Sapphic

Sapphic, also known as woman loving woman (WLW), girls loving girls (GLG), LBPQ (Lesbian, Bisexual, Pansexual, omnisexual, Queer), difemina, or sapphist, refers to a woman, woman-aligned and/or non-binary individual, who is attracted to women, exclusively or not. They may or may not be attracted to other genders as well. This attraction does not need to be exclusive, as the label is used as a way to unify all women or women-aligned individual who love other women such as Lesbians, Bisexual women, Pansexual women, Omnisexual women, queer women, and other m-spec women, promoting solidarity among women of all identities who are attracted to other women.

The term can be used as a modifier combined with other identities to show that one emphasizes or prioritizes their attraction to and relationships with other women. It may also be used as an identity on it's own, and may be found particularly useful for individuals who know they are attracted to women but may be uncertain if they are attracted to other genders. It can also be used to describe a relationship between two women.

It can be used as the non-exclusive counterpart to lesbian. Lesbian and sapphic are the woman-loving-woman counterparts to faunic and daunic, which are non-men-loving-non-men.

The non-binary counterparts are diamoric and enbian. The mascic counterpart is julietian. The male counterpart is romeric.

There is also Sapphixic, which is the overlap between trixic and sapphic.

Etymology
The word sapphic comes from the name of the Greek poet Sappho. The island she was born on, Lesbos, is where the word lesbian is derived from.

Sapphic is also a type of poetry comprised of four line stanzas of similar meter. Sapphic poems are historically popular and written by individuals of all genders.

Use in History
Although historians use the term sapphic retrospectively, the first use of sapphic as a sexual orientation was by sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld in his pamphlet "Sappho and Socrates: Or How is the Love of Men and Women for Persons of Their Own Sex Explained?"

Up until the late 2000s and early 2010s, sapphic was used primarily as an adjective version of lesbian. The first known use of sapphic as an independent identity is by Tumblr user sapphicseekingsapphic on February 23, 2012.

Flags
The original sapphic flag was created by Tumblr user lesbeux-moved on August 14, 2015. The sapphic flag has two pink stripes on the top and bottom, symbolizing love. In the center there is a violet, which was historically given between women to symbolize their sapphic love. In the center of the original flag is a realistic pair of violets.

As a response to the difficulty of replicating the violets in the center, Tumblr user pride-color-schemes simplified the flag and created the modern sapphic flag on June 25, 2017.

On sapphicsandlavenders' flag, lavender represents sapphic love, white represents community, rose represents the goddess Aphrodite, and dark blue represents the goddess Artemis.

On December 12th, 2021 Twitter user created the sun, moon and equinox sapphic flags. Each of these flags has nine stripes. On the sun sapphic flag, the stripe meanings in order are; love, balance between light and dark, new beginnings, connection to the sun, sapphic attraction, solidarity between sapphics, sapphics of color, trans sapphics, and respect. On the moon sapphic flag, the stripe meanings in order are; love, balance between light and dark, new memories, connection to the moon, sapphic attraction, solidarity between sapphics, sapphics of color, trans sapphics, and understanding. On the equinox sapphic flag, the stripe meanings in order are; love, balance between light and dark, beginnings and endings, connection to the sun and moon, sapphic attraction, solidarity between sapphics, sapphics of color, trans sapphics, and equality.

On November 6th, 2021 Tumblr user strawberryoverlord created two new sapphic flags, a ten-striped version and a five-striped version "for anyone who ID’s as a woman and loves women. Including Cis, Trans, Enby, and Demi Women, Lesbians, mspecs of all flavors, aces, and aros!"

Combinations
On June 15th, 2021 Twitter user strwbryfemme's acespec sapphic flag, the first stripe represents varying degrees of sexual attraction, the second violets, the third trans, gnc, and nonbinary sapphics, the fourth love for women, and the fifth the beauty of varying experiences.

Strwbryfemme also created asexual, aromantic , and arospec sapphic flags.

On October 11th, 2020 reddit user QueerVexillology posted a bambi sapphic flag.

On an unknown date, the since-deleted Twitter account sapphicimagines created an aroace sapphic flag.