Lesbian erasure is the tendency to ignore, remove, falsify, or reexplain evidence of lesbian women or relationships in history, academia, the news media, and other primary sources. Lesbian erasure also refers to instances wherein lesbian issues, activism, and identity is deemphasized or ignored within the LGBT community. In history Journalist and author Victoria Brownworth wrote that the erasure of lesbian sexuality from historical records "is similar to the erasure of all autonomous female sexuality: women's sexual desire has always been viewed, discussed and portrayed within the construct and purview of the male gaze". Oftentimes, erasure of lesbians is enabled when LGBT organizations fail to recognize the contributions of lesbians, such as when, in 2018, a statement by the National Center for Lesbian Rights about the Stonewall riots did not acknowledge Stormé DeLarverie's involvement in the uprising. In 1974, Kathy Kozachenko became the first openly-gay political candidate in the United States to win an election. However, this achievement in LGBT history was incorrectly ascribed to San Francisco politician Harvey Milk. In literature Some contemporary historians concur that American poet Emily Dickinson had an intimate relationship with her sister-in-law, Susan Gilbert; leading some academics to assert that she was a lesbian. Dickinson experts Ellen Louise Hart and Martha Nell Smith wrote that Gilbert was a muse to Dickinson, stating that "Emily's correspondence to Susan unequivocally acknowledges that their emotional, spiritual, and physical communion is vital to her creative insight and sensibilities." However, the Emily Dickinson Museum is ambiguous when discussing Dickinson's sexuality. In music Author and women's history scholar Bonnie J. Morris wrote that many lesbian singers and musicians are erased from music and its history. As an example, she discusses a time when she asked her students to name "five openly-lesbian role models" and none mentioned a musical artist; showing that the presence of lesbians in the music world is overlooked or ignored in media. In scholarship While the traditional academic canon has recognized the contributions of gay men, those of lesbians have not received the same scrutiny. Political theorist Anna Marie Smith stated that lesbianism has been erased from the "official discourse" in Britain because lesbians are viewed as "responsible homosexuals" in a dichotomy between that and "dangerous gayness". As a result, lesbian sexual practices were not criminalized in Britain in ways similar to the criminalization of gay male sexual activities. Smith also points to the exclusion of women from