Identity=Politics: A Personal Story

Jennie Ruby

I grew up a tom-boy, loving softball, pocketknives, and tree-climbing and hating frilly dresses and dolls. In college I fell in love with a woman and by my early 20s I had had two love relationships with women.

When I came out as a lesbian and discovered lesbian community in the mid 1980s, I discovered feminism at the same time. My first contacts with the lesbian community were through the Washington Area Women's Center, which at that time ran the Lesbian Resource Center. I went to coming-out discussions sponsored by the women's center, and I discovered feminism right along with lesbianism.

The coming out process was for me a process of adopting an identity. It was a process of discovering various role models for various ways of being and deciding which ones fit. The women I met through the women's center had a feminist point of view; therefore we had a critique of butch-femme role-playing. It was not cool to be butch or femme. We were androgynous.

I made daily choices in matters large and small that expressed an androgynous persona. From clothing to tone of voice to types of purchases to ways of acting, these choices were political. I was rebelling against femininity because of its association with oppression and staying away from being too much like a man because I was a feminist. I decided on an identity, hammering out in long, late-night discussions with other feminists whether I was a radical lesbian feminist, or a radical feminist who was also a lesbian, or a lesbian with feminist politics. It was very clear that "identity" was also politics. I finally settled on calling myself a lesbian radical feminist. Clearly the politics and community of the time largely formed my "identity."

Along the way I confronted the fact that internalized misogyny had made me reject qualities or behaviors associated with femininity that could have improved my life. Thus, for example, my home was not a comfortable and nurturing space but a frat-boy-like crash pad where if a person came to visit there were no clean towels, we ran out of toilet paper, and we ordered out for pizza instead of eating home-cooked healthy meals. And I preferred masculine values such as toughness, individualism, and not being dependent, so that, for example, when my truck got stuck in the snow, I could not ask for help but had to try to brave it out, shoveling by myself in the freezing snow.

If I were coming out in my early 20s today, I would find that the organization formerly known as the Lesbian Resource Center at the Washington Area Women's Center and run by feminists is now part of the Whitman-Walker Clinic, an organization originally formed by and for gay men to deal with the AIDS crisis. The name is about to be changed to avoid the term "lesbian" because women participating in or using its services do not identify as "lesbian." Lesbian feminism has largely disappeared.

If I were coming out today, I would not find lesbian feminist role models. I would find the politics of gay identity. I would find that the way to understand my rejection of femininity in childhood was to discover that I was transgendered. This would have influenced my choices about what to wear and how to act, and ultimately, would have determined my politics.

I would go to drag-king shows and glory in how masculine I could look or act. I would not confront the internalized misogyny that made me neglect housework, hate children, and avoid making my home warm and comfortable. I could easily come to the conclusion that I was really a man, and simply embrace masculinity whole-heartedly. And instead of having a feminist critique of patriarchy, I would simply be seeking an individual accommodation within it.

But I believe that who I am is a process, not a product. I am a string of decisions and choices made to prefer one thing over another, to spend more time on some things and less time on others. I am part consciousness, part feelings, part intellect, part practice. Oh, yeah, and part biology.

Choosing to see myself as a lesbian radical feminist instead of transgendered means I have a political commitment to critique patriarchy and society, instead of making accommodations to society by altering my identity or my body.

It is part of the human repertoire to be tough, nurturing, independent, loving, vulnerable, individualistic, controlling, dependent. We need to evaluate the values that underlie all of these human traits and behaviors and decide which ones we want to emphasize in ourselves--not whether we are masculine or feminine. We need to choose whether we want to adopt competition or cooperation, aggression or nurturance, individualism or communitarianism as we seek to create a better world for all humanity.

Ultimately, we choose our values and they become our identity.