The Birth of the Psycho Lesbian: How did perceptions of women and queer people during the 1950s to 1960s come together to create the Psycho Lesbian Trope?

Post–World War II gender expectations, psychoanalytic theory, and media representation contributed to the development of the “Psycho Lesbian” trope in 1950s and 1960s America. Drawing on historical scholarship, psychological texts, and film analysis, the author shows that lesbians were portrayed as mentally unstable, socially deviant, and threatening to the heteronormative nuclear family.