#Which. No? It's literally sexist to define womanhood by body parts???? | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

discyours · 5 years

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You said that because your coming out as a trans man happened after you started to present masculine, it kind of reinforced sex roles. Or something like that. Sorry, I don't know how to phrase it better. In any case, I have a related question. Aren't radfems upset when a trans person doesn't want to pass? For example, when a trans woman doesn't shave her beard or a trans man has long hair. Isn't that contradictory? I also don't understand how a trans person who doesn't want to pass views gender.

I mean… For me sex is a phenotype. And gender is closely related to that. I don’t want to wear make-up or wear dresses, but I do like long hair. One of the reasons I don’t like short hair is because it makes me look like a man and I wouldn’t want to be confused with one. But I know that there are butch lesbians that look masculine. I’m sorry if anything I said is offensive. But all of this feels like a paradox to me. How do we abolish gender? If we abolish gender will there be no cis or trans?

Trans people who don’t want to pass are a whole other subject. If the issue with trans people who do aim to pass (ie be perceived as the opposite sex) is the gender roles we enforce along the way, the issue with trans people who don’t want to pass is that they see gender as something else entirely.

I consider myself to be trans because I want to be male. And that’s not good from a radfem perspective; maybe it’s rooted in misogyny or internalised homophobia or just sexist stereotypes in general, but in any case there’s no way for it to be seen as something positive. Probably not even something neutral. But at least it makes sense, even if the sense they personally make of it isn’t always accurate. Radfems can definitely imagine reasons why someone would want to be male, why someone would be dysphoric about being female. And expressing that desire to be male by aiming to change or at least hide your sex characteristics, that makes sense. They may still take issue with, again, the damage we do along the way, and with us prioritising our own suffering over that of women as a class, but quite a lot of them have enough empathy for us and our (fairly logical) suffering that they’re okay with us being trans. At least to some extent.

That logic is very different for trans people who do not want to pass. For trans people who don’t actually want to become or resemble the opposite sex, but claim to identify with it nevertheless. A trans woman who believes that taking estrogen for long enough will make her experience with womanhood the same as a cis woman’s may be annoying and, at times, even harmful, but at least she has her reasons. A passing trans woman can argue that people don’t know to treat her any different than a cis woman, and as much as that’s not all there is to misogyny she’d still have a point.

A trans woman who has a beard has no such argument and will, rather than claiming that there’s some flexibility to whom society perceives to be women, argue that society has absolutely nothing to do with the experience of womanhood. Not society and, considering these people rarely have any plans to medically transition, not anatomy either. Nothing tangible, just a deep feeling of “identity”. And this way of defining womanhood leaves absolutely no room to discuss “cis” women’s actual reality. Reproductive oppression through anti-abortion laws cannot be discussed as misogyny, because uteruses have nothing to do with womanhood. FGM is not inherently misogynistic, except when male circumcision counts as FGM. Being put in a dress and told that you can’t go play with your brothers because you’ll get it dirty can’t be talked about as a common part of girlhood, can’t be talked about as something that has any connection to being a girl. Because under this definition, so many of the brothers who could go play were actually girls themselves, and their identity is just as valid.

It’s not contradictory to take issue with both sides. They’re both, in their own ways, attempting to define “woman” away from adult human female, and that’s always going to be harmful to the ability to discuss the struggles of women as a class.

Abolishing gender just means getting rid of the characteristics we ascribe to sex (one of which is the idea that short hair makes you “look like a man”), ie woman means no more and no less than adult human female. Depending on how literally you take this you might believe that it’d become impossible for trans people to exist, but I disagree. Trans people can still change their sex characteristics in order to become more comfortable in their bodies, and to some degree in society. It’s not like we’d all get our chromosomes tattooed on our foreheads in a post-gender society. It’s true that people like me who can’t medically transition would probably find it much harder to be seen the way we wish, but what’s the alternative? Upholding an oppressive social construct just because we need it to feel valid? Sometimes you’ve just gotta take one for the team and this is one of those cases.

#anon #radfem #gender critical #also butch lesbians aren't the only masculine women lmao

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transparenttriumphzombie · 3 years

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Hats Off (But Dresses On) to Our Kurdish Feminist Brothers 5/3/2013 by

DILAR DIRIK

A remarkable and unusual sort of civil disobedience has been triggered in Marivan, a city in the Kurdistan Province of Iran. On April 15, an Iranian court in the city forced a male convict to wear traditional Kurdish women’s clothes in public, perceiving it as a humiliating punishment. Kurdish feminists of the Marivan Women’s Community protested against this misogynistic decision on the streets of Marivan in red traditional clothes, similar to the Kurdish bride robe that the convicts had to wear, and they were confronted by violent security forces.

Then, in solidarity with the women, Kurdish men took an extraordinary initiative by dressing as Kurdish women and posting their photos on social media.

In a café in the heart of Frankfurt, Germany, my friend Çiğdem and I enjoyed tea with Masoud Fathi and Dler Kamangar, two of the feminist men behind this campaign, which has made international news.

Masoud Fathi is a poet, journalist, political activist—and feminist. He is from Marivan, a city known for its disobedience and resistance. He had his friend Dler take a photo of him wearing an authentic, grass-green Kurdish woman’s robe, and posted it on his Facebook page, adding the sentence that became the slogan of the campaign: “Being a woman is not a tool to humiliate or punish anyone”.

Soon, some friends joined this brave statement by taking pictures of themselves in women’s dresses. Within a week, the Facebook page “Kurd Men for Equality” gained over 13,000 fans. Women and men from other parts of Kurdistan, Europe and America expressed their solidarity and shared commitment to gender equality with their own photos.

How did Masoud feel when he put on this impressive green dress?

When I wore that dress, I suddenly realized how much evil the chauvinist thinking of men, male-dominated religions, ideologies and systems have caused. I understood that masculine culture has destroyed the world.

The pictures on Facebook are as diverse as the Kurdish nation: A cute, smiling little boy in red challenges patriarchy the same way as a mature, serious-looking man with thick glasses in a delightfully charming dress. Some women are dressed in Kurdish men’s clothes, some of them stand next to male friends who wear flashy dresses with pride. One mother in a traditional men’s outfit stands confidently alongside her adolescent son, who smiles in a bright-blue, shimmering woman’s gown. Some men covered their faces to escape persecution by the Iranian regime.

Sasan Amjadi, a contributor to this project and a friend of Masoud and Dler’s, says,

The Iranian regime is fascist, and it is almost inevitable that this affects the society, which leads parts of the Iranian population to accept the regime’s beliefs. Perhaps 40 percent of the population does not believe in women. I did not feel any strangeness when I put on a woman’s dress. I just wanted to demonstrate who we were: This is what we look like, this is our culture and they cannot insult our culture, our mothers and sisters. We cannot accept that. … There can be no free society without free women. It is in the responsibility of men to end this culture of male hegemony.

Men in Western societies have also resorted to wearing women’s clothes in order to challenge gender discrimination. Even the most democratic societies struggle with rape culture, sexism, homophobia and transphobia. Violence against women is a global epidemic. If tabooizing and controlling women’s bodies and behaviors in the name of honor is the sexism of one society, the porn industry, prostitution and unhealthy beauty standards make up the other end of the patriarchal spectrum that devaluates women by reducing them to objects of men’s pleasure or property. Cross-dressing is an effective way of challenging binary notions of gender and raising awareness of issues that human beings who are not male and heterosexual encounter on a daily basis.

However, the case of Kurdish men wearing Kurdish women’s clothes is even more special, because it attacks two forms of oppression at the same time. This “punishment” is not only sexist; it further constitutes an attempt to ridicule Kurdish culture. The Islamic Republic of Iran has executed at least 56 Kurds in the past year. It continues to enforce oppressive annihilation policies towards the Kurdish people and other ethnicities, or against any dissident voice, for that matter. While the misogynist regime forces women to cover in black cloth, traditional Kurdish (and of course traditional Persian) women’s clothes are very colorful and beautifully embroidered pieces of detailed handwork. The meaning of these sequined, extravagant robes on Kurdish men is a double strike against a regime that covers, hides and silences women in plain black, discriminates against different ethnicities and believes that being an oppressive despot defines masculinity and power. After all, chauvinist concepts of gender and abusive power structures are inseparable.

But while the Iranian authorities attempted to shame male prisoners by making them wear traditional Kurdish women’s clothes, Kurdish men formidably responded by standing up against both sorts of oppression. They made two statements in one: Being a woman is NOT a punishment—and our culture is beautiful. Not being a woman, but being sexist is degrading. Not Kurdish clothes, but racism is humiliating.

Dler Kamangar, a talented musician from the beautiful East Kurdish city of Sine, agrees with Masoud that this Facebook action is just one small step in the right direction. Though media and public attention are important, future steps must be more practical, and not just remain in the social media sphere. As he drinks his black tea, he tells me that they are currently planning protest actions in front of Iranian embassies. They will appear in women’s clothes. Dler’s skepticism of the Iranian regime is surpassed by his optimism for the Kurdish people’s struggle:

I do not wait for a reform by the Iranian regime. We need to work against the negative structures in our own communities and societies. In the end, we are by ourselves. We must come up with our own solutions.

Like Dler, Masoud considers himself a feminist. He has written columns about women’s rights and men’s duty to actively challenge the male-dominated system. In his words,

Women are part of our personality, our character. If we oppress one part of our character, we oppress ourselves. If one part of us is unfree, our whole cannot be free either.

While the regimes of Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria oppressed the Kurds ethnically and created hyper-masculinized forms of warfare and oppression, the Kurds have often responded with feminism. One unifying slogan echoes around all four parts of Kurdistan: “No free society without free women.” A liberated Kurdistan is, and must be, measured by women’s emancipation.

Speaking from a Kurdish woman’s perspective, my dear friend Çiğdem Orhan, a young philosophy student from Karakocan, Elazig in North Kurdistan, who is socially active in our community in Germany, adds:

This action is very meaningful and powerful, because it was started by men who stand up for women’s rights. This illustrates that women’s rights is a societal phenomenon that involves all of society, not just women. These men prove courage in overcoming their “inner man” when putting on dresses, taking pictures and posting these for the world to see. They don’t just mentally stand up for women’s rights, but do so literally in a physical sense.

The Iranian regime’s intention to signify honorlessness, embarrassment, humiliation and degradation by using womanhood has completely failed.

Crossposted from the Kurdistan Tribune

Source

https://msmagazine.com/2013/05/03/hats-off-but-dresses-on-to-our-kurdish-feminist-brothers/

#men wearing dress #men in dresses #kurdish #feminized husband #feminisim #transgender

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chequerootlurks · 6 years

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What Is "Pretty Privilege" & How Does It Affect Trans Women?

[written by JUNO ROCHE

I didn't encounter the words "feminized" or "feminization" until I started transitioning. Yet currently, both words occupy quite a few media inches, in reference to those who have had feminizing surgeries and, by omission, those who haven't. It's a trans concern, but one that ripples way out.

When I first engaged in talking therapy to try and resolve my issues around gender, people (professionals and friends) would ask me what I was going to do to become more feminine, what surgeries might I have done to erase the masculine features created by testosterone. Would I consider having my face shape changed, my brow line, my hairline, my chin, my nose, my lips? Bigger breasts, smaller shoulders, pretty hair? I would stand in front of the mirror and quite literally tug, pull, push, and attempt to non-surgically change my face from what now felt almost Neanderthal into Disney. My internal aim was to look like Kate Moss — ridiculous, I know — but I often spent days hating my face and wishing for her perfect, symmetrical elfin beauty. I felt like I had to be dainty in order to fit in. I had to be soft and smooth.

All around me people talked about the parts of me that made me stand out: my voice too deep, my shoulders too wide, my eyes too heavy-set, my chin too square... the list is eternal. This felt strange because, before transitioning, I had spent my whole life being told I was too feminine for my own good: I walked like a girl, talked like a girl, sat like a girl, read like a girl, played sports like a girl. These were pejorative, nasty, spiteful insults — which, ironically, I adored. But apparently, the instant I started to transition, I resembled Cro-Magnon Man.

I felt elated at the start of my transition, proud of my courage to be open and honest about who I felt I was. But the process of becoming me was draining. The need to fit a stereotypical binary model of femininity was utterly dispiriting. For years I felt that I was not good enough, that I was clumsy, unattractive, that if I didn't have bangs or soft, razor-edged hair I would seem masculine.

Hanging over me the whole time was the knowledge that I could change my face and body by undergoing feminization surgeries and training. I could sell my house to pay for it — my house which I had struggled as a teacher to buy and hold onto through the years when I could barely pay the mortgage.

My first act of womanhood was a commitment to my economic security. I held onto my house and realized that I couldn't afford the surgeries that may alleviate the dysphoria which at that point I saw as mine to own, not as society’s problem, as I do now. I spent lots of time coming to terms with my body and face and realized that the surgeries we trans folk can have may offer safety and success, but they might not be progressing the rights of all trans people. I wanted to linger, politically and personally, and occupy trans as a destination. The longer I have transitioned, the less important it is for me to be seen simply as a woman. The authenticity of trans, masculine features and all, is so often derided by our rush to pass through it and get to a place where we are perceived to be just like every other woman.

I'm not like every other woman: I'm fabulously and creatively transgender. There, I said it — and the sky hasn't fallen in.

The other day I read something like: "She had facial feminization surgery and the work flooded in." Our community should celebrate any trans person getting success — and I do — but the context in which our success is celebrated and our careers advanced is far too often still packaged in cis society’s desire to see the trans in us disappear. We are celebrated when we shake off our trans-ness.

The implication is that being suitably feminine is rewarded with work. The brilliant Janet Mock has been one of the few to shine a light on the presence of "pretty privilege" in the trans community. In an interview with Nylon magazine, Mock talked about how, after embarking on her medical transition at 15 years old, she saw her body change; she began "passing" as a cis girl, and with it, the reactions to her body changed. “With my gender nonconformity seemingly fading away,” Mock said, “I began to attract the attention of 18-to-24-year-old cis guys who began stopping to inform me that I was pretty.” She explains that she was suddenly accepted, yet “did nothing to earn the attention my prettiness granted me.”

I know writing this will make me unpopular. I know that the transphobes out there who attack us every day might think this article is for them. It's not. I am not criticizing any trans person who wishes to blend — fuck that. I want to blend: It means I get work, it means I'm safe(r) in this shitty #MeToo world of ours. But the entry point for success, aspiration, and affirmation is walking slap bang into sexist structures that reward smooth, youthful beauty. We need to be able to check that; it's privilege that is creating a two-tier system which leaves trans behind as the ugly, clumsy sibling.

This isn't new, women on television not being entitled to age, having to erase any signs of life from their faces and reducing their reactions, their facial responses, their fun, their joy, their anger, their laughter, to an ever-present, part-frozen, Botox-regulated grin. I have beautiful friends in their 20s who are already having Botox to ward off lines, to stave off aging. Lines, natural lines, are seen as unattractive, not viable for careers.

Age happens to us all, so let's not think that these cultural norms we are creating (beautiful trans folk equal success; aging in anyone equals very bad) don't apply to us. I know it's spectacularly easy to think we can demarcate young and old, and I know many will view me as old — perhaps the word "bitter" will appear on my timeline — but I assure you this is about politics and cultural submissiveness, which I witness becoming norms.

Botox will not prevent you, me, us, from aging and eventually dying. We all age, we are all temporary, but the important things are always deeper; we should be able to look in the mirror and celebrate who we are, bare-faced and naked. That's the kind of politicized equality I want to work towards: one where all trans people have the same opportunity for economic and personal success and safety, one where women are allowed to age and not be shamed into feeling that they are letting themselves go if they don't paralyze their expressions into porcelain smoothness. I want to reside in my trans-ness and celebrate my trans identity. I think I may just define myself as simply being trans from now on, because I do trans very well. Trans is my success point.

[source: https://apple.news/AV5AFxzHBTviwHnXl7xfgjg ]

#lgbtq #transgender #privilege #muse shares #equal rights for all

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therealdragonnerdagain · 6 years

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To be honest, I wish they had done this for Inquisition. Just no fucking dlc greed and everything packaged in the base game, no in-game ads. Like the good ol' days.

To be honest, I believe the only reason they're taking this stance is that EA finally realized being greedy was pushing people away. A lot of people -- myself included -- have walked away from Bioware and are no longer buying their games (Inquisition was the last straw for me). The dlc greed is just a small part of the reason, though, Bioware. There’s also your misogyny, your racism, and your open support of violent transgender activists.

The ending epilogue was a stupid cliffhanger that forced us to metagame about Solas being the Dreadwolf, and Trespasser should have been a part of the vanilla game. I mean, shouldn't the end of the fucking story be a part of the vanilla game??? Without it, too many characters had broken story arcs.

Cutting Trespasser into dlc was like . . . if Bioware decided to cut the Anders reveal at the end of Dragon Age 2 out of the game, then forced us to buy dlc in order to finish the mage/templar war in Kirkwall.

But there were a lot of things wrong with Inquisition -- such as sensitive princess David Gaider using Varric to insult fans for making valid criticisms about his shitty streamlined mess of a sequel.

Gaider is so misogynistic, too. I swear he revealed Varric's girlfriend just to give female Varric fans the middle finger. I'm not even a Varric "fan girl" and I can see it.

As evidenced by Cassandra and Aveline's implementation, Gaider thinks feminism is women in armor with pink hearts and square jaws. Making women equal means making women like men! Morrigan is the grand exception, but of course, she's presented as an utter bitch, as mostly all of the feminine women in Dragon Age are. Feminine is somehow "evil" in this world, a typically misogynistic view that is actually quite prevalent among gay men.

And then there's the way Dorian's every banter with Cassandra has him objectifying her and dressing her up like a doll in pretty scarves -- because that's exactly how gay men see women, as pretty dolls they can imitate and dress up and not as PEOPLE.

It's nice to see Bioware trying to learn from their past mistakes (I still don't trust them, though) but it would be nice if they would stop changing the lore in every game to shove "gender identity" down our throats.

The asari are women. WOMEN. Monogendered means ONE GENDER not no gender.

What is a woman? A human being with tits and a pussy. That is a woman.

Gender is not an identity. You are mentally ill and/or a misogynist who thinks a bunch of sexist stereotypes (dresses and makeup and high heels) and not physical attributes are what makes a woman. You can't even use the "what about women who don't have tits?" argument because those women are still born with female chromosomes.

White men in dresses are trying to redefine womanhood, are openly attacking women for talking about periods and female bodily functions, and are applauded for attacking queer women as "transphobic" for not liking dick.

Transgenderism is nothing but straight up misogyny in disguise, so it's not surprising that gay man David Gaider -- whose video games have always hated women -- would jump onboard alongside his equally misogynistic straight male friends at Bioware to spout this nonsense.

Yeah, I'll say it if no one else will.I do not fear the dark shithole of faux social justice madness that is tumblr. I’ve been attacked by you all before, and quite honestly, it’s just bouncing off at this point.

I liked Krim but the character was implemented badly, aggressively attacking the Inquisitor for being clueless and changing the qunari lore just to fit in the story.

I am honestly sick of this shit.

You could say to me, "Well, being gay is a mental illness too."

Well, even if it was, at least I'm not going around attacking women for talking about their bodies, silencing them, redefining their language, and telling them they're horrible people for not liking dick, which is literally the definition of being a lesbian.

My "mental illness" is not routinely used to attack other people. As a woman who likes women, I just want the freedom to love who I will and not be bothered or socially, economically oppressed about it. I am not out redefining manhood or telling men they have to like dick or else they're homophobic or something. I am not wearing bloody t-shirts and talking about beating up men for not including me, a woman, in their safe spaces.

And just in case people are about to say it . . . no. This isn’t the same as lesbians not liking bisexuals. That is biphobia. Lesbians are sexually, romantically attracted to other women -- not just other lesbians -- and if they refuse to date bisexuals -- who are women -- on the basis on stereotypes and prejudice formed from a few bad experiences, that make them biphobic. End of.

They are refusing to date a certain group of women on the basis of hate, even though they are sexually attracted to these women, who fall under the definition of “being attracted to other women.”

There’s a difference between a preference and prejudice. Preferring to date one group over another is wildly different than blowing off the other group entirely.

This transgender shit has gotten out of hand, and I'm tired.

I don't have anything against transgender people. I don't care if you're a man and you want to wear a dress. Do whatever the hell you want, as long as you aren't hurting me. But please stop telling me you're a woman. Please stop trying to define what it means to be a woman. Stop invading my spaces to lecture me about your mental illness. Please have something to say in video games aside from "Hello, I'm transgender, now let me teach you about it" otherwise you're a token. Please stop bragging about beating up women who don't agree that having a dick makes you a woman (see how insane that sounds?).

You are biologically a man. You're a man. Gender is not an identity. It's a random happenstance at birth. Take some medication and see a therapist. Or don't. Just stop trying to tell me what a woman is.

No, I don't want you in my public restrooms. Why the hell should I? You are biologically a man. That makes you a danger to me. And if you want to argue about that, I've got thousands of years of history regarding all the biological men who raped, assaulted, and murdered women to support my argument. What have you got?

No, I don't want you in my prisons. See above.

No, I don't even want you in my video games at this point. Because all you do is show up to lecture me about your gender dysphoria and how I'm a bad person for not thinking a man with a dick is a woman. At least gay and bi characters these days actually have some backstory.

Stop lecturing me about women's problems when you were born a man and were socially conditioned to behave like a man -- as is evidenced by all the bullying, violence, and mansplaining you do toward women.

Also, why are you calling yourselves two-spirits? For the love of god, stop appropriating words from cultures you don't even understand. The only "third" gender belongs to intersexual people, who are born with both sets of sexual organs. Everyone else is either a man or a woman. Period. What you imagine as a "gender identity" is just a bunch of a stereotypes you're confusing with gender roles. It just shows how sexist you are that you think being a woman is getting your hair done and polishing your nails.

Get out of my spaces, get out of my face, get out of my public restrooms, and just get out.

If you're like Bioware and support violent transgender misogynistic activists, then please stop following this blog and kindly do not speak to me.

Do not send me angry private messages because I won't read them.

Fuck off and leave me alone.

/rant done

#bioware critical #don't bother me #idgaf #unapologetically bi

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ufeministi · 4 years

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“The heterosexist definition of the sexual act fits neatly into the dominant patriarchal definition of women as subordinate to men in every way, including and especially in the sexual sense” (Patricia McFadden)

Queer women’s lives are lush. They are complex, multi – faceted and dynamic. This diverse terrain is often flattened by hetero-sexist representations and societal limitations. Popular cultural representations offer rare glimpses into the galaxies which lesbian and non – gender conforming women create. These glances are often alienating and insulting. From Cleo’s hypersexualised portrayal and dramatic death in 1996 American film, Set it off to the heroine’s ‘silencing by death’ in Karmen Gei, a Senegalese 2001 film, lesbian women are a portrayed as a menace which heterosexist patriarchy silences through metaphor. This silencing takes a literal dimension in the application of law and social sanction.

In Africa, dominant ante and post-colonial narratives circulate limiting portrayals of women. These depictions benefit from erasing lesbian women and non-gender confirming people from public space and its record. Dominant heteronormative narratives circulate limiting portrayal of women which benefit from erasing lesbian women and non-gender confirming people from public space and its record. Lesbian women and non – gender confirming people have also been subjected to denigrating readings like the bully archetypes in Nollywood films and hypersexualized portrayals of women who assert their sexuality. Resistance has been mounted to these mirages though scholarship and self-stylization. The social histories and identities of lesbian women have been artfully depicted in film, academia and popular culture.

Lesbian visibility matters, it should be a concern for cis-gendered and heterosexual people as well as other members of the LGBTIQ community. Regrettably, lesbian women’s presence and preference is perceived as a threat by heterosexist patriarchal institutions, individuals and ideals. Campaigns like #lesbianvisibility week add to a rich living archive of lesbian women which is being produced through social, political, academic and artistic initiatives. Visibility has implications for lesbian women’s freedom from violence, access to reproductive healthcare, the expression of social, economic and political freedoms as well as the safe navigation of digital spaces,

Lesbian women threaten hegemonic masculinity. Heterosexist patriarchy does not know what do to with the public presence of women who love women. In South Africa, women like Brenda Fassie have been vilified for declaring their love for women. It is not just Brenda’s male following who shunned her but women who didn’t agree with Brenda living her life on her own terms. Years after Brenda’s death, there was public outcry about the homophobic remarks reportedly made by then Minister of Arts and Culture Lulu Xingwana about artist Zanele Muholi’s work as immoral and posing a threat to nation unity. Similar sentiments caused uproar in Liberia when a Women’s rights organization leader attributed being lesbian to the trauma of war. In Gambia, Yaya Jameh’s government undertook a campaign of state funded, military executed homophobia and torture. The LGBTIQ community are conspicuously absent from the country’s ongoing Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

African Feminisms and womanisms are constrained by conservative social norms, religious fundamentalism and heterosexist images. Cis – gendered heterosexual women are often the gatekeepers of patriarchy. They are often depicted as the voice of ‘women’s rights’ and the advancement of dignity. However, without acknowledging and affirming lesbian women and non – binary identities, feminisms and womanisms, perpetuate the violence they seek to end.

Lesbian visibility is important for challenging heterosexist norms and affirming non – binary ways of being in the world. Lesbian visibility in the media, politics, academia and other spaces provides alternative archetypes for children who are being socialised out of the heteronormative constraints we currently deal with. It is important for children to grown up seeing lesbian women just being, occupying space and living their lives, unfettered by heterosexist patriarchy. It is equally important for adults to actively affirm lesbian and non – gender confirming personhood and dignity.

Heterogenous representations of womanhood are life giving. Seeing lesbian women living their lives fully, without discrimination and indignant aspersions passed on them will free humanity. Stella Nyanzi encourages us to transcend “myopic imaginings of a homogenous African – ness and pedestrian oblivion to pluralities within African sexualities.”

Women’s sexuality is unfortunately framed within terms which privilege patriarchal definitions of personhood. Sexuality is personal but it also has various elements which encumber it like race, class and other social categorisations. Lesbian women’s expression of social and political rights is limited by the homophobic and heteronormative ideals which plague many families, organisations, religious institutions and whole countries. In heteronormative societies, women are often treated as ‘containers’ of cultures, they are treated as (current or future) ‘mothers’ of the nation or defined through other limited lenses determined by their proximity to men. In these heteronormative contexts, women are treated as vessels for hegemonic masculinity and the expression its desires. Women are portrayed as objects or at most, passive subjects. Women who are complicity with hegemonic masculinity sadly also accede to the demands of their societies to gain privilege and access to power / resources.

Women’s bodies are sometimes treated as community property. The idea of this property being distributed by women choosing to love and desire other women, threatens heterosexist patriarchy. It is in conflict with the wishes of institutions of like religious bodies and the heterosexual nuclear family. Grave consequences such as so – called ‘corrective rape,’ violence and exclusion are often visited on the lives of lesbian women who assert their own desires.

Lesbian artists have provided fluid representations of personhood which fly in the face of patriarchy. Pumla Dineo Gola writes that “[Zanele] Muholi’s work resists precisely such endeavours to name, tame and classify.” So does the work of filmmaker Cheryl Dunye whose Stranger Inside offers complex and affirming representations of black lesbian women. Wanuri Kahiu’s Rafiki is a Kenyan film that portrays the romance between Ziki and Kena. The film was banned by Kenya Film Classification board “due to its homosexual theme and clear intent to promote lesbianism in Kenya contrary to the law.” Kahiu sued the government and the ban was lifted. Kahiu and Muholi join part of long-standing tradition of artists documenting women loving women. There are many documented and undocumented practices which African scholars and writers have discussed. Ifi Amadiume’s 1987 work is seminal in documenting non – binary and heterogenous sexual practices. Same sex play and erotic attachments amongst Basotho women feature in the work of Kendall (1999.) Keletso Mafokane has documented same – sex sexualities and practices in Zimbabwe, Lesotho and Ruth Manga has written about subversive sexualities in Yaounde. Stella Nyanzi, Pumla Dineo Gqola and Frieda Ekotto write eye opening work. Sylvia Tamale’s writings are seminal and comprehensive, Makhosazana Xaba and HOLA Africa’s work also provide alternative representations.

Amina Mama encourages deviation by the scholar or advocate of African feminisms from outlooks which are “distinctly heterosexual, pro-natal, and concerned with many ‘bread, butter, culture, and power’ issues.” This deviation can be achieved through increasing and diversifying the archetypes of African womanhood to include #Lesbianvisibility.