Sapphic Visibility Day Date in the current year: April 9, 2025

The term “Sapphic” is derived from Sappho, the name of an Archaic Greek poet from the island of Lesbos known for her homoerotic poetry focused on love between women, a rare historical representation of female sexuality divorced from reproduction.

The term was originally applied to women who are attracted to women (sexually or romantically) or in a relationship with another woman, regardless of their sexual orientation, and included lesbian, bisexual, pansexual, demisexual, asexual, and aromantic women. Over time, it has evolved to include femme-aligned people of other gender identities (non-binary, transgender, and gender nonconforming individuals). Simply put, Sapphism is the ABCD of LGBT+: Anything But Cis Dudes.

The terms “Sapphic” and “lesbian” are related, but not synonymous. Women who identify as lesbian are attracted exclusively to women and femme-aligned people, while those who identify as Sapphic may or may not be attracted to other genders, including cis men for bi and pan women. The label “Sapphic” is intended to be inclusive of all women and femme-aligned people who love women and femme-aligned people and to promote solidarity among them.

For some people, Sapphic is an identity of its own, while others use it alongside or interchangeably with another identity, such as lesbian, bisexual, pansexual, queer, demisexual, etc. It can also be used to refer to a relationship between two women. The term has become popular in recent years because of its breadth; in addition to being an inclusive label, it serves as a cultural identifier that represents a shared experience among people with different identities who have something in common.

Sapphic identity even has its own pride flag, separate from the lesbian pride flag. The original flag was designed by Tumblr user lesbeux-moved in 2015 and then redesigned by Tumblr user pride-color-schemes in 2017. It consists of two bright pink stripes at the top and bottom, representing love, and the middle light pink stripe with a violet in the center. Another version of the flag has two violets in the center, representing the love of two women.

Violets and their color have long been a symbolic code for lesbians and bisexual women. This association comes from fragments of Sappho’s poetry, in which she describes a lover adorned with garlands or crowns of violets. In 1926, Édouard Bourdet’s play La Prisonnière (“The Captive”) used a bouquet of violets to represent lesbian love. When the play faced censorship, many Parisian lesbians pinned violets to their belts or lapels as a sign of solidarity with the play’s themes.

Sapphic Visibility Day was created in 2024 to shine a light on Sapphic identity and promote the use of the inclusive umbrella term “Sapphic” as an identity for many women, non-binary, trans, and gender nonconforming folks. Of course, you don’t have to use any label if you don’t want to, but it’s nice to know that there are many to choose from.