Lez Liberatory Geographical Imaginations: Dykeness in Retrospect
Many of us want to return to halcyon spacetimes. It's how the Far Right sells themselves. But wanting to go back to some halcyon spacetimes is how *everyone* makes sense of their geographies, just not in vile, cruel, and fascist ways.
Many of us want to go back to some halcyon spacetimes. It's sure as hell how the Far Right sells themselves by rewriting history as white, cis-het, ableist, colonial, and agonizingly libertarian. It's evil and how fascism works.
But wanting to go back to some halcyon spacetimes is how *everyone* makes sense of their geographies, just not to vile, cruel, and fascist extremes.
One way to think about it is that great Beatles line (protesting anti-immigrant government) where we're told to "get back to where you once belong." We all do want a home where we belong, so where do you belong in a world that doesn't want you? For marginalized people, we're forced to turn to a lot of the spaces we have been forced to segregate into, even while these same spaces may free us.
Enter: dyke bars*. For lezbiqueertrans people, those sweet, possible, and mythic spacetimes of olde are the dyke bars* of past and present, and for a few reasons, including:
- lezbiqueertrans people recognize this place as theirs,
- lezbiqueertrans people hear the most about lesbian bars compared to any other dyke space (alongside and usually often in the context of cities),
- lezbiqueertrans people don't have as much history or popular media as cis-het people so that we often draw on our own and our queer friends'/family's experiences alone (and maybe Reddit, Instagram, et al.),
- lezbiqueertrans people have called lesbian bars "home" more than any other kind of place across decades and geographies, with the exception of their actual homes (cf. the fantastic dyke writer/thinker Trish Bendix two weeks ago about a party I was at reuniting staff and bargoers of 1996-2004 Meow Mix),
- lezbiqueertrans people, per word of mouth, are supposed to thrive in lesbian bars since this is the place you may come out in it, and
- what the hell else do we call a "lesbian" place these days??
But what instead if we look back not just from our own perspective, from the myth of THE! LESBIAN! BAR! (as a Message, this would come with fireworks) with the hindsight of today? In other words, what if we take up a critical view of that glossy past, while digging into the complex histories and the wonderful and very much less-than-wonderful things they offer us today.
Don't get me wrong, I really do love dyke bars*, by which I mean lesbian bars, queer parties, and trans hangouts, that really broad way of looking at all of lezbiqueertrans social spaces that define us. I see historians and other dope researchers doing that, and the Cruising Pod podcast does some of that (most beautifully and elegantly in their second season 💜). We need a lot more of that though. And we all need to want that for two reasons:
- Dykes* to not feel bad if these spaces don't help us flourish in the ways we need and desire, and this is a very common experience (see every Reddit about lesbian bars everrrrr). Lez turn that frown upside down.
- Dykes need bars sure but we also need so much more (my friend Valarie is so right below). So what are those key practices and joys and pleasure of dyke bars* that are packed into those myths and versioned histories that can explode our geographical imaginations for actual dykeworldmaking? Because that's the fucking dream we need to make real, y'all.
That said, lez look at the lead-off meme one more time.
We can go back in time and space with all the information and knowledge we can muster. We can make sense of us all over again.
