Lesbian Visibility Day: Reflecting On Our Past And Looking To Our Future
Lesbian Visibility Week begins on April 21, culminating with Lesbian Visibility Day on April 26.
Throughout history, LGBTQ+ women have been largely overlooked in conversations about queerness and culture alike. While representation has gradually become more frequent for lesbians in the media, there are still many aspects of life, culture, and legislation that leave queer women on the margins.
Lesbian Visibility Day and Lesbian Visibility Week were created to combat this very phenomenon. Rather than taking a backseat in queer male-led spaces and events, women created their own celebration, a series of global events during the week leading up to April 26, the annual Lesbian Visibility Day.
The first U.S. Lesbian Visibility Week was created in the ‘90s by the West Hollywood Lesbian and Gay Advisory Council alongside the Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center. The West Hollywood Lesbian Visibility Committee, founded in 1989, also helped to coordinate the events. New Zealand and Canada’s Lesbian Visibility Weeks date back to the early 1980s.
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This early lesbian-centered event was sponsored by local elected officials in Los Angeles. While the event drew large crowds in Southern California, it was not celebrated anywhere else in the United States until much later. “Part of the reason we started [Lesbian Visibility Week] was because there was a lot of attention for the gay male community, but not as much for lesbians,” Mayor John Heilman told the Los Angeles Times in 1995.
Photo Courtesy of The Curve Foundation
Los Angeles’ inaugural week featured events that continue to appear in modern celebrations such as lesbian film festivals, softball, country western dancing, and even a “Dykes and Their Dogs” pet show. Yes, the events are full of lesbian-centered fun, but this annual celebration is so much more than that. It’s about taking your representation in your own hands and carving space for yourself and those around you. “It comes down to the fact that those who are visible get the dollars… more funding comes in for men’s events,” Christine DuBois, who helped organize Lesbian Visibility Week, told the LA Times in 1995. “But visibility is also for the lesbians who are still trying to come out–reaching out to them so that if they see more [female] couples walking around holding hands, they’ll know it’s OK.”
While these Lesbian Visibility Weeks in Southern California are not captured in their totality in historical archives, they appeared to trickle to an end in the late ‘90s or early 2000s. The celebration reappeared in 2008, when activist Amy Ellis proposed Lesbian Visibility Day to be celebrated annually on April 26. While there is little recorded about these early celebrations and the activist credited with its creation, since the early 2000s, the day has gained momentum.
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Now celebrated throughout the world, Lesbian Visibility Day and Lesbian Visibility Week encourage queer women to take up the space they are so often denied. Sponsored in the U.S. by The Curve Foundation, GLAAD, ILGA World, and LGBTQ Foundation, Lesbian Visibility Week hosts events such as the coast-to-coast Flag Raising Ceremony, the “Beyond the Rainbow” Speaker Series, Queer Women in Sports Day, a Lesbian Film Series, photo and art exhibits celebrating lesbian made works, and various other events both online and throughout the country. This year’s theme, “Celebrating Rainbow Families,” honors the diverse and meaningful connections forged within the community beyond traditional family structures.
Photo Courtesy of The Curve Foundation.
While unlikely to be celebrated by the White House this year, the week was honored in 2023 by the first openly queer press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, who brought the creator and cast members of The L Word to join her in the briefing room. Actress Leisha Haley addressed the room and the queer community with words that will always ring true, “Visibility starts in our homes and our communities and even if it feels like you’re under attack, know that we see you.”
Throughout the decades, the message of Lesbian Visibility remains clear—we’re here and we’re not going anywhere.
