There are people out there who get annoyed at the sto­ry that Djuna Barnes, rather than iden­ti­fy as a les­bian, pre­fer­red to say that she “just loved Thelma.” Gertrude Stein repu­ted­ly made simi­lar claims, albeit not in those exact terms, about Alice. I get why it’s poli­ti­cal­ly mad­de­ning, but I’ve also always thought it a lit­tle romantic—the romance of let­ting an indi­vi­dual expe­rience of desire take pre­ce­dence over a cate­go­ri­cal one.