LGBTQIA+ Scholar Series: "My Gender is Lesbian": Lesbian Feminism for the TikTok Generation

Widespread skepticism about the coherence or inevitability of binary gender categories has introduced a conundrum of lesbian definition for many: what is a lesbian, if not (only) a woman primarily or exclusively interested in other women? Given this definitional dilemma, alongside the persistent association of lesbian with transphobia in the public imagination, for a time it appeared as if lesbian was headed for the dustbin of history, to be supplanted by sexuality categories imagined to transcend the anachronisms and antagonisms attached to it. And yet. Over the past several years, a small but exponentially growing contingent of young people have begun to use social media as a vehicle for the project not of lesbian's rejection, but of its rehabilitation, attempting to unmoor the label from strict gender and sexual prerequisites like "lesbians must be women" or "lesbians must only sleep with women." Simultaneously, as lesbian artists making unabashedly lesbian music like Kehlani, Renee Rapp, and Chappel Roan have exploded in popularity, suddenly, lesbian chic is poised for a second act. In this presentation, I show the surprising ways that "new" lesbians use TikTok to engage "old" lesbian feminist concepts from the 1970s and 80s. Far from finding irrelevance, many revisiting lesbian feminism are excited to discover theories of gender, sexuality, and power that can be adapted to relocate lesbian to more durable and less essentializing territory. This presents a crucial opportunity to build bridges across generations and collectively resist the cooptation of lesbians as agents of intertwining white supremacist and transphobic political agendas.

Open to BU students, staff, faculty, alums, and the wider community.