Introduction: Challenging lesbian normativity

Journal of Lesbian Studies

Volumn 10, Issue 1-2, 2006, Pages 1-15

  Pattatucci Aragon, Angela ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF PUERTO RICO   (Puerto Rico)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ATTITUDE; EDITORIAL; FEMALE; HUMAN; LESBIAN; PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECT; SELF DISCLOSURE; SOCIAL ADAPTATION; SOCIAL BEHAVIOR; SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY; TRANSSEXUALISM;

FEMALE; HOMOSEXUALITY, FEMALE; HUMANS; PREJUDICE; REJECTION (PSYCHOLOGY); SELF DISCLOSURE; SOCIAL ADJUSTMENT; SOCIAL IDENTIFICATION; TRANSSEXUALISM;

EID: 84906387638     PISSN: 10894160     EISSN: 15403548     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1300/J155v10n01_01     Document Type: Editorial

References (18)

1. I quote popular films in this paper and acknowledge that they are taken out of context. My aim in using them is not to create a direct linkage to issues raised in the text through cinematic examples. Instead, I use the quotes as metaphors both to anchor and to drive the discussion forward.
2. Institute of Medicine (1999). Lesbian Health: Current Assessment and Directions for the Future. Washington, D.C.: National Academies of Science. The report can be found and purchased at http://www.iom.edu/ report.asp?id=5606.
3. This quote appears in Sara Cooper and Connor Trebra's article featured in this volume: "Teaching Transgender in Women's Studies: Snarls and Strategies."
4. I acknowledge my own failing in this. By choosing secrecy over disclosure with respect to my intersex status, I did not give women in lesbian communities a chance to be accepting and supportive. However, it is important to recognize that my attitudes were shaped surrounding the issue of disclosure during the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s, a time of extreme dogma-centered policing within lesbian communities. Indoctrination into lesbian communities involved what amounted to an act of contrition - purging all patriarchal influences and underpinnings in one's life and embracing the way, the truth, and the life of lesbian ethics. Fanatical rules were developed for virtually every aspect of life, including prohibitions against certain positions and practices used during lovemaking, wearing traditional feminine attire (including grooming practices such as shaving and hygienic measures such as the use of tampons), regulations governing modes of speech and the people with whom you associated, and a host of other things deemed patriarchal. (For a more detailed analysis of lesbian policing see Faderman L (1991). Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers. New York: Columbia University Press.) It was a time when women (including lesbians) with children were scorned as breeders (my how things have changed with respect to childbearing). Coming out within this fanatical community context was neither a power-neutral nor a value-neutral process. It was not akin to me announcing that I liked pink lipstick in a group of women all wearing red. There were real consequences. Of course, one could say that this is true for the coming out experiences of most lesbians and gay men. However, disclosure of sexual orientation for lesbians and gay men most typically involves coming out of one support system (e.g., mainstream straight community) and coming into another (e.g., underground homosexual community). This holds true for my coming out experience as a lesbian, but not as intersex. Trans, intersex, and queer movements did not emerge until the 1990s. The other half of the equation did not exist for me; there was no other support system to come into. At the time, I could not see any other option except to remain in my closeted, shame-bound life.
5. I am using Eli Green's definition of trans as denoting a person whose gender identity is not congruent with their assigned biological sex. Eli prefers the term trans to transgender or transsexual because it does not inherently assume surgical or hormonal status/desire. Using trans also represents a purposeful move to include people whose identities do not necessarily fit within the constraints of the more commonly used terms transgender or transsexual (or who do not feel comfortable with these particular labels). See Eli Green's article featured in this volume: "Debating Trans Inclusion in the Feminist Movement: A Trans-Positive Analysis."
6. The accusation that there is a trans agenda to undermine lesbian communities has strong parallels to the irrational fears expressed by Christian conservatives alleging a homosexual agenda with anarchistic aims to destabilize the principles and values under which the United States was founded. Some conservatives go as far as to claim that the so-called homosexual agenda is bent upon destroying the world. While lesbian communities make no such broad-based claim, the rhetoric used by anti-trans lesbians is thematically similar to that of Christian conservatives, and one could argue that antitrans lesbians are claiming that the so-called trans agenda would destroy their world as they know it.
7. Intersex females with 5-alpha reductase deficiency or partial androgen insensitivity syndrome are born with a vulva and vaginal opening (thus the female sex assignment) but also with testis located in the lower abdomen where the ovaries usually would be found. If undetected, a naturally occurring virilization process commences at puberty when the abdominally located testis begin producing varying amounts of testosterone. If left to proceed, the testis eventually will migrate and fill the outer labial folds, the clitoris will enlarge to resemble a penis, and masculine external characteristics will develop.
8. The necessity for federal oversight was in part related to my position at the NIH and was reasonable. Because I presided over HIV/AIDS scientific review sessions, all real or perceived sources of conflict of interest had to be avoided. Since HIV/AIDS is such a broad and diverse field of research, this in effect eliminated all possibilities for academic collaboration. Initiating collaboration with one individual at an institution automatically placed me in conflict of interest with all grant applications submitted from the entire institution. However, the oversight process also enables the federal government to control the flow of information. In particular, the federal government seeks to avoid all appearances of promoting a homosexual agenda.
9. This quote appears in Pattatucci-Aragón A (2001). Contra la Corriente (Against the Current). In: Gartrell NK and Rothblum ED (eds.), Everyday Mutinies: Funding Lesbian Activism. Binghamton, NY: Harrington Park Press, p. 8.
10. Heteronormativity describes a binary gender system in which only two sexes are recognized, where sex is equated with gender and gender with a heterosexual orientation.
11. Restrictions on marriage have a long and disgraceful history in the U.S. Those pertaining to opposite-sex couples historically have centered on race and mental status. For approximately the first 100 years of U.S. existence, those of African descent were by law defined as 4/5 of a human being. While the abolition of slavery struck down this legal definition explicitly, it was implicitly applied for nearly another century. Laws prohibiting interracial marriage, more broadly applied to all people of color, existed in some states well into the 1960s. The most common justification for maintaining these laws was the erroneous belief that interracial marriages would lead to the birth of monster-like children. The subtext of this claim is that people of color are considered less than human. (For more information see Klarman MJ (2004). From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality. New York: Oxford University Press.)
12. In another example, the eugenics movement in the first half of the 20th century led to the creation of a subhuman class known as the feebleminded. The justification for restricting marriage in this case was that if the feebleminded were allowed to reproduce, the condition would contaminate the gene pool of the White majority and spread throughout U.S. society like a plague, resulting in decreased intelligence and eventually leading to the collapse of the country. In addition to the absurdity of this claim, a major problem was that definitions of feeblemindedness were subjective. Anyone could be labeled feebleminded and hauled off to an institution. (For further information see: Black E (2003). War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race. New York: Four Walls Eight Windows.) Although laws prohibiting the feebleminded from marrying have been repealed in all states, policies regarding marriage for the mentally retarded and individuals with acute psychiatric illness remain in some states. Again, the assumption behind the prohibition is that of a subhuman status, in this case a presumed incapability to control sexual urges and remain faithful to a spouse, along with the inability to understand and appreciate the sanctity of marriage. Given this history, one could argue that the heteronormative majority considers lesbians and gay men to be 4/5 of a human being or some other fraction thereof and thus feel justified in prohibiting same-sex marriage.
13. For a more thorough conceptualization of this element, see Kelly Coogan's article featured in this volume: Fleshy Specificity: (Re)considering Transsexual Subjects in Lesbian Communities.
14. Rejection of patriarchally defined gender-role standards became codified for lesbians during the gay liberation movement of the late 1960s, when they broke away early in the process and aligned themselves with the women's liberation movement. Consequently, the politics of oppression displaced romance and love as the central framework for lesbian identity. Once prized in lesbian circles, femmes were vilified (at least publicly) as reifying the patriarchal oppression that real lesbians were fighting to end (see Nestle J (1992). The Persistent Desire: A Femme-Butch Reader. San Francisco, CA: Alyson Publications). Given this backdrop, the love/hate relationship that lesbian communities have had with femmes can be best understood by the fact that for many lesbians their entry into lesbian communities involved a process of self-discovery and empowerment through the systematic unlearning or outright rejection of patriarchal definitions of femininity and expectations for acceptable feminine behavior. I submit that this path to lesbianism is so engrained in modern lesbian politics that it would be difficult, if not inconceivable, for many lesbians to accept that a femme woman could arrive at her lesbian identity through a different route, a route that involves embracing the same patriarchal standards for feminine appearance and behavior that others rejected to establish their lesbian identity. Because the embracing route is considered a less noble pathway to lesbianism than rejection, femmes occupy a minority status within lesbian communities. Femme women tend to be seen as less genuine lesbians and are viewed with constant suspicion (e.g., that they only are interested in sexual play and might run off with a man at any moment). However, if we conceptualize patriarchally defined gender-role standards as a uniform - a set of symbolic signifiers that denote submission and sexual availability to men that women are required to wear - then which lesbian, the one who rejects the uniform or the one who embraces it, is engaged in the most radical act? I propose that wearing the uniform but not for its intended purpose is a greater act of in-your-face radical subversion than rejecting the uniform entirely. The love/hate relationship with femmes can be further understood using the antiquated adage butch in the streets, femme in the sheets as a metaphor. Femmes may be disparaged in public spheres, where lesbian values take on their greatest importance, but they still are desired privately. A recent poll on the Website for the television series The L Word confirms this. Producers of the show asked fans to indicate what they would like to see more of for the second season of the show. Among the various categories, more gorgeous femmes was the overwhelming favorite. This is a case where internal desire, expressed within the context of an anonymous poll, trumped external group-driven politically correct behavior.
15. As Judith Butler articulates, patriarchally defined gender role standards congeal on the surface to generate the appearance of an internal core identity (see Butler J (1990). Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge, p 136). Although lesbian communities act as if the process is (or should be) different for lesbians, in reality it is not. Gender role standards in lesbian communities also congeal on the surface to create the appearance of an internal core identity. These standards are normalized and are just as zealously policed as those observed in mainstream heterosexual settings. In this respect, homonormativity, like its sister heteronormativity, is a value-laden façade projecting an ideal - how things should be or how we wish them to be.
16. Although same-sex marriage is legal in Massachusetts, I submit that the general public tends to view same-sex unions as a lower form of marriage or as entirely invalid. This is evidenced by fervent attempts in Massachusetts to amend the state constitution to define marriage as a union between one woman and one man and equally ardent attempts to amend the U.S. Constitution to define marriage once and for all. Civil unions and domestic partner benefits by definition are considered a lower species of marriage by the heteronormative majority. Thus, the heteronormative standard of marriage remains firmly in place as the desired form or the ideal, despite the fact that some marriage or marriage-like rights have been won for same-sex couples. However, most important for this discussion is the way in which homonormativity acts to fragment lesbian communities into hierarchies of worthiness. Lesbians that are able to come closest to mimicking heteronormative standards (we're just like you except for one thing) are deemed the most worthy of receiving rights. Those at the bottom of the hierarchy (intersex, trans, intersectional, and queer individuals) are seen as an impediment to this elite class of lesbians obtaining their rights. This is evidenced by the unfortunate, but all too common, tendency among homonormative lesbians to blame the victim when trans persons suffer violent attacks or are murdered. On the surface, these lesbians seem to be asserting that if the trans person were a little less trans, a little less flaming and a little more closeted, they would not have been victimized. However, imbedded in the subtext is a frustration over the necessity for damage control with the heteronormative majority (e.g., Don't freak out. Remember, we're like you; not like them).
17. For an introduction to Social Dominance Theory, see Sidanius J and Pratto F (2001). Social Dominance: An Intergroup Theory of Social Hierarchy and Oppression. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
18. I am indebted to Kelly Coogan at Rutgers University for this quote and for helping me to flesh out concepts in this introduction.