[BRIEF NOTE] Lesbians can be Lesbians

[rfmcdonald]

Reuters provided The Globe and Mail with the news story "'Lesbian' not restricted to Greek island
Reuters", allowing lesbians to be, well, Lesbians too.

A Greek court has dismissed a request by residents of the Aegean island of Lesbos to ban the use of the word lesbian to describe gay women, according to a court ruling made public on Tuesday.

Three residents of Lesbos, the birthplace of the ancient Greek poet Sappho whose love poems inspired the term lesbian, brought a case last month arguing that the use of the term in reference to gay women insulted their identity.

In a July 18 decision, the Athens court said the word did not define the identity of the residents of the island, and so it could be validly used by gay groups in Greece and abroad.

The ruling ordered the plaintiffs to pay court expenses of €230 ($366.50 Canadian).

"This is a good decision for lesbians everywhere," Vassilis Chirdaris, lawyer for the Gay and Lesbian Union of Greece, told Reuters. "A court in Athens could not stop people around the world from using it. It was ridiculous."

He said the plaintiffs were free to appeal the decision in a higher court.

Lesbos, which lies just off the Turkish Coast, has become a gathering spot for gay women from round the world, especially at the village of Eressos, which is regarded as the birthplace of Sappho in the seventh century B.C.

Several residents testified during the trial that the use of the word lesbian had brought recognition to the island and boosted its tourist trade.

Julie Bindel's May 2008 article in The Guardian, "Sun, sea and Sappho", goes into more detail about the two-way process of integration between the native Lesbians and the lesbians who visit--or live on--the island of Lesbos.

Dina Astalaki, owner of the other lesbian bar and restaurant in the village, Aubergine, is known affectionately as Mamma Eressos, because she looks out for the younger lesbian tourists. Astalaki lives with her German partner of 13 years. "Sometimes the women get a bit over the top," she says, "particularly in high season. But it's nothing compared with what groups of men get up to on holiday, I would imagine."

There has been the odd scandal surrounding the lesbian tourists on Lesbos, but not for a while. Eight years ago, the Candy Bar, a lesbian bar in London, organised a group trip to the island. Flyers advertising a "Wet Pussy Party" flooded Eressos, prompting the then mayor of the village to try to stop around 100 British lesbians from disembarking from their cruise ship for a stop off. Behaviour was lewd and loud, and to make matters worse for the islanders, the group was accompanied by a film crew from Channel Five, making a fly-on-the-wall documentary, Lesbians Go Mad on Lesbos.

[. . .]

Wendy Jansen came from Holland to work at Sappho Travel in Eressos five years ago. I ask her about the kerfuffle over the ownership of the word "lesbian". "There are homophobic people in every society," she says. "But in this place, where everyone relies on tourism, we cannot afford to ignore it." If there is negativity towards lesbians, says Jansen, it is from visiting Greeks, not the islanders.

"In this village, people are so used to lesbians that if the returning tourists come on holiday with a different partner, the locals notice. And if a couple [enter into a civil partnership], and come here on their honeymoon, locals often send champagne or flowers to them." One tourist, from London, tells me that when she split up with her girlfriend, whom she had been on holiday to the village with the year before, some of the islanders refused to speak to her when she turned up with a new woman. "They thought I was cheating on my ex," she laughs.

"At the end of the day, this is a Greek village," says Jansen, "not a lesbian one. It has not been 'invaded', or taken over. More than anything, it is cosmopolitan."