In a society where there is a label for nearly every gender and sexual identity that one can think of, it is no surprise that the gender and sexuality of the poet Sappho seems to be a hot-topic debate. But in a way, while reading Re-Queering Sappho I somehow felt that the question and argument was counter-progressive. Sappho - whether female-queer or male-hetero - wrote about an attraction and love that was organic. Scrambling to label or re-label Sappho seems constricting at the very least. I personally believe that the ambiguity that can come without specifically placing Sappho in one box or another is actually a strength when it concerns their poems.
Obviously, knowing the identity of a writer can add a greater context to their works. But in this debate, there is a duality witth which Sappho's poems can be read that makes the ongoing concern of their gender and sexuality an asset. It does seem highly characteristic of men to try to impose their identities onto a writer such as Sappho, as well as women to try to grip onto their perception of Sappho's identity. But just as the word "lesbian" the way we use it today was before Sappho's time, so were the popularized identities of nonbinary or demi-pansexual. And while Haselswerdt argued that the conformity to the majority/dominant is oppressive, I believe that the true oppression is being made to conform at all in this case.