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We celebrate International Lesbian Day on October 8 each year.
However, we're still celebrating all things Sapphic, because one day alone isn't enough to capture the sass, the tenderness, the strength and initiative, nor joy that radiates from our WLW community.
Check out the lived experiences below from amazing members of our community to help make every Sapphic Tale one for the history books.
In Lost in Tokyo, our contributor Mikaela speaks to a hole-in-the-wall Lesbian bar she chanced upon while travelling. She shares ways that she finds community in other times, too.
“Community, for me, is always connected with a throughline interest, like the live gig we may be fizzing for or the karaoke lyrics that we’re racing through. Perhaps smaller spaces let us become the majority quicker.”
The words of one language will never translate directly to another. In Ko tā te Aroha, Reremoana Ormsby shares how kupu Māori, and expressive forms like waiata, convey takatāpui love whilst honouring her whakapapa.
"The best love stories don’t need to explain themselves: they can carry on the breath, slip gently within a melody, and offer themselves up to those who know how to listen."
Luiza Brabo and her girlfriend, Elena Tiso, helped craft this deeply autobiographical mahi. Through the focal points of film, 2003 television series, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Luiza explores the way that queer icons have reflected, in some instances, her lived experience, and fallen far short in others.
"[After our first kiss with a boy] Where was all the magic people talked about? Many of us found out years later that there was nothing wrong with ourselves, it was simply a case of 'I kissed a girl and I liked it' that made it all click."
Have you ever had to navigate family dynamics where your queerness isn't validated? In this moving account, Charlotte describes how they learnt to quietly affirm their identity.
"...That same invisibility obscured me from the community I loved and wanted to be seen by. I had a kind of imposter syndrome - too queer to be straight, too straight to be queer."
