Pursuing assimilation as a lesbian, resisting assimilation
as a Jew:
A personal view
Lisa Brodoff
Clinical Professor of Law
Seattle University School of Law
"Assimilate" is defined in the dictionary as follows: To absorb and incorporate; to make similar; cause to assume a resemblance. For me, I fight assimilation when its purpose is to negate my personhood and culture, in order to fit in and be accepted by the dominant culture. When assimilation is pursued out of embarrassment about who you are and what you represent, so you attempt to change yourself to fit in, then it can be a spirit destroying endeavor. On the other hand, when one assimilates as a way of creating and/or joining community, or as a way of strengthening culture, spirit, and beliefs rather than to negate them, assimilation can be positive and affirming. It should be pursued, not condemned. As a Jewish lesbian, I have had to both resist assimilation (as a Jew) and fight for assimilation (as a lesbian).
As a Jewish woman, I am very familiar with assimilation. For me, assimilation means a number of things. For example, it means the pressure to celebrate Christian holidays like Christmas and Easter to be like the rest of the gang - it's all fun and secular, no harm done. At least make Chanukah a larger holiday than it is, so your children do not feel deprived. People feel "sorry for you" that you "can't" celebrate these events. It means considering plastic surgery to make us look like the rest of white society. It is the pressure not to go to synagogue or practice the Jewish rituals, except maybe on the High Holidays. Even then, schools, work and the larger community almost always put major events on those days making the pressure not to celebrate even greater. Do not circumcise your boy child! It's barbaric and dangerous and comparable to clitoral circumcision. Get your genetically large body thin to look like the ideal white Anglo-Saxon.
As I became an adult, resistance to this assimilation was like fighting for my own life and identity. When I moved to the Pacific Northwest from the east coast, to a town that had very few Jews and, thankfully, one synagogue, I soon started to realize that assimilation meant spiritual death in a way that it had not before. Suddenly and for the first time, I found myself needing to take the High Holidays off of work, even though I never went to Temple growing up, to make a clear statement to the community that I was Jewish. When my partner and I were awaiting the birth of our first child, our gay and lesbian (non-Jewish) friends put huge pressure on us to not circumcise our child if it was a boy. They gave us books to read on the psychic damage we would cause our son if we followed our Jewish tradition. We soon realized that, if we followed their advice and assimilated in that way, we would lose the support of our Jewish community (our parents were shocked that we were even considering not circumcising!) at the very point we and our child needed it the most. This was the first and most stark example of the clash of the gay political culture with that of our Jewish culture.
As a lesbian, I cannot seem to get an intuitive grasp of the concept
of assimilation as a spiritual killer that I figured out as a Jew. As
a matter of fact, I often feel the opposite is true -- that striving for
assimilation as a lesbian gives me strength and purpose in the same way
resisting it does for me as a Jew. Assimilation as a lesbian means fighting
for my life and community in the same way resistance as a Jew means fighting
for my life and community. For me, being an out lesbian itself is resistance
enough to assimilation, but the rest of it - having a monogamous long
term relationship, wanting and having children, fighting for second parent
adoption, giving our children a religious education, wanting to be legally
married, asking for the same healthcare benefits as my married co-workers,
just fighting for acceptance in the larger straight community are acts
of assimilation that feel right. Assimilation as a lesbian feels like
fighting to be part of the larger world community in a good way. Isn't
assimilation here becoming part of the community, and isn't being an active
community member a good thing, both for the community and the individual?
I guess the problem I have with resistance to assimilation as a lesbian
that I do not have as a Jew is that, in resisting, we are fighting community
building, both within and without.
I have been talking about assimilation and my feelings about it as a Jew
from my gut emotional reaction. I have a much clearer sense of its meaning
as a Jew than I do as a lesbian. Perhaps this is because, as a Jew, I
have a long history, a spiritual tradition, and a culture that is clearly
defined. As a lesbian, I don't have this kind of clear understanding of
history, tradition and culture. As a Jew, assimilation means the death
of those things; as a lesbian, assimilation means a chance at a larger
community acceptance and inclusion, things that are vital to my and my
family's life.