Carol Booth

Carol was a doctor working in rural New South Wales, Australia. A dinner table conversation jolted her into the understanding that many of her medical colleagues were inadequately educated about lesbian sex. That evening she realised that her medical friends had no idea how to talk with lesbian women about safe sex. Lesbian patients were still being told that they didn’t need Pap smears.

The project started, when as a young trainee doctor, Carol needed to write a paper for the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners. She says, ‘I started writing an educational article for doctors. I’d barely begun before I realised that I was bored stiff by the professional language that I was writing. I wanted to be an author for everyday women. So, I started writing ‘The Australian Everywoman’s Guide to Lesbian Sex’. The result was a sixty page pamphlet.

Carol says, ‘People read the pamphlet and were really enthusiastic. Straight people were excited about it. The nurses where I worked were really supportive and said they wanted to read more.

The pamphlet became the two hundred and eighty page book which was snapped up by publisher Simon and Schuster and released in 2002 under the title Woman to Woman: A Guide to Lesbian Sexuality.

Woman to Woman relies on both medical research and many anecdotes from lesbian women. Carol says, ‘I wanted lesbian women to have a voice and to be able to speak openly about their lives. I was stunned and privileged that so many women took me into their confidence and told me their stories.’

Carol retired from medical practice in 2020. She lives a quiet life on the mid-north coast of New South Wales. She enjoys playing the Celtic harp, watching horses graze on the small farm she shares with her partner, and walking on the local beach.