nvur rsvcnr by esllier Pllllllllllm ow do lesbians feel H about bisexual women? Have these feelings changed over time? I asked Paula Rust, a professor of soci- ology at the State University of New York at Geneseo, who has conducted research on bisexu- ality ever since shewas a grad- uate student. that most heterosexual women keep their relationships with other women hidden. The sim- ilarity really struck me.” The relationship ended, but the result was that Rust began to study prejudice and bound- aries within the lesbian com- munity. Her dissertation was on “controversial issues within 0 Lesbians and Bisexual Women — A Growing Alliance? relationships with men. “Being bisexual was not only keeping your foot in the door of heterosexual privilege, but even worse, wanting the best of both worlds. ‘So bisexual women were in some ways even more suspect than hetero- sexual women. With hetero- sexual women you could December 1999 I Out in the Mountains I15 “With younger people, the word ‘queer’ is close to what ‘gay’ meant to women who came out earlier, before lesbian feminism,” Rust said. “One of the goals of gay liberation was to work towards the goal of sexual orientation no longer mattering. The whole point was not to be proud of being a lesbian, but instead there was a focus on breaking down the distinctions so that it doesn’t matter who you sleep with. But in fact, societal discrimination proved that the distinction does matter. So lesbian feminists built up categorical boundaries between heterosexuals and les- bians, and that left bisexual women out in the cold.” Rust feels that the idea of queemess is somewhat similar to the original idea of gay lib- eration, of working toward a time when the boundaries don’t matter, and where who you sleep with doesn’t define For that generation of women, heterosexuality is ’sleeping with the enemy. III Being bisexual was not only a foot in the door of heterosexual privilege, but worse, wanting the best of both worlds.” “I had been out five or six years by the time I was in grad- uate school,” she said, “and what interested me was how the world looked different when you’re in a different social location. All ofa sudden I could see heterosexual privi- lege everywhere. The world looked different. But once I was in the lesbian community, I began to see the same kinds of dynamics. Some people reject other people because of their social location.” At a personal level, Rust began having an affair with a man and identifying as a les- bian. “I was keeping that rela- tionship hidden the same way the lesbian community,” including how lesbians felt about bisexual women. “The tension is strongest among the lesbian feminist generation,” she said. “These are the women who came out in thel970s. They came out in a feminist context where they viewed lesbianism and femi- nism as interrelated. Becoming a lesbian wasn’t just a personal stance. It had to do with a political awakening. Rust feels that for that gen- eration of women, heterosexu- ality is ‘sleeping with the enemy.’ Heterosexual women were not to be trusted; they had benefits due to be being in always come up with the excuse that they don’t know any better yet. But a bisexual woman is more threatening because she knows what the alternative is but still chooses to be involved in heterosexual- ity or to say that she’s willing to go that way. And that’s threatening to [those] lesbians who [saw] sexual orientation as a political decision. So bisexuals were labeled as trai- tors, as fence-sitters, make-up- your-mind-you—haven’t-come- out-yet — that’s where those stereotypes come from.” But with younger genera- tions of women, there is more adherence to queer politics. Coalition Events Verfiioni A C1‘ i V H’ i es Advocacy Education Networking Buyer's Co~Op Vermont People With AIDS Coalition P.O. Box 11 Montpelier, VT 05601-0011 in Vermont 800-698-8792 or 802-229-5754 1. Alison Hiibcr. BA.,T.P 802-658-5313' Ece|abody@cs.com Change. how you see: not lxowyou look Body Positive Self-Aco:ptanc'c Workshops for Women CEBEIIATS VIOIIIIIS‘ your sexuality. “Queer really has two mean- ings. One meaning is that it’s an umbrella term. It includes anyone who doesn’t fit into what might be considered tra- ditional sex and gender cate- gories. The other meaning is almost in contradiction to the first. This meaning focuses on queer as a way of breaking down those very categories. So the ’ question is, is ‘queer’ a way to include bisexuals as on of many groups, or is bisexuality part of the queer movement which has as its end goal the removal of all categories?” In general, Rust thinks that lesbians are a little less threat- ened than we used to be about bisexuality, and therefore more able to open up our own boundaries. Also, she sees bisexuality becoming more of a political identity and so there is less concern that including bisexu- als will “water down” the poli- tics of lesbians. For further reading, see Paula Rust’s books: Bisexuality And The Challenge To Lesbian Politics: Sex, Loyalty And Revolution, New York University Press, 1995 and Bisexuality In The United States: A Social Science Reader, Columbia University Press, in press. V Esther Rothblum is Professor of Psychology at the University of Vermont and Editor of the Journal of Lesbian Studies. She can be reached at John Dewey Hall, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, email: estherrothblum@uvm.edu. _ 802.660.8396 mediator Diane M. Felicio, Ph.D. Trying to work it out and getting nowhere? Conflict can be productive. separation - divorce - employee relations - consumer disputes -§" Sari K. Wolf, RN. CCRN,TMP. 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