I Wish I Was a Lesbian

Angela C. Wild is a political artist, lesbian feminist activist, and a writer. Her work focuses on promoting lesbian visibility, lesbian culture, defending women-only spaces, and challenging compulsory heterosexuality. She is a former founding member of Get The L Out and the author of Lesbians at Ground Zero—the first research on the ‘cotton ceiling’. She is the creator of Wild Womyn Workshop, shop for radical feminist activists. She lives and works in Wales.She is a committed direct-action activist and has co-organised some of the most visibler campaigns for lesbian rights in recent decades.Her art – often collective or co-operative in nature – spans conceptual work, illustration, intervention, installation, reclaiming space for women in the public, political and symbolic sphere. Frequently invoking witches and goddesses as alternative archetypes of female power, her work offers counter narratives to patriarchal representations of women, reclaiming women’s history, imagery and imagination. Her practice embraces the radical power of irreverence toward oppressors, encouraging women to reassert the power of naming, and to refuse being defined or silenced by men.Her writing appears in the anthologies, Spinning and Weaving: Radical Feminism for the 21st Century; OutSisters, InSisters, Lesben and in magazines Screech and Rain & Thunder. Her visual work has featured in Banner Culture exhibition and book by the British Textile Biennale and is archived at the Archives Recherche Culture Lesbiennes in Paris.

• Introduction • Angela C. WildLate-blooming ‘Privilege’ • Hazel HollowayCompulsory Heterosexuality • Radfem Kollektiv BerlinFlame • Kelly FrostOn Dating Men (And Reasons Not To) • Yağmur UygarkızıChoosing to Love Women: A Korean 4B Story • Hyejung KimI Wasn’t Born This Way and I Am Proud of It • Julie BindelThe Labyrinth of Crooked Mirrors • Margherita RubinWomen and Heterosexuality, a Lesbian of Color Perspective • Daniela MedinaLooking for Aliens • SyldysDoes It Matter If They Did It? A Return to the Debate • Sheila JeffreysGender Dysphoria: A New Manifestation of Compulsory Heterosexuality in Modern Years • Charlie MayA Political Awakening • AlimaThe Joy of Choosing to Become a Lesbian • Renate KleinAn Approach to the Myth of Sexual Orientation • Ananda CastañoChoosing Women: A Working Vision for Political Lesbianism • Jesika GonzalezThe Birth of a Lesbian • Angela C. WildSolitude as Resistance and the Survival of Lesbian Feminist Communities • Frances WoodsThe Door Behind the Wallpaper • YanaMy Journey from lesbian to Lesbian • Anne EhrlichBorn That Way • Ann E. MenascheA Return to Lesbianism: This Time It’s Political • Michelle KerwinI Wish I Was a Lesbian • Tabata SpinsterAny Woman Can Be a Lesbian – And It’s Never Too Late • Cris WalkerChoosing Life, Six Acts • Elizabeth VigoGlobal Campaign to Suppress Heterosexuality and Other Forms of Male Diseases • Yağmur UygarkızıPolitical Lesbianism: A Revolution of the Imagination • Lynn AldersonIs Lesbian Political Potential Impacted by the Doctrine of Born-That-Way? • A Structural Analysis • WDI USA Lesbian CaucusReject Performance, Start Be-ing • Tabata SpinsterWomen, You Can Dodge the Dogma! • KatJTowards a Lesbian-centric Universe • Susan HawthorneObserving and Documenting the Transit of Patriarchy • Suzanne BellamyThe Lucid Darkness of the Lesbian • Kenia Namiliz Salas Pelaez Biographical notes