I was a reasonably prominent lesbian activist. All my social life, as well as my job, was in the “women’s community.” A business operated by a collective wanted to move to a more professional management structure, and I, as the only one with a business background, was to be manager.
At the same time, I was a victim of extreme coercive control. All the money I had ever had was in a house I bought to rehab with my partner. The house was in her name, because she was wealthy, and “needed the tax write-off”, I never questioned that until I had spent all my money and two years of work on the house and this business opportunity came up. She went behind my back to the collective and told them I was unsure about taking the job. It would be so much better for me if a recently widowed person bought the business. That’s what happened. I found out after, and asked for my partner to buy out some of my investment in the house (which was all the money in the house) so I could go back to school or buy into another business. She refused, and pointed out that I had “no proof” that anything was mine. Then she moved in a new girlfriend. I was living in my car, working jobs that paid only in food. I was desperate. One of my co-workers at the food job became concerned about me and let me shower at his apartment. He was not making a pass or anything, just compassionate, but that gave her the opening she needed to concoct a story that I had moved out to have relationships with men. Even now, I can look around the internet to see wild stories of our life together, completely rewritten so that I’m either erased or defamed. No one from the community I’d spent years building ever helped me, checked on me, or asked about my side. When I meet young lesbians now, I caution them. There’s a reason it took us so long to get marriage equality. The person with more power, even in lesbian and gay relationships, still has the advantage. And we hate talking about that. Comments are closed.
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