In honour of Lesbian Visibility Day (April 26th) I wanted to touch on a few of the Barbies over the years who represent lesbian women.
The first lesbian Barbie released - at least to my knowledge, and according to a couple of articles on the subject - was the 2016 Shero Barbie modeled after gold medalist soccer player Abby Wambach.
Technically, of course, this isn't really the case, as there was a Rosie O'Donnell Barbie released in 1999.
O'Donnell didn't come out of the closet as a lesbian until 2002 though, so it may be true that Wambach was the first Barbie modeled after someone known to Mattel as being a lesbian.
In 2019, Barbie included Sally Ride in the Inspiring Women range, and then in 2020, added Billie Jean King. Unlike the Wambach doll, these dolls were actually released as dolls that could be purchased by the general population.
No doubt there are many missing from this post, as of course many, many of the women being honoured by the Sheroes and Inspiring Women lines are honoured for reasons besides their sexual orientation - so although many of them may be queer, it's not always the first thing that pops up on a search.
Mattel has been on and off over the years over whether and how much queer representation they can include in the Barbie brand, but at least they're trying?
