{"title":"Introduction: What if the Earth was a Lesbian?","authors":"Sabine LeBel, Chandra Laborde","doi":"10.1080/10894160.2025.2497152","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10894160.2025.2497152","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46044,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Lesbian Studies","volume":" ","pages":"1-11"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2025-05-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144045692","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"\"Among the characters from that chapter\": Soviet medicalization of homosexuality in Lithuanian lesbian oral history narratives.","authors":"Rasa Navickaitė","doi":"10.1080/10894160.2025.2485564","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10894160.2025.2485564","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Based on oral history narratives and original archival research, this article discusses how the Soviet medicalization of homosexuality has affected the self-identification of queer women and how it currently features in the narratives that lesbians tell about themselves in post-Soviet Lithuania. The article shows that the medicalization of homosexuality in Soviet Lithuania was inseparable from the broader pressures of Communist morality, which aimed to guide the private lives of individuals, and that the pathologizing of female homosexuality was tightly interrelated with the social pressure on women to fit into their gender role and adapt to the frameworks of femininity. The article also reflects on how the medicalization of homosexuality, as imposed by Soviet modernity, continues to be felt in the region and how it affects the current state of the LGBTQ community.</p>","PeriodicalId":46044,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Lesbian Studies","volume":" ","pages":"1-19"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2025-04-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143988935","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Queer canine becomings: Lesbian feminist cyborg politics and interspecies intimacies in ecologies of love and violence.","authors":"Chloe Diamond-Lenow","doi":"10.1080/10894160.2025.2473971","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10894160.2025.2473971","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This article offers a queer lesbian feminist analysis attuned to lesbian-queer-trans-canine relationalities. Specifically, the article places queer and lesbian ecofeminism in conversation with Donna Haraway's work on the cyborg and companion species to theorize the interconnected queer becomings of people, nature, animals, and machines amidst ecologies of love and violence in the 2020s. It takes two key case studies as the focus for analysis: first, the state instrumentalization of dogs and robot dogs for racialized and imperial violence, and second, quotidian queer and lesbian-dog relationalities and becomings. In the first, the article traces how dogs are weaponized as tools of state violence and proposes a queer lesbian feminist critique of white supremacy and militarization that can also extend to a critique of the violence committed through and toward the dogs. In the second, the article analyzes how, within lesbian, non-binary, and trans-dog intimacies, dogs help articulate queer gender, sexuality, and kinship formations, and as such, queer worlds for gender, sexual, and kin becomings. The entanglements of violence and love in these queer dog relationalities provide insights into the complexities of queer and lesbian feminist worldbuilding. Lesbian and queer feminist cyborg politics can help theorize the potentials and challenges of these interspecies entanglements.</p>","PeriodicalId":46044,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Lesbian Studies","volume":" ","pages":"1-18"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2025-03-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143587763","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"\"You turn m/e inside out\": Body models undone in <i>The Lesbian Body</i>.","authors":"Madeleine Collier","doi":"10.1080/10894160.2025.2469370","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10894160.2025.2469370","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Anatomical body models possess a seemingly contradictory set of attributes. They can be concrete and pedagogical at the same time that they are gruesome and fantastical; they claim objectivity while rhetorically embracing specific theories of human value. Nowhere is this more evident than in Monique Wittig's 1973 novel <i>The Lesbian Body</i>. Reading the novel alongside Wittig's materialist feminist theory, this article highlights how Wittig's conviction in the political and material agency of cultural signs comes forward most dramatically in her treatment of anatomical representations. In particular, it looks to Wittig's canny manipulation of the unique properties of instrumental and technical images, a class of signs which simultaneously invites and disavows libidinal engagement. The novel provocatively engages the question of whether the visual strategies of hegemonic discourse can ever be successfully deployed against or outside their disciplines. Accordingly, this article argues, <i>The Lesbian Body</i> is a crucial text for contemporary feminist scholars of the visual culture of science, medicine, and pornography.</p>","PeriodicalId":46044,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Lesbian Studies","volume":" ","pages":"1-18"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2025-02-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143469545","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Queering the ocean: Li Zishu's <i>The Island of the Lost Plane</i>.","authors":"Aling Zou","doi":"10.1080/10894160.2025.2461902","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10894160.2025.2461902","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This article explores <i>The Island of the Lost Plane</i>, a novella written by Li Zishu during her time in Europe that has largely gone unnoticed. Through an analysis of the novella's portrayal of queer intimacy between two immigrant women-one a Sinophone Malaysian and the other a Jewish Israeli-this article examines their healing relationship and how it intertwines with the MH370 accident and the novella's use of the ocean as an ecological trope. This analysis highlights Li Zishu's literary intention to address themes of healing violence, and transnationalism, marking a significant departure from the canonized Sinophone Malaysian literature, which predominantly focuses on violence, rainforests, and heteronormative local experiences. My reading draws from the frameworks of queer Sinophone studies while incorporating perspectives from queer ecology, queer intimacy, and queer world-making. I first analyze how the nationalism and patriarchy tied to each character's origins contribute to their marginalization as \"others\" in Europe, and how their bond forms despite differences in nationality and ethnicity. This dynamic is metaphorically reflected in their first encounter in the UK. I pay particular attention to the narrator's experiences of discrimination in Germany, which are tied to her Sinophone Malaysian identity, particularly in the aftermath of the MH370 disappearance. These experiences reveal how nationalism, shaped by global power dynamics and rooted in origin narratives, subtly manifests as a form of violence imposed upon her. I then further examine the intimacy between the characters within the imagined oceanic space-an alternative realm that holds the potential to address the colonial violence tied to their respective origins and facilitate the healing of their traumas. By highlighting the peaceful and restorative interactions between the two characters, I argue that this imagined space offers a vision of queer world-making: one that envisions sensory, nonhierarchical, and non-patriarchal worlds that challenge heteronormative structures and dominant power relations.</p>","PeriodicalId":46044,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Lesbian Studies","volume":" ","pages":"1-26"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2025-02-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143426279","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Caitlin Edwards, Robert Allan, Sandra Taylor, Carin Graves
{"title":"Lesbian women and attachment theory: A scoping review.","authors":"Caitlin Edwards, Robert Allan, Sandra Taylor, Carin Graves","doi":"10.1080/10894160.2024.2448794","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10894160.2024.2448794","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The purpose of this scoping review was to explore the lesbian adult attachment literature. Eight databases were searched yielding 4,827 total articles which were subsequently distilled to 37 articles for full review. Thematic analysis was used to develop themes related to attachment theory and lesbian relationships. Themes included the unique aspects of lesbian attachment relationships, the nuance of avoidant attachment in lesbian relationships, the impact of lesbian identity development on attachment, and the comparison of lesbian attachment relationships to other populations. Methodological nuances and significant gaps in the literature are noted. Directions for future research are discussed.</p>","PeriodicalId":46044,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Lesbian Studies","volume":" ","pages":"1-31"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2025-02-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143081211","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Dissolving into the surf.","authors":"Macarena Gómez-Barris","doi":"10.1080/10894160.2024.2427552","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10894160.2024.2427552","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In this short piece I think about the ocean as queer and its liberating sensualities as a practice of writing into the surf. What are the dissolutions that emerge from the wetness of the sea? This piece is based on forthcoming work where I expand upon the themes of queer and trans ecologies at the sea's edge.</p>","PeriodicalId":46044,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Lesbian Studies","volume":" ","pages":"1-3"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2025-01-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142985139","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"<i>The Lesbians and Policing Project</i>: police monitoring in defence of dangerous lesbian-ness in 1980s London.","authors":"Will Jackson, Helen Monk","doi":"10.1080/10894160.2024.2448064","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10894160.2024.2448064","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This article provides a case study of <i>The Lesbians and Policing Project</i> [LesPop], a police monitoring organisation that existed in London between 1984 and 1990. Drawing on archives held at Glasgow Women's Library, the article reviews the activities of LesPop and outlines its aims and objectives. We consider both its origins and its demise in the political context of Britain in the 1980s. In doing so, we argue that LesPop offers an important, and hitherto unexamined, contribution to lesbian history in Britain. Centralising the experiences of lesbians in London in an era of state-sanctioned homophobia, LesPop provides a case study in lesbian political and community organising and engagement with, or resistance to, the carceral state. Understanding how LesPop sought to monitor and research the police and in turn, educate and organise lesbians, reveals much about the regulation of sexuality in the pursuit of social order and illustrates the importance then, and now, of grassroots efforts to challenge homophobia and hold the police to account.</p>","PeriodicalId":46044,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Lesbian Studies","volume":" ","pages":"1-17"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2025-01-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142956553","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Old growth feminism: Interspecies & intergenerational intimacies on lesbian land.","authors":"Elana Margot Santana","doi":"10.1080/10894160.2024.2406681","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10894160.2024.2406681","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In 1974, women inspired by the back-to-the-land commune movement and women's liberation politics began forming lesbian intentional communities in rural Oregon. Living outside the mainstream allowed them to relinquish gender norms and experience their bodies differently in nature-their lesbian identity was not just a sexual orientation, it was gender non-conforming engaged ecofeminist praxis. The different lands they purchased fifty years ago are situated in the middle of logging country-huge swaths of land around them have been clear-cut over the years, while the lands they continue to care for today serve as conservation sites for old growth forests and all of their more-than-human inhabitants. This essay merges research gathered ten years ago for my master's thesis about the southern Oregon lesbian land community with ongoing written and photographic reflections of my time in the community over many years. This essay is a collection of vignettes and excerpts from interviews that speak to the interspecies and intergenerational intimacies of life on lesbian land and the possible implications for queer and feminist ecological futures more broadly.</p>","PeriodicalId":46044,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Lesbian Studies","volume":" ","pages":"1-19"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2025-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142923510","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}