Lesbian Visibility Day: Meet celebrities who raise the LGBTQIA+ flag

This Thursday, August 29, Brazil celebrates National Lesbian Visibility Day, a historically recent date: it was established in 1996, at the first National Lesbian Seminar. The event took place in Rio de Janeiro and paid tribute to Rosely Roth, one of the pioneers in the history of defending LGBT rights in Brazil.

An anthropologist, Rosely founded pioneering movements such as the Lesbian Feminist Group, SOS Mulher and the Lesbian-Feminist Action Group. She died in 1990, at the age of 31, from suicide. Today, the date of her death marks the importance of the fight for visibility for one of the historically most silenced groups within the LGBTQIA+ acronym.

If today artists like Ludmilla, Daniela Mercury, Lucy Alves and Bruna Linzmeyer proudly raise the lesbian flag, it wasn’t always like that. In order for Linzmeyer to campaign for the normalization of the word “dyke”, other women went through moments of insecurity regarding the acceptance of their sexual orientation.

Open and happy mothers of twins, Nanda Costa and Lan Lanh dated in secret for five years because the actress was afraid of losing roles on TV. Ludmilla and dancer Brunna Gonçalves also hid their relationship initially, fearing possible rejection from fans. Today, all of them — and many other stars — continue to fight. But now for more visibility for the lesbian cause, and not to hide any kind of feelings.