isn’t it funny how, despite both Grace and Karen being obviously attracted to women, they’re never allowed to say it? they can joke about it. they can make innuendo and vaguely reference things that only happen off-screen. but at the end of the day that’s all it is; a joke. because in the universe which the writers inhabited, Grace and Karen are not lesbians; the only real, declared lesbians on the show are highly stereotyped (to be fair, the gay men are also stereotyped, but never so cruelly) butches which the audience is clearly meant to find unattractive and view disfavourably. the closest the show ever gets to a sympathetic lesbian character is Elliot’s mother, and she appears in a single episode, in which she’s still presented as oppositional. she exists as an obstacle in the storyline of the gay male protagonist.
this also bleeds into the show’s perception of gender and specifically trans-gender topics; under which framework a man is allowed to present as any gender he likes, so long as he remains a man (see the episode in one of the earlier seasons in which a self-declared trans woman is treated by the narrative and characters as a gay man with extra steps), but a woman must be feminine. Grace is repeatedly put down for her supposed masculine features, both real and imagined (ie. features she is accused of which the actress clearly does not possess; ‘big feet’ comes to mind). why is this? because, to these writers, a feminine man is gay, and the writers love gay men (obviously). a masculine woman, though, is a lesbian, and there is no greater sin than being a lesbian.
