Alix Dobkin

Alix Dobkin
Born August 16, 1940
New York, NY, U.S.
Genres Folk, women's music
Occupation(s) Singer-Songwriter
Instruments Vocals, Guitar
Years active 1973–present
Labels Women's Wax Works (Ladyslipper)

Alix Dobkin (born August 16, 1940) is an American folk singer-songwriter, memoirist, and lesbian feminist activist.

Personal life

Alix Dobkin was born in New York City into a Jewish Communist family,[1] and raised in Philadelphia and Kansas City.

In 1965 she married Sam Hood who ran the Gaslight Cafe in Greenwich Village. They moved to Miami and opened The Gaslight South Cafe, but moved back to New York in 1968. Their daughter Adrian was born two years later, and the following year the marriage broke up. A few months later, Dobkin came out as a lesbian, which was uncommon for a public personality to do at the time.

Her 2009 memoir, My Red Blood, was published by Alyson Books.[2] Dobkin lives in New York's Hudson Valley where she dotes on her two grandsons and granddaughter.

Education

Dobkin graduated from Germantown High School in 1958 and the Tyler School of Art with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1962.

Career

Alix Dobkin began her career by performing on the Greenwich Village coffeehouse scene in 1962.

Since 1973, she has released a number of albums as well as a songbook and has toured throughout the US, Canada, England, Scotland, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand promoting lesbian culture and community through women's music.

Dobkin has a small and devoted audience, has been called a "women's music legend" by Spin Magazine, "pithy" by The Village Voice, "Biting...inventive... imaginative" by New Age Journal, "uncompromising" in the New York Times Magazine, and "a troublemaker" by the FBI. She gained some unexpected fame in the 1980s when comedians such as David Letterman and Howard Stern tracked down her landmark Lavender Jane Loves Women album, and began playing phrases from the song "View From Gay Head" on the air.

In 1977, she became an associate of the American nonprofit publishing organization Women's Institute for Freedom of the Press (WIFP).[3] Dobkin is a member of the OLOC (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change) Steering Committee.[4]

Activism

Dobkin has been a highly vocal proponent of women-only space through her consistent exclusion of transgender women. In one letter to the National Center for Lesbian Rights, she explained, "For over twenty years men have declared themselves 'women,' manipulated their bodies and then demanded the feminist seal of approval from survivors of girlhood.... [My lyrics] are not 'oppressive' but refer to those of us who have a girlhood & a clitoris, & no one else."[5] Her controversial criticisms of postmodernism,[6] sadomasochism,[7] transgenderism[8] and other issues appeared in several of her written columns, "Minstrel Blood."[9] Her article "The Emperor's New Gender" appeared in the feminist journal off our backs in 2000.[10] "The Erasure of Lesbians",[11] co-authored with Sally Tatnall, was published in the legislation and case law website Gender Identity Watch in 2015 (transgender activists consider the site anti-transgender).

Discography

Albums

  • Lavender Jane Loves Women (1973)
  • Living with Lesbians (1975)
  • Xx Alix (1980)
  • These Women (1986)
  • Yahoo Australia! Live from Sydney (1990)
  • Love & Politics (compilation, 1992)
  • Living with Lavender Jane (CD re-release of first two albums, 1998)

Bibliography

  • (Not Just A Songbook) (1978)
  • Alix Dobkin's Adventures In Women's Music (1979)
  • My Red Blood: A Memoir of Growing Up Communist, Coming Onto the Greenwich Village Folk Scene, and Coming Out in the Feminist Movement (2009)

References

  1. ↑ Gianoulis, Tina. "Dobkin, Alix (b. 1940)". GLBTQ Encyclopedia. Archived from the original on 15 July 2012. Retrieved 9 August 2012.
  2. ↑ Baim, Tracy (January 6, 2010). "My Red Blood: A Memoir of Growing Up Communist, Coming Into the Greenwich Village Folk Scene, and Coming Out in the Feminist Movement". Windy City Times.
  3. ↑ "Associates | The Women's Institute for Freedom of the Press". www.wifp.org. Retrieved 2017-06-21.
  4. ↑ "The Reporter" (PDF). Old Lesbians Organizing for Change. June 2015.
  5. ↑ Dobkin, Alix (September 1, 2014). "Alix Dobkin's letter to Kate Kendell of the National Council of Lesbian Women". DYKE, A Quarterly. Retrieved January 20, 2016.
  6. ↑ Dobkin, Alix (October 21, 1998). "Deconstruct This!". Feminist Reprise. Retrieved October 13, 2012. (Originally published in Outlines.)
  7. ↑ Dobkin, Alix (June 2000). "Sadomasochism: It's a Republican Thing". off our backs: 16. JSTOR 20836638.
  8. ↑ Dobkin, Alix (June 21, 2000). "MINSTREL BLOOD: (In)famous Last Words (For Now)". Windy City Times. Retrieved October 13, 2012.
  9. ↑ "Alix Dobkin Columns" (PDF). You Are A Splendid Butterfly.com.
  10. ↑ Dobkin, Alix (April 2000). "The Emperor's New Gender". off our backs: 14. JSTOR 20836592.
  11. ↑ Dobkin, Alix; Tatnall, Sally (January 28, 2015). "The Erasure of Lesbians". Gender Identity Watch.
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