I immediately thought of the online article by Deborah Hauser which gives a quick run-though of the origins of the words ‘man’ and ‘woman’.

Interestingly, she proposes ‘wom’ as a better alternative to ‘womyn’:

I propose “wom” as an alternative to “woman” or “womyn”. “Wom” unlike “womyn” succeeds in reducing the word for woman to one morpheme and eliminates man completely rather than just altering the spelling of “man”. “Wom” as a three letter word beginning with “w” is morphologically closer to “wif” and would return to the original meaning of “wif” of an adult female. Femaleness would be the essence of the word in contrast to “woman” in which the essence is human first and female only secondarily. I would offer “wom” not as an abbreviated form of “woman” but as cognate with the word “womb” to entirely disassociate it from the word “man”. “Wom” from “womb” would represent not just women’s anatomical reproductive capabilities but would symbolically represent women as a “place of origin, development and growth” (”Womb,” def. 1.b.) It is not a strange new word nor is it a deviant spelling. It can be viewed as an abbreviated form of “woman” which makes it both familiar and non-threatening. “Womyn” only distinguishes itself from “woman” in written language but “wom” distinguishes itself in spoken language as well.

As for myself, I’m still not sure how I might begin to change my use of words, and how I can help feel more comfortable doing so. (All I know is I haven’t felt sure enough of myself and strong enough and well informed enough, to do it yet!) For a while now I’ve been thinking about changing saying ‘I love you’ to ‘I love to you’ - a less-possessive way of saying how I feel - I picked it up from Luce Irigaray’s work.

I think you ought to send her to Michigan. Maybe being around a bunch of non gender-conforming radical dykes can help her find herself.. before she cuts off too many body parts.

So true.

That article was too depressing for me to even read all the way through.

Heart

~~

IS LESBIANISM DEAD?

Lesbian started as a word to distinguish gay women from men. Now some would rather be called fags

‘Vagina’ and ‘lesbian’ both sound like diseases,” laughs Skylar Rocket, 23, who, together with partner Embrun Rocket, produces the queer performance night Genderfukt! Organizing the event and performing at it put both partners at the heart of a growing wave of young bio-girls who are identifying less as lesbians or dykes and more as queers and genderfuckers. This at a time when the lesbian-based hit show The L-Word is entering its fourth season. “I don’t know any lesbians,” says Skylar. “I know people, women that like women, and I know people that are woman-bodied that only sleep with or date people that are woman-bodied.” Skylar asks, “What do you call someone who is woman-bodied, doesn’t totally feel female, that mostly dates boys that are born girls? What do you call that?”

Gay men might well ask, “Do queer women really talk like that?”

Yes. And with good reason: Lesbianism is out – excuse me, female-identified lesbianism is out. Genderqueerness is in. In other words, language is struggling to keep up as gender lines in the younger queer bio-women’s community are blurred with greater frequency and to a much greater extent than in gay men’s culture.

Compare a typical drag king show to a typical drag queen show.

“Every show, there’s at least one piece that [is] two boys getting it on with each other,” says Skylar of drag king spectacles like Genderfukt! But when Skylar says “two boys,” that means (in this instance) two bio-girls, dressed as gender-boys, acting like a couple of fags onstage. “They’re making out, humping each other. It’s hot.”

Can anyone imagine Sofonda and Heaven Lee Hytes grinding onstage in full drag and sticking their tongues down each other’s throats? Does anyone want to? And would anyone consider that remotely dykey?

Things are more nebulous in the chromosomally XX queer community than ever before. Before the feminist movement of the ’70s there were essentially three options: closeted, butch or femme. There was even some question of whether femmes were lesbians at all. In Ann Bannon’s 1962 lesbian pulp classic Beebo Brinker, the title character ponders what makes a feminine girl gay. Beebo asks, “Why does she love other girls, when she’s just as womanly and perfumed as the girl who goes for men? I used to think that all homosexual girls were three-quarters boy… And that they were doomed to love feminine girls who could never love them back.”

Even when I came out five years ago, I was told that wearing lipstick made me less gay. I didn’t wear makeup for a whole year because my friends told me it was a tool of the patriarchy. Lesbian historian Lillian Faderman observes that part of this anti-femme sentiment grew out of the 1960s and 1970s, when butch-femme relationships were judged harshly within the lesbian feminist movement and perceived to be mimicking straight relationships in “an unfortunate emulation of hetero-sexuality.” In the 1970s and 1980s, feminine androgyny and mullets became the acceptable middle ground.

James Miller, a University of Western Ontario professor and founder of Western’s Pride Library, notes that in the ’90s, post- AIDS epidemic, lesbians joined gay men in queer rights organizations like Queer Nation with a new stress on queer, rather than women’s or gay men’s, rights. Thanks to the involvement of academics in queer groups, words like “identity politics,” “genderqueer” and “gender fluidity” became commonly used and understood in the bio-women’s community.

Such words have not stuck with gay men’s culture, which remains gay men’s culture, not bio-men’s queer culture. But for bio-women’s queer culture, there’s still a trickle-down effect from academia. Part of a woman’s coming out process today is learning the correct use of these words from her peers, some of whom may be academics or may have taken women’s/gender studies courses.

But beyond drag king performances and academic lectures, how do these identity games play out in the “real” world of coworkers, grocery shopping and bio-family dinners? In an ideal world, Skylar prefers the pronoun “ze” over “he” or “she” But Skylar admits that getting the entire English-speaking world to adopt “ze” is not a likely proposition, and people will continue making assumptions about others’ genders, even if they don’t know whether someone identifies as male, female or neither.

And it can get confusing. After all, with large breasts and long hair down to hir (as opposed to “his” or “her”) shoulders, Skylar could easily be called the femme in hir relationship with the boyish Embrun, who’s got shaggy/messy hair and sports a dark blue hoodie during this interview.

“We look like a butch-femme couple, but our identities are exactly…” starts Skylar. “Pretty similar,” interjects Embrun, adding: “I’m just growing my hair out now. It’s been short for seven years. That’s what dykes did. And there weren’t so many words. I feel like there are more labels, more choices.”

Skylar certainly believes that’s the case when it comes to biowomen with a m a s c u l i n e streak. In the past, “butch was encompassing all the people who were not femme and now there’s a lot more leeway for those people to be androgynous but still female, to be masculine-identified, to be a man, to be transgender… [to] not actually go through physical changes but still go through life being identified as a guy.”

So what do you call a woman who’s into women and who’s dating a female-to-male transsexual? I ask a friend who’s in this situation whether she feels the term “lesbian” applies to her. She replies, “As long as I don’t have to sacrifice my identity as a femme/queer/dyke, then I don’t foresee [my boyfriend’s] transitioning becoming a problem… But I’ve heard more than one lesbian proclaim they wouldn’t date someone who is trans.” In the gay community, who would ever be considered gay if they were dating a t-girl? As one t-girl put it, “I’m sorry, I don’t have sex with gay guys.” But for queer biowomen, trans is part of the community, and some even feel it’s starting to dominate the discourse.

“There’s only three lesbians left in the city,” laughs one femmeidentified woman in her 30s. Everyone else seems to be in some state of transition. She did not wish to be named because she feared that her comment might be interpreted as anti-trans, and that she might be ostracized from the bio-women’s queer community because of it.

“There are no more dyke girls,” says one transboy. Anyone visiting Tango on a busy night might disagree. This transboy concedes, “Well, there are. But everyone seems to be getting on the [trans] bandwagon. I know six people who recently started transitioning.” He was also leery of being named in this article.

“People might be pissed off because trans identity is something to take seriously.” Calling it “‘jumping on the bandwagon,’” would be seen as dismissive by “people who are really struggling with gender identity.”

So why are so many young bio-girls going boyish – even those who don’t want to transition – and how is this different from butch?

It’s difficult to get someone to go on the record to answer this question. As one anonymous transguy says, “Everyone’s talking about it, but no one wants to own it.” The fear? Talking about “why” opens up lots of other questions in the emotionally charged arena of the feminist body politic. Making it very clear that he was speaking only for himself, drag king Sabastien Cognito says many younger members of the queer bio-women’s community would, on a visual level, blend well with bio-boy gay twinks. Sabastien has trouble self-labelling as a dyke. Even though Sabastien doesn’t identify as trans, if forced to “choose between butch or femme, I’d rather be a fag, maybe ’cause I’d rather be a guy.”

This raises interesting and potentially disturbing questions. Is there an element of internalized sexism within the desire for a woman to become a man? Does the desire to transition develop in part because hormones and treatments are now available in a way that they weren’t available to butches in the past? Among those who aren’t trans and don’t want to transition but who groom themselves to look boyish, does the use of testosterone shift the bell curve on boyishness, just as the curve of the gay male physique shifted, as some argue, with surging steroid use to counteract muscle-wasting from AIDS? HIV-negative gay men began using steroids when they became more available and more acceptable, and steroids became a must for some men just to keep up with the new status quo.

For bio-women, is there also a mystique attached to male power and privilege that plays into current genderqueer trends, even if it only leads to feeling more powerful? How do transboys take up room in traditionally women’s spaces? Can a critical dialogue take place about how women’s spaces will change due to a growing number of transguys without it being reduced to (or dismissed as) transphobic paranoia?

“There are a lot of conversations happening within the trans-men’s community about the line between ‘I hate being a woman’ and ‘I hate women,’” says Ayden Scheim, coordinator of the Trans Fusion Crew at Supporting Our Youth (SOY). He laughs when asked if he can be quoted. “I’ve been in fab far too many times.”

“There is a difference between the men who stay in the dyke community and the ones who leave,” he says. “Transmen who identify with the history and experience of women, those people have a better understanding of sexism… Transmen who strongly feel they have always been [men], why should I expect them, in a society of men who are really sexist, not to be [sexist]? But for myself, I have higher standards.”

These are questions that gay men generally don’t have to ask about t-girls, unless you count those who feel t-girls shouldn’t take part in drag competitions because of a perceived unfair advantage from estrogen and implants. Shemales at Remington’s strip upstairs one night a week for a separate and much higher cover fee, and for a different clientele, than the gay boys (and straight dancers) on the ground level. And as Scheim points out, “there’s a group that gets ignored, the transmen who are sexually interested in gay men and go to Woody’s.” Drag king events are clearly more inclusive, and now DKs often share the stage with female-formed burlesque dancers. Young queer bio-women’s culture seems to be much more intertwined with shifting gender than gay male culture, to the point that the word “lesbian” is becoming obsolete, and “butch” just doesn’t seem to work with this pan-gendered generation.

Christy O’Connor is an Editorial Intern at fab.

http://www.fabmagazine.com/features/291/Is_lesbianism_dead.html

If ever there was an argument for woman (born women) only space, this is it. Any space I have particpated in that was ostensibly woman-only yet included transwomen ultimately degenerated into reams of heated debate among transwomen about who was or was not a Real Woman(TM). Trans issues become the focus and women’s issues once again get shuffled off the page.

Just my experience.

funnie, I’ll send you a link to one of the threads in which the at-issue words are being mocked because you probably would find it interesting (if any of the rest of you would like to take a look, let me know and I’ll e-mail you the link as well). I don’t want to single anyone out by linking it publicly– more I’m interested in discussing what that mocking really is about. But it’s interesting, the mocking was instigated by a transman.

You know, I don’t usually use these words, either. Mostly I use them in the company of wimmin from the community which coined the words. Sometimes I use them because I specifically want to invite responses from that community. Sometimes I use them because they comfort me or feel empowering to me. In general I don’t use them because writing is about communication, and sadly, those words are problematic that way, they often impede, rather than enhance the connections I am attempting to make.

kommishionerjenny, great post, and I completely hear what you’re saying there. Here is something very, very important that I am trying to make sure I say every time it is an issue: some of the most horrendously transphobic posts on the internet about Michfest and the issue of trans-inclusion have been written by transwomen, and one transwoman in particular. If you have seen transwomen described as “Frankenstein monsters,” “fathers and husbands,” “men,” “knuckle draggers,” if you have seen them ripped a new one by someone who claims to be a member of the Michfest community, you are probably encountering a person who was born male and who transitioned as an adult.

These are the bizarre issues we encounter in this debate: layers upon layers of disagreement and argument not so much about whether or not women (born women) are entitled to woman-only space, but intensely heated conflicts between transwomen themselves around issues that really don’t pertain to women, to woman-only space, to Michfest, to lesbians, or to the community which coined the words at issue in this post.

Well, there’s more to say, but I did want to say this much.

Heart

While I understand and agree with the reasons and ideas behind the use of these words, I personally find them woefully inadequate. For instance, in the use of “womon”, “womyn” and “wimmin”, the distinction from “wo-MAN/MEN” only exists in the written form of these words and is nonexistent when the words are spoken. So, we are still very much “men’s appendages” in these language forms, and that is one reason why I think the words are ridiculed. I would like to see a new word for “woman/women” that is sort of like the black South African word “Bantu”, which means simply “the people”. “Bantu” has NO ETYMOLOGICAL RELATION AT ALL to any words for “white” or “Caucasian”. I would like to see a word for “woman/women” with NO ETYMOLOGICAL RELATION AT ALL to “man/men”. Unfortunately, the words “womon”, “womyn” and “wimmin” have not achieved this. Admittedly, I have done some racking of my brains to come up with such a word and have been unable to and Mary Daly also does not offer any such word, so I respect the words “womon”, “womyn” and “wimmin” and would never ridicule them. But personally, I will choose to stay with “woman” and “women” for the most part, until new words are found which are so powerful that they CAN’T be ridiculed.

I took a step back and took a closer look at the word “woman/women.” And I began to see something. I saw the word as short for “womb” and man being contained within it. “Man is of the womb.” Making women in effect, the creators of man. She is not subcategory of him. He is the subcategory of her. It symbolized to me an immense power. And I thought it pretty self loathing, and thus self destructive, to ignore, play down or deny that power. Which reminded me of something Robin Morgan wrote. How those that have land can come to love it, and how they toil it and care for it with love and joy. And then conquerors come along and seize the land. And to add insult to injury, cruelly now make those they conquered toil the land, that was once theirs, but now only for the benefit and gain of the conquerors. Those that once loved their land now come to loathe it and despise it.

Morgan compared the phenomenon to what has occurred with women. Women’s bodies are the land. And men have conquered them. The bodies that women once loved and brought joy to them are now being harvested by men for their gain and benefit, while women are being forced to work and take care of them and the fruits they bear. And like those that were conquered that came to loathe and despise the land, women, too, now have come to loathe and despise their own bodies.

I think Robin Morgan right on the money and the comparisons apt. And so I refuse to loathe my body and what I am and the power that is mine. Tho men can take my mind, my heart, my body, my possessions and my labor and harvest it and steal the fruits I bear, he cannot make me loathe or despise myself. I will not deny myself or what I am. I will not freely give him that power. Because my soul belongs to only me. And it is the soul of a woman.

Sure, I’m often subjected to the ridicule and hatred of homophobia. I recognize it as an attempt to reduce lesbians, like all women, into a sex class to serve the patriarchs. And the women that love them sometimes make their best soldiers. Who can blame them? They know which side of the bread it’s buttered on. Including feminists. We are, after all, a conquered people. And those oppressed can be expected to sell out and turn on each other. Because we all have to put food on the table and eat.

So I understand where it all comes from and why. I also know that just because a people has been conquered doesn’t mean they will remain so. So when I hear people make homophobic remarks, I usually just say, “You act as tho that’s bad thing” and smile broadly at them. The message isn’t lost on them. I’m wary with men because they can get very angry and aggressive about it. Because lesbianism is threatening to them and perhaps womankind’s greatest slap in the face to the patriarchy. And I don’t think I need to explain why.

That was RIGHTEOUS.

Really, feminists repudiating “womyn” reminds me of the backhanded tributes at the time of Andrea Dworkin’s passing. “I don’t agree with everything she said, but you have to admit she did some things with her life…”

I mean, no shit you didn’t agree with every last thing she ever said.

I don’t agree with everything *I* have ever said (see previous post), but I still manage to look at myself in the mirror in the morning, could scrape together a decent self-obituary if necessary, and find that I otherwise identify with myself pretty strongly, almost as if we’re on the same team.

As someone who came to feminism knowing **literally** nothing about post-suffragist feminist politics, history, writing, or language in general, much less lesbian or radical feminism, I know I’ve mocked the “womyn stuff” pretty thoroughly. Sometimes because I didn’t get it and it made me uncomfortable, sometimes because I thought I was being silly (and wasn’t), and sometimes because I thought I was being silly (and was, but still may have irritated plenty of women in the context of society’s general reception to such terms and concepts).

And, you know, I don’t say this to distance myself from womyn, but to explain where I am: I still become frustrated trying to read Daly, and I still mostly don’t use alternate spellings, or new words that I consider too jargony. I freely admit: it’s more than possible these preferences of mine come from unconscious valuation of (false) objectivity.

But there’s also a big difference for me these days, and that is: I may not think it much matters what language I use to describe myself or women or feminism (as long as it isn’t woman-hating language), but I’ll be damned if I can stomach the snickering at feminists who make people uncomfortable, any more.

As it happens, a month or so a go I was at a party where a “liberal” man I know asked me whether I was “one of those feminists who spell ‘women’ wrong,” and I sputtered and stared at him, and the *truest* answer I could come up with was, “Yes. I am.” Because I believe like womyn believe, and I believe in womyn, and THAT’s the question he was asking me: (fake) “us” or (undesirable) Them. Even if *I* don’t consider it an important symbol for me to adopt, even if *I* didn’t really know what it meant or represented, he apparently thought he had a pretty good handle on it, and his question and tone rejected much more than a spelling device.

Anyway, I haven’t read the blogs you’re referring to and don’t know the story there, but it does make wonder:

a)Do the people taking potshots at “womyn” have any understanding of what it is that they’re mocking: can they clearly and accurately describe the POV of those who use the term? And by that I mean not just explain how womyn who use the word defend that use, but whether the critics can REALLY, accurately, describe the more general commonalities of belief among those womyn? The platform behind the word, if you will?

b)If the people taking potshots at “womyn” ARE able to describe what radical and lesbian feminism is, are they able to explain why it is that they disagree with it? If not, why mock? And if so, do they really disagree with it to such an extent that they would rather disavow than defend feminists?

It’s a simple choice, really: if you are on the side of women (no matter how you define that), why choose to become an honorary member of the “Us” that includes Limbaugh’s feminazi rants, rather than the othered and marginalized “Them” that includes womyn.