Okay, breaking my absence from this site to post about this. So I just encountered a political lesbian in the wild that identified as a communist. And she happened to be pro-trans. This was about a two or three hour conversation, but I am disturbed to remember Monique Wittig and her contributions. You know that whole "lesbians are non-men that love non-men" bullshit? I forgot she was the progenitor of it. This young woman I encountered cited Wittig, and thus stated that the categories of man and woman are dependent on capitalism and there's nothing scientific about them. The overemphasis on language always kills me. But her idea that if we erased "woman" and "man" people would not make replacement words is equally hilarious. It's just such naive misdirection. She cites very loose evidence that apparently some hunter x gather tribes had women hunting, which yeah sure, but she believed it was always mix sex to a great degree everywhere, which is pretty much against any consensus. These pre-agricultural communities would still have words to refer to biological sex anyway; just like the ones we observe do today.

It reminded me of a book recommendation I got off here a couple years ago, "Unpacking Queer Politics" by Sheila Jeffreys. Jeffreys is a mainstay on this site and has quotes featured. I was completely unimpressed with her. She offered very dry prose connecting the erasure of lesbian identity with the emergence of TIFs that emulated gay males. I agree with that, the idea that butches and femmes have historically been at odds with lesbians not conforming to labels, as well as basic feminist ideals, but she loses it entirely at the end of the book. And I mean, look, I knew Jeffreys was a political lesbian, but she says it so brazenly at the end: that she believes sexuality can be chosen, and women should choose lesbianism.

Then I recalled my adventure to see if the Journal of Lesbianism had changed at all over the past couple years. It hadn't. We have such invigorating articles as, "Is Anne Lister Trans?", "Is the Lesbian Identity Obsolete?" and so forth. Can you imagine if you made these statements about any other minority, sexual or otherwise? Then I look at Wittig's critics and they all seem to be either Judith Butler types or other political lesbians.

I just wonder what's so hard about understanding that some of us never had an attraction to men and never will; it's not a choice. And yet, this perspective seems sorely lacking. I think largely in part because deluded straight women and bisexuals are defining the academic literature. I find more support in random studies about statistics than I do on home terf. If anyone has any actual lesbian academics/papers to put forward I would gladly receive them.

Also, this woman believed genitals wouldn't be gendered. In fact, let me give you a quick rundown of her utopia: women somehow band together worldwide and use guns to kill all the powerful men. Then they take control and unanimously ban gender under the banner of Marx. Then women will not be violent ever again, and everything right down to genitals will stop being gendered. Everyone will be bisexual and poly, and uh... look similar? Oh, and trans is just gender nonconformity ruined by capitalism and would be natural and properly expressed in the lesbianless utopia. I hope reading that made you roll your eyes as much I did.