Developing lesbian identity: a sociohistorical approach
Arianna Sala1
Manuel L. de la Mata Benítez
University of Seville
The aim of this paper is to develop a narrative approach to the study of
sexual identity. To this end, it will focus on identity as a dialogical construction,
related to the discourses and representations found in our cultural setting.
The analysis applied in this study is based on a sociocultural perspective,
which states that humans are social beings, no only because of the way in which
our beliefs and behaviours are socially influenced, but also because our capacity
for thinking and acting is constructed socially. As Vygotsky (1978; Wertsch,
1985) noted, the human mind is not only shaped socially, but also constructed
socially.
From this perspective, the personal narratives of a group of lesbian
women have been analysed using qualitative methodological approach. These
women were interviewed about their lives and particular emphasis was placed
on the way in which they have integrated lesbianism into their personal
identities. This paper focuses on certain key themes that emerged from the
interviews, relating to the self and lesbianism. The analysis views
homosexuality (and sexuality in general) as a historical-cultural construction
and assumes a model of sexuality in terms of sexual choice.
1. Departamento de Psicología Experimental. Universidad de Sevilla. arianna8@libero.it
IDENTITY AND NARRATIVE
Questions relating to identity become problematic owing to the
pluralisation and fragmentation of relational experiences (Gergen 1992). In fact,
we live in a social system that promotes the phenomenon of belonging to
different social groups, none of which can exclusively define the perspectives
for action and thought of the people living in that system.
Post-modern freedom to access different social contexts and experience
sometimes incongruent roles makes it extremely difficult to gain a stable view
of our place in the world. Moreover, the possibility of disengaging from the
system of social expectations (as in the specific case of lesbian women, for
instance) increases mobility between different roles and life experiences.
However, at the same time, it forces the individual to deal with strong tension
in relation to the external environment , since it encourages people to present
themselves as possessing a stable identity (useful only in that specific context)
and, at the same time, to avoid the reduction of its complexity by using selfdefinitions acquired in other domains of experience.
Regarding the notion of self, Bruner (2003, pp 210) claims: “…there is no
such thing as an intuitively obvious and essential self… Rather we constantly construct
and reconstruct ourselves to meet the needs of situations we encounter, and we do so
with the guidance of our memories of the past and our hopes and fears for the future.
Telling oneself about oneself is like making up a story about who and what we are, wha
ha happened, and why we are doing what we are doing”.
In our task of narrative self-making, we do not start from scratch every
time, but rather we develop styles and habits that, over time, become a
discourse genre (Bruner, 2003).
Our narratives get older and we need to re-narrate them to match the
new circumstances in our lives.
At the same time, our narratives are rooted in more or less implicit
cultural models about what a person should and should not be. These models
provide the guidelines for the formation of individual identity. As Hermans
(2003) states: “Collective voices are not simply outside the self as an external
community, but rather they are part of the individual self and, at the same time,
transcend it as part of the broader historical and social community.”(p.105)
Therefore, there is a link between what we tell ourselves and what we
tell others, based on what we believe others expect us to be. So, our personal
narratives become influenced by what we think other people expect of us. The
assumption that our personal narratives (which provide us with a sense of
identity and uniqueness) are determined by others, is in line with Ricoeur’s
philosophy of (1962) of “Oneself as Another”.
At the same time, the different social theories and discourses with which
we come into contact (whether individually or collectively) leave traces in our
discourses, and, as Wertsch (1998) claims: “The acceptance of a particular utterance
by an individual agent is not simply a matter of dispassionate, reflective choice. Instead,
it is often shaped by the power and authority associated with items in the “cultural toolkit” (Wertsch, 1991) provided by a sociocultural setting. In this sense, mediational
means are differentially imbued with power and authority” (p. 66). This invests
discourses with the authority of the person who produces them, so that certain
contents are more acceptable and legitimate than others, depending on the
origin of the utterance.
Through narrative, individuals both express themselves and actively
construct their own self-representation: “identity is that internalized and evolving
story that results from this selective appropriation of past, present, and future” claims
McAdams (1999 p. 486) in his theory on identity.
Thus, modern psychological research (McAdams 1999, Bruner 2003) have
abandoned the essentialist view of identity maintained in the Cartesian
philosophical tradition, which understands the self as something permanent,
that inhabits its own “kingdom” and possesses an integrity that exists before
and is separate from its relations with others. From our perspective, identity is
conceptualised as a story, full of actions, settings, scenes, themes and characters.
Identity is a life-story that, as a narrative, is linked to the context of production
and to the social discourses and representations that permeate any given society
and provide a framework for establishing which contents are legitimate and
acceptable.
However, we can see a contradiction in psychological theory as identity
is conceived as a narrative construction but, at the same time, , when speaking
about sexual identities, two contrasting approaches to describing and
understanding this process appear: on the one hand, there are the “categorical”
positions of those who regard heterosexuality and homosexuality as two
different and mutually exclusive classes, with clear boundaries. They assume
that intra-group differences are small and instead maximise inter-group
differences. They also assume that there is coherence between desire,
perception and interpretation of desire. This position leads to an essentialist
interpretation of homosexual identity, considered not as a process, but rather as
the discovery of something that lies dormant in the very depths of the self;
something that should be allowed to emerge. This sexological approach
interprets sexual orientation as an original strength that responds to the laws of
nature (and cannot be sanctioned for that): understands variations in the
correspondence between desire and perception of desire as forms of
incoherence, or false consciousness with regard to the “true” underlying sexual
orientation.
On
the
other
hand
constructivist
and
queer
(Butler
1993)
conceptualisations claim that sexual (and gender) identities are historical and
social products, rather than natural and intra-psychic phenomena. These
approaches argue against an essentialist view of identities and reject the idea of
a binary organisation that draws a line between heterosexual and homosexual,
woman and man, female and male…They also argue that these dichotomous
approaches are questioned by the existence of persons who define themselves
and act as bi-sexual, transgender, transsexual or, more generally queer, and
allow varied, non-stable and non-hierarchically ordered combinations of sexual
desire orientations, behaviours and self-definitions to emerge. Homosexuality
and heterosexuality are considered as products of the cultural organization of
Western societies and a new conceptualization of sexuality, free of the rigid ties
represented by gender roles, is defended .
These two contrasting theories about homosexuality become part of the
narrative corpus, of the discursive material that is available for those who have
to incorporate homosexual identity into their personal identity. This makes the
academic debate turn into political, as both discourses are associated to
different self-representations (stable sexual option due to biology versus
unstable sexual option as a result of choice) and different political strategies
(claim for difference versus claim of equality).
This explains the relevance and interest in studying the life-stories of
homosexual women, because they reveal the deconstruction process of
stigmatising social discourse and the search for alternative meanings for the
construction of non-stigmatised life-stories and representations of identity.
SEXUALITY
AND
SEXUAL
IDENTITY
AS
SOCIOHISTORICAL
PHENOMENA : THE CASE OF SPAIN
The discourse and concern about “normal sexuality” and the acquisition
of an adjusted sexual identity are intertwined with the history of modernity.
Paradoxically, the same process that enabled the integration of sexuality and
sexual identity into the discourse of modernity and included it as a one of those
things viewed as respectful/national/moral/developed, also initiated a process
of naturalisation of “normal” sexuality and sexual identities. The normalisation
of sexuality and sexual identities has coincided with their naturalisation: there
is a degree of overlapping between what is defined and perceived as “natural”
(in fact a social construct) and what is defined and perceived as “normal”.
Phylogeny and ontogeny are part of a unique process of civilisation that places
the modern white man at the top of the respectability hierarchy and is
grounded in a strict control of sexuality and a clear division of gender roles. The
confusion of gender roles (the behaviours, fates and spaces allocated to men
and women) automatically leads to the questioning of sexual identities and
opens up the possibility of degradation and regression. It is no coincidence that
women, defined as being closer to nature than men, were, and still are, defined
as less rational and potentially less civilised (Saraceno 2003).
In Spanish culture, there are a series of discourses about sexuality that
are ‘legitimated’ by religion, science and common sense and which have
naturalised a dominant model that defines the sexual and social roles of women
and men. These discourses, although presented as a social replica of natural
laws, are situated in a specific historical-cultural context, so what is considered
to be acceptable in one context is not necessarily acceptable in another. It is
necessary, therefore, to approach these topics with a certain amount of
relativism in order to avoid becoming trapped by the confusion between nature
and normality and trying to deconstruct the notions of sex and sexuality as
static categories.
Tackling the analysis of sexuality from a historical-cultural perspective
involves, as noted above, starting from the assumption that this concept does
not designate an invariable essence, but rather a historical construct that, just
like any construct, changes as a result of the social and scientific influences of
any given time. This becomes clear when analysing changes in the definitions of
homosexuality over the last century: sin, sexual perversion, mental illness,
sexual orientation, sexual option….
Just like any scientific theory, studies about human sexuality are
representations of reality, which are organised within a given framework of
presuppositions and reflect certain interests: heterosexuality and homosexuality
are not essential categories, but merely two of the possible ways in which a
society may think, talk and feel about the relations between sexes and the
distribution of power between genders.
The different social theories and discourses with which we come into
contact (whether individually or collectively) leave traces in our discourses,
some of which may be more permanent and enduring.
It is a question of meanings imposed by the powerful or by part of the
speaking community and negotiated by human agents
It could be argued that up until at least the second half of the twentieth
century in Mediterranean cultures, the authoritative, moral, institutional and
religious discourses coincided with the stigmatization, medicalisation and
repression of homosexuality
More specifically, in Spain, since 1939 to 1975, people lived under a
dictatorship with “National Catholic” ideology supported by the fascism of
“Falange” and the Catholic Church. In this time, the dictator Francisco Franco
gave the ecclesiastic authorities the control of public and private moral. This
rendered the adoption of a sexual ethics that repressed any deviation from the
dominant model about the masculine and the feminine.. During Dictatorship in
Spain, the academic world rejected any scientific approach to sexuality besides
the matters related to reproduction and venereal diseases. In general, the issues
related to sex were given to moral or government authority, as a matter of
public order”. One of the tools of the Regime was the “Law of Social
Dangerousness”, which envisaged sentences of 5 years of prison and
internment in psychiatric centres for the “treatment and rehabilitation” of
homosexuals. Despite the dictator’s death in 1975 and the subsequent beginning
of the transition to democracy, it was not until 1979 that, after the
demonstrations promoted by the Spanish Homosexual Liberation Movement,
that the articles of the Law of Social Dangerousness that had been
systematically used for the repression of homosexuals were abolished.
In the last 30 years, Spanish society has experienced a spectacular
progress both in the economical and the social plane. In regard to LGTB sphere,
a flourishing of associations in the whole country has been observed. As a result
of the efforts of lesbian and gay collectives and of the victory of the Social
Democratic party in the elections, Spain is the third country in the world to
legalise homosexual marriage, after the Netherlands and Belgium. The journey
from the penal punishment of homosexuality to the legalisation of homosexual
marriage was not lineal and free of conflict. As it happened with the removal of
homosexuality from the list of mental illnesses included in the DSM, and the
subsequent proliferation of contra-discourses that regarded homosexuality as a
pathology, so in Spain, coinciding with the legal recognition of homosexual
marriage, there has been a proliferation of discourses from the traditional
religious and academic world, that became a reality in press campaigns and
great demonstrations against the government and in defence of traditional
family.
In the Spanish society we can find a dialogical contraposition of radically
different discourses and representations about homosexuality. It is important,
however, to remember that these discourses are expressed from positions that
differ in terms of strength. On the one hand we have the positions of those who
have historically created, disseminated and defended the norms, defining what
is considered “normal-healthy” and “abnormal/pathological”. On the other
hand, of those who have been historically stigmatised. Only in the last decades
they have been able to create a counter-text, a space of reflection and
representation, at least partially free from the stigma.
It becomes clear that these two discourses do not convey the same
authority and are not invested of power in the same degree. In this sense, traces
of these stigmatising discourses can still be felt today even in those who
consider that they have positively completed their identity process and assume
a positive gay identity.
AIMS
As noted before, the powerful elites of a society privilege certain kinds of
stories, whilst silencing others. For that reason, some narrative research has
tried to give voice and expression to these traditionally suppressed and
marginalised ways of life (Franz & Stewart 1994, Gergen & Gergen 1993).
The aim of this paper and underlying study is to give a voice, to offer a
space of visibility to a historically silenced collective: homosexual women. The
specific aims are:
- To describe the way in which individuals appropriate social discourses
about homosexuality and lesbianism in their autobiographical narratives.
- To analyse the relationships (interactions) between these discourses in
personal (autobiographical and, thus, identity-related) narratives.
METHOD
PARTICIPANTS
The study sample consisted of eight Spanish women, aged between 22
and 353. Their ethnicity and origins was Spanish. Contact was made with the
participants through two associations for gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transsexual
people called “Colega” in the city of Seville, and “Lambda” in the city of
Valencia. These associations allowed us establish the initial contact with a
group of women. These women, in turn, provided a link to others. This method
is called “snowball” sampling (Krausz 1969, quoted in Kitzinger 1987).
3
The participants grew up en el periodo histórico de la “transición” a la democracia, han
vivido por lo tanto un periodo de importante renovación y modernización del pais. Es
importante de toda manera recordar que en el momento que se realizaron las entrevistas
España tenía un gobierno conservador y no se había aprobado la Ley de Matrimonio
Homosexual.
THE INSTRUMENT
The instrument designed for this study was a semi-structured interview,
divided into two sections. The first section was more structured and included
pre-established questions about homosexuality. The second part was more
flexible and focused on the life-stories of the participants.
PART ONE. Kinsey Scale. Following a general explication of the aims of the
study, the Kinsey Scale for the “heterosexual-homosexual continuum” was
presented (Kinsey et al., 1948-1953), which ranges from 0 (completely
heterosexual) to 6 (completely homosexual). The participants were invited to
repeat this self-assessment with regard to present, past and their ideal.
This form of presentation had the double advantage of encouraging the
participant to think about her life and provided a clear indication of the
participant’s assessment of homosexuality in her life. So for instance, a score of
6 in the present and 1 as the ideal would define a situation of disagreement
with her current sexual option.
Questions about homosexuality.
1) How would you define homosexuality?
2) Can you tell me three advantages and three disadvantages of homosexuality?
3) Do you think that you would recognise a homosexual person by sight?
PART TWO: The life-story. In the second part of the interview, the participants
made audio-recordings of their life-stories. To facilitate the task of remembering
and narrating, a life satisfaction graph was used: the X axis represented age and
the Y axis their level of satisfaction. The level of overall satisfaction was scored
from 0 (minimal satisfaction) to 10 (maximal satisfaction in sentimental life,
work and in general). The participants recorded specific events by placing them
in relation to their age when said events occurred and the level of satisfaction
experienced. They were invited to label and narrate the events in more detail.
To conclude the interview, the participants were asked to recount a selfdefining memory (in accordance with McAdams , 1996).
All the interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed literally and
analysed using Nudist Vivo software. Then, a thematic analysis of the
transcription was applied. On the basis of this analysis, a number of themes
(Macro-themes and themes) were detected, which are discussed in the next
section.
RESULTS AND ANALYSIS
Three macro-themes emerged from the analysis of the interviews: The macrotheme SELF, includes excerpts referring to the participants’ reflections about
their life. The macro-theme SELF & Lesbianism includes excerpts about
different aspects of lesbianism as it has been experienced and lived by the
participants. It consists of several themes, presented further on. The macrotheme SELF & Society includes excerpts concerning the participants’
relationship with society and more specifically with their perceptions of
society’s attitude towards homosexuality.
This paper focuses on the results achieved in relation to the macro-theme
SELF & Lesbianism, which accounts for 49% of all the excerpts selected4 , and
specifically themes related to identity issues (Development of lesbian identity,
and Reflections about identity).
DEVELOPMENT OF LESBIAN IDENTITY. Firstly, it is important to stress that
most models of the development of lesbian identity have emerged from studies
about male sexual identity. This theoretical shortcoming is the result of the
assumption of isomorphism between male and female sexuality, as well as the
historical silencing of female and lesbian reality. Although it is true that gays
and lesbians share the stigma and the same legal void in relation to their rights,
“lesbians form part of an oppressed group who are in turn sexually oppressed as well.
Gays are part of an oppressed group that is not only sexually attracted towards the sex
that holds power in society, but they also belong to this group” (Bersani 1998). It
should therefore be borne in mind that this study focuses solely on female
homosexuality and, therefore, its conclusions are not necessarily valid for male
homosexuality.
The participants’ narratives reflected the two theoretical positions
mentioned above: the essentialist and the constructivist: in fact on the one hand,
some of the women re-read their own lives in the light of the orientation of
desire, as a linear albeit difficult process towards the definition of a coherent
4
The themes included in this macro-theme are: Definition of homosexuality (4%); Earliest
relations with homosexual world (8%); Development of Lesbian Identity (24%); Love
(17%);Reflections about identity (24%); Visibility (“coming out”). (23%)
sexual orientation; other participants, on the other hand, make the distinction
between their personal and their social and political identity and refuse to
remain within a univocal self definition. In general, the participants started out
from an implicitly essentialist self definition and only through a reflexive
process arrived at a more constructivist stance.
Recent research on gender differences in the way of defining and
experiencing homosexuality - and sexuality in general - calls into question any
definitions based on rigid correspondences between orientation, behaviours
and forms of identity (Peplau, Garnets 2000, Peterson 1998).
Moreover, the experiences of women who came to lesbianism as a
consequence of a political journey or their feminist reflections and experiences,
cast doubt on any theory of homosexuality that focuses solely on the orientation
of
desire
as
the
chief
organiser
of
lesbian
identity
PONER
EN
CONCLUSIONES
This next section analyses the participants’ journey as expressed in their
own words: the discovery of lesbianism starts from an awareness of being
different towards the recognition of desire towards people of the same sex.
♀AM: “It started when I was with my friends and I felt
weird, and they started talking about boys and all that
stuff and I thought it was all really disgusting. That
was when I started to feel lonely because I couldn’t
share what was happening to me with the other girls.
Which was when I realised what was happening to me and
I was able to say “look, this is what’s going on”.
♀GM “But I kind of knew, more or less. I realised that
something wasn’t right, you know? Because you realise
when you start talking to your friends and they’re all
saying “I like this guy” and you say “well I don’t, I
don’t like anyone”, you know? And you start to question
quite a lot of things about yourself, you know? And you
can
see
the
attraction
of
people
who
aren’t
the
opposite sex and you start to doubt and that was when I
started to realise”.
Research into this topic (Cass 1979, Chapman & Brannok 1987, Troiden
1988) indicates that the moment of awareness of one’s own “mismatch” with
the culturally dominant model of compulsory heterosexuality is a critical time,
characterised by the conflict between different forces: on the one hand, the need
to know yourself and understand why you feel like this; and on the other, the
discourses that stigmatise any sexual identity that does not coincide with
heterosexuality, making the process difficult.
♀ GS: “Then I started to feel quite down, like I was
coming apart, because I couldn’t get my head around the
possibility that I was a lesbian, because at that time,
I
didn’t
understand
that
the
concept
of
bisexuality
could even exist, and I was in love with this girl and
she was all I could think about... but I didn’t ever say
anything to her, you know? And there came a time when I
started to take control of the situation and began to
study
and
to
read
up
about
it,
and
that’s
when
gradually I started to come out the other side of this
situation when I had felt bad about myself, you know?
(…) When at last I started to really say no, I have to
know myself, what’s happening to me, that was when I
started to struggle with myself, against myself, you
know? To say, I’m like this, I’m not like that, accept
yourself, you’re not like that, it was like an internal
struggle with myself”
Moreover, intense feelings between girls are presented as a normal and
non-sexual aspect of teenage relationships:
♀CE: “I thought that we were just really good friends, I
felt a lot of affection for my girl friends”.
When faced with confusing feelings of attraction towards women, a
cognitive process has to be worked through before the individual is able to
recognise them. Our participants explain very clearly the difficulties they faced
when first considering the possibility of being homosexual, an idea that is even
difficult to formulate owing to a lack of vocabulary.
♀GS “I couldn’t get my head around the possibility that
I was a lesbian”,
♀CE “My mind couldn’t understand it, I had no way of
externalising it, it was like........eh, tut tut, no
way, impossible, I didn’t have any points of reference”
Here we see the effects of heterosexism in silencing non-normative
identities, emotions and desires. There are no words to talk about it. And if we
do not talk about it, it does not exist.
It is only when an individual comes into non-equivocal contact with a
lesbian experience that she is ready to recognise her own feelings.
♀MA: “In one of her letters she told me that she’d fallen
in love with a girl and that she gotten together with
her; from then on really, because before that I didn’t
know anyone who was gay, you know? That was the first
time that homosexuality had entered my life really, and I
started to go over it in my head until I arrived at the
conclusion that I was in love with that girl”
This happens because the meaning of love and sexual experiences is
socially and discursively constructed and therefore these experiences are partly
learned (Rubin 1984).
♀EC: “Because I think that I was always attracted to
girls right from when I was little”
In this excerpt we see an example of the phenomenon described above in
relation with the essentialist vs. constructivist view of identity: the reinterpretation of early experiences as a sign of a “true” lesbian self that was
waiting to be discovered (Kitzinger & Wilkinson, 1995). This reveals the
dialogical relationship between an implicit essentialist view of homosexuality
(something that is already in the person, waiting to be discovered) and a
constructivist view of identity as a process, the same woman say:
♀EC: “I start the slow and very painful process began of
adopting an identity”.
As a result of the attempts to ensure that homosexual issues remain
invisible in society:
♀EC:“I thought that I was the only lesbian in the world”
When starting to construct a new identity in Spain, it is not easy to find
points of reference that provide a model of a homosexual way of life and the
need to share experiences with peers becomes increasingly clear. Four of our
participants referred to this moment and to this need:
♀LM: “I just wanted to meet another lesbian for crying
out loud! I was 18 at the time, now there are a few
examples
didn’t
in
see
the
any
media...
lesbians
but
or
when
gays
I
not
was
even
little,
on
TV,
you
so
naturally I thought that I was the only lesbian in the
world, and I thought that I was never going to have any
kind of lesbian relationship, and I ended up going to the
wedding of a woman I was in love with, but I wasn’t the
one she was marrying, so it was pretty much a total
disaster, erm... and of course, that caused me a lot of
anxiety.
What emerges here is the lack of positive models for identification. A great
deal of the suffering expressed by those who reject their homosexuality is not
only a consequence of social rejection or specific episodes of discrimination or
condemnation; it also depends on the impossibility of recognising themselves in
the image of the homosexual person that is portrayed in their own cultural
environment (bent, paedophile, dyke, butch, bull dyke…)
The stigmatisation and caricaturising of homosexual women achieves its
purpose of restricting access to this sexual option; initially, when something
about one’s own sexual option is perceived as strange, it makes the individual
reject the very idea of an eventual identification with this kind of woman.
♀GS: “I just didn’t identify with the role of the butch
woman, so it wasn’t something I could use”.
Identification with a stigmatised model of woman is impossible and so
the negative model must be deconstructed. Our participants referred to their
lesbianism as a feeling, an idea that was hidden for a long time, reproached and
almost forgotten until they were able to construct a less stigmatised idea of a
gay woman.
From this point of view, LGTB communities, associations and collectives
play a very important role, not only as a source of support, but also for the
deconstruction of stereotypes and pluralisation of homosexual identities. A
similar function is performed by the increasing visibility of “unsuspected”
homosexuals who belong to a wide range of social and professional conditions
(TV hosts, politicians, journalists…) because
it
disproves crystallised
stereotypes and broadens the range of possible forms of self-identification.
However, a distinction must be made between the gay and lesbian
community, because what is now in Spain a reality for gays is a long way off for
lesbians. The invisibility of lesbian women in Europe is a reality that the
collectives and institutions must confront. There is a tendency to link this
invisibility with a lack of motivation or involvement of the part of women, and
a failure to take into account the socialisation of women and their lack of
empowerment. These conditions clearly make it difficult for women to make
decisions that might be considered dangerous.
♀RA: “The image I had of a gay woman was the typical
butch
kind
of
woman,
rejected
by
everyone,
and
by
society, in general, really negative, you know? I don’t
know really... because I didn’t identify with that image,
I rejected it. But right from when I was little, I had
the feeling that I might like women or be physically or
emotionally attracted by a woman.
♀AM: “Even before you’re really aware of it, you start to
feel like there’s something strange about you, because all
the references you have are heterosexual, and you don’t
fit in with that mould, with that stereotype. So you feel
like you’re a weirdo and not integrated in society, and I
think that’s the origin of the problems that people can
have with themselves”.
We can see here how the dissonant element (“you start to feel like
there’s something strange about you”)in the medium of heterosexist
narratives (“all the references you have are heterosexual”) gives
rise to a narrative that accounts for the feeling of a lack of integration, and then
provides a narrative explication that allows the individual move from
inconsistency to self-reflection (I think that’s the origin of the
problems…), and, finally, from self-reflection to the solution of the narrative
conflict, which is usually personal acceptance. This final result is achieved
through the personal deconstruction of stigmatised meanings and the re-
construction of meanings that are free from the obligation to submit to
compulsory heterosexuality (or as far as our sexist society will allow at any
rate). In the life satisfaction graphs used in the interviews, the moment of
personal acceptance is characterised by high levels of satisfaction, like the kind
of satisfaction felt when achieving a life goal.
♀ GS: “The most important thing is accepting who you are,
so you feel good about yourself, that’s the biggest step
you have to take. The worst thing is when you haven’t got
to that point where you can accept yourself, but if you
feel good about yourself you can transmit that there’s
nothing wrong with that. In my case it was when I started
to read up about it and I saw that just because I had
certain feelings that didn’t mean I was a bad person or a
pervert or anything like that, but that there are a lot of
people out there who feel the same way that I do and who,
unfortunately,
have
been
afraid,
rejected
by
their
families, rejected for lots of reasons, and that was when
I started to tell my sister about how I felt, and I saw
that at least I had someone to talk to, you know? And then
I started to move forwards until I finally got to where I
am now, where I could accept me for who I am”.
We see here that the process leading to personal acceptance passes
through the deconstruction of stigmatised meanings. But, what are these
discourses? How can they be deconstructed? Below is a more detailed
analysis of the excerpt.

A homosexual is a bad person, a pervert. This moral judgment is harsh; it
is the moral quality of the person (good or bad) that is being judged,
depending on her adaptation to compulsory heterosexuality “in my
case it was when I started to read up about it and I saw
that just because I had certain feelings that didn’t mean
I was a bad person or a pervert or anything like that”.
Sexuality becomes the core of a person’s definition, as Foucault claims:
How is it that in a society like ours, sexuality is not simply a means of
reproducing the species, the family, and the individual? Not simply a means to
obtain pleasure and enjoyment? How has sexuality come to be considered the
privileged place where our deepest “truth” is read and expressed? For that is the
essential fact: Since Christianity, the Western world has never ceased saying:
“To know who you are, know what your sexuality is.” Sex has always been the
forum where both the future of our species and our “truth” as human subjects
are decided. (1988, pp. 110-111)

Furthermore, it is interesting to note that the participant refers to
“feelings” and not to sexual attraction or desire, revealing a disparity
with external definitions of homosexuality (both male and female) that
take the sexual aspect as the central axis.

A homosexual person is: an isolated case, a flawed example of human
kind, condemned to loneliness: “but that there are a lot of
people out there who feel the same way that I do”.

A homosexual person is: someone who, because of his/her failure to
adapt to culturally established models, will be rejected by her/his
family, denied primary affective relationships: “I started to tell
my sister about how I felt, and I saw that at least I
had someone to talk to, you know?
It is easy to understand how the deconstruction of these internalised
arguments leads to a feeling of personal satisfaction and achievement:
♀NL: “I would say that around that time, around the age of
29, 30, 31, that’s when I felt sure that I’d achieved the
kind of personal maturity that allowed me to feel good
about myself, very confident, accepted... you know? That
marked
a
before
and
after
in
the
sense
of,
well,
I’m
experiencing my homosexuality in a very open way, right?
Completely open on all levels, in all areas of my life, in
my job, my family, my surroundings... you know?”
REFLECTIONS ABOUT IDENTITY: In terms of identity-related issues, in
the interviews, the participants revealed their endeavour to live with a
paradoxical situation: on the one hand, they defended the eradication of any
kind of labels used to describe human beings, and on the other, they recognised
the need for a social and political struggle in order to achieve recognition for a
collective that is still stigmatised even today.
♀EC: “It’s difficult. Ehhh, coming up against the world we
live
in,
right?
But,
of
course,
that’s
what
I
say
inwardly, then in practice, well, in practice I use the
labels that exist, I use the established patterns, right?,
and if I have to define myself to the outside world, I
define myself as a gay woman, right? But for me, that
isn’t enough, that doesn’t say who I am, I’m so much more
than those labels, you know? Because those labels have a,
a, a series of meanings, which are applied to millions of
people, but it’s not the same. I mean, how can the word
lesbian or gay be applied to millions of people? When
those millions of people are so different?
As mentioned previously, one of the first questions in the interview
focused on the participants’ self definition of their sexual orientation using the
Kinsey scale, from 0 (completely heterosexual) to 6 (completely homosexual), so
that 3 means homosexual and homosexual to the same degree. This exercise
yielded an interesting: seven out of the eight participants defined themselves as
lesbian, while the other defined herself as bisexual. However, the mean score
obtained in the participants’ self-assessments was between 3.42 for the past (SD
= 1.96; with a range from 1 to 6), and 4.28 for the present (SD = 0.75; with a
range from 3 to 5), and 3.71 for the ideal (SD = 0.95; with a range from 3 to 5).
This last score seems particularly significant, as it becomes difficult to
interpret within the orientation of desire model as something stable and
unchangeable. Why do these women - who according to Cass’ model of the
development of homosexual identity (1979) are in the synthesis stage - say that
their ideal is close to bi-sexuality? Is this result compatible with an explanatory
model of homosexuality based on the orientation of desire? If homosexuality, in
the sexological model, is considered a specular reflection of heterosexuality,
would a group of eight heterosexual women, when asked about their sexuality,
respond in a similar way? This result could be explained from a standpoint that
considers homosexuality a sexual option. What clearly emerges here is that this
issue is not just a matter of sexual attraction as sexological models claim. The
women interviewed in this study claimed that they could feel attracted to a
man. This datum is very relevant because it contradicts the stigmatised idea of
the homosexual person defined by his/her sexuality. Perhaps, research about
homosexuality has itself been a victim of the representation of homosexuality,
as described by Foucault (1977): Nothing that went into his (the homosexual) total
composition was unaffected by his sexuality. It was everywhere present in him: at the root of all
his actions because it was their insidious and indefinitely active principle; written immodestly
on his face and body because it was a secret that always gave itself away. It was consubstantial
with him, less as a habitual sin than as a singular nature.” (p. 56).
The participants explained this result, which contradicts certain theories
of homosexuality, as follows.
♀LN: Why have I put a 4 in the present and a 6 in the past?
I don’t think that I’m any less of a lesbian than in the past,
it’s not that, it’s just that I no longer believe in such a
fixed identity as a lesbian, although my practices are 100%
homosexual, my relationships are 100% homosexual, do I think
that I could fall in love with a man? I could feel attracted
towards a man, absolutely. Why don’t I or why doesn’t this
happen?
Well
I
think
it’s
because
I
don’t
like
the
social
stereotype that exists of men. Not because I don’t like men, if
you get my meaning… the ideal, why did I put 3? Well for exactly
the same reason, because I think that that if we were all
educated and lived in an atmosphere of total respect, both men
and women, I honestly don’t think that there would be homosexual
or heterosexual people, we would simply fall in love with people
and would engage in the sexual practices that appealed to us”.
♀ AM: OK, well in the past I would say I was a 6, should I write
it down? And now (...), uff. Well I’m leaning towards a 5, but
I’m not 100% sure; you know, I’m more flexible or....maybe,
well, I mean I have liked a few guys, you know? But… it’s not
like…, I don’t think I could take that step towards the other
side but..., well, I wouldn’t be able to put the maximum score
either, you know?
And the ideal (...) (she notes down 3) Is that
bisexuality?
♀SG“ I put 5 because, well, although I don’t think of myself...I
mean I do consider myself to be gay,
but sexuality is always
very subtle... at a given time, I might like a man physically,
but emotionally I don’t think that... right now, I don’t think
I’m interested now or in the future.
Problems maintaining intimate relationships with men do not seem to
arise in terms of sexual attraction, but rather in terms of establishing a
sentimental relationship. Rather than an issue of sex, it seems to be an issue of
gender: “I don’t like the social stereotype that exists of men. Not because I don’t like
men, if you get my meaning…”.
CONCLUSIONS
The analysis of our participants’ autobiographical narratives reveals an
understanding of identity as an internalised developing story that emerges
from the selective appropriation of the past, present and future. Furthermore,
homosexual sexual identity could be said to be an aspect of personal identity
that is constructed through narration and, as a narrative construct, is influenced
by social discourses.
This process is intrinsically dialogical to the extent that the dialogical
relationship can occur both at an intrapsychological level - between different
aspects of the developing self (as Hermans claims, 2003) - and an
interpsychological level, in the dialogical relationships between the self and the
discourses that circulate in any society (Bakhtin, 1973)
In the specific case of gay women, the interview excerpts that refer to the
theme Self & Lesbianism show how the assumption of a historically
stigmatised, silenced and forcibly invisible identity, as it is transmitted in social
discourses about homosexuality, is a source of ego-dystonic and personal
suffering, making positive identification impossible. However, these women
were able to deconstruct these stigmatised meanings, which gave them a feeling
of self satisfaction and personal empowerment.
In general, these women oppose social discourses that stigmatise them,
revealing the dialogical tension of resistance that Wertsch (1998) defines as the
authoritative word. This resistance is neither easy nor simple, and involves an
active effort on the part of the participants. There are many cases in which, even
though they were aware that they were acting as a vehicle for stigmatised
discourse, the participants could not avoid expressing prejudices towards gay
women. This is obviously a minority position, but confirms that the cultural
representations of homosexual persons are very widespread and enduring in
our historical-cultural context.
It is therefore necessary to deconstruct stigmatised meanings that may
change the value of the marginalised social identity, in order to convert this
identity into a source of empowerment in the life story. This deconstruction is
achieved by extending the range of personal discourses, both as a result of
reading texts about homosexuality and through direct contact with homosexual
people (associations, surroundings, friends…) that allows the individual to
pluralise his/her discourse and initiate a mechanism of positive identification.
Just as feminist theories revealed that “woman” is a social category that
does not inherently indicate any qualities, potential or flaws, it is fundamental
to clarify that gay women do not in themselves exist as a natural category that
inherently points to any potential, characteristics, flaws or identity processes.
This brings the focus once again onto the essentialist and constructivist
definitions of homosexuality. As we saw above, the former definition views
homosexuality as an orientation or tendency, linking it with the physical,
biological or psychic nature of the individual. The second definition is based on
a view of sexuality as something fluid and unstable, and considers
homosexuality an option, a choice that is potentially available for any person.
This conceptualisation of homosexuality seems to be more coherent with
studies that depict human sexuality as something fluid and not rigidly divided
into contrasting categories; furthermore, it provides a better description of the
results of these studies, because it allows for reflection about homosexual
sexuality and, more generally, human sexuality. In fact, thinking about
sexuality in terms of cultural construction also opens the door to reflection
about and criticism of heterosexuality.
Feminist discourses on patriarchy - as a system that maintains the
existence of two hierarchically-ordered genders and a specific construction of
sexuality defined as compulsory heterosexuality - have been stigmatised and
cast aside by theoretical thinking over the last few decades. However, they are
still valid in modern society, where women continue to pay the price
(sometimes by giving up a professional career in order to care of the children
and the husband, sometimes by earning less than men for doing the same job,
sometimes with their lives…) of an unequal distribution of power between men
and women in society, in work, in relationships …
This is not to say that a constructivist conceptualisation of human
sexuality should be considered a panacea against all the inequalities that
characterise gender relations, but it does open up a space for reflection about
these issues. This space is closed off if heterosexuality and homosexuality are
viewed as irreducible opposite categories, governed by the orientation of desire
as a natural force that is beyond our control.