A Lesbian? Moi? How can you tell?

Oh, how I long for those halcyon-early-coming-out days - when girls were women, women were wimmin, and those wimmin were probably dykes and dykes were ..... well, you get my drift. I came out in the late 70's/early 80's in Britain. I don't know what it was like for US dykes, but in the UK when you came out and it was 1979-84, you HAD to be a man-hating lesbian separatist. I went from a lipstick-wearing, bra-sporting, high-heeled teetering, straight married gal, to a buzz-cut, flick-knife-wielding, no-make-up, hip-flask-toting, Doc. Marten-stomping dyke separatist living in collective households, churning out feminist, dyke-separatist polemic on mimeographed sheets. We were dykes and there was a revolution to be fought, demos to march in and wimmin to save!

In Britain, if you were a lesbian and a feminist you HAD to have short hair - it was the rule! I had short, spikey, punked out hair with a slew of holes punctured up and down my ear-lobes. Every available wall in our houses sported feminist posters, we were festooned in Sterling Silver labyris and double-women symbols. I was newly vegetarian, could result Adrienne Rich's treaty on "Compulsory Heterosexuality" by heart, was 26 years old, or thereabouts, and felt like I finally belonged somewhere. Even then, I was a flambuoyant separatist. I wore painters' overalls, dyed in bright colors. I bought my earrings at the local Indian grocery store...they jangled, dangled, spun and shimmered and were bright and colorful. I took some flack for being so femmey, so wore bigger boots than anybody else and was "Ms. Ultra-Separatist" to make up for the earrings and bright attire.

Cut to 2006, and I no longer know if I'm allowed to call myself a lesbian. The rules got away from me, and I can't tell - does it matter anymore? What happened to my fervent, young dyke feminist politics? My partner was born biologically female, always felt hirself to be male, isn't a feminist, and doesn't understand why it's so hard for me to be a lesbian in a relationship with somebody who doesn't like their female body. How the fuck did I end up here? (That's going to be a later blog, I promise!) It felt much easier when I was 26 years old, than it does in my early 50's. I look in the mirror at this woman, the woman I have become, with my traditional hairstyle, my tastefully applied make-up (not too much, not too little) and my conservative clothing and I barely recognize myself anymore. I long for a short spikey hair cut. I don't own a pair of Doc. Martens, but sure wish I did. I don't have a community around me now, leastways not a lesbian community, although I have lesbian friends and I go to an open discussion group that picks topics to talk about each month. There was a time when another lesbian could see me out the corner of her eye and her gaydar would go off. Now I have to come out on purpose, because people can't tell. Is that important? Can we afford to relax more now that we're older? I don't know the answer to the questions, but I sure wish I did.