BUILDING A LESBIAN COMMUNITY IN EDMONTON, ALBERTA ...

INTRODUCTION
A THEORETICAL EXAMINATION OF IDENTITY FORMATION
IN RECENT LESBIAN CANADIAN HISTORY
In Canada as elsewhere, the majority ofhistorical and scholarly work analyzes gay history
from the male perspective. Frequently, writers classify lesbianism alongside gay male
homosexuality in a binary comparison, despite distinct differences between them. In the history of
homosexuality, the category oflesbian history has considerably less representation than that of
gay male history. 1 In general, gay men and lesbians share one feature in common- their
homosexuality. But as Annamarie Jagose, English professor at the University ofMelbourne,
observes, "the gendering ofthat sexuality has produced substantial cultural differences between
them.,,2 According to gay historian Jeffrey Weeks:
Lesbianism and male homosexuality in fact have quite different, ifinevitably
interconnected, social histories, related to the social evolution ofdistinct gender identities;
there is a danger that this fundamental, ifdifficult, point will be obscured by discussing
them as ifthey were part ofthe same experience. 3
IBecki L. Ross, The House that Jill Built: A Lesbian Nation in Formation (Toronto:
University ofToronto Press, 1995), 7.
2Annamarie Jagose, Queer Theory: An Introduction (Washington Square, New York:
New York University Press, 1996),44.
3 Jeffrey Weeks, Against Nature: Essays on History, Sexuality andIdentity (London:
River Dram Press, 1996), 14.
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