Review: Biphobia and the Challenge to Lesbian Politics

In December, I bought three used books on Amazon, all about bisexuality. Bisexuality and the Challenge to Lesbian Politics – Sex, Loyalty and Revolution by Paula C. Rust (now Rodríguez Rust) is the first of these I finished, and by far the one that most captured my imagination.

The book is about lesbian attitudes towards bisexuality and bisexual women, their causes and effects. The basis for the book is ostensibly a questionnaire written by Dr. Rodríguez Rust which was answered by 427 women, of which 332 identified as lesbian and 45 identified as bi. (The rest preferred not to label themselves, were uncertain or identified as heterosexual with bi tendencies.) She details the methods she used to ensure that she got a representative sample and I’m pretty sure she did succeed, at least with the lesbians. Sadly, there were too few bisexual respondents for this study to say anything meaningful about bisexuals.

She adds to this a study of the way bisexuality has been mentioned or discussed in major gay/lesbian publications, and a look at the (at that time) relatively new bisexual press.

The real strength of the book, though, lies in her analysis of lesbian politics, the history of lesbian politics and the way this history shaped the way lesbians saw bisexual women in the late 80s to early 90s. Depressingly little enough has changed that I think it is still very relevant today.

Dr. Rodríguez Rust’s main argument is that hostility towards bisexual women in the lesbian community stems from an unresolved conflict between two different political traditions with two different conceptualizations of lesbianism.

The first political tradition she describes is the one that arose in the early 1970s, when lesbians had to politicize sexuality in order to convince straight feminists that lesbian issues were feminist issues. This process gave birth to lesbian feminism, where the lesbian identity was politicized and de-sexualised. The lesbian was constructed as a feminist ideal, living a life away from patriarchy, supporting only other women. The definition of lesbian changed from ”woman who is attracted to women” to ”woman who does not have relationships with men” so that all women could become lesbians if they chose. Women who identify as bisexual, seen through the lens of lesbian feminism, are the ultimate traitors – even worse than heterosexual women – because they take ”energy” (time, resources, support) from lesbians but don’t give any back, instead going ”back” to men to give their energy to them. Because, in this view, bisexual women have the capacity to choose lesbianism but choose instead to keep supporting patriarchy by remaining available to men.

I have many many issues with lesbian feminism, but it somehow never occurred to me that it could be the reason behind many prejudices about us – the idea that we’re traitors to the cause, the idea that we have to make a choice, perhaps even the idea of us being icky because we might have touched a penis.

The other political tradition she describes is what she refers to as the ethnic political tradition. Dr. Rust Rodríguez says, ”the fundamental difference is that feminist arguments rely on the assumption of choice, whereas ethnic arguments rely on the assumption of essence.” (p. 162) The two political traditions are thus radically different, but this conflict was never resolved in the lesbian community – something which the issue of bisexuality calls attention to.

The civil rights movement had changed the language of political debate in the US. The arguments for ending racial oppression had been boiled down to slogans, which became powerful political shorthand that other minorities could use. In order to access these, lesbians (and homosexual people in general) had to be constructed as something similar to an ethnic group. An ethnic group has clearly defined borders, it has shared culture and history, and it is immutable. Immutability is the key political argument, here: it had become generally agreed upon that it was unfair to discriminate against people for something that is beyond their control. The cultural aspects were easily taken care of, lesbian history was constructed (mostly through reinforcement of bisexual invisibility), but in order to use this immutability defense, the absence of choice is vital – bringing this process in direct conflict with lesbian feminism.

Bisexuality threatens this concept of lesbianism in multiple ways. It blurs the borders between gay and straight, it threatens to destroy most of lesbian history (how many of those historical lesbians also had relationships with men? To acknowledge bisexuality is to admit that any of these women could have been not lesbian after all) and worst of all, it brings back the question of choice and undermines the immutability defense.

Stemming from this today is the refusal to acknowledge bisexuality at all. You know the drill – we’re in denial, we’re confused etc.

It seems very useful to me to distinguish between instances of biphobia from lesbians according to what kind of thinking they’re rooted in. Often, when people say to us: ”Make a choice, already!” we find ourselves saying that we can’t, that we’re born this way etc. This fails to hit the mark because we are arguing from two very different standpoints. Maybe a better response would be, ”Why the hell should we?”

This book only deals with bisexual women and the prejudice we face from the lesbian community, but I think parts of this analysis could be used on bisexual men and gay men, too. The political cause there is obviously not feminism or even ideals of gender segregation, but a broader issue of the struggle for queer rights being seen as the struggle between straight and gay, with rigidly drawn lines, and if you’re not with us then you must be against us. The ethnicity analysis works just as well for gay men as it does for lesbians.

In the last chapter of the book, Dr. Rodríguez Rust looks at bisexual publications to examine possible ways to politicize bisexuality. The book was written in 1995 and is thus nearly 20 years out of date, but it really got me thinking nonetheless. That, however, will have to be a different post. As will what she says about the way people conceptualize bisexuality and its effect on their views on bi politics.

I love this book for so many reasons. It’s a very nuanced look at feminism and lesbian politics, warts and all. Most of all it opened the floodgates in my mind for a lot of thoughts about bisexual politics and what we want to do. Definitely recommended reading.

[Original tumblr post here]