How many Black lesbians can you count on television? There's Kima Greggs on The Wire, but that show's been over for years.

Sonja Sohn as Kima Greggs on HBO's Courtesy HBO

Ditto for The L Word, which gave us Bette Porter. There's Anika Noni-Rose's character Jukebox on the recently concluded last season of Power, but although she was a standout, she was nonetheless a guest star. In the film, the scarcity of Black lesbian visibility is even worse. My only immediate reference was the superb but largely overlooked 2011 film Pariah.

Although Black people were found to self-identify more as LGBTQ than other groups by a Gallup poll in 2012 , so much of how the entertainment industry represents the community is lily white. Black lesbian visibility is lacking, so it's not surprising that Black lesbians themselves have had to force a change.

Director Nneka Onuorah Courtesy Nneka Onuorah

The award-winning documentary The Same Difference focuses on this much-overlooked group and examines the impact that internalized homophobia and the stubborn clinging to gender roles have on Black lesbians. The film, directed by Nneka Onuorah, was initially released in June 2015 but will premiere tonight on CentricTV in celebration of National Coming Out Day.

While it's important to celebrate people owning their truth, it's just as vital to examine what exactly they're coming out to.

A scene from Courtesy

Over the course of an hour, we learn that while there are varying labels women in the community identify with—gender nonconformist, stud and AG (related to women who are considered more masculine), trans, femme-aggressive (as in a woman who switches between masculine and feminine roles), and so on—there remains a binary that boxes in far too many. Those limitations can result in slights from other lesbians, and, in some instances, violence. At one point in the film, one lesbian reveals that she was jumped and told, "You're too pretty to be stud."

Moments into Onuorah's film, you hear the declaration, "We are conditioned to categorize ourselves." Throughout the documentary, we see how this happens by way of purported rules among the community: "Must be stud or femme, nothing in between," "No stud on stud," "No bisexuals," and "No pregnant studs."

A scene from Courtesy

To a gay Black man, parts of The Same Difference feel familiar—like the way heteronormativity plays such a pivotal role even in non-heterosexual spaces, and how so many people who are not straight look to straight relationships as the basis for their romantic and sexual relationships. So many of the women in the film conform to the idea that if one appears like "the man," they take on certain roles both sexually and in terms of who more or less "leads" the relationship.

When I look for examples of gay Black men in mass media, I can look to Jamal Lyons in Empire or the protagonist of Barry Jenkins' latest film, Moonlight, though ultimately, there's not much to go around. In terms of Black lesbian representation in mass media, there's a certain dearth that exceeds ours. That's what makes The Same Difference all the more important. You get to see women like The Wire's Felicia "Snoop" Pearson and Empire's AzMarie Livingston, reality stars like Love & Hip Hop Atlanta's Ariane Davis, and The Read's Crissle . You see women who do things that come across as mundane but are taboo within their own community—wearing a weave or getting pregnant as studs—speak for themselves on the challenges that come with being oddly marginalized within a marginalized community. The film is worth watching for one affecting scene alone, where Snoop, who is trying a more feminine look for the sake of expanding the type of acting work she gets, struggles to walk in heels.

These challenges aren't exclusive to the Black lesbian community—as Orange is the New Black's Lea Delaria explains, "It's completely ridiculous that people say that there are no roles in the white lesbian community because they're there." Delaria herself believes that as more of a "butch" woman, she can only see herself with women who present as more feminine to her. Later in the film, we see a white lesbian who chooses to identify as queer, as opposed to lesbian, and dates men on occasion—this confuses another woman, who takes it as a betrayal. It's a sentiment echoed by other Black lesbians in the film, proving that whether white or Black, both communities require cleanup duty with respect to how to view gender and sexuality.

Even so, white lesbians have more visibility than Black ones, making Onuorah's work all the more vital. Last month, she launched a[link href='http://www.weareallwomencampaign.org/' link_updater_label='external' target='_blank']"We are All Women Rally," a campaign designed to bring further awareness to issues that directly affect Black lesbians, bisexuals, and trans women. Both that initiative and her documentary serve as key reminders that while many people may be using today to come out, not everyone is being seen.

The Same Difference airs Tuesday, October 11 at 11pm on Centric.

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