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Tough questions,
frank answers
An interview with Alix Dobkin
Continued from the cover
Give me your 30-second pitch for femi
nism in general and separatism in particular.
Why is women-only space so important?
When women figured out their personal
and global relationship to men and then con
ferred value upon their own lives, it was called
“feminism”— the smartest, most comprehen
sive, incisive, effective and most fun political
analysis there is or has ever been on Earth.
I didn’t know until I began my research
for this interview that you’re a musician—
and a famous one at that. Which came first
for you, music or feminism, and how did the
two intersect?
Music was as much a part of my upbringing
as radicalism. I was raised on folk music, Com
munist politics, and the belief (learned in Yid-
dish-Jewish culture) that entertainment should
always be educational. 1 discovered feminism in
my 30s.
I’ve also read that you were married
before coming out as a lesbian in the early
’70s. Did you think or feel you were a les
bian before you came out publicly? What
prompted your coming out?
I was married for about 6 years before dis
covering feminism, which gave me the political
context to come out as a Lesbian, which I real
ized was what 1 had wanted to do all along but
didn’t because:
1) 1 liked
a) men
b) sex with men
c) heterosexual privilege.
2) Being so Communist-identified in my
youth was “outsider” enough for me. 1 couldn’t
bear the thought or the burden of being a Les
bian too. In college 1 met my first Lesbians who
I liked, but whose life I couldn’t identify with,
since it revolved around bar culture, which I
didn’t relate to. Plus many of the women scared
me and the “life” didn’t attract me.
Women-only space is important for many,
many reasons, some of which are that: We can
relax and discover, create, invent who we are
and have terrific and unrestricted fun together
without worrying, thinking, taking care of,
defending against, amusing, justifying our exis
tence, trying to impress or soothe the feelings
of non women.
I found the following quote in promotion
al materials prepared by the women’s studies
Now for the thorny stuff! Portland has a
department at Portland State University,
very vocal trans activist community, and the
where you’ll be lecturing: “ In 1974 she re
Lesbian Community Project— which is spon
leased the first recording of music by, about
soring the May 5 herstory forum you’ll be
and for women, Laven
der Ja n e Loves Wo
Since men (patriarchy) invented "masculine"
men.”
That seems like a
and "ifeminine" and defined everything, including
pretty bold claim, to be
the first of anything.
what "woman" means, for the purpose o f control and
Where would you place
domination, and since men were forced to then project
yourself in the history
of women’s music?
onto women a suppressed portion o f male character,
Yes, a “bold claim”
how authentic can their perception o f women be?
and not precisely accu
rate.... The truth is that
Especially from anyone who was raised male?
Lavender Jane Loves
Women was the first
LESBIAN record album
entirely produced by women. It was also the
leading— has been struggling with trans
first internationally distributed Lesbian album
acceptance and the granting of membership
ever produced on the planet.
status to men. As such, I’d be remiss if I
My friend, journalist and longtime activist
didn’t bring up your disinvitation to the 1998
Jim Fouratt (who I hadn’t yet met) described
Philadelphia Dyke March.
my place in the history of “Women's Music”
March organizers gave you a hard time
this way: “Alix Dobkin broke the silence,
over something you wrote in “ Passover
singing loud the word lesbian back in 1973. She
Revisited,” one of your Minstrel Blood
is the linchpin, the crazy crone who refuses to
columns in Chicago Outlines. The offending
shut up, singing the praises of women-loving
statement was: For over 20 years now, men
women thousands of times over the years in
have declared themselves ‘women,’ manipu
concert halls, back rooms, cleared fields,
lated their bodies via experimental surgery,
women’s spaces, rallies and marches all over
and then demanded the feminist seal of
the world. Alix Dobkin and her coven of mad
approval from survivors of girlhood.”
women birthed the beautiful, liberating noise
I’m young, queer, a child of deconstruc
called ‘women’s music.’ ”
tion and I ve concluded I have to accept oth
Additional “first": I was featured performer
ers’ gender identities and gender presenta
in the first Lesbian music concert tour ever in
tions at face value. To me, therefore, a male-
Europe in 1979. (There are probably others,
to-female transsexual is, was and always will
but who can remember?)
be a woman, even without surgery. Your
statement suggests the opposite, that MTFs
are incontrovertibly male— which seems to
contradict the feelings and experiences of
many M TFs.
What would you say to clarify your state
ment and convince me you’re not using your
vagina-based gender construct to condemn
someone whose psychosocial experience of
gender is female and whose physical experi
ence is that of incon
gruity?
First of all, although it
seems to work for you,
“vagina-based gender con
struct” does not begin to
describe how I define
“woman.” I certainly
accept the existence of a
wide variety of identity on
the “gender” spectrum not
included or recognized in
patriarchal sex-roles, how
ever, I am curious about
your use of “condemn” to
describe my defense of
what I consider sacred
women’s space. Do you
consider not being accept
ed as a “woman” [equal to]
“condemned"?
Furthermore, how can
you or any nonwoman
know what, in fact, any
one’s “psychosocial experi
ence of gender” really
PfcMAsT**
means? “Female” as
defined by sex-role stereotype? And does this
not reinforce that (male-invented) stereotype?
Since men (patriarchy) invented “mascu
line” and “feminine" and defined everything,
including what “woman” means, for the pur
pose of control and domination, and since men
were forced to then project onto women a sup
pressed portion of male character,* how
authentic can their perception of women be?
Especially from anyone who was raised male?
No, I believe “ incongruity” is a much more
accurate description of the “psychosocial expe
rience of gender” you describe in addition to
the “physical experience” of genuinely trans-
gendered persons.
*See “The Verb of Gender &. Other 3 Dol
lar Bills,” Outlines Minstrel Blood column,
Nov. 11, 1998, for more discussion of this
proposition.
In the same column, you wrote: “ Logical
and compelling as our analysis of patriarchy
is, not one of us truly escapes.”
Is it possible that “ women-bom” sepa
ratism— specifically, the exclusion of trans
people who don’t fit the authorized definition
of “ woman”— is a feminist appropriation of
the patriarchal tactic of marking the “ other
and assigning status by remarking about the
other’s acceptability?
Christopher! Do you see what you are doing
here? Again, I must remind you that since
men have been defining everything, including
women, ever since the rise of the patriarchs,
your question needs to be regarded in the light
that here are men doing it again. But this latest
reversal attempts to re-establish, as “Passover
Revisited" contends, the access men lost (for
just a few years) to our (sacred) women’s space
and women’s business.
Men are so entitled that you don’t even
understand what you are doing, how you are
changing the rules when it suits your purpose
Women need to define ourselves, and some of
us will insist on doing this no matter what
postmodernism, social constructionists, or any
one else says or does.