  While this tendency to forgo consideration of the real life experiences of trans people in favor of monolithic, stereotypical representations of them (or through outright erasure) seems to have been common in academic writing at the time, it is also worth noting the deep theoretical and political commitments at work. Raymond's account is situated within a lesbian-separatist paradigm which sees women's oppression as secured through compulsory heterosexual relationships (Radicalesbians [1970] 1988). In this heterosexual context, women are forced to adopt an identity that is male-dominant (man-identified). Liberation from the colonization of identity can only be obtained through lesbian relationships and a community of women-identified women. Central to this paradigm of oppression/ liberation, then, is the view that a woman's identity can be thoroughly colonized as well as the view that this can possibly be eliminated through loving lesbian relationships (Frye 1983). It is one, then, which does not see the self as inherently bound up with gender or sex role.