Standing Watch

Meredith Baxter

I had intended to write a very different article, but questions I’ve been getting from around the country the last couple of weeks presented some interesting challenges to commonly mistaken assumptions that I just could not resit taking on.

I’m sure you’ve all seen, read, or heard about Meredith Baxter, aka Meredith Baxter-Birney, the famous television mom from the sitcom Family Ties. Yes, she’s out, though not exactly by her own choice. Being famous has certain drawbacks, and it was inevitable that her relationship to another woman of four years was bound to get out in the tabloids, the one aspect of the media that never recognizes the line between public and private. Yes, the 62 year-old mother of five with three failed marriages under her belt finally found the happiness she was looking for, with a woman. Baxter opted to go ahead and publicly proclaim herself a lesbian, after enduring endless prurient speculation and stalking by the tabloids.

Now, normally, this isn’t such a big deal. But, I’ve been going through some of the LGBT blogs, and this is where the story gets interesting. More than a few writers and commentators have suggested that Baxter is not a “real lesbian,” but is instead a lesbian-identified bisexual. Now, normally, I’m not a huge fan of labels, but this particular one, especially in the context it is used in, not only denies Baxter’s self-identification and expression of herself as a lesbian, but negates her entire past, not to mention her journey of self-exploration to find her true self and the happiness she sought. It also negates the fact that Baxter has been dating and having sexual relationships with women exclusively for several years, and has live with her current partner, Nancy Locke, for four years.

If a woman is emotionally, sexually, and spiritually centered on women, then she is a lesbian. Baxter herself has made clear that in her former marriages to men, there was always something missing, something she has found with women, especially with her current partner.

In order to be “lesbian-identified bisexual,” the same emotional, sexual, and spiritual connections are there with women, but with the addition of an ongoing sexual attraction towards men, albeit to varying degrees. Whether or not the woman chooses to act upon that attraction towards men is largely situational dependent, but is quite rare when the woman is involved in a strong and stable relationship with another woman. For the most part, such women are monogamous, and relationships with men tend to be short term and unfulfilling, largely due to the absence of the emotional and spiritual connections. While this very well could apply in Baxter’s case, this is not how she has self-identified (to my knowledge), so the use of that particular label seems inappropriate.

The problem I have with how the term “lesbian-identified bisexual” is being applied in Baxter’s case has more to do with the context, not to mention the source of the identification, than anything else. It’s as if somehow, because of her now distant past, Baxter cannot possibly be a “real” lesbian. The fact that most women who identify as lesbian, when open and honest with themselves, do have some degree of bisexual attraction towards men, and hence could just as well be identified as “lesbian-identified bisexuals,” seems to escape those who deign themselves important and knowledgeable enough to dictate who is or is not a real lesbian.

And this brings me to the point I wanted to make, regarding how the lesbian population deals with, or more accurately fails to deal with, the majority of women who to some degree are bisexual. Where heterosexual men have a prurient fascination with bisexual women, lesbian women tend to hate them, isolate them, and oppress them. Someone once told me that she could consider dating a bisexual woman, if they were just more discreet about their past relationships with men (she didn’t want to know anything about those). Talking about past relationships with other women, however, was just fine. The really odd thing about that position, which is very common amongst lesbians, is that it is identical in every way to that held by heterosexual men, the same heterosexual men who control the patriarchal society within which we live.

Here’s a reality check for those who want to exclude from being identified as a “real lesbian” those women who have had relationships with men, or at the very least have some level of bisexual attraction towards men. I have yet to meet one lesbian who has never willingly engaged in a sexual relationship with a man, and who didn’t enjoy that relationship, and the sex. Whether they were just experimenting, felt pressured by familial and societal expectations to conform to those expectations, or just wanted to get laid and no woman was available, they had these relationships, and liked it. Where the relationships fulfilling? No, except to some extent on a physical level.

But, if you want to exclude from being a “real lesbian” any woman who has ever held some level of bisexual attraction towards men, regardless of whether or not they acted on it, then you just go right ahead. Because, by that standard, if all women are open and honest with themselves and others, then being a “real lesbian” is so statistically insignificant as to make “real lesbians” an endangered species, hardly enough to populate a small township.

Or you can accept the fluidity of female sexuality, and admit that, to varying extents, most woman are by nature at least somewhat bisexual, whether they’ve acted on it or not, or intend to or not. I find it hypocritical of women who claim to be lesbian and to support feminist ideals that they should apply the same patriarchal standards, conditions, and rules towards women as the very patriarchal system that is rampant with homophobia they claim to oppose.

Most who sit in judgment of Meredith Baxter, and other women like her, have no clue as to what they went through in their life’s journey before reaching the point where they discovered they were lesbian. And those who sit in judgment probably couldn’t meet the very standards they are using to criticize Meredith Baxter, and others like her.

I do sincerely hope that Meredith Baxter has finally found the happiness she has searched for all her life, and I hold the same hope for all women, gay or straight, and the majority in between, whatever labels we choose to apply to ourselves. I also sincerely hope that others will one day refrain from imposing their own standards to our lives, and instead rejoice in the fact that we were lucky enough to find such happiness.