“With so many efforts to render us invisible, events like Lesbian Visibility Week show how even under duress, we are and always have been here”
BY DANA PICCOLI, IMAGE BY ONEINHCPUNCH VIA CANVA
Back in the late nineties, when I was a baby lesbian, I knew I could find refuge at the bookstore’s magazine section. There I could find a copy of Curve magazine, and if I was lucky and they carried it in stock, DIVA. From the pages of both these magazines, lesbian life was vibrant, joyful and full of possibilities at a time when there were few places that one could see themselves reflected in a positive light, or any light at all.
Through the years and decades, things changed and got better. Pop culture and politics caught up with the LGBTQIA+ community. “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT), the US military policy introduced in the nineties that forced gay, lesbian and bisexual service members to hide their identities or face discharge, was repealed in 2011. Same-sex marriage was made the law of the land in the US in 2015 thanks to the Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court decision. Queer and trans characters appeared more and more in television and film, and tired tropes like “Bury Your Gays” were more or less buried, too.
However, things in the US have taken a sharp turn since the 2024 election. While on the campaign trail, Donald Trump repeatedly denied knowledge of the Project 2025 playbook, a more than 900-page policy agenda created by the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation. Project 2025 clearly laid out plans for doing away with DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion), putting limits on LGBTQIA+ inclusion in federal agencies and education policy, and narrowing LGBTQIA+ protections, particularly for transgender people. Through a series of executive orders, the Trump Administration has indeed aligned with many actions laid out in Project 2025. In February 2025, through executive order, the Department of Defence, now referred to as the Department of War by the administration, enacted the “Prioritising Military Excellence and Readiness” order, which effectively banned transgender people from serving in the military.
State governments have followed suit, proposing and passing everything from bathroom laws that ban transgender people from using bathrooms that align with their gender and have also put several gender nonconforming and butch lesbians in the crosshairs of transphobic and homophobic actions. There are “Don’t Say Gay” laws, which prohibit discussions or even mentioning LGBTQIA+ people or issues in the classroom, spearheaded in Florida and spread across the country. In 2025, there were close to 6,900 book bans in school districts from Alabama to Wyoming. The administration even removed the Pride flag from the Stonewall Monument, one of the US’s most sacred places of the LGBTQIA+ equality movement.
In entertainment, we went from record-high representation to losing over half of our LGBTQIA+ characters in a season.
Businesses that once supported the LGBTQIA+ community have pulled back in fear of retribution from the government and anti-LGBTQIA+ pushback. Funding for lesbian issues, which was already low, accounts for less than one per cent of all LGBTQIA+ funding, according to the most recent report by Funders for LGBTQ Issues.
The Curve Foundation, which operates Lesbian Visibility Week in the US on a shoestring budget, lost 90% of its sponsors in 2025 due to DEI pullback.
With so many efforts to render us invisible, events like Lesbian Visibility Week show how even under duress, we are and always have been here. We’re here in tiny towns in rural stretches of amber waves of grain. In big cities, where lesbian bars may have closed, the community has found other ways to celebrate themselves. We’re raising families, opening businesses, falling in love and running for office.
When a city, town or business raises a lesbian flag, it says “we see you”. We see the endlessness of your existence, the decades of your work in equality for women, and the painful years of taking care of gay and queer men during the AIDS crisis. We see you even as your government and society would prefer that you remain unseen.
Through this week of events, we’re not just aiming to be visible. We’re looking to celebrate and uplift. Lesbian and queer joy is vital to our survival in the darkest of times. This Lesbian Visibility Week, in the US and Canada, here are just some of the ways we’re celebrating.
Queereoke events are happening at many of the remaining lesbian bars in the US, where we’re raising our voices and turning each bar into its own Pink Pony Club.
Provincetown, Massachusetts has a full week of events lined up, from beach bonfires to theatrical productions, all focused on lesbians and queer women.
Winnipeg, Manitoba is showing up and showing out with community-centric events, like cheeky arm wrestling matches to women’s hockey viewing parties and trivia.
Lesbian history tours led by experts in San Francisco and New York City, uplifting the stories of lesbians and queer women whose contributions are all too often overlooked.
These are just a few of the close to 100 events we have planned for this year, and we have no plans of scaling back in 2027, even as funding dries up.
Lesbians are resilient, and that is worth celebrating 365 days a year. But for now, a week is what we’re focused on, and we invite you to join us in spirit from across the pond. We understand you are facing similar issues as anti-LGBTQIA+ rhetoric spreads across the globe. But it’s events like Lesbian Visibility Week that fuel us with hope and community, and sustain us for the fights ahead.
Wishing you a magical Lesbian Visibility Week in the UK and beyond.
To learn more about how the US and Canada are celebrating LVW, visit lesbianvisibility.org.
Dana Lauriano-Piccoli is a longtime LGBTQ+ writer and winner of Curve’s Excellence in Lesbian Coverage award. Lauriano-Piccoli is working with the Curve Foundation on Lesbian Visibility Week in North America.
Love media made by and for LGBTQIA+ women and gender diverse people? Then you’ll love DIVA. We’ve been spotlighting the community for over 30 years. Here’s how you can get behind queer media and keep us going for another generation: linkin.bio/ig-divamagazine
Did you know that DIVA has now become a charity? Our magazine is published by the DIVA Charitable Trust. You can find out more about the organisation and how you can offer your support here: divacharitabletrust.com
