"Jennifer Carroll, Florida's Lt. Governor, Sparks Outraged And Inspiring Twitter Reactions....
...with 'Lesbian' Comment."
"The problem is that when you have these accusations that come out," Florida Lt. Governor Jennifer Carroll told Tampa 10, "it's not just one person you're attacking. It's an entire family. My husband doesn't want to hear that. He knows the type of woman I am. I mean, my kids know the type of woman I am... Usually black women that look like me don't engage in relationships like that."
(See the full story at this previous post here.)
While the allegations that Carroll and her female travel aide were in a "compromising position" in Carroll's capitol office may be seen as an attack on her family, Carroll's defense -- that she couldn't have engaged in homosexual acts because she doesn't look like a lesbian -- is being seen as an attack on the lesbian community at large and the black lesbian community in particular.
"You have labeled lesbian gender expression as being deviant," Alysia, a self-identified black feminine lesbian woman wrote to the Lt. Governor, "and have both denied and revoked black lesbian femininity. Since I don't have a visual lesbian identifier you have tried to silence me." Another woman, Jaye, wrote, "Black women who are professional, well educated, well spoken and well dressed just might be lesbians, too!"
In response to Carroll's statements, we tweeted for lesbian women to post pictures of themselves on Twitter (inspired by HuffPost Gay Voices reader @doriaroberts) with the hashtag #ThisIsWhatALesbianLooksLike, to show, as one respondent put it, that lesbians come in "all colors, all sizes, all hairstyles!"
Check out the absolutely inspiring slideshow of responses below, let us know what you think of the Lt. Governor's defense and keep the conversation going on Twitter and in the comments section below.
Source: Huffingtonpost
The slideshow is *awesome* - I hope people keep sending in pictures. Anyone have any tags to suggest? There's no 'lesbians, yay!' tag! :)
*Edited to fix the source link - sorry, guys, didn't realize it jumped to the middle of the slide show.*
"The problem is that when you have these accusations that come out," Florida Lt. Governor Jennifer Carroll told Tampa 10, "it's not just one person you're attacking. It's an entire family. My husband doesn't want to hear that. He knows the type of woman I am. I mean, my kids know the type of woman I am... Usually black women that look like me don't engage in relationships like that."
(See the full story at this previous post here.)
While the allegations that Carroll and her female travel aide were in a "compromising position" in Carroll's capitol office may be seen as an attack on her family, Carroll's defense -- that she couldn't have engaged in homosexual acts because she doesn't look like a lesbian -- is being seen as an attack on the lesbian community at large and the black lesbian community in particular.
"You have labeled lesbian gender expression as being deviant," Alysia, a self-identified black feminine lesbian woman wrote to the Lt. Governor, "and have both denied and revoked black lesbian femininity. Since I don't have a visual lesbian identifier you have tried to silence me." Another woman, Jaye, wrote, "Black women who are professional, well educated, well spoken and well dressed just might be lesbians, too!"
In response to Carroll's statements, we tweeted for lesbian women to post pictures of themselves on Twitter (inspired by HuffPost Gay Voices reader @doriaroberts) with the hashtag #ThisIsWhatALesbianLooksLike, to show, as one respondent put it, that lesbians come in "all colors, all sizes, all hairstyles!"
Check out the absolutely inspiring slideshow of responses below, let us know what you think of the Lt. Governor's defense and keep the conversation going on Twitter and in the comments section below.
Source: Huffingtonpost
The slideshow is *awesome* - I hope people keep sending in pictures. Anyone have any tags to suggest? There's no 'lesbians, yay!' tag! :)
*Edited to fix the source link - sorry, guys, didn't realize it jumped to the middle of the slide show.*