April 16, 2011
Why are lesbians all vegetarian?
Have you ever noticed that there is a disproportionate number of vegetarian and vegan ladies in the queer community? asks Stephanie Davies.
Two lesbians walk into an organic, fair trade, vegan-catered café. So the joke goes. According to Effing Dykes blogger Krista Burton, you can go into any vegetarian restaurant in any town and that’s where the gay ladies in organic cotton t-shirts will be hanging out.
Radclyffe Hall, author of lesbian bible The Well of Loneliness, was strongly opposed to animal cruelty. Jeanette Winterson wrote fiction about fruit for fruits. k.d. lang is a vegetarian, Ellen Degeneres is a vegan, and even self-confessed omnivore Sara Quin wrote the forward to a vegan cupcake recipe book
Food for thought
The reason that the vagetarian-vegetarian correlation may be so high is because queer folk tend towards the leftish end of the political spectrum to begin with.
It’s all part of being a minority group – being included in a non-mainstream culture exposes one to individuals who share similar thoughts and political and ideological backgrounds.
Could it be that those special herbivores amongst us lost their vegan-ity when they first integrated with others who lauded the benefits of a plant-based diet?
There is something in the “outsider” factor that appeals and draws us. We learn to define ourselves in exclusionary terms: we are vegetarian or vegan because we don’t (or don’t exclusively) eat animal products, and we are lesbian or bisexual because we don’t (or don’t exclusively) sleep with men.
But is it that simple?
“You don’t have pictures of any guys in your locker, and you’ve been trying to make us eat this… tofu.”
Remember that cheesy 90’s flick But I’m A Cheerleader
There is a kind of chicken-egg situation happening here (not really an appropriate analogy, but one can hardly use tofu as a metaphor). Is she gay because she’s a vegetarian, or is she a vegetarian because she’s gay?
Being a vegetarian or vegan in the LGBT community is kind of like being a Tegan and Sara fan, or wearing plaid. It might feel incredibly cliché… but it can also feel so, so right.
Of course, it goes without saying that not all gay girls are vegetarians or vegans, and not all vegetarians or vegans are gay girls. Hardcore carnivores, like hardcore vegans, can be found across the full spectrum of the sexual rainbow.
Whether or not being gay is a choice, our diets certainly are. Maybe we will never truly know whether the correlation between vegetarian diets and lesbian lifestyle is coincidence or something deeper.
But for those of us who remain meat-eaters, beware: Remember that age-old adage, “You are what you eat”? Maybe it’s contagious.
Note from the Editor: This article was edited on 27/4/2011 to remove one sentence which had been duplicated from another article. We apologise for this error.
Related Articles
Video
The video cannot be shown at the moment. Please try again later.
Justin Bieber lesbian parody
“If I Was Your Gayfriend” – new & improved version of Justin Bieber’s “Boyfriend”
June 7, 2012
Food for thought!
As someone who has not eaten meat for close to 35 years it nice to read the likes of Ellen and KD Lang opt out of eat meat to. It would be great if all lesbians were veggie but not so my experience would suggest we are the minority. I do think the lesbian cook do some fantastic things with a tin of chick peas and a few lentils : )
Women are compassionate, we empathize so I think that’s why we tend to be veg, specially lesbians as we can persuade our girl to try our very delicious veg offerings:)
my menu tonight: whole wheat spaghetti with chili & olive oil, sauteed spinach in lemon butter sauce, olives, marinated mushrooms. Dessert: chocolate cashew vegan ice cream.
my menu tonight was less of a challenge – walnut bread with olives. Dessert simply fruit but maybe a little chocolate later
well I ate leftovers for 3 nights:)
walnut bread with olives sounds delicious, can you share the recipe. All the girls will want to dine with us!
Oh wow this sounds like an article I published in 2007, and later in 2009. http://www.happycow.net/blog/?p=853
Ummm…. was this article plagiarized from Sarah’s article?
the walnut bread was shop made but if you want to try a quickie meal here is my suggestion:
Halloumi and broccoli wrap
Par boil broccoli to slightly soften, heat chill grill and place halloumi on until it colours. Move to onside and then add broccoli for a minute. While this finishes warm your wrap add a little sweet chill source place halloumi and broccoli on top and roll. Cut in to two and find a comfy seat and begin eating – yummy
Please take down this article immediately. Parts of it are plagiarized from http://www.happycow.net/blog/?p=853
jh thanks for the recipe; sounds delicious:) & I’m going to look in my shop for the bread, sounds great
Of course you do all know that vegetarian lesbians mean we’ll all probably live longer- so the future will be chock full of lesbians!
After eight years of dating vegans (male and female) I’ve come to the conclusion that what I really want from a partner is the ability to share in a decent cooked breakfast in the morning.
That’s right…I’m frysexual.
Not all lesbians are vegetarian and/or vegan, I suspect what you notice has more to do with class/education than sexual orientation.
Unfortunately, I do not believe there is any clear correlation (despite what we might choose to believe about our choices) between compassion and empathy toward other human beings and being vegetarian or vegan…if only it were so simple.
ps. You might want to cite more clearly which parts of this article were taken from another writer’s work, a simple & ethical correction.
Perhaps all lesbians are vegetarian because all lesbians are poor? (That’s certainly why I’m vegetarian. Meat is too expensive to bother with.)
Nope we have more money!, the writers-economists of Freakonomics found Lesbians make more money than straight women:) yay!
http://www.freakonomics.com/2010/12/17/the-truth-about-gay-and-lesbian-income/