Someone asked this question a while ago. She wanted to find role models for her gender-non-conforming early teenage daughter. So I thought of starting a thread. I'll start off with Phranc, "just your basic all-American Jewish lesbian folk singer". I found a video of her describing "leaving home to become a lesbian" in, or rather instead of, high school, and the key importance of the Los Angeles Woman's Building in her development. Classic second-wave feminism.
Please contribute examples of role models, maybe closer to home in time or space. Or not. Any GNC women who push the boundaries and contribute to the world. What are the chances of Phranc not being told she was a boy, if she was 15 today?
It made me feel like I really could go out into the world and be whoever I was. I could be myself. I could be out as a dyke, out as a lesbian, out on stage. I could be creative, I could be critical. I had critical thinking and I had confidence, because I had been supported in being who I was, in believing the way I believed, and I knew that I wasn't alone. And I think that has fortified me to go out and do what I’ve done in the world. Basically I am Phranc, your basic average all-American Jewish lesbian folk singer.
(singing: I respect you. I really appreciate the things you do. I like you.)
I pretty much knew I was a dyke from maybe before kindergarten and I made it all the way through elementary school. I suffered through a little bit of Junior High and by the time I got to High School I just couldn't stand it anymore. I dropped out of high school and I left home to become a lesbian. I grew up in the women's community, specifically in the lesbian feminist community, of West Los Angeles, and then I was fortunate enough to find women artists and the community at the Women's Building.
First I came to the Woman's Building and I liked it because it was a place for me to play the guitar. I played on the boardwalk, folk singer, I wrote my own music. There weren’t too many places to play aside from the boardwalk in Venice. And then I found out about Dorothy Baker’s coffeehouse at the Woman's Building. They had an open mic….
How old was I? I was 17 when the building moved. …A lot of people came to the woman's building because they wanted more education. They were feminists ... I was a junior dyke, I was just a teenager, I was not real dedicated to education, to put it mildly. I wanted to have a good time. I love the lesbian community. I love art. I love women. And so it was a perfect place for me to be because what they really did is, they nurtured me.