Bruised bellies

By Róise

As I press the injection into my bruised belly, my mind wanders back over the moments, the hours, the days, the months, the years that led to this.

I see her, just a face in a bar; our first hello, a drink, a chat, some smiles, an excitement, jitters.

I see our love grow; dinners, dates, I love yous, nervous chats sharing what we each want…

A shared home, a ring, a promise.

I see our first appointment; talk of fertility, tests, sperm, eggs, heads full but hearts full too, brimming.

I see the day, the dancing, the I do’s, dancing under the stars and the love - all of the lovely love.

I see the first tablet, the first injection, the hope, the excitement, the exhilaration.

I see the first disappointment, the heartache and break, the tears, the embraces, holding each other from falling apart, the care and the kindnesses that rebuild.

I see the strength build again, and the efforts and the strength, the love and the pain – intertwined, interwoven, mashed up into one.

I see the lows – body bent over the sink, unable to stand, wrists grasping the taps, tears from the depths of within, the longing, the lost hope, the weakness, and the greatest worry, the worst fear – that it may never be.

Then I see the smiles - the rebuilt, rediscovered hope and joy, dates for scans, procedures, positive results, the beginnings… the fear to let yourself hope, but the desire to give it a go.

And now, the continued work - injections morning and night, tablets, acupuncture pins, vitamins, supplements, life changes, rest, treatments, medications, fridges, sharps bins, chemists, clinics, the money, hospitals – and waiting. 

So much waiting.
Waiting for results. 

Waiting for the day. 

Waiting for results of the day. 

Waiting for the next day. 

Waiting for the next and the next and the next..

I pull the needle out and wince at the sting.

I finally, tentatively start to see us as mothers. Mammy and mam, mum and mama. Our little family growing.

I see what might be – belly growing bigger, tears of joy telling friends, family, their hopes too; sickness, pushing, a newborn’s cry, skin to skin, tears of relief, exhaustion, cots, buggies, four hands joined on walks. Growing old, a family of three or four.

My poor, bruised belly will heal, our tears will turn to smiles, and we will mother, one day soon.

People Like Us

By Aisling Walsh

People like us - 

circling our different worlds, stretched over two continents, across two cultures -

were never supposed to meet. 

I was first to cross the border for work, then study and somewhere in between one heartbreak and a pandemic we matched on Tinder. 

People like us - 

White contra Morena, English contra Español, Woman contra Mujer - 

were never supposed to fall in love.

But you won me over with your dimpled smile, your love for cycling and your joy of greasy tacos slathered in chilli. 

People like us –

with our buzzcuts, flannel shirts, pink hair and other less visible but far more profound divergences – 

Were never supposed to marry. 

And though certain characteristics – our genders, our nationalities and other legalities – made this process extra onerous, we still managed a ceremony, a registry office and a party as family, friends and even some strangers came together, across two continents and three countries to share our joy. 

People like us –

whose passports do not match –

were never supposed to come back.  

But work, life and the promise of more adventures called us back. So we crossed my border, the one that demands a full dossier to prove our relationship, prove our marriage, prove our income, prove our employment, prove our address and countless other articles of evidence to demonstrate our legitimacy in being together on my side of the ocean. And though it felt sordid and unjust to have to prove our love to a government functionary we met for five minutes, were able to provide the necessary evidence and were awarded a stamp of approval that gives us a one year respite before we do it all again.

People like us –

who chose to be visible even when it still scares us –

were never supposed to live in a place like this.

But we found a house by the sea in the kind village I ran away from at 18 because I could no longer deal with the weight of feeling different. The kind of village where I thought people like us would never feel welcome. And even though we have won some funny looks and braved the odd catcall, we also found a community of people who are a lot like us. What a joy to discover that, 20 years after leaving home, visibility in Ireland is no longer confined to the cities and that were are not the only queers in the village.  

Blush

By Cáitríona Murphy

Ruby could smell the cold off her bomber jacket as she shifted from one foot to the other trying to get blood circulating to her toes. It crept up her trouser legs and down the collar of her shirt. She wished she had listened to her mam when she told her to wear a second pair of socks today but Ruby’s mam did not approve of her working as a security guard so Ruby could never show how much the cold got to her. Her mam did not approve because she didn’t think it was a job for a girl to do or a ‘young woman’ as her mother referred to her as now. Ruby’s mam said the uniform made her look ‘mannish’ but Ruby liked the uniform. She liked how it wasn’t too tight and it didn’t accentuate anything in particular, and she liked how comfortable it was and how strong it made her feel, confident even.

Ruby has spent 1280 hours working in the shop so far this year, that’s four 8-hour shifts per week for 40 weeks excluding the one day off she had in June for a root canal. She does between 130 and 144 laps of the shop in a 8 hour shift. She walks on average 22,000 steps per shift, including the 300 steps she walks to and from work. She has caught 42 people stealing this year. An increase on last year, probably the cost of living crisis and all that she thought. When she catches people stealing she brings them to the manager who reports them to the gardaí. That’s the protocol so that’s what she does. If people just didn’t have to pay for the chewing gum they sneaked into their pocket, the extra pepper they threw into their bag, or the pack of tampons they tried to hide under their arm then things would just be chaos. We’d all like free chewing gum and peppers and tampons, but that’s just not how the world works. Needless to say Ruby does not like thieves. She acknowledges that she wouldn’t have a job without them but that doesn’t mean that she has to like them.

After finishing her 112th lap of the day Ruby goes to her post at the front of the shop to have a look at the security cameras for a birdseye view of her domain. As she scanned the live footage on the new HD monitors she insisted the manager buy last month, she noticed something suspicious happening at the back of the store in between the ‘T aste of Asia’ aisle and the ‘Canned Food and Pasta’ aisle. There was a woman there who appeared to be putting several packs of tofu into her jacket pockets, of which there were many. Ruby hurried towards the woman, skirting past the queue of lunchtime shoppers, down the ‘Cereals and Baking’ aisle, taking a right at the ‘Hummus and Dips’ fridge, and finally approaching the woman just as she was leaving the aisle.

‘Excuse me Miss’ , Ruby said.

The woman kept walking. This annoyed Ruby, so she repeated it louder following the woman until she stopped and turned. Ruby’s breath caught in her throat, and she could feel her cheeks redden. Ruby had never experienced this before with a man or woman, this level of attraction.

Ruby traced the woman’s face with her eyes from her dimpled chin, up her cheekbones to her eyes that were now glaring at her.

‘Yes?’ the woman said insolently.

‘I, uhm, I…’ Ruby stammered. The woman looked at her curiously and let out a small smile, which made Ruby’s cheeks redden even more.

‘I… I saw you in the cameras’, she finally blurted out. The woman’s smile broadened and now Ruby felt as if her whole face was on fire. Finally, Ruby got control of her thoughts and said calmly but with a slight edge to her voice,

‘I saw you stealing on the cameras. I saw you take the tofu’, glancing down at the woman’s bulging pockets

The woman continued to smile as she started to rummage in her pockets. But instead of pulling out the tofu as Ruby had expected she took out a piece of paper, wrote something on it and handed it to Ruby before walking away. Ruby looked down at the piece of paper and saw a 10-digit number written on it. She wanted to go after the woman and tell her that she had to return the tofu, and that stealing was illegal, and that Ruby needed to report her to the Guards, and that she was banned from the shop… but she couldn’t. She could barely move, she just stood there looking at the piece of paper with the mobile number on it and smiled.

Your voice is your connection with your community

By Jacqueline Daly

I thought about creating a fiction piece for this issue, but after some reflection, I realized it's more important to write about my real-life experiences at this time. I want to offer a sense of sisterhood to other queer women and non-binary folk and show that their voices matter, even if the world around us sometimes feels unwelcoming and difficult to navigate.

As a teenager, I knew I was gay early on. Growing up in rural Ireland, the realisation came with implications for my future and how I would view myself as a young adult. I want readers to understand that when I discovered this about myself, there weren't as many options as there are now. Education on the subject was limited, and I was scared of all the unknowns ahead of me as a result.

Gay marriage was legalized in Ireland on November 16, 2015. While this wasn't the start of my own life, as I am twenty-six at the time of writing this, from that moment onward I can say that my life, for the better, was never the same. When I was a teenager, gay marriage wasn't even on my social media feed, let alone discussed in my secondary school, not positively at least. Other students at school knew or suspected that I was gay, even though I tried my best to hide it.

As I got older and the apparent differences became more obvious, the fact that I couldn't get married in the future, in Ireland, became a target for many hurtful comments from some less understanding classmates. So, I cocooned myself in music, books, and playing Nintendo, trying to ignore the prickling sensation of classmates' eyes staring at me like I was an exotic animal in a zoo everyday. I did my best to navigate my teenage years in silence, though I wasn't always successful, to survive.

There was a mandatory silence on any topic involving the LGBT+ community, both in social settings and in the classroom. I knew about the Lego Movie before I knew there were people fighting to ensure I had the same rights as my classmates, to marry who I chose to be with, in my own country. Looking back, it seems strange and a bit silly knowing which was more common knowledge. Before the election, especially among students who could vote, badges supporting ‘Vote Yes’ started to appear. I listened to the radio every morning on my way to school, but I didn't realize a referendum was coming or fully understand what it meant until I saw those badges. The hallway chatter went from a whisper to a roar, at least in my mind.

These badges were like lighthouses in a never-ending storm I had to navigate in my mind every day. They were proof that, despite all the hateful rhetoric I had faced both online and in person, that there were real people—people my age who knew me, who might even be in the same situation or knew someone who was—who believed and openly stated and were communicating that myself and others deserved equal rights like everyone else.

And while I couldn’t fully express it at the time or vote, it did ignite something positive inside me for the very first time.I started paying more attention to politics when my parents turned on the news. I’d scan newspaper headlines for updates and read articles I saw in shops. Yes, I prayed overnight as the votes were counted, hoping the world would change for the better when I woke up the next day and the referendum results were finalized.

I felt lighter after the referendum was over. While school didn't become perfect overnight, the imagined stigma that had haunted me—that being a lesbian made me an irredeemable or lesser person who didn't deserve happiness—was gone. A fog had lifted.

And now the fact that I enjoy peppermint in my tea, ice-cream, and favourite chocolate is more debated among my friends today than who I love or date. Nowadays, being a lesbian doesn't cause surprise. Whether I'm single or in a relationship, I have the freedom to choose every day and it’s my choice. There's laughter, book clubs, sports clubs, music, art and friends in my life, instead of the cold silence that used to surround every decision I made about how I presented myself or how I felt about who I was on the inside.

If you can take anything from these eight-hundred words, it is that your voice and visibility matters , then and now. And using that voice is what breathes hope into LGBT+ lives, the lives of those we may not see immediately, when they need it most.

“The High-Power Lesbian” Trope in 2024

by Laoise-Edel

The 'high-power lesbian' trope was placed in the spotlight in the early 2000s, with the Sex and the City episode 'The One with the Power Lesbians' and, more prominently, through multiple characters in The L Word. This trope took form in the iconic and messy Bette Porter, who embodied a vision of queer women as powerful, confident, commanding, and at times desperately trying to get their ex back. The image of the high-power lesbian wearing sharp suits, having flawless hair, and the ability to hold a presence in any meeting room is well and truly owned by Bette Porter. She is the blueprint of the high-powered lesbian. Bettes's personification of the trope has given queer people not only outfit inspiration: from job interviews to nights out but an image of how they could be in professional settings. Despite The L Word ending in 2009,the trope of the high-powered lesbian lives on. After all, who doesn’t love a woman in a suit in charge?

What makes this representation important is that it isn’t just about visibility but empowerment for queer women. Characters like Bette Porter gave queer women then and now something to aspire to. Although Bette is no saint in the show, she offers an image of success, independence, and style that illustrates how queer women could be and thrive in positions of power. Thankfully this trope has continued past the early 2000s, allowing queer women to see themselves reflected on screen in more realistic and nuanced ways. 

Take Lena Waithe's role as Denise in Master of None for example. Her character is more laid back than Bette. However, she still embodies all that the high power lesbian trope is in 2024, with amazing style, career drive, and being unapologetically, joyfully lesbian. Denise taking center stage in season three as a central character is important as you watch the character navigate her marriage, life after becoming a best-selling author, and their inner conflicts (no spoilers, I promise). Lena Waithe summarises the importance of her character best in the intro video Master of None S3 | A Special Look: Denise as it's “not just about queer black people seeing themselves but it’s about queer black people feeling as if they can be complex too.” Denise throughout the show displays a rich life full of love, deep connections, and success all while being visibly queer and authentically themselves.

This trope is further exemplified in Sense8’s character Nomi Marks, a trans lesbian hacker, played by Jamie Clayton. Nomi is undoubtedly a high-power lesbian. Her character arc displays her overcoming societal and familial rejection by living authentically. She subverts stereotypes by being a fully developed queer character, who is not only great at their job but someone who deals with the complexities of being trans and a lesbian all while having a loving supporting relationship.

What makes a “high power lesbian” in 2024, and what I’ve personally always seen it as, is the character's ability to take up space and have presence within themselves which is then reflected back into the rooms they’re in. Characters like Bette, Denise, and Nomi are important examples of this representation as viewers see queer women taking up space, they see parts of themselves within the characters, they see a potential future and what it could look like. Lesbian visibility in series offers a place for queer viewers to relate but more importantly, hope. It shows that living authentically may be difficult at times but worth the joy, pride, and love it brings.