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Saturday, June 11, 2011

Concerns about labels & abuse towards same gender loving women

Concerns have been raised and are being vigorously debated in the same gender loving female communities and by extension the MSM and bisexual arenas as well, the following poll question was posed in a particular group on Facebook which sparked some serious debate with a thread having some one hundred and fifty plus responses and comments. Some persons were not aware based on those responses in the thread that lesbian and bisexual women were going through the public backlashes we have been seeing as of late, well to be precise this blog has been carrying the marked increases on attacks and lesbophobia towards same gender loving women since its inception in 2008.

The verbal assaults have seen a marked increase especially since 2011 and some leading to unprovoked physical exchanges and beatings. The usual names that were used before as included in the poll captured above were

"Dyke" (a more US used title but burrowed here),

"Man Royal" (a more localized colloquial description of butches set to be derived from the dancehall arena where artists such as Beenieman have captured in song),

"Pot Covers" (another local colloquial derived from the use of pot covers for noise making or neighbourhood watch alarm systems and the analogy that two pot covers when clanged together cannot produce anything but noise and is non productive juxtaposed to procreation),

"Crotch rubber/rug muncher (local colloquial as well from the dancehall/exotic nightclub arena where same sex themes have slowly crept into the mix and are accepted by male attendees in selected spots across the island to include a now defunct nightclub owned by a dancehall performer in New Kingston),

"Sadamite Gal" (local colloquial, patois for Sodomite girl, emphasis on the enunciation of the words when heard to reflect the disgust of the lifestyle),

"Dutty Suck pussy sadamite" (an extension to imply serious hatred of lesbianism, also a to declare a threatening posture close to some violent action when heard with emphasis on the enunciation as well)

"My Yute" (a more friendly description normally used by men in the company of close friends but used here towards a butch sister viewed as "one of the boys" or "one of us" bearing in mind the homosocial trends in Jamaican culture by males that also is supported in dancehall)

These of course are just a few of the many names conjured up within the past years as the opposition always seem to use the new names to continue the hate and stigma, sadly many of the sisters have seen their fair share of abuse, forced evictions (two in May 2011) profiling as seen above in the question posed, the sister who posed it was verbally attacked and almost accosted by a group of domino playing men in a section of Half Way Tree in April, another sister was almost abducted in April as well as has since then lived as a hermit barely venturing out to the streets except for needed occasions.

Another sister was driven down by a taxi driver also near the Half Way Tree area as well who was clearly not pleased with her aesthetic presentation accusing her of "taking away women" from men and the other awful stereotypes of same gender loving women. I encourage everyone to be vigilant out there although sadly some folks have a simple minded view that persons "cause" incidents to reach them simply by how they look so they recommend persons must change their look in order to avoid attacks or abuse, should we change to suit others who are ignorant?

No, I say we must be ourselves no matter what persons may think, frankly speaking some homophobes make it their business to get into others business, an unneeded move on their part.

Peace and tolerance

H

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