Lesbians in the City: Mobilities and Relational Geographies

Abstract

This article examines contemporary lesbians’ (and queer women's) urban geographies, drawing from empirical research on Toronto, Canada and Sydney, Australia. Our argument is grounded in research highlighting lesbians’ distinctive urban experiences: lesbians have both participated in gay villages and gay male spaces and, importantly, carved out their own urban places, including commercial and residential concentrations. In this article we use new mobilities scholarship to delineate historical and contemporary relational geographies materializing since World War II, which continue to rewrite lesbians’ and queer women's inhabitation and experiences of urban landscapes in Toronto and Sydney.