Cohousing-L Mailing List: Gays and Lesbians in CoHousing

[Joani Blank (jeblank]

Hello listmates,

I wrote a long letter to Donna McDaniel in reference to the questions she
asked for an article she is preparing. I decided to excerpt some of it for
coho-l, particularly in light of the recent diversity thread started by Tony
DeRocca last week. My excerpt follows: (the quoted questions are from
Sojourner staff, not from Donna.)

>I also wonder, since we have an audience that is 60 percent lesbian, are
there any all women's cohousing groups?

Of course I don't know about all the groups that may call themselves
cohousing, but among those that include themselves on the cohousing
network's list, most of which are created based on the Danish model, there
are currently no cohousing developments that are all lesbian or all women,
although there may be core groups that are. (BTW, as a bisexual woman who
identified as heterosexual for many years, I find it offensive that it is
assumed that any group that is all women is all lesbian--we used to joke by
saying "you mean women with an L, right?")  

>And in the groups that you know of, are there significant numbers of gays
and lesbians?

This is a guess. There are some, but not in anywhere near the same
proportion that gays and lesbians exist in the population. You are correct
that all cohousing communities are welcoming to households or individual of
any sexual identity or orientation. Nevertheless, these are mostly fairly
small communities, and I can understand why a gay or lesbian individual or
couple would be reluctant to be the only one in their community. I think,
however, that the same might go for vegans, Jews, African Americans,
Fundamentalist Christians, people with kids, people with no kids, people
over 60.....you get the idea. 

CoHousing wisdom at the moment suggests that any community of "all one kind"
of people will not make it in the 90s. Perhaps in ten years when there is
cohousing all over the place in lots of different sizes, shapes and colors,
many of these communities, will be able to and may choose to restrict who
comes in. At first, they will also have trouble finding lenders for purchase
of individual units, because banks do not want limits on who they can sell
to in the event of a foreclosure. 

For now, it is hard enough to get together X households all of whom are
wanting to buy a home, are able to afford it, all of whom  want to live in
the same neighborhood or specific site, AND who desire what cohousing has to
offer. Never mind the fact that one may have to put up a great deal of time,
energy and money towards a new home that they won't be able to move into for
several years. Anyhow, If a group can exclude men or any other subgroup, and
still make a go of it, more power to them! 

I had a lenghty discussion with a woman who said that she and several
lesbian friends owned some land they wanted to turn into cohousing. When I
asked if women with children would be welcome to live there, her response
was that none of the women in the current group had children living at home,
and that grown children would be able to come and visit anytime. I was
surprised that she seemed so oblivious to the fact that some younger
lesbians are having children now, nor did she think that lesbians who
already had school-age children, perhaps from when they were married to a
man, might want to live there. She said that if a woman came in with a boy
child, or if she birthed and raised a boy child in the community, that boy
would have to go to boarding school when he turned 13. Hmmmm. 

Joani Blank