Lesbian

A lesbian is a homosexual woman or girl. The word can also describe women in general when talking about their experiences, no matter who they are attracted to. It can also describe things that relate to female homosexuality.

The word lesbian comes from the Greek island of Lesbos, home of the ancient poet Sappho. Not much from history was written down about women's lives, or about female homosexuality. The earliest mentions of lesbianism are from around 600 to 500 BC, including Sappho's poems.

Lesbian relationships and attractions have been treated in different ways in different times and places. Gender nonconforming behaviors, which lesbians have often shown, have also been treated in different ways. Many cultures have a long record of lesbian relationships. However, the idea of a "lesbian" as a kind of person separate from other women came about in Europe around the year 1800. Today, the rights of lesbians vary a lot around the world. In some places they are treated very badly, and in others they are accepted and protected by law.

A small number of women are lesbian. Lesbian social movements often work for changes in the law. These changes can include protection from unfair treatment, protection for child custody, and legal civil unions or marriages. They also work for acceptance of lesbian relationships in culture, families, and religion.

For other uses, see Lesbian (disambiguation).

Etymology

The word lesbian is a demonym. A demonym is a word for people from a certain place. It comes from the Greek island of Lesbos. The island was home to the poet Sappho, who lived in the 6th century BCE. Some of Sappho's poems talk about her love for other women.

Before the mid-19th century, the word lesbian was used for anything connected with Lesbos, including a type of wine. By 1870, it was used to describe relationships between women. In 1875, a critic called Baudelaire's poem "Delphine and Hippolyte" "Lesbian," even though the poem did not mention Lesbos. Around the turn of the 20th century, the words lesbian, invert, and homosexual were used in place of each other, along with sapphist. By 1925, the word had become common in medical writing and was recorded as a noun.

Sexuality and identity

Further information: Biology and sexual orientation

Scientists have looked at whether biology plays a part in who women are attracted to. Hormones that a baby is exposed to before birth, such as androgen, are linked to same-sex behavior in women. Genes also play a role. Some women feel an "existential crisis" when they realize they are lesbians, especially if they grew up hearing negative ideas about them. Lesbians often share an identity that is a bit like an ethnic identity, with a sense of group history and pride. Some women say their orientation has stayed the same, while others say it has changed over time. Women who identify as lesbians and have never been with men may be called "gold star lesbians." Some lesbians also use the labels non-binary or queer, while others find "queer" too broad or do not like the word.

Studies have found that women who are only attracted to women tend to have feelings and behavior that match their identity more closely than women who are only attracted to men. Some people's labels do not always match how they act.

In history

Main article: History of lesbianism

See also: Lesbians in Nazi Germany

Women were often left out of history, both as writers and as the people who were written about. This means lesbian history was not recorded well. Since the 1970s, people have worked to collect and save lesbian history. In ancient Greece, Sappho of Lesbos wrote poems about her love for other women, and some of these poems still exist. Other Greek writings also mention lesbians, including Plato's Symposium. In ancient Rome, some stories have lesbian characters, such as the tale of Iphis and Ianthe, a myth from Phaedrus, and Dialogues of the Courtesans by Lucian. In the Aztec Empire, the Florentine Codex describes relationships between women. This book was written in the 1500s to study Aztec life, and it also describes how these relationships were stopped. Some Indigenous peoples of the Americas recognized a third gender for women who dressed as men and took on men's roles. In early European stories from the 1500s and 1600s, a common plot had one character dress as another gender to win the love of a woman. This can be seen in Twelfth Night (1601), The Faerie Queene (1590), and The Bird in a Cage (1633). From the 1600s to the 1800s in the West, it was fashionable and accepted for a woman to show strong love for another woman.

In the 1800s and 1900s, sexologists Richard von Krafft-Ebing of Germany and Havelock Ellis of Britain sorted same-sex attraction between women into categories. They treated it as a sickness. In the 1920s, Berlin had a lively gay culture, with about 50 clubs for lesbians. In 1928, Radclyffe Hall published the novel The Well of Loneliness, which was meant to ask for kindness and acceptance. Professor Laura Doan described the trial that followed as "the crystallizing moment in the construction of a visible modern English lesbian subculture." In the United States, the 1920s was a time of experimentation. Gay culture disappeared in Germany when the Nazis came to power in 1933. After World War II, the U.S. government began treating gay people unfairly around 1950. From 1955 to 1969, over 2,000 lesbian pulp fiction books were published in North America. From the late 1950s to the 1970s, a time of big social change encouraged women to try many different kinds of experiences. In Latin America, lesbian communities grew as several countries moved to or rebuilt democratic governments, though people still often treated lesbians badly. In Africa, roles that crossed gender lines and marriages between women have been recorded in over 30 traditional societies. Since 2004, the Coalition of African Lesbians has worked to end stigma, unfair laws, and violence against lesbians.

Demographics

Further information: Demographics of sexual orientation

The first large study of women who are attracted to women was done in 1953 by the Kinsey Institute. It asked more than 8,000 American women about their lives. Some people questioned its methods, but many people read it. It discussed same-sex attraction in a calm way, which was new at the time.

In 1976, the sexologist Shere Hite asked 3,019 women about their experiences. Her questions were about how women saw themselves and what they liked, rather than about their past. Eight percent of the women said they preferred relationships with women. Nine percent said they thought of themselves as bisexual, or had been with both men and women without saying which they preferred.

Health

Some studies show that lesbian and bisexual women are more likely to have asthma than straight women. They may also have back pain, hepatitis, and urinary tract infections more often. However, they are less likely to have heart attacks, diabetes, or high blood pressure. This may be because they are less likely to become pregnant.

Lifestyle and social factors may raise the risk of some cancers. Lesbians exercise more than straight women, but obesity and smoking add to their risk of heart disease.

Research in the United States found that LGBT people often feel more stress and sadness. This is linked to rejection and hard experiences during childhood. Lesbians can also face unfair treatment, discrimination, and harm. They may have less money, which can lead to poor health, drinking too much alcohol, and trouble sleeping.

Some lesbians worry that doctors will judge them for who they are. Because they think they are at lower risk of some infections, they may skip regular check-ups, such as cervical cancer screening.

Media representation

Media portrayal of lesbians

Main article: List of feature films with lesbian characters

Main article: List of lesbian characters in television

Most media about lesbians was made by men. Women's publishing companies did not grow until the 1970s, and films about lesbians made by women did not appear until the 1980s. Early portrayals were often simple and limited. In books, lesbian characters were often shown as people who died early in the story. For many years, films and television showed lesbians as villains or victims. The 1930 Hays Code led to most references to homosexuality being removed from American films.

Things slowly changed over time. The first film to explore lesbianism in a deeper way was The Killing of Sister George in 1968. In 1907, a Yiddish play called God of Vengeance became the first stage show to include a lesbian kiss. On television, the first lesbian character on a major network appeared in The Eleventh Hour in the early 1960s. However, by the end of the story, the character was changed to be straight. In 1997, the episode of Ellen where the main character came out got a lot of attention.

Chic and popular culture

Lesbians became more visible starting in the early 1980s. Part of the reason was that some famous people got a lot of attention for their sexuality. The most talked-about figure was Martina Navratilova. She said she was bisexual, not a lesbian. She had public relationships with Rita Mae Brown and Judy Nelson. The press paid as much attention to her private life as to her sports success.

Other famous people spoke openly about being gay. They included musicians k.d. lang and Melissa Etheridge. Madonna pushed boundaries in her performances. In 1993, supermodel Cindy Crawford appeared on a cover of Vanity Fair in a bold photo. The image "became an internationally recognized symbol of the phenomenon of lesbian chic". In 1994, lesbian visibility grew again, especially among women with feminine appearances. From 1992 to 1994, the magazines Mademoiselle, Vogue, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Newsweek, and New York published stories about women who had relationships with other women. Visibility grew again in 2009. Female celebrities such as Cynthia Nixon and Lindsay Lohan spoke openly about their relationships with women, and reality television showed same-sex relationships. Psychiatrists and feminist philosophers wrote that more women were sharing that they had same-sex relationships because society was becoming more accepting. However, they also said that "only a certain kind of lesbian—slim and elegant or butch in just the right androgynous way—is acceptable to mainstream culture."

Legal rights

Thirty-eight countries punish sex between women, or have unclear laws that could be used against lesbian relationships. Some of these punishments include whipping (as in Iran and Brunei), prison sentences (as in Oman, Gambia, and Malawi), or whipping and fines (as in Mauritania).

Further information: Same-sex parenting

Family issues became major concerns for lesbians when gay activism grew louder in the 1960s and 1970s. Custody was a special worry. Courts often refused to give custody to mothers who were openly homosexual, even though the usual rule was that children went to their biological mother. Several studies compared children of single lesbian mothers with children of single mothers who were not lesbian. They found that children's mental health, happiness, and overall adjustment were similar in both groups, and so were the ways they later came to love. Being able to adopt children, or to care for them as foster parents, is an important goal for many lesbians, as is better access to artificial insemination.

In a 2023 survey of thirty countries, more than half of people wanted same-sex marriage to be legal. In 19 of the 20 countries in the survey that allow same-sex marriage, support is above half. In 9 of the other 10 countries, over half of people favor some legal recognition for same-sex couples. As of 2025, same-sex marriage is legal in thirty-nine countries.