Mary,

As Leanne implied, some of the dislike for the term “lesbian” comes from the lesbian community’s history of women of color (QWOC). For women of color, these feelings run parallel to feelings about “feminism”, which also has a history of excluding black women in particular — to the extent that white suffragists wanted white women to have the right to vote before black people (or didn’t want black people to vote at all).

Leanne’s work to include QWOC, and specifically black and latinx speakers, is a critical step to helping us heal decades of nigh irreversible damage that exclusion has wreaked on our community.