Finding my tribes

Photo credit:www.gaynz.com

As the New Zealand election campaign ramps up, I have, for the first time, begun attending election forums where candidates from each party put forward their policies about specific issues.  So far I had been to a forum on women's issues, education, and this week I went to the only forum in Auckland covering LGBTI issues.
This popped up on my 'events' on Facebook, and at first I dismissed it as irrelevant.  I have been resistant to the idea of being a part of the LGBTI community, because I didn't feel any need to for my own personal reasons, and maybe partly because I wasn't sure I fitted anywhere within the LGBTI alphabet soup.  Books I'd read said to go out and find the lesbians and hang out with them, but as a woman under 40 I wasn't sure if 'Lesbian Games Night' at the local Women's Centre (the only lesbian social activity I could find) was really going to be my thing.

I wondered what 'issues' might be relevant to the LGBTI community, because it seemed to me that many of the battles of the past had been won.

When I was a young Mum, I sought out the support of other people like me.  I found I was always a bit of a misfit amongst my mother peers, who were sometimes older, and mostly more wealthy than me.  However, we found common ground in our parenting styles, and for a long time I was a member of a mother-to-mother support group where I could be with mothers who mothered like me.  We perhaps had very little else in common other than that we had particular beliefs about how babies should be parented.  Often we talked about the solidarity and encouragement we felt from being with members of our 'tribe.'   I have recently left that organisation, simply because I have moved into new stages and my 'babies' are now aged five and over. When it comes to parenting, my concerns are more about education and behaviour than about sleep and feeding.

As I was driving home one evening (I do lots of thinking while I drive) it occurred to me that my tribe alliances were shifting.  I was becoming more interested and concerned about issues that effect different parts of me - issues that are important to me as a student, issues that are important to me as a mother of school children, issues that are important to me as a member of the LGBTI community.  Then it struck me - I had identified myself as being part of a community that I had initially dismissed as not needing.  I don't think it was appropriate to go looking for that community a year ago, but I suppose over time I have grown into it.

I wrote about a lack of hostility that I feel as a queer middle aged woman, so I took for granted that this lack of hostility exists everywhere.  However, it occurred to me that there are still battles to fight.  Adoption law needs overhauling, and transsexual people are facing uphill battles around how they are treated in the health and prison systems and within human rights legislation.  I am not being forcibly separated from my children and haven't lost my job because I'm in a lesbian relationship.  I realised that I take this for granted, but it wasn't always this way.  It is a great credit to activists before me that I can take these liberties for granted - I'm sure they hoped for a world where this might be possible.

So I think its only reasonable to 'pay it forward' so to speak.  I don't have to fight for the freedom to live how I choose, and if dealing with people's assumptions is the worst I have to deal with, then life is good.  At this particular time in my life it might only be weighing up issues in order to choose who to tick on a ballot paper, but I suppose turning up at a public forum to hear what the issues are to begin with is a start.

I learned more than I thought I would.  The visibly awkward right wing participants felt the world was rosy, but the gay/trans/ally candidates from other parties had a different story to tell.  I learned about gender discrimination and heterosexism in sexual health matters, that trans people have to fight to be recognised as human under our human rights legislation, and that things were not as rosy as we think for queer high school students, who still face unacceptable levels of bullying, and schools that are failing to keep them safe.

Afterwards, Nyah and I had a discussion about how these things would affect our children and her grandchildren.  These weren't just LGBTI issues, but issues that had the potential to touch all of both our families.

Children are not islands and it take a village to raise them.  This forum raised issues that could be a concern to me as a member of the LGBTI community, but moreso are a concern to mine and my partner's children and grandchildren.  Is my son going to be taunted at high school for having a lesbian mother?  Why should Nyah's granddaughter be the assumed conduit to keep boys safe from the HPV virus?  What if one of our children or granddchildren is gay?  Will they be safe at their school?  If one of them is actually a gender not aligned with their sex?  How will the world and the law see them?

They are issues for us as members of the LGBTI community.  But they are also issues for everyone.

Rundown of the AUSA Pride Week LGBTI election forum are here.http://www.liveblogpro.com/event/53fec1060e4a85d4718b458d

Marmalade

As Nyah and I set up our new home, part of what we have done is bring in items with stories and sentimental value.  Everything in our home has meaning, and telling our stories to each other has been an important part of our journey.  We embrace reusing and recycling and the philosophy behind buying second hand when we can.

Amongst my treasures is a bag of my mother's and grandmother's recipes.  In this I found a little notebook with the quantities required to make marmalade.  The front yard of our block of flats has a grapefruit tree, so I decided that I would have a go at making a batch.  First of all I gathered some jars.  Some we already had, but I bought some more cheap jars from the Salvation Army.  Many of these jars had labels attached, and it turned out to be quite a performance to remove them.  They were soaked and scrubbed and in the end had to use a citrus oil concoction to remove them.

I explored the concept of labelling in my last post with regards to sexual identity, but finding identity is many faceted.  My recent learning at university has been that the 'sense of self' is never truly established, but is an ongoing process.  That was good to know.  But what I have also learned is that people like to make order of the world, so will label things the way they see them according to the 'rules' that exist in the culture they live in.

Between us, Nyah and I have eight children, and she has eight grandchildren.  With her children grown, she didn't want to 'parent' again, but is happy to share our home with my children part of every other week.  I take care of the parenting in terms of sorting school things, taking kids on outings, putting them to bed, and she offers support by backing up my instructions and actions.

In some ways our family is unusual in that it doesn't fit the socially endorsed nuclear family of mum, dad and 2.5 children.  This model is probably in the minority (a book I read suggested that in the UK the traditional nuclear family makes up only 7% of all family units)  and even our 'unconventional' arrangement has labels.  Statistics NZ would call us a 'non-blended step family.'  Te Ara - The Encyclopedia of New Zealand defines a family where a parent's new partner doesn't parent as a 'recombined family'  For a while we even struggled with the term 'partner' because our relationship was so new.  There seems to be missing language when it comes to families and relationships.

As our relationship became more familiar to family and friends, they started making labels for us.  Nyah took her granddaughter out for her birthday, and they had a conversation about her father's partner - whom she referred to as her step-mother.  Then she said "You're a step-mum too, eh Nana?"  

My daughter's friend came to play, and concluded that if Nyah and I got married, then Nyah would be my daughter's step-mother, but at the moment they were just friends.

Everyone wants labels for what they are looking at.  I have become a 'lesbian mature student' (according to a family member) and Nyah has suddenly become a 'step-mother' to a gaggle of small children the same age as her grandchildren.  Maybe those labels will work for us eventually, but that's really something only we can decide, not everyone else (other than Statistics NZ, apparently).   But it looks like we have to accept that people will give us labels that suit what they are seeing, not what we actually are.  

The instructions say that once the marmalade is made, the jars are to be sterilised and the marmalade is to be poured into them.

They are to sit for a while and cool.

Then they can have a label put on and the jars house something new.


NB: To date I have not actually managed to make marmalade.  My unlabelled jars sit in the bag on the kitchen floor, and the grapefruit are still on the tree.  Maybe next weekend....

A bibliography of self discovery

I'm quite good at researching stuff.  When it comes to children's issues, mothers' issues, social issues....just stuff I'm interested in, I will read.  I read sociology books for fun.  I'm that nerdy girly swot.  So, when it finally became time to start looking at myself, I started to try to track down every website, web article and book I could get my hands on.  I'm still reading, and I'm still learning things.  And everything is shaking down just as it needs to.  Here is a list of books that I have found incredibly useful in my search for myself...

Outspoken: Coming out in the Anglican Church of Aotearoa New Zealand - Liz Lightfoot
University of Otago Press 2011
My review on Goodreads is here.  I actually put this book in this post last, but realised that it needed to go at the top of the list, as it was so important.  It was the book that finally kicked any vestiges of my internalised homophobia to the curb.  I initially read it because I know the author.  It may have changed my life.



Living two lives: Married to a man and in love with a woman (2nd edition) - Joanne Fleisher
2011 Lavender Visions Books 
I really recommend this book as it written in a very gentle and optimistic way.  This blog entry on the Huffington Post page sums up her own situation.




Late Bloomers: Awakening to Lesbianism After Forty - Robin McCoy
Writers Club Press 2000
I'm not forty yet, but I found the stories entertaining and interesting.  Many of the stories resonated, and offered reassurance that my experience was not a lone one.  It was one of those books where I saw my life in the pages before me.



Dear John, I love Jane - Candace Walsh and Laura Andre (editors)
Seal Press 2010







Married women who love women (2nd edition) - Carren Strock, Routledge 2008


And then I met this woman: Previously married women's journeys into lesbian relationships - Barbee J. Cassingham and Sally M. O'Neill

Mother Courage Press 1993
This book contained the stories of women living in 1970s and 80s America, where the culture would be very different to New Zealand in the 21st century, so I was less likely to meet the same challenges.  But some of the stories resonated strongly.

Look both ways: Bisexual politics - Jennifer Baumgardner
Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2007

Remember Us: Women who love women, from Sappho to Liberation - Miriam Saphira (editor) with Heather McPherson and Dr Fran Marno
The Charlotte Museum Trust 2008
This was a great, easy read book about the history of lesbian culture in New Zealand

How To Come Out - Guide for Women Questioning Their Sexual Orientation - Essie Reis
Essie Reis 2012



Coming out and disclosures: LGBT persons across the lifespan - Ski Hunter
Harworth Press 2007
I found this book by chance at my local Salvation Army store.  I have not read it in its entirety, but did read the part about coming out later in life.  There were sections that made me gasp as I recognised my own life in the words before me.



Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Women's Love and Desire - Lisa M. Diamond
Harvard University Press 2008
At the time of writing, I'd not actually finished this book yet, but it offered up some great potential answers to questions I had about why I'd not 'known' about being attracted to women earlier in my life.





Gaga Feminism: Sex, Gender and the End of Normal - J. Jack HalberstamBeacon Press 2012
This book was revelatory to me while I was in the middle of the process of questioning everything about my life.  This book presented the possibility of a different kind of normal.


The Whole Lesbian Sex Book: a passionate guide for all of us - Felice Newman
Cleis Press 2004
Once upon a time I wouldn't have confessed to reading a sex guide.  Actually, I never would have read a sex guide.  But you know, if you are figuring stuff out about yourself you may as well cover all your bases.  In all seriousness, though, the byline for this book is 'a passionate guide for all of us.'  If nothing else, it answers questions about what lesbians actually do in the bedroom with ideas that aren't from the perspective of male fantasy porn.


All the reading I have done helped me understand that the patterns of my life are common to those of many women.  I have only listed the books I've read, but there is a lot online too.  I have posted them because this is a list I could have used, and maybe it will be useful for someone else.

No matter what you're questioning in life, I think it always helps to read.  It helps to explore your own feelings and your own past, and also to find what experts say, but I think most importantly, to find out what other people just like you have to say too.

I sourced my books from Amazon (on Kindle), Auckland City Libraries and Auckland Women's Centre.

Alphabet Soup

In July last year I began some serious questioning about the structure of families, relationships, and began to ask some questions about my own sexuality.  My questions began in a very broad context around whether I still held on to my values around long term monogamy and marriage.  The issues around having been in such a long term relationship from such a young age surfaced during therapy in 2012, but at the time were put aside while I dealt with more pressing issues - managing anxiety and panic attacks.  My blog posts about 'finding myself' were veiled while I struggled with movement away from my traditional values systems, while I questioned the conditioning of my childhood, and sought to understand a growing awareness that I might be attracted to women. I began talking to a friend about all the issues I was wrestling with - autonomy, values systems, what to do with my life beyond being a mother, how I was questioning my sexuality.  And then I fell for her.

I read and read and read.  Books about women like me in long-term relationships with men who had fallen in love with women.  I'm still reading, and sometimes closing books in tears from the emotion of seeing women just like me on those pages.  

One of the struggles I have had is with how to label myself. "So, are you bisexual now?"  "People like you up my gay friend quota."  My partner is a lesbian, which probably labels me by association, but I'm not sure I'm ready for a lesbian identity.  I might be bisexual, but my reading has made me aware of the animosity that can be directed at bisexual people...and I just don't know where men fit on my spectrum because I'm not with one now.  The best answer I found was in the work of Dr Lisa Diamond on sexual fluidity.  At least it was a start.  A possibility.  Diamond's research suggests that women can move through several 'orientations' in a lifetime.  That isn't to suggest that there is an element of 'choice' but for those who are not firmly lesbian or bisexual, it may be that they are simply able to move through different attractions dependent on things such as environment, people around them, present circumstances and so on.  It might explain why I had experienced traditional heterosexual relationships (albeit only as a teenager) without feeling any of them were 'wrong,' but rather that it seems that being with a woman is more 'right.'   More and more women appeared in my life for whom 'unlabelled' was their best descriptor.  Women were popping up all over the place who were falling for women after being in heterosexual relationships for many years.  Women who were married to each other but didn't identify as lesbians. A new friend in a similar situation to me was asked if she knew she was gay.  "No more than I knew I was straight." It was a relief to not feel like I had to label myself.

It looks more and more like the LGBT community understands this too.  Looking at the website for OUTline they cover all labels with a kind of alphabet soup.  GLBTTFIQQ - gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, takataapui, intersex, fa’afafine, queer and questioning.  Sure, its a mouthful, but it acknowledges that very broad variety that exists on the sexuality spectrum.

I am moving through a process of figuring out where I sit in the world.  A process of figuring out if I need a label, and if I do, what will it be?  My partner appreciates my honesty in my exploration, and I appreciate her not needing me to be anything in particular.

There might have been a time when you needed to 'come out' as something.  But now I can just come out as me, and take comfort in the array of labels I can choose - if I want one.

What we might be...and what we become.

Apparently as people who are questioning come to an acceptance of lesbian/gay or bisexual orientation, they go through a phase of feeling angry about the heterosexism that exists in the world. I felt this acutely after a prominent sportsman came out and everyone applauded how brave he is. People keep saying I'm brave as I reveal that I have left a heterosexual marriage and embarked on a relationship with a woman. And although I acknowledge the comments about bravery are also about making big life changes overall, I felt angry that anyone needs to feel 'brave' about doing this. That the world may be such a hostile place to us that to reveal that you have any orientation towards the same sex is 'brave.' You also come to realise how strong heteronormative and heterosexist influence is. Indeed, it shaped my last twenty years and more.

Looking back, I realise that I experienced same sex attraction in my past. Not as an obvious sexual orientation at first, but more as an emotional connection. When my mother found out about a one off physical experience, she confronted me about being 'queer.' I have no memory of this confrontation, but did write about it in my diary in extremely defensive bullet points. Through my teenage years, I diarised about a desire to connect emotionally and physically with a particular person of the same sex, but much of my diary was also filled with idealism about marriage and babies and houses with white picket fences. Its what I aspired to and what I assumed my life would look like going forward.

The concept of being a housewife was not actually a prevailing social norm. Girls were encouraged to seek careers across the spectrum. There were not old fashioned attitudes about doing only nursing or teaching until you got married. But somehow in my mind I had made marriage and babies my career goal.  I was a smart girl, but I had steered towards arts subjects that I was good at but that didn't seem to have much value in the job marketplace. My self esteem was not great, and I didn't feel competent at sciences, which is where it seemed the careers were to be had.  Somehow, despite all the encouragement that meant that this was not the only option, I wanted to emulate my mother and live a life like her's.

I remember the speculation about whether one of our teachers was a lesbian. This was steeped in stereotypes - an older woman with short grey hair, a deep voice who never wore skirts. This was the only exposure I'd had with the LGBT world (and even then that was only assumed) but it wasn't very reliable because it was not based in fact. It didn't tell me anything about the experiences that exist for women who love women, so being with a woman was still not something that was considered an 'option.'

Around the time of my eighteenth birthday I wrote in my diary with the same level of uncertainty about my future that I expressed on this blog. I said "I don't really know who I am" and that I don't really know what I'll do with my life..." "What I am now scares me, but I can't help but believe its for a reason." Twenty years on I could have written the same diary entry.

I 'ran away from home' by way of going to Dunedin to attend art school. It was in my part time job that I met the man that was to become my husband. I was impressed by his family values. He fell in love at first sight, and I fell in love with the idea of fulfilling my destiny as someone's wife. He courted me properly with flowers and dinner and the promise of a home filled with love. It was romantic and at the time it was right.

He now questions whether I ever really loved him. I can say without a doubt that I did. I loved him with all the capacity for love that I had. But I know that part of what I was in love with was a concept, and a values system. Once I started to question the values and concepts under which I was conducting my life, the house of cards started to tumble. I will always carry a sadness that by escaping that life I broke his heart.  The paradox is that I do not regret the life I led with him, but at the same time feel like that if my world had been different as a teenager, things might not have turned out the way they have.

As I look back on the last twenty years, memories emerge of things that have happened where this latent attraction to my own sex bubbled to the surface every now and then. At the time I never explored it further, probably because the peace and comfort of my life as I knew it outweighed any need to know any more about the hidden parts of me. Some of the reading I have done in the last few months has shown that very often women make changes after traumatic events like the death of a parent, or at the time of major transition, like the youngest child starting school. Both of these have happened to me in the last few years. These life shifts can be the catalyst for a massive re-evaluation and time of discovery.

I was happy in my marriage for a long time because I didn't know what I didn't have. This wasn't anybody's fault. My former husband need not feel inadequate, because this was to do with me and to do with the culture we exist in. There was a huge amount of happiness and security to be found in fulfilling socially endorsed roles and coasting along on a socially acceptable course in life. Stepping outside the norms makes me reliant on my own tools of self examination, self awareness and communication because there is no institution to fall back on. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and I can now see what was missing. I am so very conscious that the situation that we were in simultaneously suffocated me, but provided him with security.  I wonder if he felt for me what I feel for my new partner.  If that is the case, I will always hold a regret that I had to hurt him so badly to free myself. I can't do anything now other than apply the lessons learned to my future. I have no desire to turn back. Now I am experiencing a completeness and wholeness that I have not felt before, even though I am still on my own journey.

Being with my female partner feels like the most natural thing in the world. I have been very lucky not to have experienced any hostility. However, every now and then I experience a jolt that makes me realise how I am now part of a minority. The IRD officer who helped me apply for Working for Families assumes my partner is male. A guy at the service station asks if my partner is my friend or my sister. The landlord asks if we are sisters or just flatmates (and at the time we did say 'flatmates.')  The woman at the service desk at The Warehouse types "Mrs" into her computer when recording my name for a refund. While the world is not hostile to people in same sex relationships, the first assumption is that you are with a man - and certainly, by a certain age the assumption still seems to be made that you are married to a man.

My children have had their world shaken, and are having to reframe their ideas about family that they have come to believe, too. This has been traumatic for them, but they are managing very well. But in the long run I think this bodes well for the world they will live in, and in some ways I am grateful that they are discovering this now. In a world where homophobia and sexism is frowned upon, but gender role stereotypes and heteronormitivity is rife, my children can see that when they are grown, it will be ok to fall in love with a man OR a woman. That they could live with that man or woman, they could marry that man or woman, they could live alone, they can be what they want for a career, they can choose to have a family or not, and that all of those choices are valid. That they don't just know that academically, but actually see that in practice, and see that it can work.

My hope is that the heteronormative script in their head is rewritten. That they can actually see all the possibilities that exist for them, and not be blinkered by set ideas the way I was. If I could go back to eighteen year old me, I would tell her slow down and allow herself time to explore. To start to do that late in life is painful and hard and likely to hurt people they care about.

It was too late for me. Its not too late for them.

What has also occurred to me since writing is not just the impact this has on my children, but on other families we know.  I had not taken into account that my friends are placed in the position of explaining to their children - my children's friends - about my living situation.  To their credit, they do all treat it as 'situation normal' and I trust them to answer questions thoughtfully and factually.  Yes, it is difficult explaining the choice not to stay with my children's father, but the flip side is that they will see as an everyday thing a female couple who are not doing anything other than living normal and ordinary lives.  The heteronormative script will be rewritten in their heads, too.

Saudade and the night

I originally wrote this post nearly a year ago.  Going back to it I considered posting this on my creative writing blog... but reading back, I think although it seems trivial in the midst of 'big' stuff going on, in my own context in my own mind it fits perfectly.  So...just read and relate (if it fits) and enjoy.

I often write my blog posts late at night.  I seem to have the right creative energy at that time, and words flow more easily.  With any writing that I do,  I seem incubate ideas in my mind, sometimes for long periods of time until the opportunity and the inclination arises to put them into words on a page.

Something else that also happens at night is that I might watch old movies or listen to old music.  In the world of a GenXer, this of course means movies and songs from the 1980s or even 90s.  As most people know, even if subconsciously, music has a way of have evoking memories, emotions and even physical sensations like smell.  I assume that, like generations before us, we return to the music of our childhood as it evokes a time when we were happy, innocent, with no worldly cares on our shoulders.  I will have Wikipedia on my phone at the ready, will look up the artists I see in whatever music video or moving is playing at the time.  I'll marvel that Brad Pitt is nearly 50 or that Kylie Minogue is closer to that than the youthful Charlene of Neighbours, and wonder where the time went.  I will think of my own children, forming their own memories, and wonder what movies and music will be the hallmarks of their generation; what rituals do we partake in that are laying the foundations for them to look back on from the big bad world and evoke those feelings of contentment and safety.

The feeling that I would get at these times evaded description.  Indeed, I'd never needed to try.  I have attempted to above, but the words still do not seem to embody the depth of the sensations I would experience.  And then I found...

SAUDADE

This fabulous word was like an epiphany to me when I read its Wikipedia entry, which describes it thus:

Saudade is a Portuguese and Galician word that has no direct translation in English. It describes a deep emotional state of nostalgic or deeply melancholic longing for an absent something or someone that one loves. Moreover, it often carries a repressed knowledge that the object of longing will never return.[2] A stronger form of saudade may be felt towards people and things whose whereabouts are unknown, such as a lost lover, or a family member who has gone missing.

Saudade was once described as "the love that remains" after someone is gone. Saudade is the recollection of feelings, experiences, places or events that once brought excitement, pleasure, well-being, which now triggers the senses and makes one live again. It can be described as an emptiness, like someone (e.g., one's children, parents, sibling, grandparents, friends, pets) or something (e.g., places, things one used to do in childhood, or other activities performed in the past) that should be there in a particular moment is missing, and the individual feels this absence. It brings sad and happy feelings all together, sadness for missing and happiness for having experienced the feeling.

Whoever created and edited this Wikipedia entry managed to describe exactly what I was experiencing, and the Portuguese packaged this description into one word.  This feeling has become more intense as I grow older - and perhaps its intensity will continue to grow as more time is put between now and those happy times, particularly those with people who are no longer with us.

I do feel I have to guard myself against too much slipping into the past, and practice a kind of mindfulness that ensures I am not blind to the present and all the blessings it has to offer. 

But now and then I indulge.  I put on MTV Classic or read a few chapters of Anne of Green Gables and escape to another time.  That time is long gone and my young self in that time has passed through.  But the memories and sensations remain strong.  I will take that time and enjoy 'the love that remains' and my time lost in saudade.

The story so far...

Its been six months since I wrote, and indeed its been six months since I've had time to write.  All the self examination of the last ten months has culminated in taking action.  Action that has created chaos, but is also the turning point I needed.

In January this year I made the difficult to decision to leave my husband and my family home.  The difficulty was perhaps not so much in the deciding to do it, but in actually taking action.  And the difficulty was the emotional havoc I would wreak on someone who had not made the same shifts I had.  It was not until February that I revealed to my husband that I had been seeing someone else, and that someone else was a woman.  At around the same time, she left a long term relationship, and we made the decision to stay together and move forward together.

In this time, I have learned a huge amount.  About myself, about our culture and our norms, about love and sexuality, about friendship and family, about power and values systems.  Throw into this mix that I have also become a full time student of the social sciences, you could say I am on the most incredible journey of self discovery.

So that is the story so far.  Amid all the learning I have done I have found that our lives are full of surprises - unwritten rules that must not be broken, written rules that people break all the time, labels, categories, boxes and behaviour we assign to all of them.

There is plenty to be said about that - and in time I will be one of the ones to say it.

Watch this space.