Lesbian as an Identity: Is there a legal entitlement to geographic appellations?

In order not to turn this blog into a romantic discussion, here is a new interesting issue, albeit it still does not depart from the issue of relationship too far, at least in term of definition.

The issue concerns a great legal question regarding the existance of geographic appellations: Is the term "lesbian" something that the residents of Lesbos, Greece have a legal entitlement to prevent others from misusing? The Associate Press has the story:

A Greek court has been asked to draw the line between the natives of the Aegean Sea island of Lesbos and the world's gay women. Three islanders from Lesbos - home of the ancient poet Sappho, who praised love between women - have taken a gay rights group to court for using the word lesbian in its name. One of the plaintiffs said Wednesday that the name of the association, Homosexual and Lesbian Community of Greece, "insults the identity" of the people of Lesbos, who are also known as Lesbians. "My sister can't say she is a Lesbian," said Dimitris Lambrou. "Our geographical designation has been usurped by certain ladies who have no connection whatsoever with Lesbos," he said. The three plaintiffs are seeking to have the group barred from using "lesbian" in its name and filed a lawsuit on April 10.... The Homosexual and Lesbian Community of Greece could not be reached for comment.


Rules regarding name which is linked to the particular geographical regions are common in trade areas. Under intellectual property law, the term ‘Geographical Indicator’ prescribes the extent to which one is entitled to use the name of the specific region which has some connections with the product in question, while at the same time preventing the same product produced outside the particular region from such usage. The most common examples of such GI are ‘Champagne’ and ‘Dijon Mustard’ – even though the latter is becoming a generic name even within the EU nowadays. I have not been aware before that the same concept can be applied to the common term like ‘lesbian’. It is interesting to see how the court will address this but my hint is that the court may decide to introduce some innovative grounds to preliminarily dismiss the case to avoid considering this complex issue.