Lesbians

Lesbian is the term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic attraction between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an adjective, to describe characteristics of an object or activity related to female same-sex attraction.

"Lesbian" as a concept, used to differentiate women with a shared sexual orientation, is a 20th-century construct. Throughout history, women have not had the same freedom or independence to pursue homosexual relationships as men, but neither have they met the same harsh punishment as homosexual men in some societies. Instead, lesbian relationships have often been regarded as harmless and incomparable to heterosexual ones unless the participants attempted to assert privileges traditionally enjoyed by men.

 As a result, little in history has been documented to give an accurate description of how female homosexuality has been expressed. When early sexologistsin the late 19th century began to categorize and describe homosexual behavior, hampered by a lack of knowledge about the female homosexuality or women's sexuality, they distinguished lesbians as women who did not adhere to female gender roles and incorrectly designated them mentally ill - a designation which has been reversed in the global scientific community.