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Lesbian erasure is the tendency to ignore, remove, falsify, or reexplain evidence of lesbianism in history, academia, the news media, and other primary sources. Lesbians may also be ignored within the LGBT community and their identity may not be acknowledged.
In history
Journalist and author Victoria A. Brownworth wrote that the erasure of lesbian sexuality from historical records "is similar to the erasure of all autonomous female sexuality: women's sexual desire has always been viewed, discussed and portrayed within the construct and purview of the male gaze". Oftentimes, erasure of lesbians is enabled when LGBT organizations fail to recognize the contributions of lesbians; such as when, in 2018, a statement by the National Center for Lesbian Rights about the Stonewall riots did not acknowledge Stormé DeLarverie's involvement in the uprising.
In language
Author and women's history scholar Bonnie J. Morris, as well as many other lesbian activists, such as same-sex marriage groundbreaker Robin Tyler, Ashley Obinwanne, screenwriter and co-founder of platform Lesbians Over Everything, and AfterEllen owner and Editor in Chief Memoree Joelle, say the increased use of the amorphous term "queer" to describe lesbians is a "disidentification" term that contributes to lesbian invisibility.
In an interview about her 2016 novel Beyond the Screen Door, author Julia Diana Robertson discovered that her self-identification as a lesbian and her description of the novel's genre was changed to "queer" and "queerness" in the published quotes.
In scholarship
Political theory researcher Anna Marie Smith stated that lesbianism has been erased from the "official discourse" in Britain because lesbians are viewed as "responsible homosexuals" in a dichotomy between "responsible homosexuals" and "dangerous gayness." As a result, lesbian sexual practices were not criminalized in Britain in ways similar to the criminalization of gay male sexual activities. Smith also points to the exclusion of women from AIDS research at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Smith believes that these erasures result from sexism and suggests that these issues should be addressed directly by lesbian activism.
In advertising
Marcie Bianco, of the Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University, observed that lesbian erasure occurs in advertising: advertisers do not target lesbians when they are publicizing products to LGBT audiences. As an example, she points to the collapse of AfterEllen, which she says resulted from a lack of advertisers. The former Editor in Chief of AfterEllen, Karman Kregloe, stated that advertisers do not think of lesbians as women, and Trish Bendix observed that lesbians are assumed to like anything gay, even if it is male-focused.
In the LGBT community
Several feminist lesbian activists have lamented the rapidly increasing disappearance of many physical spaces, such as lesbian bars, women's bookstores, and music festivals, that were alternative lesbian spaces in which lesbian subculture thrived.
Media sources have reported on lesbian activists being excluded from LGBT events; for example, New Zealand group Lesbian Rights Alliance Aotearoa was banned from Wellington Pride because it was "'not being inclusive enough' of trans people". Difficulties have also been experienced at Dyke Marches; for example, Vancouver group The Lesbians Collective was told to exclude lesbian pride placards and symbols from the march. Feminist activists gatecrashed Auckland Pride parade in 2018 with a banner urging the protection of lesbian youth from sex hormones. At the 2018 Brighton Pride parade, the only instance where the word "lesbian" appeared was on a banner celebrating Stormé DeLarverie. In 2019, women wearing T-shirts printed with a definition for lesbian ("lesbian | lezbiən | noun | a woman who loves other women") were refused service at the National Theatre bar in London.
In relation to transgender women
The term lesbian erasure has been used by some trans exclusionary radical feminists, such as members of the United Kingdom organization Get the L Out. The group, which proposes the creation of an autonomous lesbian community, argues that lesbians are "constantly vilified and excluded from the GBT community for stating their exclusive sexual preference", that the expansion of transgender rights erases lesbians, that transgender activism encourages lesbians to transition to straight men, and that the GBT community is becoming increasingly anti-lesbian and misogynistic. The group staged its first protest at the 2018 London Pride Parade and was condemned as transphobic or "anti-trans" by the organizers of Pride in London. PinkNews and The Guardian denounced the protesters. Sarah Ditum of the New Statesman quoted the protesters and their material: "The group...carried banners proclaiming 'lesbian not queer', 'lesbian = female homosexual' and 'transactivism erases lesbians'."
Terry MacDonald of the New Statesman stated, "In some circles it is considered transphobic for lesbian women to refuse to recognise as potential sexual partners (a resistance sometimes referred to as 'the cotton ceiling', a phrase which smacks of misogyny and male entitlement). It isn't just radical feminists who find this problematic: some trans women do too. Is that really just irrational bigotry?" Feminist theorist Claire Heuchan said, "even acknowledging lesbian visibility is described as 'dogwhistle transphobia'. Something within the LGBT community has gone seriously wrong when being for lesbians is interpreted as being against people identifying as transgender...lesbophobia isn't coming from social conservatism as it has in the past, but within the LGBT+ community."
Some LGBT activists have opposed the term lesbian erasure as being anti-transgender. In a 2018 open letter opposing the term, twelve editors and publishers of eight lesbian publications stated, "We do not think supporting trans women erases our lesbian identities." Carrie Lyell, editor of DIVA magazine and creator of the letter, stated that "while there's no denying women are marginalised within the LGBT+ movement, this having anything to do with trans people, or trans issues, is news to me." She referred to the argument that trans women are pressuring lesbians to "accept them as sexual partners" as "scaremongering".
TotallyHer Media, a subsidiary of Evolve Media and owner of AfterEllen, denied the hearsay about the website shutting down and fired Trish Bendix ahead of her scheduled departure from the publication.
References
Brownworth, Victoria A. (October 19, 2018). "Lesbian Erasure". Echo Magazine. Retrieved 28 July 2019.
Plummer, Ken, ed. (1992). "Resisting the Erasure of Lesbian Sexuality: A challenge for queer activism, by Anna Marie Smith". Modern Homosexualities: Fragments of Lesbian and Gay Experiences. London: Routledge. pp. 200–215. ISBN978-0415064200.
Barrett, Ruth, ed. (2016). Female Erasure: What You Need To Know About Gender Politics' War on Women, the Female Sex and Human Rights (1st ed.). California: Tidal Time Publishing. p. 225. ISBN978-0997146707.
Millward, Liz; Dodd, Janice G.; Fubara-Manuel, Irene (2017). Killing Off the Lesbians: A Symbolic Annihilation on Film and Television. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company. ISBN978-1476668161.