Desert Dykes: The Formation of Lesbian Networks in Albuquerque, New Mexico

In 2012, the University of New Mexico celebrated the fortieth anniversary of its women’s studies program (WMST) one of the first such programs in the United States. UMM’s WMST has provided the Albuquerque lesbian community with a longstanding institutional base. Students, faculty, staff members, and forged intimate ties that blurred the lines among notions of social identity, political activism, and academic life. As a result, WMST gained an informal reputation as a lesbian haven. However, WMST’s association with lesbianism initially served as an impediment to women of color’s involvement in lesbian community formation. White lesbians defined and explored their sexual identity through their involvement with and connection to WMST whereas Latina and Native American women often navigated and negotiated their sexual orientation within familial structures and hinterland spaces.

In this paper, I argue that the disconnections among these lesbians’ views of their own identity formation, challenged WMST to reconceptualize its identitarian subject, women, as a homogeneous group. As lesbian feminists acknowledged diversity, they questioned WMST’s narrow parameters and expanded its boundaries in order to create racially inclusive and geographically broad networks. Using WMST as a base camp for mobilization, lesbians conducted grassroots politics where they learned to address interlocking oppressions and support Latina and Native American lesbians’ concerns. In turn, activism strengthened the department. The university’s WMST program grew to incorporate intersectionality. Exploring these lesbians’ experiences of their own immediate herstories provides insight into the contemporary relationship between activism and scholarship in the field of women, gender, and sexuality studies.