Are lesbians their own worst enemy?

Me and lesbianism didn't hit it off until I was halfway through my 20's and I realised I couldn't live the lie anymore.

So it was with a certain amount of trepidation that I hit the Candy Bar, London's main girl bar, one Tuesday night and my first experience of it nearly sent me running back to heterosexuality.

I'd come from work in a smart suit and heels, walked down the stairs like a lamb to the slaughter and sidled up to the bar to get some dutch courage. I'd only been there a few minutes when a girl came over to chat.

"People like you really fuck me off" she said. I stood in shock not knowing whether this was some sort of lesbian joke or whether I was about to be lynched.

"Girls like you shouldn't be in here because it's a lesbian bar, so what the fuck are you even doing in here anyway?"

I meekly protested that I was gay and that I was here for the same reasons she was but she just brushed it off with a "yeah yeah, tell your boyfriend that"

I'd never felt so humiliated in my life and left my freshly poured drink standing to make my escape

A few months later, I found myself in the long queue that used to snake it's way down the side of the Astoria every weekend. After what felt like several hours we finally made it to the door where I was stopped by a burley doorman.

"Do you know what sort of club this is love" he said
"A gay one" I said
"We've got a gay majority policy so not tonight love" he said
"But I am gay" I said

I'll cut a long story short and tell you that despite my begging and pleading and the best efforts of my 2 boyish friends I didn't make it in that night. And why may you ask did I find myself on the receiving end of such treatment?

Because back then I was gay, but I didn't look gay and somehow that is enough to unnerve and arouse suspicion in even the most tolerant of lesbians.

As lesbians we hate being stereotyped as comfortable shoe wearing tomboys yet when it comes to labelling our own we can never really accept someone is gay unless they look it.

We assume that if we see a very feminine or attractive woman she must be Bi or even worse, Bi-curious with a secret boyfriend.

Why do we refuse to believe that for every gay woman wearing trainers and skinny jeans, there's a long haired counterpart wearing lipstick and stilettos.

It seems that we perpetuate the myth much more freely than heterosexuals do because they are happy to believe that lesbians come in more than one variety when they watch the latest glossy drama on TV.

Maybe it's time to start giving girls the benefit of the doubt regardless of how they look before we end up in bars filled with stereotypes because then it wouldn't feel like we've come very far at all.

*Victoria S decided to persevere with lesbianism and hasn't looked back