“Health and well-being grow from trust, and trust begins with recognition”
BY ANGELICA POLMONARI (ILGA WORLD’S WOMEN COMMITTEE CHAIR), OBIOMA CHUKWUIKE (ILGA WORLD’S INTERSEX COMMITTEE CHAIR), AND ALEJANDRA COLLETTE SPINETTI NUÑEZ (ILGA WORLD’S TRANS COMMITTEE CHAIR), IMAGE BY JOSEAN RIVERA FOR AGENCIA PRESENTES, AS SUPPLIED BY ILGA WORLD
“I went to see a nurse, and she asked if I had a boyfriend. When I said no, she just said that in that case, sexually transmitted disease prevention guidance was not a current need for me. At that time, I was dating a girl.”
How many of us can relate to a similar experience? No matter our walks of life, the feeling — or, dare we say, the fatalistic certainty? — of being invisible runs deep in our experiences as women and gender diverse people.
The story we quoted comes from a study held in Finland, in which lesbian and bisexual women reported often avoiding healthcare services or refraining from disclosing their sexual orientation, even when medically relevant, due to fear of stigma or mistreatment.
Facing situations like these, each of us has our own reactions, and they are all valid. We shrink. We find words that don’t immediately give away who we are, whom we love, or what our bodies look like. Sometimes, we leave spaces because we don’t feel safe, and being misunderstood is the least of the risks we would face if we remained. Or we take yet another deep breath, and we correct assumptions, hoping not to have triggered a floodgate of questions that sound more intimate than necessary.
And isn’t it a paradox that invisibility leaves us exposed to all this unrequired scrutiny?
Stories like these anchor our work during Lesbian Visibility Week, and every day. In less than two months, the United Nations Independent Expert on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity will release a landmark report on violence and discrimination against lesbian, bisexual, and queer women. ILGA World’s contribution to that publication reveals a fundamental truth: when LBQ folk remain unseen, they remain underserved. Healthcare systems worldwide contain gaps in access, bias in treatment, and exclusion that shape whether someone feels safe disclosing their identity, receiving accurate diagnoses, or returning for care.
Health and well-being grow from trust, and trust begins with recognition.
Yet at a moment when understanding and empathy should expand, we witness outlandish retreats from equality. Policies claim to protect fairness in the name of women, and yet they increasingly police bodies and identities. Visibility is punished.
The recent International Olympic Committee policy on sex testing is a troubling example of this trend. Universal genetic screening and blanket bans for trans and intersex women athletes from competing in the female category will subject all women and girls to invasive scrutiny based on how their bodies appear or function.
This approach reinforces the harmful notion that a woman’s body represents a site of suspicion rather than strength. When institutions police women’s bodies, they undermine the mental and physical well-being of every woman, driving many away from the sport they love and the community they create for themselves.
No matter the colour of our skin, how our bodies look, or the food we love, we simply wish to go through life shining brightly as our true selves. But, unfortunately, we continue to live in societies where equality is still far from reach, and our gender identity, expression, sexual orientation and sex characteristics are only some of the layers of experiences that expose us to invisibility and harm.
Discrimination against any group creates a culture of fear that permeates healthcare systems, social services, and public spaces for everyone.
But we know better. Only when we recognise that paths to womanhood are diverse and each is worthy of respect, can we build the specific, culturally competent care that saves lives and the meaningful well-being it affords.
We champion a world that values every woman. Where every lesbian woman can go through life where visibility is safe. A place that embraces trans, non-binary, and intersex lesbians as parts of our communities. Where any woman who is bisexual, queer, or asexual doesn’t have to carry the additional burden of continued scrutiny, and just be.
Across the world, lesbians in all their diversity have historically been at the forefront of positive change for everyone, in our communities and beyond. In the words of bell hooks: “Without radical lesbian input, feminist theory and practice would never have dared to push against the boundaries of heterosexism to create spaces where women, all women, irrespective of their sexual identity and/ or preference, could and can be as free as they want to be.”
Progress depends on all of us showing up, speaking out, and making space. Visibility can mean asking inclusive questions in a clinic, seeing yourself reflected in public life, or saying a word of affirmation aloud for the first time. Each act builds a world where the freedom to be ourselves out loud goes hand in hand with being well.
But visibility alone is not enough. Without concrete actions to ensure that people can truly exercise their rights and live their lives without fear, visibility can translate into obsessive hostility and violence. We see this happening every day to our trans siblings.
This Lesbian Visibility Week, we hold a vision: a world where — no matter whom we love or are attracted to, who we are, and how our bodies look—we can finally see ourselves as woven together into the rich fabric of our shared humanity. That remains the healthiest future we can imagine. For every woman and gender diverse person in all their diversity. And for everyone.
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