Waspish Wednesday: No, I Really Am an Actual Lesbian Blogger

I know it’s not technically Wednesday, but I’m a blogger, so if I pretend it’s Wednesday, thousands of people might believe me, right?

It’s true; I usually write about dog training or disability rights activism or chronic illness awareness or service dog issues. Nevertheless, I have mentioned that I’m a lesbian in many of my blogs, and I want you to know I’m being straight with you, so to speak, about that.

I just wanted to let you know, I am, personally, an actual lesbian. So is Betsy. Jersey was definitely straight, and we think Gadget was bi and poly. I can’t speak for Barnum. We’ll have to wait and see how his sexual and gender identities evolve. But, no matter what they are, Betsy and I will be supportive. Barnum will not be living under an oppressive lesbian humanoid regime here.

In case you’re still reeling from the other “lesbian blogger” scandals and are afraid to take my word for it, here is proof:

Actual lesbians in our natural habitat: the Northampton area.

This was taken on our six-year-anniversary, last year. That is me, on the left (the “femme” as we lesbians refer to lesbians like me), with Betsy (the “butch,” as we lesbians refer to butch lesbians like herself), the woman I live with, kissing. Because she is a woman and I am a woman, and we’re lesbians. Kissing is part of what lesbians do.

Lesbians also devote themselves to multiple social justice or progressive issues, experience invisibility, feed our dogs or cats better than ourselves, watch The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, and get made fun of for not devoting enough time to our hairstyles.

Sometimes we have sex, but a lot of the time we just read or write about having sex or process about the fact that we’re not having sex, and how we both feel about that. We cry a lot, because we’re girls, and we learned from Marlo Thomas that “It’s Alright to Cry.”

This picture is from several years ago, proving my long herstory of lesbianism:

Yes, that's my real hair. No curlers or products.

Although many modern lesbians like to claim this is a stereotype or relic of the past, the above picture provides conclusive proof that lesbians do have short haircuts, wear flannel plaid, tend to carry a few extra pounds (and not wear bras), engage in vogueing, and display gay pride symbols — such as the rainbow flag — in our domiciles.

I wanted to “come out” about this because a certain very popular blog, ostensibly written by a Syrian lesbian, actually turned out to be written by a white, straight man. That revelation was followed by another: that the lesbian blogger who was supporting the work of the first “lesbian” blogger is also a straight man. Both of whom are American; neither of whom live in the Middle East.

These guys both did this because they are concerned about the rights and needs of LGBTQ people living in the Middle East or under other oppressive regimes. So, rather than doing something really weird like donating money to Gay Middle East, a grassroots website of real LGBTQ people living in the Middle East, or Israeli Gay Youth, or The Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice, they decided to support the cause of lesbians in Syria by pretending to be lesbians.

Here’s more information on the completely irrelevant work that the Astraea Foundation is doing with its multiple International Fund Grants:

[Funds] are granted to innovative LGBTI-led human rights and social change organizations and projects across Africa, the Americas, Asia, Eastern Europe/Commonwealth of Independent States and the Middle East.

These include the International Emergency Fund, the International Movement Fund, the Consortium of Latin American Funds LBT Project, and the International LGBTQQ Youth Fund. All of which, shockingly, provide actual assistance to actual lesbians living in oppressive situations, and who do not need random foreign straight men pretending to be them to decide the best way for them to organize or promote their agendas.

Or, these guys could have blogged about these organizations or the groups they fund. They could have held fundraisers for these organizations (which certainly can use that kind of help). They could invite speakers or guest bloggers from these organizations to blog on their own blogs.

Fuck, they could have donated money to lesbians here at home who are suffering under oppressive situations, such as almost every disabled lesbian I know, who are scraping by in poverty, and lesbians in prison, who live under deplorable conditions, or lesbians who are beaten, raped, or have their kids taken from them for being lesbians. That all still happens in America!

But that would have been so boring and obvious, and — what’s the word? Respectful? — I can’t think of it. Let’s just say the opposite of massive privilege-grabbing boneheadedness.

It reminds me of the mid-1990s, when k.d. lang and Melissa Etheridge and Ellen DeGeneres all came out (and then ABC dropped Ellen like a hot rock after she’d netted them some of the highest ratings in history), and Time and Newsweek were saying how it was now “cool” and “trendy” to be a “lipstick lesbian,” blah blah blah. Yet, somehow, none of this “trendiness” resulted in more rights, reduction in poverty, removal of glass ceilings, increased safety from violence, or anything else, um, what’s the opposite of the world they were depicting? Real?

I wish someone would have informed all the young men who tried to attack me on the street, or who threw rocks at me and my girlfriend, or who chucked a piece of cement through our window because we were lesbians, that they could stop, because I was trendy. Or told the employer at the job I got fired from for being a lesbian (and yes, that was legal back then). Or the professor at my university who told me I was genetically flawed — an evolutionary mistake — because I was queer. Obviously, since he was a chemical engineering professor and not a sociology or literary professor, he didn’t realize I was actually on the cutting edge of emerging social norms. And therefore as normal as a drunk straight guy asking if he could watch my girlfriend and me have sex, because that is hot.

It certainly was trendy for straight men to go to lesbian online chats and try to pretend to be lesbians so they could pretend to have pretend sex with us. And to keep making craploads of money off of straight women pretending to be lesbians pretending to have sex with each other in visual media for the enjoyment of other straight dudes.

But none of this seemed to actually affect me, as an actual lesbian. I probably wasn’t trendy enough — even though I had been wearing lipstick for years!

As it turns out, however, the trend of straight men pretending to be lesbians online is alive and well! Thank goodness! That will keep all us real lesbian bloggers honest. Or sarcastic. Maybe it will keep us just a little more bitter and sarcastic than we already were. Hm.

I love my two lesbian moms.

– Sharon (A Lesbian-Identified Lesbian Since 1990) and Barnum, SDiT? (and neutered male non-lesbian [as far as we know])