ABSTRACT
Violence pervades the lives of all women, whether as its target, through fearing it, or in struggling against it. In this context, the chapter explores lesbian subject formation, in times of violence, within wider systems in which gendered identity, practice and performance are normatively regulated and disciplined. It traces how lesbians both comply with and resist the hetero-patriarchal discourses through which femininity and masculinity are violently forged and defended. The chapter also charts the politicisation of lesbian identity in discourse, as well as the various modes of agency this makes possible in the encounter with violence.
