Who is Gender Studies For?

As my girlfriend and I celebrated our 8 year anniversary this weekend, we listened to some music by the band that we fell in love with at the same time we were falling in love with each other. Looking back, I also bonded with my ex-girlfriend over David Bowie and the whole glam-rock scene, which we found very romantic.

As we entered a lesbian relationship we were getting a lot of excitement from identifying with these men (whom we each also somewhat resemble physically adding even more to the excitement of roleplay possibilities.) Roleplay was not new to either of us; we had both been in previous relationships that involved roleplay-- mostly based on fictional and original characters who were often of ambiguous gender.

Now, I know that not every lesbian couple getting together today are role playing my favorite characters from popular-culture media (although I often like to imagine this to be true.) As I've recently gotten to know others in the lesbian community through the Gender Studies department, I realize what a beautiful variety of gender identities exists among us. Mainstream perception of lesbian gender identity is flat and steryotyped (big surprise) and the focus tends to be on the fact that we are both female bodied. We have been asked in all honesty "how" we have sex. Let me count the ways... And I'm willing to make the jump and just assume as much variety exists in the 'straight community' as well.

Which leads me to the obvious answer to today's prompt "who are Gender Studies for?" Answer: Everyone!


Access is a 2-man Japanese-pop band popular in the 90's. There were many rumors about their relationship with each other which they tended to encourage often including strong homosexual overtones in their music, photoshoots, and music videos.