An (all too) brief history of lez/bi travel
WHERE ARE ALL THE STORIES OF LESBIAN AND BI WANDERERS, WONDERS CARRIE LYELL
PHOTOS BBC/AIMEE SPINKS
It’s Sunday evening and, like a good lesbian, I’m watching Gentleman Jack. Anne Lister has packed her thermometer and she’s off on a jolly.
“Do women… do that?”asks a friend of Ann Walker, as she tells them of her plans. Which gets me thinking.
How did women – speciically queer women – travel way back when? We know about Anne’s travels through her diaries. Defying the conventions of the 19th century, she ticked France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Russia off the bucket list – and even went mountaineering in the Pyrenees.
What a boss. But what of other queer women from days gone by? It feels shameful how little I know about lesbians and bi women and their jaunts.
In a 2016 DIVA article by Hilary McCollum, writer Emma Donoghue says: “Our ignorance of our own history – and other people’s ignorance of the fact that we have any history – has damaging effects. It stunts our confidence by making eroticism between women seem like a recent fashion – a cultural phase, a meme or titillating pose.”