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Flamboyance and Fortitude: Butch-Femme Relationships in 2024

Butch-Femme relationships play an important role in lesbian history. What does the Butch-Femme relationship mean today?
‘I Kissed a Girl’ is better than ‘The Ultimatum: Queer Love’

What do you think of when you read the words “I kissed a girl”? I hope it’s not the song by Katy Perry from 2008, where the singer portrays female same-sex desire as something for the male gaze. I hope it’s the recently aired BBC television show hosted by Dannii Minogue. I Kissed a Girl…
Why ‘Blue is the Warmest Color’ is a shit film

‘Blue is the Warmest Color’ is a shit film and here’s why.
Why is lesbian culture and community important?

It is unequivocally healthy and normal to find a sense of belonging in your lesbianism. Many people grow roots in their marginalised cultures because the world is harsh to the oppressed and a relatable community heals us.
Is lesbian separatism possible in 2023?

Q&A style posts on LesbianHerstory.com are an opportunity for readers to ask questions that serve as prompting topics for LH to write about. Questions can be advice-based, about our hot takes, asking whether we’ll cover a certain event or figure from history, or about lesbian news and media – you name it. Send your questions/prompts…
Lesbian Media Lesbians Love

*Updated June 8, 2024* We asked our supporters for their favourite lesbian movies, television shows, video games, apps, podcasts, YouTubers, books, artists, websites, musicians, magazines, and any other lesbian media they love. Because authors at LH haven’t engaged with all of this media, we cannot guarantee the politics or enjoyability behind each suggestion. Some of…
Lesbian Visibility Week 2023: Female Homosexuality is Not Bigoted

For Lesbian Day of Visibility 2023, the team behind HER’s social media celebrated by calling lesbians bigots for only finding the female sex attractive. This should go without saying, for anyone who is not a raging homophobe: lesbianism is not a choice, let alone discrimination against the male sex. You would think this poor treatment…
Boston Marriages and the Language of Lesbian Relationships

Maybe it was two women in your history textbook. Maybe it was your unmarried great aunt and her live-in ‘best friend’. We are all familiar with the story: two women are designated close friends by historians, family members and society, despite the pair’s decision to unite and entwine their lives like any marriage between a…
Lesbian and Gay Nightlife in 1990s Northern England: An interview with Stuart Linden Rhodes

Stuart Linden Rhodes is a photographer and writer who captured gay and lesbian nightlife in 1990s Northern England. Stuart’s Instagram account @linden_archives features hundreds of posed and candid shots from a time and place in lesbian and gay history that, without it, would be unseen today. In fact, Stuart’s Instagram account was discovered by director…
“Lesbians Have Always Existed”: an interview with artist Jenifer Prince

Jenifer Prince is a visual artist and illustrator from Brazil. She combines mid-century comic aesthetics and pop culture references to depict lesbianism, “their love, life, sexuality and everything in between,” with a nostalgic nod to the past. We love to see Jenifer Prince’s art and so do big clients, including Netflix, Amazon Prime and Penguin…
Sapphic Wales in the Nineteenth Century

Throughout history, lesbian and bisexual women have been marginalised, silenced, and had their stories erased. When you think of Welsh history, you probably do not think of lesbians. However, nineteenth-century Wales hosted an array of women-loving-women who persisted in living authentic to their sexual orientation, despite it significantly conflicting with society’s expectations. Join me in…
How Should We Tell the Stories of “Bad” Lesbians from History in a Culture of Us vs. Them?

How do we write on complex, even harmful, lesbians from history in the age of “us vs. them”? How do we present the facts in a way that doesn’t omit the person or the truth? Is writing on a person from history ever objective, considering the historian has their own interests, motives and interpretations, and…
The Male Gaze and Lesbian Censorship in Film

It’s of little surprise to most sapphic movie buffs that Hollywood doesn’t have the best track record when it comes to positive lesbian representation. From the widespread trope of “bury your gays” to the equally widespread phenomenon of gay-baiting, it can be hard out there for a film loving dyke. Hays Code A lot of…
Today’s Lavender Menace: Why do lesbians support gay men?

I received a lot of support after I wrote The Lesbian Pinball: Gay Liberation vs. Women’s Liberation in August 2021. Lesbian feminists from all over the world resonated with the conflict: we simultaneously support gay men and women but it is hard to navigate gay and feminist spaces without our intersectional experience, being both homosexual…
A Cellist’s Resistance: the bravery of Frieda Belinfante

The year is 1940. World War II has just begun. The talented Dutch cello player Frieda Belinfante has to give up the fame she has recently obtained as the first female orchestra director in her country… Frieda Belinfante was born in Amsterdam, 1904. Her father Aaron Belinfante was a concert piano player who introduced his…
Why lesbian separatism is not escapist

There is a false narrative in the feminist community that lesbian separatism is escapist. There are legitimate criticisms–utopianism, rigidity, alienation–but the belief that lesbian separatism is escapism, running away into the bush, leaving the rest of womankind behind to fend for themselves against patriarchy, seems to stick the most. Lesbian separatism is meaningful lesbian-centred action.…
Make Feminism Venomous Again: first Roe v. Wade, next lesbian and gay rights

On the 24th of June, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court eliminated the constitutional right to abortion just short of the 50th anniversary of Roe v Wade. As of April 7, 2022, of the 9 justices of the Supreme Court, 6 were appointed by a Republican president and 3 were appointed by a Democratic president. WE…
Lesbian Tenth Muse: On Juana Inés de la Cruz and Sappho.

I love Lisi, but I do not pretend That Lisi corresponds my finesse, Well, if I judge her beauty possible, To her decorum and my apprehension I offend. – Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. You’ve heard of Sappho but have you heard of sor Juana Inés de la Cruz? Like many lesbians from history,…
Interview: T.S. from Black Lesbian Herstory

To commemorate Black history month, Lesbian Herstory spoke to T.S. from Black Lesbian Herstory about the joys, challenges, and importance of holding space to research, archive and curate the lives of Black lesbians from history. LH: What do you most enjoy about researching and curating Black lesbian herstory (or lesbian herstory in general)? TS: For…
Lesbian Feminist Spirituality of the 1970s

One of my favorite lesbian stereotypes is our love for astrology. One would be hard pressed to find a lesbian without their sun sign in their social media bios, let alone their entire star chart. Tarot, crystals, and witchcraft just seem so inherently lesbian. So how did the New Age and lesbianism become linked? For…
Girlfriends or Gal Pals? Decoding Intimacy Between Women in Old Photographs

Love between women has existed forever, despite the crumbs of documentation and the meddling with evidence. Homosexuality didn’t begin with gay rights awareness in the 20th century. However, society still denormalises same-sex love as a new trend. In style. A fad. An abomination. A political choice. An act of rebellion. Bow-bowww. They’re wrong. Women lovin’…
Patricia Highsmith: a Painful Lesson

Patricia Highsmith was the author of The Price of Salt (1952): the inspiration for the film Carol (2015). It was the first lesbian novel with a happy ending. However, while many adored her, Patricia Highsmith was not known as a particularly cheerful person. The prolific author wrote 22 novels and many short stories over her…
The Lesbian Pinball: Gay Liberation vs Women’s Liberation

Lesbians are pulled between solidarity with gay men, because of homophobia, and straight women, because of misogyny. We have prioritised solidarity with gay men or straight women at different points in history, depending on the contextual concerns.

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All (new-old)

Flamboyance and Fortitude: Butch-Femme Relationships in 2024

‘I Kissed a Girl’ is better than ‘The Ultimatum: Queer Love’

Why ‘Blue is the Warmest Color’ is a shit film

Why is lesbian culture and community important?

Is lesbian separatism possible in 2023?

Lesbian Media Lesbians Love

Lesbian Visibility Week 2023: Female Homosexuality is Not Bigoted

Boston Marriages and the Language of Lesbian Relationships

Lesbian and Gay Nightlife in 1990s Northern England: An interview with Stuart Linden Rhodes

“Lesbians Have Always Existed”: an interview with artist Jenifer Prince

Sapphic Wales in the Nineteenth Century

How Should We Tell the Stories of “Bad” Lesbians from History in a Culture of Us vs. Them?

The Male Gaze and Lesbian Censorship in Film

Today’s Lavender Menace: Why do lesbians support gay men?

A Cellist’s Resistance: the bravery of Frieda Belinfante

Why lesbian separatism is not escapist

Make Feminism Venomous Again: first Roe v. Wade, next lesbian and gay rights

Lesbian Tenth Muse: On Juana Inés de la Cruz and Sappho.

Interview: T.S. from Black Lesbian Herstory

Lesbian Feminist Spirituality of the 1970s

Girlfriends or Gal Pals? Decoding Intimacy Between Women in Old Photographs

Patricia Highsmith: a Painful Lesson

The Lesbian Pinball: Gay Liberation vs Women’s Liberation