Lesbianas Unidas: Shaping nation through community activist rhetorics

Latina Queer activisms emerged in response to the ethnic-based Chicano movement and the White-focused women's movement. Latina lesbians found that foregrounding nationhood based on ethnic origin was in absolute opposition to sexual and gendered liberation. Specifically, Latina feminist groups of the 1970s emphasized their compliant straightness to maintain their citizenship within the Chicano/Latino nation. In addition, from a Chicano perspective, feminism itself was considered a "White disease" and part of destructive White "gabacho" influence. While White lesbian groups were many times allied with lesbians of color their racist blinders were evident. The founders of Lesbianas Unidas in Los Angeles walked a fine line of rejection and alienation from their families and home culture of ethnicity and authenticity while redefining "queer" as coherent within the Chicano/Latino nation. My study focuses on their creation of rhetorical strategies of sex, gender, and nationality that set Lesbianas Unidas apart first, from masculinist Chicano civil rights groups, then from early feminist Chicana groups, and finally through dialogue with gay Latino groups.