Category: Countries
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I was there: Canada’s Stonewall, the Brunswick Four
Women had fewer choices in 1974. We were excluded from the “trades” where you could actually make a decent wage. We couldn’t get bank loans to start businesses without a man’s signature. The courts were taking children away from their mothers because their mothers were lesbians… It wasn’t good, and we were making a fuss.…
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Should dangerously homophobic countries get to host global competitions?
There is no sport more synonymous with freedom than surfing. You can fight me on this. Surfers harness the waves despite the unknown deep below, tapping into the human urge to go “weeeeee!” while somehow controlling our mortal fears. Sometimes, I can’t leave my bedroom – usually after hearing of another woman murdered by a…
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Off the Calendar: What does Trump’s billionaire boys’ club mean for lesbians?
I’m the first to admit that I find months dedicated to the classes I belong to, such as Pride month, performative and kind of cringe. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against Pride gatherings or even the odd parade here or there, so long as capitalists do not sponsor them. They don’t really give a…
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Heard of the male gaze? Get ready for the lesbian lens with Halie Torris
How does a lesbian artist express lesbian sexuality in her work when lesbian desire is usually either ignored, denied, purified or assumed to be created for men? Halie Torris’ art appeals to the legions of lesbians craving sexy depictions of ourselves through a lesbian lens. Halie Torris is a lesbian figurative painter who channels emotion…
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‘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…
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Why ‘Blue is the Warmest Color’ is a shit film
‘Blue is the Warmest Color’ is a shit film and here’s why.
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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.…
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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…
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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…
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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…