Category: Feminism

  • Flamboyance and Fortitude: Butch-Femme Relationships in 2024

    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?

  • Why lesbian separatism is not escapist

    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.…

  • Why is lesbian culture and community important?

    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?

    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 Visibility Week 2023: Female Homosexuality is Not Bigoted

    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

    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…

  • Sapphic Wales in the Nineteenth Century

    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…

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

    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…

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

    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

    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…