Lesbian erasure

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 LGBTQ community.^[1][2]

In advertising

Advertisers typically do not target lesbians when they are publicizing products to LGBT audiences.

Marcie Bianco, of the Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University, said that lesbian erasure occurs in advertising. As an example, Bianco cites the collapse of AfterEllen, which she says resulted from a lack of advertisers.

Advertisers seem to have difficulty seeing lesbians as separate from gay men or as women. The former Editor in Chief of AfterEllen, Karman Kregloe, stated that advertisers do not think of lesbians as women. Writer Trish Bendix observed that lesbians are assumed to like anything gay, even if it is male-focused.^[4]

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."^[5] 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.^[6]

In translating ancient sources, translators sometimes edit out lesbianism. In an ancient love spell for Nike, two pronouns reveal that the commissioner was female. The translator assumed that both female pronouns were scribal errors, and made the spell heterosexual, substituting male pronouns in his 1910 translation. The first edition to restore the homosexual reading was published in 1989, though male pronouns remain in some translations published after 1989.^[7]

Many lesbians participated in the 1916 Easter Uprising against British rule of Ireland, including Kathleen Lynn, Madeleine ffrench-Mullen, Margaret Skinnider, Elizabeth O'Farrell and Julia Grenan. Their contributions and sexualities were long ignored or overlooked.^[8][9][10] Mary McAuliffe of University College Dublin noted that for years, biographers were "resistan[t]" to the idea of describing Lynn and ffrench-Mullen as being a couple, in spite of evidence that this was the case.^[11][12]

In the United States, Kathy Kozachenko became the first openly gay political candidate to win an election in 1974. However, this achievement in LGBT history was incorrectly ascribed to San Francisco politician Harvey Milk.^[13][14]

In 1976, Monique Wittig, a French lesbian feminist and cofounder of the Mouvement de libération des femmes (MLF), 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, erasure of their sexuality. During the Apartheid era, black lesbians faced a "double oppression" of both heteropatriarchy and racist segregation policies.^[15] In post-Apartheid times, they continue to face erasure from other South Africans who claim lesbianism is "un-African". Black lesbians are (in the words of Thabo Msibi) "denied cultural recognition" -- and are also "subject to shaming, harassment, discrimination and violence."^[15][16]

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.^[17] 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."^[18] However, the Emily Dickinson Museum is ambiguous when discussing Dickinson's sexuality.^[19]

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 notes that her college students are unaware of the thriving lesbian music scene that existed several decades ago.^[20]

In popular media

"And they were roommates" is a phrase used as an Internet meme regarding historical relationships between women that have been straightwashed.^[21] The phrase was popularized on the social network Vine.^[22]

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 DeGeneres coming 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.^[23]

In scholarship

While the traditional academic canon has recognized the contributions of gay men, those of lesbians have not received the same scrutiny.^[24] 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.^[25]

Lesbian identification

Some lesbian activists, such as Bonnie J. Morris, Robin Tyler,^[26] and Ashley Obinwanne^[27] say that reliance on the gender-neutral umbrella term queer is a "disidentification" that contributes to lesbian invisibility.^[28][29][30] Some writers have noted that the term "lesbian" is used as a dirtier, more insulting word than "queer" or "gay", pointing in part to negative stereotypes of lesbians and in part to pornographic fetishization of the word.^[31][32] Other writers argue that decreasing use of the term "lesbian" is due to an increase in trans identification and desire for gender-neutral, inclusive terms.^[33][34]

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.^[35][36]

In relation to transgender people

See also: Feminist views on transgender topics

Butch lesbians and transgender men

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.^[37] 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.^[38] 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.^[39][a]

In relation to transgender women

See also: Transphobia § In gay, lesbian, and bisexual communities

Discord between cisgender lesbians and transgender women is split between those who do and do not believe that trans women can be lesbians without erasing what it means to be a lesbian.^[41][42][43] Gina Davidson of The Scotsman summed up the conflict by asking if lesbianism is attraction to "female bodies" or to "feminine identity".^[42]

Disputes around the inclusion of lesbian-only groups in LGBT events have occurred in various countries.^[41][42][43] In New Zealand, the group Lesbian Rights Alliance Aotearoa was banned from marching in a Pride march because it was "'not being inclusive enough' of trans people".^[41][44] In Canada, the Dyke March told The Lesbians Collective to exclude certain symbols such as "XX" which march organizers said were exclusionary of trans women.^[45] In the UK, the group Get the L Out met backlash from a protest at an LGBT Pride March.^{[42][46][47][48][49]}

Some lesbians relay experiences of being pressured, culturally, verbally, socially, and/or physically, into dating or having sex with trans women.^[50][51][52] Carrie Lyell, editor of DIVA referred to the argument that trans women are pressuring lesbians to "accept them as sexual partners" as "scaremongering",^[53] even as others have argued that lesbians excluding trans women from their dating pool is transphobic.^[54]

See also

• Bisexual erasure
• Lesbian Avengers
• Lesbophobia
• Queer erasure
• Straightwashing

Notes

1. 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 identified 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.^[40]