I’m a lesbian who watched The L Word for the first time 20 years after its release and I have THOUGHTS
Lesbian media and representation may still be few and far between but we sapphics have been blessed in recent years with a surge in portrayals of women-loving-women characters in the media.
But, no show comes close to the chaos and total queer carnage that the early noughties brought us with the dawn of The L Word. As a lesbian who only came out at 21, I knew of it. I knew Shane was hot but toxic, and that Jenny was annoying but until recently I hadn’t sat down to watch it.
Well, 20 years after it was released, it still stands as one of the most ridiculous, incredible and raunchy portrayals of lesbian love, life and promiscuity to date.
Urge to Merge
Some things in life never change. Death. Taxes. And the lesbian ‘urge to merge’. In the Pilot of The L Word, we are instantly introduced to perhaps one of the most notable, cliche aspects of lesbian life. The “lesbian urge to merge,” moving trucks, and UHauling, are all particularly comical aspects of lesbian life, where things move fast, you settle down quickly and get comfortable.
Allegedly based on a 1990s joke by butch icon Lea DeLearia, Bette and Tina and Dayna and Tonya are the definition of U-Haul lesbians, or mergers in the show and nothing has changed. In fact, with social media making normal couples stars, there is more profit to be made if you are in a queer relationship to share every aspect of your life and merge even quicker.
TikTok videos joke about the sorry state of affairs of lesbians’ inability to casually date - and as someone fresh out of a long-term relationship - it can be challenging when as women and non-binary folk we tend to have so much in common, in both life experience and desires, meaning your lives become linked so fast.
But is it surprising that the “urge to merge” prevails when it is still just as hard to create a large queer network in inclusive lesbian spaces as it was when The L Word debuted?
Queer spaces
The Planet is the Central Perk of The L Word, the gorgeous Grove-style Santa Monica queer cafe and events venue is at the heart of the first season of the show and I cannot tell you how much envy I have for these characters having a space like that when lesbian venues are virtually non-existent in the UK in comparison to those welcoming gay men.
It is challenging to create queer community when so many spaces are not welcoming of lesbians, with many a gay bar bouncer turning sapphics away. It is a shame that it often takes sports or social media to make meaningful connections, to meet potential partners or just create a friendship group as tight knit as that in the glamorous, gritty, glorious show.
Do we lesbians merge, create deep bonds and become obsessed with one another so fast because we have so few chances to actually meet a variety of people? Luckily in London in particular, this is changing with brilliant, inclusive nights out like Pop Up Dyke Bar, La Camionera, Butch Please, Dykes on Mics and Carabiner popping up and helping to create a more lesbian-centred, trans inclusive queer scene in the city.
Promotional still for The L Word Season 1
Divisions in the community
Trans inclusivity is a far more prevalent issue now it seems than when The L Word was first released. Watching the show, discussions of gender are almost non-existent or seriously dated. Biphobia is a big problem in the show, with the first episode demonstrating the bierasure of Dayna, and Jenny struggles to understand her sexuality throughout. Being bi in the show appears to just be a half-way point to realising you are gay, and luckily, for the most part, this dialogue is fading more and more into the past.
But, the community now is tackling an even bigger problem: transphobia.
A small minority of lesbians are claiming that the inclusion of trans and non-binary people in sapphic spaces is dangerous, undermines what it means to be a lesbian, and puts women at risk. Trans lesbians face overwhelming adversity and discrimination from other lesbians, and much like bisexual women in The L Word all those years ago, their very existence is challenged and doubted.
The unfortunate sponsorship of transphobia by high-powered figures like TERF author JK Rowling is creating tensions in the lesbian community, simply because a dangerously vocal minority want to see division prevail. In a time when division is already rife, with catastrophic consequences, the queer community must unite or face discrimination against us all.
Messy promiscuity
Gay men and lesbian women exist in very different spaces. While we have the urge to merge, gay men have Grindr, and the messy promiscuity of the gay community. We have lesbian bed rot, they have joyful, chaotic sexual encounters. Of course these are stereotypes that do not apply to everyone, but I believe Shane, the beautiful, masc goddess of season 1 has created the blueprint for a more liberated, sexy lesbian life.
While meaningless, frequent casual sex isn’t for everyone, Shane McCutcheon, with her Kristen Stewart bone structure and ruffled, messy hair was one of the first examples of lesbian sexual liberation and promiscuity in the media.
She paved the way for Leztopia, the TikTok space created by Kales Overfield, who creates content which explores the carnage and couples of TikTok’s sapphic celebrities. From G Flip to Jojo Siwa, Renee Rapp to Avery Cyrus, lebian messiness is in. I support gay rights and gay wrongs, and I don’t think we would have anthems like Becky’s So Hot by Fletcher, or Gay 4 Me by Lauren Sanderson and G Flip if Shane’s character, played by the inimitable Katherine Moennig hadn’t shown that we can be just as messy, just as horny, and just as fun as gay men.
We don’t all have cats and a wife at 24, some of us are at sex parties, on dating apps and making a mess. Would we have had Leighton Murray in The Sex Lives of College Girls without Shane in The L Word?
The L Word may have it’s flaws. It may fail to address issues such as bi-erasure, transphobia, racism and toxic gender norms. But it created a set of characters and stories that are still painfully relevant twenty years later. I came out at 21 and was lucky to have even limited queer representation in the media I consumed like Glee and Pretty Little Liars.
The L Word showed that there was a demand for lesbian media, and while that demand continues, it is undeniable that this show changed the way lesbians are perceived and the ways we perceive ourselves.