Lesbian Visibility Day: 5 ways you can make a difference

April 26th is Lesbian Visibility Day. For those apart of the LGBTQ community as well as allies, here are a few ways you can help and better educate yourself today and beyond.

There are a lot of LGBTQ events, holidays, and visibility days. While PRIDE events typically celebrate the entire community, there are specific months, weeks, and day designated to celebrate specific identities without the community. Today, we celebrate Lesbian Visibility Day.

Let’s go lesbians! And every non-lesbian who wants to be respectful of today and the lesbians celebrating. Created as a way to celebrate and bolster lesbians and the issues and discrimination that they specifically face year round, the purpose of Lesbian Visibility Day is right there in the name. Especially if you don’t identify as a lesbian, there are a few ways you can observe Lesbian Visibility Day and make a difference at the same time.

1. Learn about why today is important

Lesbian Visibility Day isn’t meant to bring awareness about lesbians. Everyone knows lesbians exist. Instead, today is meant to create awareness about the many stigmas and prejudices lesbians deal with — because somehow lesbian-specific stigmas are still rampant both outside of and within the LGBTQ+ community.

Though Lesbian Visibility Day helps bring awareness about current issues facing the lesbian community (without stirring them into the pot of overarching LGBTQ+ issues), today also helps defray lesbian erasure. Beyond the overwhelming erasure of lesbians narratives, characters, and creators in pop culture, lesbian erasure is still prevalent in our present history.

2. Educate yourself about lesbian issues

So how can you squelch some anti-lesbian stigmas? Educate yourself about the lesbian community and lesbian history. Since TERFs are constantly trying to spew transphobic rhetoric and disenfranchise he/him and they/them lesbians, listen to non-TERFy lesbians.

Calling out lesbianphobia is also an active part of making yourself aware of lesbian-specific discrimination and other issues. After all, what’s the point of educating yourself (especially if you aren’t lesbian) if you aren’t going to combat lesbianphobia?

3. Remember lesbian history

There are hundreds of noteworthy lesbians throughout the past generations and our modern history who’ve helped transform science, literature, the LGBTQ+ community, and combat homophobia. If you need a stepping stone, start by brushing up on Stormé DeLarverie.

You know, the Black butch lesbian who is well-known for her role in the Stonewall Riots that jumpstarted the LGBTQ rights movement. DeLarverie and lesbians like her are pivotal for the still ongoing LGBTQ and lesbian rights movements and should be treated as such.

4. Donate to lesbians

Lesbianphobia is a plague that won’t go away (unfortunately). You probably won’t be able to afford to donate to every lesbian’s GoFundMe, buy a print from a lesbian artist, or donate to a lesbian-specific publication or cause. However, if you can, donating to lesbians’ fundraising can help them get away from lesbianphobic households and states (because homophobic legislature is on the rise, yet again).

If your feverish Twitter scrolling sessions don’t yield any lesbians who have their Ko-Fis or crowdfunding campaigns in their bios:

A. You probably need to find more people to follow.

B. You can subscribe to a sapphic publication like Diva Magazine.

C.  Follow in Taylor Swift’s philanthropic footsteps and contribute to an important lesbian organization. We suggest donating to Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice, which helps financially support likeminded activists and programs.

Of course, not everyone has the funds to donate to important activists, creators, and causes. If you still want to contribute in ways that your time and wallet can’t accommodate, retweeting and sharing lesbian organizations and activists alike can get share their work to others who might be able to donate themselves.

5. Attend a protest or rally

Like any event in the community, Lesbian Visibility Day rings in protests and events. Depending on where you live, it might be difficult to find a local event to attend. Regardless this list clearly is not exhaustive. Making a difference is a broad statement. It’s up to you on whether you use something off this list to respect today or draw inspiration from this list or any related media to commemorate today.

You don’t need to be a lesbian to help bolster lesbian voices on Lesbian Visibility Day or the other 364 days that you should be celebrating lesbians. However, if you every question whether or not you’re a lesbian yourself, today might be the perfect day to explore your sexuality. Perhaps researching how to know if you’re a lesbian could be the perfect educational lesson to start with today.

While there are many reasons to observe Lesbian Visibility Day, it’s important to remember lesbian history and milestones. Just as it’s important to push forward and continue to amend lesbian issues.