Today's Spotlight looks at lesbian music pioneer Alix Dobkin, who released the groundbreaking record, Lavender Jane Loves Women in 1973. Today's song is a track from this record. It was the first record that was for and by lesbians, and paved the way for all the lesbian performers who came after her. She formed her own record label, Women's Wax Works, to put out this release. The record was also the first record produced, engineered, and financed by lesbians. Dobkin is considered so influential that she is sometimes referred to as the "Head Lesbian." She has spent her life traveling the world singing about lesbian life and love as one of the first to ever do so. Dobkin married a man in the 1960s and had a daughter but fell in love with a friend and came out in the early '70s.
Dobkin is an avid promoter of women's (she would probably spell it "womyn's") music and culture, and lesbian rights. She still tours and gives workshops about the early women's music movement. Dobkin has been criticized because she is pro-women only space and has been called a man hater and transphobic. She has been vocal in her criticism of trangender people, particularly of FTM transpeople. She seems to see FTMs as a threat to lesbian identity, especially butch identity. She says,
"I certainly have strong opinions about men's violence, men's dominance, men's politics, male institutions, male hierarchies and penis-centered culture (don't you?), but man-hating is irrelevant in my life. I look to transexuals to break new ground and not reinforce conventional gender stereotypes."
Dobkin is a vegetarian and on the advisory board of Feminists for Animal Rights. She is also a doting grandmother.
I hope some of you will take the time to read the following article. It's a different way of looking at transgender identity and very interesting.
Dobkin's take on transgender
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