My Lesbian Mom in the 90s: A Son’s Journey to Acceptance

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Even though I was out before becoming a parent, having a kid meant being out to people I would never have shared anything with, about my queerness or otherwise. D. and Natalie Clifford Barney, booksellers Sylvia Beach and Adrienne Monnier… the list goes on and on. This change could motivate policymakers and insurers to be more inclusive as well, said two experts who spoke with me.

Rated X for its explicit sex scene, the film tanked at the box office but remains an era-defining cult classic. Far away from the piss and vinegar of Scrubbers (1982) and Prisoner Cell Block H (1979-86), Dunye’s film makes a potent case for how race and class have created a new caste system behind bars. The second British lesbian film to be included on the list, Break My Fall is the story of the painful end of a one-time loving relationship.Director Károly Makk sensitively juxtaposes this tender but doomed love affair with the high hopes and bitter suppression of the Budapest Spring. Identifying early cinematic representations of lesbianism was like collecting crumbs off the top table. This sadly means we’ve had to leave out many favourites: Mädchen in Uniform (1931), Club de femmes (1936), Personal Best (1982), Virgin Machine (1988), and great films by Ulrike Ottinger and Chantal Akerman. Non-profit Pride and Less Prejudice, which has donated over 10,000 LGBTQ-inclusive picture books to elementary school classrooms since 2019, is holding a virtual auction through this weekend so they can send 1,200 more. No lesbian film list is complete without the Wachowski siblings’ dazzling sexy noir/crime caper/slapstick comedy Bound.

Abdellatif Kechiche, director of last year’s sexually sensationalist Blue Is the Warmest Colour, might have done better if he had taken a leaf out of Hammer’s book.All hail Beryl Reid, magnetic in her portrayal of George, a loud, aggressive, cigar-chomping dyke who loses her job and her young lover. Her pioneering 1974 short film Dyketactics, a 4-minute, hippie wonder consisting of frolicking naked women in the countryside, broke new ground for its exploration of lesbian identity, desire and aesthetic. From those moments on, lesbians have been slowly coming out on celluloid, albeit often controlled by the gaze of male directors.