Queer semantics

I'm a bit of a logophile (ok, a lot of a logophile) and collecting words is one of my hobbies. (I have a thing about that I will post another time).

Several times in my life I have been introduced to brand new vocabularies, notably (for example) during my own medical dramas, and during my daughter's cancer journey.  When I first began dabbling in the online lesbian world (I'm talking about support communities, forums and blogs, not porn, just to be clear!) I discovered a whole new lexicon, with which I'm still coming to terms.

Personally, I now refer to myself as gay.  Old school gay women seem to prefer lesbian, but there's something weird about that word for me.  I will describe myself as a lesbian (and I'm still not sure whether I'm supposed to say "lesbian" or "a lesbian") but it feels uncomfortable, whereas "gay" feels more natural.  I wonder if part of that is that I object to unnecessary gender-specific nouns like 'actress' and 'fireman', and can't see the need for two different words to describe a gay man versus a gay woman.  There is of course the whole spectrum of other gender identities and sexualities - bisexual, asexual, pansexual etc, but I'm not going to venture into that territory just now.

When I first joined Pink Sofa and was setting up my profile, there were a number of options I could tick to define myself, including femme, butch, lipstick, sporty dyke, leather, and androgynous.  Thankfully there was also a 'just me' box, and feeling rather overwhelmed, I ticked that and moved on.



But I was curious.  Did people really identify as one or more of these things? Would I be expected to?  Figuring out I was gay took me long enough, and now I needed to refine that down further?! There were fairly regular conversations on Pink Sofa about what 'type' you were attracted to, and I found it hard to join in - I didn't know what 'type' I was, let alone what 'type' was mine. Thankfully there were others who expressed the same opinions, so I didn't feel like the noob who doesn't know the secret handshake yet.

"Lipstick" was the one that really confused me. From what I can gather, a lipstick lesbian is a high-maintenance femme, although I've heard varying definitions.  I can cross that off the list - I'm definitely not one of those! The whole butch/femme thing is interesting too.  I'm pretty sure there are a lot of people who vaguely assume that all lesbian relationships are butch+femme partnerships - largely due to the hetero-normative view that there must be a "man" and a "woman" for there to be a relationship. This is not a thing (it exists, don't get me wrong, but it's not the sole or even predominant model for lesbians relationships, in my experience).

Apparently the word "gay" is also spurned by some.  In this article I read on Jezebel, Rohin Guha states:
"My date... said, he doesn't really identify with the word 'gay' any more and aligns himself with the 'queer' label. It's not the first time I've heard this; I've had a couple friends over the past few years who have also shunned the word 'gay' in favor of the term 'queer.' 'Queer,' which is a catch-all term for loving other humans in a variety of ways."

I'm personally cool with "gay", but it will be interesting to see how the meaning and tone of this word changes over time, particularly with the persistence of gay as a catch-all derogatory term in the playground and beyond (I'll no doubt blog on that particular issue another time!).

I think of gender and sexuality as spectra rather than tick boxes, which is why I feel uneasy about pigeon holing people into sub categories of sub categories.  But maybe all these words have a use and a place?  Certainly I enjoy finding out about the words themselves. I'm just not sure I want to use them.

Thoughts?