Sapphic

Sapphic, also known as WLW,WLW stands for woman-loving women, or women-loving-women. is an umbrella term for women who experience attraction to other women. This includes women whose attraction is exclusive (such as lesbians and gay women),Lesbian/gay attraction is not necessarily exclusive, but is often defined as such. as well as women whose attraction is non-exclusive (such as bisexual, pansexual, and omnisexual women). Some sapphic people solely identify their orientation as sapphic, while others use additional labels.
Sapphic people may be cisgender women, or they may be transgender women. The sapphic label is also sometimes used by nonbinary people, including those who may not necessarily self-describe as women. Sapphic people may also be transmasculine or transfeminine.
== Etymology ==
"Sapphic" derives from the name of the Greek poet Sappho. This is due to the erotic poetry and love poems she wrote about women. The word shares its origins with the lesbian label.
== Distinction ==
===Lesbian===
Main article: Lesbian
The lesbian label is defined in many ways, but generally refers to women who are attracted to other women, often primarily or exclusively. While the lesbian label is sometimes defined synonymously with the sapphic label, not all definitions are synonymous, and many definitions of the lesbian label involve exclusive attraction. Lesbian is always included under the sapphic umbrella, but is not always the same identity.
== Flag ==
The original sapphic pride flag features three stripes, as well as two realistic violets in the center stripe. The top and bottom stripes are pink, and the middle stripe is very light lavender or white. Pink represents love, while the violet flowers sapphic desire. The white center stripe originally represented purity, but was later revised to represent sapphic desire as a light lavender stripe, due to concerns regarding racist connotations. Violets have traditionally been exchanged between women in romantic and intimate contexts, and lavender is often associated with queer identities. The flag was designed by Tumblr user lesbeux (later moved) on August 14, 2015.
A simplified version of the sapphic pride flag was later created by Mod Hermy of pride-color-schemes on June 25, 2017. The flag is identical to the original sapphic flag, save for the symbol. Rather than depicting two realistic violets, the flag instead has a stylized five-petal violet in the center, for the purpose of being easier to recreate.
The Sappho lesbian flag, also known as the sapphic flag, was designed by Lydia, a genderqueer lesbian, on June 26, 2018. The flag was also made in response to the problems with the existing lipstick lesbian and pink lesbian flags. It was initially intended to be an all-inclusive flag for lesbians, and later expanded to represent all sapphic identities. The flag was designed to be web-friendly and easy to produce physical copies of. Lydia also didn't want it to skew too feminine, as they wanted all lesbians to feel represented by the flag, including non-femme lesbians.
The colors were chosen from a poem by Sappho, and were specifically inspired by these lines: "all the violet tiaras, braided rosebuds, dill and crocus twined around your young neck". Thus, the stripes were violet (for violets), pink (for rosebuds), yellow (for crocus), and green (for dill). Each stripe also was given additional meanings: violet represents sapphic love, pink represents fragility, yellow represents strength, and green represents healing. The stripes were originally arranged in the order of purple, yellow, green, and pink. However, they were later rearranged into the order of purple, pink, yellow, and green, per the advice of Maya Kern.
The pink floral design of the previous flags can feel alienating to non-femme sapphics, and the Sappho flag isn't always interpreted as an all-inclusive flag for sapphics. To remedy this, an alternative sapphic flag was designed by Gay Breakfast on January 30, 2021. It was partially inspired by Lydia's Sappho flag, but was intended to unambiguously represent all sapphics, rather than lesbians specifically. It was also designed to be less bright, as to be inclusive to neurodivergent people, who may experience sensitivity to bright lights and colors. There are five stripes, signaling inclusion to different sapphic identities. This is based on the fact that the sunset lesbian flag has seven stripes, and several flags for common pluralian identities (particularly bisexual, pansexual, and polysexual) each have three stripes, resulting in five stripes being a "middle ground" of sorts. The stripes, from top to bottom, are red, yellow, white, green, and purple. Red represents centering sapphic experience, yellow represents nonbinary sapphics, white represents transgender sapphics, green represents gender nonconforming sapphics, and purple represents gender-expansive attraction.
== Symbol ==
The lesbian symbol (⚢) is two interlocking Venus symbols (♀), a symbol commonly used to represent women and femininity. This symbol can represent lesbians, sapphic people, and relationships between women. The symbol first appeared in the 1970s.
== Notes ==
== References ==
Category:Orientation
Category:Sexual orientation
Category:Romantic orientation
Category:Tertiary orientation
Category:Women-loving-gender
Category:Gender-loving-women
Category:Sapphic
Category:Affinitive orientation
Category:Prominent identities
Category:Umbrella terms