oikabooks:

« [The gothic genre]’s reliance on ambiguity, on the intersection of the otherworldly and the mundane, […] proves to be fertile ground for two women’s passion to be expressed and consummated. What cannot be supported in the everyday existence of the characters is not only possible but also sometimes preferred in the ghostly environment they inhabit. However, the conventions of the genre also let the writer frame and limit the passion of the characters in order to undercut the elevation of same-sex desire to a socially acceptable form of relationship. […S]ame-sex desire is turned into a Gothic tale—a story of ghosted desire and of erotic longing that can only find expression through rendering it impossible by “derealizing” one of the participants.

[…] The popularity of the ghost story authored by women fell out of favor in the early years of the 20th century. A possible influence on [its] diminished presence was the establishment of the lesbian as a public social category, and one result was that whatever positive images of same-sex relationships between women may have existed in the 19th century, the lesbian was now viewed as psychologically and socially damaged and dangerous. The lesbian no longer had to haunt the pages of fiction; she stepped into reality and was therefore even more monstrous. The pull of same-sex desire for women was undercut by the increasing influence of a wide range of social constraints on any affectionate expressions by them; the physical intimacy once approved of as one sign of feminine sensitivity became a signal of perversion. Same-sex friendship, previously supported and encouraged, was revisioned as predatory behavior. Literary depictions of lesbians incorporated such portrayals and reinforced this increasingly negative perspective. »

— Phyllis M. Betz, The Lesbian Fantastic: A Critical Study of Science Fiction, Fantasy, Paranormal and Gothic Writings