*blush* I don't often get into deep criticism of the LHMP material unless I feel it needs something in the way of a content warning. I feel like the purpose of the Project is to point people to source materials and then to get out of their way. But I was there--in the late '70s and '80s. I remember the discussions and the concerns and the world-view that articles like this are coming out of. And in an odd way, I feel protective of those early scholars of lesbian-feminism who come in for so much criticism today, especially on trans issues. You can only travel from where you begin, and they were beginning from a very different place on the map than people are today. It constrained the places they could imagine going.

I write that and hear the echo of "a product of their times"...and it's true. But so often we see malice in outdated opinions that were not self-consciously malicious. It's only that they were standing in a different place and saw the world differently. And sometimes "they" are "us" and we can see in a blurry double-vision how an opinion can be both progressive and wrong-headed at the same time.