For gay people everywhere homophobia is an unfortunate barrier that we face, one that days like IDAHOBIT help bring awareness to. For lesbians however this takes on a unique form – lesbophobia. Simply put, it is prejudice, discrimination and negativity towards lesbians and lesbianism. We are often grouped together with gay men – the Galop report on sexual violence in 2022 groups lesbians with gay men, as did the UK governments National LGBT survey in 2018 for example. However, lesbophobia is not solely homophobia, but is also rooted in misogyny and makes the way in which we are discriminated against different from gay men because of how prejudice against our sexuality interacts with prejudices against women.

Lesbophobia can be incredibly violent. Lesbians and bisexual women experience higher rates of sexual violence compared to heterosexual women. In fact, the term corrective rape originally referred to the act rape of lesbians by straight men with the view to “correct” them and cure their sexuality. It now is applied more broadly to any act of rape against LGBT people with the same motive, but we should not forget where it started, especially when the motives are not just rooted in homophobia but misogyny. 

The Human Rights Watch “This Is Why We Became Activists” report focused on the specific violence we face including forced marriages, murder, and assault all over the world. It also addressed the fact that these acts are not focused on by typical LGBTQ+ rights activism but are left to those fighting for women’s rights generally. Even so our sexuality is often the motivation for the violence we face and can be much more severe for those of us more visibly open. In this way, lesbophobic violence is not solely sexism nor homophobic and must be addressed as both simultaneously.

Not only that but we also have to contend with sexualisation of our identity. It is often quoted as being Pornhub’s top category and even in mainstream media lesbians are portrayed as being sexual but never in a way that breaks away from the male gaze. The “hot lesbian,” an archetype talked about by sociologist Rosalind Gill, is one who is conventionally attractive and feminine. Not only does it fully exclude any lesbian who does not conform such as butches, but it also portrays lesbians as being for men and does not consider the ways in which actual lesbians desire each other. In the same way that male actors are styled differently in women’s magazines when compared to male ones, lesbians are remarkably different in our own media when compared to the mainstream. Even lesbian characters that are supposed to be masculine or butch are frequently still conforming to some view of femininity. We are only palatable for the wider audience when we are catering to the tastes of men, and this means we are only palatable when we are hypersexual and conventionally attractive. These caricatures of us only serve to make us feel erased but also are based in the misogynist male view of women.

That is not to say that we do not share some of the same issues faced by others in the acronym. Stereotyping is a problem for all members of the LGBTQ+ community and lesbians are no exception. We are often characterized as being angry, loud predatory women and this only gets worse for lesbians who are not white or do not conform to gender norms. Despite the existence of feminine lesbians, we are often seen as masculine and lesbians who are not are then faced with doubt over whether they are actually lesbians. While we hugely celebrate masculine and butch lesbians at NLS, we also celebrate and embrace those who are more feminine and often the way in which these stereotypes are used against us creates fear around our identity. Especially the stereotype of the predatory lesbian, which can be internalized and affect our ability to form relationships with each other. Not only this but it can affect our mental health and feel unable to express our sexuality for fear of simply perpetuating this. We often face this issue with straight women in gay bars, a space that should be for us, and yet they attend them to avoid being hit on by men with no thought that they will then potentially be hit on by women. And when they are, many lesbians have expressed negative reactions instead of an understanding that they are guests in our space. Gay men are less likely to be afraid that anyone they hit on in a gay bar is straight although they face their own issues with straight women fetishising them. 

This ties in the next point – lesbophobia within the LGBT community itself. Often lesbian issues are put on the backburner, clubs will cater mostly to men with lesbian bars being a rare thing (although luckily lesbian nightlife is on the rise) and the assumption that any woman in gay spaces is a straight woman there to support. There’s less than a handful of lesbian bars in the UK but several wildly popular lesbian nightlife events showing that women do want these spaces. Unfortunately, permanent spaces are hard to set up and yet we are not catered for in the big venues that are there for the whole community. Men are still the default in the community, and we are consistently reminded of this by our spaces being dominated by men. Even in our entertainment there is an oversaturation of drag queens in the drag scene and yet drag kings are rarely booked for events. When they are booked, they are typically the only king in the line-up. While many drag performers are trans and non-binary, it cannot be avoided that gay men are more likely to become queens while lesbians are more likely to be kings. Even women who choose to be queens have only recently had more acceptance shown with female queens like Victoria Scone being seen in the media. 

We are also more likely to be criticized for things that our gay male counterparts can get away with. Recently there has been a widespread assumption that lesbians are at the front of transphobia when reality could not be further from the truth. The ‘Positive Futures’ report by charity Just Like Us found that 96% of lesbian were supportive of the trans community while only 82% of gay men were. And yet there is little backlash against gay men as a community while lesbians are treated with suspicion and is a harmful opinion that causes us to feel unwelcome in a time when solidarity is more important than ever. San Francisco’s Leather Alliance contests are titled Mr San Francisco leather (with the form for 2023 explicitly stating you must be a man) while its counterpart is gender neutral Mx. San Francisco leather (the respective form is also gender neutral). While trans men have competed and won the former event, the second is clearly the only option for both women and non-binary people. This is as much as a disservice to the non-binary community who are not just women-lite but also means they are not giving women their own dedicated event. The effort for inclusive spaces rests solely on lesbians and we are expected to be constantly proving our support while men are not. It becomes a half-hearted attempt at inclusion when we should all be held to the same standard instead of lesbians being the ones to do all the work. We love our trans and non-binary siblings, many of whom are also lesbians, but without gay men being looked at just as critically it begins to feel like we are being judged more harshly and only perpetuates a double standard. 

Finally on this list is the erasure we face. Women in history who were actively shown to romance other women are remembered as being simply good friends (the ‘gal pals’ trope) or are simply ignored when talking about key events they were a part of. Stormé DeLarverie is often forgotten when we talk about the Stonewall riots despite eyewitnesses saying it was her interaction with the police that started it. Even legally we are forgotten, and many places will outlaw male same-gender attraction but not lesbianism simply because our sexuality is not taken as seriously. It may seem like a benefit, but it is a continuation of lesbianism not being seen as a legitimate identity itself and does not actually correlate to a safer environment for us. Even in the UK lesbianism was not made illegal alongside gay male activity because of misogyny. They believed it would give women the idea, as if we were incapable of having agency and active desire ourselves. This inequality between us is often because of sexist attitudes, further evidence that lesbophobia is fully underpinned by misogyny and therefore different from the homophobia faced by men.

In truth, the ways in which lesbophobia manifests simply too exhaustive a list to fully document here. This is why for IDAHOBIT 2024 and the theme of “No one left behind: equality, freedom and justice for all” we want to raise awareness for lesbophobia. The march toward our collective equality cannot ever truly succeed if we do not address the lesbophobia we face both within and outside of our community. 

NLS is dedicated to fighting lesbophobia wherever we see it and so you will likely see much more from us in future on the topic or in discussions with us at our events!