Was it all a dream? It happened to me during the pandemic. I saw the Pride flag everywhere, but I had no idea where the lesbians were.

I heard over and over that lesbians and queers are fully integrated. In fact, we are so successful that we don't need our own spaces anymore. Apparently, I can meet a lesbian anywhere, 24/7. It sounded too good to be true.

Was it all a hallucination? If lesbians and queers are EVERYWHERE, why was it so hard for me to find them? Maybe it was me? My 60-year-old heterosexual coach, who met her dream man at 19 and has never dated since, said I was too negative. I decided to approach the real experts: other lesbians. Everyone I asked wondered the same: Where are the lesbians? Now I knew I was on to something.

I'm Gry Ellebjerg, a Swedish journalist and photographer.

To me, lesbians are a symbol of practical democracy. Like no other, they challenge norms in a way that has never been done in public before. Whether it's conscious or unconscious, just by breathing, lesbians are tearing down the walls of patriarchy.

Inspired by Svetlana Alexievich's monologues, I wanted to focus on the voices of ordinary people, but I chose to do it my own way: the 'gut way.'

Without planning interviews beforehand or doing tons of research. I was not interested in the facts of legislation, what academia knows, which country got which rights when, or what politicians might think.

My aim was connection rather than playing it safe. I wanted to find out if it is possible in this modern age to have honest conversations about the lives we live. I desperately needed to listen to the experience of ordinary lesbians in their own words. What have they witnessed? What have they felt, are they in love and how do they navigate Mainstream?

The odd thing about being a lesbian. It does not come with a lot of instructions or history books. Our lives have been lived in code. It took me some time to even get what that does to a human. It also explains my meltdown in a queer bookshop in Vienna.

When I saw the shelves filled with lesbian and queer literature I cried. Not because it was the first time I went into a queer bookshop. I cried because I realised how rare it is to walk into a bookshop and see proof that people like me exist.

My whole life I have been told it’s not a big thing being a lesbian. Mostly the remark came from heterosexuals. They even told me they wished they were gay. But never once did they ask how it was. During all this time I failed to see the structural problem and took it upon myself as an individual. To see through the complexity of the constant gaslighting, I had to become someone else. Life took care of that.

I was 53 years old in no man’s land: I was divorced, I had left my job, I had lost my parents, and the world's best cat, Doris. Grief made me raw. My daily gym was hanging out with discomfort and fear. I just knew I had to walk the walk. I created this website and hit The Pink Road in Europe to look for lesbians. With three Interrail passes in my pocket, I showed up, met people and had heart-to-heart conversations without too many filters. Without too many ready-made ideas in my head.

Traveling in the footsteps of lesbians has been an overwhelming experience. Instead of entering countries, I entered different queer rooms. If you put them next to each other, they build a country of their own with similar experiences, challenges and structures. I am not gonna lie. There is nothing like the sensation in your body when surrounded by a majority of lesbians and queers.

What stands out is something I almost didn't see at first, because it's there all the time: the strong love women have for each other. Forget everything but remember this. This land is driven by one thing: a great love story. Perhaps the biggest of them all and it has hardly been told. It’s like the photograph of my parents as newlyweds, with everything still ahead of them.

I am sure you get by now that The Pink Road is an invention by me. Einstein would get it. It does not exist. It does exist. Every day we step into public space we build it. We walk it together with all who have walked it before us, with all of those who can't in this life, and all who will walk it in the future. We are not alone. We never were.

From the very start, my goal was to write a book. Now I am in the process of finishing it. In the book, you will find the conversations I had with queers and lesbians in Europe. On this site, I share some of the stories.

Once upon a time…