Lesbian Invisibility Research Articles

Jak nawiedzają lesbijki. Homo-spektralność, tożsamość i trauma w niezależnych podcastach Midnight Radio (2018) i Weaver (2021)

The article presents the spectralisation of lesbian desire, i.e., the discursive production of the social invisibility of lesbians, through its presentation in two podcasts: Midnight Radio (2018) by Bobbie Parker and Weaver (2021) written and performed by Newton Sweeney. The issue of spectralisation combines uncanny studies with queer theory, developing the concept of the queer subject as a phantom emerging in heteronormative culture through the social repression of queerness (the process known as homo-spectrality). In this context, the podcast format is particularly interesting as a derivative of radio, a medium historically predisposed to telling ghost stories (or conveying the voice of a ghost). The analyzed titles illustrate the social mechanism of spectralisation and offer a significant reinterpretation, as they base the production of the spectre not on the psychological mechanism of repression but on the desire for preservation, maintenance, and love.

The Poetics of (Un)Mournability: Emma Donoghue’s Hood (1995) as an Elegy in Invisible Ink

Abstract Emma Donoghue’s Hood is an Irish tale of closeted lesbian love in which the narrator cannot mourn the death of her partner publicly because of the compulsory social invisibility of their relationship. While in her monograph Frames of War: When is Life Grievable? Judith Butler correlates the (un)grievability of certain lives (their ability to be grieved over) with ethical frames of perception, this paper focuses on the invisibilisation of public mourning. Since the term “mourning” is often used to evoke public displays and rituals of grief, I propose to confront Butler’s concept of “(un)grievability” with what I call “(un)mournability,” in order to investigate the three metaphors of (in)visibility that shape the aesthetics of Donoghue’s contemporary narrative elegy. The images of the closet, the hood, and the invisible ink, which are instrumental to Donoghue’s narrative strategies of linguistic invisibility, map out the evolving representation of lesbian invisibility in the novel.

Reading Incognito: Periodicals, Sapphic Fictions, and Lesbian Communication

ABSTRACT The lesbian past is difficult to recover because traces of it are sparse in the archives. This archival absence, however, is not a straightforward effect of silencing. This paper shows how lesbian invisibility was a conscious production, a shield to protect queer women's lives. Using the often misogynist nineteenth-century French sapphic canon, women seeking women in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries found ways of communicating privately in public in newspaper classifieds and correspondence sections using characters, details, and tropes from these works and turning them away from their original moralizing ends.

Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Invisibility in Nursing.

Lesbian nurses have historically been silenced, but diversity initiatives within professional health programs suggest a need to initiate scholarly discussions that explore heteronormativity as increasing the risk of harm for nonheterosexual nurses as compared to their heterosexual counterparts. Nurses can reflect on relative privilege within the profession to better understand the ways in which normative health practices perpetuate adverse health outcomes among vulnerable patient populations. Nurses from diverse backgrounds, such as this lesbian author, offer insight into how the nursing profession might illuminate relational aspects of privilege. As such, the nursing profession could uncover solutions to systemic vulnerabilities which are inadvertently perpetuated within our profession, the health-care system, and society more broadly. The notion of compulsory heterosexuality is discussed in relation to nursing in this opinion piece with an aim to render structural harms visible that have been obscured by the institutionalization of heteronormativity in health care, to build awareness of the ways in which systemic vulnerabilities are unknowingly perpetuated despite health-care professionals being well-intended in their practice.

Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Invisibility in Nursing

Lesbian nurses have historically been silenced, but diversity initiatives within professional health programs suggest a need to initiate scholarly discussions that explore heteronormativity as increasing the risk of harm for nonheterosexual nurses as compared to their heterosexual counterparts. Nurses can reflect on relative privilege within the profession to better understand the ways in which normative health practices perpetuate adverse health outcomes among vulnerable patient populations. Nurses from diverse backgrounds, such as this lesbian author, offer insight into how the nursing profession might illuminate relational aspects of privilege. As such, the nursing profession could uncover solutions to systemic vulnerabilities which are inadvertently perpetuated within our profession, the health-care system, and society more broadly. The notion of compulsory heterosexuality is discussed in relation to nursing in this opinion piece with an aim to render structural harms visible that have been obscured by the institutionalization of heteronormativity in health care, to build awareness of the ways in which systemic vulnerabilities are unknowingly perpetuated despite health-care professionals being well-intended in their practice.

In visibilities: the Groupe du 6 novembre and the production of liberal lesbian identity in contemporary France

ABSTRACTThis article analyses the little-known contributions of a Paris-based activist group of self-identified lesbians of colour, the Groupe du 6 novembre, which formed in 1999. Their self-published anthology, entitled Warriors/Guerrières, contests the racism of French feminist and LGBT community and culture and examines sexual minority visibility through an intersectional lens. This anthology was unfortunately contested and all but censored by organisations that purportedly sought to promote lesbian culture and self-expression. The Groupe du 6 novembre’s erasure is symptomatic of the ways in which the seemingly laudable aim of combating lesbian invisibility—within both scholarship and activism—can actually serve to marginalise racialised lesbians. Through close readings of the Groupe’s poetry and prose and documentation of their history, this article will argue that dominant conceptions of lesbian sexual identity are imbued with liberal racism and Republican universalism. At a time of increasing concern that certain forms of feminist and LGBT politics are being co-opted by the State to racist ends, the Groupe du 6 novembre constitutes an essential chapter in French feminist history and literature.

Toxic Roots: The Remnants of White Minority Rule in Zimbabwe

Honorable Mention for Best Work of Criticism 2018 Northwest Undergraduate Conference in the Humanities This paper discusses the complex history of the intersection of sexuality and gender within Zimbabwe, specifically the chiShona tribe. It builds on the work of Zimbabwean anthropologist Josiah Taru, and African Studies scholar Tabona Shoko to uncover queer tribal identities and their position within precolonial chiShona tradition. This challenges efforts to naturalize homophobia in Zimbabwe in its current context. In relation, the role of colonial masculinity, power, and how it is interconnected in current political discourse is examined, problematized and complicated. Finally, the ways in which lesbian chiShona women challenge this discourse and lesbian invisibility is highlighted through the work of Tinashe Mupedzapasi. Colonization has left toxic roots within chiShona masculinity, sexuality, power dynamics, and gender identity reinforcing hierarchical understandings within chiShona culture. Yet non-normative identities persist. Thus, this project also addresses the critical question: can this discourse be decolonized? <strong>Faculty Sponsor</strong>: Dr. Linda Heidenreich-Zuñiga

Lesbian Spanners: A Re-appraisal of UK Consensual Sadomasochism Laws

There continues to be legal invisibility of lesbians as sexual beings; in particular, for those lesbians who engage in BDSM. A cursory glance at work both within and outside of the academy gives the impression of increased social and legal acceptability for those who engage in BDSM. However, I suggest that this acceptance is illusory and that instead, gay men who engage in BDSM experience increased legal supervision and increased invisibility for lesbians. These issues are examined in the context of two seemingly disparate legal events. The first is the 30 year anniversary of Operation Spanner and the second is the introduction of the Audiovisual Media Services Regulations 2014. Amongst other things, the 2014 Regulations criminalise the portrayal of female ejaculation (but not male). Given this criminalisation of certain kinds of female sexual pleasure, the potentiality to significantly adversely impact upon lesbians is clear. 2017 will be the 30 year anniversary of Operation Spanner and the subsequent focus has been primarily upon gay male BDSM. I speculate as to the possible legal reaction(s) to a lesbian ‘spanner’ BDSM event. I speculate as to the legal reactions to an all-female BDSM dungeon.

Teachers’ discourses on young lesbians in the portuguese school context

This paper aims to analyze teachers’ discourses on young lesbians in the Portuguese schools. To that end, we carried out semi-structured interviews with 24 Portuguese teachers of middle and secondary schools. After having analyzed the retrieved data from the interviews, we identified four main themes: gender polarization; lesbian invisibility; homophobia; and measures against homophobia. Based on their discourses, we concluded that these interviewees have a small amount of knowledge about lesbian women’s sexuality. Despite the legislative progress concerning the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender People's rights in Portugal, teachers are not prepared to deal with this issue both inside and outside the school environment. Furthermore, this research includes some recommendations to deal with homophobia in the Portuguese school context. This study will hopefully contribute to a better understanding of the discourses and practices towards young lesbians in the school panorama, highlighting the importance of promoting non-discriminatory attitudes in the Portuguese schools.

“I thought we are safe”: Southern African lesbians' experiences of living with HIV

HIV-prevention and service programmes have long either ignored or overlooked lesbians. The experiences of lesbians with HIV have similarly been unrecognised and unreported. This erasure has contributed to the invisibility of lesbians in relation to HIV and related health risks. This community participatory study, based on in-depth interviews with 24 self-identifying African lesbians living with HIV in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia, focuses on their personal experiences and circumstances. Women's experiences shed light and challenge popular notions around lesbian risk. In particular among this group are lesbians who self-report exclusive sexual relationships with women. For these women, experiences of living with HIV are challenging as they struggle to understand the possibility of female-to-female transmission. While battling with their own perceptions of invulnerability and accepting their HIV-positive status, they have to deal also with wide-ranging misconceptions about risk. The paper argues that within the context of HIV, lesbians cannot be regarded as a ‘no-risk’ group. Health services and health providers are encouraged to respond to the health needs of lesbians living with HIV.

Interview met Rebecca Brown, a writer’s writer - Een kritische schrijversblik op gender, seksualiteit en de LGBT-gemeenschap

Rebecca Brown is a contemporary American lesbian author who has been working mainly in the shadows for the past thirty years to compose a challenging and highly rewarding oeuvre. This essay grew out of an interview with the author, and it sheds light on the way in which Brown’s writings manage to defamiliarise gender roles and norms, and testify to the importance of writing from a female perspective. Brown’s work is sensitive to the feminisation of nurturing roles and the supposed incompatibility of queers with childcare (hence, with futurity). Other discussion topics included the public character of (homo)sexuality and the historical invisibility of lesbians that Brown’s work takes issue with. The current trend of ‘homonormalisation’, in turn, is crucial to understand the importance of Brown’s concerted attention to those early queer activists who tend to be disregarded nowadays, but whose work remains relevant and, as Brown explains, unfinished. Clearly Brown does not hesitate to address problems within the queer community, as is also exemplified by her refusal to gloss over the taboo topics of same-sex violence and power imbalances within the LGBT-community.

Rethinking Resistance: The Queer Play of the Women’s National Basketball Association, Visibility Politics and Late Capitalism

This article employs the methodology of contextual cultural studies to explore the protest strategies of ‘Lesbians for Liberty’, a group of fans who staged a ‘kiss‐in’ during every time‐out of a nationally televised game between the Women’s National Basketball Association’s (WNBA) New York Liberty and Miami Sol. Designed as a way to challenge homophobia and lesbian invisibility sanctioned by the New York Liberty management, this article suggests the fans’ kissing activism promotes visibility and single‐issue identity politics as strategies for change. While the fans’ actions make lesbian bodies intelligible in a sporting and leisure space that too frequently imagines heteronormativity, a closer analysis reveals the rhetoric of Lesbians for Liberty and the WNBA’s marketing strategies are both complicit with ideologies and shifting processes characteristic of late capitalist profit‐enhancing practices. This article concludes by offering a discussion of queer and feminist writings that attempt to again theorise resistance in light of late capitalist marketing strategies, which have co‐opted the rhetoric of equality in the service of capital. The ultimate goal of this analysis is to join broader dialogues about the efficacy of identity‐based models of resistance by using the Lesbians for Liberty’s desire and actions as productive sites from which to rethink bodies, pleasures and resistance differently.

Lesbian Lacunae: Invisible Spaces in Dance Education

Recent research about sexuality and dance has begun to address the needs of gay male dancers, yet the needs of lesbian dancers have remained mostly absent from scholarly discourse. Exploring the lesbian lacunae, or invisible spaces of dance education, reveals the personal, political, and pedagogical implications of their existence within the dance community. The experiences of lesbian dancers “on the fringe” combined with new approaches to acknowledging lesbian artists and perspectives within dance history suggest the need for re-envisioning lesbian invisibility as a “liminal presence” within dance. In addition, ways dance educators can reduce the effects of heterocentrism within their institutions and celebrate the contributions of lesbian artists and educators to the field are proposed. By reconfiguring the invisibility of lesbian dancers as a liminal presence, we make visible the borders and limits of the dance profession's notions of sexuality and gender, acceptance and equality, and thereby strengthen our potential for dancing beyond them.

Midwifery care and the lesbian client

The traditional model of ‘the family’ is rapidly changing. Married parents living with their biological offspring (RCM, 2000) is no longer the only accepted norm. Single parenting, reproductive technologies and parenting outside of marriage are all becoming more common in contemporary society. Increasing numbers of lesbian women are choosing to become mothers. With such a shift in the historical concept of the family, midwives are having to readjust their attitudes and practices. This article focuses on the issues concerning lesbians receiving maternity care. These include: defining lesbianism, an historical perspective, discrimination and invisibility of lesbians in health care, stereotyping, exploding myths and what midwives can do.

‘It’s none of my business’: Gay and lesbian invisibility in aged care

‘It’s none of my business’: Gay and lesbian invisibility in aged care

QUEERING ECOLOGICAL FEMINISMEROTOPHOBIA, COMMODIFICATION, ART, AND LESBIAN IDENTITY

Utilizing examples from recent art, we critique Greta Gaard's argument that an inclusive ecofeminism must account for the role played by erotophobia in oppression. We suggest that while Gaard offers valuable insight into how fear of the erotic contributes to maintaining heteropatriarchal institutions, it fails to account for forms of oppression specific to lesbians. Moreover, Gaard's analysis unwittingly reinforces the conceptual, hence political, economic, and social invisibility of lesbians that, following Marilyn Frye, we argue is not merely consequent to compulsory heterosexuality, but constitutive of it. Lastly, we sketch a lesbian erotic whose potential for generating conceptual dissonance within heteropatriarchal value dualism contains the seeds of a creative sensibility out of which a genuinely queer ecofeminism might emerge.

The Rest is Silence...

This article focuses on questions rarely spoken of openly or written about in Poland. The article investigates what is behind such silence and tells of invisibility. The silence regarding lesbians in Poland is meaningful and reveals a lot about the concept of the Polish nation. This article examines Polish nationalistic discourse, which largely avoids the question of a homosexual orientation. Moreover, the heterosexual orientation is taken for granted as the only possible and natural one. Therefore, invisibility is a major theme of the article. The author illustrates this invisibility by examining two texts: the latest edition of the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the new Polish Constitution. Both discourses are interwoven and deal with a very rigid concept of the Polish nation. The author goes on to look at how these discourses are perceived by Polish lesbians and how this concept of the Polish nation affects their daily lives (e.g. double life, staying in the closet, ‘white marriages’). The article draws largely on the results of the study that the author conducted in 1997 regarding lesbian existence in Poland. She bases her discussion on excerpts from interviews and questionnaires distributed among Polish lesbians. The author argues that the silence and invisibility of lesbians in official discourse influence Polish opinion about them, thus reinforcing homophobia and increasing pressure on lesbians to remain invisible.

Queering Ecological Feminism: Erotophobia, Commodification, Art, and Lesbian Identity

Utilizing examples from recent art, we critique Greta Gaard's argument that an inclusive ecofeminism must account for the role played by erotophobia in oppression. We suggest that while Gaard offers valuable insight into how fear of the erotic contributes to maintaining heteropatriarchal institutions, it fails to account for forms of oppression specific to lesbians. Moreover, Gaard's analysis unwittingly reinforces the conceptual, hence political, economic, and social invisibility of lesbians that, following Marilyn Frye, we argue is not merely consequent to compulsory heterosexuality, but constitutive of it. Lastly, we sketch a lesbian erotic whose potential for generating conceptual dissonance within heteropatriarchal value dualism contains the seeds of a creative "sensibility" out of which a genuinely queer ecofeminism might emerge.

Road Trip Diary/Journal de Route

SUMMARY The following photo/text work is an extract from a much larger installation of photographs and text. The photographs have a modified generic quality: colour landscapes and self-portraits in tourist sites across America, the images similar to postcards or amateur tourist/family photographs. The stories, by contrast, are grounded in an individual specificity of response to the sites and events of the trip to function as allegorical anecdotes. The work conjoins a personal, lesbian and poetic narrative with familiar and potentially mundane images. The format of the tourist plaque is an appropriation of the trope of ‘official’ authority that uses such markers to direct and define what is currently and historically significant. The work explores questions of: the ambiguity of identity through association, lesbian invisibility, cross gender play, homo/lesbo eroticism, women'S access to and ownership of public space, the imaginary of the ‘road trip,’ landscape in photography, the documentary function of photography, photographic history, heterosexual assumption, etc. The work constructs a lesbian cognitive map of space, place, memory and history. The work (initially) appears simple in presenting familiar imagery with personal stories that explore theoretical ideas of lesbian subjecthood.

On being an exemplary lesbian: My life as a role model

This essay and performance script chart the connections between the burdens of exemplar imposed upon the author first as “preacher's kid,” and then as a lesbian. The performance operationalizes the parallels between these roles through reflections on the politics of representation that attempt to counter lesbian invisibility.