I’m loose and light and a little sleepy from my second Corona and a blossoming sunburn. Sure, I say, why not, thinking all the while: If any other 27-year-old lesbians could use a self-esteem boost, all they need to do, clearly, is get themselves on an Olivia cruise. I would sleep in Alia’s bed that night and accidentally pat her butt in my sleep, my mind clearly deluding my body into believing I was still on the cruise with Lynette. Alia would very nicely not be weird about it. The night before I left on the cruise, two of my best friends got married. Watching one of my friend’s dads talking at the wedding dinner about how much he loved his daughter and her new wife, I teared up a little and said something to my partner about it: “This is actually pretty nice, huh?” But they wrinkled their nose at me. They’re not a fan of weddings — the pomp and circumstance, the big, grand displays of public affection.

We all formed one big circle, and the staffers got the ball rolling. First things first: How had we all heard about Olivia?Gina says she feels “immensely proud and impressed by the work and the commitment [behind the documentary] and still astonished by the interest and love that people have for the Gateways and how they remember it. I would tell my partner that I cared about them deeply, and the past five years were among the best of my life. I wouldn’t trade them for anything. But I also felt like we had come to a crossroads, and we weren’t facing the same futures. I had tried so hard to see myself in their dreams, but now I was having dreams of my own. And I didn’t think I saw a future, even a part-time one, in Montana. The Nazis classified prisoners in concentration camps into groups according to the reason for their imprisonment. By 1938, these groups were identified with various colored badges worn on camp uniforms. Men imprisoned for allegedly violating Paragraph 175 had to wear a pink triangle. The badge identified them as “homosexual” ( homosexuell ) according to the classification system.

First-hand testimonies, memoirs, and diaries of former prisoners reveal that prisoners had sexual encounters with each other in concentration camps. According to these sources, sexual encounters ranged from consensual intimacies to prostitution to brutal sexual assault. Both heterosexual and same-sex relationships took place in the camps. In lesbian prisoners’ paperwork, camp authorities usually listed a racial, political, social, or criminal reason as the primary cause for their arrest. In a few cases, the authorities also noted their sexuality. The desk review and interviews conducted for this report finds that when LBQ+ experiences of violence are discussed and documented, it is most often as a sub-violation of broader LGBT rights abuses or, less frequently, a sub-violation of women’s rights abuses. This conceptualization presents LBQ+ women as merely a variation on a theme that was not built for them. It perpetuates their marginalization for two main reasons: Monday, fun day! The most popular day of the week for 18-to-34 year olds to watch porn is Monday. I believe—through sheer, un-researched and unfounded speculation—that this is because you have the worst sex of your life between the ages of 18 and 34, and that most of that bad sex happens on the weekend. So come Monday, come. Like you know you need to. It’s basic self-care. Before I left, I talked to a few of my reporter friends about it, just in case a hookup opportunity should present itself and I decided to partake for, um, research purposes . We decided that my Olivia story fell in some sort of weird journalistic in-between, just like my own job does. I sometimes do reporting, but I’m not strictly a reporter; I’m a writer, editor, and cultural critic. Plus, I wasn’t assigned this story to go and passively report out what everybody else was doing on the cruise; I was supposed to immerse myself in the experience (while, of course, disclosing to anyone I spoke with that I was writing about the trip). And the thing a lot of women on the cruise were looking to experience was, yes, getting laid.I come from a queer universe where traditional butch/femme identities seem old-school and retrograde, second-wavey, practically heteropatriarchal. There’s a lot wrong with that perspective — for one thing, a lot of the modern queers who shit on butch/femme dynamics aren’t from the working class, where those identities were born — but it’s one I still sympathize with, especially as someone who’d previously been hesitant to claim femme identity as my own. These women’s rights issues are critical for lesbian, bisexual, and queer women, but don’t usually rank high among LGBT rights movements’ priorities. At the same time, LBQ+ women are also underrepresented in women’s rights research and advocacy. And then, for women who might not be "out," shame about their sexual orientation or a fear of being outted significantly hinders their ability to report. If you're closeted—or even semi-closeted—formally coming forward with sexual assault allegations could mean compromising your professional or familial relationships by revealing your orientation. (The guarantee of keeping your job as an LGBTQ American currently varies per state.) The downward economic spiral of losing one's job to report a same-sex rape that won't even be deemed legitimate is simply not worth it—literally. For now, though, Olivia’s brand remains quite wholesome. On the first night there, I witnessed a marriage proposal (“Do you think they just met?” joked a woman at my table; “That’d be a record”). Tisha, the cruise director and VP, met her wife on an Olivia cruise. And she emphasized to me that it’s a place where many women go to fall in love — which certainly does happen.

When female victims of female assaults do pursue legal action, gender bias can severely hinder their ability to accurately report sexual violence. "Oftentimes, women in abusive same-sex relationships tell us that even when they do call the police, they are treated dismissively," recounts Kauffman. "'Women aren't violent.' 'This is just a girl fight, this is a waste of our time,' is a common attitude." According to the 2015 report by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, of LGBTQ individuals in Ohio who did report intimate partner violence, 21 percent experienced "indifferent" reactions from police. Another 28 percent experienced hostility. I would decide that it was over, and say so, and it would feel like a sort of death, but it would also, I knew, be the right thing to do — so much so that I’d feel it in my bones.During the Nazi regime, lesbians could not continue to live and socialize as they had during the Weimar Republic. Much of German society saw lesbians as social outsiders, meaning people who did not fit into the mainstream. As such, they had a higher risk of being denounced and then targeted by the Nazi regime. These choices are homophobic,” I tell my new friend Dana. She’s technically my press handler, tasked with making sure I see the best that the tour operator, Olivia Travel, has to offer. So far, she’s more than delivered, but the weak karaoke selection — not Dana’s fault! — is a rare low point on a trip that, four days in, has already slowly but surely begun to change my life. When I first pitched this story to my editors, I thought I’d be reporting on a lesbian cultural artifact in its twilight years. The women who’ve faithfully gone on dozens of Olivia trips over the decades are getting older, and I didn’t have a lot of faith that younger queer people were going to step in and save companies like this from extinction. Other elements of lesbian culture have been steadily dying; why should Olivia be any different? When we boarded, Dana introduced me to the adorable boomer-millennial pair in charge of Olivia’s Solos Program, which caters to women (single or partnered) who decide to go on trips alone. I got my own Solos dog tag and a pink Olivia bracelet to signify my newbie status. Once, after I came in her hands, I burst into tears (yeah, I know, big dyke energy), and she held me tightly in her strong, sure arms. “You’re OK,” she said. “I’ve got you.” She kissed my hair.