Their attention is just another reminder that “compulsory heterosexuality” was never meant to describe the experiences of the rest of us. It was and remains a TERF/radfem/lesbian separatist dog whistle.

muggle-the-hat:

betterbemeta:

dykeastraea:

betterbemeta:

Reminder that “compulsory heterosexuality” as a term was coined by

Adrienne

Rich, a contributor to the infamous TERF book The Transsexual Empire.

Wait how is compulsory heterosexuality a terf thing. I’ve never heard that ? (I’ve barely heard anything about the term in general though so.)

The informal concept that we are all compelled by society to be heterosexual is real and important. But the phrase/language use of “compulsory heterosexuality” was coined or at least popularized by Adrienne Rich in her essay Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence, which was extremely sex-essentialist and included stuff like… a mother nursing her female child as a lesbian experience. Or a nurse caring for a female elder a lesbian experience. Even if not all lesbian experiences are sexual, that’s kind of getting into a sketchy area (is caring for a male child ‘straight?’ is a latina or black nanny caring for a white girl baby having a ‘lesbian’ experience?) that is questionable at best.

the experience that all people are conditioned by a heterosexual society to be straight and see straightness as success and a default, is real– this post is not intended to remove that concept from anybody or ‘take away’ the right to express that concept in language. Lesbians experience it in a unique way, and almost all over lgbqa+ women (and others!) experience it in different unique ways. Its important. we gotta talk about it.

it’s just that this language as it was solidified, was done so by someone who did not think bisexuality, pansexuality, asexuality, were valid. And it was done so by someone who did not think that trans women were women, or that nonbinary dfab people were anything but cis women, or that trans men were anything but women. That’s what anon means when they say “it was never meant for the rest of us.” Many posts that are about “identifying compulsory heterosexuality” are posts that contain a lot of bi, pan, ace, trans, nonbinary, and other experiences as brainwashing and not as nuanced stores told by diverse people.

(which is not to say that a lesbian can’t have experiences where a heterosexual society tried to use bisexual and other categories as weapons or tools to keep them open to including men. We’re furious about that too.)

incidentally, TERFs would really love it if being a terf was synonymous with ‘lesbian experience.’ They have been trying to make that a reality for years. One of the ways they do so is popularize their language and references to their literature as I-thought-it-meants and get newcomers to lgbtqa+ community to use them and accept them.  It can be really disappointing to find out that what seemed like useful language was coined in a context that is exterminatory of others but I’m sure that moving forward alternatives can be found that don’t include contributors to The Transsexual Empire.

last time i asked, someone told me that it’s been suggested (so idk how widespread the use is yet) that we use “coercive heterosexuality” for a non-terfy version of the concept