I catch up with acclaimed American author to get her take on coming out, liberalism and lesbian nuns.
It’s not every day you’re beckoned out of the pouring rain and into the warm company of someone you admire most in the world. And it’s certainly not every day, in midst of your subtle embarrassment and thoughts of, ‘God, how could I have been so stupid?’ you realise this person is not the intimidating super-human you had somehow managed to conjure up in your head. She is, in fact, exactly how you had always imagined her to be – sweet, welcoming, and eager to share stories of her life with you.
It’s somewhat of a privilege to be sat down beside Rosemary Keefe (formerly Curb), author of Lesbian Nuns: Breaking Silence, (an anthology of experiences from former servants of God) 22 years after it made such an overwhelming impact upon its first publication in the U.S.
“I still get letters from people who have just discovered the book,” she says, with a notable tone of excitement. Understandable, considering the array of silences the book managed to shatter back then, despite the political climate of the mid 80’s.
“This is not just a book about lesbian nuns,” she assures me. “This is a book about breaking silence about women’s lives. We are all different, we are very complex and there is a tendency in popular culture to put women in categories: the bad girls, the good girls. The Madonna-whore split.”
No surprise than that Keefe is an author who, along with co-editor Nancy Manahan, stirred up political outrage, hurled religious leaders form their comfort zones and changed so many women’s lives for the better. Amongst all the feelings of respect and sheer thankfulness, I found myself not begin able to focus on anything other than that glaring similarities between the stories of the women in Lesbian Nuns and the lives of many men and women in Edinburgh and beyond today.
This striking comparison over time could explain why the book was so overwhelmingly successful. The stories offer universal insight and emotion to the extent to which they become applicable to other different, yet similar situations years down the line.
“The fact that the women whose stories appear in this book have been in religious communities simply isolates a particular sector of the population” Keefe explains.
“But the idea of struggling to come to an identity or to bring what maybe the world at large perceives as contradictory identities together, is a struggle that all kinds of people have in many, many different ways.”
“If, in this pantheon of good versus bad women, the patriarchy said, ‘well lesbians are bad and nuns are good’, I am here to tell you that the good girls and the bad girls are the same girls,” she continues. “And this is true not just of us, but of women in general. We are complex. And multi-faceted. And can’t be pigeonholed into a stereotype.”
The people flickering frantically through the pages of Lesbian Nuns this year may not be living in convents, but may be members of religious communities. Some may never have to worry about being denied a civil union with their partner, but many still do. And although today they may not face expulsion from the institutions in which they are members, they risk facing the same isolation and hostile treatment if they do decide to come out as gay or lesbian.
“At what price do you stay in the closet?” Keefe asks. “The closet is so stuffy and so painful.”
“I have observed people who have struggled to hide that piece of themselves. It’s like a part of their body and their soul just isn’t working, and they are in great pain,” she comments, with such an air of sensitivity and love.
“And when they finally come out, they may lose some people, and that is always the great fear. Well, who’s going to reject me? And they will be rejected, by people who are afraid, and that’s an unfortunate loss. But they come into a consciousness of their own true self and that is a much greater gain I think.”
While in Scotland we pride ourselves for our friendliness and attitudes towards diverse communities, Keefe believes it will take more for people to receive the acceptance and tolerance they crave.
“I think it’s going to take more and more people coming out, particularly people in positions of authority and respect,” she offers, having quite suitably occupied the position of Head of English at Missouri State University-Springfield. “As long as a large number of people stay in the closet and keep it hidden, then being hidden in the closet is the norm, and it is unusual for someone to come out.”
“Therefore we perpetuate the idea that one should not talk about this, and therefore we perpetuate for our potential straight friends and allies the lie about who we really are,” she continues, allowing for time to once again reflect back upon her ground-breaking book.
Lesbian Nuns: Breaking Silence does more than merely document a collection of memoirs from repressed women in religious communities dating back to the 50s. It is a tool of expression, progression and truth. A tool which can be utilised by man and women alike, in the search for equality for all.
“Now as an English professor I believe that being able to transform silence, and I’m quoting Audre Lorde now who is one of my big role models, ‘to transform silence into language is a great liberation’, for anyone, and that’s what telling the stories in Lesbian Nuns does for the women who wrote them,” Keefe says.
Currently in her last year of teaching, Keefe is due to retire this month. But she will continue to make vast contributions to the fight for social justice in many effective ways. And in continuing to transform taboo into debate, this is a woman who can truly break the silence.
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