Earlier this summer, I witnessed the lesbian wedding of my wildest dreams. Hundreds of queer activists gathered in the port of Eressos, a small town on the Greek island of Lesbos, as the sun sank into the Aegean Sea. Everywhere, fierce lesbian rights advocates—lawyers, politicians, and economists from Albania, Greece, Serbia, Italy, and elsewhere—stood in wedding attire (usually paired with Birkenstocks), crying as the blue sky turned first orange, then red.

The brides, Dragana Todorović and Evgenia Giakoumopoulou, two of the world’s most active lesbian activists, soon arrived in the back of a pickup truck, with Guns N’ Roses’ “Sweet Child O’ Mine” blaring from the speakers. The congregation cheered and laughed through tears.

“You came and I was crazy about you, and you cooled my heart that was burning with longing,” said wedding officiant Tzeli Hadjidimitriou, quoting Sappho. “With these words, Sappho welcomed her loved ones here in Eressos, two thousand six hundred years ago,” continued Tzeli, who had arrived in a speedboat with a tinfoil labrys in her hand, minutes before the couple’s truck arrived.

“If someone had told me a few years ago that here, off the Aegean Sea, in the company of the statues of Sappho, on the edge of Greece, we would officially celebrate the love of two women, I would have thought they were crazy or dreamers,” continued Tzeli, who is a community elder, filmmaker and a rare “double lesbian” (a queer woman born on the island of Lesbos).

Even the toughest butch’s hearts were stirred and tears fell on the sand as Tzeli and the couple’s “Best Dykes” spoke effusively of the power couple’s love, while the lyricism of Sappho’s poems whispered to our souls. Countless lesbian love stories have played out on these shores, and this ceremony felt like the culmination of generations of herstory. “I’ve never seen my mother or father cry,” said a stunned Todorović after the ceremony, as lesbians who had never considered marriage suddenly left the reception after the one.

Todorović is Serbian, Evgenia is Greek; both countries have a majority Christian Orthodox faith. Their families were present at the ceremony. In Serbia, same-sex marriage is illegal, although recent Prime Minister Ana Brnabić is openly gay, and there is considerable opposition to any attempt to change that. Greece was the first Christian Orthodox country to allow gay marriage (it passed earlier this year by 176 votes to 76). After the ruling, large rallies broke out on the streets of Athens, with concerned citizens chanting absolution prayers with crucifixes and Bibles in the Greek capital’s Syntagma Square.

In our rapidly changing world – with great advances and great backlash towards queerer expressions of life and love – it felt like a victory to stand together at sunset and witness such a cross-generational and international celebration of love. Activists around the world have fought tirelessly for queer marriage, and two world-renowned lesbian activists merged their lives together on this dreamy evening by the sea.

I met the newlyweds at their hotel a few days after the ceremony. Their colleagues and families were flying home, and the couple’s nervous systems needed to readjust after the magnitude of their big day. “I was kind of numb,” said Todorović, wearing white linens and striking glasses, “because of all the emotions and the complexity of everything: being here, having all these people from everywhere around you.”

We sat in a quiet, shady spot by the pool while people strolled to and from the beach with inflatables and mojitos. This was their honeymoon, so to speak, mused Giakoumopoulou. “Given our lives, I don’t know if we’ll have the time…” she said.

“I’m not counting this as a honeymoon, not at all,” Todorović interjected, “we can’t get away with that.” After all, she had spent the day in the capital Mytilene at a court case to save Eressos Beach from a construction project that would destroy the pristine and almost indescribable beauty of the coast. The activists, who have been together for five years, are admittedly not the best at fitting a couple’s free time into their annual calendar. They spend most of their lives between capitals – rarely in the same place at the same time – and establish and build lesbian networks all over the world.

Todorović became an activist at the age of six. “I was the small, masculine girl,” she says, who stood up for the bullied “feminine, gentle, petite boy” in her class who couldn’t cross a corner without someone calling him a “faggot” – even though none of her classmates knew what that meant.

“I knew that this boy was somehow similar to me, that we were unique,” she said, “and I knew I had to protect him because he was incapable of doing this and no one else cared.” Todorović constantly got into arguments about him until her teacher called her to the front and asked her to explain herself:

“What do you call a girl a faggot?” she asked her teacher innocently.

“What do you mean?” the alarmed teacher replied. “A lesbian?”

“Yes!” shouted six-year-old Todorović in her native Serbian. “Yes, I am a lesbian!” (I am a lesbian!).
“That’s when I learned the word. That’s when I knew it about myself too… and that’s how my activism started,” she continued, “and I never stopped fighting… now I fight in a grown-up way, but at the core it’s still the same.”

At 43, Todorović is now the executive director of the EuroCentralAsian Lesbian* Community (EL*C), a grassroots network of lesbian feminist activists working to ensure queer women have a seat at the table in international forums. Earlier this year, EL*C’s efforts led to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe passing the first resolution on LBQ women. “It’s the first international human rights standard that focuses specifically on us,” Todorović said. Power and diligence seem to drip from Todorović’s pores; her words are chosen and caustic, she keeps her eyes on the horizon—that’s the definition of a power lesbian. In her twenty-year career as an academic and activist, she has raised millions for grassroots lesbian organizations around the world, “and this is just the beginning,” she promises. The EL*C recently moved its spacious headquarters to Eressos, making this small island not only the dynamic home of Sapphicism, but soon also the geopolitical center of the lesbian scene.

“It’s as if things we thought were completely unattainable for grassroots lesbian organizations are suddenly attainable thanks to Dragana,” Giakoumopoulou said. “She will move the world to make it better through the things she believes in. And luckily for all of us, she believes in lesbian genius more than anything else.” By “lesbian genius,” she means the power of lesbians because of our unique position and the way we often experience intersections of oppression in racist, patriarchal, and capitalist systems around the world. With Dragana at the helm, EL*C works to recognize and eradicate these intersectional oppressions. Through cross-cultural collaboration, the organization works to use this heightened awareness to fight against all forms of oppression (including militarism and (neo)colonialism), creating a more just and equal world for all.

Giakoumopoulou, who is 38 and undoubtedly her wife’s “biggest fan”, has also dedicated her life to expanding LGBTQ+ rights. First, she was concerned with social justice in general, then she joined EL*C in 2017 – that’s how the couple met – and now she has quickly worked her way up the career ladder and now heads the Council of Europe’s Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Expression, and Sex Characteristics (SOGIESC) Unit. Todorović describes her wife as someone who “embodies many qualities, as a human being and as a professional, navigating the difficult situation of fighting institutions from within.”

Todorović speaks admiringly of her wife’s resilience, sense of duty and sacrifice for LGBTQI+ people, and credits her with passing the first resolution on LGB women’s rights. Giakoumopoulou, who “spends her life bragging about Dragana”, then asks: “Can we have these meetings weekly? I had no idea you felt that!”

Giakoumopoulou describes herself as a “people pleaser,” meaning she always tries to make others – especially her wife – laugh. In their early days as colleagues at EL*C, they met every day on Zoom, and Todorović had “this really intense poker face” in her role as director, said Giakoumopoulou, who was then chair of EL*C’s board. “And yet she would laugh at my stupid jokes. And that really became my purpose in life… It didn’t occur to me that I could seduce her, but I wanted her to break out of her role,” she said.

“So wait, this whole time it was all about my brain,” asked Giakoumopoulou, still dazed by the admirations of her wife. She is also a boxer, with a short butt and sides and a labrys tattoo on her bicep. “And you are sexy,” Todorović added. They gazed flirtatiously into each other’s eyes, as if they had met last week. Their synergy was palpable as we chatted by the pool; they are completely and mutually impressed, inspired and smitten by the other.

The labrys – “the ultimate lesbian symbol,” Todorović said of her tattoo – played a big role on their wedding day. The couple wore matching silver necklaces and brandished registrar Tzeli’s giant tinfoil labrys to cut the wedding cake. Giakoumopoulou explained that “lesbians are always seen as serious, as fighters, castrators, hysterics and whatever… but I think we have so much damn humor and self-deprecation, making fun of our own lesbian drama and exaggerations.” She admitted that she watched the wedding videos over and over again and laughed out loud at the “ridiculousness and awesomeness” of the day.

After the ceremony at the port, the tearful congregation was led to a lesbian bar on the waterfront. No expense was spared; the entire Eressos community was invited and an abundance of food and champagne awaited the guests under a crescent moon.

Locals and lesbians conquered the dance floor in massesalthough the most notable dancer was Tzeli. At 66, this double lesbian has experienced firsthand how far Greece has come and how gaining LGBTQ+ rights has made it possible to seek, express and embrace more love in this world. Standing hand in hand in front of our loved ones with the blessing of the state is a brand new phenomenon here. Todorović and Giakoumopoulou’s hugely meaningful wedding was a sacred moment for all of us to celebrate this time and place where Sapphic dreams truly do come true.

Learn more about the Euro-Central Asian Lesbian*Community (EL*C)