Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are

Guest post

This is a belated thank you note to all the lesbian feminists – older women in particular – who welcomed me with open arms when I decided to become a lesbian.

You helped me discard almost three decades of pretty successful heterosexual training, and released me from the resignation that men or isolation (most likely both, since they go together) were my future.

There were things you could have warned me about the pain the intensity the pain the intensity fucking hell the pain and no they weren’t BDSM relationships but as men don’t compare and therefore provide no reference, you wouldn’t have prepared me anyway.

I haven’t looked back, and now it’s a revelation watching other women as they leave their husbands and boyfriends, and come out as lesbians with the same mixture of excitement, shell-shock and sense of coming home that I had. This wasn’t supposed to be an option for us ‘born-this-way’ ‘heterosexuals’, but we chose it anyway and here we are.

Thank you for letting us know it was possible, and for being patient with our questions and (occasional) resistance while we processed and let the shift take place.

So, in the spirit of paying-it-forward, I will say this to those women who also want to choose lesbianism, or are on the verge of coming out:

It will be the most life-affirming thing you ever do. 

Waiting patiently for you sisters, whenever you’re ready.

RADICAL LESBIAN FEMINIST SPACE

We are radical lesbian feminists in the UK who are friends and activists in real life.

In the past, lesbians were often at the forefront of political organising, including feminist activism. Now, though radical lesbian feminists still work extremely hard at the forefront, our perspectives are silenced in political spaces. This blog is to counteract our invisibility within the feminist movement, within mixed ‘radical’ left movements, and most urgently, under the Queer LGBT movement.

We recognise that gender is a tool created by Patriarchy to control and subjugate women. We seek to abolish it. We are Queer and Trans critical because these theories seek to reinforce gender, further enshrine it in law. They exist in opposition to gender abolition.

This blog will take a consciousness raising approach, analysing our own life experiences and those of women around us through a feminist lens. When we begin to understand the context of our lived experience and see the parallels and connections, we become politicised.

Some lesbians face multiple oppressions which shape our personal experiences. We are politically critical of individualistic solutions, both within and external to lesbian communities as we know that women’s oppression is institutionalised, built into the structures of society. We are part of a wider movement to dismantle those structures.

Working ethically and with integrity, alongside our political values, is integral to feminist activism. Radical lesbian feminism is, and must be, revolutionary. We have joined that revolution.

We will be blogging regularly. Radical lesbian feminists are invited to contribute to this blog by emailing radicallesbianfeminists@gmail.com