Lesbian-identified male

Lesbian-identified male is a contemporary neologism developed by social-psychologist Brian Gilmartin in his study, Shyness and Love; Causes, Consequences, and Treatment. It refers specifically a heterosexual male who either fantasizes about being, or wishes he was born female, and moreover, identifies as a lesbian. The men studied in Gilmartin's work differentiate themselves from transgendered people and are comfortable with their heterosexuality. They express a reluctant acceptance of their sexed bodies—in the event that they were born female, those interviewed believe they still would love women. They are lesbians 'trapped in men's bodies'. Gilmartin's research relied on interviews from three hundred men, all of whom were deemed to be "love-shy". This love-shyness denotes a condition whereby heterosexual males are deprived of meaningful any feminine contact or relationships whatsoever. They're virgins, and due to their lack of substantial ties to women have little idea how to navigate roles of friendship or courtship. With no social experience among women, they pine for this contact and suffer greatly over normalized gender roles which they perceive as cruel, arbitrary and one-sided. It is important to note, however, that not all of these love-shy men self-identify as lesbian. The idea arose for Gilmartin as an experimental construct which he used in the interest of a well-balanced critique of his findings. The construct has been theorized by Postmodern feminists Jacqueline Zita, and Laura Beadling among others. Despite this disposition, lesbian-identifying males express no desire to undergo the physical nor social transitions transgendered people experience in the pursuit of true gender-identity performance. These males express "feminine" emotionality, a predisposition to avoiding their own sex. Interviewees also commented on having cross-dressed, along with other gender-bending behavior. One should not, however, conflate male lesbianism with transexualism, or transvesticism. Despite the gender dysphoria present in these men, all expressed comfort within their physical selves—it is within the social that they experience discontent. For related terminology and identity constructs, see faghag.

Theoretical precedents

Jacquelyn Zita examines the concept of lesbianism as it intersects with American ideas of masculinity and gender. With this newer concept of male-lesbians, Zita grapples with the ways in which notions of sex and gender have come to be defined by the physical body of the subject in question. By centering a theory upon "normative positioing", postmodernism's collective musings on somatics allow the possibility of a male to claim a lesbian identity and negotiate lesbian life-spaces. She traces definitions of gender and sexuality to before the eighteenth century, where adherence to socially dictated constructs reflected the state of the individual participant in moralistic terms as well as the viability of community as a whole. Hinged upon ideas of appropriate objects of desire, deviance from accepted mores could be policed through discourses of filth, depravity and threats to the community's future. Through disciplining the populace and focusing individual definitions of desirable sexual behavior as well as punishments against transgression upon the physical and sexual body, Zita asserts that lesbianism is simultaneously an act and a role to be taken up, "a positionality open to insertion". Lesbians, we are reminded, don't all fit a singular mold. Likewise with men, whose bodies are the site of physical action and transgression.

Lesbian-identified males in popular culture

Showtime's hit series The L Word feature's a male-identified lesbian character, "Lisa", played by Devon Gummersall. Over the span of four episodes (S1E7, Losin' It-S1E10, Luck- Next Time), "Lisa" briefly enters a "lesbian" relationship Alice Pieszecki, who in the series is bisexual. In S1E8, L'Ennui, the couple has what viewers can only assume is their first sexual encounter. The exchange begins with "Lisa" giving Alice Reiki treatment, and quickly escalates. "Her" demeanor and action are completely submissive and affectionate as "she" tends to Alice's sexual needs. In denying "herself" the satisfaction of engaging in socialized roles of men as sexual aggressors—thus emasculating or "unsexing" his self, undoing the every notion maleness. The gender performance is ideological, political and personal. His unsexing is complete as "she" presents a rubber phallus with which to pleasure Alice, and by denying himself patriarchal pleasure through physical dominance would pleasure himself. The unsexing is two-fold as Alice assumes control. The coital scene cuts out as she initiates "heterosexual" intercourse with "Lisa", thereby securing "her" submissive position and galvanizing his desire to disown the male privileges he benefits from.

See also

• Blanchard's transsexualism typology
• Gender identity
• Queer theory
• Performance studies
• Bisexual erasure

Further reading

1. Bordo, Susan. Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture and the Body. Berkeley: **University of California Press, 1959 (Reprint 2003). Print.
2. Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity New York: **Routledge, 1990. Print.
3. Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality, vol. I. Trans. Robert Hurley. New York: **Vintage. 1978. Print
4. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Trans. Alan Sheridan. New York: Vintage, **Print.
5. Kessler Suzanne, and Wendy McKenna. Gender: An Ethnomethodological Approach. Chicago: :: **University of Chicago Press. 1978. Print
6. Suleiman, Susan. (Re)writing the body: The Politics of Female Eroticism In The Female Body in **Western Culture. ed. Susan Suleiman. Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1986. Print.

References

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