Homosexuality and lesbianism have always been present in society throughout history. Nonetheless, the contributions from these communities have often been marginalized or disregarded. Reasons vary: sometimes, the discrimination was direct and purposeful. Other times, the contributions were overlooked based on perceived merit or personal opinion alone. Gradually, society has become more accepting, and nowadays, sexuality—while often a point of disagreement—is rarely used as the sole basis for outright discrimination. Still, these issues do exist in modern society, which makes looking into the historical contributions of lesbians a worthwhile venture.
Historically Influential Lesbians
Although the modern social landscape remains largely positive for today’s lesbians, this outlook hasn’t always been maintained. In fact, the lesbians of the past were often forced to keep their sexualities a secret, either from social stigma, fear of legal repercussions, or by personal choice. Arguably, the inability to Google everything a person might need likely contributed positively to the depth, vulnerability, and complexity of their respective accomplishments, but it’s nonetheless a disappointment to learn about the challenges these talented lesbians faced throughout their lifetimes.
In today’s world, the dating process has changed tremendously, and thanks to social media and online dating outlets, lesbians in every part of the world can fulfill the simplest need of finding someone to date with a couple of clicks of a mouse. “I want a lesbian hookup near me” is all they have to say today, and modern dating sites will provide them with tons of possible matches, meticulously selected by artificial intelligence according to the user’s tastes and needs.
Sappho
Sappho was a Greek lyric poet. Despite being a highly influential poet whose birthplace (Lesbos, Greece) inspired the English term “lesbian,” the vast majority of her work has been lost over time. She is estimated to have written over 10,000 lines of poetry, and yet only 650 of them are still around today. Sappho’s work largely centered around romance, marriage, and her attraction to females, although she wrote about other topics as well.
Christina, Queen of Sweden
Born on Dec. 18, 1626, Christina of Sweden was originally misgendered as a boy, although the midwives realized their mistake soon after. As the only child of King Gustavus, Christina was destined to inherit the throne and was educated, akin to the level of a royal male. She quickly became well-known for her masculine tendencies and her general lack of interest in love and romance. Her actual love life is surrounded by speculation. While she is rumored to have had affairs with both her cousin Charles X Gustavand—later on—Countess Ebba Sparre, all that is known for sure is that she had relations with multiple women throughout her life. However, she never married.
Anne Lister
Born way back in 1791, Anne Lister is perhaps best known as the “first modern lesbian.” Like many others, Anne cast away the traditional feminine wardrobe in favor of masculine clothing. She is well-documented as having always worn black. Interestingly, Lister’s sexual preferences were actually discovered because of her own documentation, which took the form of diaries. In these diaries, Lister recorded all of her various sexual encounters with women, writing part of them in plain English and writing the more explicit scenes in code. Although Lister had likely assumed that no one would ever attempt to decode her writings, this proven to be false in time. Her writings were first decoded in the 1890s by one of her descendants and later again in 1983 by Helena Whitbread.
Virginia Woolf
Perhaps one of the most interesting lesbian romance stories is that of Virginia Woolf, her husband Leonard Woolf, and her lover Vita Sackville-West. Virginia married Leonard in 1912, ten years before meeting Vita in December of 1922. After the two met, they quickly began a passionate & sexual relationship, which was allowed to continue outside of the marriage without opposition from Leonard as he felt it helped Virginia’s mental state.
Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson was a poet. Although she remained relatively unknown throughout her lifetime, she is nowadays regarded as one of the most important figures in American poetry. Writing nearly 1,800 poems, Dickinson remained relatively withdrawn & anti-social throughout her 55 years of life, communicating with friends and acquaintances primarily through written letters. Dickinson never married, although it has been speculated that she had a romantic relationship with her sister-in-law, Susan Gilbert. Unfortunately, essentially nothing is actually known about Dickinson’s love life. One such example of this is the existence of “The Master Letters,” a trio of letters written to an unidentified party. Although some scholars speculate that these letters were written for a lover, it’s also possible that they were simply abstract thoughts on paper.
Modern Lesbianism
Acceptance of the LGBT community, while largely improved upon from past years, still isn’t universal. Safety and success as an “out-of-the-closet” lesbian are highly dependent on where the person in question lives, what careers they are pursuing, and even the people that they personally know! While some of these struggles are more closely related to sexism (rather than homophobia), they are nonetheless common struggles shared by modern lesbians. Will this change in the near future? Only time will tell.