When massive change is about to become inevitable, ie, legal equality for people of color in the civil rights movement, or economic gains for blacks in the south during reconstruction, the opposition pulls out all the stops to fight the change, ie Bull Connor & the fire hose & beating/killing civil rights workers, freedom riders, black civil rights leaders, and earlier, the heyday of the kl*n. (I don’t want you being found on icky search results.)

Right now, we’re going through a similar state of severe and dramatic social resistance to the fact that all that drip drip drip of the LGBT movement (since 1969? since the mid-80s?) has eroded institutionalized heterosexism to the point where the iceberg is near the breaking point.

Maybe my job is to try to keep the anti-change types from digging their heels in and preventing the iceberg from breaking off, and yours is to keep hammering at the iceberg to try to make sure we get the biggest piece possible to break.

And thanks for the nod to my radical sympathies! I’m not a real marxist, but some of the ideas are so lovely.

Lovin’ your words.. As you know, i’m from oz.. and over the last few months, while looking into the possibility of my patner Rasta and I adopting (not a possibility in oz).. ..during that process, i’ve discovered blogging, and just lately, your blog and the queer others that you’re linked to.. the internet makes it a significantly smaller world.

I’ve been checkin’ countries where its possible to adopt as a lesbian couple with the thought that Rasta and I might get about the world, do a little work somewhere overseas, experience the good bits and try to adopt..

..in the meantime though, we are tryin’ our hand at a home grown baby.. no luck yet..

..some of the localised content of your post is lost on me.. but the sentiment I get.. most ppl, lesbian or not are related to Norm.. or secretly would like to be.. i’m sayin’ here that a suburban life fits with most ppl, dykes included.. and truly radical spirits, committed to the fight in a long term enduring way are hard to find..

..thats why i like your blog.. lovin’ your energy and your spirit.. looking forward to your next post.. i’m a fan.. Mace

Another discarded thread of Part 2 in its drafty form was an ill-substantiated meander into power-law and Zipf’s law as ways to understand your point, above, that “most people aren’t working towards those larger goals.” I discarded the thread because (a) I never got to calculus or statistics in school and I mistrust what I’d do with either, and (b) arguing that only a small percentage of people will ever genuinely advocate for radical change seemed a bit fatalistic for a wannabe optimist such as myself.

Then again, we all know the oft-quoted Margarate Mead remark, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

Thank you for your acumen, Liza, and for sharing it here.

I think perhaps Schulman and others who seem to be fretting that we can’t be activists or radicals if we’re too busy being mommies legitimately question whether their goals are the same goals of “lesbian mommies.”

And indeed, I suspect that most lesbian mommies are probably not committed to — or even interested in — driving a stake through the heart of the nuclear family unit. Maybe not even heteronormativity. But that isn’t because they’re too busy being mommies. It’s because most people aren’t working towards those larger goals.

As people all along the liberal-progressive-radical spectrum, IMO, we need to make sure that we’re respectful of our allies, working together where we have common ground, and not acting like some Leninist splinter group declaring the Maoist splinter group “the enemy” because their doctine has a different hue on this issue or that one. More radical than thou is a lose-lose game, distracting everyone from actually making a difference.

Of course, since I fall on the liberal-progressive end of the spectrum, I suppose it’s fair to say “you would think that.” But I just don’t see anything to be gained by rejecting all “drip drip drip” change and insisting on waiting for the whole iceberg, all at once. From each according to her talents, right?