Jessie Lewthwaite finds herself in the centre of a lesbian renaissance!
With my history of inevitably ending up in a gay bar on a night out, I made my way down the stairs into G.A.Y. on K Road in Auckland. I was confused at first because I’d actually meant to go to the basement of Family, and it took me longer than I’d like to admit to figure out where I was. However, as I saw there was a bar here too, I wasn’t too put out.
I was just in time to grab a gin before the drag show started. Having timed this accidentally perfectly, I watched a queen absolutely slay to ‘Pink Pony Club’ by Chappell Roan. The audience were living for it, and me, not realising I was basically forfeiting my lesbian card, asked a friend there what the song was… That is how I discovered that lesbian pop like Chappell Roan is massive right now. Lesbian culture is having a mainstream moment, and I almost missed it!
Full disclosure: when it comes to music, if it isn’t Emo from 2003-2005, then I probably don’t know it. I’m born to RAWR XD but was forced to cut my fringe – life truly isn’t fair. However, after finding out I might be represented outside the lyrics of a Fall Out Boy song, I started investigating, and I can confirm a lesbian renaissance is truly upon us.
Not only is Chappell Roan topping the charts with a song specifically about dating a closeted girl, we also have Billie Eilish rapping about how she would totally do Charlie XCX if she were also queer (on the remix of Charlie’s ‘Guess’). I mean, talk about relatable content!
Also, I feel like I would be missing something if I didn’t mention our queen, Jojo Siwa, bursting out of the closet. Meme her all you like, but I for one would like to thank Jojo for “inventing gay pop” so Chappell and Billie can have their moment.
Outside of music, we are also finally getting the trash TV we deserve. Now I love a tragic, heart-rending, leave you feeling like you have been hit by a bus emotionally, lesbian drama as much as the next queer. But sometimes it’s nice to watch something that doesn’t make you want to leap into the void. Not everything needs to be a coming-out story or the horrifying tripe writers do when they kill off their queers. I’m looking at you, Buffy – Tara deserved better. But that’s where reality show I Kissed a Girl comes in.
It sure is refreshing to have something equally as brain-dead as the straights have been watching for years. Did I know we needed a queer love island? No. Was it an excellent representation of our community? Also, no… but I’m glad it exists. If the straights can have trash TV made about them and still have rights, we can too! Equality.
Our stories used to be hidden, or worse, completely untold. The pain and honestly inevitable experiences of falling for a closeted girl or a straight girl were conversations had between friends, not sung out to millions of people. ‘Good luck, babe’ is in the top ten of global songs right now. Imagine how far that has gone to help normalise and increase awareness of our experiences.
If you can’t tell from my dated references, I am not part of the generation responsible for this. But even Kirsten Stewart is actually a millennial, so I still have hope I too can be part of this lesbian renaissance!
