WOMEN-LOVING-WOMEN IN MEDIA

The depictions of women-loving-women in modern media frequently exemplify the Dead Lesbian trope, Bury Your Gays trope, hot lesbian trope and queerbaiting. This causes harm to the women-loving-women audience because it makes them hard for them to see themselves portrayed positively in film.

If a women-loving-women sees the negative portrayal of her identity in media, it can cause the individual to feel guilt and shame.

An even more narrow category, BIPOC women-loving-women, is either not portrayed at all in media or usually always has a negative depiction.

I have noticed when consuming women-loving-women media that the characters usually endure trauma and a stressful life. In movies most women-loving-women relationships end in separation, or even death. This “trend” is majorly harmful to the audience. Not only does it harm the women-loving-women audience, but even the audience that doesn’t identify as queer feel this sense of judgement toward queer women due to how they see them portrayed in the media. This can cause heterosexual individuals to feel as if queer relationships never work and they are always messy. Media is missing accurate and positive representations of queer women. While trauma is unfortunately the reality for many women-loving-women, it is not the defining measure of the queer experience, and it is not a prerequisite for identifying with the LGBTQ+ community.