The Lesbian Feminist Movement in Mexico

THE LESBIAN FEMINIST MOVEMENT IN MEXICO, ITS INDEPENDENCE

IN RELATION TO THE HETEROSEXUAL AND GAY MOVEMENTS AND ITS
HISTORICAL MISSION

To that siren of the war song To that beautiful black amazon For her impeccable re-
evolutionary commitment To Ochy Curiel

Lesbian Feminist Movement The present essay refers to the Lesbian

Feminist Movement, its autonomous character and its differences with
the other sexual-political movements; on the one hand, its disparity with
the Heterosexual Feminist Movement; and, on the other hand, its
divergence with the Homosexual, Lesbian-Homosexual, Gay, Lesbian-
gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Transexual, LGBT, Queer and, in general,
Sexual Diversity Movements. At the same time, it refers to points of
coincidence with them.

The Lesbian Feminist Movement constitutes a political

proposal and a cosmic vision totally different from the two blocks
mentioned above, a proposal which they have rejected or at least
ignored, as a result of the patriarchal characteristics which pervade the
heterosexual feminist movement and prevail in the gay and sexual
diversity movements as a whole. At present, the Lesbian Feminist
Movement finds itself in the midst of a maelstrom of confusion and
disorder, because it is submitted to a patriarchal-neoliberal political
discourse which has kept it under the supremacy of the sexual-political
blocks previously mentioned, as well as in the midst of the most abject
commercialisation and belittling of human sexuality, with the purpose of
neutralising the political character and eliminate the re-evolutionary
proposal of lesbian feminism.
The process of gayification of the lesbian movement is closely linked to
the neoliberal process of commercialisation (free trade) of the sexual-
political movements, parallel with the process of patriarchalisation of
feminism, as initiatives emanating from the dynamic of patriarchal
globalisation.

In order for the Lesbian Feminist Movement to grow and also fully
develop, it needs to decisively overcome its atavism in relation with the
heterosexual feminist movement and liberate itself from its
subordination to the gay movement. On an autonomous basis, it could
then establish policies of alliances with the Gay Movement and the
Heterosexual Feminist Movement, without being submitted to
gayification or hetero-feminisation. But, previous to this, its priority is to
establish alliances with the international altermundista movements and
with the new feminist left, with the workers’, peasants’, native, popular,
students’, racial, service workers’ and ecological feminists’ movements,
as well as international revolutionary movements.

The present analysis is not limited to promoting the struggle for the
independence of the Lesbian Feminist Movement with respect to its
subordination to the two blocks mentioned above, neither to its struggle
against neoliberal lesbianism and patriarchalised feminism, but it also
continues to promote the struggle against the international structures of
patriarchal domination as a whole: the WTO, the WB, the IMF, USAID,
the UN policies, the inhumane trade agreements such as the FTAA,
among others.

First all, this analysis refers to the urgent need to reconstruct the
ideological-political basis and the organised social ranks of radical and
re-evolutionary lesbian feminism. This essay constitutes a step towards
the recuperation of a history of our own which began in the mid-
seventies in Mexico and whose three main lines continue to develop at
present: Acratas (Anarchists), Lesbos and Oikabeth I. It is an incursion
which allows for the analysis of the past in order to understand the
present and prepare the future. It is a history that the neoliberal forces
of the gay and feminist right have pretended to bury, as representatives
of the actual, ultimate and devastating offensive of patriarchy: the
neoliberal globalisation and savage capitalism.

It is not a question of “going back” to the past, but rather to recuperate

the essence, the primordial sense of what was and still is the lesbian
feminist liberation struggle, which was the starting point for the
liberation of all the women, the latter being a the same time the
condition for the liberation of humanity as a whole.

The purpose of this essay is not in any way reduced to a lament for the
refusal of the Lesbian Feminist Movement on the part of the two blocks
previously mentioned. On the contrary, it constitutes a revaluation of it
profoundly revolutionary character, which is the reason behind the wish
to eliminate it, or at least to neutralise it by subordinating it, submitting
it or confounding it with these other two movements, as simply a “part”,
an appendix (Adam’s rib), or a by-product of the hetero-feminist politics
or the politics of the: gays, bisexuals, Sexual Diversity, LGBT or Queer
and also presently: multisexuals, sadomasoquism, swingers, menages,
sodomites, voyeurs, trisexuals, coprophilia, zoophilia, necrophilia, etc.

Those are movements which have wanted to reduce lesbianism from a

women’s rebellion to a vulgar genital matter or, as Cheryl Clark, a black
American lesbian said, from Lesbianism: an act of resistance to a trivial
option or a sexual preference. The lesbian movement has not been able
to grow or to develop precisely for the control exerted by the women
leaders: gay, homosexual lesbians, gay lesbians, LGTB, queers,
transexuals... from Sexual Diversity and, now, multisexuals, who have
dedicated themselves to speak in the name of and to represent lesbians
in the sphere of national and international political power, in what has
been called Institutional Lesbianism, which is nothing but Neoliberal
Lesbianism, and, of course, to control the funds directed to “Lesbian
affairs”.

As Marx said, whoever has the economic control has political,

ideological, cultural, spiritual and.... sexual control. Or they have simply
dedicated themselves to take advantage of the lesbian community,
submitting it to frivolity, alcohol, drugs, sexual exacerbation, non-
conscience or prostitution.

What these gay women, hetero-feminists and institutional lesbians have

never understood is that: the lesbian feminist struggle is not against
men but against patriarchy, not against “individuals”, but against a
“social system”, given that patriarchy is made up of men, but also of
profoundly misogynous women and, furthermore, a man is not defined
by his sexuality but according to his level of conscience and
commitment; hence the possibility that there exist more affinity with a
feminist man than with a patriarchal woman or lesbian. Likewise, a brief
mention is made of the historical transcendence of the Lesbian Feminist
Movement and more specifically the radical and re-evolutionary Lesbian
Feminism and its contributions towards the construction of a new world
social system based on a harmonic relation between humanity and
nature and the planet.

Now, in view of “the end of history” or the apocalypse of patriarchal

domination, the design of the parameters of the future society
corresponds to the Autonomous and Re-evolutionary Lesbian Movement,
as a vanguard along with the ethnic, native and indigenous, non-white
racial, women’s, workers’ and peasants, popular, service and students’
social sectors, with the white poor and the international revolutionary
left and all the oppressed of the world. For them: We assume our
historical mission!

Omeyotl.
Colaboración: Amelia Islas.