Many 20th-century films put a negative connotation on the lesbian community. The 1961 drama The Children's Hour gives viewers the idea that lesbians live a "dark" and almost depressing lifestyle.[13]
The television series The L Word portrays a long-term lesbian couple attempting to start a family, and counters the negative "U-Haul" lesbian stereotype, which is that lesbians move in on the second date.[14] However, at the same time, the series came under heavy criticism for reinforcing numerous other negative stereotypes, such as lesbians preying on and seducing straight women in relationships with men; mistreating bisexual women or outright shunning them if they had a history of sleeping with men (to the point where Alice Piezsecki, a bisexual character, refers to bisexuality as "gross"); for downplaying the main characters' misdeeds and unexplained tendency for adultery and instead focusing on their physical beauty and sex scenes; for randomly killing off main characters for no specific reason (referred to as "bury your gays"); for downplaying a rape scene as "angry sex";[15] reportedly attempting to "reify heteronormativity";[16] for depicting lesbianism or bisexuality as a gene passed from mothers to daughters which sometimes caused both to fight over the same woman (as demonstrated in the cases of Lenore and Alice Piezsecki, Cherie and Clea Jaffe, Peggy and Helena Peabody, Phyllis and Molly Kroll, an instance when Shane had sex with a mother and her two daughters separately on one of the daughters' wedding day, which led to all three of them falling in love with Shane and subsequently falling out with each other, and ultimately Tina and Angelica Kennard in the sequel series, The L Word: Generation Q); and showing lesbian relationships as destined to fail due to lesbians' apparent struggles with monogamy and commitment. Series creator Ilene Chaiken was labeled as "shameless in her professional upbringing" for her depiction of lesbians in general.[17]
In the television series Gotham, the character Renee Montoya is a lesbian and recovering drug addict, while the characters Fish Mooney, Barbara Kean and Tabitha Galvan are bisexual. Fish Mooney is introduced as the second-in-command of mafia boss Carmine Falcone, with a penchant for ruthlessness and ambition to overthrow both Falcone and Sal Maroni and become Gotham's sole crime boss. Montoya does not hide her grudge against James Gordon for being in a relationship with Barbara, her former lover. When rumors surface that Gordon may be corrupt, it is implied that Montoya is not entirely convinced, but she nevertheless becomes determined to put Gordon behind bars in the hopes of winning Barbara back rather than enforcing justice, even though it will cost the Gotham City Police Department one of its few honest cops determined to bring Falcone and Maroni down, and after she briefly succeeds in resuming her affair with Barbara, she pushes Barbara away when Barbara appears to be going back to depression and drug addiction. After Gordon begins a relationship with Leslie Thompkins, Barbara is driven insane with jealousy and eventually progresses to become one of the series' main antagonists. The second season introduces Tabitha Galvan, the bisexual sister of Theo Galvan, and who is also depicted as a ruthless, sadistic mercenary who has an on-again-off-again relationship with Barbara.
Many lesbians are associated with short hair, wearing baggy clothes and playing sports.[18] Further, news coverage of LGBT issues reinforces stereotyped portrayals of lesbians. Often news broadcasts highlight stories on more "masculine" lesbians and fail to give equal coverage to other more faceted lesbian identities. Thus, the populations who receive information about marginalized communities from a news source begin to equate lesbian sexuality with a masculine presentation. The way lesbians are portrayed leads people to make assumptions about individuals in everyday life.[19]
Typically, lesbians are stereotyped as belonging to one of the two following categories: "butch and femme". Butch lesbians dress in a more masculine manner than other women. "Dykes" (a pejorative term that the Lesbian community has reclaimed, to an extent) are considered members of a community that is perceived as being composed of strong and outspoken advocates in wider society.[20] Actress Portia de Rossi has been credited for significantly countering the general societal misconception of how lesbians look and function when, in 2005, she divulged her sexual orientation in intimate interviews with Details and The Advocate which generated further discussion on the concept of the "lipstick lesbian" ("femme" women who tend to be "hyper-feminine").[citation needed] These stereotypes play out within the LGBTIQ+ community itself, with many women reporting feeling rejected by the queer community for not appearing or acting in the accepted way.[21]
Lesbian feminists assert that a sexual component is unnecessary for a woman to declare herself a lesbian if her primary and closest relationships are with women, on the basis that, when considering past relationships within an appropriate historical context, there were times when love and sex were separate and unrelated notions.[22] In 1989, an academic cohort called the Lesbian History Group wrote:
"Because of society's reluctance to admit that lesbians exist, a high degree of certainty is expected before historians or biographers are allowed to use the label. Evidence that would suffice in any other situation is inadequate here... A woman who never married, who lived with another woman, whose friends were mostly women, or who moved in known lesbian or mixed gay circles, may well have been a lesbian. ... But this sort of evidence is not 'proof'. What our critics want is incontrovertible evidence of sexual activity between women. This is almost impossible to find."[23]