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Say What?
These labels at
times have been
confusing,
verbose,
imprecise,
contradictory
and downright
ridiculous.
When dealing with identity politics,
proper word-choice is important. Here is why we soy what we soy.
By Nick Shepard
What words do we (or should we) use to describe
ourselves and our communities? Does LGBTQ
cover all the bases? Where did “gay” and “lesbian”
come from? And most importantly, why does it
matter? These were the questions on the minds of
LAMBDA writers when we revamped this
publication last fall. We found that before we could
decide what term to use to describe ourselves, we
had to take a look at how sexual and gender
minorities have been labeled in the past. These labels
at times have been confusing, verbose, imprecise,
contradictory and downright ridiculous.
In the late 19th centur)", sexologists began to
categorize human beings as distinct groups based
on their sexual behavior and desires. This new
separation, couched in medical and psychological
terms, created a need for a semantic way to
distinguish these sexual outcasts. The people who
nowadays are often referred to as “gay” or “lesbian”
at different times have been known as inverts, sexual
intermediates, Uranians, fairies, the third sex,
Umings, and a host of other bizarre appellations.
As the first sexual minority organizations in the U.S.
arose in the 1950’s and 60’s, most members self-
identified as homosexuals, a term coined by German
writer Karl Maria Kertbeny in 1868. Doctors and
psychologists had begun using the term decades
earlier as a means of describing same-sex desire and
behavior as a pathology or disturbance.
During the 1960’s, activists were searching for a
new vocabulary with which to define themselves.
Many turned to the term gc^, a common slang for
homosexuals for decades, though largely unknown
to the public. Charles Thorpe, one of the founders
of the Gay Liberation Front, offered the following
explanation for his chosen label: “Homosexual is a
straight concept of us as sexual. Therefore, we are in
a sexual category and become a sexual minority, rather
than an ethnic group, a people! But the word gay
has come to mean (in its street usage) a life styde in
which we are not just sex machines.”
In the early 1970’s, female gay activists inspired
by the feminist movement began speaking out
against marginalization il^gay rights groups. Many
dropped the common label “gay women” in favor
of lesbian, a more female-specific word derived from
the Mediterranean isle of Lesbos, home of the
legendary woman-loving poet Sappho in the seventh
century B.C. As “gay” came to be seen less and less
as a gender-neutral term, U.S. organizations began
to shift their names; for example, UNO’s first student
group was founded in 1974 as the Carolina Gay
Association, but in early 1985 students changed the
name to the Carolina Gay and Lesbian Association.
In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, bisexual
began vocally demanding inclusion into the gay and
lesbian movement. In 1992, the CGLA became
Bisexuals, Gay men, Lesbians, and Allies for Diversity
(BGLAD). Also, transvestites, pre- and post
operative transsexuals, cross-dressers, and others
were vmiting under the label transgender, coined by
activists in the 1970’s as an umbrella term for gender-
variant people. Concurrently, “queer theory”, a new
academic discipline theorizing sexuahty as fluid and
socially constructed gave rise to the label queer,
signifying a dynamic and unstable sexual identity
that operates outside of restrictive binaries. Queer,
originally meaning odd or different, has also come
to be used as an umbrella term for all those outside
of the heteronormative framework. In 2000,
BGL.\D changed its name to the Queer Network
for Change in 2000
Arguably, the most common term today used to
describe our community is the acronym LGBT
(lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender). L,GBTQ is
sometimes used to include queer or questioning,
and in this publication and elsewhere L,GBTIQ is
used to include intersex persons, bom with “sex
chromosomes, external genitaha, or an internal
reproductive system that is not considered ‘standard’
for either males or females.”
Some activists view LGBT(Q) as ethnocentric,
excluding especially persons of color who identify
with no label at all or indigenous conceptions, such
as the Native American Two-Spirit, mati (an African
woman-loving female), or countless others. Gender-
queer (people with unstable or fluid gender
expressions), pansexual (people with the potential
to be attracted to all people, outside of a gender
binarj’ system), and countless other labels have been
claimed by individuals attempting to navigate the
turbulent waters of identity.
In a culture in which identity politics still matter,
the words we choose can exclude, reflect phobias,
and even reinforce oppressive hierarchies. Although
our choice proved difficult, LAMBDA has chosen to
use LGBTIQ throughout this publication in an effort
to recognize the diversity in sexuality, gender identity,
sex designation and gender expression. •