Mentoring and coaching females brings more ambassadors and supporters into our sport, expanding the pool of officials, directors, and coaches. These depictions were damaging in their ability to define lesbian identities to wrestling audiences, but they also masked the industry’s actual lesbian history. She has become a respected veteran in the locker room and a guiding light to younger wrestlers and fans alike.

There’s been so many changes in women’s wrestling and LGBTQ+ representation in wrestling over your career. In and out of the ring, Stratus and James created one of the most compelling angles any two women in sports entertainment have been able to enact, all based on James developing a Single White Female-style crush on the 7-time WWE Women’s Champion. Here is everything you need to know about lesbians in wrestling including the tips, tricks, and stories of triumphs and from the queer women who are changing the industry one smackdown at a time. On July 23, Martinez retained her championship title against Serena Deeb, one of her most distinguished competitors in the women’s wrestling scene, in a tooth-and-nail match that allowed both women to truly showcase their athletic abilities. Naturally, that looked to be the case, as the hulking 3MW made easy work of McMahon’s pink supporters.When asked the meaning of the name, she replied, "I was at a wrestling tournament, and this little girl came up to me, and she was so upset. Part of why it worked is that any lesbian undertones were kept subtle, merely relegated to errant glances as Winter and Love formed a championship winning tag team. Rather than attempt to establish a newer, younger talent as a superstar worthy of replacing those legendary names, Raw General Manager Eric Bischoff went the lowest common denominator route and offered HLA—“Hot Lesbian Action.

If you are looking for other lesbian wrestleheads, join HER, the best lesbian dating site in the world, to find a cutie to watch the next AEW match with you. I wish it was that way when I came out, or whenever I started because I would have never had to hide who I was.Whatever happened behind closed doors remains up for debate, but if nothing else, it was pretty clear Young had no problem swapping spit with a woman when she and Mickie James locked lips on an episode of Raw.

Because it took place in the PG era, this lesbian angle was far less risqué than the others we’ve mentioned, and the most physical Paige and AJ got was a lingering hug that clearly made the Anti-Diva extremely uncomfortable. But now that there's, like, girls wrestling starting up, they're starting to like … what's a good word for that? Another hard-hitting iconic Black and indigenous lesbian wrestler who is becoming a household name is Nyla Rose.Fast forward thirty years, and a ratings-desperate WWE introduced an awful segment on Raw in 2002 to compete with the season premiere of Monday Night Football. But they have not received as much attention as other champions, in part, said Roberts, because of the false perception that the sport is not feminine. Names like Mercedes Martinez and Sonya Deville gives lesbian members of WWE’s audience figures to latch onto.

The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Back then, there were only six states that recognized girls high school wrestling as an official sport. The sexualization probably cost me a lot of bookings and a lot of friends, but it’s fine, because if those promoters didn’t believe in my work and they just wanted the sexual aspect, you know what, I wouldn’t wanna work for you anyways.

AEW markets itself as being a wrestling promotion “for everyone,” yet manages the superficial tokensism that can so often come alongside diversity campaigns. The LGBTQ “Pride Fighter” commented on that long journey to gold in a Twitter post alongside a picture of the two with WWE chief content officer Paul “Triple H” Levesque. If you are looking to follow for more lesser known indie lesbian wrestlers, check out Charlie Morgan, Jetta, Rebel Kinney, Diamente, and Kiera Hogan, and Ashley VOX.