A Lesbian Displays on Lesbian Visibility (Type Of)
I’ve began and stopped scripting this so many instances.
It’s not that I’ve nothing to say; it’s not that I don’t assume designating days as celebrations of particular identities carries significance. It does. I really like rituals. I really like being compelled to consider one thing as complicated and amorphous as lesbian visibility, a time period that feels loaded and in addition incomplete. I really like even essentially the most rudimentary ritual of this present day, the scrolling by Instagram and seeing photographs of all of the lesbians in my life indicating that, sure, they’re certainly lesbians, a joke right here and there about disappearing as soon as the clock strikes twelve as if we are able to solely be seen for simply sooner or later. I just like the jokes! Preserve em coming!
I briefly flirted with the opportunity of excavating my very own lesbianism within the type of an experimental essay formatted because the artifacts catalogue detailing the findings of an archeological dig. The archeological website can be my childhood bed room; the artifacts can be my mundane possessions that when examined by an goal eye may not imply something in any respect however when examined by the lens of non-public hindsight inform a narrative — one a couple of woman who fairly actually obsessed over the phrases lesbian and homosexual lengthy earlier than ever instantly making use of them to herself, dog-earing pages of books that bore them, however by no means underlining, as a result of that might be one thing too simply found. Possibly it could have been a very good essay, I don’t know. It felt, regardless of its loosely scientific strategy, too private, which is foolish to say a couple of private essay. For now, I’ll bury it, see if it takes on extra that means with time.
I believed, too, about writing about how the lesbian characters who’ve made me really feel most seen all through my life — in novels, motion pictures, and reveals — are those I’m speculated to be vital of. Unhealthy, monstrous girls whose wishes are sometimes insidious and unsuitable.
After which I considered writing about the best way my relationship with lesbian visibility adjustments each time I transfer to a brand new place.
The issue with these items is that they might be written any time, revealed right here on any day. Forcing myself to put in writing them towards a selected day on the calendar wasn’t an issue from a time administration perspective; I work nice underneath arduous deadlines. It was an issue from a inventive perspective. I was higher at packaging my very own queerness after I wrote for different locations, locations that publish queer content material solely when there is a selected peg. I don’t have to do this anymore, and I’m fortunate for it. Forcing myself to put in writing a Lesbian Visibility Day piece introduced me again to that headspace of needing to categorize, catalogue, translate my identification in a approach that didn’t really feel natural or genuinely exploratory. As an alternative, the one factor that basically felt proper for me to put in writing is that this self-referential reflection.
It’s arduous to put in writing about lesbian visibility when that’s what I’m writing about each single time I take pen to paper. Typically I really feel I don’t know how one can write about the rest. Maybe I might have extra simply discovered a method to articulate this present day and what it represents after I was first popping out, when lesbianism nonetheless felt so shiny and new to me that it was virtually like I might contact it, might flip it over in my fingers. Now, it touches every little thing. I wouldn’t know how one can break it down merely.
Throw in the truth that that is speculated to be a day about group, about not one single expertise of lesbianism however about our collective tales, wants, wishes, and imaginations, and I’m blissfully overwhelmed. There are such a lot of methods to be a lesbian. It’s, I suppose, why we often default to a roundtable format when honoring this present day at Autostraddle. It lets us paint a fancy image, lets us embody a variety of identities and narratives throughout lesbianism. You need to learn them (2022, 2020, 2019, 2018); they’re good. However I believe yearly, we’re somewhat stumped about how Autostraddle celebrates this present day when lesbian visibility is without doubt one of the many issues we’re right here for each single day.
I would like a lot greater than visibility.
