LESBIAN DAY OF VISIBILITY HOW TO
In the NHS, the 2020 research on Understanding LGBT+ Employee Networks and How to Support Them found that network membership was dominated by gay men (42 per cent) and that only 22 per cent of the members were lesbians. For example a 2018 survey by HER, a social networking and dating app for LGBTQ+ women found that 31 per cent of their respondents did not feel welcome or comfortable at Pride. Various studies indicate that many women do not feel comfortable or engage with activities targeted at LGBT+ umbrella communities. Lesbians exist at an intersection that can sometimes fall between the gaps. You might be thinking, aren’t lesbians ‘covered’ in LGBT History Month or in Pride activities, or in women’s networks and celebrations of International Women’s Day? Well, ‘yes’ and ‘no’. While all visibility (and similar celebration) days have their limitations if they stop only at being publicity exercises, if they are backed up with genuine actions to advance those they claim to serve, they are good opportunities to support people’s sense of feeling valued and as though they belong. Do we really need another day in the diversity calendar? Events for 2020 moved online due to the COVID-19 pandemic and 2021 sees another week of online activities planned. Why had we never heard of it? Why was no one marking it or celebrating it? Just as I was contemplating these questions, the UK-based magazine DIVA - ‘the world’s best-selling magazine for LGBTQI women’ – announced they were making a week of it and launched Lesbian Visibility Week, 2020.
I’m a lesbian myself and I’ve previously worked as an academic and researched lesbian visibility, been involved in community groups etc, but it took over ten years for me to become aware there was a day devoted to people like me. I first became aware of Lesbian Visibility Day in 2019. The day has, ironically, until recently, been quite an invisible visibility day although it has existed since 2008. It’s International Lesbian Visibility Day on 26 April. If you answered ‘no’, that you haven’t heard of International Lesbian Visibility Day, you’re probably in the majority!