Academic

Lesbos Residents File Suit Over Use of Term ?Lesbian?

By Ann Bartow

From this CNN.com article, sophomorically entitled “Lesbos ladies launch lesbian lawsuit”:

… Three islanders from Lesbos — home of the ancient poet Sappho, who praised love between women — have taken a gay rights group to court for using the word lesbian in its name.

One of the plaintiffs said Wednesday that the name of the association, Homosexual and Lesbian Community of Greece, “insults the identity” of the people of Lesbos, who are also known as Lesbians.

“My sister can’t say she is a Lesbian,” said Dimitris Lambrou. “Our geographical designation has been usurped by certain ladies who have no connection whatsoever with Lesbos,” he said.

The three plaintiffs are seeking to have the group barred from using “lesbian” in its name and filed a lawsuit on April 10. The other two plaintiffs are women.

A spokeswoman for the Homosexual and Lesbian Community of Greece said the action was “a joke in bad taste that borders on discrimination.”

“I don’t see how the word can be an insult,” Evangelia Vlami said. “We don’t think doubt can be cast on dictionaries … even the United Nations refer to us as Lesbians.”

Also called Mytilene, after its capital, Lesbos is famed as the birthplace of Sappho. The island, particularly the lyric poet’s reputed home town of Eressos, is a favored holiday destination for gay women.

“This is not an aggressive act against gay women,” Lambrou said. “Let them visit Lesbos and get married and whatever they like. We just want (the group) to remove the word lesbian from their title.”

He said the plaintiffs targeted the group because it is the only officially registered gay group in Greece to use the word lesbian in its name. The case will be heard in an Athens court on June 10. …

I don’t know anything about domestic Greek trademark law, but you can find law review articles discussing geographic indictors from  international perspectives here, and here.

–Ann Bartow

Full post as published by Feminist Law Professors on May 02, 2008 (boomark / email).