Discrimination against lesbians, sometimes referred as lesbophobia or lesphobia, is a form of homophobia, often paired with misogyny,[1][2] that comprises various forms of prejudice and negativity towards lesbians as individuals, as couples, as a group, or lesbianism in general.

Examples of discrimination against lesbians include, but are not limited to, discrimination in housing and employment, physical or sexual abuse including corrective rape, lack of legal protections for lesbian couples to care for one another, removal of children from lesbian mothers, negative stereotypes and negative media representation, verbal harassment, legal persecution and imprisonment, government censorship, and familial and/or community rejection.

Lesbophobia is analogous to gayphobia, which is discrimination against male homosexuals.

Terminology

The first usage of the term lesbophobia - a portmanteau of lesbo- (for lesbian) and -phobia (Greek for 'fear') - listed in the Oxford English Dictionary is in The Erotic Life of the American Wife (1972), a book by Harper's Bazaar editor Natalie Gittelson.[3][4] It is defined as a form of prejudice and discrimination against lesbians, and is a part of homophobia. However, as homophobia has strong correlations with sexism,[5] more specifically misogyny, acts of lesbophobia often are a mix of both;[1][2][6] most notably including corrective rape, assault, harassment, bullying, murder, fetishization, and lesbian erasure.

Types

Jurisdictional

See also: LGBTQ rights by country or territory

As lesbians are female homosexuals, legal legislation against lesbians is generally bundled with other anti-homosexual legislation. According to Human Rights Watch, there are at least 67 jurisdictions that impose laws and penalties against same-sex sexual activity as of 2026; at least 38 of which having laws explicitly criminalizing lesbian sex.[7] Penalties against lesbian sex vary by country, including imprisonment, caning, and flagellation.

Sexual

Many lesbian women report experiences of heterosexual men being obsessed with them, often portrayed in the form desiring to "fix or convert" lesbian women to straight women through sexual intercourse or romantic relationships with men.[8][9] Additionally, women are often requested to perform acts of lesbian sex in front of a male audience to authenticate their sexuality, and further marginalizing them.[10][11]

"Lesbian" ranks among some of the most popular search terms on popular pornography sites.[12] In heterosexual pornography, there are many tropes including either straight men "fixing" lesbians, or lesbians hitting on straight women, perpetuating the stereotypes that lesbianism is something to be "fixed", that female sexuality is not to be taken seriously, and that lesbians are predatory.[13]

Lesbian erasure

Main article: Lesbian erasure

Lesbian erasure refers to the process of ignoring, discarding, or purposefully writing out the history and struggles of lesbians.[14] This term can refer to writing lesbians out of history, such as writing out Stormé DeLarverie from starting the Stonewall riots.[15]

Anti-lesbian beliefs and stereotypes

Further information: LGBTQ stereotypes#Lesbians

The idea that lesbians are dangerous—while heterosexual interactions are natural, normal, and spontaneous—is a common example of beliefs that are lesbophobic. Like homophobia, this belief is classed as heteronormative, as it assumes that heterosexuality is dominant, presumed, and normal, and that other sexual or relationship arrangements are abnormal and unnatural.[16] Lesbians encounter lesbophobic attitudes not only from straight men and women, but also gay men.[17] Lesbophobia in gay men is regarded as manifest in the perceived subordination of lesbian issues in the campaign for gay rights.[18]

Lesbians have been stereotyped in often contradictory ways. Kim Emery, in discussing lesbians in the United States during the late-19th century, says:

It is a truism […] that lesbian existence is inflected and afflicted by apparently incompatible social stereotypes. Lesbians are assumed to be both men in women's bodies and women marked as masculine by physical anomaly. Lesbians are accused of hating men and of wanting to be men, of being both sexually predatory and essentially asexual [sic], of committing unspeakable sexual acts and of lacking the endowments necessary to perform any [sexual acts].[19]

A stereotype that has been identified as lesbophobic is that female athletes are always or predominantly lesbians.[20][21]

Extent

Africa

In the late 2000s, men murdered and raped several lesbians in South Africa.[22][23] The victims included Sizakele Sigasa (a lesbian activist living in Soweto) and her partner Salome Masooa, who were raped, tortured, and murdered in an attack that South African lesbian-gay rights organizations, including the umbrella-group Joint Working Group, said were driven by lesbophobia.[24][25] In the Gauteng township of KwaThema, soccer player Eudy Simelane was gang-raped, beaten and stabbed to death, and LGBTQ activist Noxolo Nogwaza was raped and stoned before being stabbed to death.[26][27] Zanele Muholi, community relations director of a lesbian rights group, reports having recorded 50 rape cases over the past decade involving black lesbians in townships, stating: "The problem is largely that of patriarchy. The men who perpetrate such crimes see rape as curative and as an attempt to show women their place in society."[25][28][29] Corrective rape is an ongoing social problem in South Africa.[30][31][32]

Americas

In 1995, lesbian couple and gay rights activists Roxanne Ellis and Michelle Abdill were murdered in Oregon. Their killer stated that their being lesbians made it easier to kill them. He also murdered a bisexual man for making a pass at him.[33]

Europe

In its 2019 annual report, France's SOS Homophobie found that anti-lesbian violence increased 42 percent in France in 2018, with 365 attacks reported.[34][35][36]

See also

References

  1. ^ "What is "Lesbophobia"?". ILGA. 18 December 2006. Archived from the original on 20 February 2012. Retrieved 7 August 2007.
  2. ^ Czyzselska, Jane (9 July 2013). "Lesbophobia is homophobia with a side-order of sexism". The Guardian. Archived 7 February 2019 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 2 February 2016.
  3. ^
  4. ^ Ogden, Annegret S. (1986). The Great American Housewife: From Helpmate to Wage Earner, 1776–1986. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. p. 206. ISBN 0-313-24752-8.
  5. ^ Capezza, Nicole M. (2007-12-01). "Homophobia and Sexism: The Pros and Cons to an Integrative Approach". Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science. 41 (3): 248–253. doi:10.1007/s12124-007-9033-8. ISSN 1936-3567. PMID 18232089
  6. ^ Jitsuya, Nelly & Sevilla, Rebeca (2008-09-22). "All the Bridges that We Build". Journal of Gay & Lesbian Social Services. 16 (1): 1–28. doi:10.1300/j041v16n01_01. ISSN 1053-8720
  7. ^ "#OUTLAWED: "The love that dare not speak its name"". features.hrw.org. Archived 2026-04-02 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 2026-04-02.
  8. ^ Witcomb, Gemma L. & Cooper, Charlotte (September 2024). "'Show Us a Kiss!': The Everyday Sexual Harassment Experiences of Female Lesbian, Bisexual, and Queer Students". Violence Against Women. 30 (11): 3055–3076. doi:10.1177/10778012231166399. ISSN 1552-8448. PMC 11316343. PMID 37019434
  9. ^ Khan, Arman (2022-06-15). "Lesbian Women Tell Us How Straight Men Just Can't Let Them Be". VICE. Archived 9 October 2025 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 2026-04-02.
  10. ^ Witcomb, Gemma L. & Cooper, Charlotte (September 2024). "'Show Us a Kiss!': The Everyday Sexual Harassment Experiences of Female Lesbian, Bisexual, and Queer Students". Violence Against Women. 30 (11): 3055–3076. doi:10.1177/10778012231166399. ISSN 1552-8448. PMC 11316343. PMID 37019434
  11. ^ Boyer, C. Reyn & Galupo, M. Paz (2015). "'Prove it!' same-sex performativity among sexual minority women and men". Psychology & Sexuality. 6 (4): 357–368. doi:10.1080/19419899.2015.1021372. Retrieved 2026-04-02.
  12. ^ "2024 Year in Review". Pornhub. December 5, 2024. Archived May 31, 2025 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 18 July 2025.
  13. ^ "How Porn Can Misrepresent and Fetishize LGBTQ+ Individuals and Relationships". 13 October 2024. Archived 4 April 2025 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 19 July 2025.
  14. ^ Morris, Bonnie J. (December 22, 2016). "Dyke Culture and the Disappearing L". Slate. Archived 20 March 2024 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 20 March 2024.
  15. ^ Fleming, Pippa (3 July 2018). "The gender-identity movement undermines lesbians". The Economist. Archived 20 March 2024 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 20 March 2024.
  16. ^ Jillian Todd Weiss, "The Gender Caste System – Identity, Privacy, and Heteronormativity" Archived 13 October 2015 at the Wayback Machine 10 Law & Sexuality 123 (Tulane Law School, 2001)
  17. ^ Megan Radclyffe, Lesbophobia!: Gay Men and Misogyny (Continuum, October 2005)
  18. ^ Raizada, Kristen (2007). "An Interview with the Guerrilla Girls, Dyke Action Machine (DAM!), and the Toxic Titties". NWSA Journal. 19 (1): 39–58. doi:10.2979/NWS.2007.19.1.39. ISSN 1040-0656. JSTOR 4317230
  19. ^ Emery, Kim (1994). "Steers, Queers, and Manifest Destiny: Representing the Lesbian Subject in Turn-of-the-Century Texas". Journal of the History of Sexuality. 5 (1): 26–57. ISSN 1043-4070. JSTOR 3704079
  20. ^ Peper, Karen (1994). "Female athlete=Lesbian: a complex myth constructed from gender role expectations and lesbiphobia". Queer words, queer images: communications and the construction of homosexuality. New York University Press. pp. 193–208.
  21. ^ Darcy Plymire and Pamela Forman, "Breaking the Silence: Lesbian Fans, the Internet, and the Sexual Politics of Women's Sport", International Journal of Sexuality and Gender Studies, pages 1566–1768 (Springer Netherlands, April 2000)
  22. ^ "Lesbian killers in South Africa get 18-year jail terms". BBC News. 1 February 2012. Archived 4 April 2014 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 22 December 2013.
  23. ^ Pithouse, Richard (29 March 2011). "Only Protected on Paper". The South African Civil Society Information Service. Archived from the original on 18 December 2014. Retrieved 22 December 2013.
  24. ^ Ndaba, Baldwin (July 13, 2007). "'Hate crime' against lesbians slated". IOL News. Archived 29 March 2014 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 22 December 2013.
  25. ^ Bridgland, Fred (14 July 2007). "Lesbian couple killed in execution-style murder: Hate crimes increase despite equal rights law". Sunday Herald. Archived from the original on 17 July 2007. Retrieved 11 August 2007.
  26. ^ Kelly, Annie. "Raped and killed for being a lesbian: South Africa ignores 'corrective' attacks". The Guardian. Archived 21 June 2014 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 22 December 2013.
  27. ^ "South Africa killing of lesbian Nogwaza 'a hate crime'". BBC News. 3 May 2011. Archived 28 January 2012 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 28 November 2012.
  28. ^ Cogswell, Kelly Jean (26 July 2007). "Cut It Off – And Stop AIDS". Gay City News. Archived from the original on 27 September 2007. Retrieved 11 August 2007.
  29. ^ "S. Africa gangs using rape to 'cure' lesbians". NBC News. 13 March 2009. Archived 15 March 2009 at the Wayback Machine.
  30. ^ Fihlani, Pumza (30 June 2011). "South Africa's lesbians fear 'corrective rape'". BBC News. Retrieved 19 July 2025.
  31. ^ Koraan, Rene & Geduld, Allison. ""Corrective rape" of lesbians in the era of transformative constitutionalism in South Africa". Potchefstroom Electronic Law Journal (Pelj). 18 (5): 1931–1952. doi:10.4314/pelj.v18i5.23. Retrieved 19 July 2025.
  32. ^ Gaitho, Waruguru. "Curing Corrective Rape Socio-Legal Perspectives on Sexual Curing Corrective Rape SocioLegal Perspectives on Sexual Violence Against Black Lesbians in South Africa". William and Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice
  33. ^ Sams, Jim (August 21, 1996). "Acremant: Hatred of lesbians, gay men prompted slayings". The Record. Archived from the original on 19 August 2016.
  34. ^ "Rapport sur l'homophobie 2019 : 2018, une année noire pour les personnes LGBT" [Report on Homophobia 2019: 2018, a dark year for LGBT people] (in French). SOS Homophobie. 14 May 2019. Archived 24 May 2019 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 14 August 2019.
  35. ^ "Insultes, coups de poing, interdiction d'entrer : des lesbiennes racontent les agressions qu'elles ont subies" [Insults, punches, being barred from entering: lesbians recount the assaults they have suffered] (in French). France Inter. 14 May 2019. Retrieved 14 August 2019.
  36. ^ Wilkins, Anna (August 13, 2019). "Anti-Lesbian Hate Crimes Are On The Rise". Gentside. Archived 14 August 2019 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 14 August 2019.

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