Where Are the Lesbians?

The following is inspired by real events. It is a literary work based on personal memories and curated scenes from my life. Certain names, places, and identifying details have been altered to protect the privacy of individuals.

Text and Photos © Gry Ellebjerg

THE HUMAN COMEDY ● I am her. The woman who asks herself: now what? I don't know if I should laugh or cry. I have a Master's in literature but looking at my life objectively you may wonder if I have only read Barbara Cartland. I knew from my own experience and from the collective knowledge that love was complicated. Yet I treated it as a fairytale. Was I programmed this way in my DNA? Was it a cultural thing? My most important goal has always been to find romantic love. First chasing the prince, then the princess. If I had put the same energy into my working life as I have into my quest to find love, I would be running the world by now. In no particular order: a few scenes from my romantic encounters and how my sexuality has been a major factor in my decisions.

I dated a woman who lived on Cocks Road. I could not stop laughing. The best address ever. We stayed up all night giggling and drinking, calling in sick the next day. We had met a few nights earlier in the Marlborough. She had blonde hair to her shoulders. Dressed as a Barbie in pastels. Her friend was a clairvoyant. I loved the mix. I found out she lived in social housing, was a single mum and on the dole. She gave a very down-to-earth impression. Fish and chips, no-bullshit person. This was our first date. I don't remember what we did before we came to the beach. Perhaps dinner. Drinks. We were tipsy. Took a midnight swim in the English Channel with our clothes on. In bed, later that night, we were only dressed in salt.

I had a crush on a tall Viking with long red hair. I was impressed by her strategy. “If I walk in the park in the middle of the night and a man approaches me, I will hit him with a straight right.” One evening we sat on her couch drinking whisky. That night I walked home in the snow. Unkissed. Her house sat right on top of a rocky cliff. I lived on another one. The moment I reached my door, I knew I had to go back and tell her how I felt. I walked down and up all the hundreds of icy stairs, the winding snowy roads, reaching her doorbell just to tell her I fancied her. I was back to being ten years old, asking a crush to go steady.   

Weeks after Princess Diana's death I had my first slow dance with a lesbian. My body was trembling. I could not stop it. She had long dark brown hair, big square glasses and dressed as the 70s. Sharp mind. We took the same course at the university. I saw her in the line to register, reading a novel. It was like watching my favourite painting. We met over lots of coffee, but never moved past the slow dance.

I turned down my first permanent position as a journalist in Luleå, a city one hour south of the Arctic Circle, to do Women's Studies in Gothenburg. Even in those days, it was hard to get a journalism job. Mine was even tailor-made for me. The chief editor couldn't believe it. “Don't you want to work as a journalist?” I did, but I couldn't tell him the truth. Life up north was amazing. Midnight sun, Sámi people, nature, kindness. But the downside: I was living in the heterosexual meat belt. Like oxygen, I needed lesbians.

While doing Women's studies at the university, I lived in a women's collective. We had dinners and parties all the time. One of my lesbian all-time highs.

I had a thing with a woman who was “in love” with my crush. As it turned out, the three of us were having a fling with each other, completely independently. It was mainly kissing. A lot of talking drama. The idea was to have an open relationship. Now we were negotiating the rules. My first and last poly.

I wanted to eat her. She was hot. Funny. A grown-up's candy store. The way she appreciated silly things like my pasta, or if I had cleaned the apartment, it was as if I had won the lottery. It took me some time before I realised I lived with a spoiled man from the 1950s. She worked as a lawyer, had a Jeep, a sweet family, and played golf. At work, when people asked about my private life, I showed them a picture of her. “We are going to the in-laws this weekend.” Or, “We had a great weekend in Amsterdam. The Anne Frank Museum was so moving.” My partner hit all the approval points. I was a member of “the normal heterosexual lifestyle club." We always got a lot of attention. I felt like a rock star holding her hand in public. I could relax and breathe. On the inside, chaos. Our quarrels took place in a courtroom, or so it felt, I never won an argument. We fought about everything. “If you want to see more of me, book me.” Imagine your love getting killed in a car accident and the last time you saw her you quarrelled. That was our breakup.

I slept over at this cool DJ's house. I knew she had been in a relationship recently. I asked about it, told her it was important to me that she was over her ex. "Oh, I am so over her. More wine?" We started kissing. A few seconds in, she got stiff. We stopped and she excused herself. Her voice sounded surprised: "I thought I was over her. I really did." I got dressed and left. Slammed the door. Not my proudest moment.

I went to the place where the Swedish lesbian writer Karin Boye took her last breath. They found her sitting in the grass. She had taken sleeping pills. If that night had not been so cold, some think she would have survived. She died heartbroken, caught in a tragic triangle, unable to be with the woman she truly loved.

I have gone on vacation to Palm Springs, San Francisco, Skala Eressos and lived a year in Brighton. Over time I have walked in and out of different lesbian and feminist groups.

I have no memory of what clothes I wore when my then partner and I giggled our way through the wedding ceremony to such an extent that we were reprimanded by the officiant. We decided to marry after a month of dating, did it in secret after three, moved in together after five and topped it off with tattooing signs only we knew on our legs. If there was an Oscar for being lesbian, I would have won it. I did eleven inseminations. Got eleven blue minus signs. We divorced shortly after the last test. When I suggested seeing a therapist to figure out if we could find a way back or get a good ending, she replied: “Why? We don’t have kids.” After five minutes of being single she got together with a colleague. Translated into lesbian time that must be regarded as five years.

I had a fling with a woman who always visited with her suitcase full of sex toys.

I had an intense exchange of texts, video messages and phone calls for a few days with a dancer. She was on vacation at her mother's summer house in Greece. We wanted to meet each other so badly that she left a few days earlier, and came straight to Malmö with her big suitcase. I picked her up in a black linen shirt and sky-blue slim Olivia Newton-John stirrup pants. We had sex the first night. I said I wanted to get to know her before we went all in crazy. She cooled down and said, "That's not for me."

I got involved with a Norwegian who lived with her ex-wife with their five dogs in Madrid. After endless phone calls and texts there was one I will never forget. Her: “Are you the person I think you are?” Me: “Yes, I think so.” We were like two princesses in a fairytale waiting to be written. We met. We lived together. We got engaged. It ended in disaster. Three minutes after we had split up she got together with a new love. I started to realise that the role of a lesbian girlfriend was a very exchangeable one. It always took me some time to move on. That is not a good currency to own. It makes me wonder if lesbian love is superficial and in a constant survival mode. Almost like an illusion, a fix more than real emotions and commitment. It reminds me of capitalism in its most raw form. Or is it the opposite. Passionate. Give it your all. When it dies out it keeps going strong with someone else. No time to waste.

I was modelling nude for a lesbian photographer. I took off my clothes but it felt strange. She suggested taking off her clothes as well. To create a more equal setting. We ended up in bed. I wanted to see the photos but she said they had been destroyed while in the developing tank. Years earlier, a male photographer had asked me to pose for some photographs but when he wanted to take nude pictures I said no and left. Only a lesbian can make me do that.

I had a period when I was obsessed with Virginia Woolf. I read everything about her and by her and visited her house in Sussex. Orlando. Vita Sackville-West. I imagined it all. I even met the goldsmith who was a young boy at the time, who had fished her body out of the River Ouse and brought her to the mortuary. My first sold journalistic piece was about Monk's House. I got a mention on the cover of a big newspaper. It was the story I used to get into journalism school.

On the night of the millennium, I met Frankie. She had long blonde hair and looked like a movie star from the 1940s. It seemed impossible not to be close. When it was time to go outside to see the fireworks we got lost from our party. We laughed and talked the whole night, drank a bottle of cava and ended up kissing and having sex surrounded by fireworks and fog. She was an architecture student working extra behind the till. Just seeing her was like being electrified. I convinced her to have a drink with me. She stayed for an hour telling me she had a boyfriend.

We lived in different parts of Sweden but chose Berlin for a reason I can’t remember. I didn’t tell anyone about it. We stayed at the same hotel. Spent three days in each other's company. Over our first dinner, I made the mistake of letting her know that if this developed into a relationship, I would be willing to do what it takes to make it work. She gave me a frosty look. "We are not there yet, are we?" Late the first night, she knocked on my door. She had forgotten her toothpaste. I couldn't read her signals, so I missed my cue and she was out the door. The next day she took me to the zoo. I got sick watching a giant lion in a very small cage. I made an excuse and left. All our hopes vanished the more time we spent together. The last day I was relieved she had brought her friends.

I had a hot date in Berlin. We both wanted a girlfriend. We just had different approaches to getting there. She let me know that she wanted specific things. She started talking from her dating menu. I said, "Could we just hang out without any lists?" We had more drinks. At some point, she started to cry. The next day I met a straight Berliner. We had connected on Tinder. We spent the whole day and night together, talking, seeing art, giggling. While we were having tea in a garden, she gave me a piece of paper and a pen. "Write everything you wish for in a girlfriend. If you do this, she will appear." I regret not kissing her. I should have kissed her.

Watching these scenes is brutal. And exciting. A comedy. A lesbian nordic noir. Thinking that this is just a small fraction, I feel humble. On my deathbed, nobody can accuse me of not trying. A part of me is proud. I celebrate my ability to go all in on love no matter the costs. I went for it until the price was too high. I am obviously a collector of experiences. Each lover a different flavour.

THE DESCENT INTO HELL ● When the pandemic arrived I became the sister of Dante who halfway through life had lost her way. For a few years I had no contact (cocooning relationships) with the lesbian community. I saw the Pride flag everywhere. There was just one problem. Where were the lesbians? At home watching Netflix?

I heard people parroting that lesbians and queers are everywhere. Things had evolved. There was proof. Permanent lesbian spaces were long gone, replaced by the mainstream and a few queer pop-up parties a year. I was told we are just one big norm-conforming family now. Jesus has given us his blessing, and our rights are written in the book of law.

When I explained what I saw, or rather, what I didn't see, to my bisexual date, she didn't get it. "If you ignore dating apps, where do you go if you want to hook up with a woman?" "I don't know," she said. "I mostly date men." Then she assured me it had nothing to do with a lack of spaces. "I just find women more complicated." I couldn't figure out if everyone else was living in a politically correct bubble, or if I was the only one seeing that the emperor was naked.

It was the same creepy feeling I got in 1995 when I came out to my therapist. I was 24 and had broken up with my first love. We had seen each other on and off for five years. The last period, he came and stayed with me in Sweden, proposed and I said yes. Then things happened and he moved back to Los Angeles. Now I sat heartbroken in front of my therapist. Told him I was attracted to women. Without any hesitation he said that I was not a lesbian. “How do you know?” He assured me that if I were, I would already know. I remember how relieved I was. As if I had been given a driver's licence in heterosexuality. We never talked about it again.

Was it all a dream? A hallucination? Was it me? Reality did not add up. If lesbians and queers are everywhere, why was it so hard to find them?

In 2023, my 65-year-old heterosexual therapist, who met her dream man at 19 and has never dated since, said I was too negative when describing my challenges finding love. But to me, the whole thing was largely a practical problem. It became harder the older I got. It’s one thing to be a lesbian when you are young and say yes to everyone. Another when you are older. The pool of single women is small to begin with. Add age, experience, location and the options fade. If a heterosexual woman has thirty potential men to choose from, I have only one. And she is an old ex. The view from that window is alarming. I talked to my therapist about it. With a smile, she said if I just opened up to love, love would find me.

To me, this is mainstream gaslighting: a structural problem turns into a personal one. It happens in a tucked-away room that nobody else can see, in the name of professional help. First in 1995, and then again in 2023. Both of them were very kind. I am sure they meant no harm. If they are guilty of anything, it's ignorance. Perhaps I played some part in the problem but the issue was so much bigger than me. This time, I was lucky to see it for what it was: a dead end. I decided to approach the real experts, something I should have done years ago: The Lesbians.

THE RESURRECTION ● To me, Amazons, the queers, the LGBTQIA+ are a symbol of practical democracy. We challenge norms in a way that has never been done in public before. Whether it's conscious or unconscious, just by breathing, lesbians are tearing down the walls of patriarchy. The walls of the world as we know it. I am still shocked that we were not all contacted by researchers. After all, we are living archaeological fields. While I am at it, I am surprised we don’t get a check every month for all our teaching jobs. Every day, just by staying true to who we are, we educate the world in our way of loving.

Yet, my whole life, I have been told it’s not a big deal being a lesbian. It's a lie of course. Otherwise, why say it. Some heterosexuals even claimed they wished they were lesbians too, enthusiastically name-dropping every gay person they knew. In all their sharing, they forgot to ask the one who knows how it is. It was like playing tennis. Busy catching others' balls, I failed to see the structural problem and took it upon myself as an individual. To see through the complexity of the constant gaslighting, I had to become someone else. Life took care of that.

I was 52. I had separated, left my editor job where I had worked for seventeen years, lost my parents, and the world's best cat, Doris. Menopause. Perhaps for the first time I got it. Life was short. If there was something I really wanted to do, I should do it now. I was at year zero. My daily gym was hanging out with discomfort and fear. From then on, I didn’t live by the clock. I lived by my bodily time, created this website and hit The Pink Road across Europe to look for lesbians. The combination of my need for a reality check and me being one of the most independent women on this planet was an irresistible match. I felt like a former love junky figuring out if there is life after romantic love. And what does it mean to live as a lesbian?

With three Interrail passes in my pocket, I showed up, met people, had conversations from the gut. Inspired by my favourite writer, Svetlana Alexievich, and her monologues, I wanted to see if I could have honest conversations about lesbian life in public. I desperately needed to listen to them in their own words.

Traveling in the footsteps of lesbians has been an overwhelming experience. Instead of entering countries, I entered different queer rooms. If you put them next to each other, they build a country of their own with similar experiences, challenges and structures. All of them described owning who they were as a liberating force that had a major impact on everything.

What stands out are two things: 99 per cent of all the lesbians I talked to wondered the exact same thing: Where are the lesbians? They all wanted to be informed when I found out. My present to them and the community in Europe is a guide, listing all the places I discovered where they are: A Taste of Lesbian & Queer Europe: The Deluxe Guide.

The other thing is something I almost didn't see at first, because it's right in your face all the time: the strong love women have for each other. When passion hits us we go for it. We go all in. We have no rules for how to have a relationship. We invent them as we go. This is a land without borders, driven by a great love story. Perhaps the biggest of them all, and it has hardly been told, yet. According to my witnesses, we still live a large portion of our lives in the Anne Lister code. The good news is that as a collective we have everything ahead of us. 

From the very start, my goal was to write a book. Now I am in the process of finishing it. In the book, you will find the conversations I had with queers and lesbians in Europe. On this site, I share some of the stories. "A Modern Orlando in Teddy Bear Armour" is one of them.

By now I am sure you get that The Pink Road is an invention by me. Every day we step into public space we build it. We do it together with all those from the past, the present, and the ones in the future. We are not alone. We never were.

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