When I was in secondary school being called a lesbian was meant to evoke two things: shame in myself and disgust in others. A lesbian was someone who was null and void, excluded from the accepted as essential rituals of heteronormativity. A lesbian was undesirable and ugly. A lesbian turned to girls out of desperation, a last resort, because men didn’t want her. A lesbian was to be regarded with suspicion by straight girls and as a peculiar affront to straight men. A lesbian was lesser because she could not be “made whole” by sexual and romantic association with a man.
Eventually I pushed the weight of straight society’s view of lesbianism off my back and stopped forcing myself into trying to conjure up attraction towards men simply because that what was expected of me. Now, aged 21, I take immense pride in my lesbian identity and relish my separation from the standard narrative of womanhood. I’m stubbornly protective of the lesbian label and what it means to me – much more so in the last few months as I’ve seen its popularity and status in the LGBTQ+ community decline