lesbianism
noun
les·bi·an·ism ˈlez-bē-ə-ˌni-zəm 
: romantic or sexual attraction between women
Example Sentences
Recent Examples on the Web By the end of Season 1, for instance, Leighton has begun to embrace her lesbianism. 
New York Times, 13 May 2022 Ma Rainey is our earliest example of a Black woman explicitly embracing lesbianism in her music. Gerrick Kennedy, Variety, 27 Jan. 2022 In 2010, tens of thousands of dollars from Ms. Spears’s charitable foundation went to a Christian counseling group with ties to Ms. Taylor and her husband and whose founder once boasted that the group helped people abandon lesbianism. New York Times, 19 Dec. 2021 With so few men around, excluding the director’s chair, lesbianism is apparently par for the course. Elle Carroll, Vulture, 6 Dec. 2021 How did the church, how did society—in this case, a religious society—look at lesbianism? Jane Hu, The New Yorker, 30 Nov. 2021 For decades, and particularly during the subgenre’s heyday of the 1960s and ‘70s, vampire narratives were a dominant means of getting lesbianism on-screen. NBC News, 30 Oct. 2021 The argument destigmatizes lesbianism while also minimizing its erotic and social power, its centrality to both pleasure and politics. Merve Emre, The New Yorker, 23 Aug. 2021 In 1936, for example, the ACLU challenged the City of Boston’s decision to ban Lillian Hellman’s play The Children’s Hour for daring to include a theme of lesbianism. Susan N. Herman, Marie Claire, 19 Jan. 2020 See More
New York Times, 13 May 2022 Ma Rainey is our earliest example of a Black woman explicitly embracing lesbianism in her music. Gerrick Kennedy, Variety, 27 Jan. 2022 In 2010, tens of thousands of dollars from Ms. Spears’s charitable foundation went to a Christian counseling group with ties to Ms. Taylor and her husband and whose founder once boasted that the group helped people abandon lesbianism. New York Times, 19 Dec. 2021 With so few men around, excluding the director’s chair, lesbianism is apparently par for the course. Elle Carroll, Vulture, 6 Dec. 2021 How did the church, how did society—in this case, a religious society—look at lesbianism? Jane Hu, The New Yorker, 30 Nov. 2021 For decades, and particularly during the subgenre’s heyday of the 1960s and ‘70s, vampire narratives were a dominant means of getting lesbianism on-screen. NBC News, 30 Oct. 2021 The argument destigmatizes lesbianism while also minimizing its erotic and social power, its centrality to both pleasure and politics. Merve Emre, The New Yorker, 23 Aug. 2021 In 1936, for example, the ACLU challenged the City of Boston’s decision to ban Lillian Hellman’s play The Children’s Hour for daring to include a theme of lesbianism. Susan N. Herman, Marie Claire, 19 Jan. 2020 See More Word History
First Known Use
1870, in the meaning defined above
Medical Definition
lesbianism
noun
les·bi·an·ism ˈlez-bē-ə-ˌniz-əm
: romantic or sexual attraction between women