Category: 1990s
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Lesbianism is made invisible through culty, “queer” expectations
Well, it’s been a pretty fucked up Lesbian Visibility Week in 2026. For example, we’ve had Linda Riley and Diva Magazine claiming they created Lesbian Visibility Week in 2020 for “all LGBTQ+ women.” Despite the fact that Lesbian Visibility Week was first recognised in 1990, in West Hollywood, USA. Original organisers specified that Lesbian Visibility…
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The Origin and Defence of “Gold Star”
I am proud to have never forced myself to sleep with a man. As tribal creatures, we do things against our desires to belong. All lesbians experience heteronormative pressure. My choice not to try it–when I knew I wasn’t attracted to the male body–was a “FUCK YOU! I’M FINE THE WAY I AM!” I refuse…
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Yesterday’s Cigarette: A Puerto Rican lesbian comes out in 1990s NYC
I usually do not smoke yesterday’s cigarette, but today I am desperate. Did I make the right decision to leave the New York City/New Jersey area to head North? “Don’t look back,” I tell myself, but that’s hard to do when the most electrifying part of my life happened there. It all started in the…
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1993: Sundays at Café Tabac, THAT Vanity Fair cover, Melissa Etheridge coming out… and my birth.
1993. It’s a “pivotal year in lesbian activism,” remembers Wanda Acosta, who co-hosted a weekly lesbian-focused event called No Day Like Sunday at Café Tabac. “[1993] included the first Dyke March, The Lesbian Avengers, LGBTQ March on Washington, as well as lesbian visibility in the arts, music, film and media.” “We saw the Vanity Fair…
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Raised by Butch-Femme parents in small-town 1960s USA: Pam’s story
Pam was 2-years-old when her mother found her life partner and co-parent: a Butch lesbian Pam affectionately refers to as ‘Pap’. Pam, who is gay herself and was named after her mother’s former lover, describes a happy, normal small-town childhood that was both attacked by straight society and embraced by some friends with kind hearts.…
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Lesbian perspectives on “queer”
Being a lesbian is the least weird thing about me. An integral part of overcoming internalised homophobia many moons ago was recognising that homosexuality exists in many mammal species and throughout human history. Perhaps that’s why I started the lesbian_herstory Instagram in the first place: as a place to remind myself and other lesbians that…
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Lesbian fetishism is not lesbian acceptance!
Lesbian fetishism is a power move resulting from the tension of uncertainty between hatred and acceptance. A trained attack dog, running on conditioned hate, will chase blood in the enemy. But there’s a space between the attack and the dog lying on its back in acceptance of its surroundings. Lesbian fetishism, like the fetishism of…
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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?
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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…
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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…