GLR March-April 2023

Sunday New York Times Young Writer of the Year Award—are evident throughout. His descriptions of the physical world—a graveyard, a room, a river—are fired with the same sense of “in scape” that Hopkins, who experienced the “ring and tell” of God in everything, once achieved. Indeed, Hopkins becomes a kind of personal advocate for Hewitt, a “watching ghost ... one who encourages, stirs up, urges forward, who calls us on.” Hewitt’s decision not to follow a straightforward chrono logical approach rescues his memoir from the pedestrian expe T HE TITLE Lesbian Death is both misleading and off-putting. And unfortunate, because rather than being a book about lesbians los ing their lives, it’s an examination of the relevance of the term “lesbian” at the pres ent moment. More specifically, it addresses the current fear among some lesbians that, with the evolution of identities such as “queer,” “trans,” and the ever-expanding it erations of LGBTQIA + labels, “lesbian” is either being erased or becoming obsolete. A chapter titled “Lesbians Killed the Lesbian Bar,” for ex ample—which focuses not only on the bars but also on the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival—considers the fate of the lesbian in the age of Queer Studies. Sullivan argues that several developments were to blame for the demise of the lesbian bar. The invasion of technology and other industries into cities like San Francisco forced patrons to move away. Rising rents on commercial spaces caused the bar owners to be priced out. Les bian life was becoming mainstream through the media (think Ellen DeGeneres and 1990s “lesbian chic”) and legal progress such as marriage equality. There was a loss of political com mitment to anti-capitalism among activists, and lesbian identity itself went through growing pains. Sullivan stresses throughout the book that one of the fail ures of lesbian activism was an inability to move beyond a white framework and genuinely build coalitions with communities of color. Today, lesbian bars have adapted and do exist, albeit in much smaller numbers. They are more inclusive, frequented by a mixed clientele that is aware of the bars’ status as safe space and chooses them for that reason. Another illuminating chapter takes on “lesbian bed death.” In the 1980s, studies showed that as domesticity among lesbian couples rose, sex plummeted. Activists mobilized and asserted that sex should be a part of community-building—for instance through group discussions of sexual practices. At the same time, the feminist sex wars were raging between anti-pornography mil itants and pro-sex radicals. The author argues that because of the sex wars, by the 2000s feminism was viewed by the public as re ductive, moralizing, and punitive, and this is why queer theorists distanced themselves from feminism and, by implication, les Martha K. Davis is the author of the novel Scissors, Paper, Stone. 32

diency of a timeline. Accounts of the sexually locked-away self of his youth alternate with chapters devoted to his romance with Elias, which are also not told in strict chronological order. In the end, the loss of Elias becomes a kind of gain, a shed ding of the false confidence that Hewitt was somehow “above things, apart from the world, that what had happened to others wouldn’t happen to me.” Perhaps even more than Hopkins, he gains a faith in the fragile preciousness of the world around him, in a “world that could be heaven to me.”

Lesbian Identity and Its Discontents

bians. The term “queer” offered multiple forms of sexuality for a variety of genders, whereas they understood feminist politics as offering only the dangers of sex and none of the pleasures. The specter of TERFs (Trans-Exclu sionary Radical Feminists) as they emerged in the 1990s and the 2000s is raised. Ac cording to Sullivan, the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival ultimately shut down be

M ARTHA K. D AVIS

LESBIAN DEATH Desire and Danger between

Feminist and Queer by Mairead Sullivan U. of Minnesota Press. 161 pages, $26.

cause of the organizers’ insistence that the festival remain a space for the “shared experience of girlhood socialization” and the “specificity of female experience.” More recently, trans les bians’ demands to be included in lesbian spaces have been in terpreted by some as an infuriating incursion. In the end, Sullivan demonstrates that lesbian anxiety stems from multiple sources. For some, the use of “queer” as an ex panded definition of sexuality and gender possibilities is threat ening to lesbian identity as such. For others, resentment of trans women’s incursion into lesbian space is a sticking point. There are lesbians who mourn the loss of a radical political cause and the success of the assimilationist agenda that spearheaded the struggle for same-sex marriage. And there are those who simply miss the joy that discovering lesbianism offered them. In response, Sullivan reveals a broader story. While various causes and groups have fallen away, many have adapted. Dyke Marches, which began in the 1990s with the Lesbian Avengers, continue to thrive at Gay Pride Weekends. Olivia Cruises (once Olivia Records) and the Dinah Shore Weekend in Palm Springs both attract all kinds of self-described lesbians, even though few might name themselves feminists. Sullivan also discusses the recent popularity of “lesbian ephemera” such as “The Future Is Female” T-shirts and other consumer products. The rise of so cial media has allowed mass marketing of lesbian symbols and slogans, many of which were invented years ago but present themselves as the latest fashion. No two people can have exactly the same experience. The labels that we use to describe ourselves might mean different things to different people. In looking at the contested meanings of “lesbian” through the last half century, it helps to keep in mind that no one group can speak for everyone. The arguments among lesbians have been simmering ever since “lesbian” came into general use. The simple fact of this book’s existence proves that the lesbian—however defined—is far from dead.

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