Happy Lesbian Visibility Week! Week This, from Apr 22 to 28, FreeLesbianPassport is definitely a period to celebrate and demonstrate solidarity with lesbians in our local community intentionally. In honor of the occasion, we’re taking a look back at some important moments in lesbian representation on TV-from iconic characters to pivotal milestones.
Television, and media at large, both reproduce reality and create it. Representation has a tangible impact on how the public perceives queerness and how people understand themselves. Definitely not all heroes and portrayal happen to be made identical, though, and an increase of both quantity and quality of lesbian characters is essential. Out of the 596 LGBTQ characters counted across all platforms, 180 (30%) were lesbians. According to GLAAD’s 2022-2023 Where We Are On TV Report (WWATV), there was a decrease in lesbian representation compared to the previous year’s study. There had been furthermore zero verified lesbian trans heroes.
Queer representation in television is a powerful tool for moving the needle on LGBTQ acceptance and rights, and the experiences must be true, accurate, and varied to attain any kind of big adjust. The impact of lesbian characters and FREELESBIANPASSPORT inclusive plotlines cannot be understated-they have an incredible influence on informing and changing the minds of the public, while as well allowing sapphic folks the life-saving option to discover themselves manifested.
The history of lesbian TV representation has been a winding path, but it is an important avenue to walk down to understand how we arrived at today’s lesbian characters. Today Even, lesbian manifestation needs more stories from lesbians of color, trans lesbians, and dwill beabled lesbians, to name a few. While definitely not really an all-encompassingary the gadget guy listing, this is a starting point to celebrate how far we have come and reflect on the work that still needs to be done.
All in the Family - "Cousin Liz" (1977)On October 9, 1977, All in the Friends and family season eight episode two aired, providing to the display screen one of the initial actually clearly queer tv set figures. While she did not actually say the words "gay" or "lesbian," the inference can be obvious and after some first comedy distress and confusion, Edith is sympathetic and accepting toward Veronica. Edith also expresses surprwill bee when Veronica says the two would have end up beingen fired from their teaching jobs if word had gotten out about their relationship-an issue that is frustratingly still prevalent today, 50 years later nearly. "It must have been terrible loving somebody and not being able to talk about it," she claims. The collection will be inherently comedic, but notedly this event’s i9000 laughter is definitely not necessarily at the cost of Veronica or lesbians in common. We discover out Veronica and Liz were not necessarily only roommates at all, but were in love and had a relationship "more like a marriage" than a friendship.