Lesbians of Color: Racism, Homophobia, and Community Identity

 -- by Amy Goodloe (agoodloe@mercury.sfsu.edu)
Do not reproduce or quote from this piece without persmission from the author.

*note: this intro was originally written as part of a project which required
me to gather very recent feminist analyses of the issues facing women of
color coming out as lesbians.

When I first conceived of this project, I had imagined that it would be
relatively easy to find recent feminist writing on the particular issues
faced by women of color coming out as lesbians.  After thoroughly searching
the CD-ROM databases at the San Francisco State Library, however, and putting
queries out on several relevant Internet mailing lists, I discovered that
this is, in fact, a fairly new topic, and that the little that has been
written on it does not quite qualify as "feminist analysis."  I also
discovered that some of the most important texts on the issue were, in fact,
written one or two years prior to the 1993-94 date limit set by the
requirements of this project.  Because of the groundbreaking nature of these
texts, however, I feel justified in including them here because they
represent the foundation on which future analyses can be built; it just so
happens that not many efforts in that direction were published in 93-94, but
they are surely on their way.

My surprise at finding so little material on this topic probably has to do
specifically with the issue of racism, or rather "race-blindness," within
feminist and lesbian theory.  So much has been written from a feminist point
of view about lesbian identity and the lesbian coming out process, but almost
all of it remains blind to the impact that one's racial identity would
inevitably have on this process.  While coming out and identifying as a
lesbian can be a difficult process for any woman, there are particular
factors that make the experience different, and in many ways more complex and
potentially more alienating, for women of color.  

For a white woman coming to terms with her sexuality, there are numerous
support groups, reading materials, and visible "images" she can turn to in
order to validate her identity as a lesbian, almost all of which will mirror
her own whiteness.  Although the dominant (white, male) culture has a vested
interest in denying the lesbian of any color a valid place in the social
structure, there is nothing specifically about being white that provokes the
anger of the dominant culture towards white women coming out as lesbians.  In
other words, the most significant obstacle facing a white woman in the coming
out process is the fear and hatred of the male-dominated society in which she
lives, which can lead to internalized homophobia and sexism, and to outward
oppression on these bases.  But never is a white woman's coming out
challenged on the basis of her racial identity -- she is never accused of
betraying white culture by becoming a lesbian, and in fact the community that
her newfound sexuality gives her access to will be largely white.  She may be
rejecting the dominant culture's patriarchal definitions of woman and woman's
"role" in society, but in doing so she is not rejecting her whiteness nor
does she become an embarrassment to white culture at large.  Perhaps it is no
surprise, then, that so much of the work that has been done on the coming out
process fails to mention the role of race in this process at all, and that
when it is mentioned today by white theorists, the discussion is almost
always on such a highly abstract and theoretical level that it is largely
inaccessible to those who most need it.

But for women of color, the issue of racial identity and acceptance in one's
own racial community are of the utmost importance, and often constitute a
more significant obstacle to coming out than the sexism or homophobia of the
dominant white culture.  Because racial communities in this country are the
targets of oppression and marginalization by the dominant culture, these
communities have often defined themselves in seemingly contradictory ways:
 while they are united in the struggle against oppression on the basis of
race, and sometimes class, they often perpetuate very rigid and
patriarchally-defined gender roles and attitudes towards sexuality in order
to maintain a sense of racial unity through social control.  In many of these
communities, traditional religious beliefs are used to underscore the
importance of family and traditional gender roles, which leads to a doubly
powerful means of regulating behavior: one must act according to tradition
with regard to gender roles and sexuality not only because it is good for the
race , but because it is one's religious "duty."  

Choosing to defy these proscriptions by identifying as a lesbian means that a
woman is choosing against her race: by failing to fulfill the mandate to have
children and thereby propagate the race, and by allowing herself to be
"poisoned" by the white (wo)man's "disease" of homosexuality.  For many women
of color, the consequences of this choice are too great, and so they remain
closeted within their own racial community, even though there are few other
places they can turn to for support and validation.  The predominantly white
lesbian community may offer them some resources for the experience of being
gay, but the failure of this community to recognize the particular needs and
experiences of women of color often pushes them into yet another kind of
"closet" -- one which many find even more painful and alienating (perhaps
because of higher expectations of the supposedly socially conscious) than the
one created within by members of their own race.

Almost all of the articles I have gathered for this section echo these
concerns, so that it seems fair to make these generalizations about the
experiences of women of color coming out as lesbians, but because there are
some differences between the experiences of Chicanas, Native Americans, and
women of Asian and African descent, I think it would be useful to briefly
review the particular issues raised by each.  Four of the five articles
included here deal, to some extent, with the issues surrounding cultural
identity and lesbianism in one particular culture, but the piece by Greene
discusses each of five cultural identities together as a way of evaluating
counseling practices among these groups.  Although Greene does not provide
much new information about the different cultural groups, her analysis of the
difficulties faced by lesbians in these groups, albeit brief, nonetheless
proves useful to the task at hand.

The articles by de Alba and Trujillo and the segment by Greene all point to
the relative lack of research on Chicana lesbians up to this date, a theme
which will reverberate through most articles on lesbians of color.  As they
explain, Chicano culture, like the larger Latino culture of which it is a
part, is strongly influenced by the Catholic Church, which in turn shapes
most of the culture's attitudes towards gender and sexuality.  Gender roles
are very narrowly defined, so that the only appropriate roles for women are
those that "connect" them to men -- as daughters, sisters, or wives (Trujillo
187).  Sexuality is considered a taboo subject, especially for women, not
only as a way of maintaining an aura of chastity and purity around Chicana
women, but also as a way of curbing their the impulse to explore their
sexuality, which might undermine male authority and dominance.  In keeping
with Catholic teaching, sexuality exists solely for the purpose of
reproduction, which is considered especially essential for a people whose
very survival is constantly threatened by the dominant culture.  For a
Chicana woman to explore the possibility of lesbianism, then, she must face
the consequences of rejecting the only gender roles available to her and she
must overcome her own fears and ignorance about her sexuality.

According to Greene and Silvera, similar dynamics are at work for women of
African descent, especially with regard to the cultural emphasis on sexuality
as a means of reproducing the race and thereby ensuring survival.  But
because the religious influences are somewhat different, the roles of women
in African-American and African-Caribbean cultures are not quite so narrowly
defined, and women are only slightly more free to explore their sexuality.
 Nonetheless, sexism and homophobia are still powerful forces in these
cultures, so that women who explore their sexual desire towards other women
are accused of usurping the "man's role" and consequently face alienation
from their community.  The fact that women who come out as lesbians also give
up the only privilege they may ever have, that of being heterosexual, also
contributes to tension in the community, especially because it is perceived
as disrupting the unity needed to overcome oppression based on race.

Both Alice Hom and Karin Aguilar-San Juan make similar points about the
difficulties faced by Asian women coming out as lesbians.  Asian communities
on the whole tend to expect conformity along the lines of narrowly defined
gender roles, and to put pressure on women to be submissive and obedient to
men, although Western culture has degraded this traditional value into the
stereotype of the "eager to please" Asian mail-order bride.  According to
Aguilar-San Juan, Western culture is also responsible for creating the myth
of Asians as the "model minority;" because Asian culture emphasizes hard work
and obedience to authority, Westerners have mistakenly assumed that Asians
willingly comply in their own oppression.  Both of these myths, along with
all of those that portray Asian women as "exotic" and yet subservient, create
a particularly difficult environment for Asian women to begin to explore
their sexuality.  

As Hom notes, this environment is made all the more difficult by the language
barrier, since there are "no directly translatable words that describe
'lesbian' in most Asian languages" (41); and if language constructs reality,
then clearly this is one case in which a particular reality had been
deliberately hidden.  Not only must Asian-American women then choose an
English word to describe their newly discovered sexuality, they must also
find a way to explain this to parents and to a community for whom the very
concept of lesbian may not exist.  Faced with these obstacles, many women may
choose not to "come out" in the Asian community at all, since doing so
carries the potential for alienation from a community whose bonds are strong.

One community of color for which material is especially lacking is that of
Native American women.  In fact, Greene's article is the only one to mention
this community, and according to her analysis,  the reason Native American
women do not find as many obstacles in the coming out process may well be
because of a more generally tolerant attitude towards sexuality and gender
roles.  Unlike Chicana, African, and Asian cultures, Native American cultures
do not depend on patriarchal structures of power, and so are not as heavily
invested in perpetuating  sexism and homophobia as many other communities of
color are.  Even though Native American tribes place much emphasis on the
necessity of children for the survival of the culture, for this particular
community the need to replenish the population does not lead to compulsory
heterosexuality (or in fact to compulsory monogamy) -- which simply
underscores how much these are constructions of the dominant culture and not
"natural" human behaviors.  The religions of Native Americans also contribute
to a freer conceptualization of gender, at least in terms of the
pre-colonization traditions of many cultures. so that sexuality is not
regulated by tightly scripted gender roles.  The result, Greene suggests, is
that Native American women will not be likely to experience the same kind of
cultural conflicts as other women of color when coming out as lesbians,
though of course the homophobia of the dominant culture is always an issue
with which women must contend.

The five pieces included here represent some of the most recent critical
thought on the issues facing women of color identifying as lesbians, but they
by no means represent the full range of work being done on these issues.
 Much of what has been written over the past three or four years is, however,
in the form of short stories, poems, and personal narratives, which renders
them inappropriate for the context of this project, but nonetheless worth
mentioning.  Some of the essential collections of writing are: Companeros:
Latina Lesbians (1987) , A Gathering of Spirit: A Collection By North
American Indian Women (1988) , Piece of My Heart:  A Lesbian of Colour
Anthology (1992), and The Very Inside: An Anthology of Writing by Asian and
Pacific Islander Lesbian and Bisexual Women (1994).  Anyone who is interested
in exploring the issue of lesbian identity and the politics of coming out as
a woman of color would most certainly find useful material in these volumes,
material which could undoubtedly provide the basis for much needed critical
and analytical work on this important topic.

Works Cited

Aguilar-San Juan, Karin.  "Exploding Myths, Creating Consciousness: Some
First Steps Towards Pan-Asian Unity."  Piece of My Heart: A Lesbian of Colour
Anthology.  Ed. Makeda Silvera. Toronto: Sister Vision Press, 1992.  185-192.

Brant, Beth, ed.  A Gathering Of Spirit: A Collection By North American
Indian Women.  New York: Firebrand, 1988.

de Alba, Alicia Gaspar.  "Tortillerismo: Work by Chicano Lesbians."  Signs
18.41 (1993): 956-963.

Greene, Beverley.  "Ethnic-Minority Lesbians and Gay Men: Mental Health and
Treatment Issues." Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 62.2 (1994):
243-251.

Hom, Alice, and Ming-Yuen Ma.  "Premature Gestures: A Speculative Dialogue on
Asian Pacific Islander Lesbian and Gay Writing."  Journal of Homosexuality
26.2-3 (1993): 21-51.

Lim-Hing, Sharon, ed.  The Very Inside: An Anthology of Writing by Asian and
Pacific Islander Lesbian and Bisexual Women.  Toronto: Sister Vision Press,
1994.

Moraga, Cherrie, and Gloria Anzaldua, eds.  This Bridge Called My Back:
Writings by Radical Women of Color.  Watertown, MA: Persephone, 1981.

Ramos, Juanita, ed.  Companeros: Latina Lesbians (An Anthology).  New York:
Latina Lesbian History Project, 1987.

Silvera, Makeda.  "Man Royals and Sodomites: Some Thoughts on the
Invisibility of Afro-Caribbean Lesbians."  Piece of My Heart: A Lesbian of
Colour Anthology.  Ed. Makeda Silvera.  Toronto: Sister Vision Press, 1992.
14-26.

Smith, Barbara, ed.  Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology.  New York:
Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, 1983.

Trujillo, Carla.  "Chicana Lesbians: Fear and Loathing in the Chicano
Community." Chicana Lesbians: The Girls Our Mothers Warned Us About.  ed.
Carla Trujillo.  Oakland: Third Woman Press, 1992. 186-194.