Lesbian erasure is a form of
lesbophobia that involves the tendency to ignore, remove, falsify, or reexplain evidence of
lesbian women or relationships in history, academia, the news media, and other primary sources.[1][2] Lesbian erasure also refers to instances wherein lesbian issues, activism, and identity is deemphasized or ignored within
feminist groups[3] or the
LGBT community.[1][2]
In history
Journalist and author
Victoria Brownworth wrote that the erasure of lesbian sexuality from historical records "is similar to the erasure of all autonomous
female sexuality: women's sexual desire has always been viewed, discussed and portrayed within the construct and purview of the
male gaze."[4] At times, erasure of lesbians is enabled when
LGBT organizations fail to recognize the contributions of lesbians, such as when, in 2018, a statement about the
Stonewall riots by the U.S.
National Center for Lesbian Rights did not acknowledge
Stormé DeLarverie's involvement in the uprising.[5]
In 1976, French
lesbian feminist and cofounder of the Mouvement de libération des femmes (MLF),
Monique Wittig, left
France for the United States.[3] This decision was motivated by the fierce resistance she faced from other feminists when she attempted to create lesbian groups within the MLF.[3] At the time, the word "lesbian" was deemed as being an "un-French" American import, and Wittig recalled other MLF members seeking to "paralyse and destroy lesbian groups."[3]
Janine E. Carlse of
Stellenbosch University argues that black
South African lesbians have faced, and continue to face, denial and erasure of their sexuality throughout the
country's history. During the
Apartheid era, Carlse writes, black lesbians faced a combined "double oppression" of both
heteropatriarchy and racist segregation policies.[13] After Apartheid ended, they continue to face erasure from other South Africans who consider it "un-African," and are therefore (in the words of Thabo Msibi) "denied cultural recognition and are subject to shaming, harassment, discrimination and violence."[13][14]
In popular media
In literature
Some contemporary historians believe that American poet
Emily Dickinson had an intimate relationship with her sister-in-law, Susan Gilbert, leading some academics to assert that she was a lesbian.[15] Dickinson experts Ellen Louise Hart and
Martha Nell Smith wrote that Gilbert was a muse to Dickinson, stating that "Emily's correspondence to Susan unequivocally acknowledges that their emotional, spiritual, and physical communion is vital to her creative insight and sensibilities."[16] However, the
Emily Dickinson Museum is ambiguous when discussing Dickinson's sexuality.[17]
In music
Author and women's history scholar
Bonnie J. Morris wrote that many lesbian singers and musicians are erased from music and its history. As an example, she discusses a time when she asked her students to name "five openly-lesbian role models" and none mentioned a musical artist; showing that the presence of lesbians in the music world is overlooked or ignored in media.[18]
In television
Lesbian characters in 1990's American television were often depicted as side characters with little to no definitive information on whether they were lesbians or not. If an episode portrayed two women kissing or some form of
homoromantic interactions between female characters, there would be a parental advisory for that specific episode. This was seen with the series Roseanne, where some advertising companies requested that their commercials be excluded from the
"Don't Ask, Don't Tell" episode. There was also the issue of
Ellen DeGenerescoming out on her show Ellen through her character Morgan in "
The Puppy Episode", which received considerable pushback and backlash because of
heteronormative views and the
heterocentric culture of television.[19]
In scholarship
While the traditional academic canon has recognized the contributions of
gay men, those of lesbians have not received the same scrutiny.[20] Political theorist Anna Marie Smith stated that lesbianism has been erased from the "official discourse" in Britain because lesbians are viewed as "responsible homosexuals" in a dichotomy between that and "dangerous gayness". As a result,
lesbian sexual practices were not criminalized in Britain in ways similar to
the criminalization of gay male sexual activities. Smith also points to the exclusion of women from
AIDS research at the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Smith argues that these erasures result from
sexism and suggests that these issues should be addressed directly by lesbian activism.[21]
In advertising
Marcie Bianco, of the
Clayman Institute for Gender Research at
Stanford University, said that lesbian erasure occurs in
advertising. Advertisers do not target lesbians when they are publicizing products to LGBT audiences. As an example, she cited the collapse of AfterEllen, which she says resulted from a lack of advertisers. The former Editor in Chief of AfterEllen, Karman Kregloe, stated that advertisers do not think of lesbians as women, and Trish Bendix observed that lesbians are assumed to like anything gay, even if it is male-focused.[22]
Lesbian identification
Some lesbian activists, such as Bonnie J. Morris, Robin Tyler[23] and Ashley Obinwanne, screenwriter and co-founder of the platform Lesbians Over Everything,[24] say the term queer, when used to describe lesbians, is a "disidentification" that contributes to lesbian invisibility.[25][26] In an interview about her 2016 novel Beyond the Screen Door, author Julia Diana Robertson discovered that her self-identification as a lesbian and her description of the novel's genre was changed to queer and queerness in the published quotes.[27][28]
Shannon Keating of
BuzzFeed said that the increased acceptability of non-binary genders, the rise of LGBT diversity, and concerns about
gender essentialism have contributed to (what she describes as) making the term "uncool," and that a reason for the fading of "lesbian" as a term is because usage has evolved towards more inclusive terminology.[29] Christina Cauterucci of Slate likewise attributed rejection of the term to inclusivity and wanting to use a broader term for spaces that were once traditionally labeled lesbian spaces.[30]
Mary Grace Lewis of The Advocate, arguing that lesbian is not a dirty word, stated that it "has been villainized in the media because [lesbians] serve no purpose to the people who control it." She said that lesbian stereotypes seen in the media are not representative of the term, and that women accepting that they are not sexually attracted to men should not fear acknowledging it or feel that it is limiting. She felt that the more the term is used, "the more girls and women [will] feel comfortable" using it and the less it can be weaponized.[31]
In The Stranger, Katie Herzog states that some younger lesbians report having felt pressured to transition and later
detransitioned, with some people using detransition stories to frame gender transition as a social contagion and an attempt to erase butch women.[32]
In 2017,
Ruth Hunt, a butch lesbian and then-CEO of the LGBT charity
Stonewall, wrote that transphobic groups present the advancement of trans rights as erasing the identities of younger butch lesbians, but argues that this claim is unsubstantiated.[33]
Writing for The Economist, trans author Charlie Kiss argued that the stereotype of trans men being "lesbians in denial" is "demeaning and wrong"; he said he "could not have tried harder or longer to be a "true lesbian" but that it never felt right.[34][a]
In relation to transgender women
The term lesbian erasure has been used by some
radical feminists, such as members of the United Kingdom organization Get the L Out[36][37] (which focuses on excluding trans women from the lesbian community and "removing the already marginalised L",[38] arguing lesbians are "under huge pressure within their LGBT+ groups to accept trans women as sexual partners so as not to be labelled as trans-exclusionary radical feminists"),[37] to argue that the expansion of transgender rights erases lesbians, and that lesbians are encouraged to transition to
straight men.[39][40][37] The group staged its first protest at the 2018
London Pride Parade and was condemned as
transphobic or "anti-trans" by the organizers of
Pride in London,[41][42][43] and by
Owl Fisher in The Guardian.[44]
Many LGBT activists have opposed use of the term lesbian erasure with regard to transgender activism.[40] In a 2018 open letter opposing this use, twelve editors and publishers of eight lesbian publications stated, "We do not think supporting trans women erases our lesbian identities; rather we are enriched by trans friends and lovers, parents, children, colleagues and siblings."[45] Carrie Lyell, editor of DIVA magazine and creator of the letter, stated that "while there's no denying women are marginalised within the LGBT+ movement, this having anything to do with trans people, or trans issues, is news to me." She referred to the argument that trans women are pressuring lesbians to "accept them as sexual partners" as "scaremongering".[46] An August 2023 poll by
YouGov found that among
cisgender lesbian,
gay and
bisexual people in the
United Kingdom, 75% had positive views towards transgender people, with 84% of cis lesbians saying that felt positively;[47] these views were markedly more positive than those held by the general public in Britain, where 39% said they held positive views of trans people.[48]
Shannon Keating of BuzzFeed argued that "though lesbians are by no means under attack by gains in trans acceptance, it's true that American attitudes about gender identity are evolving, which has started to impact the way many of us think about sexual orientation."[29] Abigail Curlew of Vice argued that noting that cisgender people may find themselves sexually attracted to a trans woman, especially if relaxing their "preconceived notions and stereotypes of transgender folks", is "very different than saying that if you're not attracted to trans women you are transphobic." She said she is not shaming people for their sexual orientation or stating that there is no biological influence, but is instead noting societal prejudice and asking them to "critically reflect on the factors that might shape [their] attractions."[49] Author Morgan Lev Edward Holleb argued that
trans-exclusionary radical feminist lesbians "are absolutely horrified at the possibility of being attracted to a trans woman because it would undermine their status as the bastion of
lesbian separatist feminists, being attracted to someone they incorrectly consider a 'man.'" Holleb added that transgender people "are acutely aware of the biological differences between [trans] and cis people" and that "trans people aren't trying to 'erase' biological differences, we're trying to secure our basic rights, and highlight shared struggles when we talk about activism and justice."[50]
Discord between
cisgender lesbians and
transgender women concerns the topic of
sexual orientation and those who do and do not believe that trans women can be lesbians without erasing what it means to be a lesbian.[39][38][40] Gina Davidson of The Scotsman stated, "At its heart is the focus on trans rights by LGBT organisations, and resultant philosophical and biological questions around what defines a woman, and its impact on sexual orientation and therefore lesbianism." She commented, "Is lesbianism a sexual attraction only to female bodies or is it attraction to feminine identity? Can it involve trans women who still have male bodies?"[38] The disputes have resulted in discord at LGBT events.[39][38][40] New Zealand group Lesbian Rights Alliance Aotearoa was banned from marching in
Wellington Pride because it was "'not being inclusive enough' of trans people",[39] while individual members of LRAA were still able to march.[51] At Vancouver, Canada's
Dyke March, the group The Lesbians Collective was told to exclude certain
symbols such as "XX" which march organizers said were exclusionary of trans women.[52] Such disputes have also occurred in the United States and in LGBT communities across the United Kingdom.[39][38][40]
^The idea that most or all transgender men are solely attracted to women is considered outdated and a stereotype. A 2023 USA-based study found that, while 28.3% of trans men did identify as straight, a further 23.9% identified as bisexual/pansexual, 15.8% identified as gay, 15% identified as queer and the remaining 17% identified as other sexualities.[35]
^Brownworth, Victoria A. (October 19, 2018).
"Lesbian Erasure". Echo Magazine. Archived from
the original on February 22, 2021. Retrieved July 28, 2019.
^Hart, Ellen Louise; Smith, Martha Nell, eds. (1998). Open Me Carefully: Emily Dickinson's Intimate Letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson (1st ed.). Middletown, Connecticut:
Paris Press.
ISBN0963818376.
^Plummer, Ken, ed. (1992). "Resisting the Erasure of Lesbian Sexuality: A challenge for queer activism, by Anna Marie Smith". Modern Homosexualities: Fragments of Lesbian and Gay Experiences. London:
Routledge. pp. 200–215.
ISBN978-0415064200.
^"What do lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Britons think the British public thinks of them?". YouGov. August 11, 2023. Archived from
the original on August 12, 2023. Cisgender lesbians and bisexual women in particular are likely to have positive feelings towards trans people, at 84, including 66-68% who say 'very positive.' This mirrors national polling which shows that women are generally more likely to hold pro-trans views than men.
OLOC Boston (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change) (2016).
"Erasing Lesbians". The Proud Trust. Archived from
the original on June 22, 2019. Retrieved July 17, 2019.
Barrett, Ruth, ed. (2016). Female Erasure: What You Need To Know About Gender Politics' War on Women, the Female Sex and Human Rights (1st ed.). California: Tidal Time Publishing. p. 225.
ISBN978-0997146707.
Millward, Liz; Dodd, Janice G.; Fubara-Manuel, Irene (2017). Killing Off the Lesbians: A Symbolic Annihilation on Film and Television. Jefferson, North Carolina:
McFarland & Company.
ISBN978-1476668161.