LESBOS RESIDENTS LOSE CASE

The residents of the island of Lesbos have lost a court case which aimed to bar gay groups in Greece from using the word ‘Lesbian.’

An Athens court has ruled that people from the Greek island do not have the sole right to use the name, and ordered the complainants to pay the court’s costs.

They were however given leave to appeal the ruling.

“This is a good decision for lesbians everywhere,” Vassilis Chirdaris, a lawyer representing the Gay and Lesbian Union of Greece, told Reuters.

The islanders, who launched their case last month, said that women from Lesbos are embarrassed to call themselves Lesbians because of the associated connotation of female homosexuality.

The term lesbian comes from the fact that Sappho, a poet who lived on Lesbos, produced the first known references to lesbianism sometime between 625 and 570 BC.