Sapphic Speculative Fiction Is Inventing New Futures

The future is lesbian, or at least it can be in sapphic speculative fiction. Part of the power of speculative fiction is that it allows marginalized people to imagine worlds in which our dreams are front and center, a landscape that takes what is and reimagines it into what could be. As a nonbinary lesbian of color, I see my own sapphic identity as one that subverts the violence of patriarchy, heteronormative gender, and white supremacy—as an identity and politics that is expansive. When I dream, I want to see lesbians in space, sexy chefs in post-apocalyptic bunkers, women going on journeys to save their clone sisters from a disease that threatens their collective sapphic future. I want to see lesbians doing stuff that tears the very fabric of our society and weaves it anew. I want to see worlds where sapphics can want and be messy and gnaw and heal in ways that inform how we move through universes. I want to see hundreds and millions of alternate worlds in which every one of us can, against all odds, grow old. 

My only access to sapphic speculative literature as a teenager was fanfiction. These works were filled with sapphic themes of resilience, grit, a...