The Grownup Feminist Lesbian LJ Community

Bolivia will hold a nationwide referendum this Sunday for its constituents to decide whether to approve or reject a new version of the country's constitution that would provide for abortion rights, religious liberties, and protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender citizens.

Take action to urge the President and Vice-President to vocally support the referendum publicly.
http://queersunited.blogspot.com/2009/01/bolivia-to-vote-on-new-constitution.html

I want to go somewhere (WARM) for spring break, anytime from March 14 through to the 22nd. My partner has that time off too. I want to go somewhere warm that won't have too many college student spring breakers. Do you have any suggestions? I don't want to spend too much money. I just want to enjoy being in warm weather and water (lake, ocean, indoor pool...don't care) I'm from Minnesota so the definition of warm is more than 60 degrees F. I don't care if it's a cruise or just go to warm weather and hang out. I like interesting places to eat, coffee shops, museums, live music (folk, bluegrass and etc)

Where have you gone that has been the best experience for you?

x-posted at various places including my LJ.

hi, i want to plug my new project on this community. but now i'm hesitant after realising that it might entail 'youngster dyke drama' for some. no offense there;) i'm twenty-four and not particularly grown-up, but here's some photography for all ages, probably more appreciated by dykes and androgynous folk like yourselves.








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http://www.raisedasapackofwolves.com

i joined this community with the hopes that none of the youngster dyke drama is allowed. I am not new to livejournal but have started over because my journal was turning in to crap. It was all about sex and realistically it was ridiculous. Sex is of course a fun activity, issue, whatever, but there is so much room for overkill. I am a 29-year-old lesbian who is from New Orleans. I am attending graduate school with the anticipation of a big fat masters in Library and Information Science. No, I will not work in a school shelving books all day. That is the most common stereotypical response I get when I mention my major. Actually, I have a minor in art history and am working towards being a museum curator. I love art, music, the principle of cultural relativism and women. I hope to meet some incredible people here!

In most respects, I am out as a bisexual/lesbian, more so a lesbian. I came out to myself sophomore year of college and subsequently to my college friends. It went mostly smooth with a few ugly exceptions. Since then, I've been out to new friends I make, roommates, and a few old high school friends. I am out to other people as well, but I don't advertise by any means. 
      

Hello all, I'm new to this community, and I was wondering if anyone could be kind enough to suggest any possible books on lesbian history, hopefully ones dealing with the period 1930-1950?

You see, I'm attempting to write a historical fiction dealing with a lesbian romance that takes place during WWII, and I wish to keep the dialogue as realistic as possible, but I've no idea what the lingo would've been like of the time period. Any advice and/or suggestions would be most gratefully appreciated.

Oh, and in case anyone is at all interested, here's what I have written of my story so far- http://www.fictionpress.com/s/2279224/1/

Back in the day I ws a radical feminist. Hell, I guess I haven't changed except now I have kids and they're boys so I'm more mellow.

Anyway, now that the right wing is targetting straight people for birth control, abortion is a big deal again, and straight unmarried couples are getting the detritus of bills meant to punish gay/lesbian couples, here comes feminism again.

The gender gap is back (women leaning more democrat than men) and all of a sudden women and men who care about them are being forced to take a stand.

This is gonna be interesting.

Discuss?

"Queer desire does not transcend or remain peripheral but instead becomes central to their telling and remembering, there is no queer desire without these histories nor can these histories be told or remembered without simultaneously revealing an erotics of power"

This may not make sense to you (nor does it me entirely) but I read it in a book called 'Impossible Desires : Queer Diasporas and South Asian Public Cultures', which I only read the introduction to as it was my friends book, I cannot fully explain what its about right now without the book to hand... I'm working on it... but it did inspire some thoughts about desire, history, nostagia and relationships.

It made me think about how when queer desire occurs it doesn't seem to be created from some nostagic past like 'straight' desire can be, it cannot romantise the past as a good a thing in the same way hetrosexual desire can, because queer history is full, on many levels even integral formative levels, of conflict and abuse (most of the time) so therefore queer desire is quite unique in the fact that it often starts in the present rather than formed from some romantic ideal of the past, but it doesn't ignore the past either.

Sometimes it may consciously erotisizes that conflict (and that power relationship), and by doing so also dealing with it, not sweeping it under the carpet.

In the book it also talks about 'homes', the idea that we can have many homes and these homes can seriously conflict with each other, especially if your queer. For example being from a muslim background you may have strong links with that 'home' or community and you may also have strong links with the queer community, both of these 'homes' are massive parts of your identity but they, on a fundamental level, conflict with each other... and so on an internal level we are torn. What can be born of this is a lust or erotizisation of that conflict... For example with race...

I have grown-up as a working class white girl on a mixed council estate, in this 'home' there was quite a bit of race hate going on at different degrees at different times... asians, black and white kids torn apart by bitter fudes between families, to with race... my perspective of this was influenced by my brother being a skinhead and a skinhead that had some part in the aggression ('paki basher' in other words), I am not proud to say this... but his gang was one of those 'homes' to him and subsequently also for me in some way... but what also was my other home was a contradiction because I had close friends of whom were black and asian (my first boyfriend was mixed-race and my best friend was his sister, they were almost like another family), so in this way that was also my home too.

On top of that I also had a the ripping of homes because of my gender too, my girl home and my boy home...my girl home was my mother, my schitzo hippy mother with her dressing up box and liberal attitudes, my boy home was my skinhead brother, with his scooters and his racist/nationalist attitude... I prefered the boy home to the girl home... but prefered the home I had with my mixed-race friends to the racist attitudes my brother had. Mixed up with all that is the fact I got a kicking everyday for being weird and being a tomboy, my strange combination of tomboy/weirdo hippy probably didn't help... so all my formative experiences are about conflict.. this has a massive impact on my desire in similar ways to what is described above...

I cannot romantise the past to create my desire like most people... all thats in my past is conflict so all I can do is erotisize that conflict and that power or completely forget it, which is impossible.. so because of such I'm like a weird mix-breed of skinhead masculinity, anti-fascist views, a total erotisation of violence and power, and a total attraction/erotisization to what I also despise, authority figures, fascist skinheads and on the other side probably also non-white people and on top of that an attraction to strong but down-trodden femininity because of the women around me when I was growing up. I guess when you think of things this way a lot of stuff makes sense. .. or more confusing one or the other.

well, i did it. i asked her to marry me. she said yes. i am the happiest woman on the face of the earth. she came over yesterday afternoon. she was gonna make me a really fancy salmon dinner (she went to chef school...yummAH!) so after an amazing! dinner, we watched if these walls could talk 2, cuz, well, we're dykes, and then just before midnight, we started opening our christmas gifts. i had hidden the ring in a little red velvet mitten, underneath her other gifts. she opened them all and said thank you, and thought she was done. she saw the little mitten and was a little hesitant to pick it up. i just looked at her and smiled. she picked it up, pulled out the silver tinsel i had put on top of the ring box, and pulled out the box. she looked up at me and smiled. she opened it and i wish i had had my camera. it was the most priceless look. one that will live in my mind for the rest of my life. she took it out of the box and she said, "ar you gonna make me cry right now?" i put the big box down on the floor, got on one knee and proposed. i slipped the ring on her finger, and she said of course. nothing would make her happier than to marry me. i am beaming from ear to ear and i am so amazed at how great this feels. i am so in love with her and i am so excited about the future with her.

so far it's been a really great year :)