Top 10 Fictional Lesbian, Bisexual and Otherwise-Inclined Ladies of 2011

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This was a big year for imaginary lesbians! I’m working on a piece about my Lesbian Executive Opinion of 2011’s Lesbians on Television and I’m sure you’re on the edge of your seat waiting for that to debut.

But in the meantime, I constructed this list! So what I did was I asked you for your favorites (on tumblr/twitter), tallied those, mixed in a generous scoop of my own personal opinion (which is that if you’d already seen Pariah, you would’ve voted for Alike), added two cups of sugar and a teaspoon of vanilla and a pound of cream of tartar, and this is what came out:

[Sidenote – Per usual, if you want to share your feelings of utter outrage and disappointment in us for not selecting or accurately ranking your personal favorite for this list, do so with as much punctuation and hyperbole as possible]

10. Brittany S. Pierce, Glee

“Honey, if anyone were to ever make fun of you, you would either kick their ass or slash them with your vicious, vicious words.”

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9. Kalinda Sharma, The Good Wife

“You and I have nothing in common. ‘Cause you and I are from different worlds. And it’s not just Mars and Venus. It’s spaghetti and hydrogen. We’re just different categories. I’m knowable, but just not to you.”

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8. Fiona, Degrassi: The Next Generation

“Don’t worry, I’ll get over you, you’re not that awesome.”

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7. Kate Kane/Batwoman, Batwoman #4

“I’m a goddamn soldier.”

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5. Franky Fitzgerald, Skins

“I tried today and now I feel kind of less like me, and I’m not exactly over the moon about being me in the first place, but now I think I kinda like it less when I’m trying NOT to be me. Because I just wanna like, be.”

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4. Emily Fields, Pretty Little Liars

“We swim on the same team.”

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3. Lisbeth Salander, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

“Everyone has secrets.”

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2. Alike, Pariah: The Movie

“Breaking is opening, and I am broken. I am open.”

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1. Santana Lopez, Glee

“The only straight I am is straight-up bitch.”

Despite Ryan Murphy’s best efforts, nothing can kill your burning hot love for Santana Fucking Lopez. Let’s do that in video:

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Riese

Riese is the 41-year-old Co-Founder of Autostraddle.com as well as an award-winning writer, video-maker, LGBTQ+ Marketing consultant and aspiring cyber-performance artist who grew up in Michigan, lost her mind in New York and now lives in California. Her work has appeared in nine books including "The Bigger the Better The Tighter The Sweater: 21 Funny Women on Beauty, Body Image & Other Hazards Of Being Female," magazines including Marie Claire and Curve, and all over the web including Nylon, Queerty, Nerve, Bitch, Emily Books and Jezebel. She had a very popular personal blog once upon a time, and then she recapped The L Word, and then she had the idea to make this place, and now here we all are! In 2016, she was nominated for a GLAAD Award for Outstanding Digital Journalism. Follow her on twitter and instagram.

Riese has written 3074 articles for us.

75 Comments

      • Agreed, Sara Ramirez’s character Calliope Torres on the show Grey’s Anatomy can be a honorable mention. If it was the year 2009 she’d be the top of my list. Check out Season 6 Episode 5 (http://youtu.be/8tua5VlGjhs). For Sara Ramirez I’d put on the this list for Episode 5 of Season 8 (http://youtu.be/x0fLzsSUqkM). Coming out to your dead ex-husband’s super catholic mom takes a lot of guts! Especially since Callie tells her the truth about being married Arizona, and having a baby with Mark after sleeping with him (she didn’t mention the sex part) and the car crash she had with Arizona that she nearly dying. Not your average conversation over coffee. Santana definitely deserves her spot as #1. Her coming out moment with her grandmother could not be more realistic and relatable for any LGBT that have come out. Naya Rivera did an awesome job! As for the writers of GLEE I applaud their naturalistic approach with Santana’s character when she came out. As for Pariah, I’ll be seeing the movie real soon. It’s great to see she made a place on this list. Awesome list for fictional lesbians of 2011 :D

        Reply to This Comment

  13. I tried, but I just can’t get behind The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I view the books and the films based on the material to be too highly misogynistic. I don’t support a character from such fiction regardless of her sexuality.

    Reply to This Comment

      • Lisbeth Salander, at least in the 1st book, is a middle aged man’s wet dream. If Blomqkist comes across as Llarson’s alter-ego, Lisbeth is the object of this late middle-aged man’s fantasy. She is labeled by many readers as bisexual but that bisexuality seems of the Penthouse forum variety. She is described in the first book as a person who can only be fulfilled sexually by men. Sex with women is just passing time which is meant to tie into her rejection of intimacy with men. Blomqkist’s kicking out the woman that Lisbeth has slept with the night before is an act laced with symbolism. Having sex designed to detach from intimacy, she is confronted by a male she will end up being intimate with – a man both tough and sensitive, willing to treat her as an equal. The exit of Wu becomes the entrance of a real man (aka Llarson) and real intimacy.

        The book itself seems overly focused on cruelty to women. Just as Lars Von Trier has done in films, the cruelty to women seems, under scrutiny, to be more about reveling in violence to women. Long scenes of sexual coercion and anal rape are defended with the reminder that the rapist gets comeuppance. That is not enough to rinse the sense of exploitation away. This has been commonly touched on. Stella’s concerns do not exist in a vacuum. They are a common criticism when discussing the book.

        The best thing to happen to Llarson were the later films. At some point, Llarson did a redirect turning it away from his fantasy. This included a calming down of Blomqvist’s stud portrayal and a more nuanced look at Lisbeth as bisexual. While the books still contained violence, both sexual and not sexual, towards women, they no longer lingered over it. Llarson would not be the first author to reexamine the direction he was taking.

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  19. I agree with most of this list.
    .. mostly because Santana and all her fiiiineeeee parts are number one.
    BUT.
    There is this little show called Greys Anatomy and the only reason I watch it is because of Arizona and Callie and all their hotness. They should be your missing number 6.. moved down to 2. Just sayiinggg.

    Reply to This Comment

  28. I feel like my love for Santana is closely tied to my love for Naya. Like, Santana is awesome but she wouldn’t be half as awesome if Naya was not playing her. Maybe that’s a given but I just felt it needed to be said. Naya Forever.

    Reply to This Comment

    • The eyelashes always bug me too but to be fair it seems to be a thing with some women, not specific to Santana. I guess it’s supposed to draw attention to their eyes but to me it just obscures them.

      It impacts my complete attraction to Santana in exactly zero ways.

      And…plus,plus,plus to Ava for mentioning that Santana is awesome because of Naya Fucking Rivera.

      Reply to This Comment

  33. I know the show airs in Spain and isn’t in English, but Autostraddle needs to show Tierra de Lobos some love. I have never seen a hotter couple than Isabel & Cristina (Crisabel as fans call them) or a more swoonworthy lezzie lady than Isabel. You can watch it all online with English subtitles. I know Telecinco pulled some of it down. This is the Crisabel story, basically: http://www.dailymotion.com/user/ugetwhatugive28/1 I can find a link that has more of season one, which was about Isabel figuring out she’s different and a lesbian and pre-Crisabel. Whole show is worth watching.

    Reply to This Comment

  34. Even though I would’ve added Arizona and/or Callie to the list, I more or less agree. Ha and yes, I still love Santana, despite the work of the writers who seem to want nothing more than for me to despise not only her but their entire show. (Why, Glee? Why do you do this to us?) I’m glad Brittany made the list. So many people, including the writers of her own show, seem to forget that she’s bisexual and loves girls, too.

    Reply to This Comment

  37. Is this site getting itself confused with afterellen? What’s the point in mentioning bi women in this list or in general? Isn’t this about girl on girl culture, not girl on girl part time culture? Let’s not forget about the core audience here.

    Reply to This Comment

    • I think you’re being more than a little offensive here. Could you try making your point without inferring that bisexual women are “part-time” lesbians?

      Autostradle, i feel, has always been inclusive and has little interest in favouring the ‘core audience’ over any other member of the LGBTQ community.

      if you have a point to make, make it, but don’t act like because you’re in the majority here, you’re more entitled. That’s the kind of behaviour we should be countering.

      Reply to This Comment

  38. Hi Kora. I C&P’d this from the “About” (mission statement?)section of Autostraddle: “Autostraddle is an intelligent, hilarious & provocative voice and a progressively feminist online community for a new generation of kickass lesbian, bisexual & otherwise inclined ladies (and their friends).”

    Just saying…

    Reply to This Comment

  39. I’m not sure if it’s just a matter of trying to appeal to a greater audience. I guess you have to work that angle to be more successful, but I wish there were entertaining and smart places on the internet that solely focused on lesbian material. Bisexuals can participate in straight sites as well as gay ones, so it seems we get cheated when we are forced to skim through bi (ie straight) related stuff, on a site we come to for gay stuff.

    Reply to This Comment

    • no one is forcing you.

      You’re the one with the problem here, so perhaps you should either be more open minded and accepting or you should leave. Not the bisexual readership who have every right represented, the same as lesbian/transgender/queer/all of the above readers.

      i really don’t think you know where you are. everybody’s supposed to love each other here. AM I RIGHT???

      Reply to This Comment

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