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INVESTIGATION
 DEMOCRACY 

The letter L of the LGBTQIAP+ community: the challenges of lesbian visibility in Portugal

Text from Ines Rua
Editing by Deborah Dias and Tiago Sigorelho
Illustrations by Marina Mota
Production by Sara Fortes da Cunha
Image capture de Marcelo de Souza Campos
Video edition de Pedro Oliveira
Communication by Carolina Esteves and Margarida Marques
Digital Ines Roque

20.01.2025

They are often seen as “very close friends”, “sisters” or “cousins”. “It’s just a phase”, they are told. Their relationships are rarely taken seriously.. If they are “too feminine”, they don’t look like lesbians; if they are “too masculine”, they assume the role of “man in the relationship”.
Lesbianism is still seen as something exclusive to cisgender women. Their affections are fetishized and objectified. In the medical field, they face persistent questions about the lack of use of contraceptive methods. For lesbians in Portugal, their visibility is an act of resistance and normalization of their identities. However, the meaning of the word “lesbian” has changed in recent years and continues to change.
O Gerador begins a series of reports, supported by Shopping bag Gerador live science, which explore lesbian visibility from four perspectives: the diversity of lesbian identity, prejudices and discrimination present in society, the Portuguese historical and associative context and the creation of alternative media spaces.

 

Click on the buttons below to access each of the articles.

“If you’re not a lesbian, what’s your name?”: the mutations and intersections of an identity

Now available

The importance of lesbian visibility in combating stereotypes and discrimination

Now available

The lesbian legislative and associative reality in Portugal

Now available

Alternative media spaces: creating your own lesbian representation

Now available

Support material

Here we share with you the readings we did to write this investigation and we leave you with the films, series, books and musical artists suggested by the dozens of people we spoke to.

• Daisy Jones. All The Things She Said: Everything I Know About Modern Lesbian and Bi Culture. London: Coronet, 2022. (no Portuguese edition).
• Monique Wittig. Straight Thought and Other Essays. Authentica, 2022.
• Alexa Santos (Organizer). Where are they?. Lisbon: Greta Editions, 2024.
• Audre Lorde. Sister Outsider. Lisbon: Orfeu Negro, 2023 (translated by Gisela Casimiro).
• Rachel Afonso. 40 years of decriminalization of homosexuality in Portugal in perspective. Generator, April 5, 2022.

• The Last Lesbian Bars, 2015, by Drew Denny
• God's not Dead, 2014, by Harold Cronk
• Wolf and Dog, 2022, by Cláudia Varejão
• Portrait of a Girl on Fire, 2019, by Céline Sciamma
• Deux, 2019, by Filippo Meneghetti

• The Fragrance of the First Flower, 2021, by Angel Teng
• Sense 8, 2015-2018, by Lilly and Lana Wachowski and J. Michael Straczynski
• Sex Education, 2019-2023, by Laurie Nunn
• The Fosters, 2013-2018, by Peter Paige and Bradley Bredeweg

• A Guide for Lesbians in a Catholic School, by Sonora Reyes
• La Seducción, by Sara Torres
• Three Wild Bodies Trilogy: Peformafrost/ Boulder/ Mamut, by Eva Baltasar
• In The Dream House, by Carmen Maria Machado
• Big Swiss, by Jen Beagin
• Love Letters, by Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West
• The Essentials of Dangerous Shoes, by Alison Bechdel
• King Kong Theory, by Virginie Despentes

• Carolina Biazin
• Young Miko
• Renee Rapp
• Chappell Roan
• Gigi Perez
• Catherine White
• Cassia Eller
• Elza Soares
• Ines Marques Lucas
• Girl in Red
• Bia Ferreira

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