The internet changed everything for a lot of marginalized, disconnected groups of human beings, especially the gay ones. Lesbians took to the web in droves and with great passion and enthusiasm, some establishing their own dykey webnooks but mostly creating pages and pages of links to various dykey webnooks. (Remember when Google didn’t exist yet and the only way to find what you were looking for was to wade through the corresponding Yahoo! Directory?) PlanetOut.com was the primary destination for internet LGBTQs for the first few years, even obtaining millions upon millions in financing which we’re not even remotely jealous of. Now, PlanetOut has been absorbed into Here! Media, which also owns Gay.com, SheWired, OUT and The Advocate.
The other day Laneia and I were playing lesbian website portal bingo on Wayback Machine for funsies and I thought we’d share some of these throwbacks with you. For the record, some of these sites still exist — AfterEllen, obviously, but also Lesbian.com is now under new ownership (very lovely new ownership, if we do say so ourselves), GO Magazine and Curve.
25 Pictures of The Lesbian Internet, 1997-2007
Planet Out – Feb 22nd, 1997
Girlfriends Magazine – Jan 10, 1998
Bad Attitude – Feb 10, 1998
Lesbian.com – December 12th, 1998
Anything That Moves – November 24, 1998
LesbiaNation – December 12, 1998
Women Loving Women Webring- Jan 17, 1999
The Girlie TV Network – April 16, 1999
Lady Lovers – April 28, 1999
Butch-Femme.com – May 5, 1999
[visit butch-femme dot com]
Planet Out’s Dykesville – October 4th, 1999
Gay.com – October 10, 1999
Girlfriends Magazine – October 13, 1999
Lesbian.com – November 3, 1999
Dyke Diva – November 28 1999
Dyke’s World – November 16, 1999
Dyke Test – January 23, 2000
DykeDiva.com – August 17, 2000
Wishing Well – August 19, 2000
F2F Dungeon – October 14, 2000
Dyxploitation – June 5, 2000
Shoe.com – November 19, 2001
AfterEllen – June 1, 2002
AfterEllen – October 12, 2002
Lesbian.com – March 22, 2004
PlanetOut Women- September 19, 2004
Afterellen.com – December 10, 2004
GO! Magazine – July 14, 2007
OurChart- July 30, 2007
and then this happened…
Autostraddle.com – March 16, 2009
And here we are today.
