idyke

Ellen and Kate - Dyke Ambassadors

Sun, 17 Jan 2010 12:51:07 +0100

I've decided to stop being quite such a gloomy sod and count some blessings for a change. Good things I've thought of recently as far as the dyke community goes, are Ellen Degeneres' seemingly never-ending and meteoric rise to fame – her own talk show, judge on American Idols, Cover Girl contract – and this is the woman who got married to a woman in a dress, while wearing a suit. Then there's Kate Clinton. OK she's not overly well-known in South Africa, but in 2006 she celebrated her 25th year in the comedy industry – and for a very out, proud and political “stylish butch” to make it in showbiz for so long – something, somewhere must be going right. So Ellen and Kate are currently my two … not role models, I am in no danger of fame, but signs of good things for dykes. They're ambassadors, I guess.

They do it in two completely different ways too. No, not that “it” - pull your minds out of your pants please. The ambassador bit. Kate Clinton is unfailingly out and very loud and proud indeed – possibly as a result of this, her appeal's more limited to the dyke community than Ellen's is. Ellen is everybody's. Her high-profile and good looking femme girlfriends have possibly helped broaden her appeal there – because actually she and Clinton both have a similar wide-grin positive kind of an approach to things.

The fact remains, Ellen never denies being gay and when it matters, (like Prop 8 issues) she talks about it, it's just not her entire “schtick.”

As for Kate, she's something of an elderdyke now and perhaps Rachel Maddow owes a little of her current success to the trails that Kate blazed, back in the proverbial day. She's there behind Ellen too, in that line of brave lesbians who started off doing standup.

New Queer Day

Fri, 01 Jan 2010 17:28:22 +0100

2010 has just emerged, foetus-like from the bloody hips of 2009 and surely South Africa is thinking about things beyond soccer? And us queers, where are we?

Well, I'm guessing most of us are still in closets. Iconic lesbian website After Ellen's round up of lesbians who came out in 2009 includes a whole one South African i.e. Melanie Lowe. Whether or not you like her music, if you're one of those fabled and privileged queers with plenty of disposable income, please go buy at least one of her CD's, for the simple reason that she bothered to come out. She's also very approachable on Facebook, so do me a favour and go say thank you to her.

For as long as I can remember, Celluloid Closet (Hollywood) tales have been echoed locally, by rumours of queer Springbok rugby players, actors, singers and the like, who stay in their closets for reasons like – it'd hurt their career if they came out and (I'm sick of this one) their sexuality is nobody's business but their own. Inconvenience. Loss of income.

Considering that we queers are still very much a minority under threat; that they want to execute us for homosexuality in Uganda, murder us for being gay in South African townships, or just rape us to cure us, that the Media sparks from time to time with stories of first world schoolchildren and soldiers being battered to death for being queer; there is no possible way that we can separate the queer individual from the queer political just yet. If we do, we have to seriously sweep our consciences under the metaphorical carpet, ignoring all of those victims and all the ones that never get any media attention at all.

We desperately need out celebrities, not so that we have plenty of nice, queer-focused entertainment (though there's less than nothing wrong with that), but because we're a society full of media whores and fame junkies and we need representatives to tell the world (sigh) that it's OK to be gay. It's shocking that the message we need to get across is that damn basic, that we are still, in 2010, screaming for acceptance.

Like it or not, as queers, we're linked to every single other queer out there, not purely for the fact that we have a common sexuality, but because we have a common enemy too – homophobia. And if you ever get confused by whether something's homophobic or whether it's perfectly acceptable, remove the word gay, queer, faggot or whatever from the concept and try it out with “black” or “Jewish” or something instead. As South Africans (ex-purveyors of apartheid), we ought to have incredibly fine and sensitive methods of detecting intolerance. And we really ought to be intensely careful about eradicating it.

If any of my regular readers have got this far – thanks! I'm surprised you bothered; I seem to have been saying the same damn thing as a queer columnist for a whole decade now – is any of it ever going to change? Are we ever going to get enough people out of enough closets, so that homophobia, be it political and violent or “merely” personal, subtle attrition, ever stops? I'm beginning to feel like a complete parody – some sort of robotic lesbian feminist with a scratchy recorded message.

To every queer who ever came out, in any way at all, thank you.
To every queer activist, thank you.
To every non-queer person who stood up for us, thank you.
To all of our non-queer friends and relatives who have ever taken strain on our behalf, thank you.

{words:ulla kelly
photo:GLK}

Have yourself a lesbo little xmas ...

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 18:42:16 +0100

“Madonna, Lover, and Son” by Becki Jayne Harrelson, 1996. Oil on canvas, 80 x 68 inches. www.beckijayne.com

So, besides yelling, "Ho, ho, ho!" at your exes, what are you doing to dyke the halls and have yourself a lesbo little Christmas? If you're lucky, you have some form of well-adjusted family and can integrate into the general Christmas spirit without feeling the need to make it too queer - it's not always that way though, is it? For some, Christmas ends up being one of those times when you're forced to remember rejections by various family members, social occasions that don't welcome you and all the other joys of being out. An article in the Advocate claimed that, "80% of lesbian adults felt more stress around the holidays, compared with 64% of heterosexual women. And while 51% of lesbians said they tend to feel more depressed around the holidays, only 36% of straight women did." That kind of thing tends to drive one screeching into the safety of the queer ghetto - so here's a virtual guide to some stuff online that'll remind you that Christmas isn't just for heterosexuals.

Jeanette Winterson; my favourite doesn't-solely-define-herself-as-a-lesbo author extraordinaire, did a lovely retelling of the nativity story, in The Lion, the Unicorn and Me. She's also done some very pro-Christmas opinion pieces that you might enjoy - you'll find them here and here.

If you're in the mood for some amateur writing, this play's a fast read and also lesbian and Christmas themed. There's also The Lesbian Stick: A Christmas Story.

After Ellen's Naughty But Nice List for 2009 just might make you smile too. They also have a list of lesbian Christmas songs. You can also take a trip back in time and get some Venus Envy songs - I'll Be a Homo for Christmas, Lesbians We Have Heard on High, Rhonda the Lesbo Reindeer and so forth.

South Africa's very own homegrown queer online bookstore offers you a novel with a Christmas theme, called A Deeper Love.

The holiday season is, at least, the time when gay clubs and bars go all out to entertain, so if you live in or near a major city, you don't need to get too lonesome - it might even be a good time to find your very own Christmas Carol - or whatever her name is.

If your approach to the festering season is more of the Grinch variety, it's the perfect time to unleash diatribes about that patriarchal and oppressive Father Christmas stuff and demand stronger roles for women in the Nativity Play. Oh wait ...

Stalking Robert Hamblin

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:51:04 +0100

For the first and possibly last time in my life, I bought a copy of Rooi Rose (for any non South African readers, it’s an Afrikaans women’s magazine and although it’s come a long way since apartheid days, it’s still one of those magazines that one thinks of as safely mainstream i.e. hardly relevant to me, as part of the LGBTQI spectrum). I bought it for the story about Robert Hamblin, the artist formerly known as Adele Hamblin; photographer extraordinaire.

Robert’s physical transition from female to male has been documented with joyful publicity, all over the place and cyberspace too. He’s been on TV, radio, been interviewed in De Kat - and so it goes on. In his own career, he’s never been far from the limelight either, enjoying top jobs and exhibitions at places like JAG. He’s also been forthright and eloquent online, on both queer and transgender forums. If you have a look at his own art, you’ll find plenty of examples of his exploration and conclusions too.

Despite the general mutters in various quarters of the old school gay camp (pun intended), biphobia and transphobia is untenably unacceptable in any circle and circumstances, but perhaps especially so within the queer community. Some gay people want “queer” to simply refer to those of us who are pureblood same-sex types (Harry Potter reference intended), whereas what it is for, is to act as an umbrella term for anyone who doesn’t fall into the hetero “norm” and who, most likely, needs protection from the phobic majority. Some people think that trans people have no place on “our” spectrum, because after all, trans people are sometimes (gasp!) heterosexual. Heterophobia, as fun as it might be from time to time, is actually as untenably unacceptable as all the other phobias.

LGBTQI - Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex - which is the one of the currently available acronyms I like the most, puts Robert Hamblin right there in my community and I am very proud to have him there. As a transgendered man, with a history of attempted heterosexuality and many years’ experience on planet Lesbian, definitely counts as Queer to me, in addition to Transgender - just because he’s ... you know ... extraordinary. As a man married to a woman, there’s no reason why society shouldn’t accept his qualifications as Heterosexual too.

Dividing society into smaller and smaller ghettoes is not only destructively divisive and elitist, it’s foolish too. What our fight for human rights is supposed to be about, after all, is being human. We don’t need to secede and form smaller clubs for same-sex sexualities, we need to expand the acronym yet further and carry on categorising everything until everything is simply an item on a list and not a freakish separatist phenomenon.

LGBTQIH! I would like to arrogantly, publicly and formally welcome heterosexuals to my postmodern, label-schizoid community. Instead of assuming that heterosexuals are in some kind of army waiting to kill me, I am going to assume that they are just a different sort of human - yet another example of diversity.

I would also like to thank Mr Hamblin for having the guts to put his transition on show (he cannot be accused of publicity-mongering, he had a highly successful career and profile prior to his Robertification) which, by default, challenges everybody’s perceptions of gender, sexuality and humanity.

As a butch dyke, I have about as much in common with Robert as I ever had with any other good looking man i.e. similar taste in stylish clothes and image consciousness. I am not a man, there’s a lot I don’t understand, but I do understand very well what it is like to be shunned sometimes, treated like shit at others and also, mainly, what it’s like when most of the world wishes you would just sit down, shut up and fit in. I have huge respect for him for not doing so.

At the end of the proverbial day, all Robert Hamblin is, is a human being, trying to be the best he can be. It’s what all of us aspire to. It is also heroic in many ways, to be brave enough to defy convention and stand up to be counted. It gives terrified teenagers someone to respect and understand, it gives all of us the example, the possibility that not only heterosexuals and queer people pretending to be heterosexual are able to succeed within current society. He has yet another wonderful thing we all want - happiness. I’m not suggesting we nominate him for sainthood, what I am saying is that we should be very proud of him. We also owe him a debt of gratitude for joining South Africa’s miniscule core of out LGBTQI(+H) public figures. The more community members we have in the public domain, the better our chances of acceptance and the stronger our hopes for a day when revealing one’s gender or sexuality holds no more terrors than telling people your favourite colour.

On behalf of the newly inaugurated LGBTQIH (open for more membership, vowels and consonants today) all I really want to say to Robert is, thank you!

Thinkin' about Butch ...

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 15:15:11 +0100

Both in and out of the lesbian community, butch lesbians take the most flak. We're the most easily identified of the species and so right from the get go, we're on the firing line. We are also constantly accused of "wanting to be men." Now that's complete nonsense right from the start, because a woman who wants to be a man is called transgendered and within that, may be any sexuality on the spectrum. If you're going to insist upon adhering to society's expectations and definitions, then yes, perhaps you could say that we want to look like men. Or you could step outside of what society tells you, which, if you think about it carefully, is all based on money and marketing anyway. Perhaps we just want to be comfortable and perhaps clothes do not need to be joined at the hip with gender. Why sneer at women who wear men's clothing and men who wear women's? Why not just take the gender labels off the clothing? Strange, really, that so many liberal, educated people are so liberal and educated when it comes to having token black and queer friends, but very conservative if we don't all dress to blend in.

Butches don't like wearing heels, because they mess up your spine and inhibit your movement. Make up takes ages and to be honest, we can't really tell who's wearing it or not and don't particularly care either way. Skirts and dresses just feel strange and we are more comfortable in jeans, chinos, a suit, whatever. Frills and decorations just feel like too much unnecessary stuff. Most of us these days have probably been whipped enough by society and the instructions of our girlfriends to shave our legs, but not all of us. Some of us may be wearing sports bras and boxers underneath the clothes, but some of us may be wearing really girlie underwear.

Old school butch used to be all about courtesy and chivalry; treating the requisite femme girlfriend as if she were indeed a woman and the butch was indeed a courtly man, opening doors and so forth. New butch is firmly feminist and decides whether or not to role play, from a very equalitarian standpoint. New butch understands that no matter how clearly butch and femme roles are defined outwardly, every woman is capable of a complete mix of qualities that society separates into male and female.

"Why do you dress to look so ugly?" says society and I wish society would just look a little closer and read the Armani label on my shirt and how much care I have put into my appearance. "Why must your hair be so short?" it asks and I want to tell it that it's just more comfortable that way and less bother and that it makes me feel better, more in control. Of course, to be purist about it, humanity really needs to let go of it's expectations of appearance, as much as the fixation with skin colour. Not everyone dresses well ... so what?

I don't want to be measured against "man" or "woman" particularly and considering the increase in intersexed births in South Africa and the blurring of gender that accompanies it, perhaps society should be listening to me more carefully.

Within the community, we need a better collective knowledge and respect of our own history. Who were, are and probably always will be the first to get bashed when the homophobes stampede? Butch women and femme men; the very visible arm of the queer army. We're the people who challenge peoples' perception of gender too, which is no bad thing.

Being butch is not the better option at all. Femme is an equally powerful role and so are all the roles in between and around those two poles. What it is though, is a completely valid option - if it is actually a choice, even. For me, it's simply where I gravitate towards with no will or effort at all, it is very much a part of who I am. I am never offended by being called sir or ma'am, although in general I prefer being called by my first name. The way the labels get muddled makes me realise just how fluid both gender and perception are. I have learned to spot the difference between a proud, comfortable butch and one who just doesn't feel quite right in her skin. I have learned to laugh at the way old school butches call each other "brother" and I have also come to grin whenever I see another butch out there, strutting along.

There are those who say that we should dispense with labels altogether - I say no, give yourself a label if you wish to, it will help you identify yourself after all. What we shouldn't care so much about, perhaps, is how other people identify us. After all, do we need everyone to look that closely?

Ho Ho Homophobia

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 09:46:59 +0100

There are people in my life and on the periphery of it, who will never ever truly accept me, because I am queer. Sure, some people have altered their thinking enough to embrace me without saying, "If only ..." but at least one close family member, some friends and a whole bunch more acquaintances do their best not to be homophobic, but are nonetheless. It's probably painful on both sides and I have grown past that youthful fervour that is convinced that some form of universal justice will prevail and tolerance will ensue. Some people don't like it, because that's how they were brought up, some people for the sake of their religions. Some people patiently explain that it isn't me they object to, just my actions. After a two year study, the American Psychiatric Association recently instructed therapists not to tell homosexual clients that they can change ... because apparently, we can't. Way to state the obvious. People get grumpy about who we sleep with, how we dress and from time to time, some people even get quite irate that we have taken the rainbow as our symbol, when actually God gave it to Noah and blah blah blah. It gets worse from there. People beat people up, rape them and kill them (us!) - just for being queer. The word 'gay' is almost completely accepted as an insult and I don't know about you, but whenever I've objected to it (and I always do) I've received rolled eyeballs and sighs of exasperation.

We're in the habit, often subconsciously, of adapting the information we give out and the way we act, for the majority of society, which is allegedly heterosexual. We have to consider whether our being out will affect others negatively; anyone connected to us queers being yet another minority amongst the great and straight. It subtly coerces us into silence and secrecy, which in turn just reinforces all the intolerance we so desperately want and need to end. We can't get married in most countries on the planet, most armies don't want us fighting for them - even our deaths are not required, unless they're dealt out by an angry mob. One blog commenter recently, after describing homosexuals as "vile," went on to say that there is no homophobia anyway.

The fact is that, on the whole, homophobia is so entrenched that the world barely notices it. We do, because it's about us and so we keep watch for it. Many people believe we ask for it, just by being different. Society as a wider whole doesn't seem to understand the way that the smalest examples of it can hurt us, on quite a deep level. Putting aside the blatantly more vital examples of murders and so on, being told by someone you're closely related to, that they are, "completely fed up with lesbians," or whatever, is really, really sore. If we can't trust the people who are supposed to love and accept us no matter what, how will we ever trust the rest of humanity? It puts us forever on the outside and forever on our guard.

Is there hope? Well, there's always hope. One has to believe in some sort of collision between the essential good nature of humanity and all of the work that our activists do for us, in terms of human rights and civil rights and basic awareness. Looking at the black rights movement and the feminist movement, it looks like one hell of a long-term, incremental and often rather despairing struggle. As a species we have created democracies and tyrannies both ruled by money and by might. Is that the only answer? Well it looks that way for now at least.

"Do you have to make yourself look like such a dyke?" Yes, I do.

Eish! I see proud people!

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 18:10:31 +0100

So I went to Joburg Pride this year - yay me! Is there anything better than thousands of queers all together? Alright, that probably sounds a bit separatist, but hey, it's really nice not to be outnumbered for once. The sun was out and so were we - most of the boys looking fabulous and most of us lesbians looking ... well, wearing jeans and t-shirts really; myself included. I contemplated a pink grim reaper outfit, but just didn't get it together. Anyway, my girlfriend I scored QueerLife "EISH I C STR8 PPL" shirts and I think we got stopped and photographed as much as any glitzy drag queen - not to mention one complaint from a straight woman. It's OK though, my girlfriend hugged her, so she's gay now.

My favourite corner of Pride is always the bit where all the right-on organizations like GALA and FEW and Behind the Mask and Out hang out. I do my shopping there too, because I am a firm fan of the causes they work for. Also, I am a right-on sort of a dyke and I like to stick to stereotype.

The march itself seemed to be completely devoid of protestors - either we're now completely acceptable and can give up fighting for our rights ... or maybe the fundamentalists couldn't be bothered to join the other few spectators along the route, which was primarily a construction site - er, I mean, central Rosebank. Eudy Simelane's murder would suggest that the answer does not lie in the former suggestion. Are people ever going to learn tolerance? It seems not.

Doing a pride march with a camera is interesting too - it's fascinating to see who poses and who hides when the zoom lens appears. I started blatantly taking a series of shots of spectators along the way and even some of those people ducked and ran when The Lens approached. It was a fun little twist on things though - the spectacle photographing the spectators. You know how heterosexuals often say, "We don't mind you being queer, but do you have to dress like that in public?" - well, Saturday night's TV news made it clear yet again that when presented by an incredibly diverse queer crowd, all the mainstream media is interested in is pink and sparkly. Not that there is anything wrong with that at all, but the tannies in their lounges never get to see what a very mixed bunch we are.

Another thing I love about Pride is running into old friends - it makes for a pretty awesome sense of community. Queer is not my only identifying mark, but it's a significant one and I love seeing my tribe smiling. We should take absolutely every opportunity we can to throng together; protests, parties and whatever other reasons we can find. We should bitch less and unite more. Our voice will be louder that way.

Words: Ulla Kelly
Photo: GLK

Madam Finds Love With Maid?

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 19:27:48 +0100

Yet another idiotic headline by South Africa's Daily Sun newspaper - and since their idiotic website is under idiotic construction, I couldn't find out anything about the story. And nope, I couldn't buy the newspaper, it was late on Sunday, driving through a rural bit of the Eastern Cape.

Given my country's history of apartheid and that old madam and maid concept, I would, in fact, be interested to know the story - but not from a snotrag tabloid's point of view. I also question the word usage there - everyone I know says "domestic worker" these days and "madam" is a term reserved for those painfully formal cases and not based on race. OK sure, there are verkrampte exceptions all over the place, but in the public print media like that? Are they insane?

Based on no facts or knowledge at all, I am going to assume that what we have here, is a love story that got leaked by a fool. Well, I hope it's a love story, since just shagging someone who works for you is a bit dodgy after all. It's not impossible though - there have been stranger love stories in the world.

If anyone read the Sun that day, or knows anything else about it, I'd be delighted to hear from you.

(Google searches today and yesterday didn't help at all)

Calling all writers:

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 19:27:44 +0100

I was asked to spread the word ... so here you go!

"Calling all aspiring writers... Send me your lesbian-content short stories to be included in publication. Not more than 2000 words, not shorter than 400 words.

Any genre except poetry. Coming out stories, bi-racial relationships, butch-femme etc, South African content will be a major plus. Erotica is acceptable, as are transgender issues.

Pseudonyms will be used upon request, though nothing will be printed without full details of writer. Copyright will be strictly enforced.

The editor reserves the right to refuse entries, to change for style and grammar and length. The purpose of the book is visibility and not profit, therefore writers shall not be paid for their work, but will have the pleasure of seeing their names in print.

Spread the word...

email happystoryteller456@gmail.com"

Yet another stupid newspaper headline

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 00:26:27 +0100

Driving through the city the other day, one of the newspaper headline posters yelled, "TV'S GAY KISS!" from the side of the road. My rantometer just blew up instantly. It's not as if it was the first such headline, it certainly won't be the last. Every time there's a gay kiss on TV (here and in the UK, at least), the media has a field day.

Why?

Gay marriage is legal now. And surely it isn't news that queers kiss? Well obviously it is. For all the irritating heterosexuals who go around pontificating benignly that they, "have no problem with homosexuals as long as they don't shove it in our faces," there's a great mob of idiots out there who can't even wait for a pride parade to take pot shots at us.

The time is long, long past when I'd have actually welcomed headlines like that. Back when I wasn't even sure if I was queer or not and when news and literature about it all seemed rarer than hen's teeth. The world's changed a little bit since then, for me at least.

If the sodding mainstream media gave as much attention to homophobic crimes and discrimination as it does to gay kisses, there'd be a clearer picture out there. It's never going to happen though. Sensationalist posters like the one that annoyed me so comprehensively will always attract readers - and completely the wrong sort too. All that'll happen is that there'll be even more straight guys leering at lesbians, church elders tutting at moffies and a bunch of housewives gossiping.

They don't like us parading and partying in the streets and when we kiss, it's as if we're aliens or zoo animals.

Get over it.