Lesbianism is a constantly shifting construction in the women's movement. There is not "lesbianism but rather many "lesbianism" and similarly many "lesbians." The one word situates a number of constructions, each bound in a specific moment, a political moment, a moment in time and place.

--Katie King, Theory in Its Feminist Travels

Captivated by the ideals of separatist lesbian feminism, I moved to Durham, North Carolina, in 1980, in order to take a full-time job at Ladyslipper (a nonprofit company devoted to the distribution of women's music and women's culture) and to live in the lesbian community thriving there. From the vantage point of twenty years later, it has ...