Lesbian Visibility Week

Since 2008 Lesbian Visibility Week has become a voice to raise awareness support, empower and celebrate every lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer women in the LGBT+ community.  With the #THISISME campain to help spread support and highlight visibility, the week stands as a reminder to be proud of who you are. 

We’re celebrating by taking a look at famous out and proud women who are making the world a better place by being the icons that the next generation needs!

Jacqueline Wilson

Author of the famous children’s book ‘The Story Of Tracy Beaker’, Jacqueline Wilson came out publicly in 2020 at the age of 74 stating that she has never been in a closet and anyone who knew her personally knew of her sexuality. Wilson told The Guardian “It would be such old news for anybody that has ever known anything much about me”. 

Lena Waithe

Actor Lena Waithe said while at the Black Women In Hollywood Awards in 2018 “Being born gay, black and female is not a revolutionary act. Being proud to be a gay, black female is”. While Lena Waithe feels accepted as a black, gay woman in the entertainment industry, she still believes Hollywood and the entertainment industry in general need to see even more black queer representation. She stated at The Hollywood Reporter’s second annual Pride Summit, “If you look at how many people that are known and that are black in the industry, and then if you can count on like maybe one or two hands how many of them are out? The numbers just don’t add up”.

Kate McKinnon

Kate McKinnon, best known for Saturday Night Live, is currently in a relationship with photographer and actress Jackie Abbott. She has thanked Ellen DeGeneres for making it less scary for her to personally accept her sexuality in her speech at the Golden Globes – “If I hadn’t seen her on TV, I would have thought, “I could never be on TV. They don’t let LGBT people on TV.” And more than that, I would have gone on thinking that I was an alien and that I maybe didn’t even have a right to be here. So thank you, Ellen, for giving me a shot. A shot at a good life, and thank you also for the sweater with a picture of the baby goat on it”.

 Holland Taylor and Sarah Paulson 

The couple officially announced their relationship in 2015, and have been open about their 32 year age difference – as well as being open about the way they choose to identify.  In 2016 Paulson asked people specifically not to label her as a lesbian – “If my life choices had to be predicated based on what was expected of me from a community on either side, that ’s going to make me feel really straitjacketed, and I don’t want to feel that”. And Holland Taylor has said rather than using the term lesbian she prefers to identify as gay. 

Miriam Margolyes

Miriam came out and had her first girlfriend at the age of 27, but admits that telling her parents about her sexuality was “an error” because it “hurt them too much”. Speaking to the Guardian about her sexuality she felt like a ‘bombshell’ when she realised. Speaking openly about being a lesbian, Miriam said “I think it gives you an identity because you can say, ‘I am a lesbian.’ It put everything into place, I still think it’s an absolutely terrific thing to be, which is good, because it’s not going to change.”  She has been in a relationship with Heather Sutherland for many years.