'The Wild Women of the West (Midlands)': how LesBeWell imagined queer women's health and its obstacles in the 1990s through the pages of Dykenosis .

In 1994, the Birmingham based lesbian health activism group LesBeWell began to produce a newsletter titled Dykenosis . Variously describing itself as 'for women who have sex with women', 'health information for dykes' and 'the national bi-monthly newsletter about lesbian health', the newsletter offers a window into how one activist group imagined the health and ill health of women who had sex with women in the 1990s. By analysing Dykenosis , this article illuminates how LesBeWell identified and attempted to eliminate social and institutional obstacles to 'dyke' health. The article focuses on Dykenosis ' collation of experiences of invisibility and hypervisibility within Britain's National Health Service, and the mobilisation of research, complaint, and community self-help within its pages and beyond as remedy to NHS shortcomings.