Author: eppersonc

What is the ‘Am I a Lesbian?’ Master Doc? If you’re not familiar with the document, it once was a Google document that was available for the public to view, mainly on Tumblr or Twitter (X). According to the supposed author Anjeli Luz, she wrote it for her Tumblr blog in 2018 because of her questioning her own sexuality/lesbianism (Wiki). I first encountered the document while scrolling on Twitter because one of my mutuals had reposted it, saying something along the lines of how the document made it all click for her (AKA she realized she was a lesbian). Since then, my mutual has re-come out as a bisexual, which I feel is sort of relevant to discussing how helpful/beneficial this document is. The document is about 30 full pages in length and has a table of contents to make the pages more navigable. Sections and questions explored range from ‘What is Compulsory Heterosexuality?’ to ‘But I think I’ve Liked men before?’. Having read the whole thing multiple times, both in the context of confirming what I thought was bisexuality to rereading in order to gain a better grasp of my lesbianism, I feel as though the document offers some valuable insights and mostly questionable male-centeredness.

For starters, it defines and conceptualizes ideas presented by Adrienne Rich in a more digestible way. The ways compulsory heterosexuality (comp het) are defined in this document speak a lot to modern-day lesbians, but more so to the large impact the patriarchy and heteronormativity have on non-men in general. One of the points the document lists as a possibility one may be lesbian is, “I like the idea of being with a man, but any time a man makes a move on me I
get incredibly uncomfortable”. I do not believe this is because the person is lesbian as many women have felt and will continue to feel this way, not due to their sexuality, but due to male domination. Largely, the discussions surrounding attraction to men seem to stray away from actual comp het and point towards the ways men are socialized that make women dislike them in general. The document offers the possibility that if you are attracted to men and wish you weren’t, you may be a lesbian. I cannot even count on two hands how many times straight women or women who like men have told me this same sentiment. It still does not negate their attraction to men. We live in a misogynistic society, so it’s natural that many women end up scared of men/ avoidant, but that doesn’t mean they are lesbians. Lesbian sexuality is not about their non-attraction to men. It is about being attracted to women/non-men.

I think if you’re a lesbian, you can read the document and admit you relate to some parts in some areas, but in others feel that you don’t relate. But the majority of parts about thinking men were attractive had odd explanations for why that might make you a lesbian–almost forceful in a way. There is too much questioning of attraction to men and not enough about non-attraction to men. Many lesbians online feel the same way, while some are trying to rework the document to be more lesbian affirming rather than lesbian proving. While the latter group seems to have good intentions, many lesbians believe the document (either way) will continue to attract people that dislike their real attraction to men, people who wish to reject that. That in itself seems like a larger problem, and one I don’t think lesbians should be responsible for taking on.

Sources vary on whether Anjeli was the sole contributor or not but what we do know is that she is now bisexual and was formerly a young teen questioning her identity. Knowing this and rereading the doc, it seems obvious that this is written from the perspective of someone who has just been introduced to lesbian scholarship. The author/creators seem to be writing a ‘how to prove you’re a lesbian’ document more than an ‘am I a lesbian?’ document. What would a revision of this look like or a better guide for lesbians look like? I’m unsure. But I do think with more lesbian representation comes more concrete examples of affirmation for those questioning their sexuality.

While I’m a bit late to the Yellowjackets train, I’ve picked up the show last week and have been slowly working my way through. My interests, besides the supernatural and cannibal aspects, lie within the relationships between the girls in theYellowjackets soccer team. Each girl seems to have differing levels of friendship with each other on land, and that seems to be changing tenfold once they become deserted on the island. The best friend duo Shauna and Jackie seem to be so close… yet, Shauna has been having sexual relations with Jackie’s boyfriend, Jeff.

This story/friendship in the show is interesting to examine for many reasons. Both Shauna and Jackie approach their relationships with Jeff differently. Shauna uses her body as a vehicle to get closer to him, while Jackie seems to provide the emotional/status connection for Jeff. Jackie is the more confident and outspoken of the two, constantly seen giving advice and encouragement (and sometimes discouragement) to Shauna. Shauna is more reserved and lets Jackie assume the dominant role in their relationship, even if she doesn’t like this. Of course, I think this provides enough reason for Shauna feeling inferior to Jackie and then seeking out her boyfriend. By offering Jackie’s boyfriend sex, the one thing Jackie herself will not offer him, Shauna feels as if the power dynamics in their relationship are equal.

Again, this is all just my take. It serves to contextualize the near-abortion scene between Shauna and Taissa on the island. Shauna finding out she is pregnant on the island seems to be either payback for going after something of Jackie’s without her knowledge, or, a possible unity for everyone in the show. Prior to the scene I am interested in, Taissa has already seemed to be catching onto the fact that Shauna is hiding something that she especially does not want Jackie to know about. This is implied through her glances at Shauna and Jackie’s interactions and the poignant scene where Shauna fakes her period with deer’s blood to prove to Jackie that she is still a virgin. Her suspicions are finally confirmed when Shauna reveals to her that she is pregnant with Jackie’s boyfriend’s child in the attic. This becomes a strong bonding point for the two, and Taissa expresses her support for Shauna despite the moral ambiguity of the decisions that got her here.

Following this, Shauna has been mulling over her pregnancy for days, or weeks (?), at this point. She seems to see no other option for peace with Jackie besides aborting the child she conceived with Jeff. And Taissa is following.

Taissa is following, so much so that she notices Shauna’s disappearance from the group at a time when no one else does. She runs after Shauna, screaming her name in hopes that she has not gone through with what Taissa knows she wants to. Taissa knows Shauna wants an abortion, and while maybe in another context that decision would be supported, there are no safe abortions on this island. Taissa’s affinity to Shauna as a woman, and as a survivor of the circumstances they are in, leads her to rush to help.

Taissa sees Shauna almost insert the hot, straight-wired hanger into her and tells her to stop. She gets there and offers her help, regardless of how wrong Shauna may have been for doing what she did.

This scene really reminded me of Ahmed’s “Affinity of Hammers” piece. While Ahmed was directly addressing TERFs and the lack of affinity with trans women, I feel as though some of her ideas may be applicable to this situation.

It’s hard to imagine what one would do in the world of Yellowjackets. Stranded on an island with people you know as teammates, some of whom you love and some who you don’t. It’s a tough situation. It’s even harder for one to imagine having sympathy for Shauna, who has put herself in a situation that is definitely not ideal for their circumstances. Her being pregnant and the eventual birth of her child will change their way of surviving– likely for the worse. And it’s all because she got with Jackie’s boyfriend. But Taissa accepts this, and understands that in order for them to all prosper, Shauna must be supported. Ahmed conceptualizes privilege as an illness, one that is individual in experience as, “we are inflamed by something when or because we come into contact with it”(226). Therefore, it can also be understood as something that afford someone the ability to avoid said illness, if the privilege is enough.

On land, Shauna may have had the privilege to be able to get an abortion and continue to be friends with the unknowing Jackie. But on this island? She cannot afford to do so. Her decision will haunt her until she confronts it. Taissa’s affinity to Shauna can be seen as stemming from her lack of privilege as a black lesbian, who understands the assumptions and misunderstandings that may come with the group knowing Shauna is pregnant. But she also understands that it’s irreversible, and there must be support and work done to keep the group afloat.

JoJo Siwa has consistently been a point of conversation in queer spaces online, which is typical for the former child celebrity who has been a loud and proud lesbian. However, her recent controversy stems from disowning her previous lesbian identity in favor of identifying as queer. This shift followed her guest appearance on Celebrity Big Brother UK and her coupling with another star, Chris Hughes. The news came as a shock to many who admired her outspoken queerness. The controversy surrounding her new relationship and identification has affected many fans, particularly lesbians, who feel she has both disregarded lesbian identity and betrayed her partner – compounded by the fact that Hughes is significantly older.

This whole situation is complicated to unpack due to a multitude of factors, which must be approached with an intersectional lens. Many lesbians online have expressed feeling hurt and abandoned by JoJo’s shift, as they once felt seen in her earlier claim of lesbianism. Yet, when considering Nash’s Rethinking Intersectionality, we are reminded that intersectionality must travel as a theory of complexity. That is, there are many methodological ways to assess JoJo’s changed identity: anti, intra, or intercategorical complexity (5). With anticategorical complexity, JoJo’s change in identities could be seen as a simple rejection of all notions of categorization. For her, identifying as queer could dismiss the idea that once you claim a label, you must adhere to it. When analyzing this decision with intracategorical complexity, her identities as both a lesbian and queer would be critiqued to help find tensions within her lived experiences as both. This could show her unique hardships as a lesbian that might’ve led to her to believe queer to be a better fit. Intercategorical complexity might zoom out and not just focus on her self-identification, but how sexuality interacts with other categories like age, race, and gender. With this method, JoJo dating an older man while moving from a lesbian to a queer identity raises questions about how gendered power dynamics might’ve played into both her personal choices and the public’s response.

As a whole, this situation is messy and layered. Because of this, it’s best to approach the situation while remembering the real lived experience JoJo has as a queer public figure. Intercategorical analysis seems to be the best methodology, in my opinion, as JoJo’s race and socio-economic status play a large part in her identity shift. I’m curious to see the long-term implications of her decision and how it might affect lesbian public figures in the future.

The clip starts with the camera positioned so that viewers see two women together in a bedroom. One is shown to be receiving a foot massage from the other, the latter dressed in servant’s clothes, while the former is dressed luxuriously on the sofa bed. The woman on the sofa bed’s hair is elegantly swept up but has strands dangling from the updo, and light makeup is done. The servant woman on the floor has her hair tied into braids and no makeup. They are both speaking Korean in a Japanese house, decorated with flowers and hues of blue, brown, and pink. The servant woman is distractedly questioning how far the other has traveled and congratulating her fortune to be coupled with such a powerful man, presumably her husband to be. The woman atop the sofa bed diverges and implies her contentment is false, saying she’d be satisfied staying with the other woman. The servant woman keeps congratulating her on what a husband she has while continuously massaging her feet in an attempt to distract her. The woman on the sofa bed says she is not sure if she even loves her husband, and the servant woman says she must. This prompts the woman on the sofa bed to remove her foot from the other’s grasp and asks how she knows she must love her husband. With her head hung low, the other responds that she’s been observing her behavior and describes her sighs and distant looks as ones of love and admiration for her husband-to-be. The woman on the sofa bed speaks in a desperate plea that even if she were to denounce her love for him and proclaim it for someone else, would the other woman still want her to marry him? The other sighs and grabs her foot once more, and says, “You will love him”. This makes the woman on the sofa bed slap her twice, pull her up from her feet, and push her out of her room.

This scene is one of my favorites from the film The Handmaiden, a sapphic historical thriller that takes place in Japanese-occupied Korea. The Japanese woman on the sofa bed, Hideko, is portrayed as elegantly wealthy and more powerful than her Korean inferior, Sook-hee. This portrayal is tied to both the visual of the scene and their ethnicities. Hideko’s Japanese garments and position atop the sofa bed display her power over Sook-hee as an occupier. She sits leisurely above Sook-hee, not only still but also receiving a foot massage from the other woman while she is undecorated in plain robes. Their conversation showcases the problems sapphic women had, and still have, regarding love and survival. Sook-hee’s congratulations are forced, and it is obvious they have been or want to be romantically involved. Hideko, holding the social power she does in occupied Korea, offers a denouncement of her engagement, but that does not satisfy Sook-hee. Sook-hee wants Hideko to go through with the marriage in order for Hideko to be provided for as a woman, something Sook-hee cannot offer her considering their time and environment. Hideko’s status allows her to simply question whether they should pursue their relationship fully, but Sook-hee’s does not. Their relationship is complicated by the historical context of their time. It works against them, as both their sexuality and ethnicity must be considered as a part of their choice to be together. I love this scene and believe the emotions they display: longing, suffering, wishfulness, distraction. It portrays the secretive nature of a sapphic relationship during this time, but also hopefulness in their ability to even consider future pursuit.