This is interesting to me too. Actually, in her most recent work (FAMILY
TREE) she has one character go off on a tirade about discrimination (just
as casually as she mentions the gay thing in GTWC). The character rants
about all the various forms of discrimination and treating people as
inferior, and she includes homosexuality as a form of discrimination.
The only thing in Tepper's works that I've ever considered homophobic was
that passage in GTWC. And what I've concluded was that GTWC was a thought
experiment in the grand style. It was NOT her ideal utopia. She posited
some people, a situation, and decisions they might take. I think it is
reasonable to guess that people who found a specific cause for
homosexuality might eliminate that. Is that just or even a good idea? I
don't think so and for personal reasons certainly hope no such thing ever
comes to pass. But it's a possible decision. The leaders of Women's
Country made a lot of decisions that *I* find ethically questionable. I
think Tepper does, too, which is why the matriarch figure (using the term
loosely) calls the leaders "the damned few."
Of course, one could also assume that she is, or has been, somewhat
"homophobic," but believes (at least now) that economic / political
discrimination against queers is wrong.
On Wed, 9 Apr 1997, Nomi Liron wrote:
> I am a great fan of Tepper, but one thing that really bothers me is
> her implied stance against homosexuality. It is really apparent in passages
> in "Gate to Women's Country" where "gay syndrome" is explained as having
> originated from abnormal hormone levels during pregnancy. In the new society
> the women build and create from the ashes of the old, "gay syndrome" was
> identified and corrected at birth.
> I have generally found Sci Fi writers to be more open to alternative
> forms of sexuality, so the sentiment puzzles me.
> Does anyone else have difficulties with this issue?
>
> drink water, nomi
>
Laura M. Quilter / lauramd@uic.edu
Electronic Services Librarian
University of Illinois at Chicago
http://www.uic.edu/~lauramd/
"If I can't dance, I don't want to be
in your revolution." -- Emma Goldman
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