Category: History
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Kunstmuseum Basel exhibits ‘The First Homosexuals’
While it can feel like the world is moving away from labels, naming something makes it more visible. Switzerland’s Kunstmuseum Basel is proving the power of specific language by exhibiting the compelling art made by and for gay and lesbian people immediately after the word “homosexual” was coined in 1869. Homosexuals existed before there was…
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Because of You: Documentary explores Filipina lesbians in ‘90s NYC
I remember being expected to interrogate the concept of ‘belonging’ from a theoretical perspective for the first time in high school English class. Fittingly, the class of 12-year-olds and I analysed the poems of Emily Dickinson in an attempt to conclude something deep about ‘belonging’. I enjoyed and related to her poetry, but drawing conclusions…
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Lesbian Visibility Week is for female homosexuals
Lesbianism has been made invisible for a variety of homophobic reasons. Heteropatriarchal society denied that female homosexuality was possible in history, which is the epitome of invisibility. But is today much different? Lesbians can’t even have Lesbian Visibility Week (LVW), beginning April 20, to themselves without including everyone who identifies as “queer,” or else we’re…
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Professional women’s baseball returns to the US after 70 years
Lesbians were heartbroken when Prime Video canceled the A League of Their Own (2022) series, but it seems to have sparked a passion for women’s baseball in the United States. In 2026, the Women’s Professional Baseball League (WPBL) will go ahead as the first US professional women’s baseball league in 70 years. A League…
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Hey, Political “Lesbians”! Lesbianism is not a choice!
Lesbianism means female homosexuality. It refers to a class of women who are incapable of experiencing sexual attraction towards males, only towards females. Without the word lesbian, we don’t have language to describe ourselves. Some women, mainly bisexuals, argue that lesbians should surrender our word and identity for non-lesbian women to refer to themselves as…
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Butch knight game 1348 Ex Voto shares issues with early lesbian film
It’s been a month since the 3rd-person action-adventure game 1348 Ex Voto was released. We felt promised a lesbian love story set in 14th-century Italy, inspired by chivalric tropes, where butch lesbian Aeta journeys to save her beloved, Bianca. Homophobic gamer bros hated it before it came out–not only was it “too woke” for them,…
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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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Black, Lesbian, and Still Here: Tori’s story
As a little Black girl growing up in small-town Georgia, USA, I was told to go to church and respect my elders, even if they were wrong. I was supposed to get good grades in school and, once I graduated from high school, find a husband and have kids. That’s what they call happiness in…
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Anne Lister and Ann Walker married on Easter Sunday, 192 years ago
Anne Lister and Ann Walker considered themselves married 192 years ago on Easter Sunday. Although same-sex marriage wasn’t legal at the time, the church they symbolically tied the knot in–Holy Trinity, on Goodramgate–has since been described as the birthplace of lesbian marriage. The church now needs help fixing its 17th-century gate that Walker and Lister…
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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…