2024 is for many the year of ‘a mass hysteria-lesbian-awakening.’ Lesbian voices, so often at the fringes of our social zeitgeist, have been suddenly thrust into the cultural centre thanks to music, art, film, and literature tackling the subtle and not so subtle intricacies of being a modern lesbian. This turn towards recognising lesbianism as a visible and legitimate sexuality has been groundbreaking for those identifying with the sapphic frame of things.
The so-called ‘Lesbian Renaissance’ has galvanised pop music, film, and television. As Isabella Greenwood observed in an article for Wonderland, this renaissance has intimate connections with the rise of TikTok, shows such as I Kissed a Girl, and films including Loves Lies Bleeding. Bottoms, and Drive Away Dolls. Greenwood however, pointedly notes that although lesbian art has always existed it is only now that popular culture is centred on lesbian artists and producers with more central focus than ever before.
So much as it is true to argue that lesbian art has always existed, it is also true to say that this resurgence has seen the dominance of white lesbians as the movement’s figureheads. TikTokers celebrate and sexualise white women contributors from the hallowed drag pop icon Chappell Roan, to pop sensation Renee Rap, to the global superpower that is Billie Ellish. These women, trailblazers in their own right, have portrayed a sexual, complex, and nuanced lesbian experience which many have seen as the first of its kind. Lyrics from ‘eat that girl for lunch’ and ‘I heard you like magic, I’ve got a wand and a rabbit’ litter our popular imaginations with images of the rarely acknowledged thing: lesbian sex. Films previously mentioned similarly portray complex and sensual wlw (women loving women) relationships. Popularising this kind of music and art has created a pervasive culture of visible lesbian sexuality.
However, this phenomenon was not born in a vacuum. The dominance of white lesbians is perhaps at odds with the lesbian movements’ historic contributions from black lesbian artists. This dates as far back as the 1920s Harlem renaissance with icons such as Ma Rainey, Josephine Baker, Ethel Waters, and Galdys Bentley openly writing and performing songs with explicit and implicit allusions to their lesbian relationships. It was in this context that blues singer Octavio R. González, an expert on the 1920 Harlem renaissance, explored how for African Americans escaping the latent violence and racism in the Jim Crow South, ‘expressing sexuality’ in Harlem ‘became a form of emancipation.’ For these women, being in lesbian and gay relationships was marred by hostility, hatred, and prejudice from both those within and outside of their communities.
More recently, artists such as Janelle Monae, Victoria Monet, and Kehlani have taken up the baton. In 2018 Janelle Monae debuted her bright red and highly controversial ‘vagina’ pants in the music video of Pynk from her album Dirty Computer. Her highly-public lesbian relationship with the actress Tessa Thompson was put on full display with Thompson’s head appearing from Monae’s vagina pants. However, counterintuitively to the seemingly explicit lesbian implications, there seemed to be limited public acknowledgement of this relationship between the two black women. Magazines such as Allure and Vogue glazed over the lesbian and queer
connotations focussing instead on the show of pubic hair, reasserting that Monae was empowering women to embrace ‘pussy power. ’
This glaring omission in popular comment came despite Monae being open about her sexuality and her relationship, perhaps representing the broader invisibility that black lesbians have long endured in popular culture. Indeed, for The First Black Lesbian Conference, held in San Francisco in 1980, the theme was ‘becoming visible.’ Commentators such as Andrea Ruth Canaan, Pat Norman, and Angela Davis challenged the ways in which black invisibility beleaguered progress for black women in the gay rights, black power, and feminist movements in the US.
There have been occasional moments where black lesbian art has been retrospectively lauded as culturally significant. Cheryl Dunye’s 1996 film, The Watermelon Woman, the first feature film from a black lesbian filmmaker, was hailed as visionary for its use of both deconstructive and realist techniques to examine the way in which identity is constructed by race, gender, and sexual orientation. Dunye’s motivation for making the film was her frustration at the lack of archival material on black lesbians and her sense that ‘our stories have never been told.’
Krü Maekdo set out to challenge this archival and historical erasure of black lesbians by founding the Black Lesbian Archives, an ongoing archival project that aims to bring awareness, build community around Black lesbian culture while bridging intergenerational gaps. However, projects and awareness can only go so far as to challenge broader cultural movements.
Fast forward to 2024, and black lesbians are still on the fringes of LGBTQ+ culture. The issue of black lesbian visibility extends deep into the lesbian community. The rise of I Kissed a Girl, a TV show with a format that mirrors heteronormative dating shows is important for lesbian representation, but not immune from replicating the same white normative beauty standards which leave black contestants sidelined. The it girls of lesbian culture cannot merely be representative of one section of an ‘acceptable’ and ‘accessible’ white lesbianism.
Intersectionality and accountability in specifically lesbian and queer spaces are important to prevent cultural input being implicitly ranked according to a white heteronormative framework. To acknowledge the role of black and brown women and their role and participation in the resurgence of lesbian culture includes celebrating, sexualising, and identifying black lesbians as central to lesbian identity.
You may be wondering why all of this matters. Surely, a lesbian renaissance is a lesbian renaissance for all. Yet, art and the way we conceive of identity including those who represent it is pivotal in informing our approach to building an intersectional community which challenges all forms of prejudice and champions freedom for all.
