There are times my voice is very much that of a lesbian: a woman who uses the pronoun SHE and HER about dating, about love, about relationships, about desire and sensual, sexual expression.
It is also specifically lesbian when it comes to health issues: we have ever so slightly different health concerns than straight women — not much but some.
I can also speak at length and with tongue-in-cheek about stereotypes in the categories and sub categories of various lesbian tribes. I can raise an eyebrow at lesbian fashion and design sensibilities — which may be the subject of a post at some future date. I can raise two eyebrows at that newest of categories, celesbians.
DYKE DETOUR: Because I am in Canada, I can SO wonder about American celesbian culture. What on earth is it about that English singer-songwriter +DJ Samantha Ronson who dated Lindsay Lohan, anyway? And why, why, why are Americans so enamoured of English accents..? Was it part of how Tony and George cemented their war agreement? Put more English accents on American television? I think most lesbians here know that celesbian life is no more representative of all American lesbians than Mars is of the moon, except for the fact that they exist in space, along with other stars, and planets and universes.
BACK TO MAINSTREAM POINT: So after much thought and furrowed eyebrows and discussion, I have landed on this: Not everything about me is about being a lesbian, and by extension, my lesbian voice is not the only voice with which I speak or write.
Clearly, my lesbian voice is tempered by living in Canada’s largest city. Today, not a day goes by where you don’t see same-sex couples holding hands, or sharing a quick kiss in a shopping mall, or on the street or in a restaurant. It was not like that three years ago.
In Canada, a homosexual can now expect the same rights as a heterosexual, at least in the eyes of the law. We now have same-sex marriage, and honeymoons, same-sex couples looking to become pregnant or adopt and swap child-rearing stories; same-sex tax-filing and pension rights for partners, and let’s not forget same-sex divorce, same-sex custody battles (previous restricted to dogs and cats and mediation rather than court).
That’s a far cry from a slightly different Toronto of just 10 years ago: one woman, a lesbian had died after a battle with breast cancer, and her partner of 12 years had no say, no recourse when the woman’s parents were ALLOWED to enter the home and take the woman’s belongings.
Granted, the law is hardly a concern to homophobes and anyone who has trouble with something that is OTHER. And in families, well, there are many difficult stories, and some workplaces remain unsafe to be out, but there is progress.
Oh and we are SO a target market for beer, cruise lines, cars, fashion, enlightened banks, financial planners and Ikea, although it’s mostly aimed at men, because men STILL make far more than women.
And while I am a professional, being a lesbian using a lesbian voice is not my career — unlike lesbians who happen to be queer feminist academics with an minor in women’s sexuality who teach queer studies.
I know that this reality is not everyone’s reality. There is much work to be done before equity truly exists. And because it is an issue of equity and rights, my voice as a woman is right in there.
My lesbian my voice is so often entwined with my voice as a woman it will remain hard to tease out going forward. I’ll work to point it out through the cheeky comments about lesbian life, or the wacky, wonderous, heart pounding, blood stopping astonishment and forehead slapping, sweet and sometimes difficult reality of women loving women, of two women being in relationship together. Which, by the way, just happens to be the subject of Lesbian Space: Part Two.
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Thank you for stopping by and reading. I would like to wish you a wonderful send off of 2009 and an auspicious welcoming celebration to usher in 2010. May the goddesses in all traditions around the many worlds smile on you and conspire together to bring you strength, love, contentment and laughter.
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