Editor’s note: Alison HopeHis writing has been featured in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, Slate, and more. Her views expressed here are her own.read more opinions On CNN.
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Celebrated each year at the end of April, Lesbian Visibility Week was first held in California in 1990 and has become a staple in lesbian living rooms around the world and across America, including mine.
Inside Alison Hope
Alison Hope
Lesbians have been largely invisible in the past, but today there is reason to celebrate their visibility. But in the past, being “out of sight” of heterosexual society was both a blessing and a curse.
One of the most infamous quotes in the Bible against LGBTQ people is found in Leviticus 18:22. The Old Testament is the Bible accepted by some who argue that it should govern the lives of “good Christians.”
The New King James Version of the Bible declares: “Do not lie with a man as with a woman; that is an abomination.”
Nothing is written about women not sleeping with women. I would like to think that God liked lesbians. But the truth is that lesbian invisibility has most likely been exacerbated by a long history of misogyny and the absence of women from positions of power. We were made irrelevant twice.
Being invisible doesn’t have only negative aspects. Many laws criminalize gay men, but not women, so we stay in a bit of safe territory. Lesbians are also largely exempt from some of the worst discrimination, at least of the kind provided for by law.
For example, Singapore’s strict ban on homosexuality, which was repealed in 2022, only prohibits sex between men and makes no mention of women. Gay men are also more likely to be victims of hate crimes and violence. Being invisible means we are less likely to be targeted by hateful legislation aimed only at us.
But that doesn’t mean we’re completely immune to society’s homophobic abuse and violence. Lesbians have long been subjected to the same shades of hatred, stereotyping, and oppression that other LGBTQ people have long endured.
We have been portrayed in movies and books as murderers and murdered people, the butt of jokes, stock characters, disposable characters, or invisible characters. We quietly endured the straight marriages we thought we had to pursue and lost true love to the heteronormative rules we thought gay people had to adhere to. We have long been forced into the role of childless aunts in our communities, or euphemistically described as aunts living with long-time “friends.” We’ve been expected to be able to open a jar or fix a leaky faucet while avoiding hurting fragile male egos.
In the worst cases, we may be victims or survivors of “corrective” rape, murder, abuse, harassment, and ostracism by our families and communities. Gay men may be criminalized, but gay women have long been targeted, sometimes in heinous ways that evade the law and go unprosecuted.
Still, lesbians have long formed families in secret and operated under the radar. After all, it’s easier to read two lesbians with children as aunts and sisters than two men with children. We have avoided some of society’s worst reproaches.
As activists, lesbians were key advocates during the AIDS crisis, both in caring for selected family members of dying gay men and in demanding federal support for treatment options. Lesbians also played an important, but sometimes unrecognized, role in advancing the second-wave feminist movement and making its case on the national stage. But when it comes to supporting equal rights for lesbians and elevating the needs of lesbians in HIV/AIDS advocacy, both organizations that we have largely supported come to our aid. I couldn’t.
Despite, or perhaps because of, the challenges we’ve faced, we celebrate our wonderful lesbian selves. Studies have shown that we have more satisfying sex and earn, on average, 9 percent more than our heterosexual cisgender peers. This is likely due to the reduced need for childcare duties and the higher paying occupations that lesbians pursue.
In my opinion, we live in the best parts of femininity and masculinity. We are vocal allies of our gay brothers and our transgender family and friends (except for the feminist so-called TERFS who don’t support transgender people). I can throw a football with my child or hold him to my chest with pure maternal enthusiasm. I can have sex with a woman and watch stupid romantic comedies with her. My wife is my soulmate and best friend. I feel like being a lesbian has been a great gift to me.
Over the years, lesbian visibility has increased and mainstream media has begun to present more nuanced and accurate portrayals of us and the diversity within the lesbian community. Television shows like “The L-Word” broke down barriers. Its overwhelming success paved the way for more niche outlets such as Dyke TV in the 1990s, a public access news channel that aired weekly in dozens of markets across the United States.
Today, there are many movies and shows that feature recurring multi-dimensional lesbian characters and where their lesbianism is an aspect of their persona rather than a plot gimmick. Lesbians have brought A-list actresses like Jodie Foster, Lily Tomlin, and Kate McKinnon out of the closet, and brought once-“niche” lesbian performers like Lea DeLaria and Wanda Sykes into mainstream roles. Pushed up.
We’re also seeing an interesting trend in lesbian bars. Lesbian bars have long been an important gathering place for lesbians. For a while, many of them were on the verge of extinction, but now they are making a comeback with new lesbian-owned and lesbian-friendly watering holes popping up across the country. We get married, have children, and assimilate into a cishet (heterosexual, non-transgender) suburb that has historically been hostile but is now more welcoming.
Guilty of charging.
Many of us express our sexuality and gender in broader ways. When I came out a generation ago, you were either cisgender (identifying with the gender you were assigned at birth), gay, or lesbian. Many people now identify as transgender, nonbinary, pansexual, or a burgeoning number of other gender and sexual identities.
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Although we think of lesbianism as tied to gender, many people, myself included, feel it’s more fluid. Although I don’t fit into the gender binary, “lesbian” is also the word that best describes me. Lesbianism is more than just a personal identity. It’s political. In that sense, I’m very much a lesbian. A proud lesbian. More precisely, a large embankment.
Visibility is important. Seeing ourselves reflected in leaders, stars, and role models is essential to feeling like a human being who can walk through the world with pride, as if our lives matter. provides a high level of psychological safety.
This Lesbian Visibility Week, I’m grateful for both being noticed and staying quietly under the radar so that I don’t get noticed. There’s nothing to see here, culture warriors. Here we have a slightly butch, down-to-earth lesbian who works a mundane job, sits on the couch with his wife, and watches something sensible on TV.
