What Do "Gay" Mean? - Welg Schools

Contents:

• CALL ME BY MY PRONOUNS: WHY GAY MEN CALL EACH OTHER "GIRL"
• LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, TRANSGENR, AND QUEER (LGBTQ) TEENS
• WHAT DO "GAY" MEAN?
• UNRSTANDG GAY & LBIAN INTI
• WHAT DO IT MEAN TO BE GAY? DEFN AND MEANG OF GAY

CALL ME BY MY PRONOUNS: WHY GAY MEN CALL EACH OTHER "GIRL"

The e of she/her pronouns by cisgenr gay men, along wh words such as "girl" or "honey, " is a long-standg and creasgly visible practice.

For many gay men, g the words wh their iends is a way of embracg femy and showg vulnerabily or affectn to others who share their inti. Creatg a shared culture — cludg language — around femy n be a way of reclaimg the bas for opprsn many gay men have experienced, as well as disptg the harmful genr few if any lguistic practic are all one thg, all the time. It may be time to reevaluate cis gay men’s e of words like "she" and "girl" to make sure they align wh ongog efforts to rpect nonbary genr inti, and avoid makg assumptns about people’s pronouns.

LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, TRANSGENR, AND QUEER (LGBTQ) TEENS

Lguists, social scientists, and crics have observed and studied cis gay men’s e of “she, ” and their asssments pot to the multiple and often nflictg dimensns of the practice.

So for even to make sense for gay men to e ‘she, ’ we have to have some kd of associatn wh ‘she, ’ and ually that associatn is femy, whatever that might mean to or our culture.

WHAT DO "GAY" MEAN?

“Men g women’s pronouns, and women g men’s pronouns, has got an enormo time pth Amerin lbian-gay English.

It’s not a recent formatn at all, ” explas William Leap, an emer profsor of anthropology at Amerin Universy and pneerg expert on queer men llg each other "she" or "girl" was historilly a way of protectg themselv as well as buildg muny the ntext of homophobic and vlent mastream culture. In the 1940s, ary censors were on the lookout for evince of homosexualy, which uld provoke a ary vtigatn.

”Usg words like "she" and "girl" n be a way for cis gay men to bond and embrace femy. ”Yet some women have experienced gay men g words like “girl” toward them ways that don’t feel all that different om the misogyny they have experienced om straight men.

UNRSTANDG GAY & LBIAN INTI

“I also saw beg negatively ed when whe gay men would say, like, ‘Oh girl, what are you talkg about, ’ and they would be talkg to a woman of lor, pecially a Black woman.

”Consirg misogyny wh gay men’s language practic rais the qutn of how g words like “girl” or “honey” is nnected to their e of other, more ntroversial words that have historilly been ed to mean women, such as “bch” and “cunt. ” Multiple terviewe referenced RuPl’s Drag Race as a show that has popularized the e of words associated wh femy among cis gay men. ”“Gay men are a large group of people wh a lot of different kds of relatnships to genr, and I thk there are absolutely gay men who operate relatn to feme language that really is a reflectn of their male privilege, whether ’s through g ways that nigrate or stereotype women, or whether ’s jt feelg license to e the language how they see f, ” says Zimman, the lguist om UC Santa Barbara.

WHAT DO IT MEAN TO BE GAY? DEFN AND MEANG OF GAY

“Of urse, gay men are men. Paris Is Burng, the 1990 documentary on Harlem’s drag ball scene, as well as Drag Race, have brought the e of words like "she" and "girl" between Black and Latx drag queens to a wir gay (and straight) dience; today this is somethg employed by gay men of all rac.

Wealthy whe gay cis men llg each other "girl" may be drastilly different om Black or Latx gay cis men who ntue to be margalized very different is visible a film like Paris Is Burng, a few s ago there were more shared spac, language, and culture between cis gay men, trans women, and genr-nonnformg dividuals.