Seeds

By Jewelle Gomez–

Every year the San Francisco Public Library and Litquake hold public events highlighting the phenomenon of book banning to remind us how significant books really are. This is crucial because there has always been a small number of small people who feel they have the political mandate to protect others from writing that threatens the status quo. Many of the efforts are cloaked in spurious religious dogma or jingoistic patriotism. Yet they appeal to the personal insecurities of too many people and provide handy verbiage for ambitious politicians.

From the early lesbian novel, The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall, to Toni Morrison’s classic Beloved, frightened people have pursued the futile effort of holding back the tides of information. For me the key word is “futile.” While a book might be briefly kept out of the hands of the public, such bans never last and they are never total. Ideas and information ride on waves of thought that are not governed by official printing or “parental guidance.” So banning a book is ultimately doomed to fail; ideas cannot be disappeared.

Just as the ill-fated efforts of conservative anti-porn feminists to regulate erotic literature in the 1980s made not a dent in big-business porn, they did generate a blossoming of new erotic lesbian magazines and journals. Banning lesbian material almost guarantees we’ll bounce back and proliferate.

Despite the years in which The Well of Loneliness was banned from distribution in the U.S., it remains a staple in gender and women’s studies courses. In 1923 the cast of Sholem Asch’s play God of Vengeance was indicted for being “indecent, immoral and impure.” Then, in 1927, The Captive—also featuring a lesbian story—led to the arrest of the cast and the implementation of a law forbidding presentation of “sexual perversion,” meaning lesbians. This law stayed intact until 1967, making lesbians invisible on stage for decades.

Yet, lesbian culture thrived underground, giving life to institutions like the WOW Café Theater in New York City and its founders/performers Peggy Shaw and Lois Weaver. Or the comic lesbian genius of performers like Karen Williams and the late Danita Vance celebrating more than 30 years making people laugh. So, the ground was sown in readiness for Fun Home, the musical adaptation of cartoonist Alison Bechdel’s graphic memoir about coming out to her closeted gay father. The young, butch lesbian character’s “Ring of Keys” moment as she sings about recognizing herself in a butch delivery person is a showstopper and a life changer. No matter how arid the field may have been, Fun Home swept the 2015 Tony Awards.

Similarly, growing out of the dearth of mainstream literature about lesbians in the early part of the 20th century, the Women in Print movement of the 1980s and 1990s nurtured the growth of a plethora of lesbian presses and magazines. Today, scores of lesbian novels are published every year including by presses such as the explicitly named Black Lesbian Feminist Press. The Golden Crown Literary Society welcomes hundreds of women to its annual conferences to celebrate lesbian books, as does Saints & Sinners, which celebrates queer writing in New Orleans.

I’ll paraphrase the oft-quoted, 20th century gay poet Dino Christianopoulos: “they tried to bury us, but they didn’t know we are seeds.” This is an apt response to conservative attempts at repression. Even though lesbians are still disproportionately underrepresented in mainstream media and literature, lesbian talent continues to sprout through.

I recently heard that my Black lesbian feminist vampire novel, The Gilda Stories, was banned in some obscure school system. The book has been in print for more than thirty years. A ban, now, probably guarantees at least another couple of decades! So, thanks. And still we grow!

Jewelle Gomez is a lesbian/feminist activist, novelist, poet, and playwright. She’s written for “The Advocate,” “Ms. Magazine,” “Black Scholar,” “The San Francisco Chronicle,” “The New York Times,” and “The Village Voice.” Follow her on Instagram and Twitter @VampyreVamp

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Published on October 5, 2023