Pippa Fleming is an African-American lesbian performance artist, writer and spiritual practitioner. She has dedicated her life to chronicling and preserving the art, culture and achievements of black lesbians. She fears that a war is being waged against female-to-female love and that lesbian identity is fighting for its life.

There’s an African proverb that states: “If you don’t know where you come from, how do you know where you are going?” Some of the most powerful black people known for their political analysis, social commentary, activism and legacy during the civil-rights, gay-rights and feminist movements were black lesbians. Oops! Did I just say “lesbian”, that dirty seven-letter word that has the GBTQI community scrambling to apologise for or afraid to associate itself with? Lesbianism is as ancient as the cosmos, yet it is a threat to patriarchy because it does not centre males, nor does it seek male wisdom, power or validation. Instead of finding solace within our community against the threat of misogyny and homophobia, lesbian identity is being written out.

When black lesbians attempt to navigate pop culture’s “gender-identity matrix”, searching for their kindred’s place in history, they often come up empty-handed. What matrix, you ask? It’s that maze that has people running around in circles, as they attempt to reconcile new language and theories forced upon them by the elites in education and the corporatocracy, like “cisgender”, which means you were cool with the sex you were born in, or that biology is irrelevant and has no connection to one’s concept of self.

Whether it be in feminist studies, gender studies or the history of gay pride, black lesbians often go without their names or sexual orientation being mentioned. The trend towards claiming that “all sexuality is fluid” and to brand everyone and everything queer and transgender, means black lesbians are rendered invisible. A queer identity embraces sexual and intimate relationships with males, females, and intersex people who identify as transgender, gender-queer, trans masculine or gay, just to name a few. My, we are a diverse crowd. In this current wave of “free to me” gender politics, any man with a penis can claim to be a female and expect entrance into female-segregated spaces, such as locker rooms, sports teams or colleges, without question. But don’t twist it; the generosity does not flow in both directions. Just ask the women who crashed the party at the male lido in Hampstead Heath in London in May: they were promptly escorted out by the police. Lesbian identity is now being dubbed as exclusionary or transphobic. You’re damn right it’s exclusive: lesbians have a right to say no to the phallus, no matter how it’s concealed or revealed. Imagine if white folks ran around claiming they were black or demanded access to our affinity spaces. They would be called deluded racist fools! Shush, I hear the snickering. Who’s this tired-ass dyke that nobody wants to hear from? And why hasn’t she dropped any names? I like luring in my audience with provocative statements and short-circuiting any thought process that may prevent critical thinking. Do the names Stormé DeLarverie, Audre Lorde or Angela Davis, ring that black gay history bell? The more important question, especially for those claiming to be the “down”, Black Panther activist type is this. Why don’t you know the roles they played? Without their dauntless activism and allyship, none of us would have the vocabulary of resistance or a notion of what’s required to create tangible alliances and an empowered LGBTQI community.

Let me drop a few herstorical truths.

Stormé DeLarverie, born in 1920: drag king entertainer, MC and bouncer. What made her a trailblazer? During the Harlem Renaissance she was the only black butch lesbian to emcee and perform in The Jewel Box Revue, North America’s first racially integrated drag review. Most infamous moment: she was the dyke who threw the first punch at a police officer during the Stonewall riot in New York in 1969. “It was a rebellion, it was an uprising, it was a civil-rights disobedience—it wasn’t no damn riot,” she said.

Audre Lorde, born in 1934: author, poet, librarian and academician. What made her a maverick? She focused the discussion on differences, as well as the complexities of a black lesbian identity that included internalised racism and homophobia. “Those of us who stand outside the circle of this society’s definition of acceptable women; those of us who have been forged in the crucibles of difference—those of us who are poor, who are lesbians, who are black, who are older—know that survival is not an academic skill,” she said. “It is learning how to take our differences and make them strengths. For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.”

Angela Davis, born in 1944: prison abolitionist, academic and author. What makes her a saint? She survived incarceration for legally acquiring firearms that were discharged in a courtroom takeover in 1970, where four people were killed. She is also the co-founder of Critical Resistance, an organisation dedicated to abolishing the prison-industrial complex. “As a Black woman, my politics and political affiliation are bound up with and flow from participation in my people’s struggle for liberation, and with the fight of oppressed people all over the world against American imperialism,” she said.

Stormé, Audre and Angela were born during the Jim Crow era of segregation in America. A time when war was declared against the black female body and she was considered chattel. Undaunted by the collective trauma of the era, these three women found their voices and created a legacy of activism, with receipts. These three black females also came from generations for which “queer” was merely an epithet, not a community of folks who see themselves as having partners of any sex or gender identification. They claimed a lesbian identity because they unapologetically knew who they were.

The GBTQI community has used the genius, bravery and intelligence of these black lesbians to strengthen and fortify the modern gender-identity movement—without mentioning their lesbianism. That’s like asking the question, “what’s in peanut butter?” and failing to mention peanuts as the main ingredient!

The erasure of the black female’s intelligence and contributions to American history ain’t nothing new. Remember the movie “Hidden Figures”? You can bet your history teacher didn’t mention or know that black women were crucial to the white man landing on the Moon.

Come on, people, it’s time to have a “Come to Jesus” moment, where we tell the truth and shame the devil. If you aren’t hip to the historical racism, sexism and homophobia that the black American lesbian has faced and continues to battle, try picking up a book like “This Bridge Called My Back”, “Sister Outsider” or “Toward a Black Feminist Criticism” and you’ll get the picture. Patriarchy and sex-based oppression are real, and they remain the driving force behind the invisibility of black lesbians. The gender-identity movement’s attempt to rebrand the lesbian as queer, and the pronouncement that “anyone can be a lesbian”, are nothing short of erasure.

And this is not happenstance. The educational establishment was the lead car when it came shaking up women’s studies and replaced it with gender studies. That damn radical feminism was a thorn in the side of patriarchy and they needed some heavy-duty tweezers to pull it out. All those trickle-down theories of gender trumping sex strike like lighting and folks are charged by the idea that they can identify however they please, even if it means co-opting lesbian identity. We don’t call a cat a dog simply because both have four legs. Nope, we easily appreciate their differences and know dogs have owners and cats have staff.

There’s a reason for every one of those letters in the LGBTQI acronym. Each group fought tirelessly to be recognised as vital members of a community that is expanding. As activists and allies, it is our responsibility to educate each generation about the torchbearers that preceded them and to name their unique identities. By taking the time to name who we are and our contributions to society, we have a chance of finding that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

This is part of a two-week discussion on transgender issues, with ten contributors. The other contributions are available here.