From Dirt's Blog: What has caused the most devastation to the Lesbian Community?

Here's my answers: I'd like to hear yours too, as long as it stays respectful.

Shaming. Shaming those of us who are LeatherDykes, thus the Lesbian Sex Wars...shaming those who thought differently, were a little too Butch or too high Femme(but my concern of course are the Butches, high Femmes still get privilege in the outside mainstream/malestream world), and the lie told to Butches "You just want to be a man", the death of our Lesbian businesses and bookstores, the elimination of our women only events AS women only events, allowing men and others in, MTF's attempting from the get-go to coopt our culture, our needs, and our sympathies while having been raised male and treating us in the same sexist ways they treated their hetero wives and girlfriends, then claiming a 'Lesbian' identity, and WE ALLOWED THEM TO DO IT, and by allowing them in, that brought more legitimacy to those who transitioned to FTM, instead of moving into the gay men's or even straight/bi men's communities or mixed more hetero communities like
FTM's used to do, because they wanted to be seen as MALE, allowing them to stick around cuz 'they used to be a lesbian' and still are dating 'lesbians' or lesbians had their lovers transition and did not want to leave either the relationship or the community, so thusly the community should be FORCED to accomodate them.

Another thing was the whole arguement of the 'boychild' issue, Lesbians began getting artificially inseminated, and 80% of babies born that way ended up male....rather than the 'natural' method where there's a 50/50 chance of either sex. Because now they identify with motherhood which legitimizes them in a way one is not when one does NOT have children, they wanted to bring their boychildren EVERYWHERE including into Lesbian spaces because we should be forced to 'accomodate' them now that they have chosen to be mothers....this is what childcare used to be for, so the women could have their own times and spaces SEPARATE from their children and role as Mother..and it gives no validation to little girls to have special time with other females/women only(while it's still o.k. for boys to go with Dads and other males only to fishing and hunting excursions).

It did not start just with the trans...all the trends above were part of why there were those Lesbians, myself included at times, who identified with other more accepting sectors of the commmunity, and even if we had differences, we should have allowed ALL bio-female Lesbians access to Lesbian only/woman centered spaces and been a bit more tolerant with each other, but also NOT assume that it is ok to bring males along(like I see every year at the Dyke March, what with FTM's, and bisexual women's boyfriends forcing their way marching along with the Dykes/women, and even gay boys marching when they don't belong, because Dolores Park isn't far from the Castro, and like always, males feel entitled).

If we fought this entitlement from day one....whether you're bringing along your male baby, male lover(if bi), FTM, or even late transition MTF's, or gay male friends, all these things undermine Lesbian community and spaces.

If we better supported ALL of our Lesbian businesses, and if they were struggling bought them out and KEPT THEM in Lesbian hands, bought buildings with Lesbian money so we could OWN our resources rather than rent them where a landlord could jack rents sky high, especially on commercial businesses, if we REALLY FOUGHT For keeping our women's/lesbian bookstores open, our events, our safe havens, and guarded them in the way that gay men guard theirs(though because they're men they have way more money to work with), we'd still have a viable community and would have the collective power to counter some of the trends going on today

Rebuilding our Dyke communities again: a response to one of Dirt's blogs

While I disagree with you about Separatism, as a LeatherDyke Separatist myself, I put Lesbians first and foremost ALWAYS! While I did my stint in the woods for a month before I moved to California in 1984, I still go back yearly to get away from the menz and menz world to connect with women and Dykes, and to honor our Sacred Female and yes, AMAZON Selves. This is spiritually powerful to continue the fight in the menz world.....I'm not an Orthodox Jewish Separatist(and Jewish communities in my youth absolutely WERE Separatist, especially the Orthodox ones), but rather my Separatism is in my focus: worshipping only the Sacred Female, both sexually and spiritually and on every other level. Lesbians come first and foremost, and then all born females....it is the current Separatists that have kept this focus and continue to, and other Radical Dykes, while all the others are sold out lock stock and barrel to the menz, gay, straight, trans and formerly 'male'(mtf's).

But, I DO agree with you, when I first came out I did not understand the whole 'political lesbian' thing, and in some ways never have.....one cannot be something they are not, which is why in some ways I trusted the drunken neanderthal self hating bar dykes more than the radical feminist 'political' dykes, not dykes who were political and radicalized me, especially the Dyke Witches, but 'political' lethsbians...those who claimed lesthbianism, but weren't. I tried to date a few of those, but it never got past cuddling...in fact my first two 'political' lesbian lovers who I met on campus through the political lesbian organizations went back to men...it fucked me up in my head cuz my mom kept saying 'it was a phase' and I was living with her at the time....

Well, for me, once I was out, I WAS OUT...there was NO going back to men for me! Been there, done that, NO THANK YOU....so the whole 'it's oppressive to be with men' bit I/you must/can be a Lesbian did not and DOES NOT work. It is and was coopting of Dyke culture, and those women eventually betrayed us in many ways because they were going against THEIR natural desires, instead of as het/bi women finding THEIR OWN empowerment within the feminist movement as women.

The 'back to the land' bit was and is empowering for many Lesbians who got to do it, but it's also isolating, without the economic resources to create viable communities, alot of those lands ended up in dissension and difficulty, and many were lost...but for some they were and are safe spaces to be, to be separate from a damaging male culture that alienates and annihilates us and our voices and our burgeoning Lesbian communities. We NEED these refuges from time to time...and for some of us more than just from time to time....BUT we DO also need to engage with each other in city environments too, and have safe havens while dealing with the greater whole.

Unlike many religious/ethnic groups that are successful, Lesbians failed to keep matronizing their institutions, their bookstores, their cultural venues, keeping them by and for primarily or exclusively for Lesbians and/or women only....such cultural institutions DO exist in a Separatist way, for THEIR minority/ethnic communities alone, to keep their communities powerful, and as an organized group, to then deal with the mainstream as a powerful COHESIVE unit.

Lesbians failed to do that. We could not keep the cohesion because we kept dividing off from each other, and it's still continuing to happen.

Only when we decide to put our Dyke identities first and foremost, as Lesbian Separatists have always done, will we be able to grow our Lesbian communities as viable institutions as a force to be dealt with, again...I just hope it's not too late to do so....and that other Dykes are feeling this same urge.
-MasterAmazon

Death Knell of our Feminist Bookstores, ect.

Part Two
Part of the reason our Lesbian/Women's/Feminist/Dyke cultural spaces have disappeared is because of the economy, being starved out, because of Amazon.com(using our own name against us, what a cooptation!)and dykes buying thru commercial venues like Amazon.com and Barnes and Nobles, instead of supporting our independents and lesbian/women's/feminist bookstores, AND the trans movement which has so effectively dismantled and destroyed women's and lesbian space after space....
Mama Bears, Old Wives Tales, WomonCrafts West, Boadecia's, SisterSpirit, the women's bookstore in Santa Cruz, Whiptail Lizard Lounge, Changemakers, A Room of Our Own, (gay/lesbian bookstore in Sacramento, not sure if that's the right name), community bookstore after bookstore and space has disappeared from us. Without spaces that we can call our own, there IS no community left for us....it is disjointed and jumbled, and we have nowhere's to learn and get new information or support our artists, musicians and authors. That spells the death knell of our communities......as they give in to cooptation to barely survive..just for a minute before the final blow....
-MasterAmazon