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.
radicallesbianfeminists 