Originally drafted on October 24, 2025 and November 5, 2025
Revised July 24-30, August 3-6, 2026.

Since coming out on Al Gore’s internet, I’m often writing about what it’s like to shift into a queer identity. For my own safety and well-being, I sometimes paywall these posts. This is one of these occasions, as it touches on a topic that I think is close to to the experiences of single and/or queer women, that is very difficult to discuss with people outside of those identities. Subscriptions are $25 a year to support my writing, a bargain compared to most other personal newsletters of this caliber and consistency! Hugs and kisses to the 35 folks who have already upgraded their subscriptions. Many thanks to those who send sweet comments - it balances out the sting of seeing others unsubscribe. 

If you had asked me a couple years ago about decentering men, I think I would have claimed it was something I had long achieved. I’ve always identified as a feminist, I have a long history of telling creepy dudes to get lost, I haven’t shaved my armpits in years, and many of my closest female friendships pre-date my marriage to my ex-husband. Going through an unexpected divorce and shifting into a queer identity radicalized me to see that truly decentering men is actually a deeply uncomfortable and transformative process that is almost impossible for most women, if we define decentering men as divesting from men.  

I’m deeply frustrated by the discourse around decentering men because so much of it is vague: long on vibes and short on any meaningful political foundation. When I scroll around Al Gore’s internet to read threads about how people define decentering men, many women are quick to say decentering men doesn’t mean you have to completely abstain from dating them. It sounds too much to my ears like a version of choice feminism, where however a woman decides to orient her life around men can still be feminist, even if she centers men in a way that undermines her capacity for solidarity with other women who choose not to center men. Choice feminism reflects a highly individualized neoliberal mindset that any choice a woman makes is a potentially feminist choice, and therefore conveniently off limits from critique.

What I’ve found in recent months is that many women want the benefits of feminism without reckoning with the personal and societal sacrifices of what it would actually mean to truly decenter men. Accounts of the deep work people have done to decenter and divest from men are rare, probably because as Alexandra Winteraven puts it, “It made me realize how easy it is to remove men from your lived environment while leaving them centered in your psychic architecture.”

It’s the ultimate expression of neoliberal feminism to act like one’s enlightened choices somehow outweighs centuries of patriarchal conditioning or even worse. Having a husband who washes the dishes is not proof that you’ve decentered men or picked more wisely than other women. I am guilty as charged: there is a reason I’m so obsessed with the concept of heteroexceptionalism (coined by Tracy Clark-Flory) because it explains why I put up with so much shit in my formerly straight married era. Say what you will about second wave feminism, but at least many of those women had the courage of their convictions and really meant it when they said the personal is the political.