Program on Lesbian Separatism

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That was Lavender Jane with, Talking was less than what was that second saw you forget where you from gay head, ok. And there are five lesbians in this air-room and a lot more out in the big room listening and we hope a lot more out there listening in the greater mid-missouri community and would you like to go ahead I'll let you introduce yourself. [Guest] : Oh okay. [Host]: One of our number has something to say here, get little bit closer to the microphone. [Guest]: Okay Well, I'm Diana and I' m here on this program on lesbian separatism I'd like to make a statement to all women not be invalidated because i'm a lesbian woman. We're celebrating the multifaceted aspects of women-hood on the radio and all over this town this weekend. Ten years ago, possibly even five, this was virtually impossible. We as women, as feminist, as lesbians, have struggled, worked, and fought long and hard to ?womanifest?

this womens weekend. This weekend is truly something to celebrate. [Laughter and indistinguishable chatter] Blessed be. Our struggles are not over. We have just begun to define the space that we need as women. Make and take that space. I want to invoke a line that I heard a black woman sing "They're not giving us our freedom so we are going to reach out and take it. Take our freedom make it ours." Which brings me to a controvers-controversial controversial subject; Men and Women's space. Women need a space of their own to gather our energies and heal ourselves. At this point the negative force of the male has become so intense that it has [pause] become an essential part of women survival together without men. Men that we as women have turned to each other for that support that vital

re-energizing support that we need and on and Negate the women, the work, and the accomplishments that we have made While manifesting this women's weekend or any other work that brings us women together. I hope we all realize the importance of coming together affirm ourselves and our differences, our common qualities and our common struggles. It's not an attack on heterosexual women. I do you think it's important that all women, heterosexual and lesbians alike, find positive ways to work together and so many women's issues have been addressed well, let's see, yeah, when so many women's issues have been addressed this one weekend, out of a whole year that is devoted specifically to women, I was disappointed to see and hear so much that could have been and is being presented as "people's issue". Women are people of course, but

there are issues that are specifically women's issues for lesbians and heterosexuals alike and I would like to see these issues addressed and given priority in the future women's events I want to be able to celebrate women as often and as possible and everywhere, everywhere, we are everywhere. We need our space and we will take. These are my opinions and I take responsibility for them. I've been speaking to women, lesbians, and heterosexuals and I'm finding out that these feelings are felt by many women. So through this affirmation I feel confident in saying that these are not biased opinions. They're shared by many and um, I kinda wanna bring up the subject about Gladstones which sort of inspired me to write this. Um, I went around there, and it was real hard for me to be there being lesbian and being as much

of a separatist lesbian that I can be, um, I know at least ten women, that had to leave because you know I wanted to leave because they just didn't want to deal with the male aspect there and um, [pause] I was real disappointed to see that happening because it was a woman's event and women couldn't feel good enough because the men being there too to stay. I mean it was really a struggle for me to stay and also I've talked to some heterosexual women and they felt that they really would of liked to seen it [coughing] more of a women's space as opposed to, you know, the men and the women there As, well, sort of as straight woman I guess ?Define herself?. Either way but, she told me um

that she wished that every woman would just, you know, take one look at the man sitting next to them and ask him to leave, and I thought that was a real strong statement for a woman who has men friends and things. Anyone else want to talk about Gladstones? Just won't listen i just i would like to say this is an issue of women only space, I think it's something that we can address here as lesbian and i-in the context of lesbian separatism because I feel like women only space is a e-extremely important concept and I think that's whe-, that's the only place where women can really build the energy that is inside of us and to really share things and I think a lot of people don't understand women only space. They see it as something against men, and exclusive of men, when what it really is trying to do is open an opportunity for women to be together and to not drain their

energy off into the male behaviors that are around and to people who are invested in and they're not building their energy, but instead to give each other energy and to realize the beautiful things are within women that can happen when you're with other women and I think anyone who's been at an women only event knows that there's a special feeling there and something that cannot happen when men are included. It seems real strange to me that it's some, that it's something that we that we literally have to fight for and that has become more and more t-, in my view, uh impossible to find I mean almost impossible to find and i don't think that uh if you're straight, if you don't relate to the world as a lesbian, then you have no idea what it's like, day after day after day to be living. I feel like I live in occupied territory, and I-I-I feel like most of my life I just have to try to kinda pass, to blend, to be able to do my job and make a living and whatnot and there's fewer and fewer places where i feel like it's safe to be

myself. And it's real frightening and I don't think that that if you fit in if you know if you're one of the majority if you're a heterosexual white person. That you have any idea what it's like to have no space, virtually no space except your own home or your friend's home where you can really be yourself and it seems strange to me that our own, that other sisters and movement don't understand that, and I'm not saying they all don't, that I'll say that all straight women don't because a lot of straight women do, but it always becomes such an issue and um, you know I remember we had one of the meetings we were having for women's weekend and I remember one woman saying you kn- what I thought that was kind of a hostile manner or you know we've got to make sure that men feel included and, you know, sort of reach out to men for this and I thought, you know, Wow I mean where is she, you know, she's not where I am. Yeah, go ahead jump right in. I think that's really true. I agree with you I mean it seems that sometimes one of the criticisms leveled against the women's show is that oh well a they're they're too lesbian and yet how little of what's on the radio or anywhere has to do with lesbians

at all, and if you are heterosexual, it's ?Emmy? said, it's like you really cannot imagine that I'm 99%, almost a 100%, of the programming done even on a station like KOPN is for heterosexuals and you can't know that until you live as a lesbian what that's like. It's really important that we take our own space and, uh, make it what we want it. I thought it was strange to see a program described in the program guide as blatantly heterosexual programming. Um, and I co- wasn't sure where that was coming from because of course the overwhelming majority of programs, even this women's weekend, are blatantly heterosexual program and if you if you try to imagine yourself a lesbian and listen to things, you will hear them very differently [small chuckle] and you'll see how, how the assumptions that are made the assumptions that me- that women relate to men. [Guest]: Yes [Host]: The assumptions that [Guest]: That can only relate to men Right. Women in this culture, the kinds of experiences that are

portrayed i-in through the media, in in any form, whether it be literature or arts or the radio or the television or or music, um always the experiences though is portrayed as though women only relate to men. Women are relating to women is is left out and only, you know even in a movie like Girlfriends, you know it was it was dominated you know by the fact that these women were relating to men. In the end, that's what won out [guest agrees] and as a lesbian it's an extremely important to try to get some lesbians space. Even just some women space whether a straight women, as well. But just so that you can that you can have something to identify with in the larger world. Because it's as you say, if you don't- if we don't make our own women's space then we are always tying up our energy dealing with men and I think that's what you're saying with the Gladstone incident. I-I've had that happen many times. You know you don't want to be reacting and responding to men and I think it's up to men to be responsible for their own behavior. We should not have to be responding to that.

Which it shouldn't have to be, defending ourselves and our need to have to have a women's weekend or women's music. I-I just I don't think we should take responsibility for that. Just looking at it sort of historically, we're uh, we're miracles. I mean we really are miracles. Every one of us is a miracle because we have fought through every thing that we were taught, enormous pressure, enormous prejudices, we have we have more or less voluntarily chosen to to be outlaws to be outcasts and, I'm losing my train of thought because I'm getting gestured at, anyway, uh what was I talking about. I've lost my track of thought. [Guest]: We were talking about [Guest]: Under enormous pressure and we've come through all this [Host]: Okay right and here we are, here we are. We're almost the first generation in a sense, I think, uh that uh if you don't count the the ?preaching circles? [Different Speaker]: Oh the lesbians have been here. [Host]: No but as a organized force that kne- that consciously went out and found each other, I think that we're, you know, in a political sense. [Other speaker]: We are just frowned within this patriarchal. [Host]: And I

think it's I think what we have to do is, well, the song we were gonna play kinda says it, where do we go from here? Yeah, we have to start building something that's gonna last because otherwise, all the the women that come that come after us, are going go throu- have to go through the same struggles maybe worse ones the way the political climate's going, then we've had. And where are we gonna find this space in this culture now to start building all this? That's my question. And I'd like to make one point just about in in relation to this, just about being a lesbian. I would like for everyone out there to know that being a lesbian is something that you are. I mean I feel that it's not this choice I have. That if I would only, you know, uh, choose to do so I could live differently or be something other than who I am. I feel like I was born a lesbian, the way somebody was born black or born white or born male or female. And so imagine, you know, trying to live your life all the time as something that you're not. [host agrees] Even though you know you are. It's like... Back to the point of being an organized force I

feel that women in their own ways, lesbians in particular, um, have always been somewhat an organized force. We fought really long and hard, you know, from even my grandmother's and my great grandmother's times there were lesbians then. There are more lesbians now because women like us that are sitting here speaking on the radio are putting words, well not putting words in women's mouth, but giving them words for their feelings, you know? Back then even you know in the 19- 40s and 1930s, there wasn't a chance. I mean, you had one chance in a lifetime maybe, to meet another lesbian. Where as we're just really, you know, we fought long, we've fought long and we fought hard to get to the point of being able to talk on the air right now. Yes, just to say that there is a choice that's what we're saying. We're not saying everyone is a lesbian or should be. We're saying there's a choice and we're lesbians and, you know, we don't want to hide that.

We don't see that as a negative thing. That's who we are and we see it as a positive thing for us to be. I know, um, speaking for myself that I don't think that I would be lesbian if it wasn't for the women's movement, because I'm not sure that I would've ever of al-broken through the barriers in my mind of not knowing, of never having heard the word, of [clears throat] of thinking of it as something unthinkable really uh something so bad that you know you just "Naah, you're an outcast, you know, you don't wanna be that," but with the women's movement there is, there was the support there from other lesbians in the movement to where you could feel like this could be a viable way to live. It could be something that you would choose to exercise and that's why it's so important to me that that we continue to be a force and, uh, and to make our space. I think the important distinction to be made here is that there is a choice, and that choice is involved in how you live. Um, I feel like Linda does, that I'm a lesbian. I could choose to live as though I were not, but I would still be. Right.

and and I- you know the women's movement has given a whole lot of support and a whole lot of voice to women like ourselves who have these feelings. And I may have got my whole life thinking I'm not like, you know, lesbians because I don't, you know, wear [pauses] men's clothes and go and cut my hair real short and slick it back like the lesbians were portrayed in in the information that I got when I was a young woman and I-I think that that the women's movement has allowed us to find each other and to support each other and the choice is there to live as a lesbian. The choice is there to be yourself and the creation of women's spaces only and the women's movement as a whole is only to provide women to, for the opportunity themselves. I like to say that, um, originally lesbians had to fight to get into the feminist movement. In most instances I-I find that that was true. Not to not to get into it [clears throat] we were in it from the very beginning but to [Different Speaker]: But yeah to be accepted

allowed to come out of our closets within the women's movement. They didn't- nobody ever objected to us, you know, pst-licking envelopes, [Guest]: Working. and doing all that thing but if you wanted to make a speech you mention in it that you were a lesbian in it then that's another story [laughs] and it still is, I think. Oh I think so. Lesbians do a a lot of work in the women's movement and yet a a lot of the lesbians are doing the work don't broadcast the fact that they're lesbians and if you do, that's not real popular. [Agrees] That's why I'm so glad this show is about separatism. You know like heterosexual women have an essential part in the women's movement, because their into their men and they, you know, can raise their consciousness. I haven't the energy they men take too much of my energy just by walking down the street, harassment all the time, you know, everything because I'm a lesbian because I'm a woman. And, um, I put my energy specifically and almost excludes- exclusively, you know, I

would put it exclusively if I possibly could into women. I think that's a good point. I think that lesbians, that's what we're doing. We're women who do put our energy into other women. Yeah, and not only as a sexual thing but as an analytical stance and a life, you know, a life sustaining stance. Many heterosexual women even come and take, you know, our support and our energy and go do with it with their men and, you know, and just go back to their men and sometimes, I mean, it's nice that we're trying to work together and I support that but, um, sometimes they're not real sensitive to our needs as lesbians. [music] [music]

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[music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] And that was Meg Christian with "Where Do We Go From

Here" and if you just tuned in you're listening to a program about lesbian separatism on women's weekend here on KOPN radio, and before I forget our mention that we are not taking phone calls in terms of discussing the programming or having phone calls over the air we, um, don't have all the time in the world this afternoon and those of us here have a lot of things that we very much wanna talk about and we're sorry if that doesn't give you a chance to respond back. I'm sure they'll be another chance for that. You can call up any time I do the Moon of Artemis [Laughs] see what we can do. [Clears throat] Uh we wanted to just kind of talk about, um, what lesbian separatism is, uh, what what what the, that concept means to us and we're going to just go around and I'm gonna start off because I don't have any real answers. But when I think about it it seems real simple to me. It means divorcing myself, as best I can, from male dominated culture. And that sounds, maybe it sounds simple but it is

enormously complex and difficult and seeing as how I don't have money to go buy land I don't really wanna go live isolated from a lot of activity. I've always wanted to be part of political activities. Although, I find it harder and harder to feel comfortable as a lesbian and do that. So, I have chosen to live in town and I have, you know, I work, um, and so they aren't very, I don't have now, I can't say that I'm much of a lesbian separatist anymore. At one time when I wa-, I was and at that point I was willing to accept a lot more poverty and except a lot more of the hostility that you receive when you start being sort of a natural lesbian and I looked different and everything. So, that's about all. To me it just means divorcing myself from male dominated culture and I do it at least in my mind every day but in terms of doing it physically I don't do it too often. Well, I feel that um ideally, lesbian separatism would mean being in position to not have anything to do with men but

realistically i feel that you know putting your energies towards women and excluding men and all that you can is you know for me that's important as a lesbian and as a separatist um I'd like to address the country issue a little bit and say that that's one space where women can somewhat be a practical separatist in the sense that they're not dealing with men much and i think it's a political statement in itself that to have women on the land, living and functioning self sufficiently without men and that's happening and it's happening all over the country and i encourage women to get together with each other if they have any dreams

whatsoever about getting land with other women to do it because the land on mother, mother earth we all know is vitally important to anyone survival especially women's. Well for me uh what I was thinking about what lesbian separatism meant for me, it's really a combination of the two. I'm like you said earlier about uh mainly i think about it as separate myself spiritually and mentally uh removing myself from the old ideas of the fathers, from the patriarch you know, patriarchal culture that's all around us and and having a new way of seeing things in seeing through the lies you know I'm separating myself from all the old lies that we've grown up with in the from the day were born, even before were born. Um, I also attempt as often as possible to separate myself physically too because I get really tired of having to explain myself all the time where

i'm coming from because i feel that even my friends who are not lesbians still see me sometimes and i'm sure they don't do it consciously but i think that they have this filter up in their minds and they see me as a lesbian first and as a person second i think that when i have an opinion they're going to automatically connect that with my lesbianism before they'll think of it any further along the lines. So if I have any sort of a comment that's what comes across in mind first and i thought i have to explain myself all the time in and be on the defensive. Uh I just find its general attitude of you know your lesbian your a man hater dada dada da, well I get so sick of that and so sick of being accused of having negative energy when it's not negative energy it's positive energy towards women and so when i get so i don't have to deal with that i'd rather be with lesbians with other women feel that way

and and get stronger from that and that's what's been happening in the past couple years of my life. I think I came to separatism from so many years i think of putting energy into men and feeling like my energy then was being drained off and not getting energy back and feeling like i didn't have much to give back to the world, to the things that I cared for I just felt that it was best for me personally to put my energy into women as Debbie said i feel like it's a positive thing and not a negative thing. I feel like that by doing that, that I'm sustained to uh do my work, uh to to be with with uh maybe the environment a lot more. The things that I care about I feel like I I feel like those things are compatible with my putting energy into other women and that's the way I see it for me, I just don't want my energy drained off.

And I look at at lesbian separatism in in many of the same ways as had already been expressed. I feel like ideally, separatism would be the creation of a time space where i would not have to deal with a male culture at all and not only not just um dealing directly with men but also with women who represent that culture and who fight for that culture all the time um in relation to my trying to be in a women's culture. And I feel too that they're being a lesbian is an extremely positive um thing in my life it it allows me to be myself in a way that that I don't see very many women who were not lesbians able to the and I feel like I can be myself like that most when I am not reacting against all the patriarchal male identified things in our culture and i'm not I don't want to spend all my time defending my being a lesbian or my not wanting to deal with men and as

as has been said, it just drains away your energy. It drains away my energy and I want my energy to be free and to flow well and to be healthy and and to play into my life, not into the lives of the men around me and in the world at large. You know, I see uh some of us hesitating to mention names, like we're looking at each other and says as you said Main Speaker: as you said and Other Speaker: Yeah lets keep it like that [Laughs] Main Speaker: different women speaking and that you know I don't want to say your names because maybe you're you know worried about your jobs or you know whatever how we're you know so threatened by that that you know we're not saying names and we haven't really discussed that before this that, um do we want our names over the air or not and i mean how dare we have to do why do we have to um, be put in this

position? I'm really angry that um, you know I'll probably have to change my name after this air you know? I might just do that anyways way. I think that's really true. I I think that um it's a part of the real world that we live in. I think it's one of those realities that we're trying to get away from by trying to be separatists. And you know several of us do have jobs and and if it were known that we were lesbian it may cause quite a bit of trouble in that jobs, whether or not it costs to lose the job which is a reality also and i think that for the one who were listening who are not lesbians I think that's something that anybody could think about just right now that you know if you are a lesbian that's a real fear. That's a reality. Consider what a stress that is. To think we're just, Different Speaker: My home, if my landlord knew I was a lesbian I wouldn't have a place to live. Main Speaker: We are saying some of the things we believe in yet we could be afraid to reveal our name's that's also a stress which brings us back to the need I think to be with each other because of that why we're talking about energy so much because it's really a stress and i can honestly say

from having spent many years thinking i was a heterosexual that if you think that not true, it is. Because uh being a lesbian living as a lesbian is stressful and uh it's when I'm with other women like myself that I feel healed. I feel like I can finally I can finally be myself. I don't have to as i think Debbie said um um just be explaining myself or defending myself but i can just gee, I can just be who I am, Linda. I don't have to even maybe talk about um being a lesbian because Debbie knows it and that's nice. I was you know just thinking about um you know, us as separatists are working towards building women's cultures so that women have that option it's like were lesbians you know, and being lesbians, the society that is built right now totally alienates us in a negative way and even though we are taking our space and stepping ou-

out of society in a sense um we're turning th- that negative energy around and trying to do a real positive things um with all the things that have been really just thrown at us. All the garbage, all the lies, all the hate. I am one i was thinking while um you were talking about what our culture has been traditionally which has been bars and that's been pretty much the only place where lesbians found each other and you know it's just to create such an image in your head you know you can imagine back in say the 1950's when you think of those lesbians working out there in the straight world and then it in, in a totally conformistic, much worse than it is even now and then going at night the bar and getting loaded you know and that's only place where you could it was acceptable to be a lesbian. But even then it was accepted th-that you were que- queer in a since it was accepted as being that you were a divert you know that you were weird or whatever. It wasn't seen as a positive thing is what I'm getting at. And that again it's

like i mean that's not that hasn't ended. They're still lots of lesbians who primarily see each other in bars and alcoholism is a big problem in our community. All our communities all across the nation and that again you know gets me get to we have to have new better kinds of space with each other than those dark smoky smelly bars. Really, we can sing with our own voices and talk and say our names and touch each other and even though you know all of our touching isn't sexual I'd like to stress that. You know just because we're lesbians were not sexual perverts know something you know like to that effect and I'd also like to say something about it and she said about the 1950's I wasn't even born then and thank the goddess women like her have been there and have struggled to get out of the bars into the circle and here i am i came into a pretty, well it was

a beginning of women's, I mean there was already a women's lesbian um record made before i was born. Different Speaker: That's unbelievable. Main Speaker: Isn't that wonderful? and so here i am coming into a culture and i'm building on women's culture. I'm really seriously into, I mean there are women carpenters, there are women doctors, lawyers, teachers of your children our children. Um, there are women who deliver children who are lesbians and we do it with our love in our hearts and it's not you know we're not perverts we're really not. You're both really saying too that the whole thing about it being positive i i think that's really an important thing to think about there are still a lot of people who, it's true just that the idea you would view your own lesbianism as being something positive it's just something that's hard for people to understand that you could do that something different. Different Speaker: Don't you have to work at it? I do. Main Speaker: Yes of course. it's very hard not

to feel negative about yourself or bad about yourself and again that's the reason for separating yourself as much as you can from a culture who views you as being this terrible thing maybe a pervert which is incredible to me. For instance, I taught school for four years and i find it really incredible that people think I might be some kind of a pervert. I just I want to say that part of the reason that lesbians have met in bars in the past is that there was the only space allotted to us by the larger culture. We're talking here um about a lot of personal feelings but it's also a political entity here and the culture does not want us to be meeting each other. They don't want us to come out of the bars, they don't want us to come out of the closet either and they really don't want us to be being together on our own terms and our own space to do with our energy what we will. It's a very threatening thing to the culture at large because we don't then feed that culture. All of this wonderful women's

energy, when we take and do with it what we want, does not feed men and if you, anyone will look around themselves in this culture. That is the aim of everything in this culture. This culture is a woman hating culture and i know Debbie said something quite a while ago not on the show, she said the most radical thing i do is love women and that is the most radical thing to be done in this culture because this culture teaches us to hate women and to denigrate women to feel that women are not worth anything. So you can go to a and be a dyke, but you can't get on a show like this and really like yourself for being one. Right, and you can't teach in a high school and in and say "I'm a Dyke" you know? Because people are afraid that their kids will come home and say "I'm a dyke" you know? And and there's a song that i heard that its um it talks about ?lessyqueer? everyone wants to be a ?lessyqueer? because there was a hero who was an Olympiad hero who was a lesbian. Now that's unheard of in this culture. Nobody wants to be a

?lessyqueer? you know but we are and a lot of us are. [Laughter] And and it's coming out that we do want to be lesbians because it's a wonderful thing to be. I'd like to say something about um and then the men are really threatened and i think i think that's why you know even some women are threatened but right now i'm thinking about the men how threatened they are that lesbians are here we are everywhere. You know, even back in the woods, we are living in the woods in the cities, and everything and um I think you know instead of trying to fight us, because basically we're women's as well as the women they are with and loving, um hopefully loving, um that they should get together and instead of draining women's energy, even their own feminist girlfriend, should I say or woman friend um [Mouth noises] get together with

themselves and try to figure out why. You know? Try to teach themselves and learn not to be threatened and learned to understand that we are very wonderful women. Lesbians are wonderful women really we are all so wonderful and I love women. I love women [light chuckling] I hadn't intended to get into this whole subject and I don't know how much I want to get into it but what do maybe I don't wanna get into it It's just that's really where i was a few years ago. But I mean lesbians aren't all wonderful women. That that's a a fallacy and i think it does us less than justice because it seems like, that's saying they we're not human or s- something i mean it's like i know some lesbians myself included who have some very bad moments, but that doesn't change I mean I still think it's like that I feel like we are miracles that we even exist and then that's pretty wonderful and

I would rather deal with the most [Laughs] the most ubnoxious lesbian than you know with any man. Go ahead. And for those of you who have never met a lesbian or don't think you have, I like to say that I've met many lesbians and there are very very different. There are lesbian mothers there are many many lesbians who've been married. Alix Dobkin has been married, she has a daughter um, you you can't look at a person and tell. You know i mean that's really not true. That lesbians come in all shapes and colors and that's uh, I've seen that. That's incredible. Some women wear face paint and high heels and dresses and I'm not knocking it i'm just saying that's the way it is. Some lesbians do that and some women who are lesbians dress in men's clothes and some of us just in between. That was interesting to me when i first really realized that because i went around thinking too that you could probably tell you know and of course i found out quickly that that wasn't true.

I remember talking to a friend once at work who uh We got on the subject of homosexuality in general and he was saying how he had homosexuals friends, a couple in school you know a couple of guys and oh he was really you know open to it and he was friends with them and stuff, liked them, thought that they're pretty regular people and then he turn to me and said "But you know, I've never met any lesbians and i really want to meet one some day. [Laughter] I know i would know one if I saw one." And i just thought " I gotta let him in on it [Laughter]" And so i said "hey you know just kinda, yup, its me" and he just really couldn't believe it and he goes "Oh well I guess you're sorta on the fem side uh?" and so that to me was just a real eye opener about. I read it in books all the time you know you'll see some description and this man will be writing this book and he'll say well this woman she wasn't wearing any makeup and she had man-ish clothes and real short hair and i knew right away she was a lesbian. I mean it's the old stereotype that people have and it's a it's one word i guess it makes them feel more comfortable to think that that there are very few other of us and they can tell what we

look like and and they'll us if they see us, not to realize that it's it's the woman right at the desk next to you. It's the woman who is teaching your daughter in school, it's you, your daughter, It's your daughter! My mother um told me that i would never meet a homosexual because she had never met a homosexual and I would never meet one so I didn't need to know about them. [Laughter] Now i didn't tell her, but there I was a homosexual [Laughter] talking to her and she'd met several of my friends who were also homosexuals and i think the point here is is that women are real diverse and there are as many kinds of lesbians as there are kinds of women and again it serves the culture to have negative stereotypes about women about lesbians because then you wont think it's an option. Then if you're a lesbian girl growing up, you think oh gee I can't be a lesbian cause i'm not like that. You know i have these feelings for women but it must not mean I'm a lesbian it must be something else and there are women who are married now even. Not who were married, but who are married who are lesbians. There are all lesbians and in in all kinds and like Emmy said every

lesbian is not a wonderful person, but i think the feeling that I get from other lesbians this is that women are great in general you know and it's a positive feeling about women. I mean that's what's so wonderful about being a lesbian about having lesbian space and i think I just want to respond to one other thing and that is that when you have lesbian space, when you can be other lesbians, you don't have to be harping on the fact that you're a lesbian all the time. You can just be yourself. You can just be a lesbian and go on and do something else that interested in. We aren't just lesbians, but we are lesbians. And it's hard i think when other people do stereotype us and see us as all being the same. That gets really hard because it's not true and we all came to our lesbianisms from different paths, different ages, some of us have been out maybe since we've been you know, 15 or 16 and some of us didn't come out until we were in our mid or late 20's and yet I think a lot of people don't realize that oh you're a lesbian therefor these particular things are true about you

and that's not true. Some of us are artists, some of us uh maybe are secretaries. We're just all different and I get tired of people thinking that because they perhaps know one thing about lesbians and they know something about me that may not be true I may not share those beliefs at all. I may not agree with a lot of other lesbians. I like to be seen as an individual person, who is a lesbian. I thank the goddess that um I was went to a school that was free enough to have open ideals and not force their patriarchal choices and you know their whole trip on us. She must have grown up on Lesbos Yeah, well I did have a lesbian first grade teacher and a lesbian sixth grade teacher and i came out when i was 12 years old because of my choices um, were laid out, not laid out for me i made my own choices and was encouraged to make those choices and then i it wasn't just my first and sixth grade teacher who did it as we came out years la-

later um you know when i was 18 years old after all my school and everything i had no idea she was a lesbian and we same out and talked about this um so it's it's just you know my teacher didn't really have that much but she did have an impact on me but i was the one asking the questions i said teacher I want to be feminist because i thought feminist was the same as feminine when i was growing up on so i asked how to be