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I Wish I Was a Lesbian: Women’s Lives Beyond Heterosexuality
Look Inside the Book
Reader Reviews
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ “Excellent book and very well written. I couldn’t stop reading. A fascinating exploration of a way of life that many thought was a thing of the past, but has clearly never gone away and is growing again.”
— GoodReads reviewer⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ If you’ve ever questioned the idea that sexuality is fixed, innate and beyond influence, this book will feel like a door opening. I found it genuinely thought-provoking.”
Read the full review here.
— Amazon reviewer“Any woman, identifying as lesbian, bisexual, or heterosexual will gain much to think about, and feel, from both the big and everyday ideas throughout I Wish I Was A Lesbian.”
— Hilary Oxley, LAVA Aotearoa
Review by Bronwyn Winter
This book is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding the politics of heterosexuality and lesbianism and their relationship to male domination of women and feminist resistance to it. It re-explores, over half a century after the so-called Second Wave of feminism, the revolutionary idea that any woman can be a lesbian, that choosing lesbianism is both a personal and a political act of feminist resistance and community-building.
The 30-plus contributors come from all around the world and range in age from 21 to early 80s. Their often deeply personal stories reveal how much of our feminist and lesbian history has been hidden from us, such that we have to keep starting again, learning again, connecting with each other again. Debating, again, our choices and preferences and ideas about what a lesbian is and what a lesbian does, and why she is and does. They all refute the idea that sexual choices are innate rather than learned and critique the politics of sexuality in a society where women are still not considered fully human. The book invites all women to imagine what a woman-centred feminism, a woman-centred life, might look like, because, in the words of one contributor: ‘You cannot be what you cannot imagine’.
Table of Contents
Introduction • Angela C. Wild
Late-blooming ‘Privilege’ • Hazel Holloway
Compulsory Heterosexuality • Radfem Kollektiv Berlin
Flame • Kelly Frost
On Dating Men (And Reasons Not To) • Yağmur Uygarkızı
Choosing to Love Women: A Korean 4B Story • Hyejung Kim
I Wasn’t Born This Way and I Am Proud of It • Julie Bindel
The Labyrinth of Crooked Mirrors • Margherita Rubin
Women and Heterosexuality, a Lesbian of Color Perspective • Daniela Medina
Looking for Aliens • Syldys
Does It Matter If They Did It? A Return to the Debate • Sheila Jeffreys
Gender Dysphoria: A New Manifestation of Compulsory Heterosexuality in Modern Years • Charlie May
A Political Awakening • Alima
The Joy of Choosing to Become a Lesbian • Renate Klein
An Approach to the Myth of Sexual Orientation • Ananda Castaño
The Birth of a Lesbian • Angela C. Wild
Solitude as Resistance and the Survival of Lesbian Feminist Communities • Frances Woods
The Door Behind the Wallpaper • Yana
My Journey from lesbian to Lesbian • Anne Ehrlich
Born That Way • Ann E. Menasche
A Return to Lesbianism: This Time It’s Political • Michelle Kerwin
I Wish I Was a Lesbian • Tabata Spinster
Any Woman Can Be a Lesbian – And It’s Never Too Late • Cris Walker
Choosing Life, Six Acts • Elizabeth Vigo
Global Campaign to Suppress Heterosexuality and Other Forms of Male Diseases • Yağmur Uygarkızı
Political Lesbianism: A Revolution of the Imagination • Lynn Alderson
Is Lesbian Political Potential Impacted by the Doctrine of Born-That-Way? • A Structural Analysis • WDI USA Lesbian Caucus
Reject Performance, Start Be-ing • Tabata Spinster
Women,You Can Dodge the Dogma! • KatJ
Towards a Lesbian-centric Universe • Susan Hawthorne
Observing and Documenting the Transit of Patriarchy • Suzanne Bellamy
The Lucid Darkness of the Lesbian • Kenia Namiliz Salas Pelaez
Biographical notes
Bibliography