Inspiring Lesbians / Bi Girl Friends of Dorothy In History
The stellar lesbians and Girl Friends of Dorothy who I cite herein covering the arts, science, sports ... will INSPIRE you! Please, never forget the heroism of the brave lesbians who, in history, fought for our Lesbian (Gay) and Women's Rights and Lesbian / Gay Visibility plus their solidarity with those unjustly prosecuted. If we can, we should take on their marathon baton.
Prick Up Your Ears - slick lesbians, and girl friends of Dorothy, in world history:
- Ruled countries - Queen Christina of Sweden (1626 - 1689)
- Conquered gigantic mountains- Freda du Faur (1882 - 1935)
- Went to space (twice!) - astronaut Sally Ride (1951 - )
• Saved lives - Florence Nightingale (1820 - 1910)
• Won Nobel Prizes - Selma Lagerlöf (1858 - 1940)
• Wrote great poetry & novels - Sappho (570 BC) & Radclyffe Hall (1880 - 1943)
• Made great art - painter Rosa Bonheur (1822 - 1899) & sculptor Emma Stebbins (1815 - 1882)
• Made great music records - Opera Singer, Mademoiselle Maupin (1670 - 1707) & The queen of the Blues, Bessie Smith (1894 - 1937)
• Broke sports records - Martina Navratilova (1956 - )
• Fought for their rights - Frances Harper (1825 - 1911)
• Challenged gender roles - Anne Lister (1791 - 1840)
and...
• Loved openingly in the 1770s - The Ladies of Llangollen (Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby).
Friend of Dorothy
"Are you a Friend of Dorothy?". Perhaps you are asking yourself - who's Dorothy? / what does a "Friend of Dorothy" mean? A "Friend of Dorothy" is fab old skool, gay slang as a synonym for a gay man when homosexuality was illegal. Thereafter, 'Friend of Dorothy', expanded as a term for anybody in the LGBTQ+ community i.e for us girls too.
The phrase, 'Friend of Dorothy', dates back to at least World War II (1940s), derived from Judy Garland's character, Dorothy, in The Wizard of Oz or... Dorothy Parker. A 'Friend of Dorothy' was a coded term to refer to a homosexual, when homosexuality was still criminalised in the US and UK and, homosexuality couldn't be openly discussed. So, at the time, on meeting someone... stating that, or asking if, someone was a 'Friend of Dorothy" was a slick euphemism used for sussing out someone's sexual orientation, without others knowing its meaning. Indeed, I've soooo used "Do you think she is a friend of Dorothy?" question, in the past to partners in crime, when I was so shy and conversing in v slick Edinburgh hetty bars and restaurants! In this web site, I am using 'Friends of Dorothy' primarily in the girl 'Friends of Dorothy' sense.
My Terminology Throughout My Site?
You may say... TomaYto, I say... TomaHto. What noun do I assign these ace, gutsy, stellar LGTB ladies? I reflected over "lesbian" and... lezzie / leso / les / lezzer... dyke (I find amusing as I am an ex geologist)... (holy moly) bean flicker, carpet muncher, pussy puncher, muff diver, ... and, so many more!!! See Lesbian terms throughout history. Though some terms now sound amusing - these were stabbingly hurtful to those who were harassingly called this to their face or behind their backs. Personally, I dislike the actual sound of the word "lesbian".
Growing-up I developed a code, like Anne Lister (in her diaries)... I refered to myself as being "cake" (a private code word, that derived from a bestie gay girl friend goofily mishearing me - in a schicki-micki Edinburgh Cafe bar. She thought I was referring to lush cake on display on the counter - actually, I was referring to the very lush waitress. "Cake" became my ace code when out and about with friends in hetty bars :). Gaining a bit more confidence (through my sewing circle friends) like some others I appropriated the terms "gay" (a nod to cool Cole Porter) / and "queer" (during BritPop's fab Blur era). Herein, out of initial shyness, I started off using the term "sapphic" and "lezza" (tongue-in-cheek). Alas, as this SEO-wise was getting me nowhere, slowly I am changing some pages to "lesbian" (though I will never, ever call myself this). FYI herein "Hetty" = Scottish slang for straights.
IMAGE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS :(
PPPPPPPPPPlease show some goodwill to this site. HUGEST Thank you - the images used herein are for enlightenment and inspiration. The site would look so sad & dull without images of these courageous lesbians. See in the footer - you can email me and I will immediately remove the relevant image.
Private Web Searching: Heads-Up On Incognito Google vs VPNs (Virtual Private Networks)
Are you living in a country that awfully monitors your internet activity e.g. "Lesbian [searches]" "gay [searches]"? Incognito Google = don't trust! Please consider using a VPN which stands for Virtual Private Network.
A VPN (strives to) encrypt (conceal) YOUR internet traffic/ web searches and (strives to) disguise your online identity - this makes it more difficult for third parties / government censorship to track your activities online (in democrat countries your traffic /searches could be seen as legal but for certain governments it as illegal). When I was growing up, I had so little exposure to sapphic / lesbian media and, no gay friends to hang out with. It was still a taboo subject. Bravo, that there is now more exposure "OUT" there, particularly online. Yet it is still shocking that 70 countries still have national laws criminalising same-sex relations between consenting adults. Moreover, there is still painful queer bashing. In 2018 - 19, in the UK alone, it was reported 14,491 crimes committed against people because of their sexual orientation. How many were unreported?
If you are living in an internet censored county, consider using a trusted VPN.
Please Do Revisit And Link To It :)
The site has got so much bigger than I had envisaged. Please do revisit as I grow it - there are countless historical LGBT Women who I have not yet discovered, who have not been documented / are coming to light. And, there some ... who i suspect as they never married and I await what further research reveals. I don't want to brand someone unjustly (we all understand the brutal hurt it can cause) e.g. movie Ammonite (2020) trailblazer English palaeontologist Mary Anning - was she gay? Hmmm... Forgive pedestaling, I have a (wohoo) PhD in ... Palaeontology (Edinburgh Uni) and Mary Anning had been a heroine to me, and, I'm queer ;) At the time of my PhD there was no gossip of this. I would have loved her to play on my team but, Hmmm > movie vs no scientific gossip of this? Which highlights some borderlines I have faced herein. Slap my wrist, for some very, very view where I forwent my caution and included. Please forgive any errors on my misinterpretation. I have a waiting list (on some evidence) to add. And, groovers - please, if you wish, do link to this site - I am a lone wolf and am too shy to "market" the site through social media.
This Sapphic Web Project Journey
uK Covid Lockdown 2, 2020 - An Idea
This is a site I started (hand-coded HTML / css) during uK Covid Lockdown 2 furlough. I had been working as SEO on the bestest website I had ever worked on - a slick international talent booking website. To keep my mind active, I thought it would be a fun coding project to learn css coding and clandestinely celebrate lesbian history and culture by documenting some slick lesbian 'Friends of Dorothy' and sapphic media which have comforted and roused me when I was too shy to come out and times were different. Please do forgive me - I am an SEO and not a writer, but I hope these slick ladies will inspire you.
I launched the site, incomplete as a 1st draft, on 2020 lockdown 3 uK, on NYE with light abdomen pain and awful toothache (I couldn't get a fooking dentist emergency appointment during COVID Xmas) but, with my NYE's solo champers numbing the pain & neighbour's NYE fireworks, I wished to launch it to say goodbye to: heaven knows a miserable year.
