Lesbianism is sexual and romantic desire or relationships between women. Women have typically been underrepresented in history as both writers and subjects, and lesbianism has been correspondingly under-recorded. Since the 1970s, efforts have been made to gather together and preserve lesbian history.^[2][3]

Women's sexuality inancient Mesopotamia is not well documented. Stephanie Lynn Budin, writing on love magic, argues that "there remains no evidence for lesbianism in this regard (or any other from Mesopotamia)."^[4] However, there are at least two pieces of textual evidence for Mesopotamian lesbianism.^[5] One is a divinatory text which mentions female same-sex activity,^[6] while another, more explicit text remains unpublished.^[7]

In addition, anOld Assyrian text writes of two women, Ewanika and Adi-matum, who had a betrothal contract for their "daughter." It is possible that the father died, leaving the two women as widows.^[8]

TheDream Book of theCarlsberg papyrus XIII claims that "If a woman dreams that a woman has intercourse with her, she will come to a bad end".^[9][10] Depictions of women during theNew Kingdom suggest they enjoyed, in a relaxed and intimate atmosphere, the company of other women who were scantily clad or naked. Some cosmetics-related items, which may have been owned and used by women, feature nude and suggestive depictions of women.^[10]

In the fifth century CE, women at theWhite Monastery inUpper Egypt sometimes pursued same-sex relationships. A letter fromShenoute chastises two women,ⲧⲁⲏⲥⲉ,Taêse andⲧⲥⲁⲛⲥⲛⲱ,Tsansnô, for running after each other "in friendship and physical desire".^[11] This phrase referred to homosexual advances, which were not uncommon.^[12] It is unknown if thecorporal punishment Shenoute prescribed for the women was administered.^[13]

In early Chinese history sexual activity between women was accepted, and sometimes actively encouraged.^[14][15] Female same-sex relationships were described with a special term (traditional Chinese:對食;simplified Chinese:对食;pinyin:duìshí), literally 'paired eating', possibly referring tocunnilingus. In the second or third century ADYing Shao defined it as "when palace women attach themselves as husband and wife".^[16] Such relationships sometimes formed between government slaves or members of the emperor's harem. For example, underEmperor Cheng's rule (33–7 BC) the slave Dào Fáng (Chinese:道房) had a homosexual relationship with Cáo Gōng (traditional Chinese:曹宮; simplified Chinese:曹宫), the daughter of a slave.^[17] The sex handbook Dongxuanzi (Chinese:洞玄子;pinyin:Dòng Xuán Zǐ, possibly dating to the fifth century AD^[18]) also contains examples of female same-sex contact. In the position called The Paired Dance of the Female Blue Phoenixes, two women practicescissoring.^[19]

The poetSappho (c. 630 – c. 570 BC)'s poems discuss her love for women, and she is the most often mentioned example of an ancient Greek woman who may have actually engaged in sexual relationships with women. For instance, in Sappho'sOde to Aphrodite, the poet asksAphrodite for aid in wooing another woman.^[20] One fragment of Sappho's poetry,Sappho 94, contains a clear mention of lesbian sexual acts:^[21]

Sappho Fragment 94^[22]

I'm not pretending; I wish I were dead.” She was leaving me in tears,

and over and over she said to me: “Sappho, it hurts; what's happened to us is just so grim;it isn't my choice, I swear it, to leave like this.”

These were the words that I answered her:“Go and be happy; remember me, for you know how we have paid court to you:

and if not, then I want to remind you ... and the good things we have enjoyed:

for at my side, many the crowns of violets and roses ... you have put on yourself,

and many the garlands woven from flowers you have cast round your delicate neck,

and with quantities of ... flowery perfume ... fit for a queen even, you anointed yourself all over,

and on soft beds ... delicate ... you have satisfied desire ...

Sappho's sexuality has been debated by historians. Some, such asDenys Page, argue that Sappho was attracted to women. Others, such as Eva Stigers, argue that the descriptions of love between women in Sappho's writings are not necessarily evidence of her own sexuality.^[23] Yet other historians claim that Sappho's circle were involved in female homosexuality as a kind of initiation ritual.^[24] The earliest evidence of Sappho's reputation for homosexual desire comes from theHellenistic period, with a fragment of a biography found in theOxyrhynchus Papyri which criticizes Sappho for being "gynaikerastria."^{[note 1][25]}

There are at least two other women poets who wrote in the style of Sappho:Erinna of Teos or Telos (c. late 400s BC) andNossis of Locri (c. 300 BC). Erinna'sDistaff and epigrams lament her childhood friend Baucis in a manner which "contains echoes of Sappho."[26] Nossis of Locri wrote three epigrams in a similar style, one of which bears striking resemblance to the floral eroticism found in Sappho's works. It reads as follows:^[27]

Nothing is sweeter than desire. All other delights are second.

From my mouth I spit even honey.

Nossis says this, whom Aphrodite does not love,

knows not her flowers, what roses they are.

Among the Athenians, the discussion and depiction of female homosexual activity seems to have been taboo.^[28]Kenneth Dover suggests that, due to the role played by the phallus in ancient Greek men's conceptions of sexuality, female homosexual love was not explicitly defined as a sexuality or category by the authors of surviving sources.^[29]

In classical Athens, the idea of homosexual women is briefly mentioned in theSpeech of Aristophanes inPlato'sSymposium.^[30] Later references to female homosexuality in Greek literature include an epigram byAsclepiades, which describes two women who reject Aphrodite's "rules" but instead do "other things which are not seemly".^[31] Dover comments on the "striking" hostility shown in the epigram to female homosexuality, contrasting it with Asclepiades' willingness to discuss his own homosexual desire in other works, suggesting that this apparent male anxiety about female homosexuality in ancient Greece is the reason for our paucity of sources discussing it.^[32]

The poetAlcman (fl. 7th century BC) wrote hymns known aspartheneia,^{[note 2]} which discuss attraction between young women. Though these hymns are ambiguous, historians have posited that they are erotic or sexual.^[33]

Similarly, some find evidence inPlutarch thatSpartan women engaged in homosexual activities, although Plutarch wrote many centuries after classical Greece. In Plutarch's biography ofLycurgus of Sparta, part of hisParallel Lives, the author claims that olderSpartan women formed relationships with girls that were similar to theerastes/eromenos relationships that existed between some older and younger male Greeks.^[34] HistorianSarah B. Pomeroy believes that Plutarch's depiction of homosexual relationships between Spartan women is plausible. For instance, Pomeroy argues that homosexual relationships between the girls would have "flourished" in the girls' choirs that performed thepartheneia of Alcman.^[35]

In Greek mythology, the story ofCallisto has been interpreted as implying thatArtemis and Callisto were lovers.^[36] The myth of theAmazons has also been interpreted as referring to female homosexual activities.^[37]

Relationships or sexual activities between women were occasionally depicted in Greek art. For example, a plate fromArchaicThera appears to show two women courting.^[34] AnAtticred figure vase in the collection of theTarquinia National Museum in Italy shows a kneeling womanfingering the genitals of another woman in a rare explicit portrayal of sexual activity between women in Greek art,^[34] although it has also been interpreted as depicting one prostitute shaving or otherwise grooming the other in a non-sexual fashion.^[38]

TheArthashastra, an ancient Indian treatise on statecraft likely edited and compiled between the second and third centuries CE,^[39] describes the fines individuals must pay for engaging inayoni, non-vaginal sex. This category includes both heterosexual and homosexual sex, and the fine for two women is lower than the fine for heterosexual sex. Overall, lesbian sex is "unsanctioned" in theArthashastra, but is also "treated as a minor offense."^[40]

TheManusmriti, a first century legal text, places a very small fine upon sex between nonvirgin women; however, one who "manuallydeflowers a virgin" is sentenced to the loss of two fingers.^[40] If two virgins are caught, the 'doer' "has to pay double the girl'sdowry and is given ten whiplashes".^[41] TheManusmriti fails to provide a punishment formutualoral or non-penetrative sex.^[41]

Sanskrit medical texts mention "sexual act[s] in which both the parties are female".^[42] TheSushruta Samhita andCharaka Samhita both classify lesbianism as a disease resulting from an atypical conception.^[43] The latter describes it as incurable, and states that a lesbian is "a woman who has an aversion for man and who has no breasts."^[44] The term used for a lesbian in these texts isnārīṣaṇḍha.^[45]

TheKama Sutra mentions phallus-shaped bulbs, roots, and fruits used asdildos in lesbian sex, and also recordscunnilingus between women.^[46]

Records of magic spells fromRoman Egypt, 2nd-4th centuries CE, include women commissioning love spells to make other women fall in love with them.^[47] These spells are unusual because they were likely commissioned by women from lower social classes rather than the elite, and because they contain the names of ancient women with homoerotic desires.^[48] For example, Herais cast a love spell on Sarapias,^[47] and the following quotation is from Sophia's love spell for Gorgonia:^[49]

Burn, set on fire, inflame the heart, the liver, the spirit of Gorgonia, whom Nilogenia bore, with love and affection for Sophia, whom Isara bore, for a good end. ... Force Gorgonia, whom Nilogenia bore, to cast herself into the bath-house for the sake of Sophia, whom Isara bore, for her, so that she love her with passion, longing, unceasing love.

The lesbian love story betweenIphis and Ianthe, in Book IX ofOvid's theMetamorphoses, is most vivid. When Iphis' mother becomes pregnant, her husband declares that he will kill the child if it is a girl. She bears a girl and attempts to conceal her sex by giving her a name that is of ambiguous gender: Iphis. When the "son" is thirteen, the father chooses a golden-haired maiden named Ianthe as the "boy's" bride. The love of the two girls is written sympathetically:^[50]

They were of equal age, they both were lovely,
Had learned the ABC from the same teachers,
And so love came to both of them together
In simple innocence, and filled their hearts
With equal longing.

However, as the marriage draws ever closer, Iphis recoils, calling her love "monstrous and unheard of". The goddessIsis hears the girl's moans and turns her into a boy.

The Roman fabulistPhaedrus attempted to explain lesbianism through a myth: the TitanPrometheus, coming home drunk from a party, had mistakenly exchanged the genitals of some women and some men. Phaedrus remarks: "Lust now enjoys perverted pleasure."^[51]

Roman writerSeneca the Elder used the hypothetical of a husband who killed his wife and her female lover as an example of a legal case where the facts were too obscene to discuss openly.^[52]

Iamblichus, a Greek novelist from the first century AD, is best known for hisBabylonaica, orBabylonian Tales.^[53] TheBabylonaica contains a side story about "Berenice, who was daughter of the king of Egypt, and about her wild and lawless passions: and how she had relations with Mesopotamia." According to an ancient summary of the episode, Berenice and Mesopotamia (a woman) are wed.^[54] Although theBabylonaica mainly deals with a heterosexual couple, Sinonis and Rhodanes, Berenice and Mesopotamia exist as foils for the pair.^[55] ClassicistHelen Morales cautions that this tale ought not to be treated as "certain evidence...thatlesbian marriages were performed in theRoman imperial period," but the mere fact that it exists and survives is remarkable.^[55]

Lucian'sDialogues of the Courtesans contain an episode in which a woman named Megilla renames herself Megillus and wears a wig to cover her shaved head. She marries Demonassa of Corinth, although Megillus is from Lesbos. Her friend Leaena comments that "They say there are women like that in Lesbos, with faces like men, and unwilling to consort with men, but only with women, as though they themselves were men".^[56] Megillus seduces Leaena, who feels that the experience is too disgusting to describe in detail.Leila J. Rupp writes inSapphistries: A Global History of Love Between Women: "Two things are significant in this depiction: the connection of an aggressive woman from Lesbos with masculinity and the portrayal of the seduced as a prostitute".^[57]

In another dialogue ascribed to Lucian, two men debate over which is better, male love or heterosexuality. One man protested that if male affairs were legitimized, then lesbianism would soon be condoned as well, an unthinkable notion.^[58]

Inearly Christianity in the Roman Empire, one work of note was theApocalypse of Peter. It seems to have been most prominent in the 2nd–3rd centuries when Christians were still a tiny minority, and was not ultimately included in thecanon of the New Testament. It is one of the earliest depictions ofhell, and suggests lesbians are one category of sinners to be tormented by punishments after theSecond Coming of Jesus, although the passage phrases it as secondary to a condemnation of male homoeroticism, and possibly was added by a later editor or scribe:^[59]

And other men and women being thrown down from a great precipice fell to the bottom and again were driven by those who were set over them to go up upon the precipice, and thence were thrown down again, and thus they had no rest from this punishment. These were the ones who defiled their bodies acting as women. And the women who were with them were those who lay with one another as a man with a woman.

Relationships between women are described in The Princess in Search of Herself,^[61] a piece of literature from either theHeian^[62] orKamakura period.^[63] In it Chūjō is alady-in-waiting for the High Priestess at Ise, and the two are romantically involved. Chūjō becomes angry and jealous when the high priestess abandons her to pursue a relationship with Kozaishō, another lady-in-waiting.^[61][64] The text describes physical intimacy between women clearly, casting doubt on claims that female homosexuality was not present in early Japanese literature.^[61]

It has been suggested that the famous Heian period writerMurasaki Shikibu loved women,^[65] a reading which has been called bold, and which is based on potentially homoerotic poems exchanged with other women.^[66] One section of her diary reads:^[67]

In particular I missed Lady Dainagon ...I sent her the following:
How I long for those waters on which we lay,
A longing keener than the frost on a duck's wing.
To which she replied:
Awakening to find no friend to brush away the frost,
The mandarin duck longs for her mate at night.

Bowring notes that themandarin duck was a firmly established metaphor for lovers at the time, but states that the relationship was only platonic.^[68] Some work has been criticized for ignoring lesbian readings of poems like these, in "an explaining away of the simplest interpretation of a text in favor of a more complicated, but heterosexually normative, reading."^[69] Examples come from the poetic exchanges between Senshi and Kodaifu, and between Ukon and Taifu, both in the Heian period. Edward Kamens notes the erotically charged nature of the poems, but says only that they "would readily be read as explicit tropes of sexual desire" if they had not been exchanged between two women.^[70]

Other references to same-sex practices between women before theEdo period are more ambiguous. In theKojiki the sun goddessAmaterasu is lured out of a cave byAme no Uzume dancing and removing her clothes.^[71][72] Dildos dating from as early as theNara period may have been used for masturbation rather than lesbian sex.^[65]

A poem byFlann Mainistrech claims that the goddessÁine died of love forBanba,^[73] but rather than representing a lesbian lover, Banba may be a personification of Ireland in this story.^[74]St. Brigid of Kildare, who died in the 6th century, may have had a lesbian relationship withDarlughdacha, a nun with whom she shared a bed.^[75]

An early story about Irish lesbianism involves the 8th-century kingNiall Frossach and is recorded in theBook of Leinster.^[76] A woman has given birth to a child without having had sex with a man, and the king must explain how this has happened:^[77]

The king was silent then. 'Have you had playful mating with another woman?', said he, 'and do not conceal it if you have'. 'I will not conceal it', said she; 'I have'. 'It is true...', said the king. 'That woman had mated with a man just before, and the semen which he left with her, she put into your womb in the tumbling, so that it was begotten in your womb. That man is the father of your child, and let it be found out who he is'.

The story uses the termlánamnas rebartha 'playful mating' to refer to lesbian sex.^[78]

The Old Irish Penitential is apenitential written inOld Irish from before the end of the 8th century.^[79] It specified the same punishment for men who have intercrural or anal sex as for "women or girls who do the same thing among themselves".^[73] The punishment was two years of penance.^[80]

Bieiris de Romans was a 13th-centurytrobairitz who wrote acanso to another woman, Maria, cited below.^[81]

Thus I pray you, if it please you that true love
And celebration and sweet humility
should bring me such relief with you,
if it please you, lovely woman, then give me
that which most hope and joy promises
for in you lie my desire and my heart

The canso is the genre in which love poems were written, but it is possible that Maria was not a lover but a "female acquaintance, friend, confidante, or close relative."^[82] Clearer evidence for lesbian relationships is found in a manuscript fromTegernsee; dating from the 12th century, it contains lesbian love poems which were likely composed at a local monastery for women.^[83] The quote below, which "seems to presuppose a passionate physical relationship",^[84] is from A.'s poem to G.^[85]

When I recall the kisses you gave me,
And how with tender words you caressed my little breasts,
I want to die
Because I cannot see you.

In medieval Europe, the Christian Church took a stricter view of same-sex relations between women.Penitentials, developed by Celtic monks in Ireland, were unofficial guidebooks which became popular, especially in theBritish Isles. These books listed crimes and thepenances that must be done for them. For example, "...he who commits the male crime of theSodomites shall do penance for four years". The several versions of thePaenitentiale Theodori, attributed toTheodore of Tarsus, who becamearchbishop ofCanterbury in the 7th century, make special references to lesbianism. ThePaenitentiale states, "If a woman practices vice with a woman she shall do penance for three years".^[86] Penitentials soon spread from the British Isles to mainlandEurope. The authors of most medieval penitentials either did not explicitly discuss lesbian activities at all, or treated them as a less serious sin than male homosexuality.^[87]

TheOld French legal treatiseLi livres de jostice et de plet (c. 1260) is the earliest reference to legal punishment for lesbianism akin to that for male homosexuality. It prescribeddismemberment for the first two offences anddeath by burning for the third: a near exact parallel to the penalty for a man, although what "dismemberment" could mean for a medieval woman is unknown.^[88][89] In Spain, Italy, and the Holy Roman Empire,sodomy between women was included in acts considered unnatural and punishable by burning to death, although few instances are recorded of this taking place.^{[citation needed]} In the Holy Roman Empire underCharles V, a law on sexual offences specifically prohibits sex acts between women.^[90]

There exist records of about a dozen women in the medieval period who were involved in lesbian sex, as defined by historianJudith Bennett as same-sex genital contact. All of these women are known through their involvement with the courts, and were imprisoned or executed.^[91] An early example of a woman executed for homosexual acts occurred in 1477, when a girl inSpeier, Germany, was drowned.^[92] The 16th-century writings of Spanish juristAntonio Gomez mentions the burning of two nuns for the use of "material instruments".^[93]

Not all women were so harshly punished, though. In the early fifteenth century, a Frenchwoman, Laurence, wife of Colin Poitevin, was imprisoned for her affair with another woman, Jehanne. She pleaded for clemency on the grounds that Jehanne had been the instigator and she regretted her sins, and was freed to return home after six months imprisonment.^[94] A later example, fromPescia in Italy, involved an abbess, SisterBenedetta Carlini, who was documented in inquests between 1619 and 1623 as having committed grave offences including a passionately erotic love affair with another nun when possessed by a Divine male spirit named "Splenditello". She was declared the victim of a "diabolical obsession" and placed in the convent's prison for the last 35 years of her life.^[95]

However, an Italian surgeon, William of Bologna, attributed lesbianism to a "growth emanating from the mouth of the womb and appearing outside the vagina as a pseudopenis."^[96]

In the medieval Arab world, lesbianism^{[note 3]} was considered to be caused by heat generated in a woman'slabia, which could be alleviated byfriction against another woman's genitalia.^[97] Medieval Arabic medical texts considered lesbianism to be inborn. For instance,Masawaiyh reported:^[97]

Lesbianism results when a nursing woman eatscelery,rocket,melilot leaves and the flowers of abitter orange tree. When she eats these plants and suckles her child, they will affect the labia of her suckling and generate an itch which the suckling will carry through her future life.

Al-Kindi wrote:^[98]

Lesbianism is due to a vapor which, condensed, generates in the labia heat and an itch which only dissolve and become cold through friction and orgasm. When friction and orgasm take place, the heat turns into coldness because the liquid that a woman ejaculates in lesbian intercourse is cold whereas the same liquid that results from sexual union with men is hot. Heat, however, cannot be extinguished by heat; rather, it will increase since it needs to be treated by its opposite. As coldness is repelled by heat, so heat is also repelled by coldness.

Ali ibn Nasr al-Katib'sEncyclopedia of Pleasure contains a story about what is said to be the first lesbian couple in Arab history: the seventh-centuryHind bint al-Nuʿmān, a Christian poet who fell in love with the legendary Arabic poetHind bint al-Khuss. When Hind Bint al-Khuss died, her faithful lover "cropped her hair, wore black clothes, rejected worldly pleasures, vowed to God that she would lead an ascetic life until she passed away", and even built a monastery to commemorate her love.^[99] The tenth-century workal-Fihrist gives the titles of books about twelve other lesbian couples, but nothing other than the women's names has survived.^[100]Wallada bint al-Mustakfi, sometimes called the Arab Sappho, was an Andalusian poet whose love poetry to her studentMuhja bint al-Tayyani has beenlost since later authors refused to cite its sexually explicit content.^[101]

However, other sources of medieval Arabic literature do preserve lesbian poetry. For example,Al-Jahiz cites the couplet "I drank wine for love of flirting/and I shifted towards lesbianism for fear of pregnancy." InA Promenade of the Hearts,Ahmad al-Tifashi cites several poems by lesbians where massage is used as a pretext for lesbian sex,^[102][103] as well as the same-sex philosophy of Rose, the head of one such lesbian massage group.^[104]Leo Africanus describes with disgust the practices of female diviners inFez who cure illnesses, saying that they are in factsahacat, his rendition of the Arabic word for lesbians (Arabic:سحاقيات,romanized: siḥāqiyyāt).^[104][105] He describes how lesbians pretend to be sick so that the diviners will come to them. They then claim that the woman is possessed and that the only cure is to join the diviners, enabling her to leave her husband and become part of a lesbian community.^[105]

Some fictional women from Arabic folk epics can be viewed as lesbian, like Alûf fromDelhemma who says "I do neither long for marriage nor for men, but my heart has an inclination for the ladies."^[106] Rumors of harem lesbianism in the Arab world, like those reported byAllen Edwardes, tend to come from maleOrientalist writers and have not been verified.^[107]

Between 1170 and 1180Maimonides, one of the foremost rabbis in Jewish history, compiled his magnum opus, theMishneh Torah. It is the only Medieval-era work that details all of Jewish observance, and as regarding lesbianism states:^[108]

For women to bemesollelot [women rubbing genitals against each other] with one another is forbidden, as this is the practice of Egypt, which we were warned against: "Like the practice of the land of Egypt ... you shall not do" (Leviticus 18:3). The Sages said [in the midrash of Sifra Aharei Mot 8:8–9], "What did they do? A man married a man, and a woman married a woman, and a woman married two men."Even though this practice is forbidden, one is notlashed [as for a Torah prohibition] on account of it, since there is no specific prohibition against it, and there is no real intercourse. Therefore, [one who does this] is not forbidden tothe priesthood because of harlotry, and a woman is not prohibited to her husband by this, since it is not harlotry. But it is appropriate to administer to them lashings of rebellion [i.e., those given for violation of rabbinic prohibitions], since they did something forbidden. And a man should be strict with his wife in this matter, and should prevent women known to do this from coming to her or from her going to them.

Sources on femalehomosexuality in Thai history primarily discuss royal harems, using the labelเล่นเพื่อนlen-phuean which literally means 'to play [with] friends'.^[109] One of the earliest references is a law from KingBorommatrailokkanat (who reigned 1448–1488), which penalizes lesbian relationships between palace women with whipping and which survives as part of theThree Seals Law.^{[110][111][112]} There is no evidence of this punishment ever being used, and an American ambassador in the 19th century wrote that homosexuality was very common, and that only monks had been punished for it.^[113]

Another source of evidence for female same-sex relationships is poetry and fiction based partly on real royal harems.^[114] The earliest such literature, from theRattanakosin Kingdom, is unusual in focusing more on female homosexuality than male homosexuality.^[112] However, many of the literary sources are critical, and describe lesbianism as something to be avoided.^{[115][116][112]} A mural atWat Khongkharam depicts women surreptitiously touching each other's breasts, but also depicts women being punished for lesbianism.^[117]

TheFlorentine Codex, an encyclopedic work on theAztec and other peoples of Central America finished in 1577,^[118] contains a section on Aztec homosexuality. Book ten of theCodex covers both male and female sexuality; Geoffrey Kimball provides a terminology guide to and a new translation of this source.^[119] According to Kimball, the context of theClassical Nahuatl termxōchihuah ("owner of flowers") seems to denote a "homosexual of either sex."^[120] Another word,patlācheh, seems to refer specifically to a lesbian in the Florentine Codex,^[121] and is defined as a "woman who had carnal pleasures with another woman" byJuan de Torquemada.^[122]Alonso de Molina uses a grammatically related verb to refer to having lesbian sex.^[123]

Kimball's translation includes the following excerpt:^[124]

She is a possessor of arrows; an owner of darts.

She is a possessor of companions, one who pairs off with women,

she is one who makes friends with women, one who provides herself with various young women,

one who possesses various young women.

Although the text goes on to include other unflattering descriptions of a woman who has sex with other women, "the invective against the homosexual woman is much less strident against the homosexual man".^[125] Kimball adds that the first line of this excerpt "may refer to a woman who violates the sex-role stereotype, or it may have some other reference, at present not yet understood".^[126]

Juana Inés de la Cruz (1648–1695)^[127] was a prolific scholar, poet, writer, andprotofeminist known for her searing critiques ofmisogyny. She also "addressed to threevicereines more than forty passionate, often playful, love poems".^[128] The romantic nature of these poems has been debated by scholars for decades, but Amanda Powell argues that nonromantic readings of de la Cruz's work stem from historical and modern assumptions of heterosexuality.^[128] For example, De la Cruz'sRedondilla 87, which rapturously extols the qualities of a woman named "Feliciana," could be read in a homoerotic manner.^[129]

Felipa de Souza (1556–1600) was a woman who had romantic relationships with other women during theBrazilian colonial era. She was accused ofsodomy, which caused her to fall victim to the CatholicInquisition.

Leona Florentino was born in thePhilippines during the Spanish colonial regime in 1849. She is the mother of Philippine women's literature and the pioneer in Philippine lesbian literature, known for kickstarting her homeland's feminist movement, which also led her to be honored as the mother of feminist literature in the country.^{[130][131][132]}

In early modern England, female homosexual behavior became increasingly culturally visible. Some historians, such as Valerie Traub, have argued that this led to increasing cultural sanctions against lesbian behaviors.^[133] For instance, in 1709,Delariviere Manley publishedThe New Atlantis, attacking lesbian activities.^[134] However, others, such as Friedli andLillian Faderman have played down the cultural opposition to female homosexuality, pointing out that it was better tolerated than male homosexual activities.^[135] Additionally, despite the social stigma, English courts did not prosecute homosexual activities between women, and lesbianism was largely ignored by the law in England.^[135] AlthoughCharles Hamilton (female husband), according to Henry Fielding, was whipped for fraud, the courts and the press of the time do not seem to have believed she committed any crimes.^[136]Terry Castle contends that English law in the eighteenth century ignored female homosexual activity not out of indifference, but out of male fears about acknowledging and reifying lesbianism.^[133]

The literature of the time attempted to rationalize some lesbian activities, commonly searching for visible indications of sapphic tendencies.^[137] InThe New Atlantis, the "real" lesbians are depicted as being masculine.^[137] However, Catherine Craft-Fairchild argues in "Sexual and Textual Indeterminacy: Eighteenth-Century English Representations of Sapphism" (2006) that Delariviere Manley fails to establish a coherent narrative of lesbians as anatomically distinct from other women,^[138] whereas Fielding inThe Female Husband focuses on the corruption of Hamilton's mind.^[139]Jonathan Swift, writing forThe Tatler in 1711, acknowledges the difficulty inherent in establishing such a narrative framework, where he describes a woman having her virginity tested by a lion. Despite the onlookers' failure to detect anything amiss, the lion identified her as "no true Virgin."^[140][141] At the same time, positive—or potentially positive writings—concerning female homosexuality drew on the languages of both female same-sex friendship and heterosexual romance. At the time, there were no widespread cultural motifs of homosexuality.^[134] Only among the less respectable members of society does it seem that there was any sort of a lesbian subculture. Academics find it likely that there was such a subculture amongst dancers and prostitutes in 18th- and early-19th-century Paris as well as in 18th-century Amsterdam.^[142]

The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries also saw an increase in lesbian visibility inFrance, both in the public sphere and in art and literature.Fin de siecle society inParis included bars, restaurants and cafes frequented and owned by lesbians, such asLe Hanneton,La Souris and Le Rat Mort. Private salons, like the one hosted by the American expatriateNathalie Barney, drew many lesbian and bisexual artists and writers, includingJulie d'Aubigny,Romaine Brooks,Renee Vivien,Colette,Djuna Barnes,Gertrude Stein, andRadclyffe Hall. One of Barney's lovers, the courtesanLiane de Pougy, published a best-selling novel based on their romance calledl'Idylle Saphique (1901). Many publicly acknowledged lesbians and bisexual women were entertainers and actresses. Some, like the writer Colette and her loverMathilde de Morny, performed lesbian theatrical scenes in cabarets; these drew outrage and censorship. Descriptions of lesbian salons, cafes and restaurants were included in tourist guides and journalism of the era. These guides and articles also mentioned houses of prostitution that were uniquely for lesbians.Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec created paintings of many of the lesbians he met, some of whom frequented or worked at the famedMoulin Rouge.^[143][144]

The 18th-century lesbian secret society named "Sect of Anandrynes" included peoples like;Marie Thérèse Louise of Savoy, Princesse de Lamballe,Yolande de Polastron,Mlle Raucourt,Sophie Arnould, andMarie Antoinette.^[145][146]

Ireland

Lady Frances Brudenell, Countess ofNewburgh, was an Irish aristocrat known as the subject of a satire in which she was portrayed as the leader of a society oflesbians.^[147]

The "Ladies of Llangollen", Eleanor Butler (1739–1829) and Sarah Ponsonby (1755–1831), were twoupper-class Irish women whose relationship scandalised and fascinated their contemporaries. The pair moved to a Gothic house inLlangollen, North Wales, in 1780 after leaving Ireland to escape the social pressures of conventional marriages.

England

There was allegedly a lesbian relationship betweenAnne, Queen of Great Britain and her courtierAbigail Masham, Baroness Masham.^[148]

Lady Catherine Jones' decision not to marry, and her close relationships and cohabitation with women throughout her life and into her death, merit speculation that she was a lesbian. The frustratingly minimal surviving documentation of her life makes this difficult to assert with confidence, but readers can read her 'close unions' with Kendall, and with Astell, as not entirely platonic.^[149]

Catharina Margaretha Linck was aPrussian woman who for most of her adult life presented herself as a man. She married a woman and, based on their sexual activity together, was convicted ofsodomy and executed by order of KingFrederick William I in 1721. Linck's execution was the last for lesbian sexual activity in Europe and an anomaly for its time.^[150][151]

The lesbian relationships ofChristina, Queen of Sweden (b. 1626) were noted during her lifetime. She never married. Christina seems to have written passionate letters to and slept in the same bed withEbba Sparre.^[152] According toVeronica Buckley, Christina was a "dabbler" who was "painted a lesbian, a prostitute, a hermaphrodite, and an atheist" by her contemporaries, though "in that tumultuous age, it is hard to determine which was the most damning label".^{[citation needed]}

Laudomia Forteguerri was an accomplished Italian poet and a member of one of the most powerful families in the sixteenth-centuryRepublic of Siena. She has been called Italy's earliest lesbian writer, and she was famous for her beauty, wit, and intelligence.^[153]

Eleno de Céspedes, was a Spanishsurgeon born into slavery who married a man and later a woman, and was tried by theSpanish Inquisition. Céspedes may have been anintersex person, as different doctors' accounts portray her as having either female anatomy or both sets of genitals. If a woman, Céspedes may have been alesbian and/or the first female surgeon known in Spain and perhaps in Europe.^[154]

Princess Isabella of Parma found more fulfillment in her relationship with hersister-in-law, ArchduchessMaria Christina, than with her husband.^[155]

In colonial American history, laws against lesbianism were suggested but not created or enforced. In 1636,John Cotton proposed a law which would make sex between two women (or two men) inMassachusetts Bay a capital offense, but the law was not enacted.^[156] It would have read, "Unnatural filthiness, to be punished with death, whether sodomy, which is carnal fellowship of man with man, or woman with woman, or buggery, which is carnal fellowship of man or woman with beasts or fowls".^[157] In 1655, theConnecticut Colony suggested a law against sodomy between women (as well as between men), but it did not take effect.^[158]

However,Sarah White Norman and Mary Vincent Hammon in 1649 inPlymouth Colony were prosecuted for "lewd behavior with each other upon a bed". Their trial documents are the only known record of sex between female English colonists in North America in the seventeenth century.^[159] Hammon was only admonished, perhaps because she was under sixteen,^[159] but in 1650 Norman was convicted and required to publicly acknowledge her "unchaste behavior" with Hammon. She was also warned against future offenses.^[160] This is the only known example of the prosecution of female homosexual activities in United States history.^[161]

In 1779,Thomas Jefferson proposed a law stating that "Whosoever shall be guilty ofrape,polygamy, orsodomy with man or woman shall be punished, if a man, bycastration, if a woman, by cutting thro' the cartilage of her nose a hole of one half inch diameter at the least",^{[162][163][164]} but the proposal failed.

Close intimate relationships were common among women in the mid-nineteenth century. This was attributed to strictgender roles that led women to expand their social circle to other women for emotional support. These relationships were expected to form close between women with similar socioeconomic status.^[165] Since there was not defined language in regards to lesbianism at the time, these relationships were seen as merelyhomosocial. Though women developed very close emotional relationships with one another, marriage to men was still the norm. However, there is evidence of possible sexual relationships beyond an emotional level. Documents from two African-American women describe practices known as "bosom sex." While these women practiced heterosexuality with their husbands, it is still believed their relationship was romantic and sexual.^[166]

The late nineteenth century and early twentieth century saw the flourishing of "Boston marriages" inNew England. The term describesromantic friendship between two women, living together without any financial support from men. Many lasting romantic friendships began atwomen's colleges. This kind of relationship actually predates the New England custom, as there have been examples of this in the United Kingdom and continental Europe since the seventeenth century.^[167] Belief in the platonic nature of Boston marriages began to dissipate after followers ofFreud cast suspicion on the supposed innocent friendships of the "marriages".^[168]

The examples and perspective in this articlemay not represent aworldwide view of the subject. You mayimprove this article, discuss the issue on thetalk page, orcreate a new article, as appropriate.(March 2021) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

TheStonewall Riots were a series of spontaneous demonstrations, when members of thegay (i.e. LGBT) community fought back when police became violent during apolice raid in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at theStonewall Inn, located in theGreenwich Village neighborhood ofManhattan,New York City. The crowd was spurred to action whenbutch lesbianStormé DeLarverie punched the police officer who had struck her over the head, and called out to the crowd, "Why don't you guys do something?"^[170][171] These riots are widely considered to constitute the single most important event leading to thegay liberation movement in the US, and one of the most important events in the modern fight forLGBT rights in the United States.^[172][173]

Political lesbianism originated in the late 1960s amongsecond waveradical feminists as a way to fight sexism andcompulsory heterosexuality (seeAdrienne Rich's essay "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence").Sheila Jeffreys, a lesbian, helped to develop the concept when she co-wrote "Love Your Enemy? The Debate Between Heterosexual Feminism and Political Lesbianism"^[174] with theLeeds Revolutionary Feminist Group. They argued that women should abandon support of heterosexuality and stop sleeping with men, encouraging women to rid men "from your beds and your heads."^[175] While the main idea of political lesbianism is to be separate from men, this does not necessarily mean that political lesbianshave to sleep with women; some choose to becelibate or identify asasexual. The Leeds Revolutionary Feminist Group definition of a political lesbian is "a woman identified woman who does not fuck men". They proclaimed men the enemy and women who were in relationships with them collaborators and complicit in their own oppression. Heterosexual behavior was seen as the basic unit of thepatriarchy's political structure, with lesbians who reject heterosexual behavior therefore disrupting the established political system.^[176] Lesbian women who have identified themselves as "political lesbians" includeTi-Grace Atkinson,Julie Bindel,Charlotte Bunch,Yvonne Rainer, and Sheila Jeffreys. Some key thinkers and activists in lesbian feminism areCharlotte Bunch,Rita Mae Brown,Adrienne Rich,Audre Lorde,Marilyn Frye,Mary Daly,Sheila Jeffreys andMonique Wittig (although the latter is more commonly associated with the emergence ofqueer theory).

On December 15, 1973, theAmerican Psychiatric Association voted almost unanimously to remove "homosexuality" from the list of psychiatric disorders that are included in the group'sDiagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. This reversal came after three years of protests from gay and lesbian liberation activists and major disruption at the group's panel on homosexuality in 1970.^[177]

TheLesbian Avengers began in New York City in 1992 as "adirect action group focused on issues vital to lesbian survival and visibility."^[178][179] Dozens of other chapters quickly emerged worldwide, a few expanding their mission to include questions of gender, race, and class.Newsweek reporter Eloise Salholz, covering the 1993March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation, believed the Lesbian Avengers were so popular because they were founded at a moment when lesbians were increasingly tired of working on issues, likeAIDS andabortion, while their own problems went unsolved.^[180] Most importantly, lesbians were frustrated with invisibility in society at large, and invisibility andmisogyny in the LGBT community.^[180]

In 1974,Maureen Colquhoun came out as the first lesbianMP for theLabour Party in the UK. When elected she was in a heterosexual marriage.^[181]

Into the mid-1970s, lesbians around the world were publishing their personalcoming out stories, as these came few and far between at the time. In addition to coming out stories, lesbians were publishing biographies of lesbian writers who were misplaced in history, looking for examples of who they were and how their community came to be. As withGay Liberation, the lesbian feminist understanding of the lesbian potential in all women was at odds with the minority-rights framework of the Gay Rights movement. Many women of the Gay Liberation movement felt frustrated at the domination of the movement by men and formed separate organizations; some who felt gender differences between men and women could not be resolved developed "lesbian separatism", influenced by writings such asJill Johnston's 1973 bookLesbian Nation. Disagreements between different political philosophies were, at times, extremely heated, and became known as thelesbian sex wars,^[182] clashing in particular over views onsadomasochism,prostitution andtransgenderism. The "Sex Wars" was a time in feminist history that divided "anti-pornography" and "pro-sex" feminists. The common belief among pro-sex feminists was that there needed to be a new way for female desire to be advertised and demonstrated. General photography of women in this manner was debated among feminists everywhere.^[183]

In theEastern Bloc, although there were no standard laws regarding discrimination against gays and lesbians, self-expression was discouraged as it encouraged people toward actions that were outside the accepted norms of a harmonious socialist society. As such, state police often used blackmail and kept dossiers on homosexual people as a way for them to be manipulated by the state.^[184] Activists in Eastern Europe were not unaware of events in the West, but generally forming associations for any type of special interest group was forbidden until the 1980s.^[185][186] Because state sanction was not given, many support systems for lesbians operated clandestinely. For example, inEast Germany,Ursula Sillge formed theSunday Club in 1986 to offer both a means for lesbians to gather outside the state-sanctioned churches but as a way for them to provide educational materials about homosexuality to each other and press authorities to acknowledge the discrimination faced by lesbians and gays.^[187][188] The Sunday Club would not gain official sanction and the ability to register as an organization until 1990.^[189] In Hungary, the first legally recognized organization to represent the LGBT community wasHoméros [hu].^[190] It was organized in 1988 at theIpoly Cinema, a venue whereIldikó Juhász operated an after-hours safe space for lesbians to come together to create social networks.^[191][192]

Auckland,New Zealand is home to what is noted as the only museum in the world dedicated to Lesbian history,The Charlotte Museum.^[193] The museum aims to preserve collect and exhibit the histories, cultures and experiences of Lesbian Sapphic communities in New Zealand.^[194]

In 2017, the Egyptian government arrested and tortured out lesbian and activistSarah Hegazi after she flew arainbow flag at a concert.^[195]

InLatin America, lesbian consciousness and associations appeared in the 1970s, increasing while several countries transitioned to or reformed democratic governments. Harassment and intimidation have been common even in places where homosexuality is legal, and laws against child corruption, morality, or "the good ways" (faltas a la moral o las buenas costumbres), have been used to persecute homosexuals.^[196] From the Hispanic perspective, the conflict between thelesbophobia of some feminists and themisogyny from gay men has created a difficult path for lesbians and associated groups.^[196]

The meetings of feminist lesbians of Latin America and the Caribbean, sometimes shortened to "Lesbian meetings", have been an important forum for the exchange of ideas for Latin American lesbians since the late 1980s. With rotating hosts and biannual gatherings, its main aims are the creation of communication networks, to change the situation of lesbians in Latin America (both legally and socially), to increase solidarity between lesbians and to destroy the existing myths about them.^[197]

Argentina was the first Latin American country with a gay rights group,Nuestro Mundo (NM, or Our World), created in 1969. Six mostly secret organizations concentrating on gay or lesbian issues were founded around this time, but persecution and harassment were continuous and grew worse with the dictatorship ofJorge Rafael Videla in 1976, when all groups were dissolved in theDirty War. Lesbian rights groups have gradually formed since 1986 to build a cohesive community that works to overcome philosophical differences with heterosexual women.^[196]

In 1977,Lesbos, the first lesbian organization for Mexicans, was formed. Several incarnations of political groups promoting lesbian issues have evolved; 13 lesbian organizations were active in Mexico City in 1997. Ultimately, lesbian associations had little influence on the homosexual and feminist movements.^[196]

InChile, the dictatorship ofAugusto Pinochet forbade the creation of lesbian groups until 1984, when laws changed. In 1984,Ayuquelén ("joy of being" inMapuche) was first founded, prompted in part by the very public beating death of a woman,Mónica Briones, amid shouts of "Damned lesbian!" from her attacker.^[196]

The lesbian movement has been closely associated with the feminist movement in Chile, although the relationship has been sometimes strained.Ayuquelén worked with theInternational Lesbian Information Service, theInternational Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association, and the Chilean gay rights groupMovimiento de Integración y Liberación Homosexual (Movement to Integrate and Liberate Homosexuals) to remove the sodomy law still in force in Chile.^[196]

Lesbian consciousness became more visible inNicaragua in 1986, when theSandinista National Liberation Front expelled gay men and lesbians from its midst. State persecution prevented the formation of associations untilAIDS became a concern, when educational efforts forced sexual minorities to band together. The first lesbian organization wasNosotras, founded in 1989. An effort to promote visibility from 1991 to 1992 provoked the government to declare homosexuality illegal in 1994, effectively ending the movement, until 2004, whenGrupo Safo – Grupo de Mujeres Lesbianas de Nicaragua was created, four years before homosexuality became legal again.^[196]

In South Africa, men sometimesrape lesbians with a goal of punishment of "abnormal" behavior and reinforcement of societal norms.^[198] The crime was first identified in South Africa^[199] where it is sometimes supervised by members of the woman's family or local community,^[200] and is a major contributor toHIV infection in South African lesbians.^[198] "Corrective rape" is not recognized by the South African legal system as ahate crime despite the fact that theSouth African Constitution states that no person shall be discriminated against based on theirsocial status and identity, including sexual orientation.^{[201][202][203]} Legally, South Africa protects gay rights extensively, but the government has not taken proactive action to prevent corrective rape, and women do not have much faith in the police and their investigations.^[204][205]

Corrective rape is reported to be on the rise in South Africa. The South African nonprofit "Luleki Sizwe" estimates that more than 10 lesbians are raped or gang-raped on a weekly basis.^[206] As made public by theTriangle Project in 2008, at least 500 lesbians become victims of corrective rape every year and 86% of black lesbians in theWestern Cape live in fear of beingsexually assaulted.^[204] Victims of corrective rape are less likely to report the crime because of their society's negative beliefs about homosexuality.^[204]

• History of lesbianism in the United States
• List of lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender firsts by year
• Timeline of LGBT history
• Lesbian erasure

• Castle, Terry (1995).The Apparitional Lesbian: Female Homosexuality and Modern Culture (1st ed.).Columbia University Press.ISBN 0-231-07652-5.
• Cogan, Jeanine C.; Erickson, Joanie M., eds. (1999).Lesbians, Levis and Lipstick: The Meaning of Beauty in Our Lives (1st ed.).The Haworth Press.ISBN 0-7890-0661-8.Faderman, Lillian (1991).Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in 20th-Century America (1st ed.).Columbia University Press.ISBN 978-0231074889.
• Manniche, Lise (1987).Sexual life in ancient Egypt. London: Kegan Paul International.
• McHugh, Kathleen A.; Johnson-Grau, Brenda; Sher, Ben Raphael, eds. (2014).The June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives: Making Invisible Histories Visible.UCLA Center for the Study of Women (Regents of the University of California).ISBN 978-0-615-99084-2.
• Morris, Bonnie J. (2016).The Disappearing L: Erasure of Lesbian Spaces and Culture (1st ed.).SUNY Press.ISBN 978-1-4384-6177-9.
• Richards, Dell (1990).Lesbian Lists: A Look at Lesbian Culture, History, and Personalities (1st ed.).Alyson Publications.ISBN 155583163X.
• Watt, Diane; Giffney, Noreen; Sauer, Michelle M., eds. (2011).The Lesbian Pre-modern. Palgrave.ISBN 978-0-230-61676-9.

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