The Most Awesome LGBTQ Women In History

Natalie Clifford Barney

This radical lesbian feminist had the scandalous notion that monogamy was for suckers. The playwright, who is often referred to as the Queen of Paris lesbians, only believed in having multiple partners (one of whom was Dolly Wilde, Oscar Wilde’s niece).

Barney held a salon in her Paris home for more than 60 years that brought writers and artists together from around the world. She was an Ohio expat, herself. Barney is best known for her love poems written to other women and claimed that scandal was “the best way of getting rid of nuisances” (which in her case, meant attention from young straight males). Yes, Natalie Barney! Yes!

Vita Sackville-West

English poet Vita Sackville-West is mostly known for her risqué affair with Virginia Woolf, but what happened over a decade before was even more controversial.

Sackville-West was the kind of woman who didn’t care what anyone thought. She did exactly what she wanted to do – which for a time, was a steamy affair with her friend Violet Trefusis. Both Trefusis and Sackville-West totally stuck it to their husbands and vowed to never sleep with them. Instead, the pair could only be intimate with each other. Trefusis and Sackville-West had a very up-and-down relationship which was documented in a series of letters that were later published as a collection.