Efforts of Bifurcation and Liberation: Deconstructing the Story of a Turn‐of‐the‐Century Lesbian, Part Two

Abstract

This manuscript takes as its centerpiece fragments of the author's personal story of growing up as a closeted lesbian in school, in the Fortune 500, and in the community and of a number of years attempting to integrate her lesbian identity into her professional persona – outside of the closet. This manuscript makes an attempt at a “duality search” based on the work of Boje (2001), deconstructing the story as it examines the bifurcation between personal and public and, in this case more exactly, professional and sexual orientation identities. The tension between closeted outsider and the prevailing expectations for promising “insiders” in organizational settings is viewed in this manuscript through two related frames. The first draws from the concept of the Borderlands as articulated by Gloria Anzaldúa (1987), and Adrienne Rich's (1979) work and perspective on lying. The second peers into the story through the lens of Benita Luckmann's (1978) concept of the modern emergence of separate, small worlds.