Sapphic Fandom

Trope · Genre
Synonyms:	wlw Fandom
Related:	Representation, Lesbianism, Bisexuality, Pansexuality
See Also:	Queer Fandom, Mspec Fandom,
Tropes · Slash Tropes · Tropes by Fandom
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Sapphic Fandom one of many possible terms for fandom communities composed of or focusing on women and non binary folk who identify as sapphic in some way, most notably lesbians and mspec women/enbies.

Fans within these spaces may use a variety of terms to describe their identities and experiences, including lesbian, bisexual, pansexual, wlw, sapphic, queer, and others. Sapphic fandom is distinct from femslash fandom in that femslash fandom focuses on pairings between or involving queer women, while sapphic fandom involves the distinct ways that lesbian and mspec women's or enbies' identities informs, impacts, or influences how fandom is engaged with.

Canon Representation

Lesbian

• Alex Danvers on Supergirl (TV series)
• Anissa Pierce on Black Lightning
• Willow Rosenberg on Buffy the Vampire Slayer
• Alex Vause, Nicky Nichols, Poussey Washington, Suzanne Warren, Sophia Burset and Carrie Black on Orange Is the New Black
• Irene Adler on Sherlock (TV series)
• Santana Lopez on Glee
• Cheryl Blossom on Riverdale
• Amity Blight on The Owl House
• Villanelle on Killing Eve
• Adora and Catra on She-Ra and the Princesses of Power
• Charlie Bradbury on Supernatural
• America Chavez in Marvel Comics

Bi

See Also: Bisexuality and Fandom

• Rosa Diaz on Brooklyn Nine-Nine
• Avatar Korra and Asami Sato on The Legend of Korra
• Callie Torres on Grey's Anatomy
• Luz Noceda on The Owl House
• Piper Chapman on Orange is the New Black
• Brittany S. Pierce on Glee
• Clarke Griffin on The 100
• Annalise Keating on How To Get Away With Murder
• Tina Kennard on The L Word
• Kyoshi on Avatar: The Last Airbender

Fandom

Sapphic Fandom and Femslash

See also: History of Femslash Fandom, Timeline of Femslash, and Timeline of Femslash Meta

Writing From Experience or For Representation

Sapphic fandom has a strong presence in femslash fandom, and it is often assumed that most femslash creators are sapphic in some way.

Since the early 2000’s, meta on writing femslash as a sapphic creator has discussed a number of different approaches and attitudes. For some sapphics who read or write femslash, the primary draw is interest in depictions of women’s experiences, and specifically queer women’s experiences .

A number of sapphic fans through the years have discussed writing femslash as a way to represent their own experiences. Sometimes this includes a feeling that no one else will write femslash if they (the creator) doesn’t:

The glib answer to this question [Why do you write femslash] is that I’m a queer woman myself, of course I write/read female characters and especially romance between them.

[snipped] So the answer here is, I mostly write and read female characters and femslash relationships because it’s what’s most relevant to my interests but also because a lot of the time I feel like if I don’t, nobody will. (I’ve also written in a majority of the popular f/f relationship tags, while I’ve written in a whole two of the popular m/m ones.) I’m consistently unsatisfied with how little there is to read for what I’m into (healthy f/f relationships with a variety of variables, including elaborate AUs an pleasantly kinky sex) so I write it myself. My wife and I write together to fill this need. It’s what we do

[snipped] We figure if we want it, at least some others might, and it seems to be that way (we have some fans, although we’ve also had a hilarious incident with someone angry that our fic was “too political” and also that it didn’t feature enough canon [white heterosexual] relationships). But mostly we do it because it’s important to us. Additionally, we do go out of our way to highlight and make up for canonical and fandom treatment of POC characters and relationships they’re in.

Some specifically highlight the sense of hope it gives them, especially in light of mainstream portrayals of sapphic relationships considered inadequate or harmful (including those subject to Dead Lesbian Syndrome):

The overwhelming answer of a community composed of predominantly lesbian and bisexual women to, “How do you feel about mainstream media’s portrayal of lesbians?” was that lesbians are flatly underrepresented, and poorly represented when they are.

[snipped] As a teenager struggling with my own sexual identity in the 1990s, I was keenly aware of my options according to those rare mainstream lesbian portrayals: kill myself, be killed for being myself, or die of natural causes but alone and desperately unhappy.

[snipped] More than any other genre of fanfiction, femslash is a place where the sex is always good and the endings are always happy. In response to the categoric lack of happy endings for lesbians in mainstream media, femslash stories exist as a place where, while perhaps a relationship might begin with misunderstandings and strife, and surrounding characters may respond to the main ship’s romance with derision and violence, the end is idyllic and accepting.

Looking back, it’s perfectly natural that I was processing my own experiences and identity crises through fictional characters, especially when I was the one in control of their fates. I couldn’t find enough lesbians in the media who actually got the girl and came out on top and didn’t kill themselves, but on the Internet, femslash was giving me more than just a queer character who made it to the end of the story. Femslash characters got to thrive and survive and have messy beautiful love. I finally saw the happy endings I didn’t know I was allowed to have.

Others focus on the opportunity femslash gives them to explore nuanced and complex relationships and sexuality:

I feel a kind of—bone-deep lack, in the culture I live in, around the unacknowledged urgency of female sexuality. I am a woman who overwhelmingly prefers to sleep with other women; and I am also a woman whose primary reason for leaving a thirteen-year partnership, was that I was sexually unfulfilled; and I am also a woman who dislikes children; and I am also a woman whose first instinct is generally to challenge rather than to nurture; and I am also a woman who craves solitude and artistic expression above human company. And in all of these things I feel a just—starving lack of fellowship with the vast majority of female media portrayals. [snipped] So I feel a bone-deep compulsion to write, not just fiction about women, but sexually explicit fiction about women; and sexually explicit fiction about complicated, sharp-edged, not-necessarily-good-people women; and sexually explicit fiction about women who want sex, like—not women who are putting up with sex because they’re in love and it’s what the other person wants; not women who do want sex but only because it’s this special True Love partner (not that there’s anything inaccurate about either portrayal, they’re just not what I particularly want to write); but women who, in the presence of emotional connection or no, are sexually drawn to other women and act on that desire. Women whose lusts and infatuations are viewed as equally strong and compelling as mens’; because that’s been my experience, that’s been my—passionate and forcibly life-changing experience; but it’s not what I see reflected in mainstream media, or in peoples’ assumptions about me as a woman in the real world.

For additional meta or articles on the subject of representation and writing to one’s experience, see for instance:

• Why smart lesbians read and write fanfiction, 2012 article (archived from the original)
• The I Am Femslash essays (2017)
• There Are Secret Butch Lesbian Characters Hidden in Every Movie and TV Show, ^{Archived version}. Slate, written by Lena Wilson, June 28, 2018 (Accessed November 9 2021).

Quality and Themes of Femslash Content

Some sapphics through the decades have felt frustrated by what they feel is a lack of diversity, complexity, or variety in the topics and themes given focus in femslash .

Sometimes the frustration seems directed at the source material fans are responding to:

The most sexist and exhausting thing in wlw content is how fucking soft it always is and how it must be perfect and completely soft with no rough edges otherwise its toxic and bad but nothing is perfect and wlw and women in general arent some perfect useless angels who do nothing but blush and braid each other hair like all wlw are different with layers and problems and im fucking starving for some actually interesting enjoyable wlw content with actual fucking emotions realness roughness mistakes complexity development and raw non conforming beauty

Sapphic Fandom and Slash

Sapphics have written extensively through the decades about their interest and participation in slash fandom.

Some fans directly contrast their interest in slash to a hesitance in writing femslash; for instance, while discussing the assumption that if you’re writing femslash you must be a queer woman .

A number of fans describe wanting some distance from writing their own experiences:

I realized that my distance from the material is different in female slash. I have all of that equipment, I have sex with women -- I wasn't able to go with the flow so much. There was an intermediate level doing the rather stupid job of checking each piece of action and thinking, 'would I like this,' 'have I done this,' 'would I do this with (Jenna (Y), Beverly (Maybe), Gina (Y), Trudy (Y), Cally (Y), Dayna (YES, YES, YES), Servalan (not unless I had someone holding a gun on her at the same time). I don't know what this means, but I'd love to hear from other women about it--queer and straight.

For me, the primary thing I look for is a reflection of the gay experience that I can identify with, and those issues are pretty much the same for gay men as they are for Lesbians, especially boiled down to their essentials. (For example, most homosexuals of either sex question their own gender identity. Whether characters decide that their natural inclination is to follow tradition – i.e., be a feminine woman or a masculine man – or that the opposite sex's traditional identity works best for them or that they're somewhere in between, doesn't matter to me. What matters is, I asked these questions of myself and learned what worked for me as an individual, and I sympathize with this journey regardless of where it leads for the individual in question.) So either kind of slash works for me. But I don't really want to write about feminist issues. And I don't think many other contemporary women do either. I think we're ready for the equality of the sexes to be taken for granted. We're tired of having to argue about it. We want to bypass the whole issue.

Slash fanfiction transgresses by revolving around a queer couple. This appeals to me because it better reflects my life than does het fiction. However, considering the queer couple in question is generally male/male, slash also has the benefit of *not* being a reflection of my life. There is no character to whom I have to compare myself, nor one with whom I would hypothetically be competing… The stories aren’t about me and aren’t supposed to be about me, which I find freeing. In some ways, I think that allows me to explore issues I might otherwise steer clear from – complexities of life and imperfections of character that aren’t all lovely and happy and easy to handle, but make the character and/or the story ring true.

Other fans have shared that they feel writing slash allows them to escape sexism or negative experiences that women have. For instance, this fannish essay argues that slash allows women to avoid objectification and the heterosexual gaze:

I argue that slash’s sweeping popularity has to do with women’s shared experience. No woman, gay, straight, bi, demi, pan, queer or ace, can completely escape the narrow paradigms of female sexuality that are imposed on her. Our sexualities are reflected to us through the lens of gendered stereotypes, with its assumptions of female passivity to the man’s agency, of woman as conquered, dominated, objectified and demeaned by the heterosexual sex act. By using two male bodies, slash does away with these paradigms and offers women a chance to explore their sexual desires freely. In addition, it gives women the means to escape from the “forced identification” that necessarily follows from using a heterosexual pairing, and allows them to identify into the sex scene as much or as little as they are comfortable. And lastly, the world of slash is one that is completely free of female sexual objectification.

Another fan on Tumblr wrote in 2019, on the topic of tropes she enjoyed in slash but not het fic:

[snipped]… it’s much more difficult for me, and I think for many women, to relax and enjoy romantic and sexual stories when they involve female characters. We’ve been burned too many times by shitty depictions, by shallow role models, by abuse portrayed as romantic. We have developed a stress response, a trauma response to heterosexual romance. We are hyper-reactive to a wide variety of triggers in regards to it. But removing women from the equation makes stories safer for us. And maybe it shouldn’t? In an ideal world? But for many of us, that’s the truth.

The post, which has over 49,000 notes on Tumblr as of December 2021, contained a fair amount of commentary and critique from other fans, either on the topics raised by the OP or about how the concepts raised related to femslash content.

Male Characters and the Sapphics Who Love Them

Non-Sapphic Characters

Some characters popular within sapphic fandom are not sapphic themselves:

• Thor - For some time, Thor was dubbed the "God of Lesbians." Fanworks of him setting up and being the wingman for Valkyrie, who is canonically bi, emerged.

Specific Fandoms

Some fandoms are known for having a larger sapphic following than others, whether intentionally or not. Many of these are known to be key examples of lesbian media or an important part of sapphic fandom culture:

Genre	Fandom	Intentional Sapphic Following?	Medium	Character	Ship	Actor	Other
Action/Adventure	Xena: Warrior Princess		TV	Xena Gabrielle	Xena/Gabrielle	Lucy Lawless
Action/Adventure	Person of Interest		TV	Root Sameen Shaw	Shoot
Action/Adventure	Terminator: Dark Fate		Film		Dani Ramos/Grace Harper	Mackenzie Davis
Anime	Diebuster		Anime	Lal’c Nono	Lal’c/Nono
Anime	Revolutionary Girl Utena	Intentional	Anime	Utena Anthy	Utena/Anthy
Anime/Manga	Puella Magi Madoka Magica	Intentional	Anime/Manga	Kaname Madoka Akemi Homura Miki Sayaka Sakura Kyoko Tomoe Mami	Numerous pairings, including Madoka/Homura, Kyouko/Sayaka, and Mami/Homura, as well as pairings from the spin-offs
Anime	Kill la Kill		Anime	Matoi Ryuko Mankanshoku Mako Kiryuin Satsuki	Ryuko/Mako
Cartoon	She-ra and the Princesses of Power	Intentional. The show is often described as having a sapphic vibe throughout and is ine of few source texts in which Everyone is Queer is the generally accepted fanon (if not semi-canonical).	TV	She-Ra Catra Glimmer	Catra/Adora Catra/Adora/Glimmer
Comedy	Glee	Somewhat intentional. After fans launched a campaign to make Brittana canon following a throwaway line about them hooking up in the mid-season finale of season 1.	TV	Santana Lopez Brittany S. Pierce	Brittana
Drama	The L Word	Very intentional. The first American television series to have a cast consisting mostly of lesbian characters.	TV	Bette Porter Tina Kennard	Tibette
Drama	Orange Is the New Black	Intentional.	TV	Piper Chapman Alex Vause Poussey Washington	Piper/Alex Taystee Jefferson/Poussey Washington Brooke Soso/Poussey Washington	Samira Wiley
Drama	Dead to Me		TV	Judy Hale Jen Harding	Jen Harding/Judy Hale Judy Hale/Michelle Gutierrez
Drama	Killing Eve	Intentional.	TV	Eve Polastri Villanelle	Eve Polastri/Villanelle	Sandra Oh Jodie Comer
Drama	Grace and Frankie		TV	Grace Hanson Frankie Bergstein	Grace/Frankie	Lily Tomlin
Historical Fiction	Gentleman Jack	Very intentional. It is based on the extensive collection of diaries Anne Lister kept which were partly written in a secret code, documenting a lifetime of lesbian relationships.	TV	Anne Lister Ann Walker	Anne Lister/Ann Walker
Historical Fiction	Dickinson		TV	Emily Dickinson Susan Gilbert Dickinson	Emily Dickinson/Susan Gilbert Dickinson
Historical Fiction	The Handmaiden	Intentional	Film	Nam Sook-hee Izumi Hideko	Izumi Hideko/Nam Sook-hee
Historical Fiction	Portrait of a Lady on Fire	Intentional.	Film	Marianne Heloise	Heloise/Marianne
Historical Fiction	Carol	Very intentional. Based off the novel “The Price of Salt” from 1952, which portrayed a lesbian relationship.	Film	Carol Aird Therese Belivet Abby Gerhard	Carol Aird/Therese Belivet Carol Aird/Abby Gerhard	Cate Blanchett Rooney Mara
Horror	The Haunting of Bly Manor	Intentional	TV	Dani Clayton Jamie Taylor	Dani Clayton/Jamie Taylor
Romantic Comedy	But I’m a Cheerleader	Intentional	Film				Sometimes uses as a fusion fic
Romantic Comedy	Imagine Me and You	Intentional	Film	Luce Rachel
Romantic Comedy	Happiest Season	Intentional.	Film	Harper Caldwell Abby Holland Riley Johnson	Harper/Abby Abby/Riley Sloane/Riley	Mackenzie Davis Kristen Stewart Aubrey Plaza
Science Fiction	Supergirl	Mostly unintentional	TV	Kara Danvers Lena Luthor Alex Danvers Cat Grant Diana (Wonder Woman)	Many, including Kara/Lena Kara/Cat Kara/Alex Kara/Diana
Science Fiction	Orphan Black	Intentional	TV	Cosima Niehaus Delphine Cormier	Cophine
Science Fiction	Sense8	Intentional	TV	Nomi Marks Amanita “Neets” Caplan	Amanita/Nomi
Science Fiction	San Junipero	Intentional	TV	Kelly, Yorkie	Kelly/Yorkie	Mackenzie Davis Gugu Mbatha-Raw
Science Fiction Fantasy Horror	The Locked Tomb	Intentional	Novel	Gideon Nav Harrowhark “Harrow” Nonagesimus Ianthe Tridentarius	Gideon Nav/Harrowhark Nonagesimus Harrowhark Nonagesimus/Ianthe Tridentarius	N/A
Science Fiction	This Is How You Lose the Time War	Intentional	Novel	Red and Blue	Red/Blue	N/A
Supernatural (genre)	Wynonna Earp	Somewhat Intentional	TV	Waverly Earp Nicole Haught	Wayhaught
Video Game	Life is Strange	Intentional	Video Game	Max Caulfield Chloe Price Rachel Amber Kate Marsh Victoria Chase	Max Caulfield/Chloe Price Max Caulfield/Victoria Chase Max Caulfield/Kate Marsh Rachel Amber/Chloe Price Rachel Amber/Chloe Price/Max Caulfield	Ashly Burch
Video Game Horror	The Last of Us	Intentional	TV	Ellie, Dina, Abby	Ellie/Dina	Elliot Page Ashley Johnson
Webseries	Carmilla	Intentional. Specifically targetted towards sapphics.	Web series	Carmilla Karnstein Laura Hollis	Hollstein	Natasha Negovanlis Elise Bauman
Webseries	Critical Role	Intentional. Especially in Campaign 2, there are a number of canon queer or sapphic characters.	Web series, podcast	Beauregard Lionett Yasha Nydoorin Jester Lavorre	Beauregard/Yasha Beauregard/Jester Beauregard/Jester/Yasha Beau/Keg Beau/Reani	Ashley Johnson Ashly Burch Ashley Johnson Laura Bailey
Podcast	Alice Isn’t Dead	Intentional. Also notable in that the title and creators specified before the show aired that the show would not bury their gays	Podcast	Keisha, Alice	Keisha/Alice	Jasika Nicole Erica Livingston Roberta Colindrez

Popular Ships

• Xena/Gabrielle
• Tibette
• Willow/Tara - Buffy
• Supercorp
• Swan Queen - OUAT
• Clexa - The 100
• Brittana and Faberry - Glee
• Hollstein
• Wayhaught
• Catradora - She-Ra and the Princesses of Power
• Korrasami - The Legend of Korra
• Bubbline - Adventure Time
• Root/Shaw from Person of Interest
• Kanaya/Rose from Homestuck
• Uranus/Neptune from Sailor Moon
• Utena/Anthy from Revolutionary Girl Utena
• Numerous pairings from Puella Magi Madoka Magica, including Madoka/Homura, Kyouko/Sayaka, and Mami/Homura, as well as pairings from the spin-offs
• Ryuko/Mako from Kill la Kill
• Villaneve
• Lumity - The Owl House

Popular Characters

• Elena Alvarez - One Day at a Time
• Santana Lopez - Glee
• Kara Danvers, Alex Danvers, and Lena Luthor - Supergirl

Specific Actresses

For various reasons, certain actresses appear to have a much larger following of sapphic fans than others:

• Lucy Lawless
• Katie McGrath - Katie's large sapphic following may go some ways to explain the popularity of Supercorp. Many of the earlier fans she gained through Merlin as Morgana Pendragon followed her to Supergirl and her character Lena Luthor, and many who watch the latter first go back to the former.
• Brie Larson
• Kristen Stewart
• Cate Blanchett
• Ruth Wilson - Particularly through her character Marisa Coulter in His Dark Materials.
• Dianna Agron - Primarily fans of Glee who ship Faberry or headcanon Quinn Fabray as a lesbian.
• Naya Rivera - Primarily fans of Glee who like the character Santana Lopez and ship Brittana.
• Sandra Oh
• Sarah Paulson
• Aubrey Plaza

Other Real People

• Rose & Rosie - Youtubers
• Jojo Siwa - Youtubers
• Hayley Kiyoko - Singer
• Taylor Swift - Singer
• Janelle Monáe - Singer
• girl in red - Singer
• Phoebe Bridges - Singer
• Kehlani - Singer

Popular Headcanons

Some characters seem to be more commonly headcanoned as sapphic in some way than others:

• Carol Danvers from Captain Marvel
• Elsa from Frozen - So common that #GiveElsaAGirlfriend trended on Twitter
• Merida from Brave
• Jo March from Little Women
• Quinn Fabray from Glee
• Alice Cullen from Twilight

Common Themes & Tropes

• Lesbian & Himbo Dynamic
• Useless Lesbians: The phrase useless lesbians, spread as a meme on tumblr, refers to lesbians or bi women who miss obvious flirting from other women. The term is sometimes used in fanfiction and other fanworks and has over 3000 works in its canonized tag on Archive of Our Own.

Intersectionality

Issues of Racism

• I’m quitting Femslash Fandom - Tumblr post by hijadepavlov about the racism within femslash/sapphic fandom

LGBT Fans Deserve Better

Main article: LGBT Fans Deserve Better

LGBT Fans Deserve Better is a fan-led movement that came about in 2016 in response to the death of Lexa on the television series The 100, as well as the disproportionately large number of queer female characters killed off on television around the same time. The movement garnered widespread media and industry support, and propelled the "Bury Your Gays" trope into a national talking point.

Writing about the movement in a 2017 editorial for the Transformative Works and Cultures, Dr. Eve Ng and Dr. Julie Levin Russo noted the unique position sapphic fandoms have with regards to fan activism:

Male slashers have made similar interventions, for example regarding characters Derek and Stiles on the show Teen Wolf (MTV, 2011–), but they are less typical and arguably less effective than instances from femslash communities. The fusion that femslash presumes between fans and characters in terms of sexual and gender identities affords it this powerful platform for literal campaigns of resistance to heteronormative structures.

Fanworks

Fests & Exchanges

See: Category:Femslash Challenges for a listing of Femslash exchanges documented on Fanlore

• sapphic_hp Femmeslash Fanathon (2004-5)

Fanarts

• 

  Ruby and Sapphire from Steven Universe with nonbinary pride wristbands and lesbian pride headbands. Sapphire is kissing Ruby's cheek and they are both blushing. (Moon, 2017)

• 

  Make Love, Not War - Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy by samarasketch (2019)

Zines

See Category:Yuri Doujinshi and Category:Femslash Zines for a list of F/F zines and Doujinshi documented on Fanlore.

• touched (multifandom zine) (1984-7)

This zine was an early example of a more political fanzine, created by a lesbian and gay sci-fi fanclub and operated as a collective.

• Politically Incorrect (zine) (1986-7)

Not primarily F/F focused, but the editor's named lesbians in the Star Trek universe as one of their priorities.

• Sapphic Overwatch Zine, edited by Hattersarts (2016)
• That But Lesbians, contains genderswapped het ships. Edited by hattersarts (2019)

Meta

See also: Timeline of Femslash Meta

Communities & Websites

Discussion Boards

• The L Chat - a lesbian message board where many sapphic fandoms congregate

Archives

• SapphicVoices Fan Fiction, a Xena specific archive
• Passion and Perfection, one of the biggest archives devoted to F/F
• Sapphic_HP
• Girls' Dormitory, a defunct Harry Potter femslash archive
• SapphicSlayer, a BtVS archive

Conventions

• ClexaCon - a multifandom procon geared towards queer female fans and creators

Resources & External Links

• Queer Female Fandom, Vol 24 (2017) of the Transformative Works and Cultures.
  • See also Ng, Eve, and Julie Levin Russo. 2017. "Envisioning Queer Female Fandom" [editorial]. In "Queer Female Fandom," edited by Julie Levin Russo and Eve Ng, special issue, Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 24. http://dx.doi.org/10.3983/twc.2017.1168.