Quotes about lesbian

A collection of quotes on the topic of lesbian, women, people, right.

Quotes about lesbian

Lea DeLaria photo
Alexander Lukashenko photo

“If someone is a lesbian, it's man's fault.”

Alexander Lukashenko (1954) President of Belarus since 20 July 1994

Comment about lesbians (2011), as seen on National Television of Belarus: Lukashenko about gays and lesbians http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HACHqxzi6M

Barack Obama photo
Barack Obama photo
Lea DeLaria photo

“Oh please…As a standup, I tried to change the world. As an entertainer, I try to entertain. And as a lesbian, I try to pick up the prettiest girl in the room. Not necessarily in that order.”

Lea DeLaria (1958) American actress and singer

ibid.
When asked if she thought of herself as a performer, or as a performer with an agenda.

Jennifer Beals photo
Barack Obama photo
Jennifer Beals photo
Barack Obama photo

“Today is a big step in our march toward equality. Gay and lesbian couples now have the right to marry, just like anyone else. #LoveWins.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

President Barack Obama on Twitter at June 26, 2015 https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/614435467120001024
2015

Barack Obama photo

“In the end, the success of our ideals comes down to us -- including the example of our own lives, our own societies. We know that there will always be intolerance. But instead of fearing the immigrant, we can welcome him. We can insist on policies that benefit the many, not just the few; that an age of globalization and dizzying change opens the door of opportunity to the marginalized, and not just a privileged few. Instead of targeting our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters, we can use our laws to protect their rights. Instead of defining ourselves in opposition to others, we can affirm the aspirations that we hold in common.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2014, Address to European Youth (March 2014)
Context: In the end, the success of our ideals comes down to us -- including the example of our own lives, our own societies. We know that there will always be intolerance. But instead of fearing the immigrant, we can welcome him. We can insist on policies that benefit the many, not just the few; that an age of globalization and dizzying change opens the door of opportunity to the marginalized, and not just a privileged few. Instead of targeting our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters, we can use our laws to protect their rights. Instead of defining ourselves in opposition to others, we can affirm the aspirations that we hold in common. That’s what will make America strong. That’s what will make Europe strong. That’s what makes us who we are. And just as we meet our responsibilities as individuals, we must be prepared to meet them as nations. Because we live in a world in which our ideals are going to be challenged again and again by forces that would drag us back into conflict or corruption. We can’t count on others to rise to meet those tests.

Barack Obama photo
Margaret Cho photo

“If you are a woman, if you are a person of colour, if you are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, if you are a person of size, if you are person of intelligence, if you are a person of integrity, then you are considered a minority in this world.”

Margaret Cho (1968) American stand-up comedian

From Her Tours and CDs, The Notorious C.H.O. Tour
Context: “And I have a lot of self-esteem, which is amazing, because I’m probably somebody who wouldn’t necessarily have a lot of self esteem as I am considered a minority and if you are a woman, if you are a person of color, if you are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, if you are a person of size, if you are person of intelligence, if you are a person of integrity, then you are considered a minority in this world. And it's going to be really hard to find messages of self-love and support anywhere. Especially women's and gay men's culture. It's all about how you have to look a certain way, or else you're worthless. You know, when you look in the mirror and think, ‘Ugh, I'm so ugly, I'm so fat, I'm so old.’ Don't you know that's not your authentic self? But that is billions upon billions of dollars of advertising. Magazines, movies, billboards, all geared to make you feel shitty about yourself, so that you will take your hard earned money and spend it at the mall on some turn-around crème that doesn't turn around shit. If you don't have self-esteem, you will hesitate before you do anything in your life. You will hesitate to go for the job you want to go for. You will hesitate to ask for a raise. You will hesitate to call yourself an American. You will hesitate to report a rape. You will hesitate to defend yourself when you are discriminated against because of your race, your sexuality, your size, your gender. You will hesitate to vote; you will hesitate to dream. For us to have self-esteem is truly an act of revolution, and our revolution is long overdue.

Bryan Lee O'Malley photo
Jasmine Guy photo
Miranda July photo
Audre Lorde photo
Patrick Rothfuss photo
John Waters photo

“Not wanting anyone to pop my bubble by speaking to me, I immediately began reading Lesbian Nuns, and that did the trick. No one attempted small talk.”

John Waters (1946) American filmmaker, actor, comedian and writer

Source: Crackpot: The Obsessions of John Waters

Douglas Coupland photo
Jeffrey Montgomery photo
Dan Savage photo

“No one has ever gone broke underestimating the insecurities of the gay and lesbian consumer.”

Source: Skipping Towards Gomorrah (2002), p. 216

Margaret Cho photo

“One of my first jobs was on a lesbian cruise. I was the ship comedian for the Lesbian Love Boat.”

Margaret Cho (1968) American stand-up comedian

From Her Tours and CDs, I'm The One That I Want Tour

Coretta Scott King photo
Martin Firrell photo

“There’s not a lesbian hero that everybody can relate to.”

Martin Firrell (1963) British artist and activist

quoting Shazia Mirza
"Complete Hero" (2009)

Rachel Maddow photo

“As you can tell, my Halloween costume this year is once again middle-aged lesbian pundit in cheap jacket. Boo.”

Rachel Maddow (1973) American journalist

The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC (October 31, 2012)

Věra Jourová photo
Coretta Scott King photo
Alan Keyes photo
Donald J. Trump photo
Michele Bachmann photo
Haruki Murakami photo
Elsa Gidlow photo

“If there was a problem connected with my being a lesbian, even after I became aware of it, it was the loneliness, the fact that I didn't know anybody else like me.”

Elsa Gidlow (1898–1986) Canadian-American poet

Word Is Out: Stories of Some of Our Lives (1977), as cited in Palmer, Chris, October 6, 1978, "' Word is Out' an important film on gays http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=we08AAAAIBAJ&sjid=Yi4MAAAAIBAJ&pg=3700%2C2698575", Bangor Daily News.

Peter Tatchell photo

“In contrast to earlier gay law reform and equality-oriented movements, the 1970s LGBT liberation movement did not seek to ape heterosexual values or secure the acceptance of sexual orientation and gender identity minorities within the existing sexual conventions. Indeed, it repudiated the prevailing sexual morality and institutions - rejecting not only heterosexism (heterosexual supremacism) but also male machismo, with its oppressive predisposition to rivalry, toughness and aggression; the extreme expressions of which are the rapist, queer-basher, racist murderer and war criminal.
The "radical drag" and "gender-bender" politics of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) in the early 1970s glorified and promoted male gentleness. A conscious, if sometimes exaggerated, attempt to renounce the oppressiveness of masculinity and male privilege, it rejected straight macho values; identifying them with the subordination of women and LGBT people. The GLF was truly revolutionary because it attempted to subvert male-female gender roles and straight patriarchy. It denounced the ethos of masculine competitiveness, domination and violence; instead affirming the worthwhileness of male sensitivity and affection between men and, in the case of lesbians, the intrinsic value of an eroticism and love independent of maleness.
These ideas led me to propose that without the construction of a cult of machismo and a mass of aggressive male egos, neither sexual, gender, class, racial, speciesist nor imperialist oppression are possible.”

Peter Tatchell (1952) British gay rights activist

Machismo Underpins War and Tranny http://www.petertatchell.net/masculinity/machismo-underpins-war-and-tyranny.htm, Official Website

Vladimir Putin photo

“It's extremely dangerous trying to resolve political problems outside the framework of the law — first the ‘Rose Revolution', then they'll think up something like blue. [word play here: "rose" having the colloquial sense of "lesbian" in modern Russian, and "blue" meaning "gay"]”

Vladimir Putin (1952) President of Russia, former Prime Minister

On the "Orange Revolution" in Ukraine and the "Rose Revolution" in Georgia, News conference http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/markets/russia/article405454.ece, (23 December 2004).
On Ukraine

Alan Keyes photo
Ron White photo
Jerry Falwell photo

“And, I know that I'll hear from them for this. But, throwing God out successfully with the help of the federal court system, throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools. The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way — all of them who have tried to secularize America — I point the finger in their face and say "you helped this happen."”

Jerry Falwell (1933–2007) American evangelical pastor, televangelist, and conservative political commentator

Remarks to Pat Robertson after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on The 700 Club (13 September 2001) (audio recording) https://home.comcast.net/~joe.grabko/falwell.mp3; more at "Falwell and Above" at Snopes.com http://www.snopes.com/rumors/falwell.htm Falwell later told CNN:
I would never blame any human being except the terrorists, and if I left that impression with gays or lesbians or anyone else, I apologize.
CNN (14 September 2001)
Falwell: "If we decide to change all the rules on which this Judeo-Christian nation was built we cannot expect the Lord to put his shield of protection around us as he has in the past."
Amanpour: "So you still stand by that."
Falwell: "I stand right by it."
Interviewed by CNN's Christiana Amanpour about his current feelings regarding blame for the September 11th attacks, and whether or not he still feels as he did when he made the conversial statement cited above (8 May 2007) (video recording) http://www.americablog.com/2007/05/cnn-just-last-week-falwell-reiterated.html. This statement attesting that he still blamed so many was made one week before his death.

Eddie Izzard photo

“I am a lesbian trapped in a man's body.”

Eddie Izzard (1962) British stand-up comedian, actor and writer

Unrepeatable (1994)

William Kunstler photo

“A growing revulsion against the atrocities (committed against farm animals) might well have a positive effect on reducing those practiced regularly on these shores against the aged, African-Americans, poor whites, Latinos, women, lesbians and gays, social activists, Native Americans and Asians, to name but a few of our perennial pariahs.”

William Kunstler (1919–1995) American lawyer and civil rights activist

Speech at the American Bar Association (August 1992); as quoted in Henry Spira, "Animal Rights: The Frontiers of Compassion" https://animalstudiesrepository.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=hensart, Peace & Democracy News (Summer 1993).

Camille Paglia photo

“Visionary idealism is a male art form. The lesbian aesthete does not exist. But if there were one, she would have learned from the perverse male mind.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Source: Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990), p. 117

Tom Coburn photo

“Lesbianism is so rampant in some of the schools in southeast Oklahoma that they'll only let one girl go to the bathroom. Now think about it. Think about that issue. How is it that that's happened to us?”

Tom Coburn (1948) Medical doctor, politician

GOP Senate candidate in Oklahoma speaks of 'rampant' lesbianism in schools http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/article_9ff48ab7-2233-50c1-8a13-b1b6b715f7b0.html, August 31, 2004.

Michele Bachmann photo

“It leads to the personal enslavement of individuals. Because if you're involved in the gay and lesbian lifestyle, it's bondage. Personal bondage, personal despair, and personal enslavement. And that's why this is so dangerous.”

Michele Bachmann (1956) American politician

EdWatch National Education Conference, November 6, 2004
Michele Bachmann in 2004: Homosexuality is "personal enslavement"
2011-07-13
CBS News
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20079221-503544.html
2011-07-17
https://archive.is/YKg1q
2013-06-28
2010s

Jeffrey Montgomery photo
Gary Johnson photo
Jennifer Beals photo
Sarah Schulman photo
Ellen DeGeneres photo

“My name is Ellen and I'm a vegetarian. Just to add another label to me: I am a lesbian, aquarian and vegetarian. I've said it…”

Ellen DeGeneres (1958) American stand-up comedian, television host, and actress

Ellen Degeneres hosting Paul McCartney and Friends Live: PETA's Millennium Concert, 1999

Alison Bechdel photo
Robin Morgan photo

“[N]o one appeared to wonder whether this S-M proliferation was a lesbian copy of a faggot imitation of patriarchal backlash against feminism.”

Robin Morgan (1941) American feminist writer

"The Politics of Sado-Masochistic Fantasies", in Going Too Far: The Personal Chronicle of a Feminist, p 235.

Carol Leifer photo

“I recently became vegan because I felt that as a Jewish lesbian, I wasn’t part of a small enough minority. So now I’m a Jewish lesbian vegan.”

Carol Leifer (1956) American actor and comedian

“Confessions of a Jewish *** Vegan,” in PETA.org (9 July 2009) https://www.peta.org/blog/confessions-jewish-lesbian-vegan/.

Camille Paglia photo

“One of the most startling discoveries of my career was when I realized that the strongest women in the world are not lesbians but heterosexual women, who know how to handle men.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Source: Vamps and Tramps (1994), "No Law in the Arena: A Pagan Theory of Sexuality", p. 80

Daniela Sea photo
Joseph Massad photo

“[I]t is the very discourse of the Gay International which produces homosexuals, as well as gays and lesbians, where they do not exist.”

Joseph Massad (1963) Associate Professor of Arab Studies

Ibid., pp. 162-3
Desiring Arabs

Camille Paglia photo
Camille Paglia photo
Peter Akinola photo
"Weird Al" Yankovic photo

“That's something the kids should know about. Reading is a gateway to witchcraft and lesbianism.”

"Weird Al" Yankovic (1959) American singer-songwriter, music producer, accordionist, actor, comedian, writer, satirist, and parodist

I Love the 90's Part Deux, VH1, 1998; referring to Willow Rosenberg from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Camille Paglia photo
Patricia Rozema photo

“I wanted [Martin] to be a really decent human being because I didn't want to depict the cliché that a woman becomes a lesbian because her husband is terrible to her.”

Patricia Rozema (1958) Canadian film director

On Martin, the husband of Camille Baker, in When Night Is Falling as quoted in "Patricia Rozema : The Mermaid's Song" interview with Patricia Rozema, in The View from Here : Conversations with Gay and Lesbian Filmmakers (2007) by Matthew Hays, p. 287

Ann Coulter photo

“If Gore had been elected president, right now he would just be finding that last lesbian quadriplegic for the Special Forces team.”

Ann Coulter (1961) author, political commentator

"Fall Fashion Preview: Cowboy Boots In, Flip-Flops Out" (14 October 2004) http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=15519.
2004

Camille Paglia photo

“Lesbian feminists, for all their ideals of sisterhood and solidarity, can treat each other with a fickleness, a parasitic exploitativeness, and vicious spite that have to be seen to be believed.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Source: Vamps and Tramps (1994), "No Law in the Arena: A Pagan Theory of Sexuality", p. 80

Alison Bechdel photo
Alan Charles Kors photo

“The cognitive behavior of Western intellectuals faced with the accomplishments of their own society, on the one hand, and with the socialist ideal and then the socialist reality, on the other, takes one's breath away. In the midst of unparalleled social mobility in the West, they cry "caste." In a society of munificent goods and services, they cry either "poverty" or "consumerism." In a society of ever richer, more varied, more productive, more self-defined, and more satisfying lives, they cry "alienation." In a society that has liberated women, racial minorities, religious minorities, and gays and lesbians to an extent that no one could have dreamed possible just fifty years ago, they cry "oppression." In a society of boundless private charity, they cry "avarice." In a society in which hundreds of millions have been free riders upon the risk, knowledge, and capital of others, they decry the "exploitation" of the free riders. In a society that broke, on behalf of merit, the seemingly eternal chains of station by birth, they cry "injustice." In the names of fantasy worlds and mystical perfections, they have closed themselves to the Western, liberal miracle of individual rights, individual responsibility, merit, and human satisfaction. Like Marx, they put words like "liberty" in quotation marks when these refer to the West.”

Alan Charles Kors (1943) American academic

2000s, Can There Be an "After Socialism"? (2003)

Camille Paglia photo
Camille Paglia photo
Carol Ann Duffy photo

“As anyone who has the slightest knowledge of my work knows, I have little in common with Larkin, who was tall, taciturn and thin-on-top, and unlike him I laugh, nay, sneer, in the face of death. I will concede one point: we are both lesbian poets.”

Carol Ann Duffy (1955) British writer and professor of contemporary poetry

Interviewed in The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2002/aug/31/featuresreviews.guardianreview8, August 31, 2002.

Pat Robertson photo

“The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.”

Pat Robertson (1930) American media mogul, executive chairman, and a former Southern Baptist minister

1992 Iowa fundraising letter opposing a state equal-rights amendment ("Equal Rights Initiative in Iowa Attacked", Washington Post, 23 August 1992); it is sometimes claimed that this statement appeared in Robertson's 1992 GOP convention speech, but this is not the case (see also transcript http://www.patrobertson.com/Speeches/1992GOPConvention.asp)

Ann Coulter photo

“I don't believe Hurricane Harvey is God's punishment for Houston electing a lesbian mayor. But that is more credible than "climate change."”

Ann Coulter (1961) author, political commentator

https://twitter.com/AnnCoulter/status/902373016818126849 (August 30, 2017)
2017

Jay Leno photo

“And some sad news… the first lesbian couple to legally get married in the state of Massachusetts has split up. They cited irreconcilable similarities.”

Jay Leno (1950) American comedian, actor, writer, producer, voice actor and television host

Monologue, 24 July 2006
The Tonight Show

Adrienne Rich photo
Jeremy Clarkson photo
Jennifer Beals photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo

“He sung,—the notes at first were low,
Like the whispers of love, or the breathings of woe:
The waters were hushed, and the winds were stay'd,
As he sang his farewell to his Lesbian maid!”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

Arion from The London Literary Gazette (23rd November 1822) Fragments in Rhyme IV
The Improvisatrice (1824)

Rick Warren photo

“The election's coming just in a couple of weeks, and I hope you're praying about your vote. One of the propositions, of course, that I want to mention is Proposition 8, which is the proposition that had to be instituted because the courts threw out the will of the people. And a court of four guys actually voted to change a definition of marriage that has been going for 5,000 years.
Now let me say this really clearly: we support Proposition 8 — and if you believe what the Bible says about marriage, you need to support Proposition 8. I never support a candidate, but on moral issues I come out very clear.
This is one thing, friends, that all politicians tend to agree on. Both John McCain and Barack Obama, I flat out asked them "what is your definition of marriage?" and they both said the same thing. It is the traditional, historic, universal definition of marriage: one man and one woman, for life. … There are about 2% of Americans are homosexual or gay, lesbian people. We should not let 2% of the population determine — to change a definition of marriage that has been supported by every single culture, and every single religion, for 5,000 years. … So I urge you to support Proposition 8, and pass that word on. I'm going to be sending out a note to pastors on what I believe about this, but everybody knows what I believe about it, and they heard me at the civil forum when I asked both Obama and McCain on their views.”

Rick Warren (1954) Christian religious leader

regarding California Proposition 8 to amend the state constitution to not recognize same-sex marriage, as quoted in "News & Views 10/23/2008 Part 3 (Prop 8)" in Pastor Rick's News and Views (23 October 2008) http://www.saddleback.com/blogs/newsandviews/index.html?contentid=1502

Edmund White photo
Camille Paglia photo
Kathy Griffin photo

“I'm not wearing any pants and the lesbians are waiting!”

Kathy Griffin (1960) American actress and comedian

Strong Black Woman (2006)

Alison Bechdel photo

“Of course I’m delighted that Fun Home has met with such success, but it still strikes me as very unlikely that an odd, cerebral story about a lesbian and her closeted gay suicidal mortician father would have struck a chord with anyone but me.”

Alison Bechdel (1960) American cartoonist, author

on her breakout graphic novel http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/book_reviews/article6914181.ece?token=null&offset=108&page=10
Other

Maddox photo
Kathy Griffin photo
Margaret Cho photo
Margaret Cho photo
Nigella Lawson photo

“While I am sure there are a number of women who secretly wonder whether they are lesbian, most simply have, somewhere, a fantasy about having sex, in a non-defining, non-exclusive way, with other women.”

Nigella Lawson (1960) British food writer, journalist and broadcaster

As written in "Sapphism is more than designer-dykery" by Nigella Lawson in The Guardian http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,416467,00.html (31 December 2000)

Joseph Massad photo
Camille Paglia photo
Catharine A. MacKinnon photo
Troy Perry photo
Amber Benson photo
Camille Paglia photo

“When I meet gay men anywhere in the world, there is a spontaneity and a spirit of fun and mischief that lesbians seem incapable of.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Source: Vamps and Tramps (1994), "No Law in the Arena: A Pagan Theory of Sexuality", p. 78

Maddox photo

“When I say this game is hard, I mean hard like nipples-on-a-blind-lesbian-in-a-fish-market hard.”

Maddox (1978) American internet writer

The Best Page in the Universe

Portia de Rossi photo
Pat Robertson photo
John Kennedy Toole photo
Camille Paglia photo
Robin Morgan photo
Barney Frank photo

“I do have things I would like to see adopted on behalf of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people: they include the right to marry the individual of our choice; the right to serve in the military to defend our country; and the right to a job based solely on our own qualifications. I acknowledge that this is an agenda, but I do not think that any self-respecting radical in history would have considered advocating people's rights to get married, join the army, and earn a living as a terribly inspiring revolutionary platform.”

Barney Frank (1940) American politician, former member of the House of Representatives for Massachusetts

Frank on being accused of having a "radical homosexual agenda" Statement of U.S. Representative Barney Frank on the Inclusion of people who are Transgender in Antidiscrimination Protection Legislation (March 2008) http://www.house.gov/frank/antidiscriminationmarch2008.html