Remember Sanctuary-Seeking Women On Lesbian Visibility Day
By Claire L. Heuchan
Another Lesbian Visibility Day is upon us. And – at risk of having my L card revoked – I have to confess that my feelings about this day, this week, are mixed. On one hand it’s encouraging that lesbian visibility is being explicitly championed. For centuries we’ve been erased from history, the romantic connections between women denied by institutions and suppressed by embarrassed family members.
For example, Emily Dickinson once wrote: “Susie… come home… and be my own again, and kiss me as you used to… I hope for you so much, and feel so eager for you… that the expectation makes me feel hot and feverish, and my heart beats so fast.” And historians tried to tell us that the poet was merely friends with Susan Gilbert. Just two gals being totally straight pals.
Even now lesbian couples are mistakenly read as friends, sisters, or even mother and daughter by straight people who would be horrified if the love between them were read as familial. So, yes – lesbian visibility remains an important, urgent cause.
That being said, as with Black History Month, I resent Lesbian Visibility being relegated to a single day or week. We’re lesbians all year round. And – unfortunately – we experience erasure along with various other facets of homophobia all year round. Seven days of lesbian visibility doesn’t make up for the other 358 of being perceived as Other. Of being treated as if the ways we live and love and build families are a quirky, lesser alternative to the heteronuclear option.
For those of us living lesbian lives, visibility can unfortunately be something that we need to fight for on a daily basis. Coming out isn’t something that happens once – it’s something we are forced to do over and over again, because many people still assume heterosexuality by default. Sometimes that coming out goes well, and other times it doesn’t. But there’s always an element of risk. A before and an after.
My fear is that setting a Lesbian Visibility Day or Week stands in the way of lesbian history, culture, and community being fully recognised as part of this society. Yes, we need out own community spaces. But unless a woman lives in a lesbian separatist commune, she doesn’t get to inhabit those spaces for the majority of time. And we deserve to be treated with respect in mainstream society as well as our own distinct groups.
Still, there’s a long way to go before being a lesbian has no negative consequences in a woman’s life. Even now, in 2023, lesbians are treated appallingly. Since Britain legalised same-sex marriage, straight people tend to assume this is a good place to be gay. But the UK government’s appalling mistreatment of lesbian and bisexual sanctuary-seeking women tells a different story.
Women are expected to prove they’re lesbian in a way they’re never expected to prove being straight. The Home Office has even asked for footage of women being intimate with their female partners – a monstrous, exploitative invasion of privacy. If a woman is a mother or grandmother, the Home Office behave as though she cannot possibly be a lesbian, despite the fact that lots of lesbians have children and plenty come out in mid or later life. There is no one singular, correct path to lesbian life – but the UK government seeks to deny that complexity, along with women’s right to seek sanctuary in Britain.
Lesbian sanctuary-seeking women live in poverty, provided a miserable £45 to live on per week and legally prohibited from earning enough to support themselves. It’s nothing short of monstrous that women come to Britain hoping for safety and dignity, only to be treated like second-class citizens by the state.
And if women can’t jump through all of the impossible hoops set out by this government, they’re deported to countries where murder and corrective rape are widespread responses to lesbianism. It’s a rotten system. And the most vulnerable members of our community pay the price.
FiLiA works closely with Lesbian Immigration Support Group – a community of refugee and sanctuary-seeking women based in Manchester. Through attending conference and my work as a trustee, I’ve had the privilege of being trusted with LISG women’s stories. And the injustices they have faced – both in their home countries, and at the hands of the British state – are appalling.
The women of LISG should be front and centre of the UK’s Lesbian Visibility Day. But instead we’ll have endless listicles about rich celebrities and posts waxing lyrical about historical white women. The irony of Lesbian Visibility Day is that we centre those who had visibility anyway; women whose status, wealth, and privilege protect them from the discrimination.
But Anne Lister is dead. Those actresses and pop stars have more money than the average lesbian will make in five lifetimes. Campaigns around Lesbian Visibility do absolutely nothing to change their material circumstances. But it could help the women of LISG. With media attention and public support, we can hold the Home Office to account; put a stop to the homophobia and misogyny that currently define the asylum process.