From a Facebook discussion on the differences between mainstream Gay and Lesbian spaces
I understand it's a generalization. That's not my point. I want to know *why* one group of lesbians is stereotypical and another isn't. What causes it?
Cliques: Nelson has former separatists hitting 50, 60 and older. Fewer dietary restrictions. Countercultural values from the 70s. Two conflicting undercurrents: one of transphobia, another of "we're really out of the loop on this 'gender' business and need to know more but don't know how to ask or talk about it." Now, I think that the latter live in town; the former don't.
And then I met some dykes who just wanted to get laid, take a fancy honeymoon and buy a house and a nice car.
Queery: where do they meet up, hang out? Look at the changes in dyke culture when the dominant space shifted from the mixed gay bar to the coffee house near a campus.
Look where the East Van dykes meet. Rhizome. Nonprofit events at public parks. Nonprofits renting halls.
The easily-offended queers met in a large suited house near a campus.
The separatists met where farmland used to be cheap.
The Canadian dream dykes met... I don't know where, but I bet it was somewhere mainstream.
So we have babyqueers looking for a place to relax, talk, hook up. They look around and they hit a few queer events, and they have *some* of the following choice: the bar, the nonprofit rental, the farm, the GSA, the nearest dyke bar to the army base, the queer campus room, the party boat, a rainbow channel on Second Life.
Each space has a brand, a psychographic and a material context that leads from demographic to psychographic. The people who own/run these spaces get tied into the culture of whomever uses that space. The culture of the place where queers can meet gets mashed with the definition of "Lesbian" within that space until the two cannot be pared apart. So also for "Gay."
The bar, hard living; the nonprofit rental, social justice and aliiances; the farm, distance from the mainstream; the GSA, fighting your elders and bullies while hanging out in study groups; the nearest dyke bar to the army base, hard living, a regular job and discretion; the queer campus room, intellectual debate, Kraft dinner now for a job later, certified epistemological authourity (i.e. "I'm right, others are wrong"); the party boat, separation from the everyday and drugs; a rainbow channel on Second Life, fantasy geekdom in private and awkward in public.
Also: The theatre, irregular work and drama; kink events, intense experiences that lie and stay under the surface of everyday life; the local larp troupe, an all-consuming game, but one that doesn't pay the rent (wow, that was cynical).
Can you tell me about the dojo? What kind of queer did you see there?
Yes. I can see how queers who discovered queerness in each of these spaces had their queer shaped by the culture of those places.
To change these cultures then, one needs to pick the place for people to socialize, one with a carefully constructed social-geographic culture. Then put the word out to queers of all stripes, let them self-select, then let it snowball.
The dykes you're describing: justice oriented, countercultural, dogmatic, white/cis/middle-class guilt. Did they meet their fellow queers in college, then hang out at nonprofit events run by people with degrees? Are they union/NDP-affiliated?
The lads: did they find themselves as gay men in a sweaty disco room?
Can you think of queers who didn't come out this way? Did they break the stereotype?
Cliques: Nelson has former separatists hitting 50, 60 and older. Fewer dietary restrictions. Countercultural values from the 70s. Two conflicting undercurrents: one of transphobia, another of "we're really out of the loop on this 'gender' business and need to know more but don't know how to ask or talk about it." Now, I think that the latter live in town; the former don't.
And then I met some dykes who just wanted to get laid, take a fancy honeymoon and buy a house and a nice car.
Queery: where do they meet up, hang out? Look at the changes in dyke culture when the dominant space shifted from the mixed gay bar to the coffee house near a campus.
Look where the East Van dykes meet. Rhizome. Nonprofit events at public parks. Nonprofits renting halls.
The easily-offended queers met in a large suited house near a campus.
The separatists met where farmland used to be cheap.
The Canadian dream dykes met... I don't know where, but I bet it was somewhere mainstream.
So we have babyqueers looking for a place to relax, talk, hook up. They look around and they hit a few queer events, and they have *some* of the following choice: the bar, the nonprofit rental, the farm, the GSA, the nearest dyke bar to the army base, the queer campus room, the party boat, a rainbow channel on Second Life.
Each space has a brand, a psychographic and a material context that leads from demographic to psychographic. The people who own/run these spaces get tied into the culture of whomever uses that space. The culture of the place where queers can meet gets mashed with the definition of "Lesbian" within that space until the two cannot be pared apart. So also for "Gay."
The bar, hard living; the nonprofit rental, social justice and aliiances; the farm, distance from the mainstream; the GSA, fighting your elders and bullies while hanging out in study groups; the nearest dyke bar to the army base, hard living, a regular job and discretion; the queer campus room, intellectual debate, Kraft dinner now for a job later, certified epistemological authourity (i.e. "I'm right, others are wrong"); the party boat, separation from the everyday and drugs; a rainbow channel on Second Life, fantasy geekdom in private and awkward in public.
Also: The theatre, irregular work and drama; kink events, intense experiences that lie and stay under the surface of everyday life; the local larp troupe, an all-consuming game, but one that doesn't pay the rent (wow, that was cynical).
Can you tell me about the dojo? What kind of queer did you see there?
Yes. I can see how queers who discovered queerness in each of these spaces had their queer shaped by the culture of those places.
To change these cultures then, one needs to pick the place for people to socialize, one with a carefully constructed social-geographic culture. Then put the word out to queers of all stripes, let them self-select, then let it snowball.
The dykes you're describing: justice oriented, countercultural, dogmatic, white/cis/middle-class guilt. Did they meet their fellow queers in college, then hang out at nonprofit events run by people with degrees? Are they union/NDP-affiliated?
The lads: did they find themselves as gay men in a sweaty disco room?
Can you think of queers who didn't come out this way? Did they break the stereotype?