F1 was born in 1981, growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area of California. F2 was born in 1983, growing up in Gainesville Florida. F3 was born in 1982, growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area of California; F4 was born in 1977, growing up in Central, West Mexico. F1, F2 and F4 all grew up in two parent house holds. F2 and F4 both had fathers who were the primary financial providers and mothers who stayed at home. Both of F1’s parents worked; mother was a nurse and father was a doctor. F3 was raised primarily by her mother, who was also the primary financial provider. All of the woman interviewees described themselves as not very religious. Both F1 and F3 described themselves as culturally Jewish. F2 was not raised with religion and F4 was brought up in a Catholic household, but more socially than religious.
Gender Identity background
F1 and F4, rejected femininity and their expected gender role of being “a girl” at young ages F1 “I hated that I was a girl, hated wearing dresses, doing anything with hair… I remember thinking I should have been born a boy, but wasn’t… I thought girls where weak, not very confident…Later in school you notice that other girls are wearing their hair pulled back, interested in clothing, not picked for sports teams anymore, and having to find other things to do at recess. At 10 or 11 it became apparent to me that I would do things the other girls wouldn’t do, sports, karate. When I was 7 and 8 a lot of girls were in karate with me, by 11 I was the only girl in karate.”
F4 “Dresses were so uncomfortable, I was restless, I wanted to climb trees and buildings, because I was good at it, doing those things in a dress is uncomfortable…I told my mom I wanted to dress as a cowboy, not even as a cowgirl, because cow girls wore skirts. I wanted to dress as a cowboy, I wanted to wear jeans and boots …I was not interested in becoming a girl, I hated dolls, I used to love play mobile and cars, I believed that boy’s toys were more fun than girl’s toys.”
Both F2 and F3 describe growing up taking part in both girl and boy normative activities.
F2 “I was sort of a tomboy, but not in a major way, I was comfortable being a girl, but not into being a girl in a major way. I was split down the middle.”
F3 “I was allowed to choose whatever toys I wanted to have. So I wasn’t just surrounded by pink and little dolls. It was much more diverse than that…. I had a lot of girl friends, but I also played T-ball and Soccer. I was often the only girl on a team with a bunch of boys….My mom described herself as a tomboy when she was growing up, so the idea of being outside the American stereotypical norm was okay in the environment that I was raised in.”
During their pre-teen years, both F2 and F4 explain that awkwardness and identity, in general, were the main case of their emotional and physical concerns.
F2 “I was a very awkward pre-teen kid. I was gay and didn’t know I was gay, so I wasn’t into boys. I remember crying when I got my period, I didn’t want to be an adult, I didn’t want to be a women, I just wanted to stay a little girl.”
F4 “I was a rebel by that time; I couldn’t find my identity. I looked like a girl, not like a young-woman. I could not find my identity because I did not know what to identify with, a girl or a young woman. My mother would dress me in dresses and other young-woman clothing, I would feel ridiculous. So I chose to be a rebel, wearing tee-shirts and jeans.”
For F1 and F3 the pre-teen years were different. F1 was still struggling with her female identity.
F1“I was upset with having to be pigeonholed with aspects of being a girl.”
F3 described her pre-teen years as consisting of talking to her girlfriends and starting to like boys (F3 identities as bisexual)
F3 I remember getting my period and talking about it with my girl friends. I also started being attracted to boys at that time…The main thing I think about is being a hormonal adolescent.”
In high school, both F1 and F2 talked about how during those years, they started to realize their attraction for females, as well they started to appreciate their femininity, in themselves and others.
F1 “I Started to change; I saw strength in womanhood, strength in the female aspect, strength in gender as well. Women have always had ways of using our disadvantage to our advantage… I think what happened was, when I was a little kid, I was attracted to women and wanted to be a boy, because I couldn’t figure out how as a girl I would get to be with women. I didn’t understand the lesbian thing, so it would make more sense, if I were male or more masculine, I would get to be with girls. In High School I realized that was not actually the truth, it all got a lot easier. I could enjoy being feminine and more girly.”
F2 “I started to figure out I was into women, I only told one friend… I became a lot more comfortable with being a woman, dressing more traditionally female, wearing make up. For the first time, when I was a junior in high school, I started to develop physically at that time, also the first time in my life started to become nice looking, I was a little less awkward, more comfortable in my own skin, I was able to accept a little bit more, being a women.”
F3 and F4 had very different experiences in High school. F3, started to question femininity, and what being feminine was for her.
F3 “The last time I shaved my legs was when I was 16…it wasn’t so much to make an impression on anyone else, it was because I didn’t want to. Why am I doing this to my body if I don’t want to? That’s an age in particular when a lot of teenage girls are shaving or wearing makeup or making themselves look feminine and girly and I wasn’t. My mom always encouraged me to make decisions and think for myself. Even as a child, she gave me the power of making my own choices - in all aspects of myself including how I acted as a women.”
F4 on the other hand was dealing with social demands of her community, trying to avoid being stereotyped and judged.
F4 “I learned how to be a girl, mostly by looking at the other girls. By that moment I knew that I had to fit if I didn’t want to be stereotyped… if I didn’t act girly I would be stereotyped as a dyke or a tomboy, and the place that I come from tomboy and dyke are the same. So I dressed girly, but I really didn’t have the genes to know how to dress, so I would imitate my friends. It was very difficult for me because I never thought that I had to have an identity, I didn’t want to be taught by society how to behave, I wanted to be myself.”
Impact of Heterosexuality
Since heterosexuality is the norm in society, I asked, “At what point did you start questioning heterosexuality?” This is something, questioning heterosexuality, that as a straight person, you do not have to do, if you don’t want to. What is the process like, identifying yourself as in essence, the other, something different then what society expects of you? The answers I got were varying.
F1 “When I was 4, I remember being attracted to girl characters in picture and pop-up books and as a 4 year-old not knowing what to do with that feeling. So I hid it under the rug. When I was 13 or 14 I started thinking, you know…”
F2 “I was16, I went away to a summer program at Duke and I had a relationship with a boy there and at the same time I also meet this girl, it was a friendship, but I was clearly in love with her. Afterwards I went home, we would write letters to each other constantly, and I would be so excited when I got the letters, my hands would be shaking. At some point it kind of dawned on me that this was not a friendship. I had feelings for her that were romantic. At that time I said I was bisexual but by the time I was 18 and went off to college I realized I wasn’t very interested in men.”
F3 “When I was 19, I was taking a class at UC Berkley, female sexuality. It was during that semester, when I was in that class, I started to realize that I was attracted to women. I realized that I had been exhibiting behaviors, kind of wanting to take care of my girlfriends, do nice things for them. I thought, “Oh that’s interesting,” wanting to kind of be their partner, be strong, stand up for them, if need be or be loving towards them. That could be friendship or that could be something more.”
F4 “I never questioned heterosexuality really; I think that I question homosexuality. I started to really question heterosexuality or the right to be different when I was about 27 years old. Since that moment I’ve always questioned homosexuality.”
In these answers we see the different ways in which the question of “who am I attracted to” came about. For F1, she new at a very young age, so young she didn’t understand and know what to do with the feelings. F2’s realization came out of a friendship with a female. F3 made the self-realization through a college course, helping her realize that a lot of her behavior towards female friends was treading a line that maybe she wanted to cross. F4 on the other hand, didn’t question heterosexuality as much as she questioned her homosexual feelings. And through that questioning of “a right to be different” started to question what it meant to be homosexual.
To understand the outer perception of heterosexuality, I asked the question, “what is heterosexuality for you?” Both F1 and F2, believed the concept of heterosexuality was, in reality more fluid, less fixed.
F1“There are people in the world who are heterosexual completely, there are people in this world who are homosexual completely, but most of us fall between these two categories, closer to one side or the other.”
F2 “On the Kinsey scale, there is no ideal model of what heterosexuality or homosexuality is, what you are mainly attracted to, that is what you are.”
F3 and F4 both saw social constraints in the term heterosexuality.
F3 “It’s conventional, it’s accepted, what’s considered normal in society. I am Bisexual, so I feel like I can look it at it both as an insider and an outsider. For me it’s nice in a way. Sometimes when I am with women I feel like I want to occupy the typically more masculine role, and sometimes I want to occupy the typically more feminine role. In a heterosexual situation I get to be the women, which is sometimes very nice and very sweet feeling.”
F4 [Heterosexuality is] “The way you should behave to be accepted in society. The normal, the guideline, which I think is very unfair for some people who cannot live by that guide.”
When asked about the term Institution of Heterosexuality, both F1 and F4 saw the institution of heterosexuality as a social demand; something that is placed upon society to follow.
F1 “Heterosexuality as a norm is incredibly pervasive, incredibly wide reaching, hard to approach and dismantle. The Institution really relates to what we think of as a healthy family. What a lot of people think about is mom, dad and kids as the healthiest version of a family. I have come to believe that families come in different unique ways. People have come to fear families that are different because of the institution of heterosexuality and its pervasiveness. If I had kids, I would want them to think they where loved and cared for, not that their family didn’t fit the societal norm.”
F4 “The church, the only argument that really gives heterosexuality a reason. Take out religion and then you don’t really have arguments against or in favor of heterosexuality… By saying it is the only way that you can go to god. It is better for you to stay un-married than to live with a partner from your own sex. If you do live with a partner and have sex with that partner, then you will go to hell. You won’t be allowed to go into heaven’s doors. It is difficult to fight against that, if they tell you that God said that, it is like that, how do you fight that?”
F2, however had a very different response, one that more explored the reasons behind the institution of heterosexuality on a personal level.
F2 “Ninety-five percent of people in the world are straight, then they are going to see the world from that perspective. People who are not into gay rights don’t know the history, not out of malice, it just never crossed their mind to care… It’s not a conscious attempt to make everybody straight; it’s more a consequence of privilege. If you’ve never had to think about it you’re not going to, to the extent that you’re white male and heterosexual you only have to be that for five minutes a day, the rest of us have to be what we are all the time, it’s not called to your attention if you’re the default.”
When questioning heterosexuality, does this lead to questioning one’s gender identity? Or does questioning one’s gender identity lead to questioning heterosexuality? For F1 and F2, both felt that they questioned heterosexuality, not their gender identities.
F1 “I questioned heterosexuality because I felt attracted to women, not because I didn’t want to be a girl. I am happy with being a feminine, girly, strong woman. I am not into the extra’s, such as make up, shopping or handbags, but I like the energy of the female gender.”
F2 “I was questioning heterosexuality first, because by the time I reached adulthood I was fairly comfortable with my gender. Heterosexuality I had to deal with, whether I wanted to or not, on a personal level.”
Maybe both F1 and F2, felt comfortable in their gender while questioning heterosexuality due to the exploration of gender identity at younger ages. For F3 and F4, questioning heterosexuality, was also questioning what it meant to be a woman, for them as individuals.
F3 “I’ve never really questioned my gender identity. I’ve questioned what it means to me to be a woman or what I want it to be. It’s more about what other people think or what other people may want to think, it’s not about me so much, because to me I am just me. I am a woman that is strong and bold and assertive and am also someone who’s very tender and sensitive. I can’t always give support; sometimes I need to receive it. To me I view myself as a woman but more so I just view myself as a person.”
F4 “I questioned my gender identity when I was really young, maybe about 19-20, because by that moment I knew I liked girls, but I liked men also, so I didn’t know how to behave or how I was supposed to identify. If I liked girls that would mean that I was a lesbian, but by liking boys also, that means I was heterosexual. By that moment I didn’t know there was something in-between called bisexuality, so I didn’t know how to identify myself because I thought that I was supposed to dress as a lesbian, which is in a very masculine way, because I was supposed to be wanting to be a man. Which is a very childish way to think, but at that time where I was there was not too much information. As I started to grow up I started to find my own identity, I started to question heterosexuality, why should I apply to an identity that is already built, instead of my building my own identity? I questioned heterosexuality, and built my own identity which led me to question heterosexuality even more.”
What does it mean to follow a different discourse than the one of heterosexuality? I asked F1 and F2 what being a lesbian meant to them.
F1 “I would define it as a women being sexually and romantically attracted to another women. What it means to me is that we get to create our lives the way we want.”
F2 “There is an institution of lesbianism too, which is good and bad. On one hand, it can be a really positive unity to be a part of. It is a certain kind of understanding you have with a person, that you don’t have with somebody else or even a gay man…there is something lesbians have with relations to each other. It can also be negative. There are a lot of stereotypes even in the lesbian community about what you’re supposed to be. If you’re a lesbian, you’re supposed to present your gender in a certain way. If you’re too feminine, and I am fairly feminine, that’s looked down upon, or you’re not really gay or you should try harder to fit in with us, and that can be oppressive in it’s own way…It’s very hard for butch women too, there’s an expectation that you’ll be alternative in an confirmative way.”
I asked F3 and F4, what it meant to them to be bisexual F3 “It means having a lot of freedom, and even if I don’t act on it or nothing ever occurs from it, but allow myself to acknowledge my attraction for people, whether they are gender A or gender B. It’s honestly what’s more authentic to me than choosing I am only attracted to women or I am only attracted to men, because that’s not the case for me… I think there’s pressure, even in the bay area and a really excepting family, for me to be straight, because it’s what’s considered ‘normal’. Not that anyone would really have a problem if I was with a woman, just a little easier for people around me if I was with a man. It might feel more clear cut to them if I were to say I am a lesbian.”
F4 “I label my self a human being but when I am with a woman I am labeled a lesbian.”
Relationship Dynamics: Gender Roles and Power Dynamics
The discovery of one’s sexuality does not happen overnight. For this, I asked the women, what was their journey out of heterosexuality like? All of them had different stories.
F1 “Me and my friend went to the gay pride parade as ‘straight allies’. When we got there, this reporter from the Chronicle asked us about sexuality. I answered everyone’s bisexual, in a very cerebral research way…then she asked what is your name and sexual orientation, since I just went off on this thing that everyone’s bisexual, I said ‘I am bisexual’ … I got on the phone to my sister and said ‘I think I just came out, but am not sure. I have to check tomorrows Chronicle.’ At that time I was still dating men.”
F2 “I sort of wanted to believe that I was bisexual for a long time, keep open the possibility that I could be ‘normal’ at some point. I kept trying to have relationships with men, whom I treated fairly badly in retrospect. In high school, I strung them along for a long time, I kept wanting to think there’s something wrong with me because I am not feeling anything for them, if I keep stringing them along, at some point it may naturally develop, that I do feel something for them and that was not realistic. It was not until I went to college, I started meeting other gay people, other lesbians. It didn’t seem so much like the end of the world if I was gay and it didn’t preclude me having what ever kind of life I wanted to have. At that point I started to realize that is who I was.”
F3 “I was in this class, where we were encouraged to ask ourselves questions and I remember thinking, “I am attracted to women.” There was an assignment and I was like, yeah, I fit into that middle category. When I was physically with women it was confirmed for me that I liked that.”
F4 “My first kiss was from a girl. My first relationship was with a boy and my first sexual relationship was with a woman. Since I can remember, I’ve been attracted to both sexes. When I was a little girl I felt very attracted to girls and boys. I didn’t know what that was, and it was very confusing for me cause I didn’t know what was happening. At 14 years old, I understood there was a sexual attraction (to woman) actually, but I did not know that it could be. So I was worried, not to be attracted to so many women, because I thought that I should feel different than men. It was not until 17-18 years old that I understood that I was attracted to both sexes equally. I expected to have magic happen with a man that the one would come and then I would know that he was the one, but no. I didn’t know there were lesbians, so I thought it was normal in a certain way and when the real attraction came I would feel it. At 18 I had a close encounter with a female friend and understood that that was attraction and that was it. I liked men and women and it was equally the same. It took me a long time to accept that… I was trying to find my identity, but then I realized I didn’t need to find my identity, but the right person. Women don’t try and overpower you, don’t want to, so it’s a more equal relationship, so I’ve been involved more with women than men since I made that discovery”
Everyone plays roles in relationships. The question is what roles are we playing and do you play different roles for different people. Does your role change when you are with a person of a different sex compared to the same sex? F1 describes not knowing her role in her first female relationship F1 “In college I dated this woman, who just got out of a relationship with a guy, and who was very feminine. I thought that I had to be more masculine; sometimes I felt like we were acting. I thought she wanted a more masculine person. I played with lowering my voice, pretended to be more jealous than I actually was…In my senior year I started dating a woman. I wasn’t trying to act like the man in relationship. I was trying to act as much as myself as I actually could, so I could enjoy being a girl who wears lip-gloss and kisses a girl who wears lip-gloss as well.”
For F1 and F2, dating men consisted of the man, in a sense, trying to catch them. For F2, the role she played for women switched with the one she played with men.
F1 “When I dated men, I was trying to be the sort of feminine woman that was pretending not to be a lesbian, acting like a hurried business woman would act. I didn’t want to slow down long enough to have to sleep with him or cuddle with him. A woman who had so much on her plate that dating is the last thing on her mind, a woman who was always on the move.”
F2 “With women I’ve always been sort of the pursuer, I guess in some ways you can say, is the traditionally male role, I don’t know, I’m always the one who seeks the person out. The reverse happened when I was with men. In my mind, and I was young and I know this isn’t fair, I sort of saw it as getting back, because I had something they wanted, but not something I had to give up. Because I didn’t want to have sexual relations with them or anything like that, I could get things from them, emotionally and get a certain amount of worship, for lack of a better word. I feel like I could make them do things, sort of the reverse of my relationships with women in some way… Women had something I wanted. I was longing for them and I felt so privileged in some ways that a woman I was attracted to or in love with would want to be with me. I would do a lot for them and really put myself out there. With men I sort of expected them to do that for me, because it got me that sense of being really wanted, that I didn’t always get from being in relationships with women.”
For F3 and F4, who are both attracted to men and woman, they talked about the roles the men they dated expected them to play.
F3 “When I dated men, it was normal, standard, heterosexual. When I started being with women, I felt like I was able to occupy both sides and have a little more freedom to be where ever I was in the moment, whether it was the more masculine or feminine side. With men, the feminine side more naturally happened, and depending on the man that I was with, they sometimes would not be comfortable if I was being masculine or exhibiting some of those traits. They would say little comments, like ‘why are you doing that?’, ‘you should do this’.”
F4 “With the men, I would allow them to perform some masculine traits, like let them open the door for me and sometimes I would challenge them, ‘I don’t want you to open the door for me.’”
In relationships, there are not just roles, but there are also power dynamics, in some relationships more than others. How do the power dynamics change in different relationships? With people of different sexes? F2, F3 and F4 all talked about the different power relations they had while dating men and women.
F2 “I often felt more powerless in my relationships with woman, because it was real on an emotional level. It was something that I wanted so much. If you’re in love with someone or just very longing for them, you just feel like they have you wrapped around their finger, with men, once I realized I could be attractive, I could have a certain kind of power over them.”
F3 “When I dated men, there was a sense of sometimes yielding to what they say, or taking their word for it, or going along with whatever they say, or saying okay, they know what they’re talking about and maybe I don’t, and that occurs with me much more with men then with women. With women there’s a lot more sort of exchange and back and forth and communication about these details… Sometimes there is pressure from men, when they are like ‘hey I know what am talking about, leave it’. Often woman give more space for questioning.”
F4 “The places where you could see the dominance was in sexual relationships where men always wanted to be in control, and I would let them… I had one relationship with a female, and she was older than me, around like 4 years older, and she wanted to have a certain dominance. For example she didn’t want me going out if I wasn’t going with her, or she didn’t want me to wear make up even though she would wear makeup, but am not sure if that was a dominance thing or if she wanted to look better because we’re still girls and are still competing; I don’t know for whom… I think it’s like a kind of power relationship. Women are valued more for their physical appearance than by their strength, so that’s the way a woman can show that she is more powerful, is by being more beautiful or feminine or more attractive in some way…I think most men who I dated, wanted to break me down; they wanted to be with me because I was very strong. I think it became an obsession for them because they wanted to be with me, to break me down, and that would prove that they where very powerful because the managed to break me down. Sometimes they were very macho. This one man I dated wouldn’t want me to go out, even though he would go out. If I were to go out, I wasn’t supposed to do that, because I was a girl. We talked about getting married and he told me he wouldn’t want me to work, because he wouldn’t want another guy looking at my butt… I broke up with him... I come from a very known family, people know who I am, where I come from, and one woman I dated wanted to use that, use my power, she felt more powerful being with me. But my other relationships with women are more equal, it’s like being with a friend, you just have sex with that friend.”
F1, Described the equality she has found with dating women.
F1 “If you’re both feminine, which is what I personally like, who does have the power? It changes back and forth. Who makes certain decisions; is it sexy when you push for something you want or is it sexy when you make them come to you?”
When asked if they felt a partner ever reminded them of a parent, F1, F3 and F4 all said yes. F2 said no. I followed that question up with asking if they felt that recreating the relationship dynamics of their parents, the heterosexual relationships that they grew up with, if this is a heterosexual pattern. And can we change these patterns through gay and lesbian relationships?
F1 “Yes there are patterns that you can change through lesbian relationships and we are re-conceiving gender all the time. But at the same time you’re always in a relationship with a person, so they’ve come with their norms and baggage… We all grow up with a family or in some particular dynamic, even if we intellectually want to be different, even so our earliest memories and the things that impact us as very little children will be with us. I would say, yes we can change the patterns of one person having more power, change the patterns of somebody being subservient and somebody being very powerful and making all the decisions….At the same time if what we want resembles the way that we grew up it’s pretty understandable”
F2 “You’re less likely to end up with a partner who is willing to play the opposite sex role, but I’ve watched gay people screw up relationships the same way their parents did. You can be a gay man and still have married your mother.”
F3 “I think it’s more likely that it will change in those relationships, but those patterns still can occur.”
F4 “I think so, I once told my mom that I would never marry a guy and she asked me why and I said, “Tell me the name of one guy who has never cheated on his wife or girlfriend,” and she couldn’t. At least in my context I’ve never met a couple that wouldn’t perform the same patriarchal traits, like cheating on their wives. I think it’s very important for Mexican men, to show their masculinity by having many women. So if you are a man, even though you don’t sleep with another woman, then you are not considered manly enough. Men have to work and bring the bread to the house, the one who is supposed to be the head of the family. Women can work but it’s an option. If you are a man it’s not an option, you have to do it.”
I asked about patterns within lesbian and gay relationships, and if they are different or the same as those in heterosexual relationships.
F1 “We get to break out of those gender molds. We don’t have to be cardboard cut outs of “this is what a man is; this is what a woman is.” But if we want what we want, that’s the way it is. We don’t have to change our underlying desires. If we desire and are attracted to feminine women, rather than making ourselves attracted