An Archive of Feelings: Trauma, Sexuality, and Lesbian Public Cultures (Series Q)

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Growing up, I never saw people like me – I knew no LGBT people until my early twenties. And what I learnt from TV was that all lesbians looked one way, and we largely all got killed off in the end. When she was a teenager, Nella dreamed of going to university. But her family were constantly urging her to get married. They would introduce her to members of the extended family, in the hope they could find a match.

Matthew Perry's emotional Friends reunion: Actor burst into tears and was comforted by Jennifer Aniston and co-stars - two years prior to his death What I didn’t expect was everything else that would happen to me — and is still happening to me — thanks to this one little week in my otherwise pleasantly uneventful life. Many members of the group say they have experienced violence at the hands of family members who became suspicious about their sexuality. I would move out of an apartment that I adored, that I’d almost single-handedly furnished, that I thought I’d live in for years to come. I would hug my landlady, crying again because she was crying for me. I would worry about which of the many friends my ex-partner and I shared I would lose in the dyke divorce. I’d have to come to terms with the fact that I can’t control how other people feel, can’t hold out for universal approval. Though I would also seek constant reassurance from my closest friends that I wasn’t a bad person for putting myself first, for a change; that, even after blowing up my life, they’d keep on loving me.

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For me, Lesbian Visibility Week is about the joy of seeing younger girls expressing themselves in a way that I never could at their age (despite my history of wearing Extremely Gay Outfits from birth!). Then something happened that she didn’t anticipate. Leila’s brother went through her phone and found the text she had sent to her friend. Leila had grown up in a loving, supportive middle-class family in Bujumbura city. She was popular. She had a boyfriend. When I first pitched this story to my editors, I thought I’d be reporting on a lesbian cultural artifact in its twilight years. The women who’ve faithfully gone on dozens of Olivia trips over the decades are getting older, and I didn’t have a lot of faith that younger queer people were going to step in and save companies like this from extinction. Other elements of lesbian culture have been steadily dying; why should Olivia be any different?

It largely relies on internet shorthand, obscure symbols used by lesbians around the world. Nella would send these images and emoticons to other women. Those in the know would respond. According to Internet World Stats only 4.4% of Burundi’s 11 million-strong population have access to the internet, and almost all of them are based in Bujumbura.

To me, being a lesbian in 2022 is about coming up from the basement, smiling at one another in lesbian spaces, having hipsters steal our haircuts and plaid shirts, yummy mummies steal our diets, and getting to hate on the L Word (yet watch it religiously) a second time around! It can still be hard: the world over lesbians remain some of the most vulnerable people in societies that deny, erase, punish, forcibly attempt to convert, fetishise, and condemn. And there are lesbians who wish to weaponise our sexuality against others in the community. Being a lesbian in 2022 to me means that I can be proud and secure in my gender and sexuality, and that doesn’t have to invalidate anyone else’s. 6. “It is possible to thrive in life as a lesbian.” – Megan

She turned to social media and carried out searches for women who like women. Suddenly, she realised she was not alone. I often think about the huge difference it would have made for me to have had even one visible lesbian role model at that time – ideally in real life, but even just on TV! That’s why I strive to be proud and visible as much as I can. You never know who might need it and you never know who you could help, just by being yourself. 3. “My gender, my sexuality, they’re just that: mine” – Liz I was captivated by what Eileen Myles told me at the time: “I know how to fight for what I want, to say no, when to wait. I’ve been in time for 65 years. I have a lot to share. That supposedly should only be in my teaching life — that’s not the case. It’s amazing on both sides to be able to share the world from different angles. It’s lively. It’s hot.” News Blog Communities For Lesbian Visibility Week, we asked seven lesbians what it means to them to be a lesbian in 2022, and what message they'd like to share with other lesbians. I remember one maths class when I had a new metal ‘Friends’ pencil tin featuring a photograph of the whole crew sipping milkshakes. The girl who sat next to me spent the whole lesson telling me it was really weird that I had women on my pencil case. That having women on my pencil case must mean I was a lesbian. Why was a lesbian? Why? Why did I want women on my pencil case? Did I have a thing about girls? I binned the pencil case that day and replaced it with something innocuous.Later, when telling friends what had happened, I did laugh about it — one told me it sounded like something pulled straight out of The L Word, which, true — but I was also a little mad at that girl, and even more so at myself for being so sloppy. The consent element there was indeterminate; I had willingly gone along with the hookup, at least for a little while, though I remain uncertain about how much I really could have consented while drunk-peeing in a bathroom the size of a broom closet. An often-cited report by Human Rights Watch in 2009 spoke with only 10 members of the LGBT+ community and only one lesbian was interviewed. The BBC has spoken to dozens. Panic and fear reign as aerial blitz reduces huge areas of Gaza to rubble for Israel's bloody revenge on Hamas I just don’t understand some of these women,” she said, looking around the room at the joyful group of dancing lesbians. “Why do they insist on making themselves so ugly? I’ve never gotten the whole butch thing.” Tourists from neighbouring Rwanda, Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo can be found enjoying the nightlife in the clubs or the five-star hotel bars.