The Reappearing Lesbian

On the challenges of leadership

I’m currently working on the details of an upcoming 4 hour workshop on rebuilding lesbian community in a post-transition landscape.

Many lesbians now have beards, no breasts, hairy chests.

Many lesbians are hurt, resentful, grieving, and angry. Myself included.

I’ve been asked to lead. But the pathway forward is unclear; uncharted.

What I want to stress is this:

This has been an attack on lesbians from the outside. We all got hurt in different ways. We all have scars. Mine are just on the surface. Visible to all. And that touches the many internal scars we all share.

This work will be emotionally difficult.

Being a “leader” means that people tend to project all of their own feelings onto me.

I am someone’s ex-partner, who was lost to someone who cared about me, due to transition. But, I’m not everyone’s lost partner.

I am someone’s daughter and sister, whose face changed beyond recognition. But, I’m not everyone’s lost daughter or sister.

I am a lesbian who watched our community fall apart. I’ve felt all of the same grief, watching this happen. I’ve lost the spaces, resources, partnerships, community and supports I needed - which was a significant factor in my own vulnerability to this trans ideology.

I am a lesbian who was fed and bought the lie, and lost literal and figurative parts of myself. But my body is not your body, whose parts you grieve.

I must maintain this boundary: I can not bear the burden of everyone else’s feelings. I have plenty of my own to work through. I need the rebuilding of our networks and sisterhood as much as everyone else. I can’t allow leadership to be something which intensifies my own isolation.

My spiritual faith is helpful to me in this regard, as I consider what it means to be a leader. The example set out by my own faith tradition is one of servant leadership, not power. I don’t want power. I want myself, and my people, made whole again.

I don’t have all the answers.

What I hope for this workshop, and any future ones I lead, is that the participants feel a collective drive to forgive one another; to find the answers together. To turn away from fighting each other, towards the snipers on the outside, who fired these shots at us. Together.

It’s what the lesbian girls need from the lesbian adult leaders.