THEGAYUK

Tag: Lesbian

All the latest breaking news on the Lesbian community. Browse The THEGAYUK’s complete collection of features and commentary on the Lesbian community.

  • ANSWERS | What does the L in LGBT stand for?

    Question: What Does The L In LGBT Stand For?

    What does the L in LGBT stand for?

    The L in LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) or sometimes referred as GLBT, stands for Lesbian. Lesbian is a description for a woman who is sexually and romantically attracted to other females. The term lesbian can be used to also express sexual identity.

    Some women prefer the term “gay woman” to lesbian.

    The term lesbian is said to have originated from the Greek Island Lesbos, which was home to a 6th-century poet Sappho, who was known for poetry which described relationships between women, their beauty and her love for girls.

    By 1890 the word Lesbian was used in medical papers as an adjective. It was used to describe tribadism, commonly known as “scissoring” – a form of non-penetrative sex.

    By 1925 the term Lesbian was used as a noun to refer to a woman who had same-sex attraction and the female version of a male homosexual referred to as a “sodomite”.

    For more reading on the term Lesbian and it’s origins check out this page

    If you want to add further discussion to this description please use the comment section below.

  • The article you are looking for has been removed by request

    This article was removed by request of the subject. As per our editorial guidelines, we have decided to honour that request.

  • FILM REVIEW | Freeheld

    FILM REVIEW | Freeheld

    ★★ Freeheld | A dying female police officer struggles to get her benefits passed on to her female domestic partner in the new film ‘Freeheld.’

    (more…)

  • Understanding Sexual Orientation and Gender Identities

    US based TEEN LINE published their latest excellent educational video called LGBTQ: Understanding Sexual Orientation and Gender Identities.

    (more…)

  • Cate Blanchett Admits To Relationships With Women

    When we wrote about Todd Haynes’s new movie ‘Carol’ that premieres this week at Cannes about two ‘straight’ women who fall in love, we knew that the project had been ‘in the closet’ for 15 years before it made it to the screen.

    It turns out that now that it was not only thing in there too. In a very frank and wide-ranging interview with Variety Magazine the movie’s Cate Blanchett now admits that she has had her fair share of girl on girl action too off the screen.

    When asked if this is her first turn as a lesbian, Blanchett curls her lips into a smile. “On film — or in real life?” she asks coyly. Pressed for details about whether she’s had past relationships with women, she responds: “Yes. Many times,” but doesn’t elaborate.

    Like Carol, who never “comes out” as a lesbian, Blanchett doesn’t necessarily rely on labels for sexual orientation. “I never thought about it,” she says of how she envisioned the character. “I don’t think Carol thought about it.” The actress studied the era by picking up banned erotic novels. “I read a lot of girl-on-girl books from the period,” she says.

    Ms Blanchett married to playwright and director Andrew Upton and mother of 4 children, has already been nominated for an Oscar six times (she’s already won for2004’s “The Aviator” and 2013’s “Blue Jasmine”) and the pre-Cannes buzz is that the new performance could net her another one.

  • Record Number Of Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual MPs Voted In

    More than 25 openly LGB politicians have gained seats in this parliament. However no trans candidates have been elected.

    A record number of openly gay, lesbian and bisexual candidates have been successful in turning their campaigns into seats for parliament. There are over 25 out MPs in the UK now. However no trans candidates managed to win a majority in their constituencies.

    Ruth Hunt, Chief Executive, Stonewall:

    “We’re encouraged that people took to the polls and voted. More than 25 openly lesbian, gay or bisexual MPs have been elected, making this the largest group of openly LGB MPs elected to date. Our Parliament is richer and stronger for the diversity of voices and experiences within it, however, it is certainly disappointing not to see any openly trans people represented amongst our MPs.

    Looking ahead, our MPs cannot forget the manifesto commitments they made to the LGBT community. We must see those words translated into tangible actions. The Conservatives, alongside the Liberal Democrats, have had an impressive track record at Westminster over the last five years, and we look forward to working closely with the new government towards achieving equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people, here and abroad.”

    Emily Brothers, Labour’s first out trans candidate lost out in Sutton and Cheam.

    Three openly HIV-positive candidates failed to win any seats. Two Lib Dem and one Green candidates who revealed their HIV status in the run up the election lost out in yesterday’s election.

    Religious parties who would have looked to undo the rights of gay people in England, Wales and Scotland failed to achieve 7000 votes.

  • OP ED | Tragic Lesbians And Clunky Love Stories: Does TV Have Trouble With Lesbian Love?

    OP ED | Tragic Lesbians And Clunky Love Stories: Does TV Have Trouble With Lesbian Love?

    After an episode in Call the Midwife in mid-March there was a clear split between viewers: there were those that praised the strong (though crowded) storyline and viewers from the LGBT community (mainly the L) that were reeling and disappointed by yet another blow to a gay TV couple.

    For a long time now gay viewers have complained by the lack of happy gay couples on TV, lesbians, in particular, have felt hard done by with several TV shows killing or “turning straight” lesbian characters. So with hardly any TV representation and coming hot on the heals of Last Tango in Halifax “lesbian hit by car” plot-line, repeating this on Midwife hit hard.

    Viewers took to internet and message-boards to express their sadness, grief and anger.

    https://twitter.com/CanhamLauren/status/574688881838288896?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

    https://twitter.com/Laneytog/status/574680891710111745?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

    https://twitter.com/seraudnitz/status/574679676205068288?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

    https://twitter.com/hearnsolo/status/574679103250513920?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

    https://twitter.com/hearnsolo/status/574679103250513920?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

    “While on The L Chat people said: Lesbians strive to gain greater social acceptance and respect as a minority. But millions of people watch these family oriented Sunday evening dramas (CTM, LTiH) and will come to accept that this is a pattern, that lesbians don’t matter much. It can help to shape viewers’ perceptions, that lesbians are less valuable as people, are dispensable, don’t deserve a happy life together. TV is a powerful medium and can have a huge impact on how people think.”

    The fact that it was Call the Midwife, known for its deep and well-researched and often educational storylines presenting this story hurt the most. I, though, am less surprised.

    At the end of last year’s Call the Midwife I wrote a column criticising nurse Patsy’s badly written coded coming out. I was told by viewers to wait and see, because they were sure that the story would be handled better in the coming season.

    So come January I sat down, and halfway through the series, I begun to feel I might be happily proven wrong in my initial criticism. I watch Patsy blossom, become opener, stand up for her believes and finally find love. Still, though, I felt something missing. Patsy’s love story always seemed written as an afterthought. It was there, the right things were said, but it seemed rushed as if the script had been written and the writer then remembered: “Oh, what about Patsy!!”

    Compared to the love stories of Chummy, Trixy and Shelagh where episodes were dedicated to their falling, doubts and other things that lovers do, the two or three minutes we got to spend with Patsy and Delia were crumbs. I had hoped for something stronger, especially after the hart hitting “The Undesirables” (though I found the comparison between LGBT and rats a bit, well … odd). Why not counter this with in the last episode with the girls setting up life together as good as they could. The drama could have come from these girls having to hide their love, while Fred and Vi had their wedding. After a whole years and season of waiting this felt very much like a cop out.

    Soon complaints were sent off to head writer Heidi Thomas and the BBC. Some viewers were so disappointed that they might have expressed a bit more strongly then they otherwise would, scaring Heidi. She told followers: “The hate mail has come from people who feel they should only be allowed to be happy. It is very difficult and may well frighten others away from creating gay characters. Never mind – it doesn’t frighten me!”

    With this reply she seems to have missed the point. Having a strong, settled gay couple in one of the biggest TV shows in the UK means a lot. Of course not everyone has to be happy, but it seems as if TV writers thrive on having no gay couple happy. This is very damaging to young people, as it tells them gay relationships are unhappy by default.

    Supporters of Heidi say that the relationship ending like this is realistic for the time the series is set in. Well, none of my family recalls every lesbian in the 50s or 60s being hit by a car and suffering amnesia, forgetting her sexual orientation. There were thousands of very secret but not less loving relationships out there. In fact there are many lesbian couples from the 1960s still together now.

    A storyline focusing on the girls living together and dealing with the difficulties thrown at them while sticking together would have been much more daring and original then throwing a dated cliché at us.

     

    Opinions expressed in this article may not reflect those of THEGAYUK, its management or editorial teams. If you’d like to comment or write a comment, opinion or blog piece, please click here.

  • INTERVIEW | Elizabeth Streb, 65 and Still Walking Up Walls

    Elizabeth Streb is an American choreographer, dancer, performer who has an insatiable passion for extreme action. She has been creating works from 1975 and is known for her outrageous risk-taking and the experimental shows she puts on. A multi-award winner Streb’s work is extremely demanding and necessitates endurance, dexterity, great physical strength and the ability to be daring. Her Company has been based in Williamsburg, Brooklyn since 2003 where she established SLAM (Streb Lab for Action Mechanics) which created a new outlet for the community where people could come and watch rehearsals and even participate in classes.

    In 2012 Boris Johnson invited Streb to create a series of events in London as part of the Olympics Celebration. ‘One Extraordinary Day’ was an unprecedented spectacular with Streb and her Company dangling off the Millennium Bridge, performing an acrobatic dance whilst suspended from the tip of the London Eye, and walking down the outside of City Hall. The latter one that Streb herself took part in even though she was 64-years-old at the time.

    This stunning event is the centrepiece of a new documentary BORN TO FLY: ELIZABETH STREB vs. GRAVITY that will unquestionably be one of THE highlights of the BFI Festival when it has its UK Premiere on March 20th at Southbank. It is an unmissable film, very much like the woman herself who Roger Walker-Dack caught up with her in New York recently when for at least 30 minutes she had her feet firmly on the ground,

    RWD: Born in New York and as a very young woman you somewhat daringly hopped on a motorbike and headed right across the entire country to study contemporary dance in San Francisco for two years.

    ES: I always loved the sound of motorcycles and I was just 15/16 years old when I got my first one. I came from a working-class family and had parents who always believed that if you had a dream and earned your keep that they would never step in your way, even if they did not like it. So I saved all my pennies and worked my way up to a Honda 350 and that’s the one that took me to SF.

    I knew I wanted to go to the West Coast to practice and study with a major choreographer like Martha Jenkins. I also needed to figure out how to live in a city and earn enough money to pay bills and be able to keep dancing. I was also so young that I was so terrified that I would be led astray too (laughs)

     

     

    RWD: Back in NY in 1974 you started your own Dance Company.

    ES: I didn’t have my first one quite yet. I had to find a job to be able to live etc so that I could go into the studio alone and work on my solo work. In those days I was working mainly on techniques that were very influenced by the great Merce Cunningham. I was working on structure but I hadn’t yet gotten to the point where I became fixated with extreme action.

    RWD: Were you pushing your performance to the edge then or was that a later thing?

    ES: Much later Roger, then I was terrified, as I had absolutely no real idea what I was doing.

    RWD: Unlike most choreographers, you actually went back to school to study physics, maths and philosophy to get a better understanding of the effects of movement on matter.

    ES: I guess that is rare, but I didn’t do that until I was 47-years-old and after I had gotten the McArthur Foundation Award*. I went back to NYU thinking that this was a really good way to spend my Award money.

    RWD: The movie covers your creation of POP ACTION for your SLAM Company in Brooklyn and what it encompasses, but I’m more interested in what drives you to not only to create but also to continually push the boundaries forward.

    ES: I think I do it just as the scorpion said to the frog travelling across the stream when he got stung, after promising the frog he wouldn’t: it’s in my nature. Plus curiosity I guess, and the fact that I never want to repeat myself. I’m very interested in where action belongs, which has been somewhat of a puzzle for me and I have still to come to any real conclusions, however. I’m working on it.

    RWD: When I first accosted you in P Town last summer I apologised for the fact that in my review of your movie I had identified you as a control freak. A necessity in your work where exact detail is crucial, but maybe not so much with your very sweet wife. Fair criticism?

    ES: (laughs) I imagine so.

    RWD: The scene of you micro-managing your dinner party still sticks in my head. (Laughing)

    ES: Was I a control freak in that? (Laughing)

    RWD: Totally!

    ES: It may be a character defect (laughs) but in my work, I am responsible for so many people so I am not casual about dealing with that in any way. My spouse Elizabeth is used to me I guess. (She is the daughter of Michael Flanders of Flanders and Swann: a famous British comedy duo from the 1950s & 1960s) She is not my wife as we are still holding out, but we’ve been together for 24 years.

    RWD: That’s as good as married in my book.

    ES: Well I think so too. When it comes to marriage, we just prefer to stand on the sidelines.

    RWD: As the movie is having its premiere in London, let’s talk about ‘One Extraordinary Day’ your remarkable way of celebrating the London Olympics. How the hell did you persuade our Mayor to not only let you jump off the Millennium Bridge, hang suspended off the London Eye, and walk down the outside of The Gherkin, and then make him pay for it as well?

    ES: (Laughing) It started with Ruth Mackenzie the director of the Cultural Olympiad and Justine Simmons of Mayor’s Cultural Commission who I had worked with before, and the idea just grew and grew. Looking back now, I do not know how we pulled it all off. It was totally crazy as we had to be close the Thames, close all the roads, get permission to get on the spokes on the London Eye, and to jump off the Millennium bridge. Even the cultural loving authorities of New York wouldn’t have even let us do anything of that magnitude.

    RWD: The point that I want to stress is that you personally walked down the entire outside of City Hall when you are actually old enough to go inside and get your senior’s Bus Pass.

    ES: (Laughing) That would be no fun. I stay in shape well enough to put myself in a position so that I can if I choose too let extreme things happen to me.

    RWD: What did we Brits think about it?

    ES: The really sad thing was that we were not allowed to advertise where, when or what. The Health and Safety people put their very big foot down and said NO! So it was a complete accident when people walked by and saw us at any of the seven sites. It did, however, make the front pages of every single newspaper in the UK, and several around the world too. As I say in the film when that extraordinary day was over ‘how can I ever one up that?’

    RWD: Did we Brits say ‘Who is this crazy American?’

    ES: (Laughs.) Before the event, there was some rumblings about why an American got such a huge commission but we were very careful to ensure that over half of the crew involved used were Brits

    RWD: Will you never retire from performing Elizabeth?

    ES: No, never! That is just not an option even though it is hard to predict the future. I do have a couple of ideas and I not sure if I can even survive them. One is to stand in the middle of an empty pool and with four firemen (or women) standing on each corner and aiming their hoses at me at the exact same moment when they turn them on at full force. I will stand there and see if I can handle the pressure of the water.

    RWD: You know you are mad! (Both laughing)

    ES: If I think there is something that I really want to so then I will do it. With me it’s not about moving or doing a movement it’s about letting something extreme happen to me

    RWD: I believe we are going to see you back in the UK next year with another project.

    ES: It’s called Cities of the World and I am working on it with the LIFT Festival in London for June 2016. It is an exciting new project made for cranes and London’s iconic industrial landscape and right now the focus of the project is around Kings Cross and Gas Holder Number 8. It is still very much a ‘work in progress’.

    RWD: Finally Elizabeth, I always like to ask everyone ‘if there was a movie on your life that would get to play you’?

    ES: Such a great question (laughing) I really don’t know. Halle Berry pops into my head but I am not sure why.

    RWD: Because she played Catwoman?

    ES: (Laughs) Can I have Angelique Jolie?

    RWD: Of course.

     

  • OP ED: Domestic Violence: We need to talk about the female perpetrator

    As we are coming up to International Women’s Day Broken Rainbow UK would like to discuss the on-going issue in contemporary society of the female perpetrator and how we come to terms with her existence.

    For many this is an uncomfortable conversation to have, but having it does not undermine the decades of work by feminist movements in raising awareness of men’s violence against women. Talking about the issue doesn’t mean that domestic violence isn’t overwhelmingly a gendered issue, but what it does mean is that the conversation needs to be broader and the support in place more inclusive.

    For too long we appear to have been convinced domestic violence and abuse can only occur between a man and a woman in a heterosexual relationship and it is high time we try and understand that women in same-sex relationships can be as violent and abusive as their male counterparts.

    Following the sentencing of the mother of the killed eight-year-old girl Ayesha Ali and her partner this week, it has become very clear just how the female perpetrator is described as someone ‘possessed’ or ‘acting like a witch’ rather than an individual who has committed a crime.

    This in many ways belittles the violent act committed by these two women and also makes a very complex and traumatic series of events, into a very simplified and one-sided narrative.

    It is clear that the child and the mother were both subject to systematic domestic abuse and violence by the mother’s partner. The mother in this situation must be understood as simultaneously a victim and perpetrator of violence.

    As an LGBT confidential helpline for victims and perpetrators of domestic violence and abuse Broken Rainbow supports many female perpetrators of violence and we are aware of the complexity of the situation and the constant silencing of the issue.

    We need to start recognising that just as heterosexual men can be violent and abusive, so can women, and that these acts are not ‘supernatural’ but in fact sadly form part of many people’s every day life, heterosexual as well as LGBT. Embracing a traditional narrative about domestic violence, that women are victims of male violence, doesn’t just mean that same sex violence falls through the cracks. It also means that children like Ayesha living in abusive households with same sex parents stand a much better chance of survival.

    by Jo Harvey Barringer

    Broken Rainbow: http://www.brokenrainbow.org.uk

     

  • Lesbian Films On Netflix

    Here is the current list, updated on Feb 16 2015 for films with a lesbian storyline or films aimed at gay women on Netflix UK.

    (more…)

  • FILM REVIEW | Tru Love

    ★★★★ | Tru Love

    When 60-year-old Alice comes to Toronto six months after becoming a widow, her daughter Suzanne a lawyer is too busy at work to be home to greet her mother.

    She asks her unemployed friend Tru to step in at the last minute to look after Alice but then is shocked when she later arrives home and find that the two women have very quickly bonded. When Suzanne goes back to the office again that night, Alice takes Tru out to dinner to thank her, and the conversation soon takes a very personal turn.

    Alice is fascinated to learn about 30-something-year-old Tru’s life as a commitment-phobic serial-bed-hopping lesbian’s seemingly carefree life. She admits to having similar feelings when she was young but confessed that back in those days one had either to get married or join a nunnery. This provokes Tru into joking that the latter would have been the same as being a lesbian. There is obviously an attraction between the two women, but both are afraid to act upon it.

    The relationship between Alice and Suzanne is, however, is tenuous, to say the least as if neither can deal with the other’s grief for the departed husband/father. When it is clear that Alice’s spirits are so lifted by just spending time with Tru, Suzanne steps in and meddles to try and ensure that she puts a stop to their budding relationship. It appears at first she is in denial that Alice could possibly be a lesbian, but it soon turns out that this lonely partnerless woman has another reason to resent Tru making her mother so happy.

    Tru on the other hand slowly realises that with this welcoming older woman she is capable of loving someone after all. Alice never doubts her feelings but in some wonderful scenes talking to her late husband (seen on screen) she does question if this invalidates her life to date as she has not been true to her own feelings.

    This very touching story is very much about the two women’s quite chaste love but also equally about Alice’s relationship with her own daughter which seems to have reached a very low point. It’s unexpected and sudden ending was not the best way to finish the story as it didn’t really seem to give closure to all of them, well, at least to the two younger women.

    It’s an entertaining spirited movie about a delightful May/December relationship. Shauna MacDonald who co-wrote and co-directed as well as playing Tru gave herself a part that could/should have done more, but she did at least enable Kate Trotter who superbly played Alice and was a sheer joy as so convincingly conveyed the spirit of a woman finally discovering herself.