Missed Connections As Opportunities
Amber Hollibaugh's Dangerous Desires, Phranc's Butch Closet, and other preserved documents of dyke history.
A few weeks ago, I saw that Amber Hollibaugh passed away just as I went into a Zoom meeting for a new writers’ group I started with three other queer femmes. I knew I was in the right place when we held that space for her, sitting in the heaviness of that news while talking about how we wanted our workshop space to run. Having had differing experiences elsewhere, the privilege felt palpable, at least to me, to be able to be in such a space — virtual, but still — where the other three and I could talk about the work we’d done and wanted to do, and how we could best support each other.
Afterward, I searched for Amber Hollibaugh’s Facebook page — almost all the elders are found on Facebook, so I keep my account active. I was shocked to see a friend request she’d sent me sitting there, waiting for my response. I accepted it, belated, heartbroken.
I reordered My Dangerous Desires: A Queer Girl Dreaming Her Way Home because I’d sold it to Myopic in college when my first girlfriend and I traded in CDs and books for sorely needed cash. As I re-read her collection of essays, columns, and interviews this week, I had a lot of regrets, but none bigger than our missed connection.
Too much goes missing when a generation dies. I’m certainly not alone in this understanding or the want to rectify this — archives, historians, and scholars have been creating records and collections to ensure that what is important will not be lost. Some, inevitably, have been burned or buried, but a half-century after some of the most important feminism and lesbian activism endured, these efforts feel more urgent than ever.
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