Bisexual Women and the "Threat" to Lesbian Space: Or What If All the Lesbians Leave?

Abstract

Coming out as a lesbian in the 1970s, I entered a world of absolutes. I learned to invert the values of dominant society so that lesbians were valorized and heterosexuals were denigrated, and by extrapolation, lesbians were trustworthy and heterosexuals were not. Through my association with lesbian feminists, I learned to regard bisexual women not as kinky and tainted with lesbianism but as fence sitters, dangerously untrustworthy because of their associations with men. In the 1970s, those who joined the lesbian feminist movement to further the cause of lesbian liberation were expected to learn these basic lessons.