History of Femslash Fandom

See Timeline of Femslash Fandom and Fanworks and Timeline of Femslash in Canon Sources.
 
This article's focus is f/f slash in fandom and fanworks. See History of Slash Fandom for slash focused on m/m.
==Femslash: An Invisible History==
While homosexual, bisexual and transgender people have always existed, people in former times did not think of sexual orientation, identity, or gender the same way they do today. There are, however, far fewer historical mentions of lesbianism than male homosexuality, possibly due to many historical writings and records focusing primarily on men. Autostraddle noted the following:
==Femslash and the 1970s==
The history of femslash most likely dates to early Star Trek fandom around 1970, with two of the first known femslash fics being published at this time. Kismet, a Chapel/Uhura fic by Dani Morin was published the zine Obsc'zine. And Then..., a story set on a Klingon ship featuring original characters, by C.M was published sometime between 1975 and 1977 in the zine Obsczine. 
These two publications (Obsc'zine and Obsczine), despite their nearly identical names, were not connected in any way. One was published in the United States by a very well known BNF and was part of a series, and the other zine was an obscure one-shot published in the UK. It is likely that neither publisher had any idea the other fan's zine existed.
==Femslash and the 1980s==
In the 1980s, fandom's interaction with the properties they love was still mostly focused around fanzines. 
As most fandom activity was still centered on "genre" properties, this left femslashers and queer women with few opportunities. However, there were still femslash stories being written within the Star Trek, Doctor Who and Blake's 7 fandoms. Shows like The Facts of Life also inspired queer readings. 
Some of the first written femslash within their respective fandoms were Changing by Jane Carnall, published in 1985 in published in "touched" #4, which is believed to be first Blake's 7 femslash story. a Jenna/Original Female Character story) credited by Nova as the first piece of Blake's 7 femslash -- Nova (2002) '(Re)Making Space for Women' Sleer as Folk 308–322 Another early Blake's 7 example is Customs by Barbara T, published in The Unique Touch #2 in 1988. A 1989 Blake's 7 zine is Power.
An early, if not the first, published femslash fic in the Starsky & Hutch fandom is New Year by Paula Smith, published 1981 in the zine Storms. From a flyer for that zine: "Hutch falls in love with a lady enigma." 
Cagney & Lacey, premiered in 1982 after a 1981 pilot, quickly gained a large and dedicated lesbian following, and is cited in Francesca Coppa's A Brief History of Media Fandom as the first lesbian slash fandom. Although, the fandom went to be lambasted by the press, being called “kamikaze lesbians”, after a woman broke into star Sharon Gless’s home.
At the time Slash and Femslash was generally viewed with some scorn and fear within fandoms, likely born out of homophobic attitudes and a desire not to have their fannish material cracked down upon by The Powers That Be. It was not uncommon for homosexual fans to be threatened with outing by other members of their fandom, going so far as threatening to contact employers if someone wrote slash of femslash fanfiction.
As fannish terminology began to take shape, develop and gain universal fannish meaning, these female/female stories began to generally be called f/f slash.
==Femslash and the Arrival of the Internet==
During this same period of the mid to late 1980s, some fandoms began to move online. The rise of the internet, and particularly Usenet saw an explosion of creative output in mainstream fandoms. A lack of female characters in genre shows still left femslash fans with few opportunities, but writers working in existing fandoms were still producing and sharing femslash.
By 1996, a number of factors seemed to have come together and femslash became more visible. Femslash had began to show up at conventions such as Media West, helping to expose it to a larger audience. The internet continued to grow in popularity and America Online, CompuServe and Prodigy brought more users online for the first time.
===Enter Xena===
While femslash communities had remained small in the 70s and 80s, the 90s brought the premiered of Xena: Warrior Princess, and with it new wave of femslash related content. Afterellen summarizes Xena's impact on femslash as such:
While Xena was airing, fans moved away from labeling their fannish works f/f slash or female-female slash, instead calling the material Alternative. This term would be the defining one for the material in several other fandoms as Xena fan brought their terminology with them when enter other fannish spaces.
Bongo Bear, writing in a meta at Whoosh!, surmised that alternative works can be described as:
An active altfic community quickly developed around the show and was helped by the large lesbian audience for the show who had become interested in a show that focused almost solely on the relationship between two women. By 1997, this community had begun archiving their material on websites, some of which contained only femslash material. 
In the Season 2 episode "The Xena Scrolls" alternate universe versions of the principle characters appeared. This led to a whole subgenre of Xena fanfiction known as uber, a term coined in 1997 by Kym Taborn, owner of the Xena fansite Whoosh!. WHAT IS THIS...ÜBER? It was one of the first incidents of a fandom embracing the AU and is especially notable as many of these AUs/uber fics were later converted into original works that were then published as lesbian romance novels. 
On the effect of uber in femslash, io9 wrote:
===Anime, Manga and Yuri===
While femslash communities were developing at this period of time, they were generally separate from anime and manga fandoms. Anime fans were in their own separate space, with their own terminology and fannish practices. By 1995, the femslash contingent was defined enough that Yuri was the term of choice for the femslash equivalent in that culture. Yuri can focus either on the sexual or the emotional aspects of the relationship, the latter sometimes being called shoujo ai by western fans. The terms yuri and shoujo ai came into use early in the history of English speaking animanga fandom. These parallel the usage of yaoi and shounen ai in those fandoms. 
As Xena: The Warrior Princess took off, Sailor Moon’s femslash period rose as the other large community of the day. Femslash is very popular in Sailor Moon, with the main cast being practically all females. The Inner (Moon, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, & Venus) and Outer (Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, & Saturn) Senshi are often shipped together, Chibiusa (Sailor Chibi-Moon/Mini-Moon) is often shipped with Sailor Saturn. However the most popular canon femslash pairing is Haruka/Michiru (Uranus/Neptune) - although the English dub of Sailor Moon garnered negative comments for destroying their established relationship - first leaving it unsaid before eventually getting the two to refer to each other as cousins.
Sailor Moon helped to create more femslash/yuri audience for other anime shows which would become big in the United States, shows such as Card Captor Sakura and Revolutionary Girl Utena. These audiences would begin crossing over with western fandoms, helping to change both cultures.
==Femslash Growth Across Fandoms==
By the late 90s, the femslash community had become bigger with more fandoms started joining in. Babylon 5, Roswell and X-Files had small communities with participants actively plugging their material and relationships. The premiere of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in 1997 soon led to a large fannish following, including many femslash shippers who saw chemistry between Buffy and fellow slayer Faith. Willow began a canon relationship with Tara in late 1999/early 2000, giving rise to a large and enthusiastic fandom.
As fandoms such as Xena and Buffy grew and gained more attention, new shows started airing and it became more acceptable to write femslash material. Fandoms migrating brought writer from older fandoms to new ones that had well defined female characters. Battlestar Galactica, Firefly, Harry Potter, The L Word, Smallville and Queen of Swords quickly found themselves with their own communities.
The femslash community also began another terminology shift as creators such as Kate Bolin started using femslash and saffic instead of f/f slash. Much of the growth across femslash fandoms was aided by the ability to quickly, easily and cheaply create mailing lists, many of which were started in 1999. Star Trek and Buffy: The Vampire Slayer were popular amongst such mailing lists. This move toward mailing lists was one of the many factors pushing the centralization of both fandoms away from Usenet and into new mediums such as Yahoo! Groups, LiveJournal and Fanfiction.net. 
==Femslash Finds its Voice==
In the late 2000s femslash started to strike a chord within fandoms as more canon lesbian and bisexual women were shown in a variety of media. Brittana became the first femslash couple ever willed into canon by the activism of fans. 
The decade of the 2010s saw more and more canon lesbian and bisexual women characters appear in a variety of media, often in canon relationships with other women, such as Callie/Arizona, Korrasami, Ruby/Sapphire, Tracer/Emily, and Bubbline. 
==Meta/Further Reading==
* The History of Femslash, the Tiny Fandom That's Taking Over the Universe
==References==
Category:Chronology
Category:Femslash Fandom