Hush Hush: Lesbian Erasure & a Rhetorical Study of Lesbian Letters
Introduction
Hello everyone. My name is Kara Ireland, and I was a graduate student in Dr. Guglielmo’s Feminist Rhetorics class when I completed my final project on the rhetorical study of lesbian letters.
When I was sixteen, I documented my growing romantic feelings for a close girl friend in my journal. Despite the privacy of my diary, I referred to her with male pronouns. In earlier entries, I even changed her name to a boy’s name starting with the same letter[KI1] . This was an anxious failsafe employed to protect my image as a (presumably) straight girl in a judgmental high school environment. Additionally, when I became more emboldened in my orientation, I began telling friends about my girl crush by omitting details. I used gender-neutral language (they/them pronouns) compulsively to be truer to myself without compromising everything I had been protecting thus far. I did not come out or self-identify as a lesbian until the age of seventeen. I trivialized my experiences and learned to bury them. As a result, my coming out journey has been marred by compulsory heterosexuality, internalized homophobia, and the constant combatting of heteronormativity.
In my research on the rhetorical strategies of lesbian correspondence, I have realized that my story is not unique. Due to our heteronormative and patriarchal society, these roadblocks are unfortunately a staple of the lesbian history. Heteronormativity, “which signifies the idea that heterosexuality, with its implied senses of gender and sex, is considered to be normal, universal, and desirable,” along with the patriarchy, are the dominant ideologies of Western culture; these oppressive forces are responsible for homophobia, compulsive heterosexuality, and lesbian erasure. The other half of this oppressive societal structure is the patriarchy, the unequal power structure that centers and prioritizes the needs, feelings, and desires of men over women. Compulsory heterosexuality stems from the patriarchal sentiment to satisfy a man—emotionally, sexually, materialistically, and for his safety and well-being. Along with that is the internalized notion of deviance and self-hatred for not abiding by our societal roles as women.
Feminist rhetorics is concerned with the rhetorical value and strategy of women’s texts, but it usually exists in conversation with men. I do not wish to divert any attention to men in my essay because they are not central to lesbian conversations, despite being responsible for compulsive heterosexuality and internalized homophobia. Additionally, sometimes lesbian issues can take a back seat in feminist discourse. So, I am purposefully centering exclusively lesbian texts. To supplement my stance, I use lesbian poet and feminist Adrienne Rich’s observation that there is a “virtual or total neglect of lesbian existence in a wide range of writings, including feminist scholarship” (632). Consequently, I am not impressed by vague texts that substantiate the notion that exclusively lesbian texts merely exist; it is not enough that they exist. They should be revered and studied like heteronormative and patriarchal texts.
With that statement, I studied lesbian texts while asserting the validity of the lesbian letter and arguing that it is suitable for rhetorical study. As such, I was interested in the heteronormative influences on the narrative and autoethnographic voices in diaries, journals, love letters, notes, and other personal writing from sapphic writers. I had prioritized the texts of traditionally unpublished writers and common women because I am arguing that these influences permeate those beyond the academic (or otherwise intellectual) sphere. I wanted to study the craft of women who did not intend for their texts to reach a specific, wide audience to be sure they are not trying to convey any particular, curated message. As Turner provides,
“Letters provide freedom from the claims of reality precisely because they are private, recording desires necessarily silenced by prevalent social codes. Letters promise to reveal secrets, examine private passions, step away the social mask, and expose the real person. They attempt to create an image of self and are the effect of such an effort.” (qtd. in Benstock 15).
By centering the texts of common women, I argue that there is beauty in authenticity, in sincere emotion and the truest of sentiments.
Bonnie Morris reports in her book entitled The Disappearing L: Erasure of Lesbian Spaces and Culture that, “once an empowered statement of out and proud, [lesbian is] now an identity buried within the topical hierarchy of queer studies, gay marriage, gender identity” (16). Therefore, for the purposes of that paper, I had employed Turner’s sentiment that “I count all such passionate, imaginative, devoted love between women as lesbian” (14). This is not to discredit the freedoms and liberties that are aligned with selecting a label that feels right for oneself; it was for the sake of simplicity. Lesbian is not a dirty word, and my analysis of lesbian love letters is intended to promote the delicate nature of romantic texts between women while acknowledging the outside forces sculpting them.
Rhetorical Analysis
Some of these lesbian letters are subsumed by the art of ambiguity, which I argue is an intentional choice. Although context is usually granted to the intended recipient of the letter, it can also be concluded that some things were omitted because of their compromising contents. Here is an excerpt from the first letter I will be analyzing:
“… Since receiving your letter I have … wondered if I was wrong in thinking the way I do … I will never understand, though from books I have read, there must have been a tendency even if only subconsciously. It worried me for years—when you hear (because I will not write it) that chapter I don’t think you are going to want to believe me …” – Isabel, 1946 (Turner 40).
What Isabel seems most anguished by in this excerpt is the notion of revealing her sexuality in print. I want to pay specific attention to what she’s put in parenthesis: “because I will not write it,” which is an intentional boundary placed in the confines of letter writing that disallow the reader to gain access to the information she has deemed too personal. This is a limitation of studying a collection of submitted letters—I only have access to unidirectional, partial sentiments. However, there are several indicators that she perceives her lesbian desires as a threat to her stability.
In scrutinizing her reserved language, I turn to the date of the letter: the year is 1946. The forties were amidst the era in which homosexuality was considered a perverse, psychological disorder by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). (Homosexuality would not go on to be depathologized until 1987). As a result, queer people could get fired from their professions, disqualified from military positions, and even jailed for their orientation; with this context, her reservations in language make sense. Isabel is clearly communicating with a confidant about this, but despite the trust between them, the willingness to name her affliction reveals some discontent with her assumed orientation.
Isabel’s refusal to document what has worried her—her refusal to name her homoerotic feelings—may be a symptom of internalized homophobia. The negative language she uses (“wrong,” “subconsciously,” “worried”) suggests internal uneasiness with the subject of homosexuality, whether that stems from fears about how she will be perceived, the dangers of the letter getting intercepted, or some other personal reason (qtd in Turner 40). I am never to know the contents of her mind or heart when writing that letter, but there are enough reasons considering the political and social climate of the 40s to believe the homophobic rhetoric has affected her.
Alternatively, this next excerpt contrasts Isabel’s anxious, preoccupied ambiguity, suggesting that political and social climate does not adversely affect everyone in the same ways.
“… My dear dear Tiny Heart, why shouldn’t you have all the love that … I can give you? And don’t get frightened over the little we can express—Think of the vast unsaid.” – Jane, 1909 (Turner 42).
In what I recognize as one of my favorite letters of the Turner collection, I continue the discussion of ambiguity. There is beauty in brevity, and this excerpt is so wonderfully concise but rich. This letter is assumed to be addressed to Jane’s lover, based on contextual evidence such as how she references her as “my dear dear Tiny Heart. This letter was written in 1909, forty years senior to Isabel’s letter, but it has less reservations and anxieties. Rather, there seems to be a content settling over the tone of the letter, as if both of the women in this sphere knew they were safe with, trusted, and protected by one another. Despite its length, Jane’s letter reveals more about her inclinations for readily giving and receiving lesbian love than Isabel, and I believe this is due to Jane having significantly less internalized homophobia.
In my analyses of these lesbian letters, I have provided rhetorical evidence for my hypothesis that these oppressive institutions permeate more than what is advocated against by LGBT activism. Some of these forces are invisible, but felt. In the end, the question becomes where do we go from here? In what context or conversations does work like this fit into? My answer is that I am forging a space for lesbian texts by first validating them as artifacts worthy of study, and also by connecting it to larger themes that affect and oppress all women despite sexual orientation. As Morris observed, lesbians have been silenced, buried in discussions of queer studies and feminist studies respectively. I don’t believe lesbians should have to share the spotlight with a larger group; our texts are valuable and should exist in abundance alongside other fields. I close with an impactful nugget from Rich, suggesting that not only lesbians, but all women are
“stuck with trying to reform a man-made institution--compulsory heterosexuality--as if, despite profound emotional impulses and complementarities drawing women toward women, there is a mystical/biological heterosexual inclination, a "preference" or "choice" which draws women toward men” (Rich 637).
In order to close the gaps of understanding, validation, and scholarship, women have got to perceive these specific issues as something oppressing us all—for until all of us are free, none of us are free.
That [KI2] is why I have dedicated my Master’s Thesis and Capstone to lesbian celebration. I conducted my literature review on the various forms of lesbian erasure, and it has only invigorated my quest toward creating a space dedicated to lesbian visibility.
With the title inspired from an excerpt of one of the letters I studied, I have created a website called “The Vast Unsaid: A Place for Lesbian Celebration.” This research has inspired me to study and document the preservation of lesbian history with a specific focus on intimacy, love, and romantic communications between women. This digital archive may include photos, videos, handwritten artifacts, art pieces, essays, stories, and more. I am hosting an event in collaboration with Southern Fried Queer Pride to call for submissions in two weeks on April 5 from 7-10 PM at Hodgepodge Coffee in Atlanta. I want to leave no room for our stories to be rewritten or silenced any longer. My intentions are to give visibility to issues around inclusion and intimacy in the digital age, but to also prioritize ethical modes of sharing and safe measures of doing so.
[KI1]You can scan this page from your journal if you want to and put it in the visual.
[KI2]Shift to plugging your project, should have a flyer and date by SEWSA, so a visual of the event.