For a certain generation of lesbians, queer women, and queers with vulvas who don’t identify as women, “The L Word” was — to put it mildly — the most personally significant piece of pop culture of the last 20 years.
Speaking solely for myself (I fall into the latter camp), discovering the comic melodrama about a group of attractive lesbians living in Los Angeles in the mid-aughts was a revelation.
I can still remember driving back from my local video store, cradling the DVDs in my lap like a precious gem, my semi-clueless father innocently inquiring: “So, what is the L word?,” emphasizing the last word in the title much in the way he still says “Burger King.” Graciously filling in my loaded silence, just as he would the following year when he lobbed me the Bill Clinton answer about my marijuana use, he asked — “Is it…love?”“Yeah…it’s love,
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