International Lesbian Visibility Day and Lesbian Visibility Week 2022

Happy (belated) International Lesbian Visibility Day and Happy Lesbian Visibility Week!

Brief History

Since 2008, the sapphic community has been celebrated on 26th April, globally known as International Lesbian Visibility Day.

Originally, lesbian visibility was celebrated nationally in the US around mid-july from the 1990's onwards, during Lesbian Visibility Week. It is believed that the week initially arose as a result of frustrations within the LGBT community regarding a lack of lesbian visibility in comparison to the visibility received by gay men.

However, in 2020, a new Lesbian Visibility Week was founded in the UK, by Linda Riley, CEO and Publisher of Diva Magazine, who deemed that “a single day for lesbian visibility was simply insufficient”.

Since then, Lesbian Visibility Day has been extended further and now falls within the newly established Lesbian Visibility Week.

International Lesbian Visibility Day has continued to be celebrated on 26th April globally and Lesbian Visibility Week, whilst still celebrated predominantly in the US and the UK, is becoming a bigger event in the calendars of the LGBTQIA+ community across borders.

This year, Lesbian Visibility Week is observed between 25th April and 1st May, in the UK and online.

In addition to being celebrated in April and July, lesbian visibility has also been celebrated on 8th October in the Southen Hemisphere. It is known as Lesbian Day and dates back over 40 years (since 1980 in New Zealand; since 1990 in Australia).

Further Information

To find out more about International Lesbian Visibility Day and Lesbian Visibility Week, or for LGBTQIA+ resources and information in general, you can visit the following resources: Pink News, Stonewall, My Helsinki, and Seta ry (in English, Swedish, and Finnish).