleagues conducted bug trials by
dropping live beetles from planes. An outdoor tick trial would have been de riguer for
Erich Traub.”
10. The Reactor, May-June 1988, p. 12. From an article by James Coates in the San Francisco
Examiner, 10 April 1988. “Army officials admitted in 1977 that the entire populations of San
Francisco, New York, and Washington, D.C. were subjected to germ warfare tests in the 1950’s
and 1960’s when aerosols of germs were released into the air.”
11.
12. http://www.jneuroinflammation.com/content/8/1/90http://www.spirochaetalalzheimersassocia
tion.org/intro.html
http://lymedisease.org/news/hardscienceonlyme/802.html
The results of Dr. MiKlossy’s review found a statistically significant association
between spirochetes and AD. Spirochetes were observed in the brain in more than
90% of AD cases. Bb was detected in the brain in 25.3% of AD cases analyzed and
was 13 times more frequent in AD compared to controls. Importantly, coinfection
with several spirochetes occurs in AD. – See more at:
http://lymedisease.org/news/hardscienceonlyme/802.html#sthash.xbiY3fwh.dpuf
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15665404
J Alzheimers Dis. 2004 Dec;6(6):639-49; discussion 673-81.
Borrelia burgdorferi persists in the brain in chronic lyme neuroborreliosis and may be
associated with Alzheimer disease.
Miklossy J1, Khalili K, Gern L, Ericson RL, Darekar P, Bolle L, Hurlimann J, Paster BJ.
Author information Abstract
The cause, or causes, of the vast majority of Alzheimer’s disease cases are unknown.
A number of contributing factors have been postulated, including infection. It has
long been known that the spirochete Treponema pallidum, which is the infective
agent for syphilis, can in its late stages cause dementia, chronic inflammation,
cortical atrophy and amyloid deposition. Spirochetes of unidentified types and strains
have previously been observed in the blood, CSF and brain of 14 AD patients tested
and absent in 13 controls. In three of these AD cases spirochetes were grown in a
medium selective for Borrelia burgdorferi. In the present study, the phylogenetic
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analysis of these spirochetes was made. Positive identification of the agent as

Borrelia burgdorferi sensu stricto was based on genetic and molecular analyses.
Borrelia antigens and genes were co-localized with beta-amyloid deposits in these AD
cases. The data indicate that Borrelia burgdorferi may persist in the brain and be
associated with amyloid plaques in AD. They suggest that these spirochetes, perhaps
in an analogous fashion to Treponema pallidum, may contribute to dementia, cortical
atrophy and amyloid deposition. Further in vitro and in vivo studies may bring more
insight into the potential role of spirochetes in AD.
http://blog.lef.org/2013/12/is-alzheimers-caused-by-infection.html
Amyloid-beta Protein has Antibacterial Properties
Scientists have discovered that amyloid-beta protein has anti-bacterial properties,
indicating that its production may be an adaptive response to infectious organisms,
like invading spirochetes.3,4
The whole process may work something like this:
Damaged brain cells produce amyloid-beta protein as an adaptive response to the
infection.
Amyloid-beta deposits grow and begin to affect brain cell connections and
communication highways.
With damaged connections and communication highways, dementia symptoms begin
and gradually worsen.
Spirochetes invade and infect the brain.
The brain’s normal defenses become dysfunctional as the macrophages (microglia)
become trapped and then attacked within the core of the spirochete plaque.
With immune dysfunction setting in, the spirochete infection intensifies involving
more and more brain cells.
http://www.spirochaetalalzheimersassociation.org/viduos.html
13. http:// www.researchgate.net/publication/8067017_Borrelia_burgdorferi_persists_in_thbrain
_in_chronic_lyme_neuroborreliosis_and_may_be_associated_with_Alzheimer_disease
14. http://www.aidsorigins.com/origins-aids-pandemic
Ed Hooper: Since the publication of the revised paperback version of The River in
2000, I have continued my research and, as I have long been intimating on this web-
site, I can now demonstrate (a) that the experimental OPV made in Stanleyville,
Belgian Congo in the late 1950s was indeed prepared in the cells of common
chimpanzees of the Pan troglodytes species, and (b) that the chimps involved in
these experimental procedures included many chimpanzees from the Pan troglodytes
troglodytes subspecies, including those that come from the very area of west central
Africa which members of the bushmeat group insist is the source of pandemic AIDS.
– See more at: http://www.aidsorigins.com/more-supportive-opvaids-bushmeat-hypothesis-
revised-response-recent-faria-paper-science#sthash.GvBYMycx.dpuf
The former finding is hugely important, proving that the central tenet of the
hypothesis proposed in The River was correct. The vaccine-makers continue to insist
that they never used chimpanzee cells for the vaccine, but I and others have proved
otherwise. (Some of the evidence for this was broadcast in the prize-winning 2003
documentary, “The Origins of AIDS”, but there is considerably more evidence that
has not been published to date.) This confirms that the word of the vaccine-makers
cannot be relied upon for any of the history relating to these trials. – See more at:
http://www.aidsorigins.com/more-supportive-opvaids-bushmeat-hypothesis-revised-response-
recent-faria-paper-science#sthash.GvBYMycx.dpuf
By contrast, the oral polio vaccine (OPV) theory proposes that an experimental OPV that had
been locally prepared in chimpanzee cells and administered by mouth, or “fed”, to nearly one
million Africans in vaccine trials staged in the then Belgian-ruled territories of the Belgian
Congo and Ruanda-Urundi between 1957 and 1960, represents the origin of the AIDS
pandemic. It provides a historically-supported background: that between 1956 and 1959 over
500 common chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii and Pan troglodytes troglodytes)
and bonobos or pygmy chimpanzees (Pan paniscus) were housed together at Lindi Camp (near
Stanleyville in the Belgian Congo, now Kisangani in the Democratic Republic of Congo, or DRC).
It proposes that in the Laboratoire Medical de Stanleyville (LMS) the kidney cells and sera of
these different chimpanzee species and subspecies were used to prepare batches of CHAT
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vaccine, but that the fact that the vaccine was locally prepared was concealed by the scientists
involved, and has been covered up ever since. (In the 1950s, in most countries around the
world the kidney cells of Asian macaques were used for polio vaccine preparation. The use of
chimpanzee cells and sera for vaccine preparation was a unique development, but it did not
conflict with the 1950s recommendations of the WHO, which were that any suitable primate
species could be used to produce polio vaccines.) Of particular importance is the fact that the
different species and subspecies of chimpanzee were placed two to a cage at Lindi Camp, to
encourage the more nervous pygmy chimps to learn to eat like the common chimps, and that
there was a play-cage where up to 10 chimps at a time were placed. Thus there was every
opportunity for the onward transmission of viruses like SIVs, through fighting, scratching, the
licking of wounds, or coprophagia, the eating of faeces. One of the major vaccination
campaigns with the experimental OPV (a version of CHAT vaccine, developed by Hilary
Koprowski), was staged in the Belgian Congo capital of Leopoldville in 1958-60, and involved
all the city’s children aged up to five years.
However, there is evidence that at least some African adults were also vaccinated in
the capital, just as some 170,000 African adults were vaccinated elsewhere in the
Belgian Congo and Ruanda-Urundi. Nearly forty years passed before it was confirmed
by genetic sequencing that the first two cases of HIV-1 infection found in the world
had occurred in the Belgian Congo – in fact both isolates came from Leopoldville, in
1959 and 1960. [To give some perspective, these two isolates are sixteen and
seventeen years earlier than the next earliest isolate of HIV-1(M), which also came
from the DRC, and roughly two decades earlier than any HIV-1 isolate from outside
the DRC.] The correlation between the feedings of experimental CHAT vaccine in
Africa and the first outbreaks of HIV infection and AIDS in the world (which occurred
in the same towns and villages a few years later) is “highly significant” in statistical
terms. The OPV theory ascribes the minor outbreaks of AIDS caused by other
variants of HIV-1 (Group O, Group N and the more controversial “Group P”) to other
polio vaccines (both oral and injected) that were prepared in the cells of
chimpanzees and administered in French Equatorial Africa (including Congo
Brazzaville and Gabon) in the same late fifties period. It ascribes the outbreaks of
AIDS from HIV-2 (of which it maintains that only two were epidemic outbreaks) to
other polio vaccines (both oral and injected) that were prepared in the cells of sooty
mangabeys (or other monkeys that had been caged with sooty mangabeys) and
administered in French West Africa in 1956-60. All the other HIV-2 groups that are
claimed by the bushmeat theorists have infected just a single person, and some OPV
theory supporters argue that dead-end, non-transmissible infections such as these
are the natural fate of SIVs that infect human beings via the bushmeat route: that
unless they are introduced in an artificial manner (as via a vaccine), they simply die
out.
The above synopsis includes the detail that the use of chimpanzees to make these
experimental polio vaccines was kept secret. The OPV theory proposes that the main
reason for such secrecy back in the 1950s was that the killing of hundreds of the
closest relatives to man (chimpanzees) to produce human vaccines was even then
highly controversial, especially when it was being done in a country (the Belgian
Congo) where the Belgian royal family had pioneered the conservation and protection
of wild animals. Clearly the use of chimpanzee cells involved great potential risks
(that humans might acquire a latent virus from their closest primate cousins) and
great potential benefits (if the method produced an effective vaccine, then this
technique might end up making the vaccine developers a great deal of money). The
reason for the ongoing secrecy today is almost certainly the concern in “high places”
that if the OPV theory should ever come to be proved, it would fundamentally shake
public confidence in the integrity and reliability of the medical establishment,
possibly leading to class action law-suits involving billions of dollars. It would also
very likely undermine the future use of developing countries as a testing site for
experimental vaccines.
– See more at: http://www.aidsorigins.com/origins-aids-pandemic#sthash.5DiB5eQs.dpu
And then the polio vaccine the CDC admits causes cancer:
http://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/it-only-took-50-years-cdc-admits-polio-vaccine-
tainted-with-cancer-causing-virus/
15. Multiple Chemical Sensitivity – MCS
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http://www.davidsuzuki.org/blogs/queen-of-green/2011/05/be-sensitive-to-those-with-
environmental-sensitivities/
http://www.eastbaymeditation.org/accessibility/fragrancefree.html
Personal stories about life with chemical illness.
http://www.herc.org/wall/
www.getipm.com/personal/mcs-campbell.htm
http://www.mcs-america.org
http://mcs-america.org/fragrancefacts.pdf
http://www.getawhiffofthis.com/
MCS: The New Homeless « THE CHEMICAL EDGE
16. Toxins in woodsmoke:www.takebacktheair.com
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Part 2 - Worker, Heal Yourself

by Linda Strega
The privileged classes have flooded the media for decades with advice on how to
be healthy and how to get well if you’re sick. A common message is “You create
your own reality” and so your illness is your own fault. Or maybe you’re not sick
at all — you only think you are, or you’re faking — especially if you have an
illness that no one is able to diagnose or cure. These messages permeate US
culture and health care, and they are deadly to oppressed people.
When we’re sick, especially if we have an undiagnosed illness, we go to doctors
and “alternative healers” who take our money to tell us that we aren’t really sick,
or that we’re making ourselves sick by wrong thinking, or that we just aren’t
trying hard enough. (That is, if we even have any money to see them with.) Our
money goes to pay for their new cars, houses, health club dues, gourmet food,
and world travel, while we go home on the bus or in our old broken down cars to
figure out how to make do with $200 or $300 less that month because we had to
pay the “healer.” Wait! Who did they say was creating this reality?
We still have the old problems of doctors who prescribe harmful drugs and do
unnecessary or botched surgery, but those of us who know to be very careful
about choosing and trusting medical doctors sometimes, in desperation, place
hope in alternative health care providers who harm us in other ways. Some are
excellent healers, competent and caring. But many alternative healers have their
own ways of avoiding difficult diagnoses or illnesses which don’t respond to their
treatments — they blame the sick person for negative thinking or not trying hard
enough, or they recommend psychotherapy.
Instead of openly calling their patient a hypochondriac, neurotic, or hysterical, as
doctors often do, they dress up their accusations in pseudo-psychological
“psychic” terms. “You need to examine what benefits you’re getting from this
illness, and why you don’t want to heal,” “The words you use are making you
sick,” “You must have a spiritual problem,” or “You’re sick because you’re angry.”
Many alternative healers, including Lesbian ones, subject their clients to Lesbian-
hating, fat oppression, racism, and ageism as well as this routine classism and
ableism, just as many M.D.’s do.
What the media and medics say wouldn’t damage us nearly as much if other
Lesbians weren’t believing them and telling us the same mind-fucks. I hope this
article will be useful to Lesbians and other women who, like me, are chronically ill
and unable to work steadily at full-time jobs, or unable to work at all. It’s about
struggling with the combined effects of illness and low income, plus ableism and
work ethic guilt coming at us from able-bodied people, including other Lesbians.
I’m writing to share support with others in my situation, not to convince skeptical
readers. I’m not writing for anyone who believes that “we create our own
reality,” or who believes that not being in the het work world or not being a
professional (lawyer, doctor, professor, corporate manager, etc.) is a sign of
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personal failure. Anything read through the filter of those ideas will be distorted
and used against us low-income, non-professional Lesbians with chronic illness.
I have what has been called Chronic Fatigue Immune Dysfunction (CFIDS), also
called Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) outside the U.S. It is one of the mystery
illnesses which affect millions of people, most of them female. The causes are
said to be unknown and the illness has been debated among medical scientists,
denied by many doctors, and ridiculed in the media. Some people’s symptoms
have improved, but so far no one has reported complete recovery. Symptoms
resemble those of mild to severe flu: chronic intermittent fever, aching body,
constant debilitating fatigue, difficulty concentrating, joint pains, headaches, sore
throat, and swollen glands. Some people have only some of these symptoms,
while others have these and more. People with other chronic illnesses and with
both visible and invisible disabilities also face denial and blaming.
The Rich Visualize — We Do the Work

Healthy Lesbians, like other people, are so scared of illness and the isolation,
suffering, stigma, and poverty that usually go with it, that most would rather
believe we aren’t really sick, or that we make ourselves sick, or allow ourselves
to stay sick, or just aren’t doing the right things to make ourselves well—
anything to convince themselves that it couldn’t happen to them. They don’t care
about the harm their attitude does to us, or that they are adding to the very
stigma and isolation they fear for themselves.
People who believe that we create our own reality believe this not only about
health, but about every other aspect of life. To put this madness into some
perspective, consider the following: A downwardly mobile daughter of rich
parents told me that visualizing what you want works, really works. She knew,
because after visualizing a trip to China for several weeks, she got a phone call
from her extremely rich grandmother, inviting her to go to China with her.
Amazing, isn’t it? These are indeed useful techniques for the privileged. If you’re
the beloved daughter of a rich family and you want something expensive, by all
means visualize, let them know what you want, and get ready for a good time.
But for the rest of us, face it, this is not the path to fulfillment.
Affirmations and visualizations do work, as a way of focusing energy, making
plans, and building confidence. They have to be acted on, supported with
material means, and done in a social context. Oppressed people have been using
them for centuries, which is why revolutionary activity continues everywhere.
Affirmations and visualizations were the first steps in creating labor unions, and
all liberation movements, including radical Lesbian movements and Dyke
Separatism. We just don’t go around blathering about it in trendy jargon.
Individual solutions only work for those with privilege, because privilege buys
them protection, comfort, and pleasure (at least temporarily). It also buys them
the illusion that, “We create the world with our beliefs.” That’s precisely what
ruling class patriarchy would like us to believe: that poor people create poverty
and illness, racially oppressed people create racism and their own genocide,
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females of all ages invite rape, little girls cause their male relatives to assault
them, Lesbians create Lesbian-hating. It follows then that oppressed people
deserve no better than what we get. As long as the victim is blamed, the
perpetrators of violence and injustice are safe to continue their destruction. And
those with the unearned comforts of privilege get to feel superior, believing that
their well-being is a sign of their virtue or supposed “hard work,” thanks to the
propaganda of dominant US culture. Even less privileged people who happen to
be healthy at present can feel superior to sick people who can’t work at all,
because of the merciless US work ethic.
Unless they are unusually aware and conscientious, the heirs of privilege lull
themselves with affirmations. They imagine that the universe needs only to be
furnished with a mental pattern of their desires and, out of thin air, all goodies
will shower down upon them. They don’t want to notice that as they dream,
millions of working people all over the world are wearing out their lives
manufacturing the goodies, providing the services, cleaning up after, and often
doing without basic necessities of life. Millions of people are just scraping by with
or without jobs, millions are dying of hunger and illness, not because of natural
disasters, not because they think negative thoughts, but because of male
capitalist rule.
What do we visualize for ourselves? Freedom from oppression, and we already
know that won’t come out of thin air, any more than anything else in our lives
does.
Sometimes oppressed people believe the propaganda of the rich and powerful,
because we’ve internalized shame and self-hatred, or because it’s so painful to
face the enormity of the injustice that’s done to us, or because it gives us illusory
hope. Sometimes it seems easier to blame ourselves than to put the blame
where it belongs and fight back. It’s also very difficult to accept that there are
some things we don’t have total control over.
You Must Be Doing Something Wrong

When people believe that we create our own reality, they say many cruel things.
One Lesbian told me, “Some people get addicted to their illness.” When you’ve
been sick for a long time and have had to reshape your life because of illness, a
statement like that really hurts. Being sick when you’re poor or working class
doesn’t relieve you of work, responsibilities, or anxieties. It adds to them. What’s
the reward she imagined we get? I have no doubt whatsoever that I’d rather be
well, and in fact I follow disciplined health practices that would overwhelm most
healthy people, to stay functioning and to try to regain my health.
Most healthy Lesbians overlook the enormous efforts I make to improve my
health and to simply function at all. Through the years, I’ve seen more than
enough doctors, acupuncturists, homeopaths, and other “natural healers.” I’ve
read countless books about nutrition, herbs, and homeopathy, all of which I use
regularly. I do Yoga or Qi Gong every day and take walks when I’m able, and I’m
more careful than I ever dreamed possible about eating the most nutritious
foods. I use herbs and supplements. I try to get adequate rest and sleep while
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dealing with chronic insomnia. I meditate and, yes, I visualize. I stay in touch
with my feelings and find positive ways to express them; I pay attention to
messages from my body; I’ve never smoked, and don’t use addictive substances,
not even coffee, tea or sugar. I guard against exposure to toxic chemicals the
best I can.
All these efforts keep me functioning. But I’m still sick. Sometimes I get sicker
because of toxic exposure or other stresses that are beyond my control. Because
I haven’t recovered, some Lesbians assume I’m not doing much to help myself.
At this point, I’ve taken so much responsibility for my own health that it’s too
easy to blame myself for “failing.” I don’t need other people pushing me to
blame myself. Even if I wasn’t doing so much to heal myself, no one should
blame anyone for being sick or for not getting well. That adds to our stress, and
stress makes any illness worse.
“You Don’t Look Sick”

Other Lesbians’ not believing that I’m really ill has been a major problem.
Friends and other ill Lesbians recognize the ups and downs of my physical
condition even when I don’t say anything about it. But there are certain Lesbians
who insist that I don’t look sick, that I must just be depressed, that I’d feel fine if
I went out more. Logic doesn’t work with those who are determined to
disbelieve. I’ve been told, “I’d be sick too if I sat home all day.” I don’t “sit home
all day,” although illness prevents me from being as active as I’d like. But when I
am seen at an event, that is used as “proof” that I’m not really sick.
It’s a relief when Lesbians take my word for it that I’m sick, as my closest friends
have. I know someone cares when she doesn’t expect me to push myself to the
point of collapse to keep up with her. I understand being confused at first, when
a healthy Lesbian sees me socializing, or at a meeting, or grocery shopping, and
thinks I can’t really be very sick. I don’t mind explaining about how seldom I can
do those things, or about the hours of rest and sleep that precede and follow
those activities, how I still always feel sick even when I’m apparently functioning
for a short while as a healthy person, and how I pay with increased illness for
exertions she can take for granted. But I don’t want to explain it to the same
person over and over, and still have her doubt my honesty or sanity.
Some Lesbians tell me, “I don’t feel good either, but I just ignore it,” or, “Well,
nobody really feels good, you know. Maybe you’re just hypersensitive about it.”
Each of their days is filled with more activities than I could manage in a week, so
I know that even if their health isn’t ideal, they’re not sick in the way I am. In
fact, when these same Lesbians get temporarily sick with similar symptoms as
mine (like when they have the flu), they’re completely incapacitated. I get sicker
very fast when I have to push my activity level beyond a certain point, and I
know of Lesbians with CFIDS/ME who have ended up in the hospital because
they were forced to continue working beyond their capacity. We shouldn’t have
to be that severely ill before we’re believed. Even then, a lot of people seem to
think the illness is psychologically caused. It’s cruel.
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Some Lesbians believe the propaganda that we’re just depressed. Depression is
indeed listed as one of the symptoms of CFIDS/ME. It’s a challenge to avoid
depression when we’re treated the way we are and suffer so many losses—jobs,
a livable income, homes, friends, social life, social acceptability, independence,
energy, favorite activities–but the illness and its symptoms are not caused by
depression. I don’t even think that having CFIDS/ME in itself necessarily leads to
depression. I know healthy Lesbians who are far more often depressed or
otherwise unhappy than I am.
The fact that a number of people with this illness have killed themselves does not
mean CFIDS/ME is actually just depression. Everyone with CFIDS/ME who’s told
me she considered suicide said she felt despair because of the way she was
disbelieved, scorned, and denied physical and financial support.
“You don’t look sick.” I’ve sensed different motives for people saying that. I think
some Lesbians are trying to reassure us, hoping we’re not as sick as we feel.
More often it means they don’t believe us. It’s not helpful, because facing the
realities of being sick is frightening, and we often have to struggle against our
own tendencies to deny that we’re sick. We don’t need other Lesbians to push us
to deny being sick, because when we do, we end up trying to be as active as a
healthy person and neglecting our healing practices, and that makes us
dangerously sicker. It probably is confusing for healthy Lesbians who haven’t
been around someone who’s chronically ill. Illness doesn’t always show. For
instance, many people with cancer don’t “look sick.” Should we shut up until we
collapse?
When you’re chronically ill, you learn to hide it as best you can. It’s a way of
trying to be more acceptable and also a way to try and forget for a little while.
(Most of us get a lot of practice trying to pass as healthy when we have to
continue working for years while seriously ill.) Lesbians should also be aware that
some other disabilities don’t show either, and that denial and passing as able -
bodied can also be difficult issues for some disabled Lesbians who aren’t ill. And,
of course, it’s possible to have both visible and invisible disabilities; for instance,
a Lesbian with limited mobility might also have CFIDS/ME and Chemical Injury.
The Boss Says “Get Back To Work!”

Then there are the Lesbians who ask, “Have you tried working it off?” That’s the
kind of question that leaves me temporarily speechless. What choice do we have
but to keep on working until we absolutely can’t, and then just keeping our lives
together becomes a full-time job. The “working it off” question came up so often,
and being unable to work is such a painful issue for me, it forced me to think
about it more deeply.
I am haunted by the image of the malingerer, the person who’s sick or pretends
to be sick or just won’t get well simply because they’re “lazy” and don’t want to
work. Or rather, other people haunt me with that image which they project onto
me. Where does it come from, I’ve wondered? Can’t they see how hard I’ve
always pushed myself, how much I do in spite of being sick? But the malingerer
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is an imperialist capitalist lie made up by bosses and rulers and drummed into us
from nursery school. The “malingerer” is the worker who won’t work, the soldier
who won’t fight, because they’re supposedly pretending to be sick.
The indoctrination starts when the school child doesn’t want to go to school,
because she’s sick. Ah, but “Is she really sick?” they ask. She must be taught
that unless she’s at death’s door, and possibly even then, she must go to school,
just as later in life she must go to work. I grew up in a factory town, and these
teachings weren’t even disguised. “You’ll never hold down a job if you stay home
every time you feel sick,” is what we were told. Schools are the places to train
future workers, soldiers, and bosses, and all learn about the evil “malingerer”.
We don’t learn that school, jobs, and being in the military can in themselves
make us sick. In fact, we’re taught that they are good for us, and that only a
bad, lazy person would try to avoid them. (Obviously, being in the military can
also make you dead, or disabled from physical injury. But lifelong illness, such as
Gulf War Syndrome, is a common result and seldom acknowledged as legitimate
by authorities.) Yes, it’s sometimes important to be able to keep going no matter
what, but no one should be forced to live that way all the time for someone
else’s profit and power. And if the ruling class thinks these are such fine values,
why don’t they live by them?
Nowadays I give myself advice that only another poor or working-class renegade
could give me. A major breakthrough for me was realizing that my training and
identity as “worker” was mostly an identity as “worker for somebody else.” I
developed many strengths to cope with the demands and stresses of being a
worker for others, but I also acquired deep-seated habits that drained my energy
and self-esteem. Those habits are constantly reinforced and encouraged by the
het world and also by many Lesbians, especially class-privileged and upwardly-
mobile Lesbians. It has taken me a long time to realize that many middle-class
and upper-class Lesbians have internalized the identity of “boss,” because I
didn’t want to believe it. Now I know I have to believe it, for my own protection.
I was such a good, well-trained worker that even when I was alone, doing my
own work, I felt compelled to do everything quickly and efficiently, ignoring my
body’s pleas to stop for rest, food, and water — just like at a job. It wasn’t my
natural pace at all. I now try to slow myself down and care for my body, so that
when I have a “good” day I don’t drive myself non-stop and then drop into bed
sicker than ever.
I was raised to believe that everyone else’s time was more valuable than mine.
Being sick reinforced this belief, which was unconscious by then. Even now that I
know better, it’s hard not to defer to Lesbians who have full-time jobs. My
impulse is to consider their schedules, needs, and desires more important than
mine. As a friend, I gladly make allowances for their limited amount of free time,
and I’m genuinely sympathetic about the stresses and fatigue caused by their
jobs. What’s been painful to recognize is that some well Lesbians don’t
reciprocate by making allowances for my limited stamina and for the stresses
and fatigue caused by illness.
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Some act as if I’m on a long vacation, resent my ability to sleep late when I need
to, and expect me to do as much as healthy Lesbians at social and political
events. They don’t think about what it’s like to always feel as if you have the flu,
to have an illness that forces you to sleep 10 to 12 hours a night or keeps you
awake with insomnia night after night. They don’t think about what it’s like not
having the money, acceptability, and (for some) health insurance benefits of a
regular job, or how it feels to work organizing an event and then have to skip the
after-meeting party because you’re too sick. I don’t want to be scapegoated for
other Lesbians’ anger at having to work for others. I don’t think they should have
to work at jobs either. Patriarchy and capitalism — namely, powerful and
unscrupulous men — are responsible for workers’ oppression, not sick Lesbians
who are unable to work.
The most cruel things have been said to me by class-privileged or upwardly -
mobile Lesbians with professional or semi-professional jobs. One, who was proud
of her job and liked it, told me she had “a hard time with Lesbians who don’t
work.” She felt resentful of Lesbians who lived on Social Security disability
benefits, unless they were visibly disabled. She thought of them when she saw
how high her Social Security taxes were, and it made her angry. She didn’t say a
word about how much of her income taxes go to the enormous US military
budget. Why does she choose to think of Lesbians with hidden disabilities or
illness as thieves of her money? And why does she not acknowledge that her
income after taxes is enough to live luxuriously, unlike anyone on disability
income?
Being face-to-face with thrift store clothed, ill Lesbians who still have
revolutionary ideals apparently triggers deep reactionary reflexes. Something
odd is going on when, during one conversation, you feel yourself shrinking, your
clothes suddenly feel old and shabby instead of just broken in and comfortable,
and your ignorance about expensive electronic gadgets makes you feel inferior.
Most likely the person you’re talking with is feeling and acting smug and
superior. For those who invest their self-image and the major energies of their
lives in the security and status of acceptable, good-paying jobs or professions,
we embody some of their worst fears — being poor and unable to work, and
having no job identity to prove our worth. They seem to be thinking, “I’m not like
her. I’m not like her, I’m not like her.” Meaning, “That can never happen to me.”
In fact, the same Lesbian who resented sick Lesbians on disability income used
to say, “That’s not going to happen to me — I have health insurance.”
Actually, given the same circumstances of class oppression and/or other
oppressions, and illness, it would happen to her too. It could still happen to her.
Anyone can get chronically ill, and in the US, if you’re not rich, poverty soon
follows. It doesn’t feel good being less important to someone than their fears,
their need to feel superior and safe. But the real struggle is to avoid internalizing
their destructive attitudes.
As for jobs, I think Lesbians should have as much money, status, and power as
conscience and circumstances allow. Professions and certain jobs buy Lesbians
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some of those things and give them the opportunity to help other Lesbians with
less privileges. But we’re not failures in life, nor burdens on society, for not
having a job or profession –nor is any Lesbian, able-bodied or not, who gives up
the security of steady jobs for the risky but relatively independent life of part
time low-paid self-employment. That takes courage and shows sound values.
Like many of us knew decades ago, working at jobs and professions that keep
the capitalist het world prosperous and functioning is a necessary evil at best.
Lesbians without jobs don’t get the money or acceptability of being an employed
worker; however, we can rejoice in the fact that we’re not contributing our labor,
attention, and good ideas to any patriarchal institutions.
As a Lesbian Separatist who’s worked at jobs while relatively healthy and also
while increasingly sick, and who at present cannot work, my experiences have
given me insights I would otherwise have missed. I value the insights of Lesbians
who experience life from outside acceptable boundaries. We’re all outsiders to
the degree that we identify openly as Lesbians. In addition, those of us who
cannot or will not buy pieces of acceptability from the het world have a chance to
sharpen our perceptions. It’s either sharpen them or be overwhelmed by
negative propaganda. That gives us a lot to share with each other and with any
other Lesbians who want to know what we have learned.
Working For Ourselves

I have dear Separatist friends of every class who have acceptable jobs yet still
value my life and work and don’t retreat into acting superior. So I know it’s
possible. My friends have the courage to face their own vulnerability, they love
and empathize with other Lesbians, and are committed to bridging differences
among Lesbians. Lesbians I meet who don’t have those qualities tend to drift, or
hurry, into more privileged lives, a sad and unnecessary loss all around. Ableist
attitudes serve patriarchy and capitalism, not us. We didn’t invent them. We
learned them, and we can unlearn them.
In the early years of my illness, I still hoped to get well. At the same time, I had
to be prepared for the possibility that this could be a lifelong illness and that it
had caused permanent damage to my nervous system and/or internal organs.
This isn’t negative thinking or “making it happen.” The material world is real. If a
truck runs over us, we get broken bones. When toxic chemicals and radioactive
pollutants assault our bodies our bodies are injured. And if we’re under stress
because of oppression, and experiencing environmental racism and classism,
unsafe homes and neighborhoods, lack of transportation, lack of jobs or low paid
and unsafe jobs, overwork, homelessness (even while working), lack of access to
nutritious food or decent health care, we’re more likely to get sick and stay sick
from toxins and harmful microbes.
It’s especially cruel to blame an oppressed person for being sick. That’s blaming
her for her own oppression instead of fighting to end it, and adds another load of
stress onto an already overburdened body and mind. All the Lesbians I’ve known
of who died young because of illness were oppressed in ways that caused their
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illness and prevented recovery. They loved life and fought for it, and were
murdered by patriarchy.
I would never have chosen to be sick, and I would rather have the option of
choosing how to get my income. I want to be given credit for using the
experience well, for being more valuable to Lesbians than I am to patriarchy, and
for having something important and true to say — something no man is going to
pay me to say. I am now a worker for myself and for other Lesbians — a builder
for a Lesbian-inspired future.
Endnotes
I am thankful to all the ill and disabled Lesbians who have shared valuable information, fought for
recognition, and eased our isolation through writings, workshops, forums, and support groups.
This chapter is written completely from my own and friends’ experiences, but I hope in spite of this
limitation it will be supportive to all Lesbians with disabilities or differences, healthy or ill, and to all
poor and working-class Lesbians of every ethnicity and age.
My particular background is that of an Italian-descent factory workers’ daughter, trained in catholic
schools during the 1940’s and 1950’s to be an office clerk. I did office work for several years after
high school, then worked my way through college, did social work for two years to the point of
physical collapse, and returned to office work. After becoming a Lesbian in 1972, I did part-time
housecleaning and gardening until I became unable to work at all due to illness. I was sick with
nausea and weakness throughout most of my school and working years. In that respect, I can
honestly say I “tried to work it off” for more than 25 years.
December, 2014 Update
Now, at 73 years old, I’ve been chronically sick for over 32 years, and I’ve survived two very
invasive kinds of cancer: clear cell adenocarcinoma of the uterus in 1993 and an unrelated neuro-
endocrine colon cancer in 2002. As frightening and horrible an ordeal it was to have cancer, at
least no one doubted that I was truly sick, and I received enormous support from Lesbian friends
and community. With that loving support, surgery (no chemotherapy or radiation), much effort on
my part, plus the unknown factors we call luck, I am still alive. It’s a medical mystery how I could
recover from those cancers, yet not be able to recover from CFIDS/ME or Chemical Injury/EI/MCS.
(I didn’t mention being “chemically sensitive” in 1990, because those symptoms were milder at
that time. They became worse as time went on.)
Meanwhile, not only are cancer rates higher than ever because of increasing pollution by toxic
chemicals, heavy metals, radioactivity (including medical treatments and over-use in medical
tests), and wireless technology, but more and more people are chronically ill, often from childhood
on. The spread of Lyme disease, often undiagnosed, is also adding to the numbers of chronically ill
people. Thanks to the internet, there is some information and support online for those who can
afford internet access and are not too electrically sensitive to use it. But the problems of disbelief,
social isolation, poverty, poor health care, and lack of support I wrote about in 1990 still exist. For
many disabled people, conditions have become even worse.
The following is an excerpt from an article I wrote called “Lives Worth Fighting For,” published in
Rain and Thunder in their Spring 2011 issue. The article protests government cuts to in-home
care for disabled people. These cuts force many into corporate-run profit driven nursing homes,
even though it costs much less to pay attendants to provide better care in people’s own homes. I
am adding this excerpt here because it names root causes of the ableist attitudes I wrote about 25
years ago in Dykes-Loving-Dykes.
Who Is Really a Drain on Society?
Everyone is dependent on other people, but privileged people are dependent way beyond their
share. The ones with the most power, like the global corporate tyrants, are completely dependent
on exploiting those of us who are poor and working class, female, racially oppressed, and/or
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undocumented. They hide this by reversing reality, scapegoating us by saying we are drains on
society, accusing us of being lazy, greedy, untrustworthy and criminal. They also scapegoat those
of us who are disabled, defining us as useless, miserable and not fit to live. They portray all of us
as dehumanized things to be used and discarded.
We know that the global tyrants who run powerful corporations and governments do not expect to
justify their existence or to worry that the cost of supporting their lives is a burden on society, no
matter how much suffering and death they and their collaborators inflict on the rest of us and on
the entire planet, and no matter how much they waste the money they steal. And they obviously
do not worry about whether they contribute anything to other people’s well being.
By contrast to the global tyrants, all of the disabled Lesbians and women I’ve met contribute a lot
to their communities and to the world. They are community organizers, friends, activists, writers,
poets, educators and counselors, most often unpaid. Many are caregivers to lovers and friends who
are more disabled than themselves. Even if someone cannot do any of these things, we still have
the right to live. No one has the right to decide what the value of any disabled person’s life is,
other than she herself. And I don’t know of anyone receiving In Home Support Services or other
social services who instigates war, tortures people, assassinates democratically elected leaders,
runs an industrial prison complex, disenfranchises voters, destroys labor unions, or creates
massive environmental destruction and poisons people all over the world.
Our lives are precious. We are not here to be exploited, scapegoated or condemned to die. We are
here to experience life, to love, to explore our potentials, to adventure outward and inward, to
pursue happiness, and to meet the challenges of life that all people face, whether we are able
bodied at the moment or whether we are disabled. Our lives are precious, and they are worth
fighting for.
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Chapter Ten
Chapter Ten
If Looks Could Kill - Looksism: The Most Personal Oppression

by Bev Jo
Men teach us that there are intrinsic standards of beauty (“aesthetics”) that
apply to people, but these standards are political and manipulated, and aren’t an
innate part of ourselves. If we don’t think them through, we’ll just accept them
and think they come from inside us.
Patriarchy couldn’t exist without a complicated network of lies that are made to
feel so familiar that they’re taken for granted as the truth. When you believe
those lies, you believe in patriarchy. When you support those lies, you support
the rule of male over female and the rule of the more privileged over those they
oppress. But when you decide to question and reject patriarchal beliefs, you
challenge patriarchy at its core.
In order to improve our lives and to even survive, we must challenge every lie
we’re taught. Changing the basis of what you’re taught to believe is
“natural” or “unnatural,” “normal” or “abnormal,” “beautiful” or “ugly,”
changes everything. Recognizing patriarchal cons as universal, rather than our
own personal problem, is Radical Feminist. We don’t just accept other lies we are
taught, like that sado-masochistic feelings are innate and inevitable – we say no
to them.
Fear of being oppressed by being called “ugly” is part of what motivates many
women to be looksist by “othering” and marginalizing women with the least looks
privilege. Yet, what if we could create more camaraderie and empathy among us,
instead of the usual competition? We are all in this together — all women are
vulnerable to looksism. Unlike most of the other issues that divide women, no
woman is guaranteed looks privilege forever.
This is an oppression by which girls and women torture themselves, mutilate
themselves, and kill themselves – because of focusing their self-hatred (driven
by patriarchal rules) on themselves.
Some consider looksism a trivial issue, but it reaches right down into the heart of
who is loved and who is rejected. It is one of the major weapons that patriarchy
uses to divide women. Other oppressions are linked with looksism, but looksism
is the most difficult to get political acknowledgement and support about. The
politics of looksism is connected with genocide and gynocide.
Most women never feel attractive enough, because male standards of beauty are
unnatural and keep changing. The patriarchal media and corporations make
billions off selling women surgery and toxic products that damage their health
and, ironically, their looks. These stinking products also literally kill, and pollute
the earth and water.
Yet women could be freed from this self-destructive game if they used basic
Feminist politics to examine and reject male “beauty” standards that, in reality,
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are often quite ugly. Most women are afraid to even think about what is truly
beautiful because it completely disturbs their sense of reality. Some question
particular standards, but don’t question what is named beauty itself in
patriarchy. I see so many feminists talking around the issue, but clearly still
believing the artifice that what men tell us is beautiful, in reality, is.
Mainstream media shows us almost no images of Lesbians or women just looking
ordinary. Women are portrayed grotesquely altered in ways that men never are,
and women are judged by completely different standards than men are. In the
media, the more sloppy and “unattractive” (by the standards set for women) that
men are, the more attractive and “manly” they are considered to be. Even
ageism seems to not be problem for old men if they are rich enough.
Because of the pressure on all girls and women to alter ourselves, mothers police
their daughters, and women police other women, including friends, to fit the
various male standards of looks and femininity. The more natural and unaltered
a woman tries to be, the more policed she is. Her weight, hair, clothes, shoes,
etc. are all criticized in an effort to make her obey male rules.
When I explore issues that affect Lesbians and women, I think about who does it
serve — and who doesn’t it serve — to believe what men, and women allied with
patriarchy, tell us about how we should look and about what is attractive or
“ugly.”
I grew up seeing that my mother’s measurement of value for herself and other
women was based primarily on how they looked. Were they “’good-looking” or
not? Her standard of what was considered “good looking” was rarely based on
what I considered to be intrinsically beautiful – a girl or woman who was natural,
courageous, strong, kind, and loving, who thought for herself, no matter the
opposition, who fought for justice, and was radiant with a love of life and nature.
A female who glowed with love for other females added to her handsomeness.
And she did not follow or reflect the demeaning artificiality women use who obey
patriarchal rules of “beauty.” She refused all signs that would mark her as a
man’s woman.
I remember my mother calling one of the first girls I was in love with (when I
was five), “homely.” I didn’t know what it meant until she told me, but I
remained convinced that that girl was beautiful.
When we are trained from our beginnings with propaganda about what beauty is
and what ugliness is, and who to trust and who to fear, we are also taught what
our roles are to be in patriarchy. Grotesque Disney cartoon images and later
animation teach us what “normal” women are supposed to look like, even if they
are a travesty of a female hippopotamus with a bow on her head and garish
lipstick on her mouth. No female animal ever looks or sounds the way they are
portrayed in patriarchal media. But when you grow up with bizarre, unnatural
images, it’s hard to not internalize them. Even later animation that attempts to
be less sexist still shows females, including animals, in some form of traditional
male-defined feminine role that hurts all females.
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One day I went with a group of Lesbian friends to an aquarium. I saw some of
the most amazing beings I’ve ever met – cuttlefish, who are cephalopods,
related to squids and octopuses, and considered to have primate-level
intelligence. As soon as I saw them I again wondered how anyone could believe
the story we’re taught that “man” is the furthest evolved of all animals.
Humans are animals, but men are so obviously not the pinnacle of perfection.
The cuttlefish were soft and sensuous, swimming by gently rippling the edges of
their bodies, with ever-changing patterns and flashes of color flowing over
them. They use their colors to communicate, and can decide to show intricate
designs and colors on one side of their body which are completely different from
the other side. Even though they were captives in a sordid place, there was a
deep sense of peace about them. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen any being as
beautiful.
I moved closer to the glass, and a cuttlefish came up and looked deeply into my
eyes. She had to work hard, undulating the edges of her body so that she stayed
at eye level with me. I felt that she was speaking to me, but I couldn’t
understand. I wanted desperately to free her and the others. I was in awe of
these exquisitely beautiful beings.
As people passed by, I began to hear their comments. “God, I’ve never seen
anything so ugly. What is that weird thing?” The hatred aimed at these luminous
beings was a shock.1 I’m used to Lesbians getting this kind of treatment, but not
usually animals. This was an example yet again of people obeying patriarchal
rules about what is considered beautiful and what is called ugly.
I wanted to protect the cuttlefish as I want to protect Lesbians and all females. I
felt more clearly than I ever had before that some men and some women’s
alliance with the worst men means they don’t just hate us — they hate all life —
except, of course, that life which is useful to them. To protect ourselves from
such hatred we have to change everything we’ve been taught by patriarchy
about what’s “beautiful” and what’s “ugly.” That changes how we relate to each
other and to life itself.
The Politics of Beauty

Hetero-patriarchy is based on lies: the lie that patriarchy is inevitable, the lie
that males are superior to females, the lie that all females are naturally meant to
be het and/or mothers, the lie that Family is good, wholesome, and necessary,
the lie that racism and classism are inevitable, the lie that christian European-
descent peoples and cultures are superior (even though their “superior”
technology is destroying the Earth), the lie that all animals and plants are inferior
to mankind, and the lie that a Higher Power has created innately good and
innately bad people on Earth who are easily recognizable, because god bestows
“beauty” on the “Good” and marks the “Bad” with “ugliness.”
One of the earliest, cruelest lies we learn is that we should fear and hate those
who are different from the hetero-patriarchal norm — even if it’s our own
selves. From fairy tales to the film industry, the “ugly,” “deformed,” or old
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person is depicted as evil, while brutal men who have the power of life and death
over us are considered “attractive” and “charming.” The courageous witch is
called “hideous,” while some of the most dangerous men on Earth are called
“handsome.” And of course, Dykes are portrayed as unnatural and horrible, if
we’re mentioned at all.
Children are barraged with this destructive propaganda in cartoons and
animation, so most children quickly learn that children’s society often means the
popular, “attractive” children ally in groups who exclude and sometimes bully the
less “’attractive.” (Classism and racism and other oppressions also greatly affect
who is popular, including how children appear, whether they wear more
expensive, new clothes versus used, shabby ill-fitting clothing, to having surgery
to correct “defects.”)
In a recent blog post a feminist described why she was accepted in a male
group: “I was exactly what a Boy’s Club wanted. I was a young, not-hideous
woman who passionately supported their cause.” I’m still in a bit of shock that a
self-described feminist would use the term “hideous” to describe other women
and am still wondering what she actually meant. Certainly, by the context, old
women might be considered “hideous,” but I’m also thinking Lesbians, women
oppressed by racism, ableism, etc. What kind of feminist thinks other women
who lack her privilege are “hideous”? This is more than just projecting and
spreading how the men would think, but reflect her own thoughts and politics.
It’s horrific that any feminist would use “hideous” to describe any women. But
that reflects how acceptable looksism has become.
Looksism is often ignored even by politically aware Radical Feminists, partly
because it isn’t considered a valid oppression by male political groups. Yet
looksism is intensely political, and is used to perpetuate all other oppressions,
including heterosexism, sexism, racism, anti-Semitism, classism, imperialism,
ableism, ageism, and fat oppression. The people who are visibly a member of an
oppressed group get the worst treatment. Those who are clearly more Butch, fat,
dark, disabled, older, or not yet adult, and poor are more oppressed than others
of the same group who look less blatant. Those who look the most female – the
most like Dykes – get treated far worse than those who look effeminate and who
obey the rule of male-defined “femininity.” It’s no coincidence that gay men
attacking in print Lesbians who they had never seen, called the Lesbians both
“man-hating and “ugly.”3
When men control governments, they control the cultures of their countries. The
most powerful countries also influence and control the cultures of others. Men in
power decide which faces and bodies are to be loved and admired, which are to
be tolerated and pitied, and which are to be shunned and despised. Those
decisions are based on what will serve men, regardless of the pain and
oppression they cause. In many parts of the world, white/European-descent
gentile men have enforced the idea that pinnacle of perfection is rich, thin,
young, able-bodied, het, christian, light-skinned Euro-descent men, even though,
as a group, those are the most selfish, hateful, thieving, murderous, and
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destructive men on Earth. This propaganda protects patriarchy by setting up

women to fight each other on behalf of “their” men.
Instead of bonding together, oppressed people who are more privileged than
others in the patriarchal hierarchy are more likely to despise those that the men
in power designate as beneath them. That’s how oppression continues: the rich
woman knows she’s not worth as much as a man, but at least she feels superior
to a poor woman. The poor woman is treated badly, but if she’s thin and has
“good looks,” she can pride herself on that. The fat poor heterosexual woman
knows she’s despised, but at least she’s “normal” and not a Dyke. The lowest in
status are those who are the most oppressed and who suffer multiple
oppressions – the racially or ethnically oppressed, never-het, Butch, lifelong
Dykes who are fat, poor, old, disabled, and considered ugly.
One of the cruelest aspects of patriarchal hate propaganda is that it can even
make one’s own group seem alien, while the more privileged group appears in
the media as cozily familiar. Studies were done in the U.S. using two sets of dolls
that were identical except for color, with one group dark-skinned and the other
light.3 Young children were asked which doll “you would want to be, you want to
play with, is a nice color and would take home if you could.” In spite of African-
American Pride movements, 65% of the African-American children chose the
light-skinned dolls. This is alarming evidence of the effects of institutionalized
racism in which everyone in the U.S. is taught that European-descent, especially
WASP, appearance and culture is the best. (There is a excellent more recent
video of African-descent girls talking about the effects of racism on themselves
and the idea of beauty — http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjy9q8VekmE)
Racist propaganda has been going on for hundreds of years. History is re-written
so that the accomplishments of racially oppressed cultures not only are hidden
but are often credited to their oppressors and the invaders of their countries.
Many light-skinned peoples pride themselves on the lie that the ancient
civilizations of Egypt were created by people who looked like them. Much of the
evidence of the truth has been systematically destroyed over the centuries, yet
there are still many portraits and sculptures that survive, showing dark-skinned
ancient Egyptian queens and kings. Drawings from several hundred years ago
show the face of the Great Sphinx of Egypt to be clearly African, and not Arabic
or European.4 The Sphinx was not eroded into unrecognizability by weather and
time, as so many historical and archeological books claim. Invading soldiers
deliberately used her for target practice until she was no longer identifiable as
African.5 African and African-descent researchers have made this public, but
most white/European-descent historians still ignore and deny these facts – just
as they deny proof that humans were in the Americas for over forty thousand
years and came from the south and central Pacific as well as from Siberia, as if
that gives Euro-descent people more claim to the land they stole. Their painters
and sculptors even portray their Jewish god and followers as looking northern
European.
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Racism fuels some lies, while male-supremacy fuels other lies. Male historians
deny the existence of female-centered cultures before patriarchy existed.
Who knows what else has been changed? There are still a few statues of female
sphinxes, but most ancient representations of women from many cultures
throughout the world have been altered or destroyed, leaving us little evidence
of the time before men took power. (Max Dashu’s Suppressed Histories Archives
is a wonderful international comprehensive counter to patriarchal lies.) Male
historians also attribute as many of women’s accomplishments as possible to
men, and when they can’t ignore certain women in history, they make sure they
are portrayed as heterosexual and devoted to men, even when they are well
known to be Lesbians. A more recent version of this male re-writing of history is
when the transgender cult describes Dykey women and Butches from the past as
being “transsexuals” or “transgender,” and actually calls them by male
pronouns! Nothing like desecrating the memory of dead women on behalf of
men.
The politics of the European christian gentile ideal of beauty developed when the
European aristocracy decided they needed excuses for oppressing their own poor
people and the people in the countries they invaded. When the Roman Empire
had invaded and controlled most of Europe, northern Europeans were considered
uncivilized and inferior savages by the imperialistic Romans, but when they
themselves later became invaders, they also called their victims “savages,”
making those people less human and somehow deserving of the atrocities the
Europeans committed against them. (Other patriarchal cultures, such as Islam,
were also spread by invasion from Arabia into Africa, parts of Europe, Asia, and
reaching to Indonesia, and did similar things, but the European dominance,
which is still affecting many of us, went beyond imperialism into genocide.) Most
European cultures became competitive, cruel, greedy, and domineering, and met
anyone different from themselves with only conquest, theft, slavery, and murder
in mind. (As Bishop Desmond Tutu said, “When the missionaries came to Africa
they had the Bible and we had the land. They said, ‘Let us pray.’ We closed our
eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.”
Many christian European and European-descent social scientists have written
about people’s so-called “natural” fear and hostility toward those who are
different than themselves, but it’s European christians who’ve displayed this
quality the most consistently and cruelly. In many countries where Europeans
invaded they were at first received with friendship, generosity, and courtesy,
even though they looked very different than the inhabitants. Meanwhile,
Europeans named anyone who looked different as “ugly.”
In Europe, the lightest skin was considered “beautiful” because only the rich
could be extremely pale, since they didn’t have to work outdoors in the
sun. During the Industrial Age, factory workers were pale from lack of sunlight,
while the rich had leisure time to sun themselves at the Riviera, so suntans
became “attractive” — as long as it wasn’t someone’s natural skin color.
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It’s very likely that thinness became a status symbol because rich European
men’s wives were supposed to look fragile and weak, showing that they didn’t
need to do any work. The woman’s thinness also made her husband look and feel
more powerful by contrast. That mania for thinness is still related to class,
nationality, and race.
The supposed “beauty” standards of female facial features are based on the
qualities that distinguish gentile Europeans from most other racial and ethnic
groups. Some characteristics of “beauty” and “ugliness” don’t seem to fit into set
formulas that further racism or ethnicism, because male rule thrives on hierarchy
and inequality, so that even in racially similar populations there still have to be
standards defining the hierarchy of the “most attractive” to the “least
attractive.” When most people accept those rules, it’s then very easy for them to
know their place or be put back in their place if they try to escape. It’s just like
hierarchical school play-ground culture – if you don’t like what someone says you
can always try to humiliate them by making fun of their looks.
What’s in a face? A face can tell you almost everything about someone – her sex,
race, age, class, whether she’s a Lesbian or het, and how female-identified,
Lesbian-identified, and Butch she is. People project their inner selves into their
facial expression so that you can sometimes tell if you could like or trust
someone just by the look on her face. Expressions can reflect directness and
honesty, or manipulation and pretense. If a female chooses to cover her face in
make-up and literally change her features through surgery and electrolysis, then
she’s making a definite statement about who she is and how she’s likely to relate
to you. If her own face isn’t good enough for her, what will she think about
yours?
Fear of Nature
I believe that in dominant Euro-centric cultures, we are fed patriarchal lies
when we are little girls, which teach us to transfer our reasonable fear of the
men and boys who threaten and assault us (often in our own families) onto
harmless, innocent little animals — many of whom are revered in other cultures.
Most girls are sexually assaulted and all girls are sexually harassed. It is terrible
to be living in continual fear, often with no one to go to for support. Why else do
girls and women shudder at the thought of certain animals or their body parts,
such as snakes and little useful tails on rats and mice, rather than the more
dangerous claws and fangs of more popular animals? Films and television
producers love to show women screaming in terror at the sight of sweet little
animals. Alfred Hitchcock even got women to be afraid of birds!
We are not instinctively afraid of nature and animals. Until fairly recently, nature
was the home of humans for millennia, and no one would waste time being afraid
of harmless creatures. If it wasn’t for being bombarded with horror stories, we
would not be afraid of spiders, rodents, bats, etc.
How many readers just shuddered reading what I wrote, when they envision
those animals? How many shudder when seeing media images of males being
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worshipped, including sometimes their pricks, and women pornified into

grotesque objects? (Girls and women did usedto feel horror or disgust at seeing
pricks, knowing what they represent. That is what I think we have an inborn
fear/revulsion of – not little harmless animals.)
In Laurel Holliday’s book, “Children in the Holocaust and World War II: Their
Secret Diaries,” she includes a woman’s story of how, as a little girl, she and her
family hid from the Nazis in the sewers of Warsaw. This was a short piece, and
yet she mentions how the sewer rats (Rattus Norvegicus, also the domestic rat,
lab rat, “pet” rat) were her “friends.” She didn’t say if they brought her food or
just kissed and cuddled her to comfort her during such a terrifying time, but it
was touching that she included them in her story. Knowing rats’ capacity for
kindness, I am sure they could tell how afraid and lonely she was, and so gave
her that special deep love that rats know how to give.
(Since originally writing this, I found out about the Rat Community, which is 99%
women, most of who are involved in rescuing rats and who go against rat-phobic
patriarchal propaganda. Rats are amazingly intelligent, loving, thoughtful little
people who are hated and feared by humans who’ve never even known them
personally, as also Lesbians and other oppressed peoples are feared and hated.)
Cable television channels that used to show beautiful and informative nature
documentaries, now mostly portray wild animals as evil monsters who
deliberately want to hurt humans and who therefore must be conquered and
destroyed by “courageous,” posturing, cruel men. The men look silly when you
recognize that the terrified animal being filmed is clearly trying desperately to
escape the hunters, so they rev up the music and intersperse shots of scary close
ups of eyes and fangs, often of clearly unrelated species, and repeatedly say how
“dangerous” the poor animal is. Most of the remaining channels on animals,
science, and nature also show men as conquerors of nature, stalking, hunting,
experimenting on, torturing, and killing wild and domestic animals for sport.
Various methods are also used to train people to think of animals as “other” – as
not being a person we could identify with or love unless we own them. Instead of
saying an animal in a documentary is “eating,” they are described as “feeding.”
“The deer were out feeding in the twilight….” When did this ridiculous,
pretentious crap begin? Feeding is what somewhat does when giving someone
else food, not when they’re eating. And why do people repeat it without thinking?
Instead of using common sense and experience to know that of course animals
think and feel emotions as we do, we are ridiculed into believing that it is
“anthropomorphizing”6 to recognize what is obvious until we obey “the expert”
and stop. We are taught to disconnect our own experience from what we then
believe. This is a basic lesson in patriarchy – ignore your own female wisdom and
common sense.
Even animal lovers sound embarrassed and apologize for daring to say the truth
that of course animals think and feel. And then too often people believe and
repeat the lies that some animals are superior to other animals, so that women
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who think it’s wrong to eat mammals or birds, happily eat fish and kill spiders.
When asked why, a friend told me, “Fish don’t feel as much.” This was a
longtime Radical Feminist who surely knew the history of male scientists lying
when they wrote declaring that women felt less than men, and that people
oppressed by racism felt less than Euro-descent people, and slaves felt less than
slave owners. I asked her if she had ever seen/been with fish in their own
environment and she said no. Yet she repeated the propaganda against fish, a
people she did not even know.
I have swum/snorkeled with fish and saw every emotion in fish in that short
period of time that I have seen in humans. I saw curiosity, affection, anger,
outrage, happiness, fear, jealousy, and even embarrassment. I spoke to fish I’d
never seen before, offering them love, and they immediately responded by
coming to me and swimming around me, touching me with what felt like a loving
answer. I am very impressed with fish, but I certainly was taught to think of
them as barely alive. (And I had only met fish who were lonely, mentally ill
captives in tiny containers, bored and terrified, deprived of everything that would
make them happy, including being fed what they would chose in their own home.
That does not help us to see the complexity of fish emotions.) I have had
interactions with insects who I met only the day before and who clearly
recognized me and came to me. Animals are amazing if we only bother to notice
them.
I know my friend who denied fishes’s feelings had been bullied by a vegan
activist who had also given her photos of tortured chicks to bring to our dinner,
so I think she was trying to rationalize continuing to eat food she loved and that
her body needed, while dealing with the contradiction of animal lovers eating
animals. Plants also feel, but unfortunately, we all need to eat someone to
survive. I’m not suggesting anyone be vegan since human bodies are designed
to be omnivore like many other species, and we do less harm to the environment
and other living beings if we are ethical omnivores than if we end up supporting
Big Agriculture, including Monsanto, which is cutting down rain forest to plant
GMO soy.
Many people also think of plants as not feeling or barely being alive, and some
are actually afraid of plants, as they are afraid of nature in general. Plants must
be “tamed,” altered, damaged, and made unnatural for humans to feel safe and
comfortable with them. So many people are obsessed with pruning, shaping, and
distorting plants, which literally hurts the plants and opens them to disease and
infection.
Many men happily destroy forests as a way to mark territory. They desecrate and
pave land so that no beings can live there anymore. They transform beauty into
true ugliness. Wild, free nature makes them uncomfortable.
Who does it serve to think of animals and plants and nature herself as something
only to use or to fear?
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Most animals are terrified of humans with good reason and are just trying to live
in peace, which is impossible when their home is being destroyed. But even
some feminists seem to lose their sense and politics when they want to kill every
wild animal on “their” land, without realizing that their new property already had
inhabitants who have nowhere else to go. A particularly ironic case was a Lesbian
couple who were about to have a baby, who hired men to trap and remove –
which meant, by law, killing – two baby raccoons who we heard crying all night,
in separate traps without water or food. The hungry babies had committed the
terrible crime of lifting up newly laid sod to look for grubs and slugs to eat.
Planting grass in the Bay Area is not a good idea anyway since it needs an
enormous amount of water in an area that gets no rain for over five months a
year. I managed to talk the women into letting me release the babies into our
yard, where I hoped their mother and siblings would find them. Eventually, I fed
all six by our front door and became close with their mother, who would hold my
hands when I would feed her. (She was a bit rough with her claws the first time,
but stopped when I asked her to be gentle – and she remembered the next year,
even after I hadn’t seen her for months. I believe the two trapped babies were
permanently traumatized though.)
As a girl, I went from loving every animal I saw, to being terrified of spiders.
Finally, when I was eight, I decided that I couldn’t continue living like that. I
forced myself to learn about spiders, and, after watching them, my revulsion and
fear quickly turned to love. Instead of reacting with fear of being hurt if a spider
startles me, I react with fear that I’ve accidently hurt or terrorized her. I worry if
I’ve torn her web, and try to offer water or anything that might help her. I see
their emotions and tell them I love them. I’m trying to make up for having asked
my parents to kill them when I was little, and as a result I’m always meeting
little beautiful creatures who I consider my friends. I can handle them without
fear and I enjoy learning new things about them. (I’ve discovered that Araneus
Diadematus, the beautiful large orb weavers, can dramatically change color to
camouflage, and Pholcus Phalangioides seem to mimic the female pheromones of
other spider species to entrap males to eat.) If a species is in our house who
would not do well, I take them to a safe place. If they are a species who is happy
in our house, I water and feed them. I can also grab bees and wasps to take to
safety if a human is about to kill them.
I know women who are afraid to walk on trails because they think wild animals
will attack them. I treasure every encounter with wild animals, including
rattlesnakes (who always try to escape without striking), and tell women that the
only real danger on trails is the same as it is in the cities: male humans and dogs
off leash.
Stopping being afraid of nature is incredibly freeing and spiritual. It’s also fun.
Don’t let patriarchy control you and turn you into a murderer or accomplice.
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Nature Is Female
Patriarchy’s goal seems to be to destroy Nature and replace her with as artificial
a world as possible. Its media are cults of superficiality in which appearance is
everything. Depth, intensity, independent thinking, intimacy, and feeling are all
avoided. In magazine ads and on television, emaciated models pose with vapid,
cold, arrogant, and cruel expressions. These are the looks that we’re told are
beautiful. We’re shown “perfect” bodies that are literally manufactured by
men. That’s how men want us to be – as plastic and unreal as their machines.
(There are an amazing number of films, television series, and animation/cartoons
that portray machines as having human emotion. Men are obsessed with this
idea and I can only wonder if that is partly about their own search for the
feelings that most seem to lack.)
In their phony world, men have left no room for the natural differences that exist
in real bodies, including disabilities. The revulsion patriarchy shows towards
people they call “disfigured” is actually part of their revulsion towards Nature
herself. We come in all sizes and shapes, with the infinite variety that Nature
loves. What’s truly repulsive and boring is the image that hetero-patriarchy
presents to us as the “perfect woman,” who is shaved/waxed, plastic-surgered,
skinny, yet with enormous toxic bags of silicon attached to her chest, pretending
to be breasts. (That’s part of what’s so wonderful about going to a large
gathering that’s mostly Lesbian, like the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival. It’s
one of the only ways to see a small part of the incredible variety of Lesbians who
have not changed their natural bodies.)
If we go along with what we’re told, agree to love the bodies they want us to
love, and agree to hate the bodies they tell us to hate, then we’re supporting
patriarchy, heterosexism, racism, anti-Semitism, ethnicism, fat oppression,
ableism, ageism, and even classism. Then we’re serving the male ruling class
and we’re despising women who deserve our love and support and who can love
and support us. We end up despising ourselves.
If no female is ever good enough – no hair quite the right texture, no color quite
right, full lips surgered, while thin lips are injected with poisonous silicone —
then more toxic products and plastic surgery are sold to women, and insecure
women are more vulnerable to male predation. Now women who don’t even need
glasses are urged to get contact lenses to make their brown eyes look bright blue
or green, even though contacts are uncomfortable and harmful to
eyes.6 Changing fads mean big money. They’re also necessary to keep women
obsessed with fitting in and competitive with each other.
Even though many of us have exposed the effects of women contributing to
looksism, too many feminists’ attitudes are still that it’s all a matter of different
likes and dislikes, tastes and attractions, or that it’s our “’feminine” prerogative
to change ourselves. Some women just “happen” to like looking the ways men
have decided women should look. If it’s a fad among hets and/or gay men, then
it’s “fun” among Lesbians. We’re supposed to believe that bleaching hair couldn’t
possibly have anything to do with racist attitudes of “blond is better?” Or that
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women dyeing their hair when it starts to grey is not about ageism? (I’m not
blaming women for trying to avoid more oppression, but blaming patriarchal
attitudes that influence women to harm themselves and other women.)
Some women wear make-up because they say they look awful without it, but
don’t seem to realize that it marks them as much as wearing a sign saying “I’m a
man’s woman.” Why else are cosmetics designed to make women look sexually
aroused if not to send a message to men? Besides the usual reddened cheeks
and lips, many women mimic high-fashion models who wear make-up on their
cheeks that look like bruises. But then men do like to beat women and sado-
masochism is an essential part of heterosexuality.
Women against prostitution should be aware that some forms of male-identified
femininity that have become mainstream were once signals of the ways that
prostitutes were willing to service men, with lipstick for oral sex, red nail polish
for hand jobs, etc. Why would any woman want to participate in that? Yet women
are now considered to not look proper in some settings without lipstick.
Even someone as courageous as Rachel Maddow has to wear makeup and low-
cut blouses on television. Women are never presented as full equals anywhere.
Women on the Supreme Court wear ridiculous-looking white ruffles on their
chests, as opposed to the dignified ties the men wear. The more you look for the
expected differences in appearance, including body language, stance, expression,
etc., the more you see.
It’s even more harmful to change our bodies permanently, through surgery and
electrolysis, or temporarily, by applying burning, poisonous chemicals to
straighten, curl, or color our head hair or to remove our body hair. Of course, to
get a job we usually have to remove our facial hair, but too many women make
changes in themselves that are not based on survival needs and are instead
based on betrayal of and competition with other women.
Many Lesbians and most het women drastically change themselves because
they’ve been convinced that there’s something unnatural about the way our
bodies naturally grow. The male medical industry tells us that we’re not
supposed to have facial hair, and that if we do it’s a sign we’re “abnormal”
because of having too much testosterone. Lesbians are particularly likely to be
hit with this insult. As usual, there’s a double standard. Since men now prefer
thinness, they would never consider telling skinny het women with small breasts
that they’re deficient in estrogen! Meanwhile, the fact that some of the Dykes
with facial hair also have large breasts, which is a sign of ample estrogen, is
ignored because largeness in females is feared and hated.
Men love having reasons to tell us we’re abnormal, and they have the power to
declare us normal or not. So they’ve hidden from us the truth that it’s quite
natural to have facial hair and “unacceptable” hair on other parts of our
bodies. Even male medical studies show that one-fourth of “normal women
college students” and three-fourths of women over 60 have facial hair.7 The truth
is likely to be even more, since most women remove facial hair and would be
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unlikely to admit having it if questioned. Yet even in these studies, men persist in
referring to a quality shared by one-fourth to three-fourths of women as
“abnormal.” But then oppression is never logical, nor are men.
Now they’re telling us that we should be completely hairless, except for scalp
hair, eyelashes, and, occasionally, eyebrows (although they are often
permanently misshapen or shaved off to be painted back on). We’re even
expected to have naked pubic areas. Advertisements constantly flash naked
outer labia at us and it’s almost impossible to see a media image of a woman in
a bathing suit that doesn’t clearly show a hairless pubic area. Are they going to
tell us soon that female pubic hair is unnatural? Or will they be satisfied with
implying it’s ugly, while getting women to fit into their porn fantasies? Is the
motive simply more female-hatred and a new billion-dollar industry? Or is it a
not-so-subtle message that men want adult women to resemble the little girls
men like to rape?
This is becoming so mainstream that I’ve read women who call themselves
“feminists” who insist it is entirely reasonable to pay money for other women to
wax or shave their outer vulvas. Girls who are athletes in sports that force them
to wear revealing costumes are also are expected to remove their pubic hair,
which means that girls who refuse will be forbidden to do their sport.
Even our voices expected to be unnatural. Many women pitch their voices higher
than is necessary or natural, to prove their “femininity,” making them sound
more like little girls. Then Dykes with naturally deep voices are treated as if they
are the abnormal ones. Only certain accents, dialects, and languages are
acceptable and anyone who talks differently suffers constant ridicule until she
changes. Just like changing your natural appearance, changing your accent
denies and betrays your connection with your class, racial and ethnic group,
region, country, and your own self.
One of the most bizarre things in terms of looksism, is that many parents are
now ordering breast implants for their daughters’ sixteenth birthdays! Besides
the health risk of surgery, and the humiliation and degradation of girls being
pressured to have grotesquely large, fake breasts for the benefit of boys and
men, silicone implants are so toxic that they have killed women and made others
disabled with chronic illness. Once banned, they are again the most common
form of implants in the U.S., since money is always more important than girls’
and women’s health and lives.
This is all about making girls and women saleable to men in the most horrifically
grotesque, sado-masochistic, and pornified ways. It reflects male desires to have
women pay to harm themselves to look bizarre and unnatural in order to fit in
with male fantasies. Even more upsetting, women agree to damage their bodies
as a way to compete with other women. Some women have even gotten breast
implants so unnaturally large that they can hardly walk. It’s bad enough for
women to do this to themselves, but to their daughters?
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Now some women are actually having parts of their toes removed and metal pins
inserted instead so they can fit into tiny designer shoes.8 Women are also getting
parts of their labia cut off if they are “too big” – or as a woman I heard
interviewed explained, “so I can be more pleasing to men.” When apologists for
such self-hating/female-hating women say it’s about “beauty” and not misogyny,
how else would the increasingly popular hymenplasties be explained?
These surgeries are about obeying men and betraying women. Many people
understand boycotting and not supporting companies that harm women, but not
when it comes to the surgeons, clinics, hospitals, etc. who participate in
dangerous surgeries with the only goal being mutilation of female bodies to fit
unnatural male demand. Female Genital Mutilation, including clitorectomies and
infibulations, are horrific crimes against girls and women that are done against
their will, and which can leave life-long pain as well as causing death. Women
who voluntarily choose to have their labia cut to fit disgusting female-hating
male standards trivialize Female Genital Mutilation and are collaborating with our
enemy.
Fat Oppression
If patriarchy announced it was going to limit females’ food in order to control and
damage us, there would be a tremendous outcry. But since it’s presented as a
way for us to look “beautiful” and be more “normal” and “healthy,” women
eagerly starve themselves, and starve and harass their daughters.
Feminists have written great articles against fat oppression, but they, and the
excellent feminist anthology on fat oppression, Shadow on a Tightrope, are
either hard to find or no longer known by most feminists.10
Patriarchy wants us to waste our time and energy on feminine obsession with
“beauty” and thinness, and to avoid thinking about what’s really important in our
lives.
There is so much hatred against fat females. The fatter a women is, the more
visibly female she is. As a result, many women not only want to be thin, but to
look like adolescent boys (I’ve heard feminine women proudly brag about
this.) Meanwhile, females are suffering discrimination and literally dying because
of fat oppression.
The medical industry makes a fortune off diets, drugs, and dangerous surgery for
fat women. Even though lies about health hazards of being fat have been
refuted, there is still far more money made in killing and maiming fat women, so
most doctors continue supporting the lies.
Following the medical industries’ recommendations (until recently) to diet and
eat trans fat, low fat, soy, and high carbohydrates, such as grains, beans, etc.
has greatly increased the amount of people said to be dangerously “over-weight”
in the US, but those people are starving nutritionally, while the diet industry tells
them the opposite health advice they should be getting.11
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Doctors recommend people eat low fat, ignoring that organic saturated fat is one
of the most important nutrients we can eat, stabilizing blood sugar, preventing
diabetes, heart disease, and cancer.12 People who restrict their fat intake often
end up desperately binging on high carbs like sugar (with the fat taken out of
dairy products then sold back to them in ice cream, etc.), further depleting their
health.
Cholesterol has never been proven to be a cause of heart disease, yet Big
Pharma with doctors are making a fortune off prescribing statin drugs which
cause stroke, cancer and dementia. Those with the highest cholesterol live the
longest. If your cholesterol is very low, doctors will congratulate you, even
though one reason could be cancer.
A friend who was in a women’s cancer support group saw most of the women die
after following doctors’ advice. One woman, who had had lymphoma, was
“treated” three times to chemotherapy, as well as having many radioactive scans
– all of which could have easily caused the different cancer that she ultimately
died from. Her cholesterol dropped so low that the last doctor she saw said that
it looked like that of a famine victim. He was the only one of the many doctors
she saw who realized that cholesterol that low was indicative of very serious
illness: she had metastasized breast cancer.
“Before looking at the connection between blood cholesterol levels and heart
disease, it is worth highlighting a critically important – remarkably unheralded –
fact: After the age of 50, the lower your cholesterol level is, the lower your life
expectancy.”
“Perhaps even more important than this is the fact that a falling cholesterol level
sharply increases the risk of dying of anything, including heart disease”.13
One of the greatest obscenities about fat oppression is that while people are
dying of starvation, literally dying of thinness, fat is despised in rich countries.
Even when there was such panic about AIDS, with famous people in the last
stages of AIDS looking skeletal, fatness is still feared and hated. (In some parts
of Africa, where fatness is still associated with good health, AIDS is called “the
slim disease.”)
Damage attributed to being fat is actually caused by years of constant dieting,
with rapid weight loss and gain. It’s fat oppression that kills, not being fat, but
most people don’t know that.14
Lies continue to be spread and are just accepted, like the myth that high
cholesterol kills, when the opposite is true. If health concerns were really behind
the harassment and oppression of fat women, then smokers would be yelled at
on the street and people who drink toxic diet sodas and other artificial “food”
would be lectured at the way fat women are.
In 1981, my lover and I became ill with matching symptoms of flu that that
lasted for months — low grade fever, exhaustion, aching, etc. (This was before
Fibromyalgia, Chronic Fatigue Immune Dysfunction Syndrome, or Lyme disease
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were known about). The Lesbian doctor we saw said that nothing showed up on
the blood tests, so nothing was wrong with us. She me to just lose weight (I
weighed about 140 lbs at the time) and advised my very thin lover to drink
coffee. Luckily, I didn’t lose weight since my symptoms also matched the early
stage of some cancers – except that I hadn’t had the weight loss associated with
cancer.
I suspect our illness was a combination of toxic exposure and either viral or
bacterial infection (My lover eventually got well, but I never did. I now know a lot
of women with the same chronic symptoms.) If the incompetent doctor had
known anything about nutrition and health, she would have told us to eat the
opposite of what doctors usually order: only organic food and as much saturated
fat as possible, plenty of meat15 and vegetables, no thyroid-toxic, estrogenic,
carcinogenic soy ever, no other beans and grains, nothing high in carbohydrates,
no transfat or polyunsaturated oils (like canola, which is usually rancid). But
doctors are so fat-phobic that another doctor was horrified when I said I ate an
avocado a day, because “they will make you fat!” (The irony is that the more
saturated fat someone eats if their carbs are low, the more weight they
lose.16But never trust doctors to know about nutrition or health.)
Fat females are accused of being mentally sick as well as physically sick. This
propaganda means when thin people look at a fat female, they make immediate
insulting assumptions that she has some “mental or emotional problem” she’s
“compensating for,” in addition tobelieving the lies that fat people eat more and
exercise less than thin people.
Why this unreasoning fear of fat? If you look atthe most ancient statues from
across the earth, they are of fat women.They are clearly not “fertility” symbols or
pregnant effigies, which male archeologists irrationally declared for years, or any
other bizarre theories17 –they are simply, gloriously fat women.18
Fat men are oppressed, but much less so than fat women, and most of theanti-
fat propaganda is aimed atwomen. This also has a direct economic benefit for
men, because of the billions of dollars spent on the diet industry, as well as for
clothing manufacturers who make money selling women more expensive and
shoddier-made smaller clothing sizes. Cyril Magnin, a U.S. department store
owner, boasted that in the 1930s he removed all women’s clothing in sizes 16 to
20 from his stores and replaced them with sizes 8 to 14. He was one of the first
to do this, and it set a trend, which permanently affected the standard of
“women’s” clothing sizes in the US19 and therefore in countries influenced by US
culture. Meanwhile, they make money by selling smaller amounts of material.
Buying a mini-skirt or short top that exposes the midriff is supporting this con as
well as being demeaning and exposing female bodies for male consumption.
Men are always measuring things, from their pricks to their nuclear missiles, and
saying “bigger is better.” They want everything to be huge — except women.
Women who are the same size as ordinary large, muscled, healthy men are
considered fat and unhealthy. And women internalize these lies. In one study,
70% of women interviewed saw themselves as fat, while only 20 to 25% of them
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were seen by others as fat.20 The patriarchal standard “healthy and fit” female
looks emaciated compared to the standard “healthy” man. Men want us to be
invisible, except as sex objects — but fat women are blatantly present. Fat
women are an offense to mankind. Men want us small and weak, with just
enough strength to serve them, so they can push us around. They don’t want us
to have fat any more than they want us to have brains or muscle. And they’ve
been breeding us for thousands of years, just as they’ve bred “domesticated”
animals to be almost unrecognizable compared to their original, natural selves.
Men have bred dogs into forms that would never occur in nature, making
caricatures of wolves to fit men’s bizarre fantasies. The most valued dogs, the
certified pedigrees, are the least natural and the least likely to survive on their
own. Men’s cruel genetic interference has resulted in painful disabling deformities
common in some breeds. All this is done in the name of being “animal-lovers”
and “dog-lovers.” But then men say they “love” women too. Man has been
tampering with nature for as long as he’s been able to. How do we know how
much the many years of enforced selective breeding have changed our own
female bodies?
Men’s preference for controllable women was the reason for footbinding in China
and painful constricting corsets and high-heeled shoes in European-descent
countries, and is also the reason most women diet in countries that are
dominated by European-descent male culture. One U.S. diet ad aimed specifically
at women said simply, “Waist away.” Ads for products to increase weight show
men, while ads for diet foods and diet drugs show women. In many places in the
world, men and boys are given the first choice of food, including meat, while
women and girls eat only what’s left. This means more females die of starvation
than males, and they also die sooner than starving males.
Gynocide includes the systematic underfeeding of females and overfeeding of
males. An Italian study showed that baby girls are breast-fed less than and for
briefer periods than boys, and girls are also weaned earlier: “On the average, the
breast is withdrawn at 12 months for little girls, at 15 months for boys. Duration
of nursing at 2 months is 45 minutes for boys and 25 minutes for girls. Nursing
at 6 months: 8 minutes (girls), 15 minutes (boys.)” Studies in Egypt and Jordan
show that mothers’ breastfeeding is continued “longer for boys” and they are
“generally better cared for.”21
“When is a child worth keeping?” From a 1990 survey22 of parents: Only 1
percent would abort on the basis of sex. 6 percent would abort a child likely to
get Alzheimer’s in old age. 11 percent would abort a child predisposed to
obesity.”
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency food consumption charts23 show that
young adult males eat approximately 50% more than the average U.S. citizen —
yet 80% of 9-year-old girls in San Francisco are on diets24, which will create a
new generation of females who are smaller, weaker, and more susceptible to
disease than ever before. Lack of sufficient nutrition in a growing body prevents
it from developing to full size and makes it much more vulnerable to illness.
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As the decades go by, we see how younger women do seem to be suffering the
results of enforced starvation, as well as the effects of soy in so many foods and
plastic leaching into foods. Soy is thyroid toxic and both soy and plastic are
extremely estrogenic, which means they are serious hormone disrupters and
carcinogenic. I believe that’s why almost every younger woman I know has
excruciating menstrual cramps, polycystic ovaries, endometriosis, and/or serious
emotional and mental problems.
Endocrinologists are seeing many cases of stunted growth in girls caused by their
dieting. Some doctors worry this will prevent women from reproducing, which
would affect future generations of males. But where’s the concern for the girls?
Many girls are tormented into dieting by the incredible fat hatred which exists in
primary schools. In a recent study of nine-to ten year-olds, thin children were
called “smart” and fat children were called “icky, too much, ugly, and lazy.” In
the film, “Portraits of Anorexia25,” one young girl said, “They called me fatso or
blubber. I just stopped eating so they’d stop calling me names.”
In a television report, a group of girls and boys about 10 years old were shown
pictures of fashion models and asked what they thought of their body size. The
girls said the models were “skinny” and that, “you can see their bones.” The
boys, pointing to the same parts of the pictures said “their legs are too big” and
“humongous.” These girls described being called “chubby” and “too fat” by boys
at school, even though they were very thin.
One II-year old girl who looked like a Barbie doll said she became anorexic
because she didn’t want to be an “Amazon.” That’s likely to be her way of saying
she didn’t want to look like a Dyke and would rather look weak (male-identified
feminine) rather than strong. The girls also talked about wanting to be attractive
to boys. Another girl ate so little in her effort to be thin that her hair fell out.
These particular girls were choosing to diet, but very often it’s the parents who
force girls into dieting by depriving them of food.
One researcher says that anorexia nervosa dates from Victorian times inEngland,
when the feminine ideal meant weakness, fragility, and illness. Lord Byron (a
19th century English poet) said, “A woman should never be seen eating.” It was
an insult to call a class-privileged woman “robust,” because that suggested she
looked working-class. Women in privileged countries have lost their instinctive
fear of starvation. When women students in the U.S. were shown pictures of
starving, emaciated women from the 1930’s Depression, they saw them as
attractive rather than starving.26Today, in the U.S., 100,000 more girls develop
anorexia nervosa each year and, of that group, 6,000 die from starvation.27
Meanwhile, doctors pressure fat women to take diet pills and to have intestinal
bypass, stomach stapling, and liposuction. By 1987, several women in the U.S.
had already died from these tortures.28
“Lesbians are fat” is actually one of the male/het stereotypes of us.29This is one
case of an oppressive stereotype reflecting the truth — Lesbians ARE less likely
to diet than het women since thinness is a heterosexist value. As usual, men
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take a positive, self-loving Dyke tradition and use it to attack us. Yet many
Lesbians do diet, talk of diets, and make fat-oppressive comments.
Ironically, many Lesbians and women are smaller in height and bone and muscle
mass than they would have been because of trying to be healthy and/or being
vegan for years. Many long-time vegans also have chronic pain and spine, joint,
ligament, and tendon damage, as Lierre Keith describes happened to her in her
book, The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice, and Sustainability. She also
talks about vegan rages and severe depression. Patriarchy could not have come
up with a better plan to weaken women while pitting us against each other since
this issue has divided feminists more than any other. Radical Feminist omnivores
have even been physically threatened by vegans, and Lierre herself was attacked
by three cowardly masked vegans at the Anarchist Book Fair while she was
speaking. (Her spine damage is well known, yet they ran from behind and each
smashed her in the face with “pies” full of cayenne. They videoed their attack to
humiliate her, but that backfired.)
Mainstream medicine teaches the function and importance of all body tissues and
organs except for fat tissue because of fat-hating male prejudice.
Fat is literally protection against death. When people are dying of cancer, they
usually waste away and die from starvation as much as from the other effects of
cancer. So if you’re fat and you have cancer, you’ve got a lot more time than a
thin person has to try to get well. Yet even in this age when cancer is a modern
plague where more than one in three people in the U.S. getting it and most of us
know many women who have died from it, we’re still pressured to be thin.
Fat is a vital body tissue that protects our bodies. It cushions muscles and
internal organs, insulates us from cold, and helps us to float, making swimming
easier and drowning less likely.30 Fatness strengthens our bones. Osteoporosis,
the weakening and thinning of bone tissue is a major cause of injury and
disability among older women, often leading to death as a consequence of hip
fractures. As our weight increases, so does our bone mass, protecting us from
osteoporosis.31That’s one reason our bodies naturally get fatter as we grow older.
Our bodies know what they’re doing. Male thinking, so obviously reflected in
male religions, teaches us to hate and distrust our bodies. We’re told to separate
our minds from our bodies and treat them as two beings: “The mind should be
the master, and the body the servant.” (This is schizoid thinking — and men call
women crazy?)
Fatness is also protection against famine, which is why people who’ve gone
through periods of starvation often become fat – bodies naturally interpret
dieting as starvation and so guard us against future famine/weigh loss by
regaining the lost weight and more as soon as possible. Our bodies then become
reluctant to ever lose weight again by permanently slowing our metabolism –
which is why the more you diet, the harder it is to lose weight, and the easier it
is to gain it back.32 I believe our bodies carry this lesson into future generations,
so that the descendants of people who have survived famines will tend to be
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fatter and more prone to gaining weight as a result of dieting.33 These, after all,
are the people who survived.
Fighting Looksism ls Dyke-Loving

Lesbians, by our very nature, have separated much of the truth from the lies.
Choosing to come out meant finding or returning to our true selves. Some of us
had already refused the male-invented feminine uniform which is designed to
demean women, but is also a signal of submission to men. Other Lesbians
rejected it as they became more their own being, and no longer wanted to please
or attract men. That changing of appearance is a powerful personal and political
message to the world that we choose to be naturally female instead of being
covered in the layers of artificiality men call “feminine.” As those layers are
refused or removed, the truth appears. Away go the constricting, exposing
clothes and the painful, limiting shoes that distort female bodies. Away go the
cosmetics that mask real faces and bodies. Refusing male identification means
becoming solid, real, direct, and honest in body and spirit.
Men tell Dykes we “look like men” because we look natural – only men are
permitted to just look like themselves, including looking their true age. What is
more unnatural than dousing ourselves with toxic chemicals to destroy our
natural aromas, hair, and skin texture and color, etc.? There’s certainly never
been any medical argument about why we’re not supposed to have armpit or leg
fur, but men and their collaborators (too often our own mothers) have pressured
us for years to cut or poison ourselves removing it. If it’s so “unsightly,” then
why aren’t men expected to be equally hairless? Standards of “beauty” are as
phony as “beauty parlors.” Men reserve certain appearances only for
themselves. How else is anyone to know immediately who’s lord and who’s
lackey? Only men are supposed to have facial or body hair, just as only men are
supposed to wear trousers and sturdy shoes. By insisting on being ourselves in
such a small thing as keeping our own body and facial hair, we’re threatening
men and their women supporters at their fragile cores. That’s why they react to
Dyke-identified-Dykes with such unreasoning hatred.
Lesbians need to think about who we’re hurting and stop it. Do we really want
communities where anyone who doesn’t look like a mannequin feels like an
oddity? Do we only want to be around Lesbians who fit male-identified standards
of “pretty”? What about the incredible handsomeness and realness of the diverse
faces and bodies Dykes are born with, that reflect the multitudes of races, ethnic
groups, ages, sizes, and shapes living on Earth?
Is it right for disabled Dykes to be rejected by non-disabled Dykes? Should older
Dykes feel as out of place among younger Lesbians as they are in the het world
unless they try to hide their age? Should Dykes with ample hair on their bodies
continue being made to feel like freaks? And do we want fat Dykes toinjure their
health and torture and kill themselves because too many Lesbians believe men’s
fat-hating, female-hating lies? As Dykes, we know what it is to be feared, hated,
and attacked because we’re “different.” We know what it is to be thealien group
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that’s ostracized and stared at. So we, of all people, should never treat another
Dyke that way.
Men call Dykes ugly? Look at them! We already know they hate us, and we can’t
change that. What we can control is avoiding internalizing that hatred and
turning it on ourselves and other females. Even if we try toaccept fatness in
other Lesbians and only hate it in ourselves, then we still do men’s work for
them. And, besides, it’s not possible. If we hate our own fat there’s no way we
can accept fat Dykes.
We’ve already rejected most of men’s commands and lies. Dykes have
questioned and fought lies and injustice more than any other group of people.
We’ve been in the forefront of challenging all forms of oppression. The more we
continue fighting the lies, the stronger we become, individually and as
communities. Why not “let ourselves go” and really be our natural selves?
Looksism Kills Females

It’s the story of patriarchy: males hate females. They want to own and control us
because, though they hate us, they need us for their survival and creation. Why
then do so many females do men’s bidding and take into themselves men’s
oppressive ideas of what’s beautiful and what’s ugly? If women didn’t continue
doing men’s work, patriarchy would end immediately.
In choosing to serve the masters, women are rewarded by being given a higher
place in the male hierarchy. Women get privilege only at other females’ expense.
There are no upper or middle classes if others are not forced to be lower class.
There is no racial privilege without racism. Het women gain status according to
the degree Lesbians are oppressed. “Beauty,” like other privileges is never
neutral or “just the way things are.” No one can be considered “beautiful” if
someone else is not called “ugly.”
Lookism is wrong, hurtful, and cruel. No woman should participate in it. The
extremes that some females have gone to in order to make themselves
acceptable – not even to be “beautiful,” but just to fit in – have killed them.
Don’t be a victim of patriarchy, and don’t victimize other females on behalf of
patriarchy.
Endnotes
There are new endnotes added since the printing of our book in 1990. Most of the references can
be looked up to find more recent versions.
1. Most women love their ”pets”, the dogs and cats they own, and proudly think of themselves as
animal lovers, — yet too many don’t seem to care at all that their cats and dogs are
relentlessly torturing and killing local native populations of birds, reptiles, amphibians, small
mammals, and insects, many of who are perilously near extinction as a result. Cats have
exterminated all reptiles and amphibians where we live, as well as also killing many birds and
even squirrels. It’s very upsetting to want desperately to have a tiny wildlife refuge in our yard,
but be unable to because of neighbors’ cats. I’ve actually read feminists brag about how often
and how many animals their cat kills. Others may be momentarily upset, but not enough to
stop the slaughter. Even a kind friend said, after her cat killed a baby mockingbird, “There are
plenty of birds, aren’t there?” The mother of the baby had been frantic for days, as her baby
was starting to fledge, but could not protect her.
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This isn’t about “survival of the fittest,” but about non-native animals exterminating vulnerable
native animals, as well as depriving native carnivores of food.
Well-fed cats can kill up to 800 small animals a year. At least one cat on an island caused the
extinction of an entire species. From Wikipedia: Feral cats introduced to such islands have had
a devastating impact on these islands’ biodiversity. They have been implicated in the extinction
of several species and local extinctions, such as the hutias from the Caribbean, the Guadalupe
Storm Petrel from PacificMexico, the Stephens Island wren; in a statistical study, they were a
significant cause for the extinction of 40% of the species studied. Moors and Atkinson wrote, in
1984, “No other alien predator has had such a universally damaging effect.”
Another study (Leon Jaroff , “Attack of the Killer Cats,” in Time, July 31, 1989, found that the
five million house cats in Britain kill and bring home at least 79 million small animals,
including 30 million birds, a year. One cat brought in 400 victims a year! A US study says
that the number of native animals killed may be double since cats bring home only half their
victims. This is even more serious where cats and dogs are not native, but have been
introduced by men. In Aotearoa/New Zealand, a single pet dog killed at least 150 endangered
kiwi in just a few weeks in 1985. Until the government started removing cats from Stewart
Island, feral cats yearly killed half of the remaining Kakapo, one of the three remaining
indigenous parrot species in Aotearoa that are almost extinct. Just a few dozen were left by
1985.
This is not the cats’ or dogs’ fault, but the humans who breed them, release them, and don’t
protect their potential victims.
Yet anyone who objects to the inequality of owning “pets” and who protests the number of
animals killed by cats and dogs is likely to be accused of being an “animal-hater.” That’s
because generally only mammals domesticated by man and introduced into countries that
didn’t previously have them (as part of European nations’ imperialist invasions) are considered
“real” animals.
Meanwhile, as those whose cats have disappeared know, cats kept inside are safer from
disease, predators, cars, cruel humans, etc
I’d like to credit Linda Strega’s wonderful article “Pets: Mine, All Mine” which questions the
ownership of other beings as pets, printed in The Lesbian lnsider/lnsighter/ lnciter, January.
1981, Minneapolis, Minnesota; and Eileen Anderson’s, “The Politics of Pets,” Lesbian
Connection, Vol. 12, issue 1, July/August, 1989.
2. The April, 1987 issue of the Bay Times, a San Francisco (LGBTQWTF) newspaper, printed a
letter from a gay man criticizing Lesbian support of Nancy Pelosi for Congress — “How dumb:
the man-hating dykes (ugly ones at that) do the obvious: back Pelosi.”
3. One study was by Darlene Powell-Hopson, and the other was by Mamie and Kenneth Clark.
Both were reported in Time, 4 September, 1987. 74.
http://abagond.wordpress.com/2009/05/29/the-clark-doll-experiment/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjy9q8VekmE
4. The Mansell Collection, The World’s Last Mysteries, (The Reader’s Digest Association, Inc.,
1981), 200:
5. Chambers Encyclopedia and Encyclopedia Americana. Kurt Mendelssohn, The Riddle of the
Pyramids, Praeger Publishers, NY., USA, 1975), 54.
6. Since writing this chapter, I’ve read When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals by
Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson with Susan McCarthy, and Animal Talk by Tim Friend, which both
describe beautifully how ridiculous it is for scientists to claim that animals don’t feel as much as
humans do, and as I’ve thought, they question whether they feel more since we don’t see
animals experimenting on other animals.
7. There has been a barrage of U.S. television ads, and Newsweek, 30 November,1987, had an
ad saying: “Decorate your eyes this holiday season.… contact lenses can change your eyes
from brown to baby blue, green, hazel, aqua or new sapphire blue.”
Meanwhile, we’re still learning about the full extent of the dangers of contacts. They’re known
to weaken the cornea and make eyes more susceptible to infections and cataracts. Even short-
term usage causes loss of the blink reflex which means eyes become more vulnerable to any
object which comes towards them.
8. Lewis B. Morrow, “Hirsutism,” Primary Care 4, (1977),128.
9. Smithsonian.loveme.com– Smithsonian magazine, October 2012
The Distressing Worldwide Boom in Cosmetic Surgery, by Joseph Stromberg.
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Chapter Ten
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/PHOTOS-The-Distressing-Worldwide-Boom-in-
Cosmetic-Surgery-175250541.html#ixzz2F4d24vWQ
In ancient China, where foot binding was invented, a stunted foot signified a prized comeliness.
In modern Manhattan, the pursuit of beauty has led some women to surgically shorten their
toes and secure them with metal pins to fit more easily into three-inch Jimmy Choo stiletto
heels (Kristina Widmer’s foot, post-surgery).
X-ray
For his new book, Love Me, photographer
Zed Nelson traveled to 18 countries over
five years, documenting extreme measures
undertaken in the quest for cosmetic
perfection. Nelson’s unsettling images of
plastic surgeons, beauty queens and
bodybuilders underscore the seduction of
narcissistic compulsion. “Beauty is a $160
billion-a-year global industry,” he says.
“Body improvement has become a new
religion.”
Nelson’s project began when he noticed,
while travelling internationally, that global
standards of beauty had become eerily
homogenized: He saw skin-lightening
products in Africa and surgical procedures to
“Westernize” eyes in Asia. The popularity of rhinoplasty in Iran was especially apparent…“When
I arrived in Iran, I was amazed,” Nelson says. “My interpreter had had a nose job, as had her
mother, her sister, and her two best friends. People were proudly walking in the streets with
bandaged noses, excited to be the new owners of small, chiseled, American-style noses.”
… Banks now offer loans for plastic surgery. American families with annual incomes under
$25,000 account for 30 percent of all cosmetic surgery patients,” he says. “Americans spend
more each year on beauty than they do on education.”
Notice how Nelson keeps referring to “beauty” and “body enhancement,” and never questions
that these surgeries are the opposite. I believe many men find artificiality more attractive than
reality.
10. Megan Mackin, dear friend, Radical Feminist, and Fat Activist wrote this powerful poem in the
tradition of the Radical Feminist Fat Activist movement:
Realities
chiding eyes that look away, tell you how you don’t belong; scowling,
sneering, smirking their silent cues nonverbal; you are wrong!
snarl the narrow turnstiles, booths and halls — the seats that bruise
you, rip your tender flesh; you are outcast, cursed and boundless —
fat that cannot be accommodated within the normal span of chair, or
sizes in the normal styles of clothes; but helpful experts will appear
with their troops prepared and waiting, they will snip you, carve you,
tuck you, band your organs, bind you mentally and starve you;
they will cost you sums of money you cannot begin to know; they will
cost you much, much more in terms of suffering and sorrow;
then, when all your bills are tallied and you reach the journey’s end, you
will find that more than likely you’re still fat — and so you must begin
again.
but now you have the blessing of some of those you’d feared, since, as a
repeat patient/ customer you’ve gained respect from those endeared —
not to you but to the money — behind the pockets you have lined; just
perhaps you’ll be like others who have spent their lives and health to find
that the real problem isn’t that your body size is wrong; instead it’s with
a culture that cannot abide its women being either big or strong;
it’s with a culture where corporations can demand compliance,
and taking space gets perceived — and named — as pure defiance;
294
Dykes-Loving-Dykes
Chapter Ten
it’s where self-absorption, thin-obsession, is demanded from the masses,

to allow the rule, unfettered, of the distant upper class …
there are many ways, of course, to name the problem, and though we
maybe won’t agree on its form, exactly, we can still begin to see
that bodies are more real than all the chairs or booths that people make,
and sizing them too small is certainly the true mistake.
self-hatred isn’t necessary, it’s coerced beneath our skin by the powers
seeking profit, naming fatness (in the guise of “gluttony”) as “sin.”
every body has its beauty, its unique and artful form; everyone deserves
to know this, to distrust the money-manufactured norm;
if you can’t yet see you’re handsome, then simply know that others do;
if you
cannot find your worthiness, please trust that we believe we see that, too.
– Diana Mackin12-something a.m., Sunday February 22, 1998
11. Layna Berman’s (with Jeffry Fawcett, PhD) radio show “Your Own Health And Fitness” has
provided so much valuable health information, including warning people about transfats years
before the AMA changed its mind from pushing it. I feel like she has saved my and friends’
lives. Your Own Health And Fitness broadcasts Tuesdays at 1pm on KPFA 94.1FM, Berkeley,
California, and on KFCF 88.1FM Fresno. (Check their list of stations that carry the show for
other dates and times.)
From Layna’s website:
“Your heart is big business. Its care is dominated by the theory that cholesterol causes heart
attacks. Yet even as the theory holds fewer and fewer advocates, the treatments stay the
same.”
12. Mary Gertrude Enig, PhD, author of Know Your Fats : The Complete Primer for Understanding
the Nutrition of Fats, Oils and Cholesterol, is a nutritionist and early trans fat/hydrogenated oil
researcher, warning of their dangers before they were widely accepted. She pushed for
improved labeling of trans fats on products, which has now become mandatory on products in
the U.S. and in Europe.
Enig also disputes the widely accepted view in the medical community that consumption of
saturated fats contributes to heart disease. She believes both butter and coconut oil are not
eaten enough and are good for heart health, and criticizes the use of polyunsaturated oils,
which most doctors and diets recommend, because they are rancid, and also argues that many
who follow low-fat diets feel low on energy because they are “fat deficient.”
13. The Great Cholesterol Con and The Great Cholesterol Myth by Dr. Malcolm Kendrick (Scottish
doctor and author of The Great Cholesterol Con, 2008, graduated from the University of
Aberdeen in 1981, has been a general practitioner for over 25 years, and has woked with the
European Society of Cardiology) documents the misguided use of statins in primary care, citing
evidence from many trials and World Health Organization data to show that statin drugs do not
increase life expectancy overall, and do not prevent heart disease in patients without
cardiovascular symptoms. Kendrick states that widely varying levels of cholesterol are inversely
correlated with deaths from heart disease, and correlated with cancer mortality, as well as
strokes and dementia. His findings show that within a reasonable range, higher total
cholesterol is associated with lower cancer mortality, but lower rates of deaths from heart
disease—the opposite outcome that one would expect if cholesterol were a causative agent for
coronary heart disease.
http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/0000000CAE78.htm Nov 18, 2005
Gary Taubes and Robert Atkins also have written excellent articles and books recommending
organic high saturated fat as good for health.
14. Our Imaginary Weight Problem — www.nytimes.com This study illustrates just how
exaggerated and unscientific the government’s claims are on the relationship between weight
and mortality risk.
Dr. Paul Ernsberger, “Is it Unhealthy To Be Fat?” Radiance, Winter 1986, 12-13. A graph with
4 weights of females, 110 lbs., 122 lbs., 224 lbs, and over 287 lbs., shows that the fattest (at
over 287 lbs.) live longer than the thinnest (at 110 lbs.). Those in the 224 lb. group outlive the
“insurance ideal” weight of 122 lbs.
Jan. 2, 2013 — Could Being a Little Overweight Help You Live Longer?
295
Dykes-Loving-Dykes
Chapter Ten
Newsweek Special Edition on “The 21st Century Family,” Winter/Spring 1990, page 98.
Also, very thin women have higher rates of lung cancer and osteoporosis than fatter women.
American Journal of Public Health, Vol. 3, 1987.
http://www.ihpra.org/cdc_obesity.htm
CDC: Dangers of being overweight overstated.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2386473/
Stigma and obesity-associated disease
http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=209359
Death rates by weight (range)
http://www.nutritionj.com/content/9/1/30;%20Nutrition%20Journal%202010,%209:30doi:10.
1186/1475-2891-9-30
Diets fail
http://www.nutritionj.com/content/10/1/9
Linda Bacon’s Paradigm Shift
15. China Study refuted: http://rawfoodsos.com/2010/07/07/the-china-study-fact-or-fallac/
Other studies that purport to show meat is unhealthy do not differentiate between toxic non-
organic meat laden with hormones and antibiotics from animals fed GMO grains or highly
processed meat full of toxic nitrites and nitrates from healthy organic pastured meat.
16. Robert Coleman Atkins, US physician and cardiologist — “Atkins Nutritional Approach,” and
Dieter’s Dilemma: Eating Less and Weighing More by William Bennett and Joel Gurin.
17. Male scientists go to the strangest lengths to alter the truth. On the BBCTV series, “The First
Eden,” David Attenborough claimed that the famous manybreasted statue of the goddess Diana
at Ephesus actually has a chest covered with testicles! (Shown on PBS television stations in the
U.S., December 1987.)
18. Carbon dated to at least 35,000 years ago…These figurines were carved from soft stone (such
as steatite, calcite or limestone), bone or ivory, or formed of clay and fired. The latter are
among the oldest ceramics known. In total, over a hundred such figurines are known; virtually
all of modest size, between 4 cm and 25 cm in height. They are some of the earliest works of
prehistoric art.
19. San Francisco Chronicle, 30 March, 1988

20. Dr. Dean Edell’s Medical Journal, KGO-TV, San Francisco, 10 November 1988.
21. This study and the following one are quoted from a thesis by Marianne Lens of Brussels,
Belgium, 1981-1982, titled “Perspectives D’Analyse de L’Ideologie de Ia DIFFERENCE, Comme
Fondement de L’Hetero-Patriarcat.”
L. Van Loon and Van Pee-Grosjean, “La Femme: Objet de Sante Publiquet,” Germ, Lettre de
Information 99, June, 1976, 18-19.
E. Gianini Belotti, Du Cote des Petites Filles, (Paris, France: Ed. des Femmes, 1977). Marianne
says “Of course these results are of a planetary nature, since patriarchal oppression itself is
omni-present.”
22. Newsweek Special Edition on “The 21st Century Family,” Winter/Spring 1990, page 98.
23. Dietary Consumption of Selected Food Groups for the US Population (Purdue Research
Foundation for the EPA, Washington D.C., Feb, 1980).
296
Dykes-Loving-Dykes
Chapter Ten
24. A report on KRON-TV, San Francisco, June 6, 1987, said that 80% of nine-year-old girls are on
diets. In Newsweek, 27 July 1987, a study by Laurel Mellin of the University of California at San
Francisco, stated that “81% of the 10 year-old girls were dieters.” “More than half the girls
described themselves as overweight, while only 15% were….”
Corinna Kaarela found that in a study of 500 “middle-income, parochial schoolgirls,” 89% of
the l7-year-olds were on diets. UC Clip sheet, Vol. 62, No.1, 9 December,1986.
In Time,14 July,1986, Dr. Michael Pugliese reported that “restrictive diets …now account for
one-fourth of the cases of failure to thrive seen at the hospital.” (North Shore University
Hospital in Manhasset, NY) “…the youngsters were all on low-fat, low-cholesterol diets and
getting only 63% to 94% of the calories they needed.” A 21-month old girl had “…failed to gain
any weight in nearly 6 months.”
25. By Wendy Zheutlin, Fat Chance Productions.
26. Joan Brumberg, in a KALW, San Francisco, radio interview, 16 August 1988, about her book,
Fasting Girls: The Emergence of Anorexia as a Modern Disease.
27. KRON-TV, San Francisco, news feature on “Eating Disorders,” 11 November 1988.
28. 20/20, ABC-TV, U.S.A., 1 January 1988.
29. In the May, 1986 issue of San Francisco Insight, one het woman commented on another het
woman’s feeling good about her weight increasing to 150 pounds by asking, “Has she gone
gay?”
30. Wearing only a bathing suit, Lynne Cox swam the two miles of the Bering Strait, from the
island of Little Diomede, Alaska to Big Diomede, Siberia, in the summer of 1987. The water
temperature was 34 degrees Fahrenheit and, although people usually die in such cold water
after 2 hours, Lynne swam for 2.12 hours and was fine. Doctors said that her layer of fat acted
as an internal wetsuit. She weighs about 209 lbs. Kathleen McCoy, “Making Waves,” Radiance,
Spring 1988, 25.
Update from Wikipedia: Lynne Cox (born 1957 in Boston, Massachusetts) is an American long-
distance open-water swimmer and writer…. She has twice held the record for the fastest
crossing (men or women) of the English Channel (1972 in a time of 9h 57 mins and 1973 in a
time of 9h 36 mins). In 1975, Cox became the first woman to swim the 10 °C (50 °F), 16 km
(10 mi) Cook Strait in New Zealand. In 1976, she was the first person to swim the Straits of
Magellan in Chile, and the first to swim around the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa.
Another of her accomplishments was swimming more than a mile (1.6 km) in the waters of
Antarctica. Cox was in the water for 25 minutes, swimming 1.22 miles (1.96 km).
31. Patricia Hausman, The Calcium Bible, How to Have Better Bones All Your Life, (Rawson
Associates: New York, U.S.A., 1985), 36-37.
32. A 1986 study by the University of Pennsylvania of adopted children and their adoptive and
biological parents showed genetic inheritance had a far greater influence on children’s weight
than environmental factors such as amount of food eaten. San Francisco Chronicle — 12
November 1986.
A study of Danish people found that the genetic tendency for fatness is passed most strongly
from mothers to daughters. “Genetic influences from fathers, and from mothers to sons, are
apparently about half that of mothers to daughters.” What could more clearly prove that
fatness is a specifically female characteristic? Charles Petit, “Genetics’ Role in Contributing to
Obesity,” San FranciscoChronicle, 31March,1989. A5.
33. Alvin Feinstein, “How do we measure accomplishment in weight reduction?” Obesity, Causes,
Consequences and Treatment, ed. Louis Lasagna (Medcom Press, 1974), 86.
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Bev Jo

Het Identification Destroys Dyke Culture ........................................... 91

Boys First Means Lesbians Last .......................................................161

Dykes Are Home ...........................................................................235

Introduction to Dykes-Loving-Dykes: Dyke Separatist Politics

Why We Wrote This Book

Valuing Dyke Ways

Innocents in the Publishing World

possible. Lesbians’ communication goals used to be honest, unpretentious

The Power of Names — Our Definitions

since it cut to the heart of Lesbian oppression, expressing it in a way no other

mastectomies and hysterectomies), enforced dieting, murder, beatings and

enough we’ll be able to be as physically functional as they are. Chronic illness

Ruston: I’m from Aotearoa, born in 1952 and raised in Tamaki-Makaurau. I

Well what else do they do?

The Crimes of Mankind

what a “rush” it was because, “A male human being likes to see an

Heterosexuality is a protection racket in which women choose particular men to

Boys Will Be Boys

Selling Out Is Not Compulsory

Het Feminism Is a Contradiction in Terms

The Heterosexist Myths that Manipulate Lesbian Feminists

The Power of Women to Choose Who They Love

The Heterosexist Hierarchy

Dykes Are Oppressed

— by Lesbians. Unfortunately, the self-hatred of internalized Lesbian oppression

What Is the Cause of Heterosexuality? Is There a Cure?

self is chosen. It results in privilege, not increased oppression. We still have

Because we suffer Lesbian oppression in addition to female oppression, Lesbians

“But I Love Him”

Het Women Hate Lesbians

Het Women Betray All Females

Heterosexism Among Lesbians Is Lesbian-hating

Stereotypes are a mixture of lies, projections, and distortions of partial

Het Privilege Lasts

expectation of acceptance. It also gives her a feeling of authority and superiority

The Heterosexist Hierarchy Among Lesbians

The Lure of Het Privilege

Bisexuals Choose to Not Be Lesbians

power of Fem privilege, dominance and submission, and sado-masochism. All of

Dyke Identity Is a Conscious Decision

“alternative lifestyle.” And she would erroneously interpret Dyke encouragement

The Co-Option of Pre-WLM Dyke Communities

No, We Were Not All Het

The Myth of Reverse Discrimination

some of these European-descent ex-wives actually complain about how they

Het Identification Destroys Dyke Culture

themselves/ourselves capable of tremendous change, courage, and self-love by

Supporting Butches Supports All Lesbians

Butch Myths and Objectifications

“women’s” sign is like a one-legged top in a dress. Humiliating and demeaning.

declaring, “I really am an incredibly selfish, misogynist, Lesbian-hating, and

women who no longer want to be us, and no longer want to be oppressed as

femininity inside and outside of themselves, I want to acknowledge these women

joke. Sometimes we’re commented on as a prurient interest of Fems who

Identity Appropriation Is Not a Form of Flattery

Part 1 - Butch Oppression

Coming out as Butch is as terrifying and difficult as coming out as a Lesbian or a

“So Give Me a Definition”

commonly found on models: narcissistic, arrogant, coy, seductive, cute,