I’m an out and proud lesbian – but after a recent attack, being visible feels scary | Lucy Knight...

"Over the years we’ve been together, my wife and I have become increasingly “visible” as lesbians. There’s the somewhat obvious fact that we’re a couple, which automatically makes us more identifiably gay than we were when we were single. But there’s also been the evolution of our haircuts from straight-passing, to short and choppy, our recent adoption of a cat (it’s a thing, look it up), and the fact that sizeable proportions of our wardrobes consist of dungarees and blazers.

Moulding to stereotypes isn’t, of course, the pinnacle of “lesbian visibility”. But I do think that, having grown up believing that “looking gay” was an insult, the fact that both of us now generally view that description as a compliment demonstrates some degree of self-acceptance. And acceptance – whether it be of yourself or of others – is surely what Lesbian Visibility Week (which we’re currently in, by the way) is all about."