Writing Lesbian, Lesbian writing
As a struggling
lesbian writer, where shall I find a literary mother?
By Jhoanna Lynn B. Cruz
Northern Dispatch
Posted by
Bulatlat
A lesbian who does not reinvent the
world is
a lesbian in the process of
disappearing.
-- Nicole Brossard
The silence surrounding the lesbian in
Philippine literary history is appalling. Anglo-European lesbian critics
can at least complain about the negative images of lesbians in the works
of both male and female writers; they can have a party decoding the works
of Virginia Woolf or Emily Dickinson, but I have not found a lesbian
tradition of writing in the
Philippines.
J. Neil Garcia, in his groundbreaking book
Philippine Gay Culture (1996), explains that “the lack of visible
signs of female homosexuality redress, in the form of written textuality”
is due to the accommodation of lesbians in a masculinist culture. That is,
because lesbians identify with men; they are not considered as ‘abnormal’
as gay men who identify with women. Thus, Garcia assures the lesbian
reader that “sometimes a clean slate may be less heartbreaking than…lies.”
But I am not easily comforted. It is
precisely Garcia’s framework of the “feminization of deviance” that
contributes to the invisibility of lesbians in literature. No matter how
masculine a lesbian may try to be, she is still only a woman, and
therefore, does not matter in a heteropatriarchal set-up. I myself would
rather be vilified than plainly ignored. Terry Castle is right in saying
that “within the very imagery of negativity lies the possibility of
recovery – a way of conjuring up, or bringing back into views, that which
has been denied.”
As a struggling lesbian writer, where
shall I find a literary mother?
There is Leona Florentino who actually
wrote love poems for women; but Ilocano literature scholars would not dare
see the mother of Isabelo de los Reyes in such an “unflattering” light.
The official story is that her poems like
Para ken Carmen
had been “commissioned” by men who wanted to impress the women they were
courting. However, in her poem Nalpay a Namnama, Florentino talks
about a love that is hopeless and doomed from the start because she loves
a woman. In line 10, she claims to love "iti maysa a imnas." The
Filipino translation of Isagani R. Cruz uses musa for the word
imnas, which suggests that it is a woman, but is still ambivalent. My
source, Clarita Gaoat of Vigan, Ilocos Sur, explains that imnas is
actually a synonym for balasang, dalaga in Filipino,
maiden in English. How can we keep denying Leona Florentino's love for
women when she herself has made it quite clear?
Another option is for me to personally
“out” living women writers who remain in the closet, still victimized by
their fear of a still homophobic community. But I do not want to lose my
friends.
In 1993, the Women’s Press of Canada
published a collection of stories by Filipina lesbian Nice Rodriguez.
Throw it to the River remains a landmark book, funny and
tongue-in-cheek. However, I cannot see myself in most of her butch
characters, as no matter what I do (even once shaving my head!) I really
cannot be the type of lesbian who looks, thinks, and acts like a man. I
would like to delude myself that I am in a class all my own. Furthermore,
Rodriguez has become a privileged and hyphenated lesbian writer-in-exile
who looks at the Philippine lesbian situation from too far away. For
example, in the story "G.I. Jane," Rodriguez describes a Pinay lesbian
who, like so many heterosexual mail-order brides, uses her "exotic"
characteristics to convince Puti, her white dyke pen pal, to marry her.
Rodriguez nobly conflates the issues of class, ethnicity, and sexual
preference, but sadly ends up with a stereotypical depiction of what it
means to be Pinay; that is, regardless of sexual preference, we must use
our bodies to help our families rise above poverty.
And so I dare claim my own by writing my
own stories. Surely, women have always loved women, but “it has to be
there in the writing.” My stories, regardless of my actual life choices,
contribute to the (re)inscription of lesbian desire in Philippine
contemporary literature. These are stories that need to be told and read
in order to dispel the silence surrounding lesbianism in Philippine
literature. Northern Dispatch/Posted by Bulatlat
If you are interested in these stories,
please email me at jhoannalynn_cruz@yahoo.com)
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