And Still, the Lesbian Threat

SUMMARY

The regulatory fictions of sex and gender have been implicated in the maintenance of a compulsory heterosexual order and gender hierarchy. Through a consideration of particular geographies of oppression and resistance -local white feminist anti-violence activism -this paper illustrates some of the concrete manifestations of the deployment of these fictions in the regulation of gendered performances. By presenting certain aspects of political activism as ‘UnWomanly Acts,’ it is suggested that the frequent marginalization and displacement of politicized lesbians and other transgressive females in specific locations reduces the potential of these as sites of resistance, whilst simultaneously shoring up the regulatory power of the terms lesbian and woman. The paper hopes to add to projects of re-assessment and re-alignment current in anti-oppression struggles, by reaffirming the threat that multiple lesbian identities continue to pose to heterosexual hegemony across space.

Key Words:

• Lesbian
• anti-violence
• activism
• transgression
• regulation

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ali Grant

Ali Grant has recently completed a PhD at McMaster University, Canada. Her thesis is entitled “Geographies of oppression and resistance: Contesting the reproduction of the Heterosexual Regime.”