Lesbian erasure is a form oflesbophobia that involves the tendency to ignore, remove, falsify, or reexplain evidence oflesbian 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 withinfeminist groups,[3] or theLGBTQ community.[1][2]
Advertisers seem to have difficulty seeing lesbians as separate from gay men or as women. The former Editor in Chief ofAfterEllen, 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 translating ancient sources, translators sometimes edit out lesbianism. In an ancient love spell forNike, 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 thehomosexual reading was published in 1989, though male pronouns remain in some translations published after 1989.[5]
Journalist and authorVictoria Brownworth wrote that the erasure of lesbian sexuality from historical records "is similar to the erasure of all autonomousfemale sexuality: women's sexual desire has always been viewed, discussed and portrayed within the construct and purview of themale gaze."[6] At times, erasure of lesbians is enabled whenLGBT organizations fail to recognize the contributions of lesbians, such as when, in 2018, a statement about theStonewall riots by the U.S.National Center for Lesbian Rights did not acknowledgeStormé DeLarverie's involvement in the uprising.[7]
In 1976,Monique Wittig, a Frenchlesbian feminist and cofounder of theMouvement 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 ofStellenbosch University argues that blackSouth African lesbians have faced, and continue to face, erasure of their sexuality. During theApartheid era, black lesbians faced a "double oppression" of bothheteropatriarchy 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]
Some contemporary historians believe that American poetEmily 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 andMartha 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, theEmily Dickinson Museum is ambiguous when discussing Dickinson's sexuality.[19]
Author and women's history scholarBonnie 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]
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 ofhomoromantic interactions between female characters, there would be a parental advisory for that specific episode. This was seen with the seriesRoseanne, where some advertising companies requested that their commercials be excluded from the"Don't Ask, Don't Tell" episode. There was also the issue ofEllen DeGenerescoming out on her showEllen through her character Morgan in "The Puppy Episode", which received considerable pushback and backlash because ofheteronormative views and theheterocentric culture of television.[23]
While the traditional academic canon has recognized the contributions ofgay 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 tothe criminalization of gay male sexual activities. Smith also points to the exclusion of women fromAIDS research at theCenters for Disease Control and Prevention. Smith argues that these erasures result fromsexism and suggests that these issues should be addressed directly by lesbian activism.[25]
Some lesbian activists, such as Bonnie J. Morris, Robin Tyler,[26] and Ashley Obinwanne[27] say that reliance on the gender-neutral umbrella termqueer 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 novelBeyond 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 toqueer andqueerness in the published quotes.[35][36]
InThe Stranger, Katie Herzog states that some younger lesbians report having felt pressured to transition and laterdetransitioned, 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 charityStonewall, 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 forThe 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 it never felt right to him.[39][a]
Discord betweencisgender lesbians andtransgender 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 ofThe 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, theDyke 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] Sociologists McLean and Stretesky describe Get the L Out as part of "a veritable miasma of anti-trans campaign groups [...] united in their antipathy toward transgender people," alongsideCitizenGo,FiLiA,Fair Play for Women,LGB Alliance,Sex Matters, andTransgender Trend.[48]
Some lesbians relay experiences of being pressured, culturally, verbally, socially, and/or physically, into dating or having sex with trans women.[49][50][51] Carrie Lyell, editor ofDIVA referred to the argument that trans women are pressuring lesbians to "accept them as sexual partners" as "scaremongering",[52] even as others have argued that lesbians excluding trans women from their dating pool is transphobic.[53]
^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]
^Victor, Ulrich (1997).Lukian von Samosata, Alexandros oder der Lügenprophet [Lucian of Samosata: Alexander the False Prophet] (in German). Leiden, New York, Cologne:Brill Publishers. p. 134.ISBN978-9004107922.
^Brownworth, Victoria A. (October 19, 2018)."Lesbian Erasure".Echo Magazine. Archived fromthe original on February 22, 2021. RetrievedJuly 28, 2019.
^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.
^McLean, Anna;Stretesky, Paul B. (2025)."The Influence of Authoritarian Beliefs on Support for Transgender Rights in the UK".Sociology Compass.19 (7) e70088.doi:10.1111/soc4.70088.eISSN1751-9020.A veritable miasma of anti-trans campaign groups have wafted in to public discourse in recent years. These have included, but are not limited to, Authentic Equity Alliance, CitizenGo, FiLiA, Fair Play for Women, Get the L Out, Keep Prisons Single Sex, Lesbian Rights Alliance, LGB Alliance, MayDay4Women, Object!, Safe Schools Alliance, Sex Matters, Transgender Trend, and Woman's Place UK. Although the ostensible focus of these groups is varied, they are united in their antipathy toward transgender people.
OLOC Boston (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change) (2016)."Erasing Lesbians".The Proud Trust. Archived fromthe original on June 22, 2019. RetrievedJuly 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.
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