"But I'm A Cheerleader" & The Vegetarian Lesbian Stereotype

Image Credit: Rojan Mharjan on Unsplash

As an adult, I’ve made a hobby out of consuming media I wasn’t allowed to consume as a kid, watching and rewatching Hocus Pocus, Family Guy, Friends, and so many more titles with glee.

Last summer, I checked But I’m a Cheerleader off of my list of forbidden films, expecting to giggle my way through the queer classic. But the movie left me feeling more sad than anything — sad for the film’s characters who are forced to attend a gay conversion therapy camp, sad for the queer adolescence I didn’t have, sad for the queer community as a whole. I finished the movie feeling melancholy, bitterly remembering past church services and hurtful conversations with loved ones.

In fact, to me, the funniest part of But I’m a Cheerleader is the idea that the main character’s vegetarianism is inextricably linked to her lesbianism. Whenever I randomly think of the movie, that’s the part that makes me smile.

I was completely unaware of the vegetarian lesbian stereotype before watching But I’m a Cheerleader, and I guess that makes sense. Most of the lesbians I know love meat; they fry bacon, roast chicken, and take pride in their grilling skills. When I got sick a few years ago, a pansexual friend’s lesbian girlfriend blamed it on my vegetarian diet. Maybe this speaks to the gaps in my knowledge, but aside from But I’m a Cheerleader, the only other pop culture reference to the vegetarian lesbian stereotype that I can think of is a scene in season eight of Friends: Phoebe and Rachel are having dinner with Rachel’s dad, and upon learning that Phoebe doesn’t eat meat, he remarks, “I’ll never understand you lesbians.”

While some research suggests queer women may eat healthier than straight women, I couldn’t find significant evidence linking sexuality and vegetarianism in the Western world, which, as far as I can tell, is where the vegetarian lesbian stereotype appears to thrive. It seems the UK might have a slightly stronger argument for the vegetarian lesbian stereotype than the U.S., but “slightly” is doing some heavy lifting there; the most convincing “evidence” I could find on the topic comes from the results of a poll conducted by Curve Magazine via Facebook back in 2017. Of the 925 responses that poll received, 66.4 percent of respondents identified as both LGBT+ and vegan.

Across the pond, vegetarians make up approximately four percent of Americans, according to a 2023 Gallup poll. Though the survey found that women tend to identify as vegetarian more often than men, and politically liberal people are also more likely to self-identify as vegetarian, Gallup’s reporting doesn't mention sexuality.

My underwhelming findings lead me to wonder if, as it is with so many stereotypes, the vegetarian lesbian stereotype was birthed by anecdotal evidence and a misguided need to further “other” a minority group.

I suppose my attraction to women and my vegetarianism could seem linked to those in my social circle, because I became vegetarian around the same time I came out of the closet. I stopped eating meat nearly nine years ago, and I officially announced my bisexuality on the internet shortly after I stopped eating meat; but I’ve had an aversion to meat for as long as I can remember, and I’ve felt attracted to more than one gender for as long as I’ve felt attraction. I could and would choose to eat meat if it were absolutely necessary for my survival though, whereas choosing to be heterosexual is fundamentally impossible for me.

Eliminating meat from my diet has only ever felt natural. I’m happy and grateful I don’t have to eat animals to be healthy, and I’m hopeful I’ll get to be vegetarian for the rest of my life. If that means unintentionally furthering the vegetarian lesbian stereotype, I’m OK with that.