Thinking of Myself as One of Alison Bechdel’s 'Dykes to Watch Out For'
Illustration by Casey Beifuss
In 1983, Alison Bechdel introduced Mo, Lois, Clarice, Toni and a dozen more miscellaneous lesbians to the world through her weekly comic strip, Dykes to Watch Out For. This year, I picked up a collection of the comics from my local bookstore, devouring over two decades of Bechdel’s illustrations and stories in just a week. It was my summer reading, my instruction manual, and dare I say, my bible. When Bechdel sat down to create Dykes to Watch Out For, I doubt she ever predicted a 20-year-old lesbian — who possessed a different set of worries and priorities than her fictional lesbians of the 1980s — would find a solace in her comics; yet, I did. I may not remember the political unrest and anxiety of the Bush presidency that the lesbians in the comics do, and I no longer have to fight for the right to marry in America, but I connected to these fictional lesbians. I felt that I understood their pains, their joys, their jokes and their identities, as if they were dear friends of mine. Reading Dykes to Watch Out For connected me to a history, a lineage of lesbians of yesteryear, that I never knew existed.
Dykes to Watch Out For was one of the first representations of lesbian communities in popular culture. Before The L Word — a show I’m convinced is falling out of center stage for lesbians, as I don’t know a soul my age who has watched it, but I digress — there was Mo kvetching about literally everything, Lois trying her hand at drag, Clarice and Toni’s lovingly complicated relationship, and Sparrow and Ginger’s housemate troubles. This comic was one of the first pieces of media I consumed wherein nearly every single character was a lesbian. Occasionally, lesbians waltz across the big screen only to die by the time the credits role, but Dykes to Watch Out For doesn’t just stop at their existence. It delves into the everyday lives and feelings of lesbians. They aren’t a monolith; each character not only presents differently, but has a unique personal life. Toni and Clarice’s fight to get their civil union recognized and raise a child is a whole different ballpark from Mo’s tendency to self-sabotage her romantic relationships. Both struggles are uniquely lesbian, but also unique to the characters themselves.
The comics showed me a history I would have never been taught. Coming out as a lesbian, there is no “Introduction to Lesbian History” course that arrives in the mail. For years, I have identified as a lesbian without knowing what the community, which I now consider myself a part of, has looked like in the past. In this way, Bechdel’s series serves as a time capsule. Through the characters' conversations, I get to see how lesbians then viewed having children — how some felt that starting a family fed into a heteronormative, nuclear ideal, and how others saw having a child as taking agency and initiative of their own life decisions. The same goes for marriage equality; they debated whether marriage, as a system, fed into patriarchy, and whether lesbians needed to abide by that system. The comic’s progression over decades showed a shift in Pride events from protest to celebration. Bechdel also recounted the emergence of some trans folks in queer spaces, and how lesbians viewed their presence. They showed how many lesbians felt an obligation to be activists and politically active. They showed that lesbian dating has always been incredibly messy, no matter the decade. There are countless perspectives woven into these comic strips, all predecessors to young lesbians like myself. The characters may be fictional, but they are based in truth, and that truth allowed me to understand where lesbians of the past came from and how I can let their truths shape my own modern day lesbian experience.
Dykes to Watch Out For entered my life (or my bookshelf) at a time when I most needed it. Somewhat naively, I assumed that I knew everything I needed to know about myself by the time I was 18. Considering that I didn’t realize my own lesbianism until the year after, this assumption I made about myself was very wrong. As I came of age and into my queerness around online spaces like TikTok and Instagram, experimenting with my own self-expression was harder than I anticipated. I am constantly bombarded with memes about the proper Doc Marten to Vans ratio a lesbian should have in their closet. I see TikTok upon TikTok about pigeonholing your particular type of lesbianism into a label. I found it surprisingly difficult to embrace my own style without comparing it to the stereotypes of queer folks online. I asked myself over and over again: Do I look gay enough?
However, Dykes to Watch Out For captured an entirely different approach to lesbianism. The comics present so many different types of lesbians, from feminine to androgynous, to butch, and all of them were just as valid a lesbian as the next. Bechdel shows that masculinity and femininity, and every mode of expression in between, are part of the lesbian experience. She shows Mo, with her androgynous appearance, crushing on the feminine Thea and the more masculine Sydney without commenting on how each women presents. Lois explores her own gender by experimenting with drag; Bechdel — and by extension, the reader — do not bat an eye. They are all lesbians, equally given a space in these comics. As I read, I felt my fears of not looking “gay enough” dissipate. Thinking of myself as another link in a long lineage of lesbian culture, which encompasses a spectrum how lesbians can be and present, gave me the confidence to express myself in a way that made me comfortable, and trust that I was not an imposter stealing a space in the lesbian canon.
I’m not saying that Dykes to Watch Out For singlehandedly changed the way I viewed my queerness, but I am saying that Bechdel’s comics let me reflect on my own experiences and my lesbianism. The English major in me wants to say that this is the power of books, allowing us to learn more about ourselves. However, I do not know if I really believe this in the case of Dykes to Watch Out For. What I believe is that Bechdel found a way to speak to her community and her own identity in a surprisingly timeless way. Her words and illustrations possess a kind of superpower; it is artwork worth seeking out for all lesbians of any generation.