Gay "Sis": How Language Fre Us to be Ourselv | Psychology Today

Contents:

• 12 SLANG WORDS FOR GAY – USE THE TERMS TO ADDRS THEM!
• GAY SLANG 101
• HOW TO USE TR DIFFERENTLY FOR GAY
• SLANG FOR GAY
• DICK LESCH’S GUI TO SEVENTI GAY SLANG
• FROM CLOSET TALK TO PC TERMOLOGY : GAY SPEECH AND THE POLICS OF VISIBILY
• GAY "SIS": HOW LANGUAGE FRE US TO BE OURSELV

12 SLANG WORDS FOR GAY – USE THE TERMS TO ADDRS THEM!

Whether you’re g them ironilly or scerely, slang words for gay dividuals are a way to exprs sir knowledge and bsh up on your termology and get ready to add some flavor to your nversatns.

But for those who embrace their queer inty wh open arms, ’s jt one more way to celebrate who we whether you’re a Lola yourself or jt love someone who is, let’s all take a moment to raise a glass to our beloved feme gays. Get ready to meet the Flamg Queen – an over-the-top flamboyant gay man who knows how to turn on the charm and steal the his larger-than-life personaly and lorful wardrobe, the Flamg Queen is the life of the party and a te in the LGBTQ+ muny.

However, ’s worth notg that slang words for gay folks have changed over the years and ntue to evolve “u” to “flamer” to “queer, ” the words we e to scribe ourselv and others n be a powerful tool for self-exprsn and let’s embrace the diversy of human sexualy and genr exprsn and leave the bread-based idms behd. Many gay men sought refuge and muny wh the Wizard of Oz fanbase, as they intified wh the story’s them of beg an outsir and fdg, to all my iends of Dorothy out there, keep shg like the emerald cy and livg your bt rabow-filled liv! The word “swish” might not sound faiar to some, but ’s a slang term that has been ed for s to scribe a flamboyant man, often wh a gay someone says a man is “swishy, ” means he’s effemate, theatril, and perhaps a b over-the-top his mannerisms.

GAY SLANG 101

Instead, when ed wh rpect, embrace, and support, gay slang words n be powerful forms of self-exprsn and the words ntue to evolve along wh the meangs we give them – so keep your ear to the ground if you want to stay the know! Long before hookup apps like Grdr and Scff, gay and bisexual men seekg sual sex wore lored handkerchiefs their pant pockets ditg what kd of sex they were seekg and whether they were a domant/top or submissive/bottom. Many untri around the world have their own versn of queer slang, om Brish gay slang rived om the rhymg slang Polari to beki – the Philipp’ queer language that borrows om a slew of sourc, cludg pop culture, Japane, Spanish, and the untry’s lol languag.

HOW TO USE TR DIFFERENTLY FOR GAY

But the Onle Slang Dictnary c 1960s gay male culture as the earlit known source, particularly rtoonist Joe Johnson’s characters “Miss Thg” and “Big Dick”, which appeared early issu of The Advote. In the 60s, Lesch was the print of a gay rights anizatn lled the Mattache Society and me up wh the “Sip-In” – a monstratn held at New York Cy bars that banned service to out gay people. As our age note on the term stat, “up until 1973, homosexualy was listed The Diagnostic and Statistil Manual of Mental Disorrs (DSM), psychiatry’s standard reference on the classifitn of mental illns.

And many feel that this word plac undue emphasis on sexual activy, or that sounds overly clil.” In fact, the term homosexual was liberately rejected by early gay rights activists bee, acrdg to The New York Tim, “they did not want to be intified as exclively sexual begs.”. Partially rponse to Stonewall, 1970, queer activists New York Cy anized a march to Central Park wh the theme “Gay Pri.” A more prehensive history of the Stonewall Rt or the Stonewall Uprisg n be found our Pri Month explaer.

Ntie – bear – benr – bottom – bum band – bum chum – bumr – bummer – butch – butt hugger – rpet muncher – tcher – chaser – chickenhawk – chicken hawk – cub – drag kg – dyke – fag – faggot – Fairy – femme – flamer – u – fudge packer – gay – gaylord – girliend – GLBT – hasbian – homo – homo thug – the closet – jobby jabber – lemon – lez – lipstick lbian – mge muncher – mo – nellie – nelly – Peter Puffer – pole smoker – poof – Poofter – power top – puff – queer – shirt lifter – sister – versatile – wasbian. Molly and tommy: In 18th century England, the term molly was ed for male homosexuals, implyg effemacy; Tommy, a slang term for a homosexual woman e by 1781, may have been ed by analogy wh molly.

SLANG FOR GAY

Ally: A person who supports and rpects sexual diversy, acts acrdgly to challenge homophobic and heterosexist remarks and behavrs, and is willg to explore and unrstand the forms of bias wh themselv. Bee most LGBTQ people are raised the same society as heterosexuals, they learn the same beliefs and stereotyp prevalent the domant society, leadg to a phenomenon known as ternalized homophobia, whereas LGBTQ-intified dividuals feel shame, guilt or hatred towards the part of themselv intified as LGBTQ.

”In 1959, when Lesch was twenty-four, he left his fay home, Kentucky, for New York Cy, where he found work as a pater, a bartenr, a rator, a journalist, and as the unpaid print of the Mattache Society, one of the first gay-rights anizatns. When the Stonewall rts broke out, three years later, he was the only openly gay reporter on the scene, verg the event for a new gay-focsed magaze lled The a recent Friday eveng, Lesch’s buzzer rang.

DICK LESCH’S GUI TO SEVENTI GAY SLANG

” Some of the fns were more nuanced: an “ntie, ” Lesch had wrten, was “an ageg or middle aged homosexual, offtim effemate character, ” or “a person of settled meanor who utns agast temperate acts. Photograph by Rebec FudalaNext up was Lesch’s llectn of magaz and newsletters, cludg After Dark (“Oh, bls you—they’re real llector’s ems, ” Bmann said); Christopher Street (“We have the archiv”); Female Mimics (“That’s fabulo”); the 1969 Time issue on homosexualy (“Cute”); and the monthly bullet for the Mattache Society. Depuis l’époque où l’homosexualé éta synonyme perversn, voire dél, jqu’x actuell gay pris, la munté gay, lbienne, bisexuelle et transgenre n’a csé développer un langage distctif, le gayspeak.

Milant tout tant que ludique, ce langage se vt également le défensr d’un certa style vie, cherchant à exprimer, manière la pl visible, poliquement rrecte et effice qui so, la richse s portements et s cultur du mon gay. 2Funny and provotive as may seem, this msage posted on Kks & Queens, a gay Swedish webse, not only reveals a visibily and culture that the Lbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgenr muny was long pelled to hh, but also nfirms the existence of a lexin not que like standard English. From the darker ag when homosexualy was at s bt a s and/or a perversn until the prent environment of rabow flags and gay pris, gayspeak has been ed to transgrs social norms, articulate particular needs and emotns, as well as renstct, or re-terpret, realy.

When to elaborate polilly rrect fns of the « queer » universe, pk talk displays an extraordary plexy of sexual orientatns and subcultur, a possible means to pensate for lguistic ficiency and to claim a gay space on the social spectm. Most male homosexuals therefore kept their sexual orientatns very much the closet unls amidst their k when they lled each other female nam—« Miss Kten », « Cha Mary », « Primrose Mary », and « Dip-Candle Mary »3—, a practice still faiar among ntemporary gay men. Until World War Two, rearch on what was then labeled the « language of homosexualy » foced on genr versn, wh homosexualy beg regard as a pathology characterized as sexual viance or perversn: whereas heterosexual language equated wh the appropriate genr, homosexual language displayed equent aquaci between the physil genr and the lguistic genr of the speaker.

FROM CLOSET TALK TO PC TERMOLOGY : GAY SPEECH AND THE POLICS OF VISIBILY

In the reprsive and secury-ncerned Cold War environment4, to talk about themselv, most gays and lbians relied upon phemisms such as « iends of Dorothy(‘s) », (after The Wizard of Oz, 1939, a classic mil popular wh gay dienc), « whoopsi », « (s)he’s is a ltle...

Dpe the achievements of gay rights, the stigma attached to a « love that dare not [always] speak s name », to quote Osr Wil, ocsnally lgers the way some gays e « them » to refer to their partners and « refully word speech to hi explic genr referenc »16. For many Lbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgenr—or LGBT17—people today, pk talk works as a hive force agast discrimatn, although they also adm that gay exprsns have actually shifted om the physil nfement of the 18th century molly ho to a lguistic nfement. 5Sce 1993 [, ] the Amerin Universy Washgton DC has been home to annual nferenc on Lavenr Language and Lguistics, wh Lavenr19 Language beg fed as the way « lbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgenred persons and queers e language everyday life »20.

Maclan English dictnary explas that « Lavenr language functns as a kd of homosexual , characterized by acronyms, plays on words and double meangs only tend to be unrstood by the gay muny »22. Leap mentned two other « betiful exampl »: whereas gay speech « pcher » intifi the sexually active dividual and « tcher » the receptive person, « If we say pcher or we say tcher, an ordary nversatn, I thk ’s unlikely that [straight people] would read anythg else to .

GAY "SIS": HOW LANGUAGE FRE US TO BE OURSELV

6Conceived to exprs the needs of a socially reprsed group, Polari was also, as Profsor Baker explas, « a form of humour and mp25 performance, … a way of iatg people to the gay or theatre subculture »26. Polari was never signed to pe notice, but was often nontative: ‘Even when travellg the sgular, we weren’t averse to shriekg a quick get you, girl at some menacg naff27… We flnted our homosexualy. Whereas some lbians tend to speak at a lower pch than straight women—and their range of pch is lser than that of straight women29—the typil high pched disurse and adorned talks of some gay men, not necsarily of the effemate type, is another equent give-away.

Food metaphors are not unmon, such as seafood (gay sailors) and related sailor queens (men whose primary tert is sailors), tuna (young gay sailors), jam (younger men), angel food (gay men the air force), rice queens (men attracted to Asians), ernment spected meat (a gay man the armed forc) to be found meat racks (gay male cisg areas).