This spring, the BBC’s all-female dating show I Kissed A Girl got its first viral moment. Sat on a group of candy striped deck chairs around the pool, one contestant asked the other girls how they feel about the word ‘Lesbian’, wincing slightly.
“I just say I’m Gay,” said masc girl Naee.
“I just say I’m into girls. Or I say I’m Queer,” added Abbie.
The scene then cut to a confessional with professional footballer Georgia, the girl who asked the question. “I feel like I’ve always identified as Gay, as opposed to saying I’m a Lesbian. I think in my head, Lesbian’s been used in quite a negative way.”
For example, when a boy at school likes you and you reject him. “He’s like, ‘Are you a fucking Lesbian?’ Like, no, I just don’t fucking like you. You’re a cock.”
She then told the other girls that the reason L is the first letter of LGBTQIA+ is to credit the work Lesbians did to nurse Gay men during the AIDS epidemic. And then she started crying.
“I didn’t realise how deep and how many emotions I guess I had attached to the fact that I struggle to say ‘Lesbian’. I’m obviously quite confident and I’m proud of my sexuality, but I think that it still bothers me when it shouldn’t. Because it’s such a good word.”
It was a moment of vulnerability that many Lesbian women could relate to, another example of the depth I Kissed A Boy & Girl have achieved that Love Island can’t touch.
“The reaction has been amazing,” Georgia told me over the phone. “So many other people are like, ‘Yeah I feel seen and I didn’t realise until you said it. And now I feel so much pride.’”
She told me that conversations like this were regular in the villa. “We kept having loads of those chats. It was so lovely, because it was just such a Gay environment. You don’t experience that elsewhere. Obviously you have, like, your Gay groups, but you’re in a predominantly straight society, and you’re quite aware of that, whereas the villa was like a Gay daydream. And the sun was shining all the time.”
I ask if being in the villa increased her overall sense of pride. “I would say massively… [Before the show], obviously I struggled a bit with the word ‘Lesbian’, and the way I would dress, it was me but it was a bit like, I don’t want to look too Gay or too masculine because I hated it if I got called ‘butch’ or anything like that. But on the show, the girls loved me for my masculine side. Not even in a sexual way, they just loved me for who I was… I think it was something I actually really needed without fully realising.”
Despite being filmed months ago, I Kissed A Girl’s release has also timed perfectly with The Big Lesbian Renaissance of 2024. We’ve had two Lesbian road trip blockbusters, Love Lies Bleeding and Drive Away Dolls (the former a little darker than the latter), and sapphic chart-toppers like ‘Lunch’ (Billie Eilish) and ‘Red Wine Supernova’ (Chappell Roan). Netflix have also announced the return of the messy reality show Ultimatum: Queer Love. In nightlife, Queer women filled the street at Lesbian bar La Camionera’s viral opening night street party, and the all-girls club night LICK has announced a summer holiday trip to Crete. In short, there’s never been a better time to be a girl who eats pussy.
“I’m single, I’m having a great time!” says Emily Barker, a 35-year-old creative director and Lesbian who lives in London. “I was there at the Camionera opening night, and it was kind of magical. It was chaos, but to see that need, the entire street just filled up with Queer women, like, wanting to be part of a space that is for Queer women. It was beautiful, and also shocking in a way. It made me realise how we don’t have any spaces really.”
Though Emily identifies as a Lesbian, she’s also questioned the word at times. “If they’re around other Lesbians, I think Lesbians feel comfortable to call themselves Lesbians.”
A lot of Emily’s questioning of the word has stemmed from the association with a small pocket of high profile TERFs. Emily herself has been asked if she’s a TERF before when telling someone she’s a Lesbian. “Absolutely not!”
“As soon as you label yourself a Lesbian, I think there’s this need to be, like, ‘I’m a Lesbian but I’m not a TERF.’ Gay men don’t have that. Like, they can sit there and call themselves Gay, and no one questions whether they’re Transphobic by saying it,” says Emily.
“I use the term Lesbian to identify to almost counteract that, but I know a lot of girls who prefer using the term Gay or Queer. I think it’s steeped in misogyny really, the reason why it has that negative connotation… the way women identify in general is policed a lot more than men.”
For Katie Sheila-Tanner, a 23-year-old Lesbian who works for a media agency, the term ‘Lesbian’ comes with other difficulties. “Like Georgia said on IKAG, the amount that Lesbians have done for the community is obviously amazing, and I’m so proud to be part of that demographic. But Queerness nowadays, I feels like it’s so much more than that.
“I don’t want to be labelled a Lesbian because that’s not just what I am. I’m not just a person that loves women. I’m more of like, a ‘Queer woman’. If I’m gonna use some sort of label, I would rather it not revolve around my sexuality, but more my lifestyle. And what I want to put back into the community, being a Queer person. The word ‘Queer’ to me, it kind of leaves it a bit more vague, to be like, ‘what is your sexuality?’ Especially for the people who are ignorant, it’s like, you actually don’t need to know.”
But this changes when she’s in a more Queer environment. “If I know someone’s Gay, I’m absolutely like, ‘I’m a Lesbian,’ shout it from the rooftops. I love the word Queer as an umbrella term, but the word ‘Lesbian’, I think especially to other women, it feels like something I’m really proud to say. With more people learning about Lesbians and their history, it feels more accepted.”
Follow the author on Instagram here.
