q-sputnik

I was told today that it was on the news but I read it in devious diva. The people of the island Lesvos want lesbians to stop being called lesbians. This, in Uk context for example, would be: if there was a famous lesbian poet in the Island of Wight in ancient times, then in modern times women who loved women would be called ‘wightians’ or something like that. But not only in the UK, they would be called wightians all over the world and the island would get tourism because of that. And then one day the council of the Island of Wight would say, please stop being called ‘wightians’ cause we find this offensive.

I grew up in a country that calls the island of Lesvos by the name of the main town, Mitilene. Seldom do you hear the word ‘lesbian’ (which is an adjective and not a noun) to characterise anything else but homosexual women. They make a special cheese there(I have some in my fridge actually) and it is not called ‘lesbian cheese’ but ‘cheese of Mitilene’. Same with ouzo and all other local products. The islanders have refused their own identity as Lesbians (people who come from Lesvos) for years because of the shame they feel about it.

Now, all of a sudden, they reclaim that identity by denying it to others. Which is funny because that story comes at the time when lesbian and gay legal rights in Greece are just starting to loom (or just stop being trespassed) and lesbians start enjoying some minimum visibility (as citizens that is, not as loyal tourists spending their holidays and money in Eressos, the lesbian destination in Lesvos). By demanding the name back, they do not relieve themselves from shame felt for all their modern life, on the contrary, they emphasize the difference between them - the deserving and ‘real’ citizens of a geographical topos for whom the adjective ‘lesbian’ has a meaning of roots, a past and therefore future- and the undeserving, the impossible to carry the name because they have no roots and will have no future. The deprivation of the name symbolizes exactly the deprivation of civil rights including marriage and adoption for lesbians. The lesbians represent the others, the non-belonging. It is impossible for the nationalistic, conservative, theological and patriarchical mentality to imagine a status of civic existence for lesbians, let alone queer family units.