What To Do When You Meet a Lesbian

You never really know what delightful gems the Internet is going to unearth. One such treasure was a document entitled “When You Meet A Lesbian: Hints for the Heterosexual Woman,” from a women’s studies course at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1988, which New York Magazine’s Jody Rosen tweeted out earlier this month and was subsequently shared all over the Internet.

The tips on this handout range from the helpful, like not assuming that lesbians hate men, to the outright weird, like not running away screaming when a lesbian enters the room. There’s some helpful advice in there, but it’s mostly, as Jody Rosen put it, “a priceless period piece.” As Lucia Peters wrote here at Bustle a few weeks ago, though, it does display how far we've come in the acceptance of lesbians and gays in such a short time. This piece was clearly written long before The L Word was released or Ellen Degeneres came out of the closet on national television.

Even though the handout is just twenty-seven years old, the funny ladies at Gay Women’s Channel on YouTube decided to take the advice to the next level and spoof the well-meaning and unintentionally hilarious list in the best way possible – by making it an antique. Check out the video, and make sure that you’re not doing any of these really ridiculous things to your lesbian friends and acquaintances.